Terciel and Elinor (9780063049345)

by Nix, Garth

  Terciel nodded, not trusting himself to talk.

  Tizanael lifted her voice, speaking to the Sending at her side.

  “We will likely be going to the mountains. Prepare everything necessary, for me and the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. Ask the paperwing if she will allow me to fly her to the northwest. I do not think we will have any time to waste, walking, or even to go by horseback.”

  The Sending bowed and rushed away. Tizanael pushed her chair back and rose stiffly, holding her back just above her left hip.

  “I will hear what the recalcitrant message-hawk has to say, and read the Regent’s missive,” she said. “I will see you with the dawn.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  There were only four young women in the deep cellar. Corinna, Hazra, and two others who Elinor didn’t know, though from their silver-edged robes they were Sixth Formers. They were gathered together in a huddle in the middle of the room, which did not immediately look like anything special, certainly not a place of magic. It was a cellar, carved from raw stone so it was basically a cavern, without adornment, though the walls and ceiling were whitewashed. A single electric bulb dangled from the ceiling, and she could see where the newfangled flex had been fixed with iron staples into ceiling and wall, before disappearing up through a hole in the top corner of the doorframe. The door was more akin to the massive oak portal at the front of the school than any of the more usual interior doors.

  It was a curiously pleasant temperature. Elinor had expected it to be cold, like all the other parts of the school that lacked the temperamental steam radiators that, installed some twenty or thirty years previously, could be cajoled into providing either too much heat or not quite enough. The senior common room and some of the school offices still had the far older fireplaces instead, which usually erred on the side of not enough heat, but provided something to look at. There was no visible sign of any fire or radiator here, but it was warmer than the steps or the ground floor of the tower.

  “There are only four of you?” asked Elinor. They had all removed their berets, and she saw their baptismal Charter marks shining. She removed her own bandanna. “I am Elinor Hallett, as I guess you probably know. I’ve tested Corinna’s mark, and she has mine, but I suppose we all need to do so?”

  “We do,” said Corinna, with a swift glance around at the others, who all nodded decisively. “But first you have to agree to our rules.”

  “That seems fair,” said Elinor. “Hello, Hazra.”

  She looked at the other two. “I’m afraid I don’t know . . .”

  “Oh,” said the very skinny, curly-black-haired, exceedingly tall Sixth Former. “I’m Angharad Tramonte.”

  “And I’m Kierce Waller. Corinna shouldn’t have invited you,” said the other Sixth Former, who had very distinctive red hair and was probably beautiful but at this moment only looked cross. Elinor recalled seeing her playing cricket, belting balls high over the oval to shouts of approval from her teammates. “But since she has . . .”

  “What are the rules?” asked Elinor.

  “There are only three,” said Corinna.

  “Go on,” said Elinor.

  “The first rule is you mustn’t talk to anyone about what we do here, especially the teachers,” said Kierce. “So Corinna has already broken that one, telling you, Miss Hallett.”

  “No I haven’t, it was never ‘anyone’—!”

  “I’m only a temporary teacher’s assistant, not actually a teacher,” interrupted Elinor, hoping to forestall an argument. “Please, call me Elinor. Here, at least.”

  “How old are you anyway?” asked Hazra.

  “I’m nineteen.”

  There was a chorus of gasps at this, and Angharad looked absolutely astounded.

  “Gosh! Nineteen! I’ll be nineteen in eight months. I thought you must be at least twenty-five. Where did you go to school?”

  “I was taught at home,” said Elinor, smiling at the thought of being presumed to be twenty-five “at least.” “And I won’t tell any teachers about this. I want . . . I need to learn Charter Magic, and if this was found out we would all be stopped. What are the other rules?”

  “If any one of us says to stop what we’re doing, because they’re worried about how safe it is, or it feels like a spell is going awry, then we must stop immediately. No argument. Just stop.”

  “That seems very sensible. And the third?”

  The girls looked at one another again. Hazra made a face.

  “The third one is a bit silly,” said Corinna doubtfully. “I mean we were only in Fourth Form when we started this. Hazra was a Second Former.”

  “And we only added it in because Kierce—” Hazra began.

  “That is beyond not true,” interrupted Kierce. “It was because Angharad—”

  “No, it was Hazra going on about that boy on the train—”

  “It was you positively . . . positively adulating Robert Whitakre,” said Hazra hotly to Angharad. “And showing us that photograph portrait your sister got signed!”

  “Robert Whitakre? The actor?” asked Elinor. “What does he have to do with anything?”

  All four girls started talking at once, until Corinna managed to talk louder than the others, leaning in close to Elinor.

  “Rule three is that we mustn’t talk about our latches.”

  Elinor frowned in deep puzzlement.

  “Your what?”

  “Latches. It’s school slang here. They say crushes at Enderby’s and Yarven.”

  “Infatuations,” added Corinna, not without embarrassment. “Requited or otherwise.”

  Elinor nodded, remembering Billie Cotton and the New Best Friend. She’d thought that one was rather unbelievable, but evidently real schoolgirls did have such obsessions . . .

  “That will be easy,” she said. Unbidden, an image of Terciel rose in her mind, but she resolutely banished it. “I don’t know any men.”

  “It doesn’t have to be a man,” said Kierce, with a sideways glance at Corinna.

  “Though there are more men around than you might think,” said Hazra seriously. “That new gardener is quite the dish—”

  “Rule three!” shouted the other girls.

  Everyone laughed, Elinor somewhat cautiously.

  “I don’t suppose anyone can hear us up above,” said Elinor into the sudden quiet when the laughter stopped.

  “Oh no,” replied Corinna. “We’ve tested it.”

  “I don’t think it’s magic either,” said Hazra. She seemed the most thoughtful of them all, even though she was the youngest. “Simply we’re quite a way down. Did you count the steps? Fourteen, and solid rock all around.”

  “But there is magic here,” said Corinna. “Like I said, all the former magistrix . . . or is it magistrixes? Anyway, they put spells in the stone to make practicing magic safer. Touch the wall, you’ll see.”

  “No, we have to confirm her mark is uncorrupted for ourselves first,” said Hazra.

  They quickly confirmed this was so. Elinor noticed that as they touched each other’s foreheads, other marks glowed briefly around them, in the air and on the walls, ceiling, and floor. Many marks, some so small they were like floating dust caught in sunshine, but others as big as candle flames. Often they were joined in patterns, from simple lines of marks to complicated whorls within whorls and other shapes that broke apart and faded before Elinor had a chance to take in their pattern or structure.

  The other girls’ marks were true, and Elinor felt the immensity of the Charter behind each mark. But it was not the intense immersion she’d felt when she’d touched Terciel’s mark. The Charter was there, and uncorrupted, but it was also distant, less all-encompassing. It was like wading in the shallow waters of an immense, wondrously refreshing lake, but being unable to go deeper, or even cup the water up to drink.

  Hazra must have noticed Elinor’s expression as they let their hands fall and stepped apart.

  “I know, it’s not as strong as when you’re closer to the Wall,” sh
e said. “Imagine what it must be like actually in the Old Kingdom!”

  “Yes,” said Elinor quietly.

  “We felt it when we had that north wind a month or so ago,” said Corinna. “Though of course that can bring other things, too.”

  “Yes,” whispered Elinor. She looked away, trying hard to banish the memories of that terrible day. A bright Charter mark drifted out of the wall nearby, one unknown to her, and she watched it as it disappeared again back into the stone, a welcome distraction.

  “Since you’re new, Elinor,” said Hazra brightly, “we had better find out what you know already.”

  “Dr. Bannow in Bain taught me a dozen marks. She called them ‘twig’ marks,” replied Elinor. “Because they are small and easy to grasp, but they connect to more marks and it helps to visualize how they are connected, as if they are all part of some enormous tree . . .”

  “Yes,” said Corinna. “That’s one way Charter Magic is taught. I was. Twig, branch, bough, bole—or trunk if you like, the so-called master marks—though of course we haven’t got up past the twig ones.”

  “And for marks that never stand alone but must be used with others, there are those classified as leaf, blossom, flower,” said Hazra. “It does make it easier to remember them.”

  “Sometimes,” said Kierce. “My mother doesn’t think much of the tree thing. She says the only sure way is to practice finding or calling the mark you need over and over again. The same with spells, putting marks together and repeating it over and over again. Like cricket. I must have hit a cricket ball a hundred thousand times since I was five.”

  “Kierce is the school’s champion bat,” said Hazra unnecessarily. “And the great hope when we go up against the boys.”

  “When they deign to allow us,” said Kierce, with a grimace. “They won’t let us play in the main competition. Afraid we’ll beat them, I think.”

  “Probably,” agreed Elinor, who had no idea. She’d only seen village cricket played before she came to Wyverley, and then only when she was much younger, when her father was still alive. Her mother wouldn’t have anything to do with the village. Or any of the neighbors, even the ones her father had been friendly with. Mrs. Watkins had blamed this on Amelia’s aunts as well, who were of the old nobility and didn’t consider anyone outside Corvere worthy of their notice, an attitude Elinor’s mother had fully shared. This was probably the root cause of her dissatisfaction in her marriage, that her husband’s ineptitude with money had forced them to retire from the capital to Coldhallow House.

  “So let’s go through the marks you know first,” said Hazra. “Do you draw them roughly to find them in the Charter, or speak their use-names?”

  “Um, I don’t even know what use-names are,” said Elinor. “I visualize the mark I need and reach for the Charter, and if it works I see it and I suppose I sort of feel it, but to get the one I want to come out I have to draw it with my finger or my hand or whatever, and I have to really concentrate so it doesn’t slip away or I get the wrong one. Or nothing.”

  “That’s fairly typical,” said Hazra. “Some people find the marks they need by speaking or subvocalizing the mark’s use-name. It isn’t actually their name, the marks don’t have names, but some of the ones that get used a lot have been given names that have stuck. The system of symbology used to write down lists of marks and spells is similar. The drawn symbol is not the same as the mark, it isn’t how it looks when it manifests. I mean otherwise there’d be the danger of calling the mark when you’re simply recording a spell or making a list. But knowing the use-name and even sometimes drawing it in place can make the actual mark easier to bring forth.”

  “I see,” said Elinor.

  “Hazra was taught much more comprehensively at home before she even came to Wyverley,” said Corinna. “Luckily for us, since old Tallowe just goes over and over the same forty or fifty marks and has never taught us anything about use-names or the written symbology.”

  “My grandparents came from the Old Kingdom, and they taught my mother,” said Hazra. “They went as far south as Corvere to begin with, but they couldn’t bear the absence of the Charter. So they came back. We’ve a place near Lylleford. That’s about ten miles east of here.”

  “Oh, I’d love to meet them,” said Elinor. Actual Charter Mages from the Old Kingdom! They would have so much knowledge. They would know so much Elinor wanted desperately to learn.

  Hazra shook her head. “Me, too. They both died before I was born. They were old when they came here.”

  Elinor nodded, not hiding her disappointment. She didn’t ask how they had managed to come to Ancelstierre, and stay here. According to Dr. Bannow it was even harder to get permission to come south than it was to go north. The Ancelstierran authorities were deeply suspicious of anyone from the Old Kingdom. Only people like the Abhorsens, on official business, were allowed to cross. Though of course there were also those the army was unable to stop . . .

  “Why don’t you take us through the marks you already know well?” asked Hazra. She stepped back a moment before Corinna and Kierce did the same, opening the circle. “And don’t forget, if anyone shouts stop, you stop.”

  “I will,” confirmed Elinor. She drew a breath, steadied herself, and focused her mind on the Charter, willing it to become apparent to her, a sea of shining marks with just the one she needed held on the topmost point of a great wave so she could swoop in and pluck it out like an osprey taking a fish . . .

  The mark came into her mind, and she drew it in the air, her finger leaving a trail of golden light.

  “A simple mark for illumination,” she said, her fingers swirling. She let the mark roll back down into her palm and, lifting her hand to her mouth, blew on it so it drifted across the room and stuck itself to the wall. Other marks rose from the stone, shimmering ghosts that sank away again as the protective magics laid by generations of past teachers recognized there was no threat, no miscast spell or mistakenly conjured Charter mark.

  “Very good!” exclaimed Hazra. “Now, on to the next!”

  Over the next month, Thursday nights became very important to Elinor. She reveled in learning Charter Magic, but it wasn’t just that, or those seemingly endless but in actuality very brief connections with the Charter that swept away all the terrible memories that lurked and festered in her head. It was having friends her own age, something she had never experienced before.

  But she had to be careful not to reveal her newfound friendships outside the magic room, while at the same time not alienating those new friends. Corinna seemed to find this balance without difficulty, but then she was the one Elinor spent most time with, rehearsing the part of the Fool, so they had already established an equilibrium. Angharad and Hazra were also quite adept at changing from being friendly cooperative peers in the magic lessons to suitably respectful students when she encountered them about the school. Kierce, on the other hand, often went out of her way to be too familiar and Elinor on several occasions had to reprimand her. It attracted attention she didn’t want, particularly when she noticed Mrs. Tallowe had seen Kierce waving when Elinor passed her in the corridor.

  But these were small flaws in what to Elinor seemed a much happier life than she could ever have expected. She still woke sometimes in the night, crying in fear, and she still wept when she was reminded of Mrs. Watkins by some small sign, like the careful mending of a costume in the play; or of Ham when she found herself channeling his wisdom and patience while teaching Corinna how to juggle.

  The play was hard work, but also tremendous fun. In addition to training Corinna, Elinor also helped stage several of the set-piece fights and the ancillary clowning, including the famous feast scene that incorporated both things, with the duel between the Fool and Roger Cardamom, the former armed with a long loaf of bread and various pieces of fruit snatched from the table, and the latter his dagger. And she helped in many other ways, too, assisting actors with their lines as a prompter since she knew the entire play by heart, and helping
sew costumes. Everything she had been taught by Ham and Mrs. Watkins was put to use.

  Elinor even tidied up the theater after everyone had left for the day, often skipping supper. It was a quiet time, with everyone else away, and for Elinor, one of the few times she was alone. But not on this evening. She was on her hands and knees picking up dropped sequins from the Prince’s cloak for later reattachment when she heard her name called from the stalls.

  “Miss Hallett!”

  Elinor stood up like a jack-in-the-box, recognizing the voice as Mrs. Tallowe’s. What could she possibly want?

  “Yes?” she asked doubtfully. Most of the lights in the Great Hall had already been turned off, save the end where she was working. A dim figure was bustling self-importantly down the central aisle between the lines of pews, waving something above her head.

  “How dare you use my message-hawks without permission!”

  Elinor straightened up to her full, not all that imposing, height.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she snapped back. She had thought about circumventing Tallowe by getting Hazra to send a message-hawk to one of the authorities in Belisaere, but she hadn’t done it.

  Mrs. Tallowe strode into the light, and thrust the paper she was holding at Elinor.

  “How do you explain this?” she spluttered, her words coming out so fast they got caught up in her mouth. “Complaining about me behind my back to the Regent! I’m going to . . . I’m going to . . .”

  “What will you do?” asked Elinor, genuinely curious. “And what exactly do you think I’ve done?”

  “As if you don’t know!” spluttered Mrs. Tallowe. She dropped the folded paper at Elinor’s feet and turned around to flounce back down the central aisle to the great arched doors.

  Puzzled, Elinor picked up the single sheet. It was school notepaper, nothing special. Written on it, in what was presumably Mrs. Tallowe’s reluctant hand, was a message. The writing got messier and angrier with every line, indicating Tallowe’s frustration as she wrote down the message-hawk’s words, which Elinor knew would have been delivered in the voice of the sender. In this case, the Regent of the Old Kingdom. It would be quite scary listening to someone like that, Elinor thought as she read, particularly a letter like this one.