Lost

by Sarah Prineas

  Tap step step, I heard, coming down the stairs. “How is he?” Nevery asked in a rumbly voice.

  “He’s very cold, sir,” Rowan said. Her breath on my cheek felt like candle flame.

  Rowan’s guard came up then with a blanket. Rowan put it around me, then put her arms around me again.

  “N-n-n—,” I said, and shook my head. I couldn’t move my mouth to speak. I wanted to tell Nevery about the Shadow’s eye in my hand.

  He leaned down and put his hand on my shoulder. “It’s all right, lad. Tell me later.”

  “What happened?” Rowan asked.

  “One of the Shadows attacked him,” Nevery said. “Outside your mother’s room.”

  Outside? He’d found me inside, hadn’t he?

  Another set of footsteps came down the stairs and stopped a few steps above us.

  “Lady Rowan!” said a deep voice. Her friend Argent, the one who gave her swordcraft lessons.

  She looked up.

  “Your mother, the duchess, was injured by the Shadows, Lady Rowan,” Argent said. “Did you know?”

  Rowan stood up abruptly. “She was hurt? Will she be all right?” She gripped the hilt of her sword.

  “Magister Trammel is with her,” Argent answered. “I don’t know if her injuries are serious. I will take you to her.”

  As Argent and Rowan hurried away up the stairs, I heard Argent’s voice ask, “Who was that?”

  I leaned against the wall, already missing Rowan’s warmth.

  “Can you walk, boy?” Nevery asked.

  I nodded. The stone feeling was bad, but I could feel the Wellmet magic protecting me from the worst of it. Stiffly, I started climbing to my feet.

  As I fell over, Nevery caught my arm and steadied me. “Home to Heartsease,” Nevery said. “I don’t want Kerrn catching sight of you, boy, and asking awkward questions.”

  Even if she did, I couldn’t answer them.

  CHAPTER 13

  Nevery found Benet, and between them they got me home and wrapped in blankets in front of the fireplace in Nevery’s study. Then Nevery did the dancing statue spell on me, and sent Benet down to the storeroom for more coal.

  I sat in the chair and coughed up dust. Lady climbed into my lap and lay there like a warm pillow.

  “Dust all over the floor,” Nevery said. He paced in front of the hearth. “Glass shards. A smell of smoke. My guess is that you defeated a Shadow using a blackpowder explosive.”

  I jerked out a nod.

  “Boy, you set off a pyrotechnic device in the duchess’s chamber. You may have saved her life, I grant you that, but no one can learn of this, especially not the magisters.” He shook his head. “You do have a talent for getting yourself into trouble.”

  I wasn’t sure it was a talent.

  Benet came in carrying a bucket of coal.

  “All well?” Nevery asked him.

  “Yes, sir. Before we left, Captain Kerrn said to tell you the Shadows retreated. One guard killed, six wounded.” He added more coal to the fire and nodded at me. “He all right?”

  “He will be,” Nevery said. “Tea.”

  Benet went out.

  I wormed my arm out of the blankets, lifted my hand, still clenched around the Shadow’s eye, and rested it on the table. One by one I pried my fingers open, and the stone rolled out of my hand and onto the table. It lay there glowing purple-black.

  “What is that, boy?” Nevery asked, coming over to the table.

  “Sh-sh-sh—,” I said.

  “Curse it,” he muttered. He reached for the eye.

  “No—,” I gasped out. It might turn him to stone, too.

  Nevery paused, staring at me. “Don’t touch it, you mean, lad?”

  I nodded.

  “Very well,” Nevery said. He pulled the blankets over my arm again and sat down at the table, looking closely at the stone. “Ah,” he said, glancing over at me. “This was inside one of the Shadows, was it? The one you destroyed in the duchess’s room?”

  “Yss-s-s,” I said.

  Benet came in with tea. He poured a cup and set it on the table before me. “Manage that?” he asked.

  I nodded and dragged my arm out of the blankets again. The teacup felt hot to my numb fingers. I leaned forward and took a drink, my teeth bumping the edge of the cup. The tea scorched a path down my throat, into my stomach. The stone inside me started to melt.

  Benet sat down, tilted his chair back to lean against the wall, and picked up his knitting.

  Nevery had fetched his magnifying glass from a shelf and leaned over the table, peering at the Shadow’s eye. “Hmmm,” he muttered. “I’ve seen this before, haven’t I?”

  Setting down the glass, he went out of the room, up to his workroom, I guessed. In the silence, Benet’s knitting needles went clickety-ticky-tick. After a few minutes Nevery came back.

  “Look at this, boy.” He set a pot on the table. It was about as big as his hand, made of smooth, red clay, with letters in black, swirling script along the side. “I bought slowsilver in this pot. Hmmm.” He leaned back in his chair and stroked his beard. “The same kind of writing, faint and fine, is etched on the eye. Slowsilver. The markings on the stone. I believe I know where the Shadows came from. They came from Desh, the desert city.”

  Desh? Oh, how could I have been so stupid. The magic’s spellword. It had the word Desh in it. The magic had known about the Shadows and where they had come from. But I’d been too stupid to understand it.

  In the morning I woke up bundled in blankets, lying on the hearth, with Nevery nudging me with his foot. He added a shovelful of coal to the fire. “Well, boy?”

  I creaked up and leaned against the wall beside the hearth. Even with the blankets and the warm fire, I still felt the ache of cold stone in my bones. “Better, Nevery,” I said. “Is the duchess all right?” In my sleep, I’d dreamed the Shadow raising the stone knife, then plunging it down. And I’d dreamed Dee, too, with Shadow dust swirling around him.

  “It is very early morning,” Nevery said. “I haven’t yet received a report from the Dawn Palace.”

  I climbed up to my chair and sat at the table. The Shadow’s eye was gone. In its place was a shiny, hand-sized puddle, as if a bit of night had spilled onto the scratched tabletop. I leaned closer to see.

  Nevery joined me. “Yes, it is odd, isn’t it.” He held out his hand. “Give me a lockpick wire.”

  I reached into my pocket and brought one out and handed it to Nevery. He poked the end of the wire into the puddle. A black-dark bead stuck to the end of the wire; he tapped and it dropped onto the table, formed into a snail, and oozed back into the puddle. It left a sizzling trail of steam behind it.

  “Slowsilver?” I asked.

  Nevery shook his head. “Something else, I think. Darksilver. Certainly it has magical properties.”

  “How’d it make the Shadow come alive?”

  “I suspect it was used to contain a bit of magic, which animated the Shadow and allowed it to carry out its orders.” He sat down. “It is of very great concern.”

  “It’s from Desh?” I asked. I remembered Rowan telling me about Desh. A city built on sand and slowsilver mines, she’d said.

  “Mmm,” Nevery said. “I visited the city of Desh during my years of exile from Wellmet. The city is ruled by a sorcerer-king, Lord Jaggus. A very powerful wizard, though young.” He glanced at me from under his bushy eyebrows. “His locus magicalicus is a large jewel stone.”

  Like mine had been. “D’you think Jaggus sent the Shadows?” I asked. The magic hadn’t said the sorcerer-king’s name, though, so maybe he hadn’t.

  “Possibly. I cannot imagine what he hopes to accomplish if he did. The Shadows are spies, perhaps, and are certainly murderers and assassins. Such aggression from one city toward another city; it makes no sense, and it is almost without precedent. There must be an explanation.” Nevery shook his head. “I expect the duchess will send an envoy to Desh in order to discover the truth of the matter.”r />
  Yes, she would. “Nevery, I have to go with them. The magic warned me about Desh, and I think it wants me to go there.” I didn’t want to leave the city, but if a group from Wellmet was going, I needed to go, too.

  Nevery leaned back in his chair and pulled on the end of his beard. “Hmmm. Perhaps,” he said.

  He said perhaps, but he knew I was right.

  Nevery was right about the duchess. She summoned him to the Dawn Palace the next day.

  I went with him, putting on my black sweater and my apprentice robe, so they’d know I was a wizard.

  As we walked up the front steps of the Dawn Palace, the guards at the door gave me a squinty-eyed look, but Nevery swept-stepped past them, me right behind him. We went up to the duchess’s rooms. Outside the door, Trammel whispered to Nevery that the Shadow had struck the duchess with a stone blade that was spreading stone inside her, and that he should make his visit short.

  “He should stay outside,” Trammel said, pointing at me. “She doesn’t need to be upset.”

  “Well, boy?” Nevery asked, pulling at his beard.

  I stayed outside; Nevery went in.

  The guards outside the duchess’s door glared at me, but I ignored them. I sat down with my back against the wall and closed my eyes. My neck felt numb where the Shadow had touched me.

  Hearing hurrying footsteps, I opened my eyes.

  Rowan, with a guard.

  She stopped. “Hello, Connwaer. You don’t look much better than the last time I saw you. What are you doing here?”

  I looked up at her. Her mother was right in the next room, and Kerrn’s guards were an arm’s length away; I wasn’t going to talk to Rowan here.

  Rowan waited for me to answer. “Still not talking to me, then?” she said after a few moments.

  I shook my head.

  “My mother,” she said with a sigh. “I know.” She reached down with her hand; I took it, and she pulled me to my feet. “You can come in with me,” she said.

  But the guards wouldn’t let me past the door. Rowan shrugged and went in, and I went back to sit against the wall and wait.

  After a while, she came out. I got to my feet.

  “Well,” Rowan said. “You aren’t talking to me, but I’m going to tell you my news anyway.” She smiled and her eyes sparkled. “Conn, I’m being sent as an envoy to Desh to meet with the sorcerer-king, to try to find out if he sent the Shadows, and to bring back proof of it if he did.”

  She was going to Desh? Drats. The duchess would never let me go if Rowan was going. I shook my head.

  Rowan frowned. “I’m leaving as soon as possible. Will you come see me off?”

  I shook my head again. Why couldn’t she just stay here?

  Rowan straightened, and suddenly she looked older, more like her mother. “I thought you would be excited for me, but I can see that you’re not. I am my mother’s heir, Connwaer. One day I will be duchess. I’ve been trained for this; I’ve been taught diplomacy and policy and sword fighting for a reason. I will go to Desh and I will find out if they sent the Shadows, and I will make it right.” With one last glare, she turned with a swish of her skirts and stalked away down the hallway, followed by a guard.

  The duchess’s door opened and Nevery came out, looking grim. He put on his wide-brimmed hat. “Come along, boy,” he said, sweep-stepping down the hallway. I followed.

  In the tunnels on the way back to Heartsease, I asked him about his talk with the duchess.

  He strode along, his cane going tap tap against the slippery slate floor of the tunnel, the blue glow from his locus magicalicus lighting our way. He paused to open a gate and we went through. “We spoke about the envoyage to Desh,” he said at last. “I suggested to the duchess that you be allowed to go along, but she would not allow it.”

  Of course she wouldn’t. So I’d be staying in Wellmet. That wasn’t such a bad thing. Leaving Wellmet and the magic would be like walking away from a warm fire into a howling snowstorm; I didn’t really want to do it.

  “I wanted you out of the city,” Nevery said. “It didn’t escape my notice, boy, that you did magic using pyrotechnics in the duchess’s chamber. The lothfalas spell, I assume?”

  I nodded and kept quiet. He didn’t look happy about it.

  “The magisters are watching you,” he said. “Captain Kerrn is watching you. They’re both waiting for you to get into more trouble.”

  “But Nevery, if I do pyrotechnics, I think I can talk to the magic,” I said.

  Nevery stopped suddenly, bent, and stared straight into my eyes. “Listen, boy. Whether that is true or not, it is far too dangerous. You must not do any more pyrotechnic experiments.” He gripped my shoulder. “Do you understand?”

  I understood. But if I didn’t do pyrotechnics, I was no use to the magic at all. I didn’t answer Nevery. I didn’t want to lie to him.

  Rowan and the rest of her envoyage left the next day. Only one main road came to Wellmet, and it led from the Dawn Palace, through the city, and then east, to Desh eventually, I guessed.

  Crowds of people, mostly from the Sunrise, had gathered along the street, standing under umbrellas in the drizzly rain, watching Rowan’s envoyage leave. A few people cheered; a few more people worked the crowd, picking pockets.

  The envoyage went past. First a group of guards in uniform, walking in quick-step through the puddles, then a wagon loaded with supplies with a waterproofed canvas spread over it, then a shabby carriage, full of servants, most likely. Then another carriage; I saw Nimble sitting inside. So they’d sent a wizard along. That was a good idea.

  Then came Rowan. She rode a gray horse; its hooves clopped on the cobbled street. She wore dark green trousers, high boots, and an overcoat embroidered in green, and in the gray light her hair burned red, like flames. On one side of her rode Captain Kerrn in her green uniform; on the other rode her friend Argent on a fierce-looking black horse.

  Rowan looked tall and noble and a little cold in the chilly wind. As she passed where I was standing, she looked down at me and then away, straight ahead, and rode on.

  Rowan Forestal

  My mother has asked me to write a journal, to note my observations. She says that writing things down will help me to “articulate my experiences and thereby to understand them.” I suppose she is right about that. One thing I do not need to articulate any further is the fact that it was raining when we departed Wellmet, and continues to rain as I write this in my tent. The rain is articulated quite clearly in my wet coat, my wet boots, and the wet firewood that made the task of starting dinner rather difficult for our cook.

  We need to hurry to Desh,, so I insisted that we put in a long day of travel right out of Wellmet. Argent looked very fine in his blue frock coat, mounted on tall Midnight, but I noticed that he climbed stiffly out of the saddle when we stopped to make camp. We will soon be travel hardened. The road to Desh is a long one, and we must travel it swiftly.

  Desh will be a challenge. The magister my mother assigned to accompany us, Nimble, thinks it is unlikely the sorcerer-king of Desh, Lord Jaggus, is responsible for the Shadow attacks. But Nimble strikes me as a fool. He makes me wish Conn had come with us. I have taken enough apprentice classes to suspect that Conn knows more about magic than all the other magisters combined. I don’t know how he manages to make them, and my mother, and Captain Kerrn, so furious with him. Well, I suppose I am furious with him, too. It must be his particular talent.

  In any case, this envoyage will be my chance to prove to my mother and her council that I have learned my lessons and am perfectly capable of carrying out the mission they have given me.

  CHAPTER 14

  In the middle of the afternoon, I waited until Nevery’d left for a magisters’ meeting and Benet was scrubbing the kitchen, and snuck over to my workroom.

  On the table were books, Nevery’s treatise on pyrotechnics, dirty teacups, an unlit candle, a saucer of sulfur emulsion, almost ready, and a cup full of saltpeter.

  The bl
ack bird perched on the back of my chair; every once in a while it hopped onto my shoulder and peered down at what I was doing, keeping an eye on me for the magic.

  I knew I wasn’t going to find another locus magicalicus. But I also knew the magic wanted to tell me something, something about the Shadows and Desh, I guessed, and the only way I could hear that something was by doing pyrotechnics.

  I cleaned off the glass rod I’d nicked from Nevery’s workroom and stirred the emulsion in its saucer. The bird hopped down to the tabletop and poked its black beak into the saltpeter. “Stop that, you,” I said, and pushed it away. It ruffled up its feathers, then flapped away to perch on the windowsill.

  The blackpowder was just about ready.

  Right.

  It would just be a small explosion. Nevery wouldn’t even notice it.

  I cleared everything off the table, except for the saucer of sulfur emulsion. With the glass rod I gave it a stir, making the shiny black emulsion swirl around. Then I picked up the cup of saltpeter—the right amount, according to the ratios Embre had written out. Taking a deep breath, I dumped the saltpeter into the saucer.

  I took a step back from the table.

  The saltpeter soaked down into the swirling emulsion. It crackled; bits of light sparked on the surface; smoke gathered around the edge of the saucer.

  On the table and on the floor, tiny motes of dust started jumping around like fleas on a dog. The walls shivered. Glass vials and bottles rattled off the shelves and shattered on the floor. The dragon in the picture on the wall seemed to writhe in a cloud of smoke, winking at me with its red eye.

  With a whumph, fire and smoke billowed from the saucer. Bolts of white light flashed from one end of the room to the other; books floated from the shelves; papers whirled around. The walls vibrated; the ceiling cracked across. Under my feet, the floor heaved. The magic had to listen. These weren’t the right spellwords, but I had to make it hear. I took a deep breath. “Tell me,” I shouted at the magic. “I can’t go to Desh. What d’you want me to do now?”