Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  “He shouts at me.” She said it softly. “He does not want to teach me. He does not want me in his house.”

  “I’m sorry, dear,” Josselin said, just as softly.

  She wanted to tell Josselin that Natayl had struck her down with his magic. But she knew it would do no good. Even if Josselin confronted Natayl about it, even if the Circle confronted Natayl about it, he would tell them all that his apprentice was his business. And then he would hit Tabitha again, for telling.

  “What is it?” Josselin asked gently.

  Tabitha swallowed. There was something else she could say instead, something nearly as bad. “He told me, ‘You are my death.’”

  Josselin winced. “He said that?” she murmured in disbelief.

  “He hates me for what is not even my fault.” Saying this out loud felt like finally sitting down after standing still all day. “No matter what I do, he finds fault, and he will always find fault. I try to anticipate what he wants, but I am never right. If he hated me for something I could change, then I would. But there is nothing I can do. I am being punished for something that’s not my fault, and it’s not fair.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” Josselin said. “It’s not your fault, and it’s not fair.”

  Tabitha did not know what she had expected Josselin to say, but surely not such complete agreement. Was she mocking her?

  “I mean it,” Josselin said, obviously reading Tabitha’s face. “Natayl should never have said such a thing to you, and he should not resent you so.” She took a sip of her tea. “But because he did, and he does, then his opinion should no longer matter to you.”

  Tabitha found that she was fidgeting with the folds of her skirt, and she smoothed them flat against her legs. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You care what he thinks of you.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Well, don’t. You said it yourself. No matter what you do, no matter what sort of apprentice you try to be, he will resent you. So, stop trying.”

  “But he gets so angry at me.”

  “You still have to obey him,” Josselin said. “What you can stop doing is caring so much. Do what he tells you to do, but don’t bother trying to anticipate him or please him.”

  “But if I don’t …”

  Josselin paused, then said, “I know it doesn’t seem like helpful advice right now. You still need to live with him. You still want to keep him from shouting and sneering at you. I know.”

  Tabitha looked down and smoothed her skirt again. “Yes.”

  “But don’t let him affect how you think about yourself. Truly, it isn’t about you, dear. He would be this way to Graegor, to Koren, to anyone. Am I right?”

  How can it not be about me when I must suffer for it? “I think it’s worse since I am a girl.”

  Josselin shook her head. “He’d be awful to a boy, too. Just in a different way. So, you see? It’s not you. It’s him. Natayl has always been a jackass. He will always be a jackass. You undoubtedly know other jackasses. Do you care what they think?”

  Ferogin. Othot. “No.”

  “Because they’re jackasses and they’re wrong. I’m sure you’ve heard Natayl say stupid things with which you’d never agree. His opinion of you should be one of those things.”

  “But I have to endure his opinion.”

  “You can, though,” Josselin said frankly. “I’ve seen you do it. You keep your mouth shut, your hands still, and your eyes forward. You endure.”

  I do. I do endure.

  She suddenly remembered how Natayl had warned her about her magi friends, and about Isabelle. “I have heard him say stupid things,” she murmured. “Wrong things.”

  “As have I.”

  “So he is wrong about me.”

  “Yes.” Josselin smiled.

  Tabitha sighed heavily, but she did feel a little bit better. She did not want to endure Natayl’s venom, but she could. She absolutely could. She was a sorceress. She was a Betaul sorceress. “Would you believe that he said you were right, once?”

  Josselin blinked. “He did? About what?”

  “He agrees with you that closing down the fox-dens and bricking up the secret doors was a bad idea, and that new ones will take their place without us knowing where they are.”

  “He—” Josselin stopped. She held her thin lips shut for a moment before saying, “I wish he had made that a condition of his lockdown. He did not need to let Hamid and Oran have their way.” But then she sighed. “I suppose some good will come of it. Re-inventorying the thaumat’argent was long overdue.” She sipped her tea. “But he’s still a jackass.”

  Tabitha nodded and sipped her own tea. “Do you know if any of the others going through this?”

  “The others?”

  “Sorcerers and apprentices, not getting along. I know Malaya and Daxod don’t.”

  Josselin rolled her eyes. “Since he’s a boy, he’s beneath her notice. So many things are beneath that woman’s notice, I’m shocked she doesn’t trip and fall every time she walks.”

  “Is she still refusing to train him?”

  “In a word, yes. But she’s more clever about it. She’s dumped all the office work on him, saying it’s more important that he learn that, since more people depend on the Ministry of Print and Post than depend on his ability to cast spells.”

  So Daxod was actually in charge of the packet ships. Tabitha did not think it mattered, but it was worth telling Clementa and Isabelle. “Is it like that every time, when the sorcerer and the apprentice are not the same gender? Natayl and I, and Daxod and Malaya?”

  “No. Neither harmony nor discord is inevitably achieved between, or within, genders.”

  “So Daxod and I just have bad luck?”

  “Something like that.” Josselin leaned her forearms on the table and surrounded her teacup with her hands. She spoke quietly. “People have a wide range of reactions to the approach of death. Blaming someone else is a common one, even among sorcerers.”

  “How long will it be before … ?” Tabitha’s words trailed away. She had never dared to ask Natayl this.

  Josselin tilted her head one way, then the other as she thought about it. “At least two more years,” she finally said in a clinical tone. “But probably not three.”

  That was not as long as Tabitha had expected. It would be a relief to have Natayl out of her life, but the idea of it still sent icy needles down her spine.

  “It’s a short apprenticeship,” Josselin went on, “but my belief is that no one can sufficiently prepare someone else for this life.” She tapped the cup thoughtfully. “I could train Koren for fifty years, but she would not be the sorceress until I was gone.”

  “Graegor told me that some of you wanted to start our training earlier.”

  “Hamid did. But we shouldn’t, can’t, be trained in our magic before we manifest it.”

  That made sense. Natayl had not even known that she was his successor until she had used her power to kill Nicolas, so he certainly could not have found her and trained her before that. Thank God.

  “How are you doing with your magic, dear? You mentioned last time that you have several magi tutors.”

  Tabitha welcomed the lighter subject, and she told Josselin about her lessons. She could intentionally heal wounds to herself now, after some practice with small cuts, punctures, and scrapes, and she was able to discuss anatomy quite capably. When it came to wards, Josselin told her that it was just as common to set them on thresholds as on lintels. The sorceress described such wards in the Hall and in the basilica, which eventually led to Tabitha telling her about the chapel at Betaul Keep and how she had sung with the choir there every Godsday. She sang a brief hymn, and Josselin marveled at her perfect pitch and sweet timbre. “It’s a shame you don’t sing at your chapel now,” Josselin said. “But I imagine it’s much different than being at home.”

  “It is.” Natayl attended services with her, and she never felt like singing when he was around. “I si
ng at gatherings at the Academy dormitory, though, if the girls ask me.”

  “Koren mentioned that,” Josselin nodded.

  Tabitha had seen Koren at the dormitory a few times, cultivating the loyalty of her Khenroxan magi. It was unlikely that any of them had actually pledged to her, though. “I do look forward to singing at my foster sister’s wedding,” she said. “The acoustics at the cloister’s chapel there are said to be wonderful.”

  “Yes, I have heard about your upcoming voyage,” Josselin said as she poured cream into her tea. “When do you embark?”

  “Very soon. This coming Mansday.” That was assuming her father’s ship arrived before then. It was late.

  “And how long do you plan to be away?”

  “Natayl wants me back in only one month.” Tabitha made a face. “I had hoped to spend more time with my family.”

  “But I imagine you’ll miss Graegor. He’ll certainly miss you.”

  “Oh, yes, of course, but he understands. After all, he would never miss his own sister’s wedding.” She had not told Graegor about the meeting with the shovel-men. If it went well, she planned to surprise him with her success, and if it did not go well, there was no need to mention it at all.

  “Is your foster sister excited to be getting married?”

  “Oh, yes, very excited.” Pamela rarely wrote to Tabitha herself because her spelling was so bad, but Beatris’s letters were full of all the plans Pamela was making.

  “Will it be a big wedding?”

  “No, just the families, and our household is coming too, of course. Pamela lived with us for years, and all the servants just love her.”

  Josselin tilted her head. “‘Coming too’? The wedding isn’t in Betaul?”

  “It will be in Cuan Searla. A dear friend of ours is in the cloister there.”

  “Lady Marjorie?”

  Tabitha stared at her, then realized her mouth was hanging open. “How do you know about Marjorie?”

  “Well, dear, we do like to keep ourselves informed. When a duke imprisons one of his foster daughters for murder, yes, the Circle hears about it.”

  None of her friends had ever said anything about it. Tabitha hoped that meant that although the Circle knew about it, the magi did not. Of course, it could also mean that her friends were too polite to bring up a subject like murder. “She is innocent,” she stated flatly. “Part of the reason I am going to Cuan Searla is to formally exonerate her. I will talk to her, and then give my father my word as a sorceress that she is not lying about her guilt.”

  “You have learned the trick, then? Of knowing when someone is lying?”

  Tabitha hesitated, then had to admit, “No.” She was careful to keep her mind especially quiet and closed as she declared, “But I know Marjorie did not do it. She could never hurt anyone.”

  “But you must have told your father that at the time,” Josselin pointed out. “Will you lie to him now about knowing the trick?”

  Tabitha hesitated again. “Not if you teach it to me.”

  That made Josselin laugh out loud. “Ah, well said. I will.”

  Tabitha nodded eagerly. She had planned to simply make some magical gestures next to Marjorie, and then after an appropriately long silence, solemnly pronounce that her friend was telling the truth about not killing Alain. It would not be lying, as long as she avoided specifically saying how she knew it. But if Josselin was willing to teach her how to really do it, that was even better.

  “We can’t touch ordinary minds the same way we can touch magi minds,” Josselin said.

  What? “We … can’t do it?”

  “No. Magi can’t lie to sorcerers, because sorcerers can delve them for the truth. But sometimes, an ordinary person can successfully lie to us, if he or she can control physical signs of anxiety.”

  “Physical?”

  “Well, dear, even someone without any magic at all can sometimes tell if someone else is lying, if that person is breathing hard or tapping his foot.”

  So Natayl had not been pushing her question aside. His irritated answer of There is no trick had simply been incomplete. As usual. “Does everyone except me know this?” Again?

  “Anyone with a good understanding of how telepathy works.”

  But Tabitha had not put it together. She had been too stupid to realize that such an idea as “no one can lie to a sorcerer” had telepathy at its heart. She had asked Natayl about it only the one time, and she had never asked Magus Uchsin, or even Graegor, about it at all.

  “However, you may have heard of the exception to this rule,” Josselin was saying. “Some ordinaries can be delved. These individuals seem to be sensitive to magic, without being magi. While magi can’t touch these individuals’ minds, some sorcerers can.”

  “Is this,” Tabitha began, but paused to assemble her words before resuming. “Is this why I can’t sense magic from ordinary people? Ordinary Thendals? From what I have read, I should be able to … to pull power from them.”

  “No. All sorcerers can tap energy from all people of their own race.” Josselin held up a finger. “Whether or not we should is a different question.”

  That probably meant Josselin would not teach her how. “I see.”

  “What I was talking about is specifically telepathy. If your friend is one of these magic-sensitive individuals I mentioned, and if your own talents include telepathy with such people, then it is possible that you will be able to sense enough from her to know for certain if she’s telling the truth.” Josselin lifted an eyebrow at Tabitha. “If not, you will need to decide what to tell your father.”

  I will tell him the truth. Marjorie is innocent. “Even if I can’t assure him, as a sorceress, that Marjorie is innocent, I can ask him, as a sorceress, to commute her sentence.”

  Josselin nodded. “You do have that influence.”

  Influence. That word made Tabitha wary. She intended to use her influence on the shovel-men, so was Josselin hinting that she knew about the meeting? First Ferogin, now Josselin? “But I really should not use it,” she said carefully, as if reconsidering. “Perhaps it would be better if I don’t ask him as Thendalia’s sorceress, but just as his daughter.” Which she had already done. The reason her father had not executed Marjorie was because Tabitha had begged him not to.

  “Fathers will go to great lengths for their daughters,” Josselin agreed. But something in the simple statement made Tabitha even more wary, so she only nodded and reached for her teacup.

  “I imagine your friend will be happy to leave the cloister,” Josselin said.

  She is leading up to something. “In truth, she is staying,” Tabitha said. “She has decided to become a holy sister.”

  “Ah,” Josselin nodded. “That isn’t surprising, considering what happened to her.”

  Tabitha managed not to react to the fact that not only did Josselin know who Marjorie was and why she was imprisoned, but she apparently knew what Marjorie’s father had done to her as well. “No, not surprising.”

  “Will she stay in Cuan Searla, or will she join a cloister in Thendalia?”

  Tabitha still could not tell where Josselin was going with this. Surely she did not have any serious interest in Marjorie’s fate. “She wants to stay. She feels safer there.”

  “Safer?”

  “No one lands there unless my father allows it. The islands are protected by our ships.”

  Josselin silently studied Tabitha for what seemed to be a very long time. Tabitha could sense absolutely nothing from the elder sorceress, and she briefly envied this demonstration of telepathic mastery, but soon anxiety set in. She spoke before she could start to fidget. “Is something wrong?”

  Josselin slowly tilted her head one way, then the other, clearly trying to decide something. Finally, she asked, “Have you ever had something you prized taken away from you?”

  The Telgard prince. “Yes,” Tabitha answered cautiously.

  “How did it make you feel?”

  Like throwing a puppy again
st a wall. “It was … upsetting.”

  Josselin nodded, paused a while longer, and then said, “I felt the same way when your great-grandfather conquered Cuan Searla fifty years ago.”

  Tabitha compressed her reaction into a single blink. This was not about Marjorie, or even about the shovel-men. This was about Cuan Searla. This was about the same thing that had taken the Telgard prince away from her. It was a sudden, strong reminder that she could not trust the Khenroxan sorceress. Even if Josselin usually told her the truth, it did not make this woman her friend.

  “The consequences for my country are not trivial,” Josselin went on softly. “Khenroxa is the only one of the nine lands without a shoreline on the Central Sea. Cuan Searla was our doorway to nearly all foreign markets. Now, we are severely constrained. The customs fees for Khenroxan ships at Cuan Searla and at Betaul are high. But that’s where the foreign merchants go, because those are the largest and most convenient resupplying ports from south of the strait. Khenroxan merchants north of the strait must either pay the fees, or forego the big ports altogether. The Telgards take advantage of this by taxing overland routes, and the road through the Medean badlands is not safe. As a result, everything is more expensive in Khenroxa. As a result of that, more of my people go hungry.”

  Tabitha said nothing. None of this had anything to do with her.

  “The sea level is falling as the ice cap grows. Over my lifetime, the tidal marks at the Cape have gone down by almost my own height. This exposes more reefs in the strait, making it ever more difficult to navigate. A good captain with a stout ship can bypass the Searla Isles, but it makes for a long voyage without resupplying. And it’s risky. To find the way through the entire breadth of the waters between the west and the north, it’s best to be guided by an official pilot with official charts. These pilots are now Thendals, who have spent the last two generations learning the best courses through the reefs. But there are still Khenroxan smugglers in the islands who know these courses too, learned from their fathers and grandfathers. Your family has done much to try to repress them, and while hunting them, your ships sometimes seize cargos from honest merchants.”

  There was another pause, another silence that Tabitha made no attempt to break. Josselin kept her quiet, even tone. “My people are prepared to concede much for the restoration of this port to our control. Is there any room for negotiation?”