Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  “And we won’t,” Rond added, “no matter how many of us you kill.”

  Kill? “I know that some of your leaders were captured and imprisoned.” At Contare’s assurance, he added, “No one was killed.”

  “What about Meinrad?” Rond’s businesslike tone was fading fast.

  “Meinrad is alive,” Contare sent, before Graegor could ask who Meinrad was. “He’s imprisoned in Chrenste.”

  But when Graegor repeated this, Rond’s hand curled into a fist. “Tell that to his widow.”

  “You should. I bet she’ll be very happy to hear it.”

  “Don’t mock—”

  “I’m not mocking anyone.” Graegor tried for a flat, almost threatening tone, and it seemed he did a good job of it, by the alarm on Ahren’s face and the sudden caution on Rond’s. “Meinrad is alive, and he won’t be harmed. But more of you will be arrested if you keep causing trouble.”

  Ahren swallowed and blinked, blinked and swallowed. He held up a cautioning hand to Rond and said, very respectfully, “My lord, may we have those drawings back?”

  At Contare’s prompt, Graegor shook his head. “We need them.”

  “Why, my lord?”

  “We agree that Brandeis’s dreams are prophecies. No one knows more about prophecies than the Circle. We need to connect these with other prophecies and see where they fit.”

  “So after you copy them, you’ll return them?” Rond asked.

  “Brandeis himself drew these. Copies may not be faithful enough.”

  Ahren and Rond exchanged a look, and Graegor said, “You can go now.”

  “Go where?” Rond demanded.

  “Back to Brandeis. Tell him what happened here, and tell him to contact us directly when he’s ready to accept our help. He knows how.” When Contare had met Brandeis in Orest, he’d given him a pass-phrase to use in any message he wanted to send. The sorcerer hadn’t wanted such a message to be dismissed as unimportant by the office clerks. “We understand that he’s worried about the people in the pictures. We will warn and protect them.”

  Rond shook his head. “We’re not leaving without the pictures.”

  Graegor met his stare. “We’re keeping them.”

  For a long moment no one moved, except for Ahren’s continuous blinking. At last, Ahren closed his eyes altogether and heaved a great sigh, the sigh of a man surrounded by people who were refusing to let him help them. He looked over at Rond. “There’s nothing we can do,” he said simply. He stood up.

  Graegor did too, closing his hand firmly over the leather folder. He hoped very much that he wouldn’t have to make any demonstration of his power. Rond didn’t seem stupid enough to press the issue, but he sure looked angry enough. He still sat on the lip of the fountain, his face tight. Ahren opened his mouth to say something, but then didn’t, and just stood there blinking.

  At last, Rond visibly took control of himself, unclenching his hands and relaxing the tension from his face. When he stood, his businesslike manner had returned. “Thank you for your time, my lord.”

  Graegor nodded, and Rond and Ahren left the plaza. Ahren looked back a couple of times, but Rond never slowed. At Contare’s direction, a Telgard magus slipped through the foot traffic to follow them.

  Graegor opened the leather folder and glanced through the loose sheets of paper again. He wondered if this had been the “opportunity” Oran had mentioned, the way he could avoid a future of fire and rage. Now that he had seen these pictures, now that he had possession of them, would everything be all right?

  Or maybe the pictures had nothing to do with Oran’s dream.

  The pictures. Darc. Jeffrei, Patrick, Daxod. The Khenroxan girl that maybe Josselin recognized, and maybe Koren did too. Two pictures of Koren herself, two of Ferogin, and two of him. All were important to the One, the heretics believed. But why?

  “Let’s go back home and look at them with the others,” Contare sent.

  “Yes, sir.” Graegor turned back toward the food stalls, but paused as a white cat jumped lightly down from the fountain’s second tier, to the lip where he’d been sitting. Graegor patted the cat’s head. “Do you think I should try to have another vision?”

  “It will be interesting to see what you can learn from your new little friends. But maybe another day.”

  The cat seemed to agree; he allowed Graegor to scratch under his chin, but then stepped silently around the fountain and disappeared.

  There was a stagehand crouched just behind a purple canvas drape that was supposed to represent a mountain. Graegor could see him from the high balcony box, even though he was dressed all in black and wasn’t moving. Was he holding up the sun?—No, it looked like that particular pole was fixed in place. Unable to untangle the personal relationships being portrayed by the actors, Graegor extended his sight toward the stagehand to try to figure out what he was doing there.

  He had gotten a lot of practice at extending his sight over the last few days, even though he wasn’t always able to break away from the line-of-sight rule that, as far as Contare knew, restricted every other person who had the talent. It was mildly interesting to watch birds fussing in nests, dogs tracking down scents, and cats prowling through yards—mostly calicos, oddly enough. He’d even watched little green bees gathering nectar, something impossible before spring where he’d grown up. But watching animals do what they did was not all that useful.

  And watching this stagehand was doubly useless because he wasn’t doing anything. He was Adelard and probably as old as Graegor’s father, and he was staring intently at something on stage, but Graegor couldn’t decide what. Was he waiting for a cue? Was something resembling action going to happen at some point before the play ended?

  Graegor drew back his sight, and when his hearing returned, he glanced at Tabitha, sitting beside him. She was completely captivated, her hands clenched into a fold of her ice-blue skirt. But just because Tabitha found the play fascinating didn’t mean he did.

  Tonight she seemed to find everything fascinating, except him.

  It was confusing. At Solstice, the night before the duel, the way she’d told him to win for her—that had led him to believe she’d want to know all about the fight when they spoke to each other again. He’d called to her from the fishing boat on his way back, but she’d been so concerned about how exhausted he’d seemed that she’d insisted that they wait until the next day to talk. So he’d called to her on Godsday afternoon, wanting her to hear not only about the duel, but also about his two latest visions and his meetings with Lord Oran and the heretics. Tabitha had listened to him, but her responses, when she’d made them, reminded him of the condescending attention one paid to a talkative child. He’d confessed to her that he’d almost killed Ferogin, but that he’d stopped himself because she would have wanted him to—but she hadn’t seemed to realize how significant that was. He’d described Lord Oran’s dream, and his prophecy that Graegor would “burn the world”—but she hadn’t seemed to realize how frightening that was. He’d asked if something was bothering her, but she’d denied it, so he’d kept going, mainly because he never wanted to be accused of keeping any secrets from her. When he’d told her about the heretics, she’d immediately latched onto the fact that her face had not been included among Brandeis’s new drawings. She’d spent most of the rest of the conversation coming up with possible reasons why, and the only emotions he’d sensed from her were irritation and injured pride instead of warmth and interest.

  It was really confusing. At Solstice, the night before the duel, the way she’d kissed him goodbye—that had led him to believe she’d be just as affectionate when they saw each other again. But when they’d been alone in the carriage on the way to the theater tonight, she’d only let him kiss her on the cheek, once. Almost worse was the fact that she hadn’t wanted to open their telepathic link, claiming that she’d been working hard at telepathy most of the day and was tired of it. Instead, she’d wanted to talk about a scandal involving the lead actors in the pla
y they were about to see, and she’d been annoyed when he hadn’t shared her enthusiasm. He didn’t think he was being selfish by wanting to talk about his own life instead of a stranger’s, but Tabitha somehow made him feel like he was.

  He sighed silently and adjusted the cord of the thaumat’argent medallion he always wore under his shirt. It felt cold against his chest. It had belonged to King Breon, and it was centuries old. But nothing Torchanes impressed Tabitha either, since she was a Betaul, a family just as old and venerated. In fact, she actively disliked this particular ancestor of Graegor’s, since Breon had conquered part of western Thendalia and held it for decades before her family had driven his descendants out.

  Maybe it bothered her that he still wore it.

  Or maybe her distraction wasn’t about him at all. Maybe he was thinking too much of himself. Maybe he’d grown too accustomed to being the center of attention recently. Contare had told him to go ahead and attend the class he was to audit, because his public presence on the Academy campus would keep the Telgard magi from fighting with the Adelards. So on the first day of the Academy’s new term, he had gone to the medical annex, and the magus teaching the anatomy class had greeted him in front of the other students with what sounded like a ritual phrase: “Good morning, Lord Sorcerer. Are you here to learn?” Of course he’d said yes, and the class itself had stayed on topic. But afterward, in the corridors and courtyards, he’d been swarmed by students, male and female, who wanted to know all about the duel. He’d told them very little, besides repeatedly emphasizing the fact that he and Ferogin had agreed to call it a draw, but that hadn’t stopped them from asking a thousand other things. His friends had found the more intrusive questions hilarious, and they’d taken turns hovering nearby to listen. He didn’t think Marcus and Patrick would ever let him forget the magus who had asked him if it was true that all his food energy was converted to magic and therefore he never needed to crap.

  He’d tried to tell Tabitha a suitably sanitized version of the incident during the carriage ride here. But she’d pretended not to understand, and when he’d made the mistake of trying to explain, she hadn’t understood why anyone would find it funny. He knew that girls didn’t find those sorts of things nearly as funny as boys did, but she hadn’t even scrunched up her face in disgust and swatted him on the arm the way Jolie would have. She hadn’t seemed interested in hearing about the anatomy class, or even about how just today he’d had to warn some of the first-year Telgard students—again—to stop letting themselves be provoked by the Adelards. She hadn’t even seemed to care when he’d mentioned the groups of Telgard and Khenroxan girls who kept crowding close to talk to him.

  The Thendal girls didn’t, but apparently they were under orders.

  Applause startled him. He blinked and realized that the stage was cleared of people, including the stagehand he’d been watching, and a moment later the minor actors came out of the wings to take bows. Some of the audience in the floor seats stood up as they clapped, and more when the lead actors appeared, but of course Tabitha did not, so Graegor didn’t either. Apparently, it was uncouth to give a standing ovation from the box seats—at least, it was in Thendalia. Graegor had sat in the box seats at a theater in Chrenste with the royal family during his time there, and everyone had stood to applaud at the end. But telling Tabitha that had not made any impression on her.

  They did not get up to leave yet. Tabitha always preferred to stay until everyone else had left the theater before she made her descent, so Graegor waited while she held his arm and spoke at length to each of the people in their box as they departed. They were all adults, and they talked like adults, all polite nothingness that he’d given up trying to copy. He just didn’t have the hang of it, but Tabitha was quite adept. She’d done the same thing at intermission, keeping him beside her but never actually talking to him. Graegor endured it, and when the box eventually emptied, she finally turned her lovely face in his direction. Her upswept hair sparkled with crystal pins. “That was wonderful,” she declared.

  “Yes,” he agreed, and she talked about the play as they continued to wait for everyone in the other boxes and in the floor seats to file through the exits. He was afraid she would ask him questions that would reveal how little he had absorbed of the performance, but she only seemed to need him to nod at her comments and agree with her opinions. As he did that, he noticed that she was fidgeting with the pearl bracelet he’d given her for Solstice. She was wearing it even though it didn’t match her outfit, and he wished he knew if the fidgeting meant she liked touching it or she wanted to take it off.

  Finally, it was time, and she rested her hand lightly on his arm, just as lightly as her feet ever rested on the ground. She was so beautiful she barely touched the earth. Once, he had said things like that to her when he’d thought of them. But she’d never seemed impressed by such poetry, and now he brushed the thoughts aside as embarrassingly silly. He also tried not to stare at her so openly anymore, but it wasn’t easy. Tonight she was wearing a wrap and matching gloves of silver satin brocade over her blue dress, and the glow of the oil lamps lining the theater’s mezzanine made her glitter as they passed.

  As they descended the carpeted stairs to the lobby, Graegor tapped his link with Stan to bring the carriage. Outside, the night was cool but clear, and only the theater attendants remained on the wide porch when Graegor and Tabitha emerged from the double doors. The other two theaters across the street had also already emptied, and at this late hour, the normally bustling street was bare of carriages, horses, and pedestrians. Tabitha stood silently beside him, perfectly poised and calm, and apparently content not to speak to him. The silver cords that bound his mind to hers, his heart to hers, seemed dull grey.

  Had her kiss at Solstice meant anything at all?

  The wrench of anxiety through his chest was interrupted by the clop of the carriage horses’ hooves coming from his left, and at the same time by a pair of footsteps thudding on the theater’s porch steps to his right. Both he and Tabitha turned toward the footsteps to see a bearded man in a dark coat and knit cap approaching them. It only took Graegor a moment to recognize Rond.

  The burly theater attendant in his red uniform stepped into the heretic’s way to politely challenge him. Then, at Rond’s quiet words, the attendant turned to Graegor with a question in his eyes. “It’s all right,” Graegor assured him. “We know each other.”

  The silver cords brightened with interest for the first time that evening. When he opened their link, she sent, “Who is it?”

  “One of the heretics.” He watched Rond walk up to them.

  “What does he want?”

  “I’ll ask.” He returned Rond’s bow with a brief nod and said, “Rond. I see you’re still here.” He’d known, of course, that the two heretics had not yet left the city; Contare’s magi were keeping an eye on them.

  Rond didn’t answer, instead casting an uncertain glance at Tabitha. Though Graegor suspected Rond already knew who she had to be, he introduced her. “May I present Lady Tabitha de Betaul, Sorceress of Thendalia. My lady, this is Rond, from Lakeland in Telgardia.”

  Rond made another, deeper bow. “My lady,” he said in Telgardian, which again made Graegor realize he had used Mazespaak without thinking. “I am honored.”

  Tabitha only nodded, not asking for a translation, probably because Rond’s gesture made his meaning plain. Graegor waited for the man to rise again before asking, in Telgardian, “How may I help you?”

  Rond spoke in his customary manner, direct and businesslike. “My lord, may we speak about the drawings you took from us?”

  “I told you why we’re keeping them.”

  “With respect, my lord, it’s Lord Contare who’s keeping them. We want to speak to you, alone.” He hesitated a beat, then added, “We rented a fox-den not far from here.”

  A fox-den. This was interesting. It was quite expensive to rent a room that completely blocked telepathy, and it was odd that Ahren and Rond would have tha
t much money to spare. It was also odd that they had tracked down a fox-den in the few days they’d been here; the rooms officially didn’t exist. “My answer won’t change just because I won’t be able to reach Lord Contare from there,” he said, already tapping his link to his master.

  “I would still like to discuss it, my lord. I hope we can trade information.”

  Contare answered Graegor’s call and assessed the situation in a moment. “We can’t blame them for trying to level the playing field any way they can,” he sent. “They want to isolate you and benefit from your inexperience.”

  Graegor was about to answer him, but suddenly Tabitha spoke to Rond—in Telgardian. “Do you follow the heretic who draws the pictures?”

  As Graegor stared at her in shock, Rond nodded respectfully to her. “Yes, my lady, I’m a follower of Lord Brandeis, but he is no heretic.”

  “You never told me you spoke Telgardian,” Graegor sent to Tabitha.

  She ignored him. “Many sorcerers are in the pictures,” she said to Rond. She had a pretty Thendal accent, a soft chime with a rising inflection at the end of her phrases. “But I am not. What does that mean?”

  Rond bowed his head again. “My lady, I honestly don’t know. We do what Lord Brandeis asks us to do.”

  “We?”

  “I have an associate who will be joining us.”

  Graegor pushed aside his sense of betrayal and sent to Contare, “What should I do?”

  “Find out what they have to say.”

  “I won’t be able to talk to you.”

  “Well, then, try not to make any promises.”

  “All right,” Graegor said aloud, then turned to look at Tabitha. Her expression was cool, as if she hadn’t just revealed something very important about herself that she should have revealed a long time ago. “My driver will take you home, my lady,” he said in Mazespaak, his tone formal, as he gestured toward the horses and carriage which had just now stopped in the street in front of the theater.