He would have left her here unconscious with the wolf, hoping that she woke up, that the cold and snow did not kill either of them. If wolves protected their people like dogs did, she would live ... And then, later, if she tried to come after Linden, he could play the hated games Bers and nobles often played—he could blame Merlevine's attitude on the Qynnsent-Waltraud enmity, as well as on tens of other otherwise useless details of Mierenthia's politics. Rianor pulled Linden, presently weak and dizzy-eyed, closer. He had suddenly realized that, even if worse came to worst, he still had an option.
Merlevine stared at him, so close that he could feel her breath, her eyes dark and terrified.
"What are you doing ..." He sensed something even as he heard her words and felt her body tense, and had this feeling lasted longer than a moment, his instinct would have been to throw her to the ground and stab her. For a moment there, he knew she had wanted to attack him.
"I ... thank you." She pulled away from him now, her hand brushing his, then sighed and tried to rise to her feet as he wrapped both his arms around Linden.
"No, don't hold her like this. You, Qynnsent lady, can you hear me? Lean and press both your palms to the ground. Well, press one, if you can't the other. No, don't touch him; you should not touch a person while you are in this condition."
Linden pulled her hands away from Rianor's waist, but did not lean to touch the ground. "I can hear you." She turned her head towards the other girl, her shoulders now stiff and straightened, her eyes narrowed. Still, her skin was too hot and her eyes glossy.
"Do what I say, then!"
"Why would I?" Both women were staring at each other now, and something seemed to pass silently between them. Rianor did not know if it was Magic or something womanly that he, as a man, did not understand. "I don't know you, Ber lady, and I don't know your purpose. Neither do I know what effects such an action would have, or why."
Something flickered inside the Ber girl's eyes. "Of course you would want to know the effects. The effects are that you will feel calmer and possibly it will save you from fainting. But do you really want to know why?"
"Yes." They stared at each other again. "But you don't know why, either, do you?"
The Ber looked distressed now; she looked angry, and yet she was not motioning to do anything. Linden seemed to have struck some sensitive cord with her. How could she have said something like this to a Ber?
For a moment there was nothing but silence.
"Rianor." Linden tore her gaze from the Ber and looked at him. "I think I feel better, my lord. We have a splint, too, so let us adjust Dreadful's leg. Blake, love, come and give me your paw, I want to know how a healthy leg should feel to the touch."
Rianor knew how a healthy dog's leg should feel; he had often examined Blake thoroughly since Blake had been a little puppy. He had wanted to know what Blake was and what Blake needed. However, he now let Linden, inexperienced as she was, handicapped as she was, straighten the wolf's leg by herself, even though it was risky for the wolf for she might do it wrong, and risky for her for she might get bitten. He would not do it, himself. He could not afford to spare the tiniest amount of concentration from the Ber and what she might do.
The Ber seemed to sense that. She met his eyes with a look full of so many mixed emotions that they were almost impossible to define, then blinked, tossed her hair aside, and knelt beside Linden. Rianor saw her stroke the wolf's head, talking to him, holding him so that he would not turn to bite Rianor's lady.
With an inward sigh, Rianor knelt beside the girls, Blake on guard beside him. Upon his check Linden's adjustments of the wolf's leg turned out to be correct; she was an incredibly fast learner.
"So fire is of use, after all," Linden said, her voice soft, "You did use your fire to get us a splint, Ber lady. I hope you will fix that bench later, though; it does not deserve to be crippled."
"Yes, fire, our blessing and our curse." The girl stared at the distance, down where the river curved between its white banks. The snow was falling harder now, cold whiteness gathering on their faces, the twilight of the coming evening blending with the darkness of the Ber girl's eyes. She was there beside Rianor and Linden, and yet, for a moment, it was hard for him to see her. It was as if for a moment she were unreal, there and yet somewhere else.
"Fire, power, metal, the dream that our hearts always dream. Or so some Bers say." She sighed, and she was fully there again, just a tired girl blinking away snow and tears. "I sometimes wonder, however, if we are truly dreaming this world, or if it is dreaming us."
"Does it matter, after all? We are here. We exist." Linden, her own eyes a blend of yellow darkness and light, as the rays of the Wind Moon, today early in the sky, fell in them. "All that is left is to know more about the world, so that we can improve it and thus improve ourselves."
She smiled, and Rianor caught her hand, suddenly plagued by the strange notion that if he did not, she, too, would become unreal. Both Blake and the now-bandaged wolf howled as the second moon rose. Linden shivered, and he pulled her closer to himself, wrapping his coat around her. It was so risky, talking like this to a Ber. And yet ...
"Is it true, then?" He looked at the Ber girl. If she answered, the risk might be worth it. "Is it true that even you Bers do not know the world? You ridicule Science, but is it because you do not know everything about it? Do you, Ber Merlevine, know how your Magic works?"
"How it works?" She sighed, pulling her cloak more tightly around herself, watching them. Ber wore cloaks, like commoners. "To show the people that they are people themselves, even though they are so different from them in other ways," his mother had once told him.
"I do not know how it works," the Ber girl said. "My master might. Or he might not; I have to ask him. I might tell you his answer if we ever meet again. Or I might not." She stared at the distance again, one of her hands on the wolf's head, fading sunlight and rising moonlight dancing on her, shifting the outlines of her figure. She was truly beautiful, but in the snow and pale light her beauty was in some way skewed—as if this were not her place, as if her beauty did not know how exactly to manifest itself. Strange.
"You know," she looked at them again. "I like you two, with your precise, detailed, tinkering Science, with your misguided belief that you can learn what is important about the world in this way. But, you know, how something works doesn't matter. What matters is that something does work, or that it doesn't, or what the consequences of that are to the world. I don't know how fire works, but I can make it, feel it, and control it. What can you do?"
Rianor saw Linden's eyes narrow, felt her fastened heartbeat, matching his. So these were the people who ruled the world! The people whom he had hated and accused of many things throughout the years—but never of ignorance.
He had believed the Bers all-powerful once. He had blamed them for his parents' deaths because he thought they were withholding information, that if all healers—if all people—were taught what Commanders were taught, perhaps someone would have known how to save the Qynnsent lord and lady. Later, Rianor had blamed the Bers for hiding Magic and ridiculing Science. But he had always assumed that they had enough knowledge themselves.
Linden raised her chin, her eyes glowing amber. "Didn't we just show you what we can do? If you don't know, ask Dreadful! We can show you more if you wish!"
She waved her good arm, then pointed at the other one. "I can show you this, too—the result of either Ber malice or Ber lack of knowledge of fire!" The snow was melting on her cheeks, and unlike the Ber she did not look skewed or as if she did not fit in—the opposite, she fit in right here with Rianor, amongst the snow, trees, the hill and the distant river. Beautiful the Ber might be, but Linden was more beautiful than her. She was more beautiful than anyone.
She was also risking her life, and perhaps that was the most important reason that made Rianor's voice calm.
"What my lady and I can do should not concern you, lady Merlevine."
For some reason the Ber g
irl lowered her gaze, then looked at him with her eyes both hard and shiny.
"What should or should not concern me is not yours to determine, High Lord of Qynnsent." Then, with her voice softer. "But at this moment I only choose to be concerned with the fact you can heal a wolf. So I thank you." Then she suddenly stepped closer to them, extending a hand with the metal-carved book in it.
"Take this if you want. It is not the only copy I have. I am afraid it is not a very interesting book, but see if you can find an answer to any of your 'how' questions in it. Hide it from others. Or don't; it is your choice. My control of all this ends with the decision to give it to you. I am warning you, it might be dangerous if anyone discovered that you had it."
Her hand was trembling as Rianor reached out and took the book, and suddenly Linden's hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. "Will it be dangerous to you?"
Merlevine swallowed, then slowly pulled her hand away. "That should not concern you, lady Linden of Qynnsent. But I thank you especially. And not only for today."
She was gone then, in that instant manner of Bers, only a gray shadow lingering for a moment where the wolf had been. Blake barked madly.
"We should go. Fast." Rianor grabbed Linden's hand and Blake's collar, inserting the book at the inside of his coat. "I do not know what exactly we just put ourselves into, but we need Qynnsent's walls around us."
Linden
Evening 29 of the First Quarter, Year of the Master 706
Qynnsent's walls. Her lord seemed to trust their hard, stony, unknown power even now. Beside him on the driving-box, Linden watched him as he drove, fast and aggressive, the carriage jerking every time the wheels met a hole in the road. The wind had grown stronger with the approach of the night, and Rianor glared against it, the shadow of his frown contrasting with the lightness of his eyes.
The carriage jumped again just as a new gust of wind thrust dense snow against Linden's face. Her head snapped back, and she gripped the seat more tightly, barely avoiding hitting her back. She tried to blink the snow away, feeling the carriage jerk to a halt, then tried to press her good hand to her face. The hand would not obey. She had been gripping the seat ever since they had started on their way home; the hand was stiff with this, but Linden realized it only now. She was trembling, too. She was cold. She had just a little fire left, for she had fought fire too much.
The trembling would not stop. Linden closed her eyes, as if that would keep her last draining heat inside. She had fought harsh, unbearable heat earlier, and she had not even screamed except in her mind, a silent scream to make the heat leave, to push it away. Perhaps she had pushed too strongly.
"Go inside the carriage, Linde." Rianor, his voice a mix of concern and command.
"No, my lord." Her cold lips barely formed the words.
"Go, I said."
"No!" She did not shout. This broken road amongst gnarled trees and dark, spread-out buildings was not a place for shouting. It was as if a road from a fairytale had sprung to life, the moons and the last lingering rays of the already gone Sun the only source of light. The white snow, now darkened by shadows, blurred the world; it hid things better left unseen, things that lurked in the night.
Things better left unseen? She might have shouted now, at herself, had she the strength to do it. Just how easy was it, even for her, to fall into the ignorance trap? How easy was it to lie huddled in her web of concepts of what the world was supposed to be, while she did not see the world? Things would not stop lurking only because you chose to close your eyes.
She tried to open hers, literally, and succeeded after what seemed to be a long time—only to have them filled with the coldness of snow. She blinked, but it took even longer this time. Was such a time and effort worth it? It was so cold. Or, was it? She had thought she was cold, and yet her body did not feel it any longer; cold was naught but a vague memory of what she must feel but did not. She closed her eyes again. It was easier like this. With her eyes closed, she could almost see and feel a bright, distant Sun ...
Then someone was calling her name, someone important. She could almost see his face if she focused, if she narrowed her eyes and made the Sun go away. But weren't her eyes closed? Somehow, she opened them. Someone else was howling—someone hairy, an animal. Other animals were neighing. The howling one pushed her body with its head, then bit her hand. It did not hurt at all, but the Sun faded. She could see Rianor now, his eyes wild, his face contorted. She could smell him, too, for she was pressed against him, his coat wrapped around them both.
"Don't fade." She could even hear him. "Don't you dare fade on me!"
"I am not fading." Was this her voice? Such a strange voice, a voice made for nothing more than uttering thoughts. She tried to shake her head, in the world of Rianor, night, and winter—in the real world. Uttering thoughts? Wasn't this what voices were for? "I am not fading, my lord. But the world is."
She had not felt the dog's sharp teeth before, but now she felt Rianor's lips over hers acutely. She also felt his heartbeat, fast and unstable as he pulled her closer than she had thought possible, and she felt his warmth, real warmth, as he kissed her, for a moment gently and then roughly, with a desperation.
She emitted a small sound, wrapping her arms around his neck, pressing her body against his—and then she gripped his hair and her next sound was not a sound but a silent scream. The Sun was gone. Rianor's touch had kept her here, his warmth fully awakening her in this moonlit, cold, exquisite world of snowflakes and shadowy, winding roads and skies and trees. And somewhere amongst all this she had lost control. She had tried to touch his mind, like she had touched Calia's mind long ago, like she had sometimes, coincidentally or not, brushed the minds of others—and like she had never been able to touch Rianor's mind before.
For a moment now, she succeeded. For a moment, she pushed against his mind's barrier but a barrier there was not, and she seemed to fall, screaming, suffocating in both heat and coldness. She felt him shiver, and his hand gripped her back, and she did not feel it but she knew it left a bruise. He was ... She had no words for it. "Coldness" and "heat" were not the right ones; no words were right for the millions of thoughts, each one sharper than a dagger, for the mechanisms and worlds of his own making, for the responsibilities—and for the control that kept all this from cutting through his mind and into his very quintessence.
It cut through her now—because, for a moment, there was no control from him towards her.
In the next few moments all she could do was cling to the man who had cut her and whom she had breached. She was unable to sit straight by herself, unable to think, almost unable to breathe. "I am sorry," she only managed to whisper. He was squeezing her, his own body trembling, his eyes blurred, and good that the horses knew their way home, for he had dropped the reins.
Then the book, too, was dropped, slipping from his coat's inner pocket, clattering beside their feet, almost falling off the carriage and in the snow. Instinctively she reached out to take it, and suddenly Rianor gripped her wrist.
"No, my lady. You shall no longer play with dangerous toys." His eyes were clear and steely again, the usual barrier back there, together with the book and reins in his other hand. "Go inside the carriage now and wrap yourself in blankets. Blake, go warm her."
Had he slapped her, it would have been better than these words.
"You can't tell me this."
"I can." He gripped her, lifting her physically, his voice harsh and the control fickle behind his eyes. "Look at yourself. You are broken with Magic, elevators, servants, wolves and what have you. No Magic for you any more. No Science if it means physically lifting fools and touching Bers and wildlands beasts. I almost lost you to all that at least two times in the last few days. Enough is enough! In the end, a woman can't take it all. I want you, not elevators and wolves!"
Oh, yes, he wanted her. It was in his eyes and not only there. Her whole being felt it—and it was not only lust. It was something bigger, stronger, hotter, like melting s
teel, like that bench leg had been. It could burn her, scar her, and then suffocate what was left of her.
Even now she was fighting for air in his arms. She was also fighting a great desire to wrap all her limbs around him, press her mouth to his and let him take everything, both the physical and the deeper.
And then? What would happen then?
There won't be a "then" because you will both freeze to death in the meantime—unless the horses take you home by themselves. It was a mundane, logical thought. Linden could have laughed. Her mind never shut down, even in such a moment—and Master Keitaro might say what he would about thoughts not being enough, but nothing was enough without thoughts.
"You want me, you say?" Linden's face was still close to Rianor's, but she would not kiss him now. "But 'me' is also elevators and wolves, and you want to deny them to me. Even though it was the elevators—it was my mind—that you wanted once upon a time. Oh, and my wretched Magic, too. What I want does not matter to you now, does it, just like it did not matter then. You are used to having everything upon a whim, my High Lord. You are used to simply taking it. Well, you can't take me. Even if you rape me, imprison me, throw me out of your House, throw me out of the Science Guild, kill me, you can't take me. I am more than all this. There is a part of me that will always remain out of reach for you, for it can only be given—or shared."
She shook her head. "I am sorry, Rianor. Thank you for being with me this evening, and thank you for warming me and keeping me in this world. However, I intend to continue playing with dangerous toys. And if the only way you can think of me is as yet another dangerous toy, as a mindless thing to be alternatively used or taken care of—if you are going to treat me like naught but a helpless pig or a can opener—then I don't want you."
Now it was Rianor's turn to look like he'd been slapped. "So that is how you think of me? As a mindless brute? Have no worries, I won't rape you or throw you out of anything."
The Makers of Light Page 15
