Banner of the Damned

by Sherwood Smith

  If you judges are also mages, you understand the danger of which I was so blithely unaware. I did know, as everyone does, that transfer is risky, which is why we have Destinations. When one pulls something out of the world, there must be a specific place to reinsert it. Without specificity there is the threat of the object being lost outside of the world. Vexing if it’s something, deadly if it’s someone.

  I had no idea that magic students are not permitted to transfer for at least three years, sometimes longer. Some are never deemed able to learn. And there I was, given transfer as a goal, untaught, as my first lesson.

  “Fit the lesson to the student.” I’d been challenged, that was all I knew.

  As a scribe, I was taught to be methodical. I wanted badly to write everything out, but I resisted the impulse. One encounter with the king was enough to make plain that that danger had been foreseen. If his whim led to my personal effects being searched, there must be nothing to find but Lasva’s scrollcase.

  I used that scrollcase to experiment on, transferring bits of paper to the desk and back again. Then I tried larger objects. I knew exactly what to focus on: Fox’s record. I could so clearly see that slashing handwriting, the aged-gold papers. Speaking rapidly, I performed the transfer—

  —and magic punched me through stone and steel, or so it felt. I tumbled over the top of the table, onto the memoir. Pages delicate with age crackled warningly beneath me. Appalled, I struggled up, swallowing hastily as I recovered. When I could stop my hands from shaking, I carefully straightened the pages. There was enough linen content in that paper to spare it from my rough entry.

  I sat down and resumed reading, skimming over battles. When I came to a conversation about magic, I bent close, puzzling out the old-fashioned hand and the outdated language. Venn—magic—and what was this? Mages who…?

  At first I could not believe that I had the right words. When I read a little farther, horror bloomed in tendrils of ice through my chest: I had read correctly. The Venn mages had used magic to kill people by transporting rocks into the center of their victims’ chests.

  I dropped the pages, sick with nausea. I was determined not to read any farther.

  The air flickered, and there was the Herskalt. I stared at him, breathing hard as I tried to find a neutral way to express my repudiation of that record. He did not look at the pages. His attention was on me. “Perhaps we should begin with a review of what you do know,” he said, as if we’d seen one another only moments before.

  I took a moment to breathe in and out, to regain my equilibrium. The scribes’ First Rule prevented me from offering an opinion of his record. It was an historical artifact. My opinion of it was not required.

  Matching my manner to his, I began to recite my memorized book. A short way in, he held up his hand. “I see. You have committed to memory an instructor’s private text, without comprehending the basic knowledge underlying it, or how to put this knowledge to use.”

  “I’ve figured out some of it,” I said.

  He seemed amused, though his expression did not change. “I gather you wish to achieve higher magical knowledge, without undergoing the tedium of what the Mage Council calls the Basics. These are what the young mage students term ‘Bells and Spells,’ because of the tricks of memorization and the simple spells designed to accustom mages to employing magic.”

  “I know how to memorize and to study.”

  “If you expect to understand anything about the higher level magics, you need to know what the lowest water-speller or wandmaker knows. So I will give you a set of spells without the bells.”

  His air was one of patience, his implication it would take a week—a month—to master what he gave me. I was back the next day, the only challenge being the transfer.

  He walked through the wall. “You are trying to impress me with your diligence,” he observed. “Will you remember anything next week or next month?”

  “I know about quick memory and long memory,” I said, and made The Peace so I would sound conscientious and not peremptory. “I will repeat the lessons until they settle in long memory. May I ask what manner of illusion you employ for dissolving that wall between this room and the one beyond?”

  His smile deepened. “What convinces you there is a room beyond?”

  “The vents in this castle have been partially rebuilt since the old days of wood fires, before fire sticks. Some of the vents seem to have been made into chambers. Like this one we sit in now. Also, there is the fact that you arrive without demonstrating the effects of transfer, which makes me think there is some step between illusion—where one sees a wall but feels nothing but air, as had been the case in the archive below—and actual transformation.”

  “Very observant indeed,” he said. “I commend your teachers for their skill in training an effective mimic.”

  “Mimic?”

  “You say you wish to help this kingdom in emergencies.” He tapped the Fox memoir. “Yet you did not trouble yourself to thoroughly read this record that engages with your princess’s new kingdom.” So he was aware of my skimming? Once again I began rehearsing words that would appear neutral, yet still express my total disengagement with his record, but he went on. “That suggests that the magic you wish to learn is the easy trickery: gathering sunlight into glowglobes or purifying water. Perhaps creating air tunnels to the sky on hot days, to bring down the cooler breezes.”

  Now was the time to offer the first of my rehearsed reasons. “I do not see the utility in reading details about ancient wars, fought according to ancient custom. Such things are not just unpleasant but uncivilized.”

  “The Colendi being the pinnacle of ‘civilized.’” He betrayed amusement in the crinkle of his eyes, though his demeanor remained serious.

  I thought of diplomatic qualifiers to mask my conviction that we were at least more civilized than the Marlovens, but he raised a casual hand. “‘Mine is superior to yours’ is never a fruitful discussion, whether the subject is governments or ways of baking bread. I wonder if you were so busy skipping the details of battles (admittedly there are many) you also missed the discussions of statecraft and power. Is it more civilized to educate one’s sister as a commodity to be sold, rather than as a war chieftain?”

  Now he was talking about my history. And not just history, but people known to me. “Queen Hatahra did not educate her sister as a commodity to be sold,” I retorted.

  “Then you must tell me why she saw to it that Lasthavais’s days were filled with lessons in art, dance, music, and deportment, with nothing said about statecraft; and why she was surrounded by maternal women whose positions depended on their anticipation of the princess’s every want, so she would never have the time or the inclination to look past the surface of Hatahra’s power?”

  “That isn’t true,” I stated. “I was there, and the princess told me everything. I was in sight of the queen when she spoke with Princess Lasthavais nearly a year ago, at the New Year’s ball, and the princess came straight from that conversation to me to repeat it. The queen had always intended to have an heir. She told the princess that if an heir was not born within a year, then lessons in statecraft would commence. Before then, she wanted Lasva to have a good life, the life she never had.”

  “How many of the queen’s words have changed between leaving her lips and reaching my ears?”

  “How much does anything remain free of the hearer’s interpretation?” I countered, for we scribes had long lessons in this matter, from the very beginning. That was one of the reasons why we drilled so diligently in parroting—so that we would not alter the speech of others.

  “Not at all,” the Herskalt said. “Or effectively nothing. Which is why I always go to the source of important moments, if I can.”

  “If there was a way to do that, there would be no scribes. Or written records.”

  “There is a way. But it is rare, and even when one is in possession of the means, not all are able to endure the method.”

  “To g
ain the truth, I would endure much.” Giddy with the possibilities, I made a full Peace deference. “Please teach me.”

  “Let us approach the question from a parallel path. You say that the princess told you everything.”

  “Everything of import, yes.”

  “We shall test that statement.”

  From a pocket inside his robe he brought forth a thin disc of what I took, at first, to be metal. It lay in the hollow of his palm like a pool of ice-filmed water, the light reflection too diffuse for metal, but more lucent than stone. The more I looked at it, the more my attention drew downward. I caught myself and rocked back. My body reacted as if I’d been falling nose downward, but I hadn’t. Nausea curled inside of me, but I controlled it with my breathing, eyes closed.

  Then I held my breath and looked again, my hands braced on the table to convince my body that I was not falling. It was not a pool, it was a disc, the hand did not move, I did not move—so my mind repeated until the whisper of other voices caught my attention, and the silver filled my vision, then closed around me like a circle of light.

  … I heard Lasva’s voice as if inside my own head: Let me tell you about my beauty. I’ve never told anyone this, outside of—when I was, oh, about ten, and as full of self-importance as a child is who has discovered what rank means and what admiration means.

  It was Lasva’s voice, but no words I had ever heard. Yet from the flickers of image, the sounds, even the smells, it was recent…

  Have you ever slipped into a pair of someone else’s shoes? You know immediately they are not yours, even if the size is. Now imagine your mind thrust inside someone else’s skull, with all their experiences imbuing each thought with unfamiliar associations and emotional reactions that fit strangely. Even the smell of cinnamon is different for someone else.

  I steadied myself firmly on the table as my mind worked to separate the images that had never belonged to me from images of my own. The former were now mine in memory, but encased by the Lasva memories: the painting gallery, Ivandred standing an arm’s length away, looking at “me” with the ardency I’d only seen in him when he regarded Lasva. Smells, sounds, words, experienced differently from the way I would: she was far more aware of scent than I, but not as sensitive to sound. Her words seemed to come from inside my head, but I had no control over them, and they shaped differently. My identity fractured as my mind struggled to separate me from Lasva, even while it accepted her memories as my own. Nausea clawed up the back of my throat. I whispered the Waste Spell as sweat broke out all over me in a painful tingle that turned cold.

  I had self again. We were separate, Lasva and me. Her memories were her memories, even if I now shared them.

  I opened my eyes, and met the watchful gaze of the Herskalt. “How is this possible?” I whispered.

  “It is possible for those who have the discipline,” he said. “And the training. Want the rest of that conversation?” His smile deepened. “Because we now both know that your princess did not, in fact, tell you everything.”

  Ambivalent, almost flinching, I still could not help but turn my expectant gaze back to the silvery pool in his palm, and this time the fall into the disc was swifter.

  The images of the portrait of Lasthavais Dei the Wanderer echoed as if seen in facing mirrors: there were Lasva’s memories of her ancestor’s portrait, as the queen-consort of centuries ago danced a village jig while hiking up her exquisite brocaded skirts. Lasva had many memories of that portrait, for she’d visited it over and over from the time she was small, and those memories flickered past me, quick as flame. Then I was back, facing Ivandred.

  Emotions chased through Lasva, as strong as taste, color, and smell: regret, rueful laughter, gentle mockery. And over it all a desperate hunger to will the attraction she felt for Ivandred into love.

  “So I listened to this catalogue of my flaws: eyebrows too faint, nose too pointed, upper lip this, lower lip that, ears not quite another thing, until they had thoroughly assessed every single feature, then they moved on, leaving me feeling like… like a commodity handled in the marketplace.”

  She looked up at Ivandred, the hunger so acute and so painful I was flung out of the circle—then caught and flung back. I perceived the Herskalt shaping the perception, creating a bubble of awareness around me.

  Then he let the bubble pop, and I gazed down into Lasva’s face from a perspective I’d never had in life: from a taller person’s view, one who noticed the length of her eyelashes, the shudder of her bosom beneath the flimsy gown. It was a distinctively male awareness. His senses organized differently from mine, with a strong erotic component that sent a thin thread of fire through my vitals, the urgency more painful than pleasant. Even more disturbing was the echo of his thought, a memory of the Herskalt’s wry voice, Most foreign kings and queens make speeches. They want to be remembered, and no one will tell them, or can tell them, how very boring they sound.

  Voice distorted into mushy loudness, and once again my identity shredded, now going three ways, tumbling between the “now” of the scene, the now of my body crouched in the hidden chamber, and the then of three people’s memories. I was propelled out of the circle, into swimming black motes.

  And I found myself lying on the stone floor. Excruciating pain lanced through my head at the tiniest move. For a time I could only listen to my own breathing, evaluating each one. This breath was a good one, the next bad. I tried to move. My stomach surged. Another good breath. A third, deeper.

  Gradually my awareness included the wash-and-thump of my heart, which sent counterpoint pangs hammering in my skull. The nausea quieted, the pain eased enough for me to become anxious about lying there alone on the floor. Where was the Herskalt? Would he really leave me there to die?

  No. Teachers did not do that.

  It’s a test.

  I knew all about unexpected tests. I’d endured six months of one, and as a result became first choice for royal scribe.

  I could overcome this pain. It took a long time to achieve a sitting position, though I had to grip the leg of the table for the world swung and hitched so mercilessly I knew I couldn’t stand. And I still have to transfer.

  No, I couldn’t bear that. I opened my eyes a crack and caught sight of something lying on the table beside the Fox manuscript. It was a slim book. I slid my fingers over it, then tried to fully open my eyes.

  No one knew where I was, and I had not eaten or drunk anything. The pain in my head nearly struck me unconscious again. I was just able to sweep the book off the table. I lay down again, the book clutched to me, and slid into sleep.

  When I woke, I braced myself and underwent a transfer, straight to my bed, then slept again. I woke feeling feverish and clammy, my skin sensitive, my eyes confused by a gradual change in the room: dawn.

  I made it to breakfast. After a few bites of bread and some water, I began to recover.

  Nobody showed the least interest in my having missed meals. They went about their daily affairs as if I did not exist. I did not see Birdy walking the outer hall, which meant the weather had cleared enough for the animals to be exercised again. So I returned to my bedroom and opened the book. It was entirely written in Old Sartoran. Another test!

  It was tedious and difficult. The language was archaic, and the magic concerned binding ships against water, mold, and other types of damage. This knowledge was nothing I would ever use, and for that first day, as the headache slowly diminished, I wrestled with impatience. But work steadied me, and when I became accustomed to the rhythms of the words and the antique turns of phrase, I began to gain a rudimentary awareness of how magic must balance against the natural inclinations of things to fall, or to be rent apart by forces such as wind, waves, and weather.

  The days were marked by study and by the occasional glimpse of Birdy, who always seemed to be busy.

  When I finished the book, I transferred to the secret chamber, where I found a new book, thinner than the Old Sartoran ship preservation text. It was written in
more modern Sartoran: spells for securing a forge and for separating and returning to the ground the impurities caused by smelting. This topic was even more tedious than ship-binding, but again I found myself absorbed.

  Birdy was an indistinct and bulky object in the drifting snow, yet I knew him at once. Only his eyes were visible between his muffler and knit hat, but the tiny lift to his brows sent warning through me. Something was wrong. He had been on the watch for me when I crossed the small court between the stable hands’ wing and ours.

  He bent toward me, murmuring in our language, “When the prince arrives, I’m to go with them to Choreid Dhelerei, the royal city.”

  My throat constricted. We stood so close together to avoid the howling wind, that I can still recall the pale blue light on his profile, nestled within the muffling of his scarf, coat, and hat, as well as the tiny gleam of reflected light in his pupil, the way his jaw moved, and the vibration of his voice in his chest, next to my ear.

  I said, “I am sorry you are going.”

  “You are?” he asked, and the disbelief in his voice chilled my nerves.

  “I am,” I said. “Come inside. We have a sitting room for staff, just inside that door.”

  There were a few others in the room. We found a small table opposite the fire and sat down at either side. He stretched out a hand then pulled it back and flushed. “Anhar says…” He hesitated.

  “That I am elor?” I asked.

  “Is it true?”

  “I think so. That is, I haven’t really thought about it since I was fifteen or sixteen, and all of you went off to the pleasure houses without me. When I did finally go, all I wanted was the company. Nothing more. And gradually…” I shrugged.

  “You don’t feel anything?” He leaned forward, his forehead wrinkled. “I feel something for you. I can understand if I’m not attractive…”