Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  “I think she already assumes we’ll tell Josselin and Contare,” Koren sent.

  “I know. But, all the same.” He resisted the urge to pat Brigita’s arm, or Koren’s arm, and he patted the horse’s shoulder instead.

  Graegor woke suddenly, with a pain in the back of his neck. He winced as he lifted his chin from his chest. Had he really fallen asleep? He remembered that the chatter in the group link had been soothing …

  He straightened in the low-slung chair, stretched, yawned, and scratched his beard. Around him the infirmary looked the same. Curtains were pulled over the dark windows, and two oil lamps were lit. Brigita slept on the cot closest to him, her blankets pulled up to her chin, and the other five cots were empty. The nurse’s desk in the corner was empty too, and he realized that the quiet ward was actually not the same—Koren had gone. Probably only to the privy, since she’d insisted on keeping watch over Brigita with him.

  Their fears seemed unfounded, though, since Pascin and Ferogin hadn’t come. Neither Contare nor Josselin had returned either, and it’d been at least a couple of hours since they’d left. They hadn’t said much. Were they still talking to Pascin? Contare believed that Pascin wouldn’t be too upset about Brigita’s pledge, since it wasn’t magically binding. About the rogues, though …

  Graegor tapped his link with Koren and sensed Contare nearby as well, and a few moments later they both came through the door at the other end of the infirmary. Koren had brushed her hair so that it no longer stuck out at angles from her head, and she wore a cloak over her dress. Contare was wearing a cloak now too, which meant the day’s heat had dissipated into a cool early spring night. Patrick would be happy with that.

  “I was getting something to eat when he got here,” Koren sent to Graegor, glancing over her shoulder at Contare as they approached Brigita’s cot. “He seems really tired.”

  Indeed, as Contare sat down in the chair on the other side of Brigita, he leaned fully against its back, rested his head, and dropped his hands into his lap. As Koren went back to her prior seat at the nurse’s desk, Contare tilted his head toward Graegor and raised his eyebrows. “Josselin and I talked to Pascin.”

  “What did he say?” Graegor asked, but both he and Koren knew the answer.

  “What I thought he’d say.”

  Graegor shook his head. The dark purple core of his gen started its spin. “I won’t let him delve her, sir.”

  “I asked Pascin to let me do it, if that will help.”

  “No.” He couldn’t stand the thought. “No. For you to do it is even worse.”

  Contare sighed. “I’ve delved magi before.”

  “I know. Not her.”

  “She’s been delved before.”

  “Mentally raped before. Twice.”

  “Graegor …”

  “That’s what it is.” His power spun faster. “It’s that kind of violation.”

  “Yes, it’s an intimate violation. That’s why we don’t do it without good reason.”

  “We shouldn’t do it at all.”

  “Brigita knows what to expect, and I know that Pascin can greatly mitigate delving pain. His touch is refined and exacting. Surgical.”

  “But she said it hurt more the second time.” When Contare frowned a little, Graegor sent, “There’s no reason to put her through that again. Metyas called to her twice. He asked to get Rifir released. That’s all.”

  “You know we won’t release Rifir.”

  “I know. She knows.” Rifir wasn’t the point. “We all know. And when it comes to Metyas and Rifir, Pascin already knows everything. There’s nothing about Brigita’s former cluster that he hasn’t already delved from her before now.”

  “Except this most recent contact from Metyas.”

  “She told me everything he said to her.” He sensed Contare forming a protest, and cut into it. “Do you think she could lie to me?”

  “I think she could be mistaken, and we have to know. Graegor, I hate to suggest it, but what if there is more? What if another plot is in the works? Someone in the city put up those maul symbols.”

  “She didn’t.”

  “I said someone did, and Metyas might know who, so we need to find him. How would you feel if harm came to Tabitha again, and you could have prevented it with Brigita’s information?”

  Graegor had prepared himself for this line of attack, so he was able to absorb it without flinching. “Brigita knows nothing about another plot, so she can’t help prevent one. Metyas wouldn’t have mentioned anything like that to her. He told her that he didn’t know if he could trust her.”

  Contare rubbed his forehead with both hands. “You aren’t being realistic.”

  “How am I not being realistic?”

  “This city saw a lockdown back in Chanuri. After all the trouble it caused, do you really think the Circle will just let this go? Brigita’s been in contact with a known rogue magus. We need every scrap of information she has, every piece of those conversations, even what she doesn’t consciously remember.”

  “What information would Metyas, realistically, have revealed, if he didn’t trust her?”

  “His location. Brigita only has short-range telepathy, so we know that Metyas is in or near the city.”

  “I asked her. We don’t think he could actually get into the city.”

  “He’s nearby, though, and he may have let slip something that she didn’t realize was important.”

  Graegor looked down at Brigita. He knew she was awake now, though her eyes hadn’t opened and her breathing hadn’t changed. She knew someone else was in the room with them.

  “I know you care about her.” Contare did sympathize. He really did, and Graegor could feel it. “But please, don’t die on this hill.”

  “Sir …”

  “This is not the right fight to fight. This goes beyond just you and just her.”

  “Sir, I promised her.”

  Contare sighed again. “Have you thought about whether you had any authority at all to make such a promise?”

  “I have the power to make it.”

  The old man’s expression shifted slightly. A narrowing, a … cooling. His sky-blue gen faded toward grey, and he chose his next words with obvious care. “Do you believe yourself to be unconstrained by the rule of the Circle?”

  Graegor felt the whirling knot tighten in his chest. “No. I didn’t mean that.”

  Koren’s power was very near, very still. Jeff was calling to him because he could sense how upset he was. Brigita sensed it too, and she tried to pull her mind entirely back behind her wine-red gen. Contare fixed him with unblinking eyes.

  “Metyas can’t be in the city.” He had to make Contare listen to him. “He wouldn’t risk it and no one would sponsor him. That means he’s outside the walls. Nothing she might have unconsciously sensed from their conversations could tell us more than that. We don’t need to delve her. We can use logic.”

  “Except we don’t actually know what Metyas would or would not risk.” But then Contare’s eyes softened. “You want to protect her. But Pascin believes that he needs to delve her. How will you prevent it? Should she move in with us? Will you accompany her to all her classes?”

  Graegor had no answer. He’d sense Brigita’s distress if anyone attacked her when he wasn’t with her, but he couldn’t be with her all the time. He looked down at his hands, hooking his fingers tightly together and tugging them apart again.

  “If Pascin delves her now,” Contare sent, “Ferogin will leave her alone.”

  That argument hurt, because it might very well be true. Graegor winced, hooking his fingers together again. “I could send her away.”

  “And Pascin would find her. If she’s here, where he can keep an eye on her, he won’t regard her as a threat. But somewhere else, unsupervised?”

  Jeff was still trying to reach him. Graegor pulled back from his link with Contare without quite dropping it, pretending to be thinking things over. But in a single wordless pulse, he asked Jeff
to come to the infirmary. He might need magi. A lot of magi.

  “We’re coming,” Jeff sent, and we meant everyone who had been at the pond. The two dormitories were only steps away, on either side of this building, but it would still take time for them to get here.

  Earth magic stirred beneath him. Contare felt it. “Don’t.”

  Graegor hated this. It made him feel sick to be clashing with Contare. “She doesn’t know anything,” he repeated.

  “Once Pascin makes sure of that, he’ll never need to touch her mind again.”

  “Unless the rogues contact her again. Will he delve her every time that happens? Will he ever trust that she’s telling us everything she knows? Why can’t he trust her now?”

  “I don’t know. But he doesn’t, and I trust that his reasons are good.”

  Graegor heard a door open in the corridor. Jeff and the others—or … “Is Pascin here?”

  “I asked him to wait for me to talk to you.”

  Graegor stood. He wasn’t going to wait. “Wake up,” he sent urgently to Brigita, though she was already awake, and then pulled in Koren. “Get her out of here. Out the window or whatever you can do. We’ll think of somewhere safe.”

  “No,” Brigita said aloud, her gen suddenly glowing against his mind. She sat up in the cot and held out her hand in a stilling gesture toward Graegor, then toward Koren as the Khenroxan sorceress stood up at the desk. The grey medical gown Brigita wore made her look white as milk. She tried to give Graegor a very firm look. “No,” she said again, and then turned to Contare. “I know why you’re here, my lord. I’ll do it.”

  That she would volunteer to be delved, after being so frightened of the prospect, somehow didn’t surprise Graegor—or Koren—at all. “No,” he sent to her, just as firmly.

  “I’ll do it,” she said again, this time to Graegor. “You shouldn’t get in trouble over me.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” he insisted.

  “I don’t matter,” she countered. “Not compared to you.”

  “That’s not true!” He seized her hand between both of his. “I can protect you. I pledged to protect you! I’ll take you somewhere safe!”

  “Where?” she demanded. “Where could you take me that no one could find me?” At his too-long pause, she said, “Even if a place like that exists, I don’t want to go. I want to stay here at the Academy.”

  His gen was spinning so fast. He had to move, he had to get her out of here. Why wasn’t Koren doing anything? “But Pascin could decide at any point to delve your mind again.”

  Her whole body flinched. At that moment the door to the ward opened, and the old woman in charge of the infirmary, a magi holy sister, leaned inside. “My lords, my lady, several magi students are demanding to see Maga Brigita. They insisted that I ask your permission directly.”

  “They are to stay outside the room, Maga,” Contare told her, in a tone that Graegor did not dare contradict.

  “Don’t leave,” Graegor sent to Jeff. “Stay as close as you can.”

  “Ferogin and Pascin are here,” Jeff sent. “They came in right behind us.”

  “Be ready if I need you.”

  “We will.”

  Now Koren sent to him alone. “What do you think they’ll need to be ready to do?”

  “I don’t know, but I can’t just let this happen to her!”

  “She said she’d do it. She volunteered.”

  “But—”

  “She agreed. You don’t have the right to say otherwise.”

  Graegor stared at Koren in helpless frustration, and then the door to the ward opened fully. The maga stood aside, bowing her grey-veiled head, and over her shoulder, Graegor caught a glimpse of Jeffrei. Then Pascin entered the room with Ferogin right behind him. The maga slipped back into the corridor and closed the door behind her.

  Graegor realized that he had stood up, one hand still holding Brigita’s. He kept his gaze level, and though he tried to read Pascin’s craggy face, he couldn’t. The elder Adelard sorcerer had always been polite, even friendly, toward him, despite Ferogin’s hostility. But like his apprentice, he could also be impatient and sarcastic, and Graegor’s opinion of him had fallen today because of what Brigita had said.

  If you’d stopped the heretics, he thought as he looked at Pascin, she wouldn’t be here. You did this. Graegor didn’t want to oppose him directly, but …

  Contare had stood up too, and neither he nor Pascin said anything—aloud—as Pascin stopped in the middle of the ward. Ferogin stopped just behind him, ignoring Graegor, ignoring Koren, focused entirely on Brigita. He seemed to have taken a page from Borjhul’s book—all in black, arms crossed, eyes glittering. But he didn’t have Borjhul’s bulk or exotic menace, and Graegor had beaten Ferogin before.

  Fought. Not beaten.

  He could have, though. He could have killed Ferogin that day on the dueling ground.

  You will burn the world.

  He pushed the words away. He would control himself, but he would not back down.

  Pascin shifted his gaze from Contare to Brigita. Though he had a telepathic bond with her, he spoke aloud. “Maga Brigita, I regret the necessity. But I must ask that you consent to have your mind delved for information regarding your latest contact with rogue magi. Do you consent?”

  “Don’t,” Graegor sent to her. He softened his grip on her hand when he realized how hard he was holding it. “They won’t do it if it means fighting me.” He wished he could be sure of that. But he was sure that he would fight.

  Brigita cleared her throat, but her voice was still hoarse as she said, “I consent.”

  Graegor’s power spun, a dark vortex ready to spark with lightning. Then, against it, he felt Koren’s touch, as soft as a leaf. “‘Tis her choice.”

  “But he’ll hurt her.” He couldn’t let that go. He simply couldn’t.

  It surprised everyone in the room when Koren spoke aloud. “Lord Pascin,” she said, her lilting voice quiet and respectful as she stepped around the nurse’s desk. “Please, please, be as … as surgical as you can. She’s sensitive.”

  Ferogin’s disgusted snort was painfully loud. “She’s weak.”

  Graegor snarled. Earth magic rose through the floor. As the white mist swirled around every sorcerer in the room, Graegor heard Brigita cry out in alarm, because she could see it.

  “Do nothing!” Contare ordered. Then Ferogin stumbled back. Like Contare, Pascin never moved, but after Ferogin had steadied himself, he kept his head bowed. Graegor could only guess at the strength of Pascin’s mental slap.

  “Release it,” Contare snapped.

  Very reluctantly, Graegor let the earth magic slip from his mind. The white mist drained beneath them all, in a sluggish swirl that eventually vanished.

  As if nothing had happened, Pascin spoke to Koren. “I will be as gentle as possible, my lady.”

  Graegor saw Ferogin sneer. Koren saw it too, but she ignored it and looked at Graegor. “We’ll be right here. Both of us.”

  “I just … I just have to let this happen?”

  “This time.”

  Graegor let out his breath. His right hand was still wrapped around Brigita’s left, and he forced it to soften and relax. Brigita tugged, then slipped her hand from his completely, and Graegor only let her because Koren wanted him to. Brigita sat up straight, and then turned to Pascin. “I’m ready.” Her voice was still rough, and it was shaky now too.

  “Don’t touch her mind,” Contare told Graegor as Pascin approached. “You need to stay behind your own shields.”

  “But—”

  “Otherwise it will hurt her.”

  Graegor grit his teeth and pulled his gen tight around himself, but he still stood squarely against the frame of Brigita’s cot as Pascin sat down on its edge. Koren was standing at the foot of the cot now, and Contare sat down in the chair at its head again. Pascin held his hand out, palm up, and Brigita swallowed as she put her hand down on his. Her eyes fluttered closed and she let out h
er breath.

  Moments went by, measured by Graegor’s heartbeat. He watched Brigita’s face intently for any sign of pain, and he knew that Contare was watching him for any sign of interference. He was ready to interfere, no matter what, if there was even the slightest reason, but Brigita didn’t wince or flinch, and her shoulders didn’t tense or tighten any further. Pascin didn’t even seem to breathe. Ferogin hadn’t come any closer, but he was watching too. The cold-blooded bastard probably couldn’t wait to learn to delve magi.

  Suddenly Contare seized Pascin’s shoulder and shoved him away from Brigita’s cot. Brigita was cringing and gasping in pain, and Graegor grabbed her hand as the earth magic surged up to him, flaring his shields into a shimmering purple wall. He couldn’t see Koren’s magic but he could feel it behind him, shining green like an emerald in the light. Through his shield’s haze, he could hear Ferogin shouting and could see him putting himself between Contare and Pascin. But then all three of them stood still.

  Violence and power hung suspended in the room, like a glass plate about to hit a stone floor. Brigita clung to Graegor’s hand as if it was the only thing keeping her from flying apart. Pascin had said he wouldn’t hurt her, but he had. He had. Graegor snarled, because he wanted to lash out, attack, but he held back. He held the shield in front of them, and even had the presence of mind to squeeze his hold on the earth magic to a dense funnel so that Koren could pull more for herself. She was as firm as a granite wall at his back.

  The figures beyond the shield moved slowly away from each other. Graegor felt Contare’s reassurance, and he felt Koren’s grip on the earth magic slacken. He loosened his own, but kept hold of Brigita’s hand, and as the shield faded, Contare stepped to the cot to stand between Brigita and Pascin. Or maybe between Graegor and Pascin. From here, Graegor was blocked from even seeing the elder Adelard sorcerer.

  He could see Ferogin. He’d backed off a few steps, but he was glaring murder. Graegor glared right back, until Pascin abruptly turned and headed for the door.

  Ferogin turned to follow, and Graegor said, “Ferogin.”

  Ferogin paused midstride for an instant, but then showed his back and kept walking.