The Fire Mages' Daughter

by Pauline M. Ross

“Of course, if you wish it. You will have to wait a year until you reach thirteen, but then you may try.”

  Finally, something I could work towards that would, in time, get me away from the Drashona’s clutches. I didn’t notice at the time how cleverly she’d manoeuvred me into staying quite happily in Kingswell.

  And in all the excitement, I forgot to mention my unexpected ability to understand Icthari.

  4: A Setback

  FIVE YEARS LATER

  The Master’s eyes were wide with fear. “It is quite true, Most Powerful. I am so sorry, but… but I had to tell you.”

  “It is a lie!” I hissed. “How can such a thing even be possible? It cannot be true!”

  Yannassia raised one hand to placate me. “Drina, calm yourself. No one would invent such a tale. Please, sit down. You too, Master. Let us discuss this rationally.”

  She threw me a worried glance, as if doubting my ability to be rational just then. Perhaps she was right. How could I be calm at such a moment? My entire future was at stake.

  The Master perched on the edge of her chair, quivering with distress. Poor Luciana! She had taken me under her wing in my very first moon of study, had encouraged my zeal and glowed with pride at my successes.

  I’d enjoyed it, too. The legal side was all book-learning and I had no trouble with that at all. It was a delight to spend so much time in the library, books heaped up around me, my fingers inky from taking copious notes. And the spellpages were easier than I’d expected, just a matter of careful attention to detail to be sure the variances and additional symbols were correctly scribed.

  In my four years of learning, I’d never failed the Master before. Now she insisted that I had failed so spectacularly that there was no place there for me any longer.

  For what was the purpose of a scribe whose spellpages lost their magic?

  I took a deep breath. There was no point in anger, and it was not Luciana’s fault, after all. She was the bearer of bad tidings, not the cause of them. It was the two mages sitting quietly across the room who had identified the problem.

  “Good,” Yannassia said, watching me master my emotions. “Now, Lady Mage Jayna, would you be so good as to explain it to me, from the beginning?”

  “Of course, Most Powerful. It was the Scribing House where Highness Axandrina practised which first alerted us to the problem. They found customers for spellpages started to avoid her. Sometimes, they even went away and came back when she was not there, to be sure of getting a different scribe. When asked, they said that her spellpages did not work.”

  “Is that common? To have a favourite scribe, or to avoid a particular one?”

  “Oh yes. People are very superstitious. If one spellpage fails, they will choose a different scribe next time, or sometimes a different Scribing House. And it is not uncommon for spells to fail, or work less well than expected. With magic, nothing is guaranteed.”

  “But this was more than that?”

  Jayna nodded, throwing me a sympathetic glance. I had noticed it myself, to be honest. When I’d first started working at the Scribing House in my free time, customers had flocked to buy spellpages scribed by the Drashona’s daughter. But lately, the stream of silver had slowed to a trickle. I hadn’t taken much notice at first, since I hardly needed the money and only went there to practise my skills. But lately I’d passed hours at a time without a customer, even when the other scribes were busy.

  “So we checked Highness Axandrina’s spellpages, and that was when we discovered that they had no magic in them.”

  “That is the part that makes no sense,” I said, forcing myself to speak in reasonable tones. “I always used the spelled paper, ink and quill. I scribed each spell correctly, I am certain. How can there be no magic in them?”

  “We do not understand it ourselves,” Jayna said. “Our archivists are looking for precedents, but no one can ever recall hearing of such a thing before.”

  “And you are quite certain?” Yannassia said. “The spellpages have been thoroughly examined?”

  “Quite certain. There are several of us who can detect the magic directly. We can give Drina… Highness Axandrina the spelled materials and watch her scribe the spellpage, and when we take it from her, there is no magic.”

  “Then where does the magic go to?”

  But the mages had no answer.

  ~~~~~

  That was the end of my scribing studies. There was no longer any purpose to it. I was still officially a contract scribe, no one could take that away from me, and in theory I could complete the full five years to become a law scribe, but what would be the point? My sole objective had been to make myself a mage and so put myself beyond Yannassia’s reach, and that was now impossible.

  It was Vhar-zhin who bore the brunt of my bewilderment and frustration. Vhar-zhin, my friend and confidante, my supporter in all things. I stormed back to the apartment we shared, and she held me while I wept and raged and wept again.

  “We will find something else for you to do,” she whispered into my hair. “There must be something we can think of.”

  But I could not. For five years I had worked tirelessly towards this one end, and now I found I had wasted my time. I might as well have sat with Vhar-zhin and her waiting women, embroidering and weaving and painting and practising complicated music.

  I missed the mages’ house, where I’d had my own little study room, full of books. I missed the mages, bustling in and out to discuss a difficult set of variances, or the tricky sub-clauses of a trading agreement. Mostly, I missed having my hours full, each with its appointed task, and none of it to do with ruling Bennamore.

  What was I to do now? The need to go home, to be back where I belonged, burned in me brighter than ever. When I could absorb myself in my studies, and work towards my release, I could push the longing to the back of my mind. But now I was reminded of the great void in my life. It was not Zendronia I yearned for, I knew that; it was the very heart of my life, my mother. I was like a plant uprooted and tossed aside. Without that basic connection to her – to her magic – I would fade away and die.

  Yannassia left me alone for a few suns to cool my temper before summoning me. She saw me in one of her private chambers between formal engagements, wearing her ruler’s attire, a gown so layered in lace and gold trimming, it was a wonder she could move. Yet she was alone, apart from her bodyguard, and from her manner you would have thought she had all the time in the world. It was an art, the way she did that, her focus so intent that you felt you were the only person she cared about. And perhaps that was her secret: for that small fraction of time, you were indeed all she cared about, everything else set aside.

  She made no attempt to console me. “It is very disconcerting, to be sure, since no one seems to know the cause of this difficulty. However, the mages are investigating and if there is a solution, they will find it, you may be sure. Or if not, then you will in time find some other occupation which suits you. In the meantime, we must find a way for you to fill the hours. You are very welcome to attend me whenever I have business that appeals to you. Your advice is always refreshing.”

  That sounded too close to training for heirdom to me, and therefore something to be avoided.

  “Or you might find the mirror room interesting,” she went on, ignoring my silence. “All the important messages pass through there.”

  The mirrors were a means of communicating between the scriberies in different towns. Pairs of mirrors were magically linked, so that a message from Ardamurkan or Yannitore would appear on a mirror in Kingswell, to be copied by a scribe. Then a reply could be written onto another mirror to be read at once many marks away.

  Kingswell’s mirrors had come from the Imperial City’s scribery, now empty and unused. The Imperial City was full of such curiosities, lingering from an age lost in history. The whole place was steeped in magic far beyond our present skills. Mother and Cal talked of its many wonders – the fountains which played just for them, the flowers that bloomed
and released their perfume as they passed by, and lamps that brightened and darkened all by themselves. But it was full of traps for the unwary. Only mages were safe there, and even they had to be careful.

  So the mirrors had been brought to the safety of the Keep. There were still a few mirrors left behind in the Imperial City, though. Broken, the mages said, but Cal thought they communicated with scriberies now lost to us. I liked to think of them hidden deep in the southern forests, known only to deer and foxes.

  The mirror room was of interest to me, and I brightened at the thought. It was so full of magic, the air practically crackled with it.

  But there were other sources of magic. “Might I take a trip away? It is two years since I have been to Zendronia to see my mother.”

  She hesitated. “Perhaps, but without some reason to return, you might linger on and be caught by the snows.”

  “We are several moons away from the worst weather,” I said.

  “It is a long journey for you, Drina. You were exhausted after your last visit home.”

  That was true. I fell silent, chewing my lip, struggling to find a reason to go home.

  She went on, “Some time away from Kingswell might do you good, but what is needed, I believe, is something more constructive. I have had an approach from the Blood Clans. Their boy god is making friendly overtures to us, and there is a hint that he would consider a Bennamorian wife.”

  “Not me!”

  She heard the horror in my voice, for she smiled. “No, not you. Unless you take a fancy to him, of course. He is said to be a handsome boy, and very charming. But then, he has his own people crawling at his feet, so I suppose a certain magnetism is to be expected.”

  I tried to reconcile this pleasant image with the bloodthirsty ways of the Clans, and failed.

  “No, I was thinking of Vhar-zhin,” she went on. “She is seventeen now, and has no interests beyond the refined arts. To be truthful, I cannot imagine what we are to do with her. What do you think? Would such a husband suit her, do you suppose?”

  “These people are savages, Highness. I cannot see Vhar-zhin stitching away at her tapestry or playing the querolo in such a setting.”

  “The reports we get are mixed, on the matter of savagery. They are not quite running around the hills in blue paint and feathers.”

  “But illiterate, and they live amongst half-wild animals. Their customs are… bizarre.”

  “I daresay they think the same of us.” But she raised her hands to concede the point. “I should like you to go anyway, you and Vhar-zhin. They have asked for an official delegation to meet them at the northwestern border fortress. They have a permanent camp there, for trading purposes and formal celebrations. Discuss the matter of a wife for the boy god, but without making any commitment. See what type of people they are, what they want from us, what we might want from them. Their inner lake is surrounded by mineral-rich hills which would be most useful. They have the black-bark tree, which grows nowhere else. Or fishing, furs – you know the sort of thing.”

  I did. It was depressing how much of Yannassia’s teaching I had absorbed over the years, when I’d had no idea that there was any teaching going on. Sitting on my chair at the foot of the dais, listening and watching, and discussing it afterwards with her, I’d become the diplomat I’d been determined never to be.

  Even now, when I was fully aware that I was being quietly manoeuvred into a more active political role, I was still energised by the prospect of the trip. The Blood Clans, like all our more primitive neighbours, were fascinating. And it would only be a matter of suns, and then I could get back to plotting my escape.

  “Do you think he will like me?” Vhar-zhin said, as we prepared for bed that evening.

  “How could he not?” I said, and laughed as she blushed prettily. I couldn’t imagine any man not liking her, sweet and dainty and shy as she was. And pretty, too, much prettier than me, with her glossy black hair that fell like a waterfall to her waist, without a wayward curl anywhere. I loved brushing her hair, letting it run through my fingers like silk.

  “He might like you more,” she said.

  “He had better not!”

  “But you might like him. He is a god, so he must surely be handsome beyond the mortal range, and tall, with lots of manly muscles and a twinkle in his eye when he looks at you. Like a certain bodyguard.”

  She giggled, and I tapped her with the hairbrush. “Stop it, you wicked girl. You know he never meant anything to me.”

  But only because he’d never had the chance. He was a fine-bodied man, with a smile to melt my heart, and he’d been my bodyguard for one all-too-brief period until we were caught kissing in the poetry translations section of the Keep library. To my sorrow, I’d had a female bodyguard since then, but I still had certain dreams of him.

  Whatever this boy god was like, I was sure he couldn’t compare to my lovely bodyguard.

  ~~~~~

  Our journey to the northwest was on horseback, since the paved roads petered out into rutted tracks a few suns’ ride beyond Kingswell. We passed two substantial towns, then a succession of ever-smaller settlements before reaching the remains of the High Citadel, the home of the Three Princes who had first settled Bennamore so many generations ago. They had come from the far north for reasons lost in history, and driven out the nomads and wild men of the hills, building their towers and keeps on fertile land along the river. Both river and princes were long gone now, their great town empty and silent.

  There was a substantial inn just beyond the Citadel, enclosed by a high wall and manned by watchful guards, and here we stopped for our last night on Bennamore soil.

  I slid thankfully off my horse, my legs heavy and stiff. We had not been riding hard, but I was exhausted. I’d forgotten how tired I got whenever I left Kingswell.

  “I am going to see if this place can drum up enough hot water for a bath,” Vhar-zhin said. “Coming?” Then she caught sight of my face as I unwound my scarves. “Drina, you poor thing! You look shattered. Here, lean on me. You there! Where is our room?”

  The inn manager led us up stairs and along erratic passageways, spinning round every three steps to be sure I hadn’t expired. She threw open a door and waved us through. A bed! I collapsed onto it in relief.

  “Send up some food,” Vhar-zhin told the manager. “Fruit, something light. Soup, perhaps, with meat in it. And hot wine, if you have some.”

  A tap on the door, followed by murmured voices, someone talking to my bodyguard.

  Then Vhar-zhin’s gentle tones. “Drina? Will you let Jayna look at you?”

  I didn’t mind that. A burst of magic from a mage always helped a bit, even if it didn’t last, and Jayna’s magic was strong, almost as strong as my mother’s.

  She bustled in and picked up my hand. With Mother, there was always an immediate warmth, but then she was a natural mage, with her magic inside her, coiled up in readiness like a snake. Other mages had to summon magic from a vessel, so it took time. But Jayna was quick, and I was soon sitting up again.

  “Ah, now you have a better colour,” Vhar-zhin said. “Does travelling always have this effect on you? Perhaps we should rest here for a couple of suns, until you are recovered.”

  “It makes no difference,” I said. “I will not recover fully until we return to Kingswell.”

  “Then we must continue as planned,” she said. “But we will keep our visit as short as possible. And when we return, I will tell Aunt Yannassia that you must not be sent away again. I cannot bear to see you like this.”

  ~~~~~

  The next sun, we reached the border fortress, with its solid walls and guards patrolling at all hours. The last outpost of the Drashona’s realm, her flags snapping bravely atop each corner tower.

  On the near side, a square of land was given over to a disorganised market, a place for Bennamorian merchants to trade with the Blood Clans. There was not much trading going on this sun, all activity suspended, faces turned in silence to watch as we
rode slowly past. Just beyond the fortress, a deep ditch and high earth bank marked the limit of Bennamore. We filed through the single gap and dismounted, gazing down into foreign territory. The domain of the Blood Clans.

  The ground sloped gently away from us, unmarked by trees or bushes, the single brown gash of the track meandering through scrubby grass. There in the distance was the curve of the lake, the last remnant of the river which had once flowed here. In the centre, a tree-covered islet. I saw no boats on the water, but perhaps there were no fish here. On the nearest shore, our destination: a scattered collection of skin tents, the trading settlement of the clans.

  The fortress commander came out to meet us. “There is someone waiting to take you down to the village.” He inclined his head towards a man sitting on top of the earth bank not far away, ankles crossed, arms wrapped round his knees.

  “He is one of them?” I said. “One of the Blood Clans?” The commander nodded. “I had expected a larger reception. Well, he looks quite harmless.”

  “We have checked him for weapons, of course.”

  “Do they have magic?”

  He shook his head. “Just an unnatural affinity with their beasts. They are said to ride into battle on lions and the like, but I have never seen one with anything larger than a fox.”

  “I have heard such tales. Do they give you any trouble?”

  “None at all. We hardly know they are there.”

  The man on the earth bank had been watching us composedly, but now he jumped up and came over to us. As he walked, he bounced on the balls of his feet, as if he had too much energy to burn. He was quite young, now that I could see him properly, not much older than me, rather slender, with softly curling brown hair. His clothes were the nondescript type that any farmer might put on for fieldwork. Only a leather necklace with an amber pendant at his throat distinguished him from thousands of other labourers.

  He smiled at us as he drew close, a relaxed smile as if he were enjoying a private joke. He bowed, one hand touching his forehead, his eyes skipping from one to another of us. They came to rest on Vhar-zhin, then jumped back to me.