Laria gripped her cup of tea in hands that shook, although whether from indignation or some other emotion, Firekeeper couldn’t be sure. “People actually said things like that to you?”
“They did. You must remember, Rhinadei was founded precisely to provide a haven from blood magic. People are taught to fear it more than any other thing—certainly more than death.”
“What happened,” Firekeeper asked, “to your parents? To your father after he did this? Was he killed for his crime?”
Ranz shut his eyes for a moment, as if seeking to visualize events he would have been far too young to remember. “It was a close thing but, no, he wasn’t executed. My father had used blood magic, but the only blood he employed was his own, my mother’s, and mine. This made it harder to condemn him, since there are many magics that use a person’s own energies or join the energies of multiple people. But it couldn’t be escaped that my father didn’t take any of those routes. From what I understand, the problem between my mother and me was something to do with her blood seeing my blood as an enemy. He found a way to change that.”
“That sounds more like healing magic than blood magic,” Arasan protested from where he was slicing mushrooms.
“That’s what many people said,” Ranz agreed, “and that’s why, in the end, my father wasn’t executed. However, his power was sealed so he could not fall into error again. These days, he lives with my mother and my older sister in a small town where they need a skilled doctor too much to care that he once used forbidden arts to save his wife and baby. My mother still has her magic, but she refuses to use it in protest. She says that since she fully agreed with my father’s choice, and cooperated as best she could, she’s guilty, too.”
“Your sister?” Arasan asked.
“Migyan was only two when I was born, too young to really understand what was going on. Mig’s great, actually, because if this was some ballad she’d hate and resent all of us for messing up her life. Instead, she’s done her best to make clear that she loves us all. She got married last year and hopes to start a family. I really hope she doesn’t have any of the problems with bearing that my mother did.”
“So, your father’s choice is why you’re here?” Laria asked. “What does Wythcombe have to do with all of this?”
Ranz stared blankly, as if Arasan slicing wild onions was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen, then slowly answered.
“Wythcombe was my father’s teacher. According to what I’ve been told, Wythcombe blamed himself for concentrating too much on teaching my father about getting the most from his gift, and too little about the moral and ethical ramifications of having power.”
“Sounds to me,” Arasan said dryly, “that Wythcombe did just fine. I’m not sure I’d think very highly of any healer—and you did say your father’s specialization is healing—who diagnosed a medical problem and wouldn’t treat it because of some abstract ethical consideration. Which brings me to something I’ve been wondering. How did anyone know what your father had done? Blood magic and healing magic are so closely linked that it would have been difficult to detect.”
Ranz looked surprised. “My father told them, of course. My mother says she tried to convince him to keep what he’d done in the family—so to speak—but my father was certain Rhinadei would detect what had been done, if not immediately, then eventually. He felt it would be better to speak out and take his punishment, rather than later being discovered and accused of unethical behavior.”
“Hmm…”
Something about Arasan’s noncommittal reply made Firekeeper suspect that the Meddler had something to say and Arasan was struggling to shut him down.
Ranz went on, “Soon after my father was tried and condemned, Wythcombe resigned from his various posts and became a hermit. However, he is still considered one of the finest and most versatile magical artists there are. I came here hoping he would agree to teach me, but he has refused.”
Firekeeper tilted her head, wolf-like, and asked, “But why this city of ice and snow? It is very beautiful, but how will it make Wythcombe change his mind?”
Ranz shrugged. “I thought if I did a working that was dramatic enough, he’d get interested or at least curious. So first I shaped the basic buildings. Early on, they were little more than shapes made from snow, not much in the way of detail. Still, making them offered a pretty good challenge, since I had to create the snow, keep it from melting, and move it about. Since then I’ve been refining: carving ornaments, making interior rooms. Eventually, I thought I might sculpt residents, but sculpting living things takes a long while, especially if I want them to look as good as the buildings.”
“Ranz’s scent says he is holding something back,” Blind Seer said, “something that he fears will turn us against him. Coax it from him. Do not be too blunt or he will dive into silence as a rabbit does its hole.”
“Impressive, yes,” Firekeeper said, allowing her awe to show in her voice and eyes, “but there is about this a mystery still, I think. Surely you showing that you are very patient and very talented is good, but…”
She trailed off, trusting in the human reluctance to leave a sentence incomplete. Ranz did not disappoint her.
“But is what I’m doing enough? I know. Don’t you think I’ve gone over that? But here’s something you don’t know—can’t, because I haven’t told you. One thing I’ve heard all my life—was told to my face when I got older—was that because of how my life was saved, blood magic is my natural magic. I’ve done all of this”—His wild hand gesture swept to include the entirety of the city of ice and snow— “without using blood magic. And not because I couldn’t.”
His voice dropped so that even Blind Seer tilted his ears to catch the barely spoken words.
“Because I could have. They’re right. I do have an affinity for blood magic. I sensed how to draw the power from another’s life practically before I was aware of my own awakening abilities. But I have never, never, ever used it. Not then. Not now. Not ever.”
Laria dreaded that someone else would ask the question that had nearly popped out of her own mouth.
“You wouldn’t use it if your own wife and baby were dying? Not if Rhinadei were threatened? Not even then?”
But she didn’t say the words, nor did the others, although from the way Firekeeper’s fingers tightened where they rested between Blind Seer’s shoulders, Firekeeper wanted to ask.
Or maybe, Laria thought with a flash of insight, she wants to know what Blind Seer would do if the one at risk were her or someone else in their pack.
Arasan had kept busy at the stove through all of this. Now he began ladling thinly sliced venison that had been sautéed with wild mushrooms and spring onions over chunks of stale trail bread. He topped this with the greens Firekeeper had gathered so they wilted slightly from the heat.
“That smells amazingly good,” Ranz said, accepting the first plate—one of the two he owned. The rest of them were eating off of the plates from their camping kits.
“As for you, Firekeeper,” Arasan handed her the final plate on which a venison steak had been seared just enough to make it warm. “Meat. No seasonings. I saved you some vegetables.”
When offered, Farborn had declined venison, but instead had flown up into the cottage’s attic where he was busily hunting mice.
Firekeeper ate several bites, nodded her appreciation, then sat cross-legged on the floor. Ranz watched in fascination, as if he expected her to pick up the meat in her hands and rip into it with her teeth, but when she started cutting off bite-sized pieces with her Fang, he turned his attention to his own meal.
“This not only smells fantastic, it tastes it, too,” Ranz commented when everyone had taken the edge off their hunger. “Thank you all.”
“If you come with us,” Arasan said, “you could keep eating like this—well, not this precisely—it’s hard to sauté over a campfire without burning your hands, but I have other skills. Firekeeper and Blind Seer keep us in fresh game and fi
sh, as well as a variety of tasty tidbits. We have plenty.”
“Come with you?” Ranz stopped ladling more venison and mushrooms onto his plate. “I told you that Wythcombe wants nothing to do with me. If I come with you, it could hurt your own chances.”
He looked at Laria as he said this. She decided that it was time to remove at least one misapprehension, especially as one didn’t need to be able to speak with wolves to understand that Blind Seer completely approved of Arasan’s invitation.
“I’m not the one who needs a teacher,” she said, taking the serving spoon from him and helping herself to seconds. “I do have magic—but it’s a talent, not a spellcaster’s gift. The one who needs a teacher is Blind Seer.”
That led to the inevitable disbelief, explanations, and clarifications, a process that took them through the rest of dinner and into a dessert of honey-soaked journey cakes, with tea to drink for those who wanted it. In the end, Ranz agreed to come with them.
“You’re right. Our situations are similar. I’d thought to wait until the pack train bringing Wythcombe his winter supplies came through, show them my work, and ask them to speak for me, but this is better. The other always struck me as chancy, especially since I couldn’t count on anyone actually wanting to take my side, since so many people blame me for Wythcombe’s becoming a hermit.”
“Will your snow city last without you?” Laria asked, thinking what a pity it would be to see such beauty vanish.
A fleeting look of sorrow passed over Ranz’s face, then he nodded. “Probably. In any case, it has served its purpose. I hoped it would bring Wythcombe to me, but at least it brought you, and you’ve brought me around to seeing that I need to confront him one more time, then move on if he continues to reject me.”
Laria knew that by “you” he meant all of them, but her heart gave a funny little thrill at Ranz’s words.
“So, in the morning?” Firekeeper said, giving Laria a quick little smile that made the younger woman wonder if the wolf-woman had somehow guessed. “We go. All of us, to make this Wythcombe also see sense.”
The next day’s hike went surprisingly fast for Laria. Ranz had a lot to talk about, including shyly admitting that his first name was actually “Ransom,” his mother’s defiant proclamation that he’d been saved from death at great cost. Laria didn’t wonder that Ranz preferred the shorter version of his name. Who would want to be reminded that your father loved you that much?
Laria didn’t know what she’d expected Wythcombe to be like. Maybe a sour-faced hermit with long hair tangling into his still longer beard. Or a keen-eyed, sharp-featured aesthete, ageless, despite his many decades and many trials. Or a mystic who would need to be dragged from his meditations to even acknowledge their arrival.
She definitely didn’t expect an elderly but still robust man clad in a short-sleeved smock and stained trousers hard at work digging up what looked to be potatoes. In a weird way, Wythcombe reminded Laria of a potato: rounded, balding on top, with deep-set eyes. His arms and legs were stocky and short, his features nubbly. Even at the height of his youth, he would not have ever been handsome. Age had granted him distinction as compensation.
As they approached, Wythcombe—for surely this must be Wythcombe; they had been told he lived alone—stabbed the blade of his shovel into the dirt, then straightened, his hand at the small of his back, his quizzical expression subtly shifting into something less friendly when he saw Ranz walking alongside Arasan at the rear of their group.
Firekeeper and Blind Seer were, of course, in front. Wythcombe studied the pair thoughtfully. Although ostensibly unarmed, they moved like the living weapons they were, but Wythcombe didn’t seem in the least concerned.
Which either makes him as dangerous as they are or completely stupid, or—maybe—a little of both.
When the group had approached close enough that Firekeeper would not need to shout, yet not so close as to be rude, the wolves halted.
“We have come here,” Firekeeper announced, “because Wythcombe is said to be a great mage and a great teacher. We desire both, and have come to see if you will perhaps suit our needs.”
Arasan had spent a good hour of their hike to reach this point trying to get Firekeeper to change her wording, but she had refused. “What I wish to say is the truth. This courtship dance is not all on his side, best he knows at the start.”
“Well, that approach is sure to surprise him,” Ranz had murmured softly to Laria, who just happened to be nearest. “Wythcombe has been being ‘courted’ for years now, and has always proven coy.”
If Firekeeper had heard—as she certainly had done—she gave no sign, but Blind Seer panted laughter, something Ranz, looking at the wolf’s sharp white teeth, certainly didn’t recognize for amusement. Laria hadn’t bothered to enlighten him. She was aware that Ranz didn’t quite believe that Blind Seer was as intelligent as the rest of them and a spellcaster as well. It wasn’t that Ranz thought they were lying. Simply put, he didn’t believe. Laria remembered her own early encounters with the yarimaimalom, and knew that only time and experience would finish Ranz’s education.
Now, standing behind and slightly to one side of Firekeeper, Laria watched Wythcombe to see how the hermit would react to Firekeeper’s challenge. Wythcombe scrubbed his dirty hands against the hem of his smock and considered them for a long moment.
“We?” he said at last. “I would know to whom I speak, and who has come so far to review my qualifications. I know one of your company—Ranz—and have already told him that I will not be his teacher.”
Firekeeper replied levelly. “So we have heard, and this is one reason we must decide about you for ourselves. As for names—I am Firekeeper. This beside me is Blind Seer. There is Laria, with Farborn on her shoulder. With Ranz is Arasan, called Two Lives.”
If Wythcombe found being introduced to a hawk and wolf as well as to humans peculiar, he didn’t react. By now he had to have noticed that Blind Seer was far larger than any usual wolf.
Perhaps Wythcombe takes him for some shapeshifter, Laria thought. Or magical creation. Perhaps he’s only thinking about his potatoes. Who would have thought an expression of gentle interest would be so hard to read?
“Well, you’ve walked a long way,” Wythcombe said, “if you’ve come from where Ranz has been sculpting his city from ice and snow. At the very least, I can offer you something to drink and eat, a place to rest your feet. We can talk a little then.”
He bent to pick up one of the coarse cloth sacks in which he had been putting potatoes, but, hardly seeming to move, Firekeeper was there before him.
“Let me,” she said. “My human grandmother is a gardener, and I know how heavy these can get.”
She raised the bag with an ease that gave lie to her words. Between the several sacks, what she lifted had to be at least the weight of a man, but she carried it as if it weighed nothing. Since Wythcombe had split his burden so that he could carry it a bit at a time, he also knew how much the sacks weighed, but he did not comment at this show of strength, only nodded his thanks.
“Very appreciated, young—Firekeeper—I believe you said? Now, come this way. Yes, you as well, Ranz. We are neighbors.”
Wythcombe’s house was surprisingly ordinary, with none of the mystic trappings Laria had come to expect from those who worked in the arcane arts. The only oddity was that the combination kitchen and living area that he led them into seemed much smaller on the inside than it had from without.
“I started with a log house,” the hermit explained as he pulled thick pottery mugs from where they hung on hooks set into the beams, “then built stone walls around the outside for better insulation. It gets cold up here come winter. Then, later still, I covered the logs on the inside with board panels. So the walls are deceptively thick. No matter. The place is cozy and holds heat well. I’ve added on other rooms as I’ve seen the need, following the same pattern. There’s space enough in my chosen valley for a certain amount of sprawl, plenty of rock and timber. B
uilding keeps me busy, as does the garden.”
“You don’t use magic for building?” Laria asked, moving to where she could relay mugs to the table. “I mean, to make things easier for you.”
“Oh, from time to time,” Wythcombe admitted, “but never for the basics. Magic can only be done if you are hale and well-focused. If I depended on it for stocking my larder, then if I fell ill, I might starve. Better this way.”
He filled mugs with a purplish red juice. “Blended from types of berries that will grow even this high up. I compete with the bears for the harvest, but I get my share. Some of the same berries are baked into this loaf. The butter comes from one of my indulgences—a very hardy little dairy cow. Belsy produces far more milk than I can use, but I make cheese and trade it for supplies.”
When Wythcombe had handed around mugs of juice or icy cold water, depending on preference, and everyone—excepting Farborn—had accepted a slice of buttered bread, Wythcombe eased himself into a large chair at one end of the polished wooden table that was the largest single piece of furnishing in the room. He motioned the rest of them to take seats on the cushioned benches along the sides.
“Now,” he said, “tell me about yourselves, and why you seek me as a potential teacher.”
Arasan made a minstrel’s tale of their adventures. He began with their land of origin, and why they had come through the gate, shaping their journey as if the primary reason had been the Nexus Island’s desire to know where each of the newly rediscovered gates led.
“I thought I recognized the translation spell,” Wythcombe murmured, topping off his mug of berry juice. “But I couldn’t quite believe it had been needed after all these long centuries. Surely wonders never cease.”
But for all that, he did not seem either unduly interested or threatened. He listened as one might to a tale told about heroes of legend, not about people sitting right before him. Not even the way they had chosen to meet Rhinadei’s challenge, nor the explanation for Farborn’s crystal-encrusted talons caused him to look in the least interested.
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