Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  “Ask her,” Jeff sent.

  Koren glanced at Graegor. She didn’t want to be the interrogator either, but when he nodded at her, she looked back at Brigita and asked, “Can you tell us about Metyas? Not about now, but how … how’d you meet in the first place?”

  Brigita nodded, resigned. “In Jen Idre. We had been there overnight …” She paused. “My father sent us away with two of his men-at-arms. The shovel-men killed him, but we got away. It took a long time to get to Jen Idre. One of the men abandoned us. The other … he was killed by bandits only two days from the city. My mother and I went the rest of the way alone. We still had one horse but we were out of money. Not that we ever had much. Then … then the academy in Jen Idre wouldn’t take me without tuition, and so …” She closed her eyes. “They let us stay overnight. My mother hanged herself from the rafter.”

  “I’m sorry,” Graegor whispered. He could not bring himself to imagine his own mother doing that.

  Brigita opened her eyes. They were filled with tears, and she quickly averted her gaze. “The headmistress was … annoyed,” she went on. “She pretended to be shocked and sad, but she was mostly just annoyed. She took our horse for payment of the burial. She gave me a few coins back and a list of magi in the city who might take me as an apprentice. Then she walked me out to the street.”

  “What a bitch,” Selena sent.

  Everyone strongly agreed with this assessment. Even Logan, who still wasn’t sure about trusting Brigita, was angry on her behalf. “This headmistress deserves a visit from the tax collector,” he sent.

  Errie seemed confused. “The tax collector?”

  “Hit her where it hurts.”

  “There were a dozen names on the list,” Brigita went on. “I had to go from chapel to chapel and ask the priests if any of these magi were in their neighborhoods. I found two of them, but they weren’t taking apprentices. It was almost dark when I found Magus Heniec’s house. He was kind.” She wiped tears from her eyes with a quick, irritated gesture. “He said it was shameful that any maga should be knocking on doors like a beggar. He said the college was too prestigious for its own good and they were too proud of themselves. He brought me inside and sat me down at his table with his family, and he said I was his new apprentice. Metyas was there too. They were friends. I didn’t know then that they were both … rogues.”

  Graegor had done his share of knocking on doors in Farre, looking for work. But it had been so different for him. He’d left home willingly, and he’d been raised as an artisan with useful skills. Perhaps most importantly, he was male and carried a quarterstaff, so knocking on those doors just wasn’t very dangerous for him. Brigita hadn’t had any of those advantages. If she hadn’t been magi …

  His mind shied away from imagining what might have happened to her. Some of the prostitutes in Farre had been so young.

  “Magus Heniec’s wife said I could earn my keep by helping her take care of the children, and her mother too, who was an invalid.” Brigita took a steadying breath. “So I did. Magus Heniec was a healer, so he was gone during the day on rounds, but in the evenings he would teach me.” Unexpectedly, a small smile quirked her mouth, and for that moment she looked pretty instead of sad. “The children liked to watch,” she said. “They were always encouraging me.”

  “You’d no training before?” Koren asked.

  “No. My father never had money for that. He did give me two books to try to learn from.”

  Koren frowned a little. “Someone rich might’ve sponsored you.”

  “My father did not like the terms. He said if I was going to be beholden to a rich family, it would be better to marry into it after I was trained.”

  Graegor supposed that marriage did grant privileges and protections that a mere sponsorship didn’t. But it still seemed like Brigita’s father could have tried a little harder.

  “He wanted to send you to Jen Idre?” Koren asked.

  “Yes.” Brigita dabbed at her eyes again. “Obviously we … we did not know I had to be a healer, for no tuition. Anyway, we were going to wait until I turned fifteen, but then the shovel-men came.”

  Were Pascin and Ferogin doing anything about the heretics in Adelard? Sorcerers were not supposed to interfere with the affairs of their kingdom, but it wasn’t “interference” to stop violent men from burning innocent people out of their homes. He didn’t think it was.

  “Where was home?” he asked.

  Brigita’s eyes darted to him, then away, back down to her hands in her lap. “In the northeast,” she said. “Near Lodu Lake.”

  Not even Jeffrei had heard of Lodu Lake, and he prided himself on his knowledge of geography. “It’s not big,” Brigita added, “and it’s frozen half the year. Metyas told me he’d traveled there one winter, probably before I was born.”

  Graegor nodded. “How long did you stay with Magus Heniec?”

  “Through spring and summer.” She frowned, bit her lip, and then said, “There’s something else. I can hear. Distance hearing.”

  It was a rare talent in magi, and not one that Graegor himself had. Its usefulness to any secret society was obvious—as was its usefulness to Pascin and Ferogin. “No wonder she was sent here instead of being corroded,” Selena sent.

  “When Magus Heniec learned I had that, he brought me to my first meeting.” Brigita glanced quickly at Graegor again, as if to judge his reaction. “That’s when I learned about rogue magi. Metyas was there, and four men I did not know, and a maga, one I had met before.” Her words started to come out faster. “I didn’t have bonds with any of them but Magus Heniec and Metyas. The meetings were always telepathic, so I never knew what they talked about if they didn’t tell me. Magus Heniec said he would give me a task, to prove to the others that I could be trusted, and …” Another angry swipe across her eyes. “Lord Pascin knows all this. I had to prove to him that I can be trusted. But apparently I can’t, because I didn’t tell him about Metyas.”

  God, what a mess. Was there any way he could help her?

  After a while, Koren broke the silence. “Was Magus Heniec captured when you were?”

  Brigita hunched forward, as if her stomach hurt. Graegor could barely hear her answer. “Yes. Lord Pascin learned about our cluster at the Equinox.”

  “Your group?”

  She nodded. “And about others. His magi came to Jen Idre. I was not at the house when they came there. They took Magus Heniec away. His wife told them my name and what I looked like, and they found me at the market.”

  “She betrayed you?” Marcus was offended, of course.

  “They threatened her children,” Brigita said, hugging her arms against her chest. “A mother would do anything ...” She winced as if she’d been stabbed. “My mother … she … we needed food, and they wanted … she said it was all right, they could hurt her and she could bear it, as long as I was safe.”

  Breon’s blood. Brigita’s journey to Jen Idre had been a journey through hell.

  “So I don’t blame Mistress Heniec at all.” She was crying. “They threatened her children.”

  Circle-pledged magi, threatening children. Children. The outrage in the group link was like a physical thing, pulling them closer together as they huddled on the pond’s grassy bank. Surely Lord Pascin did not condone this. Surely his magi had exceeded his orders. But Graegor could not help remembering the executions. Three rogue magi had been utterly erased from existence by four sorcerers’ magic at the will of the Circle. Tabitha hadn’t understood why it had upset him so much, but Contare had.

  Koren tucked her hands beneath her legs. Graegor knew that she wanted to hug Brigita but thought she shouldn’t. A sorcerer’s touch could be a violation, no matter how gently it was intended. “I’m sorry,” she said instead, with her whole heart.

  “Magus Heniec is dead,” Brigita said, in a voice forced flat.

  “I’m sorry,” Koren said again.

  “I betrayed him.”

  “You knew so little,” Graegor sai
d, trying to help. “Nothing Pascin learned from you betrayed anyone. They were captured when you were.”

  “I betrayed Metyas.” She closed her eyes. “Right here. Telling you all this. You should have let me die.”

  “Don’t say that,” Marcus said, and he leaned toward her, reaching out his hand. But Brigita flinched back violently, and he snatched his hand back, finally seeming to understanding that his attention unnerved her. The bright blue of his gen dulled in the link, and he shifted to sit further back.

  “We’ll solve this,” Koren said to Brigita after a moment.

  Brigita shook her head. Her voice was pitched so high it was almost gone. “I did solve this.”

  “No,” Koren said softly.

  “It was the only way to stop betraying. To stop worrying about what might happen.” She wiped her eyes and swallowed. “You saved me. Why? What’s your plan for me?”

  Plan? Graegor had no idea how to answer that, and neither did Koren. Jeff and Rose both thought they should tell Contare and Josselin about everything, immediately. But the elder sorcerers would almost certainly tell Pascin, and no one liked the idea of Brigita being subjected to another delving, especially since she really wasn’t a rogue anymore. Or was she?

  Jeff sent, “She needs to tell us what she really thinks about sorcerers and the Circle. We can’t assume that she agrees with us, like her rogue group assumed that she agreed with them.”

  “Lord Pascin already knows what she thinks,” Marcus pointed out. With his words came a muted mental growl at how Pascin knew. “He’s letting her stay at the Academy, so he must think she can be loyal.”

  “Ask her anyway,” Jeff sent.

  “Please,” Brigita said. Her wine-red shields seemed to tremble with her anxiety. “Tell me what happens now.”

  “I don’t know,” Graegor admitted. “It’s … are you a rogue maga or not? I mean, do you agree with everything your group, your cluster, said about us?”

  The question surprised her. “I don’t know,” she admitted in her turn.

  “What did your cluster say about us? Did they want us dead?”

  “I never heard Magus Heniec or Metyas say that.”

  “Is there … is there any reason you couldn’t be loyal to us? To the Circle?”

  “Delving.” She wiped her eyes again, almost a routine motion now. “Circle-pledged magi agree to be delved at any time, for any reason.”

  “That is not in the words of the pledge,” Jeff sent.

  “But it’s in the fine print,” Rose’s voice murmured.

  “The Circle is changing soon,” Graegor said aloud. “I will never delve anyone.”

  “Nor I,” Koren added softly.

  They waited, and eventually Brigita asked, “What will you do about Metyas?”

  “Will he hurt you if you pledge to the Circle?”

  “I … I don’t think so.”

  “If you tell him you can’t help get Rifir out of prison, will he leave you alone then?”

  She shrugged, clearly unable to say what Metyas would do.

  “We can’t release Rifir,” Koren said. “The Eighth won’t release any of the rogues.”

  “But they won’t execute them either,” Graegor added. Contare had assured him of that. “So once the Ninth Circle is forged, we will decide what to do with them.”

  Brigita nodded, as if she had expected this answer.

  “Meantime,” Koren said, “we’ll send our best healers to Rifir’s wife. So he needn’t worry for her.”

  Brigita looked at Koren. “You will?”

  “Yes.”

  As Brigita thought about that, Jeff sent, “Ask her again. If she’s been taught to hate sorcerers, by anyone or anything, we need to know it.”

  Graegor and Koren exchanged a glance, and this time Graegor took the task. He picked a piece of grass from the ground and studied it, since it was easier to ask Brigita questions when he wasn’t looking at her, and maybe it was easier for her to answer them, too. “Before you came here … before you were captured.” Before he delved you. “Did you hate Lord Pascin?”

  “I … no, I … he’s a legend. I guess I did not think of him as … as being real. I knew he was, but …”

  “Did you ever think about meeting him? Since you’re a maga?”

  “No. Not really. I knew I might meet the new sorcerer.”

  “Did you blame Lord Pascin for not stopping the heretics?” Graegor himself was inclined to do just that. Brigita had only turned rogue because she was a refugee.

  “No. He is not supposed to, right? And what can one man do, even a sorcerer? They would never have listened to him.”

  “‘Listened’?” Logan sent. “If he’d decided to interfere, he wouldn’t have talked to them.”

  Graegor just nodded, and then asked, “Do you think the sorcerers should give up their rule of Maze Island?”

  “No! No. It’s safe here for almost everyone. No other city is like that.”

  “It sounds like you don’t agree with what the rogue magi want.”

  She hesitated, but then said, “I don’t think that magi should have to pledge loyalty before getting the benefits of the Bond.”

  Strong reactions colored the link, because of course all the magi here intended to pledge or already had. Marcus believed that Brigita could come to understand why the pledge was necessary, and there were varying degrees of agreement to this. Graegor didn’t think it the time to argue the point. “We’re a new Circle,” he said instead. “Every rule will be up for debate.”

  “Yes, a new Circle,” she said, but not as if she thought it would change anything.

  But it would. It would. He would make it different.

  “What do you want to do, once you’re done training?” Koren asked then.

  “Honestly? I don’t know. I can’t heal, but I can hear, so I guess that means I will end up spying on someone somewhere.”

  “But what do you want to do?” Koren pressed.

  It took a while for Brigita to answer. “Just being trained was what I wanted.”

  “So … do you like it here? Do you want to stay?”

  “Yes. Yes. There is so much to learn, and … I like it. Not just the magic. The books. I have never had so many books to borrow before. My father had so few. Magus Heniec had an entire book-case and it was like a gold mine. But here …”

  Graegor felt Koren’s smile. But then Brigita’s breath caught. She steadied it, but her voice went low. “I won’t pledge to Lord Pascin or Lord Ferogin. I won’t.”

  Graegor looked up from the wisp of grass in his hand. “Did they say you had to?”

  Brigita shook her head. Her dark braid was still wet from the pond. “No, but everyone in the Academy is supposed to pledge. That’s why the training has no tuition. So I should not be at the Academy if I’m not going to pledge.”

  She felt guilty. Even after everything that had happened to her, she felt guilty for accepting Academy training since she didn’t intend to pay the implied cost. It was oddly sweet. “It’s not required,” he told her. “Lady Josselin knows that most magi intend to go back to their homes.”

  “Lord Pascin said …”

  “It’d take the entire Circle to change that,” Koren said. “And you needn’t worry about that happening.”

  “She should worry about Ferogin,” Jeff sent. “After this, he might force her to pledge, and say it’s to protect her.”

  No one in the group had any doubt that Ferogin would do that. But where else could Brigita get this kind of training? There were no magi schools in the west—Josselin and Contare wanted all Khenroxan and Telgard magi to come here. Sending Brigita to Jen Idre was out of the question. There were a couple of schools in Thendalia …

  “I’m not sure anyone remembers this,” Marcus sent, “but my aunt is a maga, and she’s taken apprentices before. She lives at the keep in Scherrhafen.”

  This sounded promising. Graegor looked at Brigita again. “What do you think of going to Telgardia?
We know a maga who could train you there.”

  Her eyes widened and her gen flared bright red in alarm. “No. Why?”

  Of course, she hadn’t been part of the group conversation. “We’re worried that … that Ferogin or Pascin would force you to pledge. Especially after today.”

  She dropped her gaze again. “When they learn about Metyas,” she murmured. To her, it was obvious that Contare, Josselin, and Pascin would learn what she had said here, but Graegor wasn’t yet sure about that.

  “She should pledge to Graegor,” Logan sent.

  At the wordless astonishment in the link, he added, “He has Adelard magic. And he actually would protect her.”

  “But no one can pledge to me yet,” Graegor protested. “Our Circle isn’t forged. It’s the Bond of the Circle that makes a pledge.”

  “She could pledge that she will pledge,” Logan sent.

  Like Tabitha’s friends did. Tabitha had told him about her four best friends pledging to her in a show of solidarity against Natayl, but few others knew about it. The pledges weren’t magically binding, since they hadn’t been spoken in the presence of the Bond, and Graegor wondered if such a pledge would actually help Brigita at all. It might irritate Ferogin so much that he’d challenge it, so from that standpoint, it would do more harm than good.

  But Graegor did have Adelard magic. He had a claim to Brigita’s loyalty on that basis, and on the basis that he had been instrumental in saving her life. Had Contare ever accepted a pledge from a magus or maga of another race?

  “Ask her,” Jeff sent into the flurry of speculation that Logan’s words had stirred in the link. “She may not want to pledge to anyone, ever.”

  Graegor looked at Brigita again. “Brigita, Logan suggested that you pledge to me instead.”

  She frowned. “To … you?”

  “Instead of Pascin or Ferogin. I have Adelard magic.”

  “That’s true?”

  He lifted his eyebrows, and she looked down again. “I’m sorry. I mean, I’ve heard that the Telgard sorcerers have all magic, but I thought it was just a story.”

  “No. It’s true.” Disturbingly true.