She gave him a bracelet, then, to unlock an Outer Door if he needed to leave the outer tunnel of the Passage, the one that ran inside the walls, and go to the Fireheart itself; then she started slipping back through the Inner Door, which he, even if he wanted, could not open.
"I will come back for you in six hours, at this same door," she said. "Make sure that you find it, and make sure you bring me knowledge."
Knowledge, indeed. For once, the Mentor and the little Balkaene boy were in agreement inside him, both wildly, blindly, caring naught about knowledge and all about running far away from here. He was more distraught in the in-between place than he had been when assaulted by the actual song in the darkness. It was the knowledge of a samodiva that seemed to affect him, more than the samodiva herself.
So was knowledge a blessing, or was it a curse? A Mentor was taught that there were some things he had better not know, for his own mind's safety. A normal Mentor was taught this.
A samodiva. A real one. Imprisoned inside the Healers Passage, a system of tunnels that ran throughout Mierber and accessed too many places that perhaps did not know themselves accessed—this Passage itself had been a secret to Dominick. Mierber. The Bers' city. His city. What other secrets did it hoard and hide, even from one such as him who had thought himself privileged?
Knowledge was dangerous, indeed. In the in-between place, once he knew what the song was, Dominick feared it more than he had before. And yet, he had withstood the song, and the song was not here any longer. He was fearing a memory, a shadow, not what the thing was, but what someone at some time in his life had taught him that the thing must be. At first glance Dominick's fear was of samodivi, but a second glance found no samodivi in that fear at all—it was fear of what was in his mind and his mind only.
And once he knew that about fear, fear could rule him no more.
Suddenly even angrier that earlier, Dominick strode further in the small tunnel inside the Fireheart wall, determined that not only would he never again fear knowledge, but that knowledge was his due. Then, he heard her. He would not mistake that voice again, not after he had met Calia. It came from the wall, and when he moved closer, he saw that at that particular spot the wall had a small hole, behind which was only canvas.
So, it was paintings that hid those who walked in the walls but let them see and hear those beyond—for he could see, too, if he moved even closer and narrowed his eyes against a deftly hidden slit in the middle of the canvas.
She was beautiful. She was just rising from where she had been sitting at a table, a dark green dress rippling down her body with such grace and elegance as if she and the dress were one—as if she were truly a creature of the Forest, wild and flowing, never confined in pitiful human attire, but having cast an illusion on her samodiva's chemise to look like a woman's dress, to trick humans that she was one of them.
Was she one of them? Her eyes were cold and distant, a color both light and dark—light when illuminated by the candle beside her, and dark when she turned her head aside.
He watched her entranced—the first woman who had ever opposed him, and the only person who had dared do it when he had still been a Mentor and possessed power over her life. He had seen these cold eyes focused and furious and the hair that was now falling smoothly to the tips of her shoulders flying together with her cloak, and he wanted to see her eyes in many other ways, and he wanted her ...
Dominick blinked, chasing away unwelcome visions. Fool. A samodiva she might or might not be, but a witch she was, for certain, and she might even now know who or where he was, casting her enchantments and laughing at his folly.
Gran Stoyana from Goritsa Village could do that, he had heard long ago, a memory surfaced now that he had thought long forgotten. The village women who were too old to work in the fields sometimes talked about her when they gathered to spin wool under the old oak tree.
A Farm wretch from outside of Balkaene she had been, they said when they thought the small children running around them heard them not. She had been one of them who were worthless but for giving their lives to the land, and yet she had somehow enchanted a lord to give her his love and his power. He had given her a house in Goritsa Village, and a garden where she grew poisonous plants to brew foul potions and evil spells; he had even forced the Goritsa Mentors to bless her garden, like all other gardens in the village, twice every year. In the years that came Stoyana grew old and was old during the day, the old women said, but at night, when he went to her, she was young and fair.
How old had Dominick been? Five, perhaps, young enough to not be in the fields himself. He sneaked out of his parents' hut one night and into Stoyana's overgrown garden, beside her old stone house that stood alone some distance from the village's Lower End. It was almost close to the forest, that house, and for a five-year-old the tomato plants and the rose bushes were a forest themselves, tall and frightening. The moons shone, leaves whispered, and little Dominick's teeth clattered in the dark, but he wanted to see—did the old, wizened woman still become beautiful and did a lord still come to her?
He saw nothing, for she perhaps enchanted him, too, that he would close his eyes in this "forest" of his and never wake until morning. Then, when he finally stirred, limbs stiff with the morning chill, and hair wet with dew, what he saw was a smiling old woman standing above him, a plate of blackberries and a piece of bread in her hands. The first sunrays danced on her gray hair and between red tomatoes and white roses.
The little boy, frightened as he was, still gobbled up the bread and ate even the blackberries, which did not poison him despite being from her garden. The old woman smiled again when he was done and brought him the best drink he had ever tasted, something that the grown Dominick knew must have been the juice of blended fruit. He did not learn about her beauty and he did not see a lord, but from that day on he did not fear the strange old woman who lived at the end of the village alone. Rather than that, he bewared of the stern, frowning old women with sharp eyes, sharp tongues, and sharp spindles.
He should beware of a young woman now, the witch in Mierber's Fireheart. There was a lord in her case as well, and that lord suddenly stood and stared at the painting—at Dominick's face, even if he did not know about it. The lord came closer—but then turned towards the woman, striding towards her to hold her as she stumbled. He had seemingly forgotten about the painting and whatever he might have seen or suspected.
Dominick pulled back. He should be careful.
Then the memory of Stoyana, the blackberries, and the sharp-tongued women tugged at his mind again. With women who had always wondered at whom to direct their next libel and insult being his main source of information, was anything he had ever heard about witches valid? He could not even be certain that there were witches at all.
Dominick stepped further away from the painting, hearing Linden and her lord converse, but too far from them to hear the words. Wondering whether witches truly existed or not—how could he, with a proved witch before him? And wouldn't that be a convenient thought, a convenient wonder for the witch to induce in him if she could? Could witches do that? This woman here was not an old, harmless, blackberry witch. She, as far as Dominick could see, had affected and perhaps truly enchanted the lord—and Dominick himself should not gape after her like a peasant boy.
But Dominick could not truly blame her for what he wanted. Oh, he could, of course, and most people would, but it would be a terribly wrong thing for a Mentor to do. She could not directly influence his thoughts—not if he disagreed with it. No one could. Even if she were somehow guiding him to the memory and the story of the spindle-women and Stoyana and her blackberries, even if she were trying to urge him into a certain direction, preparing his mind for certain emotions, she could not do it by herself.
Not if he did not let her. Not if he would not go there by himself.
Responsibility. People seemed to perhaps consider it a sickness and thus tried to stay out of its way, but Mentor Dominick could not afford this luxury
. He walked away inside the wall as the woman and her lord walked away together, after she had gone away alone once and come back. Dominick could not blame her for anything he did himself.
But she herself had done enough to blame for. She was Maxim's attempted murderer—she and this man and perhaps Dominick himself, but right now he did not want to think about his own role. Why, damn them, had they wanted to kill the old man? And why was Dominick spying on them, instead of contacting the Bers to deal with them—was his curiosity and the attraction to a reprobate woman who had chosen to fight him but enchant another man stronger than the love he bore Maxim?
Indeed Dominick could not contact the Bers without revealing his own recent aberrations, for probably the Bers would understand the Dark Forest no better than Ardelia or Oliver would. But then why did he not do anything else? Why did he not simply go in and kill her? He wanted to, strongly enough that his heart beat wildly, pummeling the inside of his chest while his stomach tied itself in a knot—and yet, in a way, he did not want to do that at all.
Dominick stumbled, and then one more time, his eyes blurry with this new fit of anger. Like in the Temple, he wanted something to break, and if he had been able to get to that woman easily, he might have had this something in his hands. At the same time, he knew himself blinded and tried to keep away from those few paintings behind which there were sliding stones—tried to keep away from Outer Doors. Only when his heart was beating half as fast as before did he dare peek from behind yet another canvas slit.
They almost saw him.
He was more careful afterwards, but still he could see that they sensed danger. They went out of the building, and he had to leave the tunnel, following them and their guards from a safe distance. The woman was clinging to her lord's hand, and he held her tightly himself. Once she tried to pull him towards the Head Temple, but he stopped her. Dominick glanced at the spikes. Funny that the temple would be calling to her. These days temples were not calling to him at all, and he hated her for this, too, for it felt as if she had taken the temples away from him.
He was angry yet again when he entered the walls of their building, the very tunnel pressing at him, suffocating him. Behind a painting in the big hall, he barely waited to see her introduced—to make sure, officially, that it was her—then he walked away. He needed a breath of air for a moment.
There was a sliding stone behind a painting in the outer part of a ladies' chamber (not inside, where the ladies would undress). Seeing no ladies through the painting's slit and hearing no ladies in the inner room, Dominick pushed the stone and canvas aside and crossed the wall.
At that very moment the High Lord of Qynnsent entered the chamber, alone, his eyes immediately snapping towards the painting. When their gazes met Dominick knew that not only he knew the man from that night, but that the man knew him, too. The rest happened too fast. Dominick's hand dashed towards his dagger and at the same time the lord's hand dashed towards his own weapon, and for a moment Dominick wanted nothing more than to cut the man who had tried to murder Maxim and, more than that, the man who had her.
Their daggers clashed. Each of them had made a similar motion in protecting himself and attacking the other, the result being that presently they were both unhurt. Dominick jumped back as the lord swung again, the only sound that which the blade made in the air. The man's quietness was disconcerting. Gerard with his curses had been a much easier opponent, but Gerard was just an overemotional boy, while this man was cold and dangerous. Moreover, Gerard did not deserve to be hurt—
Something sharp, a sensation, shot up Dominick's hand. So he had been angrier than he had thought, and careless. He jumped back, barely, and the lord was supposed to follow him, but he did not, stopping for a second, staring at Dominick's hand as if Dominick's little wound had disconcerted him too much. It was enough time—Dominick leaped forward, his weapon hand snapping towards the lord. But the time must have not been enough, for the lord seemed to suddenly wake up, shifting in a pattern of a motion that Dominick had not seen before, the result being that his only wound, like Dominick's, was a small wrist cut.
But if for the lord this wrist cut was just a scratch, for Dominick, who still had a detector implanted in this hand, the first moment of it had been excruciating.
"Why, damn you, do you shelter that treacherous witch!" Dominick gasped at his opponent—something that, had he the time to think and had he less anger and less pain in him, would never have said—would never have made such a stupid, grave mistake. For the briefest moment—for a piece of time that someone who had not been a Mentor would never perceive, let alone notice the change it brought—Dominick saw the Lord of Qynnsent's eyes turn from merely hard and focused into hard and wild. It was a wildness Dominick himself knew, one that meant that some barriers that had stood behind those eyes were now sundered. The man thought he could kill him and was going to try.
Dominick kicked at the lord's knee, but he raised it just in time, his own kick aimed at Dominick's ribs, which Dominick avoided, too, and he also once again avoided the man's knife. The man fought worse than before—anger, and perhaps fear for that witch of his, took their toll. Dominick felt the rush of blood to his own head, for a moment wanting nothing more than to fight him, to listen to the roar in his ears and to obey the only thoughts currently present inside his mind. The thoughts of killing and aggression, of winning and causing to desist—the only thoughts that had not blurred into a mist that he seemed unable to penetrate.
And yet, he must have had access to other thoughts as well, for something made him block another cold, calculated, and yet in a way wild and mindless blow, and perhaps the same something made him leap towards and through the opening he had come from, barely managing to push the stone back into place.
He leaned on the wall then, his legs weak, his wrist bleeding, his heart pounding and his mind desperately trying to tell him that yes, despite his father's words from long ago, he could run from a fight and still be a man. His father's words, his brothers' deeds—he did not need them. He had made the right decision, and yet the brute in him raged and tried to get its own way.
Killing a High Lord would not be easily forgiven. Although the Bers were weaker nowadays, they would still search and perhaps get to Dominick, as well as to Maxim and the Order of the Mother—they would get to the Dark Forest of people's minds itself, trampling Dominick's paths, burning, ruining the work of bringing the lost ones back, destroying those confused by today's troubled times or dooming them to wandering in darkness. And if the High Lord managed to kill him, instead, they were doomed anyway—unless Maxim managed to find someone to take Dominick's place, but whom would he find? Nigel? Oliver? Ardelia? Mentors they were, and they had saved quintessences in their time, but they were not true Mentors. He was.
Hours later, out alone in Mierber's cold night, Dominick wrapped the civilian cloak more tightly around himself and walked faster, a sense of direction now formed in his mind. Perhaps it was because he had thought again about the witch woman and the lord—and about his own father, a man he rarely thought of but whose wrong example and fool's words still contaminated his memories.
"A real man would never have run; a real man would have fought."
That was what Varban would have said, could he have seen his son—because that was all Varban knew, and all Varban was, and all Varban taught his sons. Today, in the Healers' Passage, Dominick had fought when there should not have been a fight, and he had almost not stopped, almost proved himself his father's "worthy" son. Fortunately, he was a real Mentor.
Lord Rianor of Qynnsent's father must have taught him differently, or Rianor must have ignored his own old man like Dominick had his. Many "real men" would have tried to blindly come after Dominick, and perhaps in a way Dominick had relied on this happening. Yet, lord Rianor had not followed Dominick but had gone back to play a game of thought with the Science Guild—and won it, together with her.
Dominick made a left turn at a corner where muddy snow had frozen
in lumps, the direction he was going more than clear now. He was going there because of those two.
And if they were the people against him, the people who would poke into both Science and Magic, fraternize with Bessove, walk the Passage he had walked—if they would, directly or not, try to prevent him from gathering the lost ones to their pens away from darkness and peril—he would fight them, in a Mentor's way, until his last breath.
These two would not fight blindly like Dominick's father. They would think. They had just invented what could be called a miracle just by playing a game, and—had they the right values—they would have been worthy to fight alongside Dominick.
He was looking forward to the challenge of defeating them.
He walked, and then walked some more. He passed kilometers without feeling any tiredness, even though he'd had no rest at all this day. He stopped only when he reached Maxim's temple—his own former temple, the temple he had vandalized—was it only twenty or so days ago? So many things had come to pass—no, he had done so many things since then, for they had not come to pass by themselves—so many things that it felt as if it all had happened not recently but once upon a time, to another person, in another world.
He watched the temple now, a dark silhouette bathed by moonlight in the clear, freezing night, the occasional snowflake drifting towards it from the sky to hint of the storm to come.
He knew where the Qynnsent lord and his witch's game could lead to, and their game opponents' inventions also had their own place in this. He knew it all now, so bright and clear in his mind that it seemed that the thought had always been there, as if all the inventions were not others' but his own.
They were not, but he had his own ideas.
And now, after at least an hour of walking in the coldness, Dominick's head was clear enough of his own impulses. It mattered not that the witch cared for that man—or it should not—or, at least, it should only matter that she and the man had been so focused on each other that perhaps they did not know the implications of what they had done.
The Makers of Light Page 28
