The Silver Mage

by Katharine Kerr

  Although it was written in the usual syllabary, and the language seemed the usual language of the People, she had no idea what anything meant, simply because the scattered notes—mere jottings, really, in Jantalaber’s familiar script—contained a welter of unfamiliar words. Astral, convoluted, etheric, a long list of what seemed to be names, a variety of words marked with various verbal forms, another list of what seemed to be places—dweomer terms, she realized suddenly, referring to things that she’d never be judged fit to know. The master had drawn a few sketchy diagrams here and there of something he seemed to be planning on building, but she understood none of them. She shut the book with a snap and shoved it back into its cupboard.

  Had the master been mocking her, when he’d told his other favored apprentice to let her see the book? While she carefully turned each leafy plant on the wooden drying racks, that question tormented her. Jantalaber returned alone just as she’d gotten about halfway through her task.

  “My apologies for letting you do all that,” he said. “Par resents you, you know, because you’re smarter than he is, so I knew he’d hinder rather than help you.”

  Hwilli nearly dropped the rack she was carrying. Jantalaber smiled, then picked a stalk of eyebright from the tray and sniffed it.

  “Yes, you can put those back,” he said. “They’re not quite ready. Did you look at the book?”

  “I did. I understood none of it. Of course.”

  “Of course?” He quirked a pale eyebrow.

  “Isn’t that why you let me look at it? Because you knew I couldn’t make sense of it?”

  “That wasn’t it at all.”

  Hwilli felt herself blush. She hurriedly turned away and carried the rack to the drying room, lined with shelves to hold the wooden racks. The scents of over fifty different herbs seemed to thicken the air, as if she’d walked into a foggy day. The master followed her.

  “I’ve often gotten the impression,” Jantalaber said, “that you’re very much interested in dweomerworkings.”

  “I know they’re forbidden to me.”

  “By tradition, certainly. By common sense, not at all.”

  Her hands started shaking. She slid the rack into its place on the shelves before she did drop it and disgrace herself.

  “I’ve learned as much from you as you have from me, Hwilli,” the master continued. “All our traditions say that your folk cannot learn dweomer, simply cannot. I suspect that those traditions arose because none of the People ever bothered to get to know your folk.”

  “I—” She spun around to find him smiling at her.

  “Now, I’ve taught my apprentices to put any guesses and surmises about healing to the test, haven’t I? I’d like to put my suspicion to the test. Do you want to share Nalla’s lessons?”

  “I’d like naught better in the world!”

  “So I thought. If you hadn’t bothered to look at the brown book, I never would have offered, by the by. But I felt that you’d be curious enough, and you were.”

  “Thank you, I don’t know how to thank you enough—”

  “You’re very welcome. Now, about that book. Doubtless, you noticed that it only contained notes in my hand.”

  “I did.”

  “They’re notes toward an idea that lies near to my heart, a special place we could use for healing and naught but healing. This fortress exists to serve death. We healers exist to serve life, and we need a place free of death to study healing, somewhere that possesses healing in its very nature. You won’t understand all this at first.” Suddenly he laughed, and his eyes took on an excitement she’d never seen there before. “I don’t truly understand it all myself. For now, let me just say that other masters in the healing arts agree and are planning on helping me build such a place.”

  “It sounds splendid.”

  “It might well be splendid, when we’re done.” He let the smile fade. “Assuming, of course, that we can finish the work now, with the Meradan raiding and killing. Ah well, who knows what the gods have in store for any of us?”

  “Or what our destiny will be.” Hwilli felt abruptly cold and shivered. “And perhaps that’s just as well.”

  Jantalaber laughed again, but his normally silvery voice took on a hard edge. “Perhaps,” he said. “For now, though, I want you to look at the first three pages of that book again. I’ll wager there are words there you don’t know. Memorize them, then ask Nalla or me what they mean.”

  “I already have. Memorized them, I mean. I never thought I’d be allowed to ask.”

  “Well, you are.” He paused, turned toward the door, and listened to a noise outside. “Ah, yes. Nalla, come in. Hwilli’s agreed.”

  Laughing, Nalla rushed into the herbroom. She caught Hwilli’s hands in both of hers and squeezed them. “I know it,” she announced, “I know you can do this!”

  “Thank you.” Hwilli was thinking, I know it, too. “But the others? What will they say?”

  “I’m going to teach you the first steps myself, just the two of us,” Nalla said. “Once you’ve caught up to the others, there’ll be naught for them to say.”

  Which means they won’t like seeing me among them, doesn’t it? Aloud, Hwilli said, “That will be splendid, then.”

  While the two apprentices finished turning the drying herbs, Hwilli learned the meaning of the words that had so puzzled her. Nalla also gave her the first principle of magical studies. All things are made of a light that has shone since the beginning of the world, but light that has been convoluted, twisting around itself, bending around other rays of light, gaining substance and form with every twist and interaction, melding itself into matter in the way that a master blacksmith pattern-welds a sword from separate strips of iron.

  “Meditate on that,” Nalla told her. “The teachers say that it’s the key to everything. I don’t know why, because I’m not advanced enough.”

  “You mean you’ve not worked hard enough,” Jantalaber said, grinning. “Follow your own advice, Nalla.”

  Nalla blushed, but she managed to smile.

  For the rest of that day, Hwilli felt as if she were floating through her usual work and study. The door to the treasure chamber had swung open, a door that she’d been sure would always remain shut and locked. When she went to Gerontos and Rhodorix’s chamber to examine her patient, her splendid mood withstood Gerontos’ own foul temper. That evening he did little but complain into the black crystal. The leg ached, when could he walk on it, he hated lying still all day, the cast smelled bad and itched, on and on until she was tempted to drug him into silence.

  “If you’re patient now,” she said instead, “you’ll heal properly. If you refuse to lie still for a few more days, the leg will be twisted and strange. Which do you want?”

  Gerontos set the crystal down, then crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her. Rhodorix got from his seat by the window and walked over to pick up the black pyramid.

  “There’s a third choice,” he said, grinning. “Your older brother can tie you down to the bed so tightly that you can’t move until the cursed leg heals.”

  Gerontos said something that made Rhodorix laugh. “Just try,” he answered. “Not that you could right now, anyway.”

  Gerontos said something else in a less angry tone of voice.

  “That’s better,” Rhodorix said. “He tells me that he’s sorry if he offended you. Offending me is somewhat else again, but I can’t begrudge it to him.”

  “Just so. Please tell him that he really will get better if he lets the leg heal in its own time.”

  Rhodorix repeated what she’d told him. With a sigh Gerontos nodded his agreement. Hwilli gave him his carefully measured dose of the opium tincture, then packed up her supplies.

  “I’ll carry those back for you,” Rhodorix said, “if I may.”

  She hesitated, but the night had turned late enough that Master Jantalaber would have left the herbroom.

  “My thanks,” she said, “I’d like that.”

 
Rhodorix carried her sack of medicaments, then waited, glancing around the herbroom, watching her put things away by candlelight. Without asking, he escorted her back to her chamber. Neither of them spoke on the short walk, but Hwilli could feel her heart pounding so hard that she wondered if he could hear it. At the door she hesitated, clutching the white crystal in one hand while he held up the black.

  “You look particularly beautiful tonight,” he said. “Your hair’s like the winter sun, it gleams so.”

  “Oh, listen to you! You should be a bard.”

  “You inspire me, that’s all.”

  He caught her chin in his free hand and kissed her, a long lingering kiss that made her gasp for breath. She leaned back against the corridor wall, and he stepped closer to kiss her again.

  “Could you favor me?” he murmured.

  “Can’t you see I already do?” She regretted her bluntness the instant she’d spoken.

  He laughed. “I had hopes that way, but I’d not get you in trouble with your master. What will he do if he finds out you’ve got a man?”

  The question puzzled her. The women here in the fortress had always taken lovers when they wanted them, whether anyone else had approved or not.

  “Naught,” she said. “Why would he do anything? I’m only his apprentice, not his daughter or suchlike.”

  “Well, then.” He smiled, his eyes eager, as if he were waiting for something.

  “Then what?”

  “Then will you invite me in?”

  “Oh!” She realized that despite everything he’d said and done, she’d still been doubting herself. “Of course.”

  As they went inside, he shut the door firmly behind them. He put his crystal down on the stool by her lectern, then slipped his arms around her before she could do the same. He drew her close and kissed her with the white pyramid caught between them. When his hands slid down to her buttocks, she felt so aroused that she nearly dropped the precious crystal. He laughed, caught it in one broad hand, and turned away to put it down next to the black.

  Hwilli pulled her dress over her head and let it fall to the floor. She lay down on her bed, so narrow that he barely fit next to her, but once his arms were around her, it became all the comfort they needed.

  After their lovemaking, she drowsed in his arms, only to wake when a pale gray light filtered through the window. He woke as well, to turn onto his side and contemplate her face. He was smiling, and with a gentle finger he traced the shape of her lips.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said. “I’m honored that you’d favor a man like me.”

  “Oh, don’t say daft things.” She kissed his fingertips. “I’m the one who’s honored.”

  “Indeed? You’re a healer, you can read and write, and what am I? Just a fighting man who happens to know horsecraft.”

  “I’d say you know women just as well. I—” Hwilli stopped, abruptly surprised. “Wait! I’m understanding every word you say. The crystals are still over there.”

  Rhodorix sat up, twisting to look at the lectern and the stool, where indeed the two crystals sat some five feet distant.

  “Ye gods!” He lay back down. “Well, that’s a handy thing, then.” He started to say more, but the priestly gongs began announcing the dawn in a racket of struck bronze. Rhodorix swore and winced, then waited till the sound died away. “Why in the name of every god do they keep making that wretched noise?”

  “In the name of every god, just like you said.” Hwilli grinned at him. “It’s the priests’ duty to mark the points of the passing days, and the days themselves, the cycles of the moon and the sun, the rising of some of the stars, all of the heavenly things. That’s why the prince built this fortress up so high, so the priests would be closer to the stars.”

  “I think me that the sun would rise without them making all that cursed clamor.”

  “So do I, but the priests don’t.”

  “Ah. Like the cocks that crow on the dung heap, then, and the sun obeys.”

  She laughed until he kissed her again, and neither of them had any need of words or laughter.

  Yet once their lovemaking finished, sunlight was flooding in the window, and he needed to leave to rejoin his men out in the horse yard. Hwilli lay on her side and watched him pull on the funny, baggy legging-things he called brigga.

  “Will you come back tonight?” she said.

  “If you’ll have me back,” Rhodorix said.

  “Of course!”

  He paused to grin at her, honestly thankful that she would want him. Me, she thought. He loves me. Nalla was right!

  “Well, then, let’s settle somewhat.” Rhodorix turned solemn.

  “From now on, you’re my woman. I don’t want you looking at any other man.”

  “Fear not! There’s not a man in this fortress I’d want, not after you.”

  He smiled again, as bright as the sunlight coming through the windows. “Let me take the crystals with me,” he went on, “and at the morning meal today, I’ll tell the guard captain that if any other man looks at you wrong, he’ll have me to answer to.”

  “Truly?”

  “Truly. That way if I get you with child, everyone will know the child’s mine, so you’ll not have to worry that I’ll refuse to maintain it.”

  His generosity surprised her so much that she had a hard time answering with more than a murmured “My thanks.” He sat down on the edge of the bed to pull on his boots. She cuddled against his back and tried to think of some generosity she could offer in return.

  “Rhoddo?”

  “Imph?”

  “Then from now on, your people will be my people, and if I have a child, I’ll raise him that way.”

  “Well and good, then.” He turned to look at her. “That’s a grand thing you’re giving me.”

  “You’ve done the same for me. I’ll swear it on your gods, because they’re my gods now.”

  “Then swear it by Belinos and Evandar.”

  “Evandar’s not truly a god, you know.”

  “Of course he is! Our priests said so. When he saved my life, I promised him I’d swear all my vows on his name.”

  If it pleases him, she thought, why does it matter? Belinos she knew nothing of, but if Rhodorix considered him a god, then she would honor him, too. “I swear by Belinos and Evandar,” she said.

  “So do I, that you’re my woman now.”

  They both smiled, yet deep in her heart she felt somber, as if a cold wind had touched her. Somehow, she knew, they’d sealed some sort of bargain, one that resonated far beyond the first days of a love affair.

  The guardsmen ate in Prince Ranadar’s great hall, a long narrow room with tables enough for several hundred men. At one end stood a narrow dais, where the prince dined with his intimates. Frescoes covered the walls with pictures that reminded Rhodorix of those in Rhwmani villas, though these were far more magnificent. Painted roses bloomed in a vast garden that wrapped around the entire room. In the landscape behind the garden, one wall sported a view of rolling hills and forest; the other, a distant city on the far side of a river. A spiral made of bits of white glass covered half the ceiling. At night this spiral glowed with an eerie blue light, but during the day it merely glittered in the sun streaming through the windows.

  Since Rhodorix sat next to Andariel at the warband’s head table—an honor, he realized, to a stranger who knew so many useful things—he could talk with the captain through the crystals. When he told Andariel that he considered Hwilli his property and his alone, Andariel relayed the warning to the guardsmen, who mostly laughed and saluted him with their wine cups.

  “She’s always been the standoffish sort,” Andariel remarked. “Cold as ice, we all thought. I’m impressed that you could warm her up, and so are the rest of the lads.”

  As the days went by, the warning had the desired effect. From time to time, Hwilli came down to the terrace to watch the riding lessons. The other men made a great show of looking elsewhere whenever she did, and if for some r
eason they needed to speak to her, they made the encounter as brief as possible.

  “They’re afraid of you,” Andariel said. “If you’ve not noticed.”

  “Why would they be?” Rhodorix was honestly surprised. “I’m naught, just an exile, in a way, a man who’s lost his tribe.”

  “Just for that reason. You have every reason to be desperate. You’re more than a little reckless, I’d say, judging from the way I’ve seen you ride. No one wants to face you in an honor duel.”

  “I see. Well, truly, the only trouble I’d ever cause you and the warband would be over Hwilli.”

  “Good.” The captain smiled briefly and put a sliver of ice in his voice. “That’s the answer I’d hoped for. There, you’d be within your rights.”

  But nowhere else, Rhodorix thought. “Well and good, then,” he said aloud. “That’s fair.”

  Once they’d eaten, Rhodorix and Andariel left the great hall together. They were walking across the rear courtyard when the gongs boomed from the priests’ tower. A blare of horns answered them from a doorway at its base. Andariel caught Rhodorix’s arm and made him stop.

  “They’re coming,” he said. “We have to kneel.”

  “Who?”

  “The priests. Don’t say a word to them unless they ask you a question.”

  “Well and good, then.”

  Rhodorix knelt beside the captain on the hard cobbles. When he glanced around, he saw that everyone within sight had knelt as well. Bronze horns, as harsh as the tubae of the homeland, blared from the fortress walls. Silver horns answered with a chiming melody. To the beat of small drums, carried before them by two lads, four men emerged from the tower.

  Long robes of cloth of silver swirled around them with each measured step. They held their heads high and rigid, balancing the weight of their plumed and studded headdresses. Gold and sapphires gleamed at their throats and in their earlobes; a long trail of peacock feathers swayed down their backs. As they passed each person kneeling along their route, in perfect unison the priests raised one hand and lowered it again, most likely in blessing, but they never spoke a word. Behind them came eight lads marching two abreast, dressed in dark blue linen, each carrying a silver sword two-handed and upright in front of him.