She could not do it. The moment she touched herself, she could scrape a thought or two, and they were all of him. It was too much. Linden could not deal with those thoughts. Slowly, she rose and pulled the notebook to herself. Thinking of symbols, even of unknown, dangerous Ber symbols, was right now easier than that.
Not that thinking of symbols did not bring thoughts of him yet again. Why, it was he who had first noticed the symbols, he who had noticed the common "pipes" symbol, and they had done the experiments together! He had even forgotten to be distant then, for a while. Most of the time he had still been careful to not touch her—and yet the two of them had been close. They had been enthusiastic together, and people did not need any touching in order to achieve that!
She was not enthusiastic now, even though she had been, on the elevator with him. He had understood her there, or so she had thought. The others had been willing to brave this particular unknown for her (the work on, if not the use of, her tool), but they had only been following her; they would have never gone there without her showing them the way.
He would have. And so the two of them had gone, together, not as a leader and a led one, but sharing the road. However, what he had later said about mechanisms and life, the way he had behaved with her even before he had kissed her, and what he had shown her to have done as a child—this was not shared. It disturbed her deeply, even though she had not yet made it clear to herself as to why exactly. Or, rather, she had not made all the details clear to herself. She did know that she did not like being dragged to his study, or pressed to the wall when her opinion did not match his own. And these animals ...
Linden sighed, staring at the notebook, at the new symbols he had drawn and his written hypotheses about them. He had found new shapes, as well as new common elements that the shapes shared. The ink was sharp and the words brisk. Even his writing spoke of arrogance. Wretch the man, why was she looking at this rather than at the symbols and words themselves? She had to think. She had to think deeply, of everything, and she needed time and peace for that.
But she did not have peace at all.
And none of the symbols, old or new, worked when she tried them. Not a single one.
Rianor
Night 23 of the First Quarter, Year of the Master 706
The cup of water must be made of unbreakable material, for otherwise, the way he gripped it, it would have broken long ago. Same with the vial of Water of Life. Rianor stared at the water and tried to concentrate on the symbols he had just drawn on a piece of paper.
For a moment, he could not concentrate.
No one, ever, had made him lose control like that. Even the Aetarx had not, let alone a woman. He had told himself that he would not touch her, so he should not touch her! Even though this time he felt he had not leeched her. He was not Donald of Waltraud, or Orlin of Iglika, or any of the number of fools who could easily lose all sense and judgement because of a woman's pretty eyes and lissome body! Rianor had not been without his share of pretty eyes and lissome bodies, and he had faced some of their owners' best efforts to entangle a High Lord, but in the end everything was always on his own terms. Everything was neat and controlled.
Not so with her. And why did he care so much that she had been reluctant, that she had not understood about mechanisms and life? That irked him even more than the fact that she had run away from him.
No, perhaps not. Perhaps the other thing had irked him more, after all.
"Perhaps." She had brought him to using a "perhaps" for his own thoughts and feelings. Rianor closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and then again, trying to recall all the calming exercises that Master Keitaro had ever taught him. They did not work now. The old man kept telling that a mind was not enough, that in calming one had to let go of thoughts—and right now that was not a calming thought.
"Blend the two for me," Linden had told Rianor, to blend his mind and whatever else that he had for her. But if a man did that, how would he then know where one ended and the other one began? How would he know that he had not lost his mind?
He applied that mind, vehemently, to drawing symbols and applying those on water again and then on candles.
Earlier, there had at least been the tiniest wave in the Water of Life. Now, in both vessels, there was nothing. The candle, too, remained the same. Rianor even took what had been Mister Ellard's mobile candle from a drawer and tried the "fire" and even the "pipe" symbol on it, but as usual with this candle, nothing happened.
It had stopped working soon after Rianor and Linden had left the Healers' Passage and would not start again. Nan said that it could only be used there, but she knew no more about it. Rianor focused on the water and the regular candle again. He drew the symbols in different ink, then on different paper. At some point he made a small incision on a finger and drew them with blood, like fools did in some fairytales. Nothing.
No, not nothing. She was in his mind again, for it was she who usually talked of fairytales with him. The damn swordgirl in one fairytale wore her face, the damn witch in another one, too.
And still the water would not move, and the candle would not glow brighter. Was that why Bers were celibate?
He should try something not of the Bers, then. Commanders of Life and Death were not celibate. He carefully poured a few drops of the Water of Life on his finger.
Nothing; the small cut stayed as it had been, even though this had worked in at least one of the fairytales that mentioned Water of Life. Linden had found several of those for him since she had come to Qynnsent.
Well, did he expect everything in fairytales to be true? Supposedly these things were not real at all. Yet, the commoners were whipped for believing in them. Why? Why did the Bers not want people to believe in them? What was in them that Bers did not want people to know? Rianor had asked that question many times, but there was never a satisfactory answer. Knowledge seemed but an arm's reach away and yet, as always, it was hidden too well.
Rianor stared at the vial. Maybe he should drink. He had, in the Healers' Passage, and then he had seen the waterwell. For all he knew, he might be still alive just because he had drunk.
Nothing happened now. But even in the Healers' Passage, his wounds had not miraculously disappeared because of drinking; he had just been alive—and seeing. And he had been with her. She had given the water to him then.
Perhaps that was it. Perhaps even Commanders of Life and Death could not heal themselves with that water.
Five minutes later, the High Lord of Qynnsent was outside, treading his way through the garden and the servants' courtyard towards the stables, and further on, towards the slaughterhouse.
* * *
The Master Slaughterers slept, only sleep candles glowing faintly through their window. Their sleeping quarters were attached to the Slaughterhouse itself, far from the House Proper; far even from the cottages of those other servants with families or other privacy requirements, who preferred and could be spared to not live in the servants' wing of the House Proper itself. The slaughterers were a husband and a wife and liked to be far from people and close to the job, Nan had told Rianor, long ago. The others, too, liked the slaughterers as well as the slaughterhouse away. Slaughtering might be officially considered to be a Craft like all the other Crafts, and yet there was the uneasiness.
People preferred to not know about it. People preferred the ignorance. Even his sweet lady had cried in his arms today because she had seen the truth with her own eyes.
She would learn to see. He would teach her.
But that was not why he had come now, and now it was good that no one else lived close to the slaughterers. The two of them stumbling before him with apprehension, sleep-laden eyes and clumsy curtsies and bows was almost more than Rianor was willing to bear tonight.
He was lucky. Two new animals had been brought in the evening, to be slaughtered and cleansed in the morning for the next day's meals.
"Out," Rianor told the woman and man, entering the stall where they had falte
ringly led him. Out they went, but he could still hear them shuffling their feet right outside the door. Would the stupid people at least stay still if they would not stay far?
Well, it mattered not; Rianor did not feel like wasting time with them. Slowly, he bent over the fence that now separated him from the two animals and beckoned. The animals were pigs. He must have seen the likes of them at least once, when Nan and Mathilda had led him here ten years ago, during his tour of the House as the House's new High Lord.
The pigs' eyes were ... disconcerting was the word. Having been closed for sleep until a moment ago, these eyes watched him with curiosity that did not befit food.
But food the animals were, or would be, after Slaughtering and Cleansing tomorrow. Rianor was not Jenelly, and neither was he Linden. Looking at food's eyes was not what he had come here for.
One of the pigs had come closer. Rianor's hands snapped forward. He was fast enough, so a moment later there was a dagger's cut by the pig's snout, and that cut was covered in Water of Life.
The pig squealed and dashed back, but the stall was small and the pig could not dash far. It was still close enough for Rianor to see the cut slowly close itself and disappear.
Rianor exhaled. He could go now. He could go away from this place. He had learned what he had come here to learn.
But he had not. The "water" and "pipe" symbols, and even the "fire" symbol, had worked, too, days ago. And then they had not worked. The second pig had turned to snuff the first one, who was still huddling at the stall's far end—and in this way the second pig's back legs were accessible. Rianor's hands dashed forward once again.
Ten minutes later, his hands were trembling, and the pig was still bleeding.
He should go now, but ... Perhaps it mattered that one cut was on a pig's head and the other one was on a pig's back leg. Or perhaps it mattered that they were on different pigs.
Both pigs were huddled at the back now and would not come near enough, so Rianor called the slaughterers in to hold them for him. Out of ten more cuts, alternating pigs and body parts, not one healed.
Rianor made the pigs drink. Nothing.
Perhaps he was doing it all wrong. Fairytales might say whatever they wished, but real Commanders of Life and Death were not called for mere cuts and scrapes. They were called when the situation was that of life or death.
"Slaughter one now," Rianor said. "But tell me a moment before it dies."
"But, my lord ..." The woman dared address him now, even though she had not said a word so far. "The Mistress Cleanser is not here, my lord. She is asleep, probably. We can't make food without her, my lord."
"Asleep where?"
"In ... in her cottage, probably, my lord. About a kilometer away from here, in the direction of the House Proper."
"Go get her. Now. And you"—he looked at the husband—"Stay here."
Rianor made himself wait, somehow, until he heard approaching steps. "Go ahead."
"Which—Which one, my lord?" The man's face was pale, and he was sweating.
Rianor stared at him, until something cold and wet dropped on his hand, and he realized that he was sweating himself.
Both pigs were watching him, as if they sensed, as if they knew, that something was about to happen.
Which one? How did a person make a choice such as this?
"Kill them both," Rianor said.
It did not work. Rianor stared at what had been pigs before, and so did the Master Slaughterers. The Mistress Cleanser had not been in her cottage, after all, and the High Lord would not blame her, for what she knew was that she would not be needed here until the morrow. The Mistress Slaughterer had come back alone to tell Rianor that the Cleanser would take time to come and that her son had gone to get her from wherever she was.
The slaughterers were afraid. They said no more, but the way they would look anywhere but at the dead bodies and Rianor's vial said more than enough. The bodies, these ... these things that even now stared at the three humans with still, glassy eyes, were not animals any more, but neither were they food.
"The Mistress Cleanser will be late," the woman repeated softly, as if to herself. "And meanwhile they stay like that. Oh, Master ... My lord, please ..."
Stop whining and simply wait for the damn Cleanser, was Rianor's first impulse to snap, but he did not.
Could not.
"Dispose of the bodies," he whispered, instead. "Do the same that you do to the animals that die of sickness."
* * *
There were only a few drops of Water of Life left, and he poured most of them over the mechanism for making can openers. He did not know what he expected or what he hoped for exactly—perhaps for the mechanism to start working by itself, without him pushing it on the table with his hand. To become living because of the water.
Nothing happened. Rianor very slowly closed the vial and put the rest of the water away.
He would have preferred to smash the vial into the wall.
He then sat in a chair for a long time, staring at his hands, not trusting them to touch anything any longer. Somehow they felt as if they were shaking, even though they were very, very still.
He woke up, at some point. He had not known that he had been sleeping. His whole body felt shaky now, and his legs almost gave away when he tried to stand. The sweat was still on his forehead, and he started coughing. Had he even worn a coat when he had walked three kilometers to the slaughterhouse and three kilometers back in the cold and snow? He did not know.
He did not really care.
The can-opener-maker was still on the table, toppled to the side. Slowly, Rianor straightened it and held it, then inserted a wire and pushed it forward. As before, the mechanism moved and twisted the wire into a can opener.
He stared at it for many moments.
So, in the end, this was the only thing that worked.
And he had been a mindless fool, stumbling along others' symbols and waters and what not, touching here and touching there, without knowing why anything would work or when.
The symbols and water had not worked, tonight.
The pigs were dead. They were meant to be dead, tomorrow.
But now they were dead now.
* * *
The can opener had worked--and it worked on the second test, and on the third. Other small projects—and Rianor tested five or six of them—worked, too, and so did Linden's big elevator for humans when he dragged himself out of his study and tested it.
Then he tried the symbols again, with normal water, and he tried the candle. Nothing.
It was the mechanisms that worked.
Rianor had always known that they would, at least the small ones, for he knew why they would. He knew the principle of every tiny piece of a mechanism, and he knew the rules of Science—the rules of Mierenthia itself—that governed those pieces. True, the original mechanism for his maker of can openers had come from a Ber Factory, but still it was clear what Science rules it obeyed. The parts for Linden's elevator, too, must have come from the Bers, but they worked according to Science—and thus worked.
And Rianor had believed in the small mechanisms even before, but why had he not thought to believe in the big ones? Why had he needed her to show him? Her achievement with the elevator was not that she knew how to connect the parts, but that she would connect them. That she, damn her, would take the right risks, the right path to knowledge. Brendan, Clare, and Felice, as well as Rianor and herself, were alive despite having been elevated by Science.
The pigs were not alive, with Magic.
Small mechanisms, big mechanisms—it did not matter, after all. The rules of Science applied to them all. The rules were clean, even though Bers would always smear them with detraction. Few the rules might be, but they were consistent.
Life was.
Magic, on the other hand, was unreliable and fickle. Magic was faded, worn out—if it had ever been strong—but still those who thought they had once controlled it clung to its scraps with trepidation
and malice.
Rianor might still try to discern the rules of Magic, if rules there were, for it might be fading but it was still in his own House. It was still everywhere. Magic was still a whole world, even if it were an unstable one.
But perhaps a whole world of uncertainties and knowledge was too much to tackle if knowledge was consistently denied to you; if in gaining knowledge, or in gaining lack of it, you stumbled through this world like a murderous fool.
Perhaps with other knowledge, with the knowledge that had always been before your eyes, with the knowledge you already had—a new world could be built.
And the old one replaced.
Rianor spent the next hours of the night trying, with a dagger and wire and metal scraps of cans and other such, to build a new mechanism for making can openers. It would be a bigger mechanism; he could not make one as small as what had come from the Factory. The process was hard, and it was slow, but Rianor ignored the blisters that appeared on his fingers, and ignored his tiredness, and the fact that he had to sharpen the dagger anew several times and in the end throw it away and take another one.
He could not afford to not ignore them. He would make such a mechanism with raw materials. He could not rely on Ber Factories to always provide him with the right toys.
Besides, he did not feel like cutting animals any more.
Chapter 4: Firebringer
Mierber, Year of the Master 431:
"Daddy, is it true that when you were little you could see fire? How does fire look, Daddy?"
Arlene saw Daddy shiver and was frightened, for Daddy was usually so big and strong and brave.
"It is true, little one." Daddy sighed. "There was a ... tragedy. The Great Fire. I saw it myself. Many people died of it, including your grandmommy and granddaddy. What we saw was called "wildfire," Arlene. It was bad fire, fire that grew and spread without the Ber lords and ladies' blessing—taking, breaking, killing. But you know that, don't you? You are only in first grade at school, but they must have taught you about it already."
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