The Gossamer Mage

by Julie E. Czerneda

  It wasn’t what he’d started to say. She was certain of that as of the formula giving her ink its hue. They’d grown up together, close as siblings. Yes, he’d changed of late. Who wouldn’t, being lost at sea, then thrust young into a lordship and its heavy responsibilities? She’d been proud— “But cousin,” Pylor said uneasily. “What of Saeleonarial—”

  “Did you not see it? Were you not in the hall? He knew something he wouldn’t admit. Conspired against me. I cannot trust him. I must know of this mage!” Now, at last, Insom looked up—

  There was something horrible in his too-wide eyes, a writhing shadow crossing the whites like black lightning, and she would have backed, would have fled, but he clenched her hand in a grip like stone and pulled her to him till their noses touched. His breath stole the moisture from her mouth and his voice struck her ears, raw and piercing and strained, like no voice could be. “You will do this. You will do this. You will—”

  “Stop!” Pylor cried, tearing herself free. The crucible smashed to the floor as she spun away and landed half across the table, emerald splashing the tiles. She hung there, numbly aware a finger—or more—felt broken, staring up at her cousin.

  Who once more ran a trembling hand over his face. As it passed, it left his face normal again, if bloodless; his eyes clear and full of remorse. “What did I—? I’m so sorry, Py.” Anguished and low. “Forgive me, please. I can’t stop—I haven’t—I can’t sleep.”

  “That’s no bloody excuse.” She pushed up, faced him, shaking with what she told herself was fury, not fear.

  “I know. You have to un—understand. It’s the shadows, Py. They’ve spread everywhere. You’ve seen them.” Words spewed forth, heaved like vomit. “They wanted to come here. Couldn’t until I touched—I touched—I didn’t know. Couldn’t know. No one knows—”

  “Make sense!”

  “It’s hungry. It made me bring the rest. I couldn’t help it. I try to resist. Climb from the well. Always, I try, I swear it, Py. Light hurts them. Fire they hate. Nothing I do is enough. They’re too hungry. They want—I don’t know what they want. Who can know—I have to save the hold. I can only do it with your help.”

  A fever dream. It had to be. “You’re ill, cousin. The help you need isn’t mine.”

  “And I will seek it, I vow.” Insom’s hand reached to her, withdrew at her flinch. “First, do this. Go to the school, Py. Learn all you can of this mage. Please. Call it my crazed folly if you will. Do it to ease my troubled mind.”

  Never had she pitied him, till now. “I don’t know—”

  “Py. Cousin. Please, I beg you. By what we mean to each other. For the love we share.”

  Had he ordered her, as hold lord, she could have refused. But this was the Insom who’d been like a brother, who’d taught her to fish and swim.

  As for whatever else he’d become?

  “I’ll go.”

  Call her a coward, but she wanted to be as far from that as possible.

  * * *

  Stone couldn’t breathe. It most certainly couldn’t mutter to itself.

  A gossamer after all? They’d been told of the village and the hermit mage. The hold daughter shared his name and past: Maleonarial, once scribemaster, now renegade. If any mage scribe was capable of perverting Her Gift into deadly creations, it would be this man. Thus the command to send forth Her Designate to witness and mete out justice.

  But they didn’t know, did they? Kait would have argued Her Blessed Gossamers couldn’t be made to kill and they should leave matters of this mage to The Lady, had she been asked, as she hadn’t been nor deserved to be.

  As for what she’d heard? If something of Hers, magical and wild, roamed the hall where Insom kept his treasures, no one had spoken of it.

  Kait would have asked Ursealyon, but the acolyte appeared in a great hurry to whisk her out of sight.

  Or her sock feet.

  They passed the grand doors to Tiler’s audience hall, presently closed, taking a branching corridor. After a short distance, Ursealyon took Kait through what appeared a servant’s access, and her first impression of the famed Daughter’s Portion of Tiler’s Hold was the homely smell of breakfast.

  It waited on a table, fare identical to that served in the Daughter’s Quarters: cooked eggs in half-shells, fresh bread and apples, bowls of the ever-present dried fish those who grew up here relished, brittle and over-salted to Kait’s inland taste, and a thick-walled crock of porridge steaming in the chill.

  Regardless of season, cold emanated from the stone—walls, ceilings and floors. She’d learned to don an extra layer under the usual tunic and pants. It gave her a thickened look and she couldn’t bend gracefully, but better warm, in her estimation, and what use was grace?

  There were carpets, but Kait paused to put on her shoes, grunting with effort, using the moment to compose herself. Disturbing, whatever she’d heard, but surely—surely harmless.

  If she’d heard anything at all.

  They’d arrived first. Ursealyon took up station by the food, arms crossed, head lowered to glare. Kait wandered the novelty of the Daughter’s Portion, doing her best to ignore the other. What did the acolyte think? She’d fill her stomach before the hold daughter? Word was Ursealyon favored Ella, the prospect from Meadton, a village so large, it boasted two inns. Woodshaven could be dropped into its weekly farmers’ market and vanish.

  Bigger, Kait reminded herself, was no guarantee of better, be it manners or ought else.

  The space was longer than wide, separated from the main audience hall by a screen from floor to ceiling. The screen’s woodwork was exquisite; each complex piece of interwoven lattice hand-polished and oiled to a warm honey glow. It could have been lace. To her exploring fingertips, it felt like porcelain.

  It might have been hers one day, had she been worthy and The Lady willing, though Kait supposed regret wasn’t worthy at all.

  Nor was judging the ornate screen ostentatious, however true. It was what it was and as it needed to be. Ursealyon scorned her socks? No one here had believed her when she’d told them the Daughter’s Portion in Woodshaven was distinguished by a fragrant bough of fresh-cut cedar, ideally but not always free of perturbed spiders or moist slugs, the bough plopped on whatever table in the village inn was vacant at the moment.

  However true. Woodshaven being a peaceful little village, beyond Her Veil and three days’ climb into the mountains distant, reasons to invoke the authority of The Lady were vanishingly few and predictable. Within living memory, only once had there been need to gather and pronounce Her Doom, and that on a fool who’d felled a tree home to a Blessed Gossamer.

  The pronouncement came after the fact, the tree having fallen on the fool and smashed him flat. The gossamer having moved to another tree, deeper into the woods, that might have seemed the sum of it, but Kait and the others had heard Her Words. The Lady’s penalty for working evil on the land was death.

  A truth must be shared.

  Pincel, Atta, and Kait had summoned all of Woodshaven to hear, crowding into the inn. There’d been nods of somber agreement, the fool in question having been warned on several occasions, then a shared feast, it being rare the entire village stopped work at the same time, and why waste the chance?

  Kait doubted those in Tiler’s Hall feasted together, unless to a purpose. As for a simple summons to share Her truth?

  There were politics, here. Nothing could be simple.

  This hall was where those attending—other than the lord—would stand for the duration of the day’s audience on the well-polished marble floor, having first entered through the paired massive doors at the far end so all came and went in full view, including the lord. They stood, Kait had been told, in order to be counted among those who were important to the hold.

  In her opinion, anyone with a day to spare to stand in a hall should find themselves an occupation. May
be polishing the floors. Then they’d be important. Not, she supposed, an opinion Tiler’s Hold Daughter would express.

  At least on this side of the barrier the arrangements were practical. An array of comfortable seats and tables faced the screen. Four narrow doors, plain but solid, with strong, well-greased hinges, lined the back wall. Those here could come and go without notice.

  Ursealyon noticed her interest. “Near door’s the privy if you need it.”

  Practical indeed. Kait half smiled. “Handy.”

  “Far door’s Her Promise.” A long, scarred hand raised to point. “The hold daughter bears the key at all times.”

  Kait’s smile vanished. Her Promise: safety for a hold daughter who called the wrath of The Lady down on her lord. A way to flee, leaving the rest to die. For that was Her charge upon all hold daughters, to judge the actions of their lord and restrain any that might threaten the land. Fail to do so, and The Lady must be summoned, Her Doom pronounced, and those Designated would “clean house.”

  After the daughter and those She would spare were safely away, through that one, seemingly innocuous door.

  To the credit of Tananen’s Hold Daughters, and the relief of everyone else, such a cleansing hadn’t happened in their lifetimes. All were taught of Xcel and Aote. How their hold lords ignored the warnings of their daughters and seized control of the canal flowing through their lands. How they declared war upon one another and prepared to attack.

  How, in a single night between one moment and the next, everyone still within those hold walls was visited by Her Designates, to receive Her Kiss and die, corpses aged beyond recognition.

  Better a tree fall on a single thick head, Kait shuddered. She was grateful Woodshaven’s cedar bough most often marked a sharing of knowledge, the daughters asked for advice on logging matters, or how much water to apportion to the mills in dry years, or on anything else the village might need. Grateful custom, outside the great holds, held that all of those Gifted with Her Voice act together, none above the rest.

  Why, Woodshaven’s three daughters took turns baking for their meetings, it being polite to compensate the innkeeper for their use of a table. Atta’s biscuits were a favorite.

  Nothing so common here, where the Tiler’s Hold Daughter ruled an extensive court and oversaw the entire holding in Her Name. Laws affecting everyone, from the wharves to Woodshaven and beyond, were passed in this hall. Here, as in all the holds across Tananen, such an elaborate barrier must separate the Daughter’s Portion from the hall of the hold lord, so that those who watched and judged were not themselves observed.

  Not that any outside Her court had witnessed what had happened to Leorealyon, two nights past. Corridors cleared by the Daughter’s command.

  A life ended. That command too.

  Turning away, Kait sucked in a breath, settling herself. She’d no right to judge the hold daughter. One unimaginable day it might be her turn to order such a sacrifice.

  On this, she’d begin her journey home. Her fingers gripped the lattice. Home. Erased on that map, locked behind stone, Woodshaven’s sun-kissed meadows and bright flowers seemed more dream than real; Leksand—she’d promised him more shells for his growing collection. Would they grant her time to shop or throw her out the gate—?

  “Tell me.”

  Kait looked up at the tall shadow now beside her. “Tell you what?” She wasn’t about to confess to anyone but the hold daughter.

  “You fuss over footprints.” Eyes glinted within their daunting black surround. “Why mar the wall with your hand?”

  Nor was she about to admit hearing stone breathe. “I was there to see the map—grew careless—”

  “The truth, in Her Name.” A hand like a claw gripped her shoulder, drew her close. The acolyte leaned down, lowered her voice, and said what sent Kait’s blood pounding. “Tell me, Kait. What did you hear?”

  And Kait knew, with that, Ursealyon hadn’t come to the hall to find her. “You were there listening for them. For the—stones.” The final word came out a whisper, but the other released her with a grim smile.

  “Then you did hear. Good.”

  Which it hadn’t been, in any way. “What was it?” Kait demanded. “Was it a gossamer?”

  “There are none within these walls.”

  “Why?”

  “No one knows. There were. Then there weren’t.”

  Hairs rose on Kait’s neck and she dared ask, “Could you make out what they said? The stones?”

  A stare, then a hand lifted, palm flat and forbidding. “No more questions, Prospect Alder. The hold daughter will be here shortly.”

  Along with the end of mysteries, fell voices, and her future here. She would confess, then be sent home as undeserving. With a nod, holding in a sigh, Kait turned to inspect the lattice, this being her last chance.

  A third of its openings were filled with squares of glass, each suspended within an intricate weave of wire she puzzled at briefly, then dismissed. The remainder were crisscrossed with thin slats, leaving deep shadowy gaps too small to offer more than a glimpse through to the other side. She bent to peer through the nearest.

  The grand audience hall of Tiler’s Hold was deserted, as she’d expected. The big rectangular room was crossed by a line of thick carpet from the doors to Daughter’s latticework and was otherwise furnished only with the lord’s chair, set against the lattice slightly to the left of center.

  So the hold daughter could prod her lord from behind?

  Another question to put aside. Within the hall, braziers weren’t yet lit, but flame burned in every sconce and chandelier. Kait pinched her nostrils to hold back a sneeze. By the cloying thickness and smell, they’d done so through the night. Woodshaven could be lit for a year. There were rumors but, “I hadn’t known Insom was this afraid of the dark,” she murmured. “Poor man.”

  “Mind your tongue,” Ursealyon snapped. “A hold’s lord must command respect.”

  “I meant—”

  “Outside the Daughter’s Portion.” A tight smile. “Here, we maintain a clearer view of our lord and his court.” Ursealyon selected a fine strand of wire, then plucked it with two fingers as if playing an instrument. The nearest glass square turned and tilted, edges taking fire from the lights in the hall. “See for yourself.”

  Kait obeyed, lips parting in wonder. Through the glass, the hall jumped toward her; she could discern individual knots in the hall’s lush carpet as clearly as if she’d put her nose to it. She glanced at Ursealyon. “How is this possible?”

  “The glass is a modification of the lenses used by mariners.” The smile vanished. “Be aware, prospect, ours do more than see. Their use betrays the daughter’s interest to those in the Hall.”

  “To our gain, oft as not.”

  Kait bowed low with Ursealyon as Tiler’s Hold Daughter approached, careful to wait until she could see the tips of the older woman’s shoes had stopped moving before she straightened.

  “Stop the damn bowing, Urse,” ordered the woman who controlled the fate of Tiler’s Hold and beyond. “You look ridiculous.”

  Ursealyon stiffened, shoulders back. “It is my role to instruct—”

  “A role you take too seriously at times, old friend. Alone, let us be as sisters. I insist”—with a daunting gleam in her pale eyes. “You too, Prospect Alder.”

  As if it were possible. Nonetheless, Kait straightened, giving a small nod to say she’d understood. The hold daughter, like the acolyte, wore layers of beautiful silk, this being a day of official business. On Ursealyon’s tall athletic frame, the multicolored fabric draped from shoulder to floor in orderly flow. On Wendealyon, the tunic bunched over ample breasts and hip, the pants billowed wide, hems caught in the tops of her slippers, and the magnificent jeweled ropes both bore around their necks were, on the hold daughter, tied into a loose knot, the bulk shoved inside her bodice.


  Unlike the acolyte, her rank tattoos were faint and blue, like a trace work of fine veins framing intense eyes. There was no doubt who ruled here in Her Name.

  Armored in work-ready brown wool, the daughter from Woodshaven clasped her hands at her waist so they wouldn’t shake. “I regret to say I cannot continue as your prospect, Hold Daughter Wendealyon.”

  Thin lips quirked. “Wend, together and private like this.”

  Had she not heard? “Hold Daughter—”

  “Sit a moment, Kait. You too, Urse. You’ll stand enough later.” The hold daughter filled glasses with pressed berry juice for the three of them, then settled into her chair, drink cradled in both hands. “Now, what’s this about?”

  “I no longer hear The Lady.” There. Kait remained standing; waited to be shamed.

  “She hears the stones,” Urse announced, taking a seat.

  “Ah.” Wendealyon’s expression—how could it be relief? “Better news at last.”

  “I don’t understand.” Kait looked from one to the other. “What does that—” She knew what was right. What had to be done. “I can’t stay. I’m unworthy.”

  “Are you?” Wendealyon’s now-stern gaze impaled Kait. Her mouth opened. “ ”

  The Words sent the lights blazing. Stole the air. Kait fought to see, to breathe. Her Words, aloud. Such consequential phrases were not uttered casually.

  Nor could they be spoken by men. Should one try, the air left his lungs with the Words and didn’t return.

  Spoken or written, each had no discernible meaning. No congruence with any language or sound of the world. Mage scribes long past had given up the effort, saying Her Words couldn’t be understood by mortals, only used to create intentions. Magic.

  That the phrase made perfect sense inside Kait’s head was further proof of Her Gift. She could understand The Lady’s Words, write them—though not with magical intent—for it was only through daughters that Her Words could be returned to the mages should their knowledge be lost. She could speak them aloud. At dire need.