Flesh and Spirit tld-1

by Carol Berg

  “…so if anyone comes, just say I’m unclothed and you’ll bring word when you have me dressed again. You must be firm and sure. No wavering. No apology. You must think like a servant of Samele’s Temple. Though not a pureblood like my guards, you would consider yourself above the house servants. Can you do that?”

  “I think so.”

  “Be sure, Jullian, for if you’re caught…”

  “The Sinduria told me the consequences if I’m caught helping you. And I told her that I would do whatever was needed for Iero’s work.” His thin shoulders were stiff and square.

  I had not thought I had a smile left in me, but the image of this Karish aspirant with a cracking voice and downy lip saying such a thing to a high priestess of Samele could not but make my face twitch. “And my sister truly arranged this…approved of your helping me?”

  “Aye. She said she wasn’t sure you’d be willing to speak to the old man, but I was to tell you that you’re the only hope for getting sense out of him. And that she was glad she was there to keep the Harrowers off you. I wasn’t sure what that meant.”

  “Yes…well…that’s another story. But if the occasion should arise…when you see her again…tell her I’m glad of it, too.” My sister baffled me.

  We pulled the tub from the corner to the rug before the brazier. Then I sent the boy off to the kitchen for the first pail of water, describing how he could take a slightly longer route and verify that no guards were posted at the corner apartment or inside the courtyard.

  A purple and black tunic, black breeches, hose, and boots had been laid out in my bedchamber. The silver mask had been laid beside the clothes. I swallowed hard and vowed not to think again of tomorrow, but only of tonight, and how in the name of all gods I might get sensible answers from my grandfather.

  I changed out of my fine clothes and into the plainer garb more suited to sneaking about in the night and stuffed the book of maps back into its bag.

  The locks rattled, and the door flew open. Jullian lugged in a heavy pail of steaming water. I took it from him and dumped it in the tub. “Only one man inside the courtyard,” he said, breathless. “He’s standing in the corner at the outer wall, where there are no rooms. It’s too dark to see your door from there, but he came running the instant I stepped out. They’ve closed the archway gate to the rest of the house, and he must unlock its magic to let me through each trip. There’s two more fellows in pureblood cloaks posted just beyond the gate, so only a step will bring them into the yard. I heard more voices outside the walls. Lots of them.”

  “You told the fellow you were coming out again?”

  “Aye, but he went back to his post in the corner.”

  “Good enough. It means they trust my door wards to warn them if I step out. Take a bit more time on your next trip. Tell the kitchen maids the bucket was too heavy, and you’ll need to fill it more times with less in it. Tell them I’m demanding the water be hotter. Blame me. They’ll understand that.”

  “Very well.”

  “If someone seems suspicious, and you think I need to get back here, or if you need me for any reason, drop your pail outside the corner apartment. I’ll hear it. But do not—now, listen to me—do not lie to the two at the gate or to any other pureblood. You’ve no experience at lying, and as sure as fleas bite, they will detect it in you. If they ask you if I’m out of my room, tell them the truth. Tell them what you think of me. Tell them I’m a servant of Magrog half again your height and could break you over my knee—which is entirely true, and I’ll do it if you try making up stories. Keep your abbot’s secrets as you’ve ever done, but blame me for this whole mess. Do you understand?”

  He hesitated.

  “Blame me, Jullian. They cannot do worse to me than they’ve already done, unless it is to hurt you or the brothers of Gillarine. I’ll sit right here with this book all night if you don’t promise.”

  “Very well. I won’t lie to them if they should ask.”

  I grabbed the book and a shielded lamp and slipped through the door alongside him, so the ward would be triggered only the once. Flattening myself against the wall, I listened as he met the guard and they walked toward the gate. Then I crept across the courtyard to my grandfather’s door.

  The windows of the corner apartment were dark. From inside came a soft, low droning, as if a dulcian player had got stuck on one mournful note, and no matter how he wrenched and blew, he could not change it. The absence of charged heat about the locked door meant I had only a lock to break, not magical wards. I dared not use a voiding spell—it was too “loud,” too different and would surely be detected by those guarding this courtyard. Rather I touched my fingers to the lock and assembled an unlocking spell, hoping to have better luck than I’d had in Gillarine’s library. Trying not to rush, I loosed a bit of magic to flow into the spell and through it into the old bronze pins, shifting them ever so slightly, feeling my way. Such a slow dribble of magic would not be noticeable in the midst of the heavy wards elsewhere in the courtyard. As long as I didn’t get impatient…or run out of time…

  By the time the last pin released and I pushed open the door, my teeth were vibrating and Jullian had taken a third trip to the kitchen. At least my eyes had adjusted to the dark. I stepped in, closed the door behind me…and almost retreated immediately. The stench was near unbearable—every foulness a confined human could produce.

  A couple of low stools and an unlit brazier took form in the shadows. There was little else to be seen in that barren darkness but a clutter of clothes and blankets on the floor. The droning note came from the far left corner of the room, a mournful song of mind-death and despair.

  “Capatronn,” I said softly. “Are you awake?”

  I picked my way through the clutter. Not all clothes on the floor, no…parchment…pages and pages scattered everywhere. And amid the various stinks hung the familiar mix of tannin and vitriol—ink.

  “It’s Valen, Capatronn. I’ve come to talk.”

  He was huddled in the corner, eyes open, staring into nothing. I set the lamp on the floor, far enough away he could not kick it over, and tilted the cover open slightly. He clutched a wad of vellum sheets, and a string of drool sagged from his mouth and pooled on the crumpled pages. Those who label madness as release from pain and worry have never encountered such a sight. In that moment pain and worry entirely comprised my grandfather’s existence.

  “Capatronn, can you hear me?”

  As if I’d struck him, his head jerked, and his hands flailed wildly, his pages flying everywhere. “Valen! My good boy…I feared they’d taken thee!”

  “Shhh…we must be quiet.” I sat down in front of him, leaving the bag containing the book in my lap. To settle him I had to catch his flying hands and hold them tight.

  He bobbed his head, chewed his raw lips, and snatched his hands from mine. “Yes, quiet and careful. They’re close tonight…I feel them close. They touch me.” He shuddered and tapped his bony fingers on his skull. “Careful, lad. Careful. ’Tis no life for thee.”

  My skin prickled. “No one’s close. I need you to tell me some things I’ve never understood. Secrets, I think.”

  He pressed his knuckles to his mouth, his gaze darting anxiously around the dark, filthy room. “Secrets. Bargains. Promises. Contracts. Everything is secrets and contracts. For thee. To be safe. To be free.”

  I hardly knew where to begin. But the chill beneath my layered clothing and the mystery of the watcher at the Aingerou’s Font set my course. “Capatronn, who is Clyste?”

  “Cannot tell that. The contract…thou canst not know.” He gnawed on his bleeding knuckles.

  “She’s a Dané, isn’t she? Her sianou—her place of guarding—is a pool in the south of Ardra, only a few quellae from Caedmon’s Bridge near Gillarine Abbey. Clyste’s Well, they call it.”

  “Ahh…” He put his hands over his ears. “Thou canst not know. Don’t say it. He’ll think I told thee and put me in the daylight dark.”

  “Who
’ll think it? Patronn?” Why would my father care if my grandfather told me one more story about a Dané? And what did pureblood contracts have to do with beings of legend?

  “Daylight dark and nighttime dark…no light ever. No drawing then. No painting. No scribing. Then I’ll go mad!” As if he realized the absurdity of this statement, he planted his hands atop his head and cackled as he let it fall back against the wall. When the manic laughter shifted into shuddering sobs, I came near giving up hope of any sense. But after a moment, he leaned forward, tears glinting on his cheeks, and whispered, “Too late for Clyste anyway…too late.”

  “Why too late?”

  “She told them naught of our bargain. So the others locked her away to punish her. Chained her with myrtle and hyssop so she could not take bodily form. Bound her to slow fading. So young…”

  The others. Other Danae. She was one of them.

  I tried to ask more about the Danae, but every question became a knife thrust, wrenching sobs from his bony body. I had to try something else.

  “Look, Capatronn, I’ve brought my book.” I pulled it out of its bag and eased around beside him. “I thought you might look at it with me as we did when I was a boy.”

  His spasms waned as I allowed the weight of it to rest on his knees and opened it, ready to snatch it away if he tried to harm it. But his finger hovered over the title and then glided, not quite touching, over the glorious elaboration of gryphons and angels wrought in emerald green, scarlet, and gold that glinted in the lamplight. “I made this. I. When my head was right. The finest maps ever in the world. Mine.”

  “Yes, indeed.” Madness had clearly not dimmed his self-admiration. “Remember, you gave it to me when I was seven. Patronn was furious.”

  “Spited Claudio with the giving. He exacted such a price…keeping me from thee. Beastly. Shamed me to bargain with my own blood. So it pleased me to spite him. But my mind was forfeit…failing…and I had to give the book early.”

  “And I was a wild, horrid child who never appreciated the gift. You made me swear to use—”

  “Only after eight-and-twenty!” He snatched my hands away from the book and crushed them in his bony fingers, still incredibly strong. “Go not into their lands until thou art free. Only then. Thou gave me thy promise. Swore on the aingerou with thy blood. Thou must be careful with the book…Wait until the time is right and thou canst walk every corner of the world without bond or bowing to any. Thou’lt remain as thou art. Promise, Valen. Promise! I betrayed her so thou couldst be free.” His eyes and hands and head twitched.

  “I always thought you meant I’d be free of Patronn, free of this house. But you didn’t, did you?” I eased my hands from his grip. He clenched his gnarled fingers to his breast and I enfolded them in my palms. “You meant something else altogether.”

  “Free of them. Free of their Law, free of their dread summoning. Thou shalt be the greatest of the Cartamandua line. Our family will be powerful beyond dreaming. Thou shalt map the whirlpools of time, the vales of memory, perhaps even the very bounds of heaven and hell. But I cannot tell thee. Forbidden. Punished. Mad…” His eyes flared hot and wild in the dim light.

  “It’s all right, Capatronn. I’m here and safe.” I changed course again to soothe his rising agitation, tacking toward answers like a sailing ship against the wind.

  I turned a few pages of the book. “Let’s look at the maps—tell me again how their magic works so I can use them after I turn eight-and-twenty.” Time was running, and I had to calm my own frenzy. “Anyone else must read the spell in the cartouche or the border, but I—You knew I could not read words and might never learn. So how could I ever use the maps?”

  “Foolish boy. I taught thee.” He shuffled through the pages to the first map and tapped his finger on a tiny mark at one corner. “I opened this book to thee, who art without words, yet complete. For thee only, every map has one. Feed it magic…trace thy path and feed it, too…and the land will open its arms to thy skills. Not yet though…not yet.”

  I nudged his dirty finger aside and uncovered a grinning aingerou. He had put one on every page. “So I touch the aingerou and release magic into the page. Then I trace the route, feed it magic as well, and I can find my way without reading. Is that right?”

  He clapped his hands and chuckled. “Clever, is it not? And thine own power will take thee farther yet, for thou art of my blood, thy bent incomparably strong.”

  It was all I could do to hold back my finger from the page, but I dared not work spells here.

  “Earth and air and sky are one whole,” he said. “At the boundaries of thy knowledge—the boundaries of the world’s map—walk and listen and feel the joining of earth, air, and sky, seeking thy desire. Take up thy pen. Thy blood—Cartamandua blood—bears the magic; thy fingers will funnel it through pen to page and the way will be clear. Travel the way thou hast scribed, and begin again.”

  “But I don’t use—” No. No need to confuse him. I had never needed pen or ink to envision a route. When he had enjoined me to “feel the earth” back when I was a child, I hadn’t understood that he meant some abstract “sensing” of the universe that would only take shape when marked on paper. I had believed he meant for me to lay hands on the dirt as we did when tracking footsteps.

  “Claudio never could do it. He draws only what he sees, for his mind is clay. Thou, lad…thou art quicksilver.” His trembling fingers turned the leaves, one by one, touching, but not quite touching, the inked features, the bright drawings on the grousherres, the elaborate designs of frames and cartouches. “Thou shalt find the places even I could not.”

  But unless I could get free of Osriel, I would have no opportunity. Someone other than me would have to lead the cabal into Aeginea. “Tell me, must others use the aingerou as well—before they can use the written spells?”

  “No. The book is thine alone—not for Claudio, not for Josefina, not Max or the rest. With the gryphon charm canst thou permit others to use it as it was made. Thy choice.”

  The gryphon charm…great gods…no wonder he’d had me recite that bit of doggerel until my head split. “So I touch the gryphon—this one”—I pointed to the gilded beast on the front cover—“work the charm with a person’s name, and that person can use the book. My choice.”

  He bobbed his head happily. “Thy choice. Thine own book forever.”

  “Tell me, Capatronn, do any of these maps show a way into Aeginea?”

  His fingers paused in their explorations, and he raised his face, stricken. “Go not to this place where I am, Valen…to this dark place…this mad place.”

  “No, no. I just want to see the map you used to find Eodward. It must be very fine. Beautiful. Showing the power of your blood, of your art and magic. Then I’ll know which map not to follow until I’m eight-and-twenty.”

  He leafed through more pages until he reached the very heart of the book. The open page displayed a wholly unremarkable fiché, little more than a line drawing without colors or gold leaf or any other elaboration. Very little lettering. One might have thought it a preliminary sketch bound into the book by mistake. The landform outlined so vaguely was certainly Navronne.

  “No map can show the way,” he said. “Aeginea is everywhere. Nowhere. But this”—his tremulous finger drifted across the page from small notations of a tree and an arch to five rosettes scattered here and there in no particular pattern—“depicts its heart and its mystery.”

  His chewed and broken nail touched a rosette, causing another symbol to appear beside it like a shadow, only to fade as he moved on to the next. I glimpsed the symbol for a mountain and another for the sea. A third, located beside the rosette at the top of the map, I didn’t know, but the fourth showed the same waterfall symbol he had used for Clyste’s Well. If that one did indeed depict the Well, then the tree and the arch must certainly be Caedmon’s Bridge and the Sentinel Oak.

  “This is the Center,” he said, reverently, as he touched the fifth rosette, which was nowhere n
ear to being the accurate center of the other symbols or the page itself. If the arch was Caedmon’s Bridge, then it lay well south in Evanore. Its shadow symbol was a bolt of lightning, a notation I had never learned. “Here is where the Chosen dances to bring all life to joining.”

  His grizzled mouth and chin worked in tight spasms, as he gently smoothed the worn edges of the page. His eyes filled with tears.

  “Saved only this one map of them all. Promised Clyste to destroy them, so no human could travel there. The long-lived had grown to despise and fear us. Clyste said I could keep my promises without the maps. But this is my life’s greatest work. Our family’s glory.”

  Thus we reached the heart of the matter. “Why, Capatronn? Why do the Danae despise us so?”

  He shuddered and jerked, and I was afraid he would retreat again. But he took a quivering breath and gathered his spasming limbs. Summoning control, I thought. Every emotion, every physical expression required constant mastery to prevent it running wild. His head jerked and his eyes squinted and blinked as if someone was striking him.

  “We lie,” he said at last. “We betray. They cannot grasp our nature and dance it into their patterns. Sometimes our needs make demands of us they cannot understand.”

  “As with Eodward who did not return to the Danae, though he had promised he would.”

  My grandfather bobbed his head. “That was but one of so many. They did not blame me for that one. Nor for the Scourge.”

  “The Scourge?”

  “Some humans want to drive them away. They foul groves and springs, trees and fields. Sometimes”—he leaned close and dropped his voice—“they damage the Canon itself. The long-lived never speak of it lest we learn the power we have over them. It is their direst secret: that they cannot cross the barriers of tormented spirits. If the guardian is not joined with the tainted sianou when it is poisoned, she cannot return to it. The Canon is corrupted, and the guardian wastes with grieving. If joined, the guardian is trapped—ah, holy ones—trapped inside the sianou. Chained as if with myrtle and hyssop, but chained with poison, and so he does not fade, but dies there. Both land and guardian lost forever. Forgotten. And so is the Canon broken.”