by Martha Wells
She leapt to her feet, causing Ilias, who had been lying asleep behind her, to scramble awake with a muffled curse. “What?” he demanded, shaking his hair out of his eyes.
Tremaine shushed him, found Gerard’s pocket torch lying amid their small collection of supplies and headed for the door. Ilias shoved to his feet and followed her.
Out in the corridor, Giliead sat beside the smaller sentry fire. He looked up, frowning, at their approach. “What’s wrong?”
“I want to go down and look at the wall,” Tremaine explained, stepping past him.
“What wall?” Baffled, he looked at Ilias for help. Ilias flung his arms in the air in defeat.
“The wall, the wall that shouldn’t be there.” Tremaine flicked the torch on and started down the uneven stairs, one hand on the rough stone to steady herself. Ilias hurried after her and Giliead got up to follow. “The thing is, Arisilde was leaving these clues for Nicholas,” she said, partly in explanation to them, partly gathering her thoughts. “He probably expected to show this to Nicholas himself after they met up again, but if something happened to him, he wanted Nicholas to be able to retrace his steps and find it. He didn’t expect them to both be stuck. And whatever this was, exploring it kept him from going back immediately to give the warning in Ile-Rien, so it must be important.”
As they neared the bottom of the stairs, Ilias shouldered ahead of her to reach the chamber first, stopping at the doorway. Tremaine flashed the torch over his shoulder, making sure nothing else was there. A bear, or something worse, creeping in to use the place as a den would be just what we need, she thought wryly.
The torch caught the gray-veined walls and the square columns, the bands of carving and the gaps in the rock that led outside. It was frigidly cold and quiet except for the muted movement of wind through leaves and branches, whispering in from the cracks in the outer wall.
Certain the chamber was empty except for themselves, Tremaine shoved past Ilias and went to the misplaced wall. She ran her hand along it, frowning. She could feel the rough texture, feel the cold that seemed to radiate off it. But Arisilde had been very good at illusions. She scrubbed at the stone, rubbing some accumulated dust off on her fingers. Focusing her torch on her hand, she stared at the smudge determinedly.
Giliead had come to stand beside her. She could sense doubt radiating off him with the same intensity that the stone radiated cold. “What are you doing?” he asked finally.
At least he hadn’t said she was crazy yet. “It’s an experiment,” she told him. “I think the wall is a spell.”
“But if it was a curse, Gil should be able to tell,” Ilias said around a yawn.
Giliead studied the wall, his brows knit. “But if it’s the man from the god-sphere’s curse… I’ve always had trouble seeing its curses. It can hide them from me whenever it wants.”
Ilias pushed at the wall thoughtfully. “So how do we tell?” He hadn’t said Tremaine was crazy either. He gave the impression he was used to being dragged out of a sound sleep to humor people in the middle of a cold night and he simply couldn’t be bothered to frame an objection to it anymore. Maybe that’s why I love him, Tremaine thought, lifting an ironic brow at herself. Then she processed that thought. I do what?
She found herself staring at Ilias, inadvertently pointing the torch at him. Leaning on the wall, he winced, lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the light. “What?” he demanded.
Tremaine opened her mouth but before anything embarrassing came out, Giliead seized her hand. She flashed the torch back to her fingers. The smudge of dust was gone. “It is a curse,” Giliead said, eyeing the wall with new respect. “How did you know?”
Ilias hopped away from it, startled. Giliead poked the stone again, then pressed his hand against it. Tremaine shook her head, forcing herself back to the problem at hand. “Arisilde knew my father used to use hidden compartments, fake walls. There’s one fake wall at Coldcourt. One that I know of, that is.” She knocked on the wall, trying to think it through. “So Arisilde put this wall here because he wanted to temporarily block off what’s behind it, but he wanted Nicholas to find it. And he must have wanted Nicholas to be able to get through it, even if Arisilde wasn’t with him.”
Ilias sat on his heels to examine the bottom row of blocks. “But Nicholas wouldn’t be alone, he’d have to have a wizard with him to get here at all.”
Tremaine nodded absently. Gerard would probably be able to break this illusion, but she didn’t want to wake him. And she wanted to do it herself. She was certain there was a way that didn’t involve magic. How had Nicholas said Arisilde had described the gate spell? That it had a weight and an elegance of design. That was how Arisilde preferred his spells. He had treated magic like an art form, not like a means to an end.
Giliead shook his head, still baffled. “I thought Gerard said that curses couldn’t create something out of nothing, and a Rienish wizard couldn’t do a transformation curse.”
“Well, yes, but this is an etheric illusion,” Tremaine explained. Lost in thought, she swung the torch back and forth, only realizing she was doing it when she noticed the light waving wildly around. “It’s just a really good one. We’re not actually touching it or leaning against it, we just think we are. That’s why the dust disappeared from my hand when I stopped looking at it.”
Ilias traded an uneasy look with Giliead and stood, falling back a pace from the wall. Giliead lifted his brows. “So there’s not a wall here, there’s just a curse that makes us think there’s a wall here.”
Tremaine stepped near the stone. “Right. So logically…” Turning her back, she closed her eyes and let herself fall backward.
She heard a yelp from Ilias and felt a hand brush her sleeve as someone made a wild grab for her and missed. Then her bottom hit hard cold stone with a bone-shaking jolt, followed by her back and skull. She swore, reaching back to grab her head. Didn’t expect that to actually work. Ilias caught her arm and hauled her to her feet. “Tremaine, warn us next time! You didn’t know what was back here. I didn’t even bring my—” He stopped abruptly.
She blinked up at him but couldn’t see his expression in the dim light. She had dropped the torch when she hit the ground and it lay on the floor, pointing into the part of the chamber that had been hidden by the illusory wall.
The light shone out in a broad triangle, illuminating an expanse of gray stone floor. Tremaine saw a broad curve of symbols carved out of the stone and thought, Hah, another circle, then realized she could see at least three more curves fading away into the shadows. Unless they decided to make a gate circle into a giant curlicue for variety… She grabbed up the torch, shining it across the floor.
She counted six circles, the symbols incised deeply into the stone, the carving filled with dust but still clearly visible. As she moved the light, she saw the chamber was bigger than she had expected. She had thought it would mirror the one at the top of the cliff, but it was at least four times the size. The half columns along the curved wall arched up to meet overhead in the dome, the stone so polished it threw back glitters of light, the design in the bands of carving more defined, without the wear of wind and rain. “It’s like a train station for world-gates,” she said, still finding it hard to believe. “Oh yes, I think this is what Arisilde wanted us to find.”
Giliead stepped past her, leaning down to look at the first circle. “I think these are different than the others, the new one and the old one.” He straightened up, scuffing his boot near one of the symbols. “This glyph is new.”
“You memorized the symbols?” Tremaine demanded, startled. But she remembered the complicated system of Syprian trail marks and signs, a compressed form of their written language that allowed them to leave elaborate messages for each other with very few symbols. And both Giliead and Ilias had learned the directional signs on the Ravenna and how to understand Rienish far more quickly than she would have in their situation. She knew they didn’t use writing much in their everyday life, preferri
ng to leave that to their poets, so it must make their ability to memorize that much better.
From the other side of the room, Ilias answered her, “There wasn’t much else to do today.” He traced a path around another circle. “There’s a different glyph in this one too. No, three different glyphs.”
“After what happened at the Wall Port, it seemed like a good idea,” Giliead admitted, moving to study the next circle. “You want to wake up Gerard now?”
Tremaine nodded slowly. “Definitely.”
Chapter 7
Florian wearily slumped in a red leather club chair, her head in her hands. She had to keep stopping herself from asking what they were going to do; it was obvious no one knew.
They were in the opulent First Class smoking room, which on the voyage to Capidara had been taken over by Gerard and Niles as a work area and laboratory. The high ceiling rose to a dome and the walls were paneled in dark woods framed with strips of copper banding, the floor inlaid with stone tile. Two of the blocky tables had been pulled into the center of the room and were stacked with books, papers, glass beakers and flasks, jars of herbs and powders and crystals. Charts covered a surrealist seascape and an easel had been put up in one corner to support a chalkboard. Wooden crates were stacked against the opposite wall, all filled with books, sorcerous equipment and supplies. Arisilde’s sphere sat on the table, idly spinning itself and clicking occasionally.
The Ravenna had left Capistown harbor before dawn. Capidaran ships sailing under concealment charms had sighted several Gardier ships and an airship near the coast, so they had had to gate early to avoid them. There had been some trepidation because of the problem with the new circle, but Niles had been able to take the ship through the original etheric world-gate using Arisilde’s sphere, without any apparent problem. They were sailing on the sea of the staging world now, the Syprians’ world, heading back toward a brief stop at Cineth, then world-gating back to their own world off the coast of Ile-Rien. Florian wasn’t certain what the status was of the fledgling plan to help Lodun; so much of it had depended on Gerard and Niles making a new spell circle to get past the barrier.
Nicholas paced in front of the Parscian carved screens framing the marble hearth. Niles sat in another chair, his face pale and his eyes shadowed with exhaustion. He rubbed his temple, and said, “I’ll redraw the circle again. There must have been something I missed, some error.”
Nicholas paused beside the table, picking up a spoon from the coffee service that sat there, carefully placing it in a line with the others on the tray. In his current state, Niles appeared to take this action as criticism. The sorcerer said sharply, “It’s the only answer.”
Florian winced, looking away. We don’t have an answer, she thought. Niles had redrawn the circle three times during the night. Giaren had developed the rest of his photographs of the original circle from the Capistown house, and they had carefully compared them. As far as Florian could see, there was nothing wrong with the last circle Niles had drawn, or its two predecessors.
Nicholas regarded him with a lifted brow. “It may be the only answer, but it isn’t the correct one.”
Niles took a deep breath, contemplating the stacked crates and the books they contained. Useless books, for their purposes, Florian knew. They were in entirely new territory here. Niles said, “We could bring in Kressein, Avrain and Kevari, let them try.”
Avrain was an expatriate Rienish sorcerer who had been studying magic with the Massians, the original native inhabitants of Capidara, and Kevari was an Aderassi sorcerer who had gone on a pleasure voyage years ago just before the invasion of Adera and had been unable to return since. Both had volunteered to accompany the Ravenna back and to try to help Niles use Arisilde’s sphere to reach Lodun. They were currently sequestered in a suite, trying to construct more spheres for Ile-Rien and Parscia.
Nicholas, still adjusting the positions of the spoons, threw a brief opaque look at Florian. She had the feeling he wanted her to dissuade Niles, but she didn’t know what to say. “Niles,” she began carefully, “all they can do is redraw the circle, based on Gerard’s notes and Giaren’s photographs. And I don’t think anything was wrong with your circles.”
She wouldn’t have been surprised if Niles shouted at her, but he apparently wasn’t inclined to it, even if he hadn’t been too exhausted to shout. He shook his head wearily, saying, “Perhaps there’s something— I don’t know, off about me. My etheric aura. Maybe the Gardier crystal I was infected with has affected it and it’s taken this long—”
Nicholas frowned. “Perhaps you’re under a gypsy curse. Perhaps the ship will be struck by a comet and we needn’t worry about it.” He gestured abruptly in annoyance, disarranging the spoons. “Niles, this sort of speculation—”
A knock at the door interrupted him. Florian looked around to see Colonel Averi with another man of about his age, with graying dark hair and handsome regular features. He was dressed in a dark fashionable suit, and was glancing over his shoulder to say to someone, “—be of great help, I’m sure.”
As he turned to face them Florian recognized him. He was Lord Chandre, a Rienish nobleman who had been living in Capidara. All she knew about him was that he had somehow gotten involved in the attempt to fight the Gardier. Behind him were a couple of men in Rienish army officer uniforms and another man in a suit— Florian sat up, staring in astonishment. It was Ixion.
Still slumped in the chair, Niles, hollow-eyed, hollow-cheeked, focused on Ixion. His eyes went hooded and he suddenly looked dangerous rather than defeated. “What is he doing here?” he said, his voice flat and quiet, cutting across Lord Chandre’s attempt to speak. Florian saw Nicholas had casually stepped back against the marble mantel, one hand in his coat pocket and the other on the sphere. It was trembling on the table, its insides spinning with infuriated rapidity.
Chandre lifted his brows. He looked at Colonel Averi, who folded his arms and didn’t seem inclined to be helpful. Chandre turned back to Niles, saying, “Ixion here has volunteered to assist you, so we’d like to discuss the situation.” He smiled blandly around the room, ignoring the tension. “With Niles, that is. I’m sure you understand.”
Florian looked in horror at Niles. “How very odd,” the sorcerer said, apparently idly, “I’m to be assisted by a man whose prison I helped to construct? Or should I say a murderer whose prison I helped to construct. Yes, I should say that.”
Ixion simply smiled, strolling further into the room, glancing around curiously. Florian thought his face was still a little too smooth and that there was something a little out of place in the way he wore the fashionable suit.
In a “we must be reasonable” tone, Chandre said, “Now, you must know about the arrangement the Capidaran Ministry had come to with Ixion. Let’s just discuss this.” He directed a more pointed look at Nicholas. “In private.”
Niles lifted a brow. “Oh, I’d love to discuss this with you.”
Florian took a sharp breath, feeling the air thicken, feeling the sphere shift from passive annoyance to active aggression. Ixion’s face went still and his eyes narrowed. The heaviness in the air doubled and Florian knew if she could see etheric vibrations the room would look as if it was overflowing with them, charged with power, crackling with suppressed energy. Ixion smiled thinly, and said, “I do love a challenge. Pity you can’t give me one.”
Niles started to come out of the chair. Florian said sharply, “Niles, don’t.” His eyes flicked toward her. He hadn’t lifted a hand but she felt the spells, his and Ixion’s counterspell, trembling in the air, poised to strike. She wasn’t sure anyone else in the room realized the danger. Except Nicholas. She said carefully, “That won’t help.”
“Yes,” Chandre added, oblivious to the disturbance in the ether that resonated with the barely felt thrum of the engines and made the ship’s metal bones sing. “Dissension in the ranks can’t do us any good, you know.” He sounded smooth and assured, but Florian sensed a certain satisfaction in his tone.
He enjoyed wielding this power over the sorcerers.
Niles took a deep breath. Florian felt the spell dissipate and unclenched her fists in relief. Ixion’s counterspell drifted away and his thin smile grew even more acidic. The sphere spit out a blue spark in disgust and subsided angrily.
Nicholas looked at Niles, lifting a brow in inquiry. Niles made a weary gesture of assent and Nicholas inclined his head. Grimacing, Florian pushed to her feet. She might be able to get them to let her stay, based on her knowledge of the circles, but she suddenly found that she didn’t want to. Giliead had said this would happen and it made her sick at heart that it had. Actually, her sickness resided closer to her stomach.
Ixion said suddenly, “You would be so good as to remove that.”
Florian glanced up, startled, but he was speaking to Nicholas. And he meant the sphere, now throwing off agitated sparks. Nicholas smiled with genuine amusement, telling Ixion, “If it affords you some sort of false sense of security, I’d be happy to.”
He calmly collected the sphere and gestured politely for Florian to precede him, as the other men in the doorway made room.
Florian followed Nicholas, not sure what else there was to do. Sleep seemed impossible, despite the exhaustion that made her legs feel shaky. He led the way down the wood-paneled corridor, out onto the Promenade deck, a roofed expanse running the length of the ship. The broad glass windows revealed a sweeping view of the sun rising over the sea in orange and yellow glory, only a few clouds streaking the limitless horizon. There was a time difference between their world and this one, so that evening in Capidara was morning here. It added to Florian’s floaty unsettled feeling.
