Flamecaster

by Cinda Williams Chima

  This is the dying time, Ash thought, morbid to the bone.

  You’ve got to stop thinking so much. It’s the end of term, after all.

  In fact, he’d been through a series of grueling exams that day. He was magically depleted and bone-weary, and he wanted to make an early start the next day. Still, he knew from experience that it might not be easy to escape into the oblivion of sleep.

  He entered the academy by the postern gate, treading the well-worn path through the park, used by countless students on their way to and from mischief. Just past the gate, he turned down the path toward Stokes, the proficients’ dormitory, which housed senior-level students from several academic houses. He was considered a fourth-year, having spent two years at Spiritas, the healers’ academy, and two at Mystwerk.

  His father and mother had schooled together here, back before the war. His mother had spent a year at Wien House, the school that drew would-be warriors from throughout the Seven Realms. His father had attended Mystwerk, the school for wizards, or mages as they were called in the south (usually coupled with fear and loathing).

  The entire campus, with its green lawns and time-buffed stone buildings, had the look of a Temple School at home if you overlooked the gritty bits, such as the taverns and inns on Bridge Street. The Bridge would already be crowded with students, eager to celebrate the end of term and the beginning of the Interregnum.

  What would his parents have been like, back then, before they’d suffered so many losses? Ash guessed it must have been a carefree time.

  It was just then that he felt a presence, like cold water trickling between his shoulder blades, or a cadaver’s hand on the back of his neck. He instinctively turned sideways, to present a smaller target, gripped his amulet, and looked back along the path.

  The academy grounds were heavily wooded, and the moon shrouded in clouds. He could barely make out the darker shapes of the trees on either side of the gray strip of flagstone path. The gloomy undergrowth beneath could hide an army. It was probably not an army, but someone was definitely out there, watching him. Several someones.

  They weren’t gifted, Ash guessed, or they would show up better in the dark. It was his own gift, and their need, that told him they were there. It was only when he closed his eyes that he could see them, like deeper holes in the shadows. Ash had been trained to discern disorder in others. Had they not been so hungry, he might not have noticed them. They were like lanterns with no light inside.

  Ash was more curious than worried. He wasn’t the most powerful wizard, or the most skilled fighter at the Ford, but when it came to predators, he was likely near the top of the local food chain.

  Ash took two steps back toward the shadowed border of the trees, meaning to take a closer look. Then froze as he sensed the excitement rippling through the watchers. Not fear, but greed and anticipation, as if they were a pack of high-country wolves with the scent of blood in their noses.

  The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

  The breeze freshened and the leaves shivered. The moon freed itself from its wrapping of clouds and light cascaded onto the path. Nearby, an owl spoke and then its blunt shape passed silently overhead. Still the watchers waited in the woods. A small group of students passed by them on the path, and they didn’t stir from their hiding places.

  Holes in the darkness. Lanterns. Or wolves. Right. Taliesin had him seeing ghosts and monsters. One thing for sure: there were fewer ghosts and monsters at the Ford than where he was headed.

  8

  HELLO AND GOOD-BYE

  Reaching Stokes Hall, Ash trudged up the well-worn stone steps to the second floor. From all appearances, the dormitory was deserted. Everyone would be at the Bridge by now.

  He pushed open his door and pointed at the reading lamp, and it blazed into light. He frowned, rocked on his heels, and scanned the room.

  Someone’s been in here.

  It was hard to explain. The furnishings were simple: a bed, a dry sink with a pitcher, a desk and chair, the table by the door, a bookcase lined with precious books, a battered chest for his clothes. Although the arrangement of objects appeared to be random, there was a design and power in it, a charm of protection that gently redirected an intruder, turning him away without his realizing it. Ash always placed the spell instinctively. It was something he’d done since he was a boy, since his father had taught it to him. Back then it served to keep his younger sister out of his private things. But now the pattern was disturbed. Items had been picked up and shifted in subtle ways.

  Doors in the student quarters were rarely kept locked. No one had much worth stealing, though borrowing was common, as long as you left a note. There was no note, but then nothing seemed to be missing. What was most disturbing was that his charm hadn’t worked to keep them out.

  He couldn’t help thinking about Taliesin’s warning. I don’t know that the gifted will be safe here for too much longer.

  But there were plenty of gifted at Oden’s Ford—prominent teachers and practitioners. There was no reason anyone would target him. As far as students and faculty at the Ford knew, he was Ash Hanson, son of a minor landowner in the borders. The only person at the Ford who knew his real identity was Taliesin.

  Still, he went back to the door and locked it. Then crossed to the hearth, lifted a loose stone, and retrieved the leather case, locked with charms, whose padded pockets and compartments were filled with vials, bottles, and pouches of death. Everything was just as he’d left it. He released a sigh of relief.

  Maybe it was good he was leaving tomorrow. The Voyageur had made him jumpy.

  He replenished his supplies with the herbs Taliesin had given him, working quickly and methodically, like a warrior arming himself for battle.

  Ash pulled his drawer out from under his bed and laid out his travel gear. Weapons—his bow, arrows, small sword, the small daggers called shivs that his father had favored. The kit bag with an array of medicinals, surgical tools, dressings, and the like. Another bag containing tools for his work as a traveling farrier and healer of horses. His bedroll, cooking pots, small packets of upland teas, herbs, and seasonings for the road.

  The mingled scents brought the usual rush of memory. Another year gone.

  Though he’d told Taliesin that he preferred being off the map, he couldn’t help thinking about the family he had left. Lyss would be fifteen, preparing for her name day on her sixteenth birthday. They’d been close—the gulf between eleven and thirteen wasn’t so large, and they were both spares in the royal hierarchy. Did she still miss him the way he missed her? Four years is a long time when you’re eleven years old. Especially when you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.

  Would she have boys buzzing around her by now, the way Hana always did? What kind of queen would she be? From what he remembered, she’d be happier playing the basilka or the harpsichord.

  After Hana died, he’d promised Lyss he’d help her. That he’d be there for her when she came to the throne. That she wouldn’t have to manage on her own. That promise still sat heavily on his conscience.

  He could still keep his promise, he told himself. There was still time. She wasn’t queen yet. But there was no telling how he would be received. He wouldn’t blame her if she slammed the door in his face.

  As far as he knew, his mother had not remarried, though he guessed there would be pressure to do so. An unmarried queen was an opportunity for alliances, something the Fells desperately needed. He preferred not to think about it.

  Still, more and more, he longed for home. He wanted to climb out of the cloying sweet southern air into the clean, pine-scented mountains—a place where the northern winds needled the nose and cleared the head for thinking. A place that, even now, would be filling with snow.

  If wishes were horses even beggars would ride. It was something his paternal grandmother used to say. The one who burned to death in a stable, long before Ash was born. His father often told stories about life on the streets of Fellsmarch, trying
to make that piece of his heritage real to him.

  “I never knew my da,” he’d said. “I want you to know yours.”

  Ash sorted quickly through his single trunk of clothing. He’d leave behind his heavy winter cloak, woven of upland sheepswool spun in the grease to turn the rain and snow. He’d bring his warm weather rain gear, beaded and stitched with clan charms. Clan goods were treasured throughout the Seven Realms, so that wouldn’t mark him out as a northerner.

  Studying his shelves of books, Ash chose two. One was Tisdale’s, the green magic handbook he’d used since his arrival in Oden’s Ford. The other was a small, battered volume bound in leather. A guide to poisons.

  Taliesin had given it to him, but not without making her opinions known.

  With everything assembled, he quickly stowed his supplies in two panniers, distributing the weight as evenly as he could.

  When all was ready, Ash considered taking advantage of the deserted dormitory to carry his panniers to the stables and stow them there. In the end, he returned them to the drawer under the bed. He didn’t want to risk their being discovered in the unlikely event the stable boys mucked out the stalls again before he left.

  Just as he got his gear stowed away, there came a knock at the door.

  “Ash! It’s Lila.” That would be Lila Barrowhill, a Southern Islander cadet from Wien House, the military school.

  “It’s open,” Ash said.

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Oh.” Ash unlocked the door and swung it open.

  Lila stalked past him and dropped into a chair like she owned the place. In fact, he might not have recognized her without an introduction. She’d replaced her dun-colored Wien House uniform with a long blue skirt and a close-fitting blouse that exposed her shoulders and set off her dark skin. Her tangle of curls was pinned up and she’d rouged her lips.

  “How come your door was locked?”

  “I didn’t realize it was,” Ash said, sitting down on the bed.

  Lila was one of a handful of Southern Islanders at Wien House. Most attended either the Temple School or Isenwerk, the engineering school. She looked to be of mixed blood, actually, and she spoke several languages fluently, including Fellsian.

  Up to this year, they’d rarely crossed paths. Wien House was on the opposite side of the river from Mystwerk. Lila also seemed to spend considerable time away from school. He’d heard that she’d been expelled several times, but always talked her way back in.

  Lila spent every spare moment in the dining halls, the taverns, the gymnasium—anywhere people gathered, played cards and darts, drank, ate, gossiped, and flirted. Ash had no idea when she got her studying done, but she seemed to do middling well in her classes with very little effort.

  Ash had little time for socializing, between his doubled class schedule and the time he spent in the healing halls and studying with Taliesin. Besides, he was a loner at heart.

  Now that Ash was a proficient, and Lila a cadet in Wien House, they’d ended up in the same dormitory. Though they saw more of each other than before, they mixed like oil and water. If anything, Lila seemed to dislike him for some reason. It perplexed him. Granted, he was no charmer, but he got along with most people.

  He stole another look at Lila, still distracted by the sudden transformation and wondering what had brought her to his door.

  Lila caught him staring and said, “No, Hanson, this is not the scene where the girl puts on a skirt and some paint and her schoolmate, who’s a little thick, suddenly realizes that she is his true love.”

  “Oh,” Ash said. “Good to know.”

  “Just because you’re on the market doesn’t mean that I am.”

  “What makes you think I’m on the market?”

  “I saw Suze on Bridge Street earlier. The end-of-term party started mid-afternoon. She wondered where you were.”

  Oh. So that’s what this is about. Suze was a plebe at Isenwerk. She and Ash had walked out together for a few months, but had recently called it quits. At least he had.

  “I went to see Taliesin, to say good-bye. It took longer than I expected.”

  “I think Suze was hoping to give you a reason not to go.” When Ash said nothing, Lila growled, “You broke her heart, you know. The least you can do is talk to her.”

  “I have talked to her. I tried, anyway. I told her up front that I wasn’t looking for a long-term sweetheart. I thought we both agreed to that.”

  “Did you make her sign a bloody contract?” Lila laughed, but there was a bitter edge to it. “‘I promise that I won’t fall in love with the moody, mysterious Ash Hanson. I will enjoy his rangy body, his broad shoulders, and shapely leg, all the while knowing it’s a lease, not a buy.’”

  “Shapely leg?” Ash thrust out his leg, pretending to examine it, hoping to interrupt the litany of his physical gifts.

  But Lila was on a roll. “‘I will not fall into those blue-green eyes, deep as twin mountain pools, nor succumb to the lure of his full lips. Well, I will succumb, but for a limited time only. And the stubble—have I mentioned the stubble?’”

  Ash’s patience had run out. Lila was far too fluent in Fellsian for his liking. “Shut up, Lila.”

  “Isn’t there anyone who meets your standards?”

  “At least I have standards.” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Ouch!” Lila clutched her shoulder. “A fair hit, sir. A fair hit.” Her smile faded. “The problem is, hope is the thing that can’t be reined in by rules or pinned down by bitter experience. It’s a blessing and curse.”

  For a long moment, Ash stared at her. He would have been less surprised to hear his pony reciting poetry.

  “Who knew you were a philosopher?” he said finally. “Now. If you’re staying, let’s talk about something else. Where’s your posting this term?”

  “I’m going back to the Shivering Fens,” Lila said, “where the taverns are as rare as a day without rain. Where you have to keep moving or grow a crop of moss on your ass.”

  Good-bye, poetry, Ash thought. “Sounds lovely. You can’t get a better posting?”

  “Not with my record,” Lila said, not meeting his eyes. “But you—you have a choice, and you’re going back to Freetown? There aren’t enough dusty old libraries and indecipherable manuscripts for you here?”

  “There’s plenty,” Ash said, “but they have different dusty old libraries and indecipherable manuscripts in the Southern Islands. Anyway, I need a change of scenery.”

  “How will you get there? I hear that Arden has stepped up patrols along the river all the way to Deepwater.”

  “I’ll go via Sand Harbor,” Ash said. “It’s a little out of the way, but I want to go to the market there, anyway.” He schooled his face to display nothing. Drunk or sober, Lila didn’t miss much.

  He shouldn’t have worried. Lila was already restless, shifting in her seat, on to the next thing. “Listen,” she said. “Renard Tourant is hosting an after-hours party over at the Turtle and Fish. Everything’s bound to be top-shelf. Want to come?”

  Ash stared at her, surprised. Lila had long since given up inviting him to parties. “Not if it means spending time with Tourant.”

  “Aw, c’mon,” Lila said. “It’s not that late, and you’ve scarcely come out with us all term.”

  “I’ve been busy.” Ash slid a sideways look at Lila, wondering if Suze would happen to be at this party, too. “Anyway, given Tourant’s reputation, I’m surprised you’d want to go.”

  “I can take care of myself,” Lila said, which was certainly true. “It might be my last chance to spend an evening with drunken Ardenine swine—for a while. Besides, Tourant insists on introducing me to some rising star in the Ardenine army.”

  “If he’s a rising star, then what’s he doing here?”

  Lila shrugged. “Maybe he wants to recruit me. Wait till he finds out I don’t have the right equipment.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Lila slapped at the front of her skirt. “In he
re. I’m not a man.”

  Ash rolled his eyes. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you preferred the company of swine.” At this point, he was being just about as disagreeable as he knew how.

  “A girl can learn a lot from a drunken southerner,” Lila said, bestowing that familiar tight-lipped smile that could mean anything at all.

  “Well, I’ve got better things to do. Like sleep.”

  “You should come,” Lila persisted. “Tourant’s invited everyone from Brocker and Stokes, so it won’t be a totally Ardenine crowd. At least it’ll be diluted a bit.”

  “You’re welcome to stay here with me,” Ash said, knowing what her answer would be. “We could read Askell and Byrne and discuss military campaigns during the Wizard Wars.”

  “Um. No,” Lila said, making a face. “I’m done with textbooks for now.”

  “Give my regards to Tourant then,” Ash said. “Tell him I hope he’s less of a bunghole next year.”

  “Suit yourself,” Lila said. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you—it’ll be a graveyard here at Stokes tonight.”

  9

  TOURANT’S PARTY

  The coin was still piling up—Fellsian girlies and Tamric double eagles and Ardenine steelies, so-called because people doubted there was really any silver in them these days. Even a few coppers from those unwilling to put real money on the table.

  There were two piles—some bet on Lila Barrowhill, others on Renard Tourant, the class commander. Lila noticed with some satisfaction that her pile was bigger. She spent a lot of time in the Turtle and Fish, and the regulars knew better than to bet against her. She was known to have a high tolerance for intoxicants and a lot of demons to drown.

  Those who bet on Tourant were only brownnosing, and they stood to lose.

  Tourant had secured a table next to the kegs so he could play the gracious host. His father was a high-up in the Ardenine army, which meant he had a paved road to the top. All of the high-ups in the Ardenine army were men, because in Arden, apparently, there were no competent women.