A Blight of Mages

by Karen Miller

  I’ll not complain. I’ll even wield the broom myself if it keeps me safe in the artisanry.

  “Of course, my lady.”

  She removed the warded cloth from the clock, hefted her heavy crystal creation from the sideboard to the small round table Lady Grie indicated, then stood back.

  Like it. Please like it. You have to like it. It’s beautiful.

  “Hmmm,” said Lady Grie, roaming her sharp gaze over each twist and curve of the clock’s crystal housing. “Let me hear it.”

  A whispered incant released the clock’s tick and chime. Lady Grie smiled at the owl hoots, then clapped her hands in delight as the raucous cock-crow chime faded into silence.

  “Wonderful! I adore it. Better yet, my mother will be most diverted. And I assure you, Mage Lindin, such a feat is not easily achieved.”

  “Remember,” Artisan Master Arndel had warned her before she left the artisanry. “If Lady Grie should compliment your work, you are to take no credit, is that clear? The design was hers, you but followed her lead. Her taste is exquisite. The clock’s success is her own.”

  Mindful of her precarious position, Barl pasted a modest smile to her lips. “The clock practically made itself, Lady Grie, so wonderful was your original design.”

  Lady Grie snorted. “Arndel told you to say that, did he? Well, you’ve done as you were bid. But know that I know how much is due to you.”

  Barl felt a warm flush of pleasure. Immediately resenting it, she returned the clock to the sideboard. If only the woman’s approval didn’t mean so much. If only she could prove Remmie wrong, and be indifferent to praise. But she couldn’t. When she was sure her expression was once more blandly polite, she turned to Lady Grie.

  “Master Arndel hopes you know that his door remains open to you always, my lady.”

  Another snort. “In the hope that my purse remains open to him. And so it shall, Mage Lindin, provided you are here to turn my idle dreams into reality.”

  “Of course, Lady Grie.”

  Where else would I be but in Batava, since I’m denied a privilege that you take for granted?

  Lady Grie tapped her fingertips on the arm of her chair. “Your expression tells me plainly you think I am ignorant of your plight. You’re mistaken. I may be a First Family mage, Barl, but we are not all of us equal. I could yearn for a place on the Council of Mages, but I would yearn in vain. As you vainly yearn for a place in the College.” Her lips curved into an edged smile. “I tell you this so you’ll know I understand your frustrations. And because I understand them, I shall protect you as best I can, and see you are well treated by Master Arndel.”

  “Oh.” Surprised almost speechless, Barl nodded. “That is kind of you, Lady Grie.”

  “Not really. I don’t wish to lose your magework.”

  At least the woman was honest. “As I don’t wish to lose your patronage, my lady.”

  Lady Grie shrugged. “Continue making beautiful things for me and you won’t.” With a grimace, she shifted in her chair. “You can collect payment for my mother’s gift from Dassett on your way out. The carriage will return you to the artisanry. Tell your esteemed Artisan Master I’ll have another commission for you soon.”

  She was dismissed. Bowing, one hand pressed to her heart so Lady Grie might not doubt her sincerity, Barl took her leave.

  On his knees in his vegetable patch, weeding, Remmie glanced up. “You’re lucky Lady Grie is so understanding. If she’d taken offence at your outburst…”

  “Well, she didn’t,” Barl said, snappish, and brushed damp dirt from a filched baby carrot. “Besides, she’s the lucky one. That clock will have her mother in raptures. Which works well for me, I must say.” She crunched the carrot. “Her approval of my work will keep me sweet with Arndel.”

  “In other words, you’re using her.”

  She wriggled a little, trying to get comfortable on the upturned tin bucket she was using for a seat. “We’re using each other. And what does that matter, if we both get what we want?”

  Dubious, Remmie sat back on his heels. “And what is it you want, Barl?”

  “To put this upset behind me.” And while it wasn’t the whole truth, it was still true. She wasn’t lying to Remmie. He’d never be able to throw that accusation in her face. “For Arndel to recognise my worth to him. To have my crystal acknowledged by the Guild.” But that would have to wait until the College’s kicked-up dust settled. “And I want to explore my gifts as an artisan.”

  Remmie plucked another weed and shredded it. “So. You really are taking no for an answer, this time? You’ve not got some mad scheme tucked up your sleeve?”

  “The only thing tucked up my sleeve is my arm.” At his look, she shook her head. “You don’t believe me?”

  “I want to,” he said slowly. “Only… Barl, I know how much you want to attend the College.”

  “And if wanting meant having then I’d not be here, would I? But it doesn’t, and I am, and now you’ve got what you wanted.” She shoved off the old bucket, nearly tipping it over. “I’m not stupid, Remmie. I know when I’m beaten.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to—” He rubbed the back of his hand along his jaw, smearing dirt. “Sorry. Let’s talk about something else. Does Lady Grie want you to make her another clock?”

  She dug her heel into the edge of the vegetable patch. “Not yet. But soon, she said. She’ll have something for me soon.”

  “There you go,” he said, smiling. “See? Things are looking up.”

  Dear Remmie. He did try but, really, he’d never understand.

  “Now make yourself useful,” he added, “and help me with these weeds.”

  She hated weeding. She wasn’t a gardener. She loathed the damp, musty smell of compost and the scratchiness of dirt beneath her nails. But the time was fast approaching when she’d be leaving him behind.

  She helped Remmie with his weeds.

  The next morning, Arndel sent her back to the trade workroom.

  “Mage Egin has the gripe,” he said. The glint in his eye dared her to complain. “And there are trade clocks for export to Brantone that must be done by week’s end.”

  “Of course, Artisan Master,” she said, compliant. There was her Lindin crystal at home, waiting for his submission to the Guild. Give him the smallest excuse and he’d likely smash it instead. “I’ll get started right away.”

  And with gritted teeth she filled in for hapless Tagget Egin.

  Four days he was absent from the artisanry, him and his inconvenient gripe. Every time the trade workroom doors opened during those long four days she looked around, hoping it was Arndel with a new commission from Lady Grie. But though he often came to supervise, he always came empty-handed. On the fifth day Tagget Egin sheepishly reappeared. With scarcely concealed relief she gave him back his trade workbench and returned to her place in the smaller, specialist artisan room.

  “That’s good timing,” Ibbitha greeted her. “We’ve some new commissions coming today. Master Arndel told us last night.”

  New commissions. Barl felt her heart double-thud. She was so tired of trade clocks she could easily scream. Her fingers itched to make something fabulous, something beautiful. Something for Ancilla Grie. If she never again saw the makings for another tedious trade clock, she’d die happy.

  Not long after the artisanry clock finished chiming the work day’s start, Arndel entered with a sheaf of papers tucked under his arm. Designs for their latest commissioned pieces. One by one he handed them out, to Ada Mortyn and Nyn Bardulf and Ibbitha. Last of all he stopped before her bench.

  “Mage Lindin,” he said, and handed her the final design.

  Staring at it, she felt an unpleasant jolt beneath her ribs. “It’s a journey clock.”

  “Indeed it is,” said Arndel. “How perceptive of you.”

  She scarcely noticed his dry sarcasm, too overwhelmed by the larger insult of the commission.

  “It’s for Lady Lassifer,” Arndel added. “He
r nephew travels soon to an appointed position in the Seventh district.”

  Another unpleasant jolt. “Lady Lassifer? But—”

  “That’s correct. Why?” Arndel raised an eyebrow. “With Mage Egin recovered, did you think I would pay you to sit idle until Lady Grie dreams up something else for you to make?”

  She bit her lip. “Of course not, Artisan Master. But it’s a journey clock. With a design so simple it makes Lord Traint’s piece seem a miracle of complexity. The least accomplished mage in the artisanry could create it with his eyes shut. I am worthy of a greater challenge than this.”

  A sudden hush in the workroom. Feeling her fellow artisans’ disparaging stares, Barl curled her fingers to fists beneath the cover of her bench.

  “Indeed?” Arndel’s eyebrow lifted higher. “Well, Mage Lindin, that is your opinion. My opinion is that you are employed to undertake whatever task I deem suitable. Are you refusing the commission?”

  A paltry journey clock. Oh, how she ached to snatch up the inked design, scrunch it into a ball and throw it in his face.

  Why would you do this, Arndel? Why would you waste me? You know what I am!

  There was an odd look on the Artisan Master’s face, as though he both wanted and dreaded her making even more of a scene. In his eyes, that familiar, curdled resentment. How petty. Whatever she achieved only made him and his artisanry stand higher.

  His meanness blinds him. But if I push him any further he’ll find a way to punish me, out of spite.

  So she surrendered, the effort nearly breaking something inside her. “I’m sorry, Artisan Master,” she murmured. “I was… taken aback. Of course I’ll make Lady Lassifer her journey clock.”

  “How very obliging of you, Mage Lindin,” Arndel sneered. “You render me almost speechless with gratitude. Now get to work. I shall return in due course to see how you progress.”

  “Artisan Master,” she said, keeping her gaze pinned to the design on the bench.

  As Arndel slammed the workroom door shut behind him, a hissing babble of whispers broke out. Ibbitha actually left her own bench for a scolding confrontation.

  “Barl! Are you truly so arrogant you think you can get away with such outrageous behaviour? And that no-one, not even Master Arndel, will call you to account for it?”

  There was that ugly word again. Arrogant. First Remmie, now Ibbitha. And from the corner of her eye she saw the other mages nodding, agreeing with her so-called friend’s stringent accusation.

  And oh, she was tired of being called that ugly name.

  “Why is it, Ibbitha, that confidence is so quickly smeared into something unpleasant?” she demanded. “Why is it wrong for me to believe in myself? Why is it desirable that I apologise for being good?”

  “Nobody’s asking you to apologise, Barl,” said Ibbitha, still rankled. “We’d just like you to appreciate that you’re not the only talented mage working here.”

  Perhaps not, but I’m the most talented.

  Only if she said that, though they all knew it, the fuss would take a week to die down. There might even be a formal complaint lodged, which would be all the excuse Arndel needed to exact a painful revenge for the wrongs he believed she’d done him by simply existing.

  “You’re right, Ibbitha. I’m sorry.” She looked around the workroom. “I didn’t mean to offend.”

  Ibbitha sniffed. “Perhaps not, Barl, but you do. And I tell you plainly, we’re sick to death of it.”

  And on that flouncing note, Ibbitha returned to her workbench. Uncomfortably aware of the other mages and their unfriendly glances, Barl pushed her feelings deep inside and looked more closely at the journey clock’s design.

  Brantish green sand. Three topaz. One emerald. Copper wire. Gold wire. Two gold drop weights.

  Stifling a sigh, she fetched the necessary supplies and settled down to work. Breathed out her own lingering resentment and sank herself into magic’s welcome embrace.

  First, the journey clock’s heart, its time-telling centre. Spin and thin the gold wire, spin the copper wire to match it and meld the two into one coppery gold conductor. Twist it, shape it, let the magic mould it into a cradle for the incant that would tell time until the end of time itself. Suspend it between the two gold drop weights. Infuse the topaz and emerald with the counter-balancing incants. Set them in their gentle orbit, round and round the coppery gold cradle. Swiftly working, Barl felt the building tension… felt the power rise… and though she despised the clock for its unimaginative simplicity, still she felt herself fall in love, because the magic was never anything less than wondrous.

  That done, she transmuted the Brantish green sand into shimmering green crystal for the clock’s housing. Not satisfied with the resulting flat leafish tint, she breathed the merest hint of lake blue into the glass. Not enough to darken it, wanting only to enhance the clear colour’s depth. Perfect.

  And now to the crystal’s shaping. The clock’s design called for a sphere, inside which the time-piece workings would be infinitely suspended. Delicately, Barl laid the flat sheet of greeny-blue crystal across her workbench’s padded support stands. Slid her right hand beneath it, palm up and fingers spread, and with her left hand traced a careful sigil on the air. It ignited dark crimson. The next sigil burned bright blue. The third and final sigil shone a dull, burnished gold. Power shivered across her skin.

  “Rondolo.”

  The air above the crystal sheet shimmered. A single sweet note sang out of the glass… and it began to writhe and melt, forming into a perfect orb.

  “That’s it,” she crooned, as the power in her right hand kept the growing sphere aloft. “Dance for me.”

  With a snap of her fingers, she halted the transmutation just before the crystal sphere sealed itself shut. Then, holding her breath, she guided the gold-and-copper cradle, with its gold drop weights and orbiting gemstones, inside the crystal sphere. Exactly. Another finger-snap restarted the transmutation. Four steady heartbeats later, and the sphere was sealed shut.

  Now the timepiece incant, so familiar she could create it in her sleep. Fourteen syllables, three sigils, and it was done. The clock’s inner workings accepted it without complaint.

  As she smiled, ridiculously pleased, the artisanry clock sounded the luncheon break. Ibbitha and the others abandoned their clock-maging, but she stayed. She wasn’t hungry. Besides, she wanted to finish the clock within a day, faster than any other mage here could complete it. Just to remind Arndel of how good she was.

  The final touch for Lady Lassifer’s piece was its chime and tick and toll. For Lord Traint’s journey clock, since he was a district inspector, she’d created a deep, custodial sound, ripe with undertones of authority. But she knew nothing of Lady Lassifer or her nephew, and she wasn’t inclined to go chasing after Arndel to find out.

  Birdsong. Everybody loves birdsong. And from the look of this design Lady Lassifer has as much originality as a hen.

  But her fresh irritation faded as she crafted the incant that would give a sweet voice to the green crystal clock. When it was finished she smiled again, then put the incanted crystal aside so the delicate energies could settle before it was melded into the clock.

  Abruptly aware of stiff muscles, Barl took advantage of the brief respite and wandered around the quiet workroom. She was curious to see what her fellow mages were creating. And yes, just as she’d expected, everyone else’s tasks were far more alluring than her own.

  One day I shall make Arndel sorry for wasting me like this.

  She gasped a little, seeing Nyn Bardulf’s fantastic piece. It was a rearing winged horse, front hooves striking the air. To get that pulsing, heartsblood crimson he must have used the mortally expensive firesands from Manemli. Whoever could afford such extravagance for a clock?

  Of course, she thought, looking at the inked design. The Tarkalin of Ranoush. Only a fabulously wealthy ruler would have the coin for a clock like this.

  A wave of violent envy flooded through her. Why should Nyn
Bardulf be singled out for such an honour? She could have crafted this clock as well as he. Better. There was the tiniest flaw in his crystal, she could feel it. A clumsiness in the transmuting of the sand. Probably the clock would keep time all right, wouldn’t shatter. Nyn wasn’t a bad mage. He had a certain gift.

  But I’d have made this clock without flaw.

  Aching, she crossed to the next bench. It was Ada Mortyn’s, whose crystal-work was bound to be little better than adequate. Prepared to be offended, instead she felt a warning prickle stand the hair on the nape of her neck.

  Trouble.

  But the warning didn’t come from Ada Mortyn’s partially completed crystal sphere. Uncertain, Barl looked around. There was an off-kilter incant here somewhere, she was certain. Squibs of pain were bursting behind her eyes now, half-blinding her. But she couldn’t put her finger on which—

  The workroom doors opened, and her fellow artisans jostled in.

  “What are you doing, Barl?” Ada Mortyn demanded. “Leave my work alone!”

  “Oh, be quiet, Ada,” she said, impatient. “I’m not touching it. Look—” She pressed the heel of her hand to her temple, wincing. “Something’s wrong. Can’t you feel it?”

  “No,” said Nyn Bardulf. “You’re imagining things.”

  She wasn’t. Frustrated, she watched Ibbitha and the others return to their benches, oblivious to the danger. The pain behind her eyes was pulsing… pulsing…

  “Barl!” Ibbitha protested. “What are you doing? Stop it! Put that down!”

  “I’m fetching Arndel!” somebody else shouted, but she didn’t care about them either. Eyes closed, she clutched Ibbitha’s silver incant cradle, but couldn’t feel anything wrong. The problem wasn’t here. Tossing it aside she leapt next to Baret Ventin’s bench. He tried to block her, but she was so angry, so desperate, she nearly pushed him to the floor.

  And there it was, the source of the danger. The unravelling incant was in the central timepiece of Baret’s exquisitely opulent funeral clock. Commissioned by Lord and Lady Somerfell to honour his late father, it was worth even more than the Tarkalin of Ranoush’s extravagance.