She stopped. Wythcombe smiled sadly and completed her sentence. “And it might be useful someday to be able to access those forbidden areas without anyone knowing, why fill it in? Prudent. What was done so that no one else would accidently intersect it?”
“There was really little chance of anyone digging into it. Most of the tunnel runs through solid rock—it’s a remarkable work of engineering. A summer estate for the late queen’s mother was built over the opening and the entrance to the tunnel hidden in a subbasement.”
“And no one has found it since?” Firekeeper sounded both dubious and interested.
“No one. If we go there, you will understand why.” As she spoke these last words, General Merial looked smug.
“So a secret way in to the ruins,” Wythcombe mused. “I admit. I am tempted.”
Laria nodded, feeling that since she’d been the first to protest, it was her job to show the general had won her over. “Me, too. Anyhow, Blind Seer can smell if anyone has been in the tunnel recently.”
Firekeeper grinned one of those unsettling wolf grins. “We”—she gestured to herself, Blind Seer, and Farborn—“can punish Merial if is a trap.”
“Oh?” Arasan cocked an eyebrow in one of the Meddler’s most mocking expressions.
“Oh,” Firekeeper agreed. “What does a queen’s word matter to yarimaimalom? If General Merial breaks faith with us, no matter what protection her queen gives her, the Wise Beasts will know the promises Merial gave to us. It may be too late to help us, but they will be sure to take our revenge.”
The wolf-woman turned her dark, dark gaze upon General Merial. “Before you go, I should tell you a story about how the Royal Beasts of the Iron Mountains destroyed a human settlement without losing a single creature. Your borders cannot keep Beasts out. Remember that, if you think to break faith with us. Farborn has already gone forth.” She motioned to the now empty windowsill. “The warning is already given.”
General Merial visibly paled beneath her soldier’s tan, then straightened. “Well, then, it’s a good thing I don’t plan on betraying anyone—not even my queen, although I hope I never need explain that to her.”
“An artifact!” Daylily said, her voice high and excited. “Tell us more!”
“Not long ago,” the Voice began, “as such things are measured, maybe fifty years before querinalo, there lived a woman who learned how to unweave the world. Why would she decide to learn how to do such a thing? That is a long story, and not really germane to your situation. What does matter is that she learned to do so.”
Kabot leaned slightly forward, eager to hear what came next, but Uaid, specialist in earth magics that he was, wasn’t content to let this rest.
“When you say ‘unweave the world,’ do you mean the physical orb? The earth is indeed complex, but I would not use the term ‘woven’ to describe its structure.”
“Uaid,” the Voice said gently, “it would be best if I told my tale in my own way.”
“I’m sorry, master,” Uaid said sulkily. “I simply don’t understand how you can talk about the world as something that can be unwoven.”
Is that how Uaid sees the Voice? Kabot thought. As his late master, Caidon? I think not. They were more peers, junior and senior, surely, but theirs was a relationship of equals. This attitude seems that of young student reacting to a reprimand from a revered loregiver. Certainly, in matters of earth magic, Uaid had the edge over Caidon.
Kabot tried to remember if he had ever known who Uaid’s early teachers had been, but he couldn’t recall. He put this puzzle from him, for Phiona was speaking again.
The Voice sighed. “I was going to try to cut out the background, move to my main point, but I can see now that this would be a classic ‘haste makes waste’ situation. Very well, get comfortable, and I will tell you The Tale of the Unweaver of the World.”
Not all that long ago, as such things are measured, maybe fifty years before querinalo, there lived a woman who learned how to unweave the world. Her birth name was Jyanee. She was born in Tishiolo, a small, strange land on the continent of Pelland whose people, language, and customs are nothing like those of the rest of that land mass.
When Jyanee’s instructors admitted that she had learned all they could teach her, she applied to a school where the magical arts were taught, only to be rejected by the head of the school—who happened to be her uncle. Some say the uncle rejected Jyanee because he could not see her as other than the little girl he had dandled on his knee. Some say that he and her father, his brother, had unresolved conflicts, and the uncle refused to accept his niece as anything other than her father’s daughter. Some said (whispered, more likely) that when the uncle tested his niece, he realized that her raw talent was so tremendous that if given further instruction she would surpass him. Then he would be forgotten except as the uncle of one of the greatest mages of all time.
Jyanee appealed the headmaster’s decision. Lest he be accused of unfairness, the headmaster set her a task just this side of completely impossible: to find a unique way of demonstrating her knowledge of the eddies and currents that must be controlled in order to create magic. The headmaster justified this task by saying that if Jyanee was not able to find a unique interpretation, forever after it would be said that her admission had resulted from her being favored by her uncle.
Friends and family alike encouraged Jyanee to seek teaching elsewhere, but she had her own fair share of the confidence (or should it be called egotism?) that had brought her uncle to his high place. She retired to an isolated keep owned by her family in the most remote mountains of Tishiolo. There she set to work studying magical energies, attended by a few retainers who had known her since she was a baby and who loved her more than they loved living in the world.
When Jyanee had not been heard from for a year, her father came to check on her. She sent him away, saying she was immersed in her studies and quite content. When another year passed, her mother came, and received the same answer. So on it went through each sibling, until the boy who had been a toddler when Jyanee went into seclusion was a strapping warrior mage who came to her riding a prancing steed he had taught to run upon the wind.
When Jyanee did not emerge in reply to her brother’s summons, this impetuous youth pushed his way past the servants who had grown grey in their faithful service to their mistress, and sought his oldest sister. He found her deep in meditation in a tower carved from a slender mountain peak, so that it was both beneath the earth and yet thrust into the highest reaches of the sky where the air is thin. Jyanee opened her eyes when he burst into her chamber. The warrior mage inadvertently backed away, for he saw that her eyes were of a colorless hue that seemed to see both everything and nothing at all.
Looking upon her brother’s fear as if it was a physical thing, Jyanee said, “Thank you for coming so far. Reassure our parents that I am well. If you would be so good, tell my uncle that I will soon speak with him regarding admission to his school.”
The warrior mage brought these words back to his uncle (who had accepted the youth without question into his academy, many said because while the nephew had some talent, his gift would never threaten anyone’s prominence). In trepidation, the uncle waited but, when a year passed and then another, yet his niece did not come to petition for entry into his school, he relaxed. Then reports came of strange vibrations within the mysterious foundations upon which the magical arts depended. In time these eddies were traced to the very mountain peak which served as Jyanee’s tower.
Prompted by his terrified associates, the headmaster went forth. His niece’s servants readily admitted him, saying that he had been expected. Alone he mounted to the tower beneath the earth, above the sky, and found Jyanee sitting cross-legged upon a heap of thick carpets on the stone floor. Before her, on a low table, rested a disk much like a coin, although thicker. The headmaster could barely glimpse the terrestrial materials from which the disk was made, for the mana that radiated from it blinded him.
His n
iece turned upon him those eyes that saw nothing and everything, noticed how he squinted, and took pity on him. She cupped her hand over the disk, revealing it not so much made as grown from metals and minerals: silver, gold, and copper, interlaced with brilliant sparks of gem.
Jyanee said in a voice that would have been indifferent if it had not held the slightest touch of mockery. “Some years ago, Uncle, you set me to find a unique way of demonstrating that I understand the forces that underlie magic. Through my research, I found not only the roots of magic, but of the very forces that weave together to make up the world. This token connects to four of those threads: four of the greater, for they are associated with the weave of the greater landmasses.”
When her uncle would have protested the impossibility of this, Jyanee waved a dismissive hand. “When you—assisted by as many of your associates as you wish—selected from any land, practitioners of any tradition that you choose, can show me that you understand how the world is both thread and weave, then I will acknowledge you as worthy of teaching me.”
She continued, “Be warned. The token connects to potent forces. As threads can tangle and knot, as well as be woven, so these can tangle—but the consequences of tying them in a knot would be far worse than a spoiled carpet. Make sure you understand what you are doing before you put yourselves and, perhaps, all the world, at risk.”
Words spoken, Jyanee returned to her meditations, leaving her uncle to gather up the token in a shaking hand and depart.
The headmaster consulted with powerful sorcerers from around the world. Together they were able to confirm what Jyanee had said—that the token was merely the endpoint of something far more complex. Although each secretly wished to command this power, none could deny that incorrect handling of the token could lead to disaster. Therefore, the token was split into four disks, and each disk was consigned to a group from the landmass with which it corresponded.
Destroying the disks, so they learned, would not be as difficult as had been feared. It was almost as if Jyanee, who they now called the Unweaver, was taunting them, saying, in effect, “If you cannot use what I have made, then you may reassure yourself that you and your land are free from any threat misuse might offer by destroying what I have made.”
Humans are only human, though, and sorcerers are not known for responding well to being taunted. Therefore, instead of causing the disks to become inert, the sorcerers settled for dampening the disks’ potency. When they did this, they stated that they acted not out of fear, but because this dampening would enable them to continue their studies more responsibly. When querinalo came, these studies were still in process. Each of the disks, superficially hardly more than a trinket, escaped destruction. They remain to this day, hidden away, their true power forgotten.
When the Voice finished the story, Kabot, Uaid, and Daylily exchanged excited glances.
Daylily’s lips shaped a teasing smile. “Somehow I feel sure that you, dear Voice, know where these disks might be. Perhaps one is here, among the ruins of this university?”
“Your intuitions do you credit, pretty Daylily,” the Voice replied caressingly. “You guess correctly. I do know where one disk is. I believe I can deduce where a second disk might be—and I think that if we have the first and second, we might use their resonance to find a third, even all four. You of Rhinadei are trained from your earliest years in how to subdue potent magics. I believe that you can do what even those powerful thaumaturges of old could not—for they lacked your Rhinadeian training in managing the rawest magical energies. I believe you could control each of these talismans, but possessing even one would certainly gain you admission into the community you left Rhinadei to join.”
Blind Seer waited patiently for the humans to finish snapping at each other. When all had had their say, General Merial took command.
“I suggest we make it seem as if you all have returned to the Nexus Islands. Instead, you will go into hiding until I am ready to escort you to the secret route into the ruins.”
Blind Seer huffed disapproval, and Firekeeper glanced at him.
“Tell her,” Blind Seer said, “that this will not do. One question after any of us—even something as minor as a request for Arasan to sing at a wedding—will create the need to spin increasingly complex lies. This would be unwise.”
Firekeeper translated. General Merial looked less than pleased. “I had thought that Derian Carter could give out that you had been sent somewhere else, but I must agree that Blind Seer is correct in pointing out that asking people to create convincing cover stories on the spur of the moment is a dangerous tactic.”
“Derian will not be there to make up stories,” Firekeeper said. “He is going home to show his new wife to his family. True, there would be others who could speak the lie, but why make our people lie when we do this for you?”
“Harshly put,” Arasan added, “but the wolves do have a point. Perhaps we could find an excuse for going into isolation?”
Ranz replied in a manner that, had he been a young wolf, would have been accompanied with drooping ears and tail, just so his elders would not think he was getting above himself. “From what I understand, even though the magical university was destroyed long ago, Azure Towers is still renowned as a place of learning. Why don’t we give out that Wythcombe and I are studying with some scholar, learning how the world has changed since our ancestors departed? Arasan is already renowned as a teller of tales, and Laria is his student, so they would reasonably share our interests. As for Firekeeper, Blind Seer, and Farborn—no one will think twice if they vanish. I’ve caught on that the Old World hasn’t really taken to routinely considering the yarimaimalom as ‘people.’”
“That could work,” General Merial said thoughtfully. “Few enough know you are here or who you are, but the difficulty is that those who do also know of your land of origin. If worded right, we can present your interest to the queen as showing appropriate humility.”
“You don’t think Queen Anitra might change her mind?” Laria asked anxiously. “I mean, now that we’ve decided to do what she will have every right to think of as treason on your part, and a sort of invasion on ours.”
“I don’t,” Merial stated confidently. “Both Loris Ambler and I tried to convince her to make an exception, but Anitra’s good and bad points meet in this issue. The same care Anitra shows for her people, her consideration of the long-term ramifications of any new policy, can make her very hidebound.”
General Merial tapped one neatly trimmed fingernail against her teacup for a long moment, then nodded sharply. “I have it! Nergy, one of my training masters, left active duty last year after an illness. He’s known for his interest in recent history, especially the dynamics between nations. I could explain my sending you people to him as a way for him to earn extra coin. Even better, Nergy has a pension as a groundskeeper on some forested land in the general direction we want to go. Perfect for Firekeeper and Blind Seer.”
“You sound as if you mean to actually send us there,” Wythcombe said with a laugh.
“I am considering doing so,” General Merial said. “I think you would like Nergy, you could learn more about Azure Towers from him, and he’d be better supported in any lies if he had actually hosted you.”
“I suppose a short delay won’t hurt,” Wythcombe said, “although I am worried what Kabot will be doing while we lay elaborate intrigues.”
“We not know if he is days or weeks ahead of us,” Firekeeper reminded. “Even moons.”
“Even,” General Merial added wistfully, revealing a faint hope that their fears were ungrounded, “if he came to the ruins at all.”
Some further arrangements were needed, one of which was sending Laria on a quick trip to the Nexus Islands. Ostensibly Laria was going to ask her mother’s permission to stay in Azure Towers but, in reality, she would be briefing the governing council of what was being done—a further precaution against treachery. Then they retired to Nergy’s refuge.
Even thoug
h Blind Seer knew the delay had been necessary, he was as fidgety as Firekeeper when, many days later, General Merial rendezvoused with them at Nergy’s rural retreat. On a crisply chill night, with all the humans riding and Rusty on a lead line, Merial led them via back roads, often through woodlands.
Farborn, Firekeeper, and Blind Seer went ahead to scout the area with eye and ear and nose, but they found no trace either of a trap or—more importantly—of recent activity that could indicate something was being concealed.
The fine, sprawling estate was currently untenanted, having been closed during the winter. The only humans present were a gatekeeper and his family. These must have received orders to ignore the new arrivals for, when General Merial undid the lock on the heavy wrought-iron gate, not even a shadow stirred against the drawn curtains of the small gatehouse built into the surrounding wall.
They crossed the grounds, then went around the house, avoiding the grand entrance that stood protected by a peaked-roof porch. Merial drew to a halt by a no less large, but far less ornamented, entry around the back. This, too, was flanked by a porch with a slanting roof, ample evidence that winter was harsh here in the foothills. Doubtless the ruins of the university, higher up in the white-capped mountains, would be cooler still. Blind Seer didn’t mind in the least. Heat, not cold, was his bane.
Idly, Blind Seer wondered why those long-ago mages had established their university in such a difficult place for humans to reach—one so uncomfortable for them with their furless hides. Then he realized that these very difficulties might have had their appeal. Even in days when the magical arts had been more common, the mages would have been all too aware of their vulnerabilities. Perched like falcons in the aerie, the sorcerers of old had pretended at being aloof while—like those very falcons—protecting themselves from those who could do them harm.
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