A Blight of Mages

by Karen Miller

Barl didn’t need the Artisan Master’s quirked eyebrow to tell her that here was her cue to depart the viewing room. Somehow, she managed a bow to Lady Grie without falling over. Another bow to Arndel, because he’d feel the slight if she didn’t. Then she escaped to the artisanry garden, where the sun shone unhindered by cloud and a riot of flowers scented the warm air. Safely alone, she folded to the short, sweet grass, pressed her palms to her face and let the joy bubble free.

  No more tedious journey clocks. No more being tethered to someone else’s inferior imagination. At last… at last… I have the chance to become the mage I was born to be.

  “Barl!” Remmie’s face lit up like a solstice lantern. “That’s wonderful! Ancilla Grie is the oldest daughter of the highest ranked First Family in the district. There’s nobody she doesn’t know. Once she starts talking about you, showing off the clock you made her, your name will become a byword in some of the most important houses in all of eastern Dorana. Perhaps even all the way to Elvado!”

  Sent home an hour early by Arndel, which was his notion of a substantial reward, Barl sprawled in the cottage parlour’s saggy-bottomed armchair and grinned at her brother, who perched on the windowsill like a cheerful cockadiddy.

  “You’re just relieved this means I’ll have no want to move on in another month or three.”

  Remmie reddened, as she knew he would. “It’s true I’m not afflicted with wanderlust, like some people, but that doesn’t mean I’m not truly pleased for you. Barl—”

  “Sorry,” she said, hands lifting. “I know you are. I’m pleased for me too, I suppose. And you’re right. If this arrangement goes well, if Lady Grie doesn’t interfere with my work, I’m sure the itch will die out of my heels. Once I’m happy, Remmie, once I know I’m where I’m meant to be, I’ll have no need to move on.”

  “You say that now,” he muttered. “And I’m sure you mean it. But you’re a restless spirit, Barl. You’re so eager to see what’s over the horizon that you can’t see what’s right under your nose.”

  Startled, she stared at her brother. He sounded almost bitter. And that wasn’t like him. He was all sunshine, where she was dappled shadow. Had she so badly misread him, then? Had she completely mistaken how deep his feelings had run for that girl in Granley?

  I must have. He’s not said as much, never mentioned her since we left there, but…

  She wasn’t used to misreading Remmie. Shaken, she slid from the armchair to the carpet and knelt earnestly at her brother’s feet. If she didn’t make this right, convince him she did appreciate his love and loyalty, the matter would rub and rub between them until the festered wound hurt them both.

  “Would it help if I promised, Remmie? I will.” She crossed her palms over her heart. “I promise I’ll not drag you harum-scarum across the country again.”

  Remmie drummed his fingers on the windowsill, restless. “You shouldn’t make a promise you know you can’t—you won’t—keep.”

  “I will keep it!” she insisted, indignant. Hurt that he would doubt her word. “How can you fling it in my face I wouldn’t?”

  He groaned. “Because I know you, Barl. You mean well, you always do. But something will happen, you’ll fall into one of your snits, Lady Grie won’t pay you enough respect, or she’ll interfere, and you’ll storm out of the artisanry in a raging temper swearing you’ll never, never, never go back, and—”

  Barl pushed off her heels and rested her hands on her agitated brother’s knees. “No, Remmie. I won’t. Do you hear me? This is my word to you, my solemn unflinching word. Batava is your home, now. I’ll not ask you to leave it.”

  Arms folded, he stared over his shoulder at the majestically sinking sun. Its mellow rose-gold light set his pale hair afire. A muscle leapt along his jaw.

  “I know you’ll not stay with Arndel forever,” he said at last, his voice low. “You’re ambitious, and you’ll outgrow him. I do understand that. But if you mean what you say… at least for now… if you promise that what Lady Grie is offering is enough to keep you content a while longer, then I’ll believe you. And I won’t pretend I’m not well pleased for it.”

  “I never asked you to pretend,” she said, still stinging.

  He shrugged. “Yes, you did. But that’s neither here nor there. If it’s been hard for me, it’s not been easy for you either. I do know that, Barl.”

  For all their closeness, their easy camaraderie, she and Remmie rarely bared their tender hearts to each other. She liked to tell herself it was because twins had no need of cumbersome words but that wasn’t entirely true, and she knew it. If they never spoke honestly of how her restless nature affected him, then she was spared discomfort.

  And that was a prickling thing to know of oneself.

  “I’m content enough at the artisanry,” she said firmly. “I moan about Arndel, but in truth I know full well I’m lucky to be there. And now, with this chance to make beautiful things for Lady Grie, my fortune is even brighter. I’ve no need to look toward the horizon, Remmie.”

  “I must get supper started,” he said, almost smiling, and slid off the windowsill. “Come and peel potatoes, and tell me incant by incant how you made Lady Grie’s nursery clock. Since you always find an excuse not to come and talk to my pupils, a second-hand accounting will have to do.”

  “I’m not a teacher,” she protested, guilt-seared, and clambered to her feet. “Or a storyteller. You wouldn’t have me embarrass you in front of your flock, would you?”

  That made Remmie laugh. “For an arrogant woman, Barl, you have the oddest notions.”

  “Arrogant? Arrogant?” Outraged, she stared after him. “Would an arrogant women peel potatoes? I hardly think so!”

  “You haven’t peeled anything yet,” he said, heading for the kitchen. “So come along and prove me wrong!”

  Oh, he was impossible. But he was her brother, and she loved him, and she owed him for the loss of that insipid girl in Granley.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” she said, and followed him out.

  Chapter Three

  Elvado.

  Staring around her at the fabled city, Barl pressed a fist to her roiling midriff.

  I should’ve eaten more runip berries. Heaving scrambled eggs over the cobblestones would hardly be polite.

  “Mage Lindin! You look unwell, is aught amiss?”

  Swallowing a groan along with her travel sickness, she turned to Remmie’s inconvenient friend, Barton. “Naught, Mage Haye. Thank you.”

  His overhelpful expression collapsed in the face of her briskness. “Oh.”

  Remmie looked up from his goggling, giggling, pointing pupils. So many of them, bobbing about like corks in a stream. It was a wonder he could keep their names straight.

  “My sister doesn’t translocate well.”

  “What a shame,” Barton Haye said again, annoyingly sympathetic. “Then perhaps, Mage Lindin, you could try—”

  Hold your tongue, Remmie. “Runip berries, yes, I know,” she said, smiling tightly at Barton Haye. “Thank you.”

  Remmie’s lips pinched. He didn’t care for her manner in front of his pupils. But for one thing the wide-eyed school children were too distracted by Elvado’s glorious Hall of Knowledge, towering over them, and for another, well, Barton had brought it upon himself.

  He’s no business being solicitous with me.

  Barton turned aside. “We should discern where the Council desires us to stand for the demonstration.”

  “Agreed,” said Remmie. “We’re here in plenty of time, but doubtless there’ll be crowds arriving within the hour. We want to find the best vantage point before giving the children a chance to explore.”

  Hearing that, the chattering horde of pupils broke into a louder clamour. Barl stepped well back, leaving Remmie and Barton Haye to their self-inflicted task of calming them. When that was done, and Barton had launched into a lecture about Elvado’s central plaza, she tugged her brother several prudent steps sideways.

  “I think I’ll take
a wander elsewhere until the Council deigns to grace us with its presence.”

  Remmie started to object, then changed his mind. “If you like. Don’t get lost. We’ll look for you in a little under an hour’s time.”

  As always, he’d taken great pains with his appearance, wearing silk for the occasion instead of his customary linen and wool, with a gold and carnelian stud in his right ear. His long hair was intricately braided, a thin, bright blue ribbon threaded sinuously through it. He was so fine she had to smile.

  “What?” said Remmie, suspicious. “Barl, what mischief are you—”

  “None!” she protested, and patted his brocade weskit with its bold emerald and purple stripes. “What a mind you’ve got, always seeking the nefarious. I was only thinking I have a very dashing brother. A compliment I think I regret, now.”

  “A pity I can’t return the sentiment,” he said, grinning. He was forever twitting her about wrinkled tunics and flyaway hair. “Still, I suppose I should be grateful that at least your stockings match.”

  Wretch. To say such a thing, with Barton Haye listening! She’d have to devise a suitable revenge for when they were alone.

  “I’ll see you presently, Mage Lindin,” she said, repressive. “Mage Haye.”

  Barton nodded, very formal. “Mage Lindin.”

  So that was him discouraged, any road. Good.

  Abandoning Remmie to his child-ridden fate, Barl turned her back on the plaza with its magnificent fountain, mosaicked with unicorns and mermaids and dolphins and eagles, and made her way along the nearest of the wide, crowded thoroughfares leading away from the city centre.

  Elvado was so full of ambient magic that she felt like a lute plucked from every direction. Blood and bones thrumming, she threaded a path between the pedestrians jostling around her. So much noise, after sleepy Batava and the disciplined artisanry. So much colour and movement. And all the tall, beautiful buildings, pane after pane of stained glass struck by sunlight into fiery, living jewels. Gold and silver and the blue-grey ores of Brantone and Ranoush, worked with skilled hands and magic into shimmering spires.

  We are such a clever, colourful people. No wonder we’re gazed upon with envious eyes.

  Not that there was cause for concern in that. As the only mage race in the world, they had nothing to fear. Not even Vharne’s best swordsmen or Iringa’s famed horse warriors or the singing assassins of Feen could cost the mages of Dorana a single night of sleep. Let them squabble amongst themselves. Dorana was safe and always would be.

  One advantage of being a gifted clockmaker was that she needed no help to feel the steady passing of time. The sense of it lived inside her, sitting lightly behind her eyes. So with no fear of provoking Remmie by returning tardy to the plaza, she walked the wide streets of Elvado. A city not simply beautiful, but gracious, its sunlit air sweetened by an abundance of fresh flowers, its sunlit streets thoughtfully shaded with wide-branched, lacy-leafed foiuta trees. In the scattered pocket-sized parks she wandered by, djelbas heavy with blossom towered above the neat grass, haughty as the potentates of Trindek.

  As she walked she passed herbal shops and alchemists, medicinals and a library. In Artisan Row she lingered before each immaculate window, marvelling at the beauty of the tapestries, the weavings, the wood turnings and the musical instruments stringed and fretted and ivory-keyed. A good thing the only businesses permitted to trade on Winsun sold food, else she’d be leaving Elvado with an empty purse and so many purchases she’d need to hire a carriage to get home.

  She lingered longest before a clockmaker’s workshop. Forehead pressed to its cool, clean glass she stared at the journey clocks, the bedside ticktockers, the grand vestibule clock, nearly tall as a tree, and the whimsical wedding clock with its stiffly dancing bride and groom. The gilded name above the workshop’s warded door read Markus Stokely, Artisan Mage. She’d never heard Arndel mention him. His clocks were passable. Pleasant, even. But they weren’t anywhere near as good as hers.

  Cheerful, she kept walking.

  Beyond Artisan Row was the fabric district, and there she sighed over silks and velvets and brocades and satins, over beads and buttons and lush furs imported from the brutish Iringan wilderness and beyond. On Bakers’ Square she bought a sweet mouthful of cherry pie, its buttery crust and fruity filling a symphony on her tongue. Whoever had baked it was a true artisan.

  She walked on again, licking her lips. Everywhere she stepped, everywhere she looked, Elvado’s grandeur stole her breath. Yes, oh, yes, it was a beautiful city. And so long as the First Families ruled in Dorana, she would never call it her own.

  Without warning a swift rush of resentment stung her, so sharp she had to reach out a hand to the yellow wall beside her. The injustice of her plight closed her throat and blurred her vision. Killed the memory of that cherry pie and the lingering pleasure of the fabulous nursery clock she’d made. What she could learn here, at the College of Mages. Given the chance, what could she become?

  But I’ll never know, will I? I won’t be given that chance.

  She could hear Remmie’s voice scolding her.

  Count your blessings, Barl. You have Ancilla Grie and her patronage, which is more than most unranked mages can even dream of.

  And though that was true, it wasn’t enough. Besides, what was true today might not be true tomorrow. Who knew how long Lady Grie’s approval would last? A week ago it had been Tympanne Ranett perched on her ladyship’s silken shoulder… and now the celebrated Master Artisan was spurned.

  Only a fool trusts in the whims of a spoiled First Family mage. The only mage I can rely upon is myself.

  She straightened and took a proper look around. She’d walked a goodly distance from Elvado’s central plaza. Here was a hushed residential district, gaily painted houses pressed shoulder to shoulder along a much narrower flagstoned side street, with window boxes and polished brass door-knockers and curtains drawn to keep the world at a polite distance. Some wardings here and there, too, put in place by mages not inclined to trust human nature.

  How very wise of them.

  She’d wanted to find the College of Mages, to stand before its open gates and dream, but if she didn’t start back to the plaza now she’d be tardy. And that would leave Remmie in a stew of worry and he’d likely scold her in front of Barton Haye.

  So she retraced her steps, pushing her way through and around the throng of mages heading for the plaza. Reaching it, she sighed. An hour ago it had been merely dotted with people. Now the plaza was crowded, all but the spouting tip of its fountain hidden by town dwellers and visitors eager to witness the day’s so-called historic events.

  “There you are!” Remmie said, pleased, as she elbowed the last few gawkers aside to join him in the Hall of Knowledge’s beautifully tiled forecourt. “They haven’t started yet.”

  “So I see,” she replied, looking at the imposing dais that had been set up directly before them. “It seems I rushed back for nothing.”

  Remmie rolled his eyes. “Did you have a good wander?”

  “I wasn’t bored,” she said, shrugging. More than that she’d no intention of sharing, not with Barton Haye’s sticking-out ears so close by and flapping.

  “Well, we had a delightful adventure,” said Remmie, not in the least fooled by her show of indifference. “Over there, not too far away—” He pointed eastward across the crowded plaza. “—there’s a maze, where you must decipher a slew of clues to discover the incants that will let you find your way out again. Without the right incant in the right place you can’t escape. Very clever, it was.”

  “And highly entertaining,” added Barton, turning. “Your brother and I left our fates up to the children.”

  “Luckily for us,” said Remmie, mock pompous, “we’re excellent teachers.”

  One of his students, short and chubby with a splotch of ink on his collar, looked up and grinned. “Lucky we’re excellent pupils, you mean.”

  As the other Batava children collapsed into gigg
les, Remmie reached out a finger and flicked the plump boy’s nose. “Instead of congratulating yourself, Rine, why don’t you take care of that blot on your shirt? Or do you want these fancy-pants township children to think mages from the Eleventh district don’t know how to look smart?”

  “Blot?” The boy half-strangled himself trying to see. “Oh. Sorry.”

  Glancing around the specially roped-off student area, Barl saw that quite a lot of the gathered children were flashily dressed and possessed a certain polished sophistication that spoke of lives lived without benefit of seeing cows through the kitchen window. And then she saw that some of those polished children were flicking supercilious looks toward Remmie’s plainly-garbed pupils. Little nudges, hurried whispers, sly smiles hinting at unkindness and an unearned superiority. First Family brats every one of them, she had no doubt, and dearly deserving of more than a flick on the nose.

  “Never you mind, Rine,” she said to the boy, surprising herself. “There’s more to magework than clothing. A clean collar wouldn’t have whisked you out of that maze.”

  “Oh!” said the boy, caught between pleasure and uncertainty. He wasn’t used to hearing his teacher contradicted. “No. I s’pose not.”

  “But—” said Remmie, his voice heavy with warning, “a neat mage is a careful mage, and a careful mage is a mage less likely to do himself or anybody else a mischief. Don’t you agree, Mage Lindin?”

  If she didn’t say yes, Remmie would punish her with cold leftovers for a week. Or worse, make her cook for herself.

  “Yes, of course. It’s very important.”

  “Very important,” Remmie repeated, staring at the boy Rine. “And don’t—”

  Interrupted by a tuneful fanfare, he shifted his teacherly gaze to the Hall of Knowledge’s grand entrance. The fanfare played again and the jumble of conversations around the plaza died down. Cutting through the ringing silence, the sound of Elvado’s grand clock tolling the hour. Barl closed her eyes, touched to stillness by its deep, solemn chime. Sudden excitement rippling through the crowd broke her reverie. Looking for its cause, she saw a procession of men and women emerge from the Hall of Knowledge and make their stately, gold-and-brocade way to the dais.