“Think so,” Jerinne said. “Just have each other’s backs, hear?”
Tander and Chrinten were out of sight, but shouts tore through the air. The both of them. It wasn’t clear if they had let loose a battle cry, or were crying for help.
“Let’s move,” Jerinne said. She pushed a bit faster, and they broke from the tree line to a clearing at the top of the cliff. The view of the valley, the winding highway, and the hills of the archduchy spread out before them in a spectacular vista.
The view was marred by the twenty or so thugs with swords and clubs, half of whom were swarming on Chrinten and Tander. The boys were holding their own for a moment—they had shields and armor, while their opponents had leather coats and mismatched helmets.
Two figures were at the cliff edge, turning their attention to Jerinne, Liana, and Trandt. One of them was a woman in a fur-lined coat, armed with a pair of hatchets. The other, an older man, slim and gray haired, with a nimbus of flame surrounding him. Mage.
“Quinara,” the mage said, pointing to Jerinne and the rest.
“I have them, Pria,” she said. “Focus on the wagons.” She bounded forward, spinning the axes as she came at Jerinne.
The mage focusing on anything down below was a problem. Madam Tyrell was down there. Without hesitation, Jerinne pulled the shield off her arm and hurled it as hard as she could at him. It hit him square in the back, and he and the shield went over the edge. Worst threat handled.
Quinara, the axe-woman, was on them, though, with blows and kicks and flips that seemed unnaturally fast. Jerinne barely dodged a strike from one axe, but Liana took a kick to the nose, sending her down. While Jerinne centered her balance and readied her staff, Quinara laid a full assault on Trandt, hacking at his shield and dodging his feckless sword thrusts. Sparks flew as she raked the axes across his shield, blocking his sword, and sweeping in to knock his legs out from under him.
Before she could bury an axe in his head, Jerinne leaped in, staff spinning. Jerinne cracked a blow across Quinara’s back, sending the woman down, but she rolled and spun around as she popped up. Back at Jerinne, axes at the ready.
“Lucky shot, sweetling,” she said. “Won’t get another.”
“Don’t count on that,” Jerinne said.
Quinara launched another attack, axes moving faster than Jerinne could see. But she didn’t rely on watching the axes—her eyes were on Quinara’s arms, her body, her feet. Finding the dance, matching steps, parrying each blow to knock the woman off her rhythm. Let her attack, stay on the defense, wear her down. Wait for the moment.
“Jerinne!” Liana called out from the ground, her nose gushing with blood. Jerinne heard the warning and followed her instinct, ducking and pulling away.
A blast of fire whirled past her head, singeing her hair. She pivoted to look to her left, while keeping Quinara in her field of vision.
“Well, that’s not rutting fair,” she muttered.
The mage—Pria—was hovering in the air above the valley, both hands ablaze and wings of blue fire sprouting out of his back.
Chapter 12
HEMMIT DID NOT WANT to go back to the Royal College of Maradaine campus, a place he studiously avoided since resigning before he was drummed out. Not because he hated the school; rather, it disappointed him deeply. It should have been a haven of free thought and discussion. Instead, it was filled with closed minds and staid, conservative folks who felt nothing needed to change in the world. “Nothing but prosperity since the Island War ended! Why change that?”
A perfect demonstration of the problems in the city, and why the Populists held so few seats in the Parliament. Also why the Dishers were probably going to sweep the Parliament this election.
If he had to meet Lin at the Department of Mystical Studies, he was going with a handful of issues of Veracity Press as well as the Dayne pamphlet, handing one to every student he passed along the way. If he was going to be tarred with “subverting the student body,” then by Saint Terrence, he would earn that charge in spades.
The Department of Mystical Studies was buried away in a shady corner of the campus. The only buildings near it were the storehouses for grounds equipment and the workhouses where sheets and uniforms were laundered. You could barely even see another dormitory or class building when you stood on its steps.
Lin was skulking in the doorway, her expression sour. She was clearly as unhappy about being here as he was.
“What am I doing here?” he asked.
“Moral support,” she said. “I need to talk to someone here, and I don’t want to be alone.”
“I thought you were done with this place when you got your Letters and your Circling.”
“Same,” she said. “But I need to ask some questions, and this is the best place.” She opened the door and a wave of hot air that was both stale and sulfurous hit him in the face.
She led him down the dim hallway to a narrow staircase, and then up to the top level. At the top of the stairs there was a frost-glass door with ornate writing.
Division of Integrated Mysticism
Prof. Samhur Jilton, Chair
“Professor Jilton? That’s who we’re seeing?”
“Not if I can help it.” Despite that, she opened the door and went in.
The room looked like most any other academic office on campus—several desks, cabinets, slateboards, and bookcases, papers and books everywhere. Doors to private offices against one wall. There was still some sunlight coming through the windows, but so little that the room still needed several oil lamps burning to see anything, intensifying the acrid smell of the room.
Only one other person was present, a sallow-looking fellow working at one of the slateboards, book in one hand, chalk in the other. What he was writing made no sense whatsoever to Hemmit. It seemed to be in multiple languages, multiple forms of writing, plus mathematical and scientific notations.
“Hello, Gailte,” Lin said.
The person turned, and in seeing the face, Hemmit realized it was not a man, but a tall woman with short-cropped red hair. “Oh, oh!” she said. “Lin! Fancy the blazes out of seeing you in this place. What moves your feet?” She had an accent that Hemmit couldn’t quite place. It definitely was from somewhere in Druthal, but no singular place came to mind.
“Hoping to find you,” Lin said. “Are we alone here?”
“Oh, you mean—no, no, I think he’s not about right now. Some . . . meeting with donors. Or Waisholm. Possibly both. But not around, I think.”
“Good,” Lin said.
Hemmit’s curiosity couldn’t be further contained. He approached the slateboard. “What is all this?”
“Unified Mysticism, notated,” she said. “Or at least the makings of it. We’re determined to publish before Salarmin’s team. I’m nose deep in a Poasian text that the professor acquired last month, except I really don’t know any Poasian and he doesn’t want me to— Anyway, that bit’s Poasian.” She pointed to the figures on the board. “Tsouljan, Ancient Kieran, Bardinic Yjaïsic runery. It’s . . . it’s a lot. I should have something to eat. Maybe. Lin, do you have anything?”
Lin handed a bag to the girl. She nearly tore it open to get at what it contained: about a half-dozen small pastries.
“Caborlets!” Gailte squealed. She all but shoved one into her mouth immediately. “Oh my saints, Lin, you know how much I love these and I never can manage to drag myself off campus and across Trelan to find them.” She ate another voraciously. Then she raised an eyebrow. “What do you want?”
“Am I that shallow?”
“You came here armed with pastries,” Gailte said, sitting on the floor cross-legged. “So tell me the tale.”
“All right,” Lin said. “Unified Mysticism. The idea that there’s a lot of different things besides magic in this world, and those different . . . powers?” She used that last word with unce
rtainty.
“I prefer to say ‘forces,’” Gailte said. “We know there are five of them.”
“Five different kinds of magic?” Hemmit asked. He was out of his depth here, but felt he should contribute something to the conversation.
“No,” Gailte said. “I mean, sort of, from a lay perspective. It would be deeply challenging to explain without a solid foundation of Magic Theory and Advanced Integrated Mysticism, which is exactly what Lin here dropped out of before she got her Letters.”
“You dropped out?”
Lin scoffed. “I dropped out of one class. I still earned my Letters.”
“But you—”
“Yes, I don’t understand it all. I know there are five forces, though, with ‘magic’ being the most prominent one, channeling numinic energy.”
Gailte stepped in. “Channeling numinic energy through your own body, the vessel which serves as accumulator and lens for shaping the energy.”
Hemmit took out his notebook and stylus and started jotting.
“Start at the beginning,” he said. “Like you said, lay perspective.”
Gailte rolled her eyes and ate another pastry. “Fine. The five forces—in as much as we understand them—are Magic, Faith, Will, Physical Focus, and Science—”
“How is Science at all like magic?” Hemmit asked.
“Why do you have to interrupt?” Gailte shot back. “I swear, Lin, most of your problems stemmed from hanging around hairy morons like this fellow.”
“I think this beard is quite fetching,” Hemmit said.
“Anyhow, ‘Science,’ in this context, represents an understanding of the true physical laws of the universe. A base standard that everything will always return to.” She waved her hand, and Hemmit’s stylus flew out of his hand and hovered in the air. “With magic, I can defy gravity. But if I stop—” The pencil dropped to the ground. “Gravity reasserts itself. If you can’t understand how that works—understand the Science of the world—you cannot fully understand how everything else interacts. And it’s that balance of the five that we’re trying to fully understand.”
“I remember that part,” Lin said. “How Physical Focus is about the external shaping of numinic energy, through other objects. Like the Bardinic runes. Will is the power of Psionics, telepaths, and their ilk.”
Half of what she said flew over Hemmit’s head. “The who and the what?”
“Hush,” Lin said. “But Faith was the one that I couldn’t wrap my head around.”
“Because Faith is a mystery,” Gailte said. “By its very nature. We can apply the tools of science to the rest—measure numinic energy, register and capture Psionic imprints—oh you should see the work we’ve done—”
“Not now, Gailte,” Lin said, almost with a snap. “But the powers—force—of Faith, you can’t?”
“Strictly speaking, it’s never been proven to be a real thing. At least in terms that are acceptable to the academic community. There’s documentation, of course, dating back to the Pelkin Miracle, but nothing of that same level of recurrent, demonstrable proof.” She raised an eyebrow. “Why are you asking? You experience something?”
“Maybe,” Lin said guardedly. “I saw someone do something unnatural, and it wasn’t magic.”
“You mean when the bishop—” Hemmit started, but a snapped glare from Lin made him bite his tongue.
“A bishop?” Gailte popped up on her feet and grabbed a book. “I mean, despite its name, there’s no direct evidence connecting ‘Faith’ and religion and theology. But there is correlation. And that’s the attribution to what’s behind the so-called ‘impossible’ things in so many saint stories.”
“Magic can’t touch people’s minds or souls,” Lin said, coming over to her. “I saw—I saw a man charge at someone ready to kill, and with a word, he suddenly changed. Dropped the knife, intent to kill vanished. And . . . you could feel it in your bones.”
“Interesting,” Gailte said. “I mean, I would hesitate to confirm that as a manifestation of Faith as a fundamental force, but . . . unofficially?” She shrugged. “Sounds like it.”
Hemmit thought about the moment in the lunch, when Issendel spoke to Sister Frienne. And the scar that seemed to fade as she spoke. Was this what they meant? It didn’t seem like magic, as much as Hemmit understood it.
“And if this can change someone so . . . profoundly . . . would they know? Would they still be themselves? Would they—”
Before Lin could finish, a voice called out from one of the private offices. “Gailte! I need the Third Chronicle in here.”
Lin turned pale. “You said—”
Gailte snapped her fingers. “That meeting was last month,” she said. “Sorry, I—”
Lin grabbed Hemmit’s wrist and pulled him out of the office before Gailte could finish, and kept going until they were back outside. When she finally stopped, she leaned against a tree and closed her eyes, her breathing heavy and hard.
“Are you . . . all right?” he asked. She had never spoken about exactly what had happened in her final year at RCM, especially with the Department and Professor Jilton. Hemmit had respected that she would talk about it when she wanted to.
“It’s fine,” she said. “I just—I just needed to know. I needed to be certain.”
“Of what?”
She looked over at the building, her eyes filled with anger. “I’m not . . . I’m . . .” She rubbed her temples, as if even thinking about it made her tired. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Hemmit was still uncertain of what they had even learned if anything, but Lin seemed deeply troubled. So much so, he couldn’t even consider burdening her with anything else, especially Kemmer’s note. Instead he focused on her. “Did you get what you needed in there?”
She didn’t answer that, but brushed off her skirt and walked toward the campus gates. “Come on, we’ve got a paper to put out.”
* * *
Dayne had wandered the city for hours before coming to the Tarian Chapterhouse. The discussion with Bishop Issendel had left him more confused than ever. What was he supposed to be doing, exactly? What were his duties, and how in the name of every saint was he serving the Tarian Order this way? What was he supposed to do, return to Marshal Chief Samsell and report the meeting with Issendel? Would Samsell be interested, be angry, and what authority did he have over what Dayne did next?
There was only one person who could answer that, he decided, and he went to the chapterhouse for that. He went straight in, brushing past the servants and anyone else, heading up the stairs to the Grandmaster’s sanctuary.
Grandmaster Orren was in discussion with Master Nedell. “We just don’t have the—oh, Dayne. I didn’t call for you, did I?”
“No, sir,” Dayne said. “But I’m here anyway.”
“Why ever are you?” Grandmaster Orren asked. “You have duties and an assignment, do you not? You should be attending to those.”
“I have an assignment, sir,” Dayne said. “I’m not so certain about duties.”
The Grandmaster tightened his lips. “Master Nedell, would you be so kind to excuse us briefly. We’ll return to this discussion shortly.”
“Of course,” Nedell said, shaking his head darkly at Dayne as he left.
The Grandmaster paced about his chamber before taking a seat on the floor, and wordlessly gestured for Dayne to join him there. Once Dayne sat down, Grandmaster Orren took a deep breath before speaking.
“What is it that’s troubling you?”
“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing,” Dayne said. “I mean, I’m supposed to be a liaison officer between us and the Parliament, but I don’t seem to be doing much liaising. Instead I’m talking to the press in the morning, and harassing priests in the rest of the day.”
“Harassing priests?”
“Well, a priest. A specif
ic one. But I—”
“Dayne,” Orren said, holding up his hand. “What do you mean about the specific priest? Is this some task you’ve been assigned, or have you taken some initiative to solve a problem that you imagine?”
“Well, first, this problem found me—”
Orren shook his head and got back to his feet. “And you stepped in because only Dayne, hero of the Tarian Order, could possibly be trusted? Yet another story of you saving the city?”
Dayne snapped. “Sir, if people are being hurt, it is our duty, our sacred trust, to step up and be the shield between them and harm.”
The Grandmaster chuckled. “I marvel at how easy it all comes for you. I’m jealous, frankly. Such . . . purity of purpose.” He went to his desk and poured two cups of tea.
“Then what is my purpose? A trained clown for the press? A common thug hassling the politically inconvenient?”
That got the Grandmaster’s attention. “The priest?”
“Bishop Ret Issendel,” Dayne told him. “The leader of the Open Hand. They’re a political dissident group that . . .”
“I’ve read the papers, I’m aware.” He handed Dayne a cup of tea and sat back down on the floor.
“Marshal Chief Samsell wants me to ‘unofficially’ discourage him and the Open Hand from any further action. And, while I don’t care for what the Open Hand stands for, Issendel and his people are doing nothing wrong in exercising their right to protest.”
“Which is why the marshal wanted to use your informal capacity to his advantage. There is no legal recourse to stop Issendel, but through you, pressure can be applied. Sensible.”
“You approve?”
“Of the logic, not the choice,” Grandmaster Orren said. “So what have you done?”
“Met Issendel for lunch. We talked about his goals, his movement, and . . . well, I don’t approve of the Open Hand, but I believe he is a man of peace, and that’s what he preaches to his followers. I cannot, in any good conscience, stop him from performing a lawful protest in a peaceful manner.”
Shield of the People Page 15
