The Shattered Vine

by Laura Anne Gilman

  None save Jerzy.

  “Lil.” Jerzy did not raise his voice, but it carried well enough for her to hear, and she stepped forward, cautiously.

  “Have Detta select a half cask of bloodstaunch for our visitors. As a gesture of friendship.”

  Lil looked stormy, but nodded, turning and walking back up the path.

  “Thank you, sahr.” His erstwhile hostage’s words were grudging, but the look in his eyes was guardedly grateful.

  A half cask would not do much, but it could, at least, ease suffering. A quiet voice like Kaïnam’s told him that this was not a wise move, long term: the soldiers would remember only that the Vineart had given them what they came for and not the fact that they had not been able to take it by force.

  Long term was not his concern, today. Jerzy could not bring himself to turn them away entirely, no matter the cost to his plan.

  “You will camp on the road outside my lands,” he said. “And when the half cask is brought out to you, you will leave. If you remain, if even one of you remains . . .” He reached for a memory of Master Malech, cool and stern, and then he smiled.

  The Iajans did not wait to be told a second time to leave.

  THE VINE-MAGE HAD not meant to kill the Praepositus so soon. Still, the second wave of ships had sailed, his poppet onboard, and it would suffice. The slave he used had been too short, the skin not quite the same color, anyone who knew him well would know it was not Ximen. But those closest had stayed behind—save two of his spawn—and the blood and scrapings he had taken from the corpse were enough to cover a multitude of flaws. All else could be blamed on stress, or sea air—and any who questioned could so easily, shipboard, fall over the side.

  The vine-mage took a sip of the spellwine, the deep rich fruit salted with the blood added during the incantation, Ximen’s own blood, to tie the magic more firmly to the flesh. “My breath, his flesh. My thoughts, his voice. Go.”

  Shipboard, he felt the poppet stir, pausing mid-conversation. The sound of the water below creaking hulls, the stink of saltwater and unwashed flesh, struck the vine-mage as strongly as if he were there himself.

  “What reading?” The poppet’s voice was not quite right, and the vine-mage frowned. Never mind that none had the wit to question it, the failure irked him.

  “Steady as she sails, my lord. The vine-mage’s protections hold.”

  The vine-mage severed the connection, feeling the sense of the ship fade. That was all he needed to know. When they connected with the first fleet, the poppet knew to contact him.

  It had taken the vine-mage years of trial and error to discover what parts of the body were needful to create a true poppet, rather than merely binding an existing body to his command, but it worked. For a while, anyway. A poppet capable of movement and reaction would only stay animate for a few weeks, at most, and then fall apart, but a few weeks would be enough. They would be well at sea when someone discovered the body, decaying from some unknown illness.

  And when word was finally sent back to the Grounding, after the ceremonial grieving, the vine-mage would have a hand in choosing the next Praepositus, one who would be a biddable assistant in what was to come.

  Yes. The death might have come too early, but it would all be well, in the end. The only irritant remained that unknown Vineart.

  It had challenged him, taken his pieces off the board, against that fool Esoba. It smelled of power, of the spellwines he himself did not possess, that he needed to reach his goal. And yet it had eluded him, using the sea to hide itself. It had escaped him, sliding into his awareness and then out again, while he was occupied with Ximen. It knew too much, had touched too deeply, and escaped unscathed, with the vine-mage not knowing how much he had learned.

  That was not acceptable. There could be no one to challenge him, when he finally stepped onto the old world’s soil. Ximen had worried too much about prestige and politics, the military might of small men, but the vine-mage knew all that mattered was control of the magic. Once he could dig his own hands into the vineyards of the old, could feel the magic that filled that land, so far from this shattered fragment, nothing would be beyond his capabilities. He had made the vines here powerful through the sacrifices, but they were still too hard to work, too stubborn. The old world vines, trained for centuries, would yield power to him as he had only imagined. . . .

  Nothing could stand in his way. Nothing could be allowed to stand in his way.

  Turning away from the poppet, he walked over to the worktable, and picked up a flask of spellwine, pouring a small dose of the dark red liquid into the shallow, flat-bottomed cup next to it. Earthwine, the only legacy that had grafted properly in this land, taking to the wild vines like a babe to a foster teat. Strong and rich, smelling of dirt and spice, the scent of the hot summer winds, nourished and tamed by blood, it reached for its native lands, binding the old and new together.

  On the shelf above the table, there were four small domes of glass, each one protecting a bit of hair, or flesh, or peeling of nail. The one to the far left had scrapings of skin, taken from under the fingernails of the Irfan merchant. He had not been a total disappointment, after all.

  “One bird down, two birds down, and the hunter shall have a feast,” he said, almost singing it, as his narrow fingers scooped up the dried bits of flesh and placed them in another dish. Hand that had touched hand, skin that had brushed skin, and the feel of the bright-burning Vineart in his mind. “Little magic bird, soon you will be in my net, I will pluck your feathers and crunch your flesh.”

  All he had to do was wait, and be ready. When the Vineart fluttered its wings again . . . he would have it.

  Chapter 18

  They’re doing what?”

  Brion leaned back in his chair, looking far more like the soldier he had once been than a Washer. “You disturb them” he said to Jerzy, ignoring Ao’s indignation for the moment. “You disturb anyone with common sense,” he added, sipping at his vina, causing the other two people in the room to laugh, quietly.

  “This break within the Collegium is none of my doing.”

  “No, of course not. Men are men, no matter they wear robes or trou. There are days I think we should hand it all over to the women; solitaires are wondrously practical creatures, and House-keepers such as your Detta would no doubt run the world far better than we.”

  Detta, seated in one of the chairs, let out an amused snort and looked pleased.

  “But that is neither here nor there,” Brion went on. “Brother Neth felt that you should be warned that the Collegium plans to use you thus. But I think that you had already anticipated that?”

  Jerzy had chosen not to sit behind the desk in his study for this meeting; Brion had met Master Malech, and Jerzy did not think that he would impress the Washer, trying to mimic that pose. Instead, he had Roan arrange chairs so that all four of them—Brion, Jerzy, Ao, and Detta—were able to see each other equally.

  Detta had been surprised when Jerzy asked her to remain, after she reported the delivery of the half cask, but had taken her chair and listened intently as the others, while Brion reported on why he had been sent.

  “I had not planned that far,” Jerzy admitted, looking down into the depths of his own vina. He had been focused on the moment, on building everything to the point where the other Vineart would have no other options, making Jerzy the clear and obvious point to strike. After that . . . With luck, Ao and Kaïnam’s people, and the solitaires, would be able to hold the peace while the Lands Vin recovered.

  “It works, though. It all works,” he said, thinking out loud, trying to see events the way Kaïnam would. “If he does in fact have whisperers among the Washers, he will know that they are in disarray. Iaja tears itself apart, The Berengia begins to crumble. His ships, his men hold Atakus. And he knows I am watching, now. Closing in.”

  Brion started to ask a question, but Ao shook his head sharply, and the Washer subsided.

  “He has set himself in motion,” Jerzy went on.
“Magic has a weight to it: once a spell is decanted, it cannot be stopped, just as wine spilt cannot go back into the flask. He must follow through, or risk losing control.”

  “And then you will destroy him?”

  “No,” Jerzy said, finally speaking out loud the plan he had carried for weeks. “Then I invite him to destroy me.”

  “You’re mad.” Brion had his back against the wall, his shoulders firm, one hand resting on his belt, and he looked more like a fighter, like a solitaire or a soldier, than any Washer. “You—we—have an enemy who can reach across oceans, who can manipulate men and beasts, send magic that you cannot trace . . . and you would invite him into your own home?”

  Brion did not understand. He could not. Jerzy looked to Detta, who had remained silent while the Washer ranted. Her round face was closed and still, her usual vigor dimmed by shock and dismay.

  “You would bring this . . . taint, here? Into the vineyard?” She shook her head, her short, graying curls swinging with the movement. “Oh, Jerzy . . .” She would not say no, she knew it was not her place to say what would or could be done here; Jerzy was Vineart. But she clearly was not comfortable with his decision. “Master Malech—”

  “Master Malech is dead.”

  Malech could not have understood Jerzy’s actions, either. He had been a Master Vineart, but master of only two legacies; he had never touched an unblooded vine, had never felt the great Root stretching underneath his feet. He would not understand the temptation, the desire, that drove their enemy.

  “Master Malech is dead and there is no one else. The mage saw to that.” Baiting traps, setting lures, pruning the strongest branches rather than the weakest so that the vine itself was weakened.

  Jerzy ignored the shimmer of the Root deep below, carefully calling on the quiet-magic within him, tasting the dark fruit and cool stone on his tongue and in his throat, sour and deep like no legacy he could name, a forbidden blend of wines.

  Apostate, he was. Firevine, and Healing, the legacy of flesh, the vines he had been called to. Weathervines, given to him freely by Vineart Giordan. Three of the five, and the unblooded grapes of Irfan filling in the spaces, the reassuring presence of the Guardian somehow touching him with the spells used in its creation: Growvines, the legacy of earth, and Aether, the rarest of them all.

  Sin Washer had broken the Vine to keep any one man from such power. But power would find its own way; quiet-magic gathered the legacies, binding them within the Vineart . . . five legacies and quiet-magic, once called blood-magic, bound together under one will. . . .

  Jerzy had shied away from what that meant, even as he crept into the thick of it, used it, built his plan around it.

  Apostate.

  Forbidden.

  Mage.

  “Ao.”

  The trader had been waiting patiently—patiently as he could, anyway—waiting for Jerzy to give him something to do, and looked up expectantly when Jerzy spoke his name.

  “I need you to round up the slaves, all the workers, and take them north, to the firevine yard.” Any attacks would be brought against the House itself, not the smaller yards; the Guardian’s protections would extend and hold there.

  Ao was already shaking his head. “No. Sending them away, fine. Smart. But I’m not leaving. Not while you’re staying here.”

  “I need you to do this.”

  “Rot you do.” Ao scowled at him, clearly angry. “Let Detta take them. I’m staying.”

  Jerzy didn’t want him here. He wanted them all gone, away. Safe, like Mahl and Kaïnam; tucked away where they could do good, after.

  “We stay,” Brion said flatly. “Whatever you plan to do . . . there are those who wish you ill, beyond your—our enemy. You will need someone to guard your back. Vineart for magic, soldiers for war. That is how it has always been.”

  Jerzy rubbed at his forehead, where he could feel the pain beginning to build again, a dry, throbbing ache that not even a healspell could ease.

  No one could be protected.

  “I don’t want you here,” he said, as though they cared at all what he wanted.

  “Maybe not,” Brion said. “But you need us. And if I know one thing about you, Vineart, it is that you will do what is needed.”

  Yes. He would. Jerzy twisted the silver ring on his finger, then nodded. “Detta. Take the wagons, load them with whatever you will need.” He saw no need to instruct her further; she knew better than any what supplies she would require. “Any who can ride, take horse. The rest can walk. Leave now.”

  He looked up to see her gaze on him, a steady, assessing look so very similar to the one she had given him that first morning when Malech had brought him into the House.

  A year past. Barely more than a year, a Harvest gone.

  Much changes in a season.

  The dragon had a point. Everything changes, in a season. But the cycle remained the same. Jerzy clung to that, the hope that this too would turn and return, and not shatter.

  Ignoring the other four, who had begun discussing the practical matters of such an exodus, Jerzy got up and walked over to the mirror leaning against the far wall. The silvered surface was tarnished, the reflection wavy and uncertain, but he could sense the magic within it, close but unlike the magic that moved within the Guardian. The Guardian was a magic beyond him, but he had created smaller versions of this mirror, had extrapolated from the original spell, without previous knowledge. If he stretched, if he reached . . . could he create another Guardian?

  And once he knew how to create . . . could he destroy, as well?

  The quiet-magic shifted within him, and he felt dizzy, overly potent. This was forbidden, against Commands, for a reason. Too much held ready, ripe with power. If he decanted this, unleashed it, could he then bring it back under control?

  He placed his hand flat on the surface and let the quiet-magic gather on his tongue, murmuring the decantation that would bring Kaïnam to him.

  The surface darkened, then swirled, silvery strands like water in a storm, until the entire mirror was the color of an overcast day.

  “Kaï?”

  The princeling appeared in the mirror, his face turned as though responding to someone else, then whipping back to Jerzy.

  “What’s wrong?” Kaï’s skin was flushed, his long dark hair tied back, and a streak of something that might have been blood crusted across his jawline, but he appeared unharmed otherwise, more distracted than dismayed by Jerzy’s summons.

  “It’s time.” He had not detailed his plan to Kaï—had not had the details to give him then—but the other man did not need to know what he was about to do, only what was required of him. “I need you to hold their attention there, as best you can.”

  Kaïnam showed his teeth in something almost a grin. “Hold their attention? I think that we can arrange that, O Vineart.”

  As before, the sound of Kaï’s voice came after his mouth moved; Jerzy wondered what he had missed in the spell to cause the delay and then dismissed the worry. It worked; that was all that mattered.

  There was a shout, muffled, and Kaïnam turned his head to the left again and the grin became even more bloodthirsty. “Speaking of which, I’m needed. Fair winds, Vineart.”

  “Good Harvest,” Jerzy replied, but the connection had already been broken.

  “They’ve encountered the enemy,” Brion said, and Jerzy almost jumped, not having realized that the Washer had come up beside him. “Who does he ride with, and where?”

  “Atakus.” Jerzy saw no reason to hide the facts from the other man; Kaïnam was of a family of princes, and as such it was his right to enter into direct battle. “Sailing with a Caulic fleet.”

  Brion’s eyebrows went up at that news, but he merely nodded. “A logical alliance. These Exiles were the ones responsible for the destruction of their ships?”

  “We believe so.”

  “And what you believe, the Caulic king is certain of. You realize that once they have a foothold on Atakus, they will not
relinquish it easily.”

  “Kaïnam is aware of that.” Jerzy’s tone was dry, disinterested; if the Washer was looking for some sign that Jerzy was taking a further interest in the matters of men of power, he would be sore disappointed.

  Jerzy placed his hand back on the mirror, this time invoking Mahault’s mirror.

  But the silvery swirl remained in motion, never clearing to display the solitaire. Jerzy pressed his palm more firmly against the surface, as though he could somehow force the connection, letting the quiet-magic fill his mouth and slide down his throat, to no avail.

  For whatever reason, the spell-connection could not form.

  “Jer?”

  If Mahault had been too busy to respond, the mirror still should show where she was, or more particularly where the mirror was. It was possible that the spell was too weak to work, or that the mirror itself had been damaged, as Jerzy’s had back in Aleppan; they were delicate things, and Mahault had been riding hard.

  Or they might be blocked. Had the mage sensed his connection to Kaï, and followed the spell?

  “Detta, go now. Everyone needs to be out of here by sundown.”

  “Jerzy, that’s . . .” She stopped, and did not argue further. “It will be done.” For a large woman, Detta could move swiftly when she wished, and by the time Jerzy turned to Brion, she was already gone.

  “If you insist on staying, be useful,” he said to the Washer, who took no visible offense. “I need your eyes on the vintnery, with the slaves gone.”

  “What am I looking for?”

  “Anything. Riders, birds, a wind that feels wrong. Anything that changes, anything that feels wrong. Ao, do the same for the House.”

  “And if we do see or feel something?” Ao asked.

  Jerzy smiled, but unlike Kaïnam’s grin there was no humor in it at all. “Run.”

  THE SUMMONS FROM Jerzy had come at a good time; they had just slipped past the spell-barriers and into the harbor, but engagement had not yet begun. There were enemy ships anchored there, their lines generations old even though the construction was new. They were voyagers, not skirmishers; any battle to come would be on land rather than sea, and so Kaïnam had returned to his tiny cabin to change from shipboard wear to leathers and boots more suited to swordplay and fending off arrows. He did not know what weapons the Exiles might choose, but he would be as prepared as possible.