Carver understood the criticism implied by the question, but he was tense enough to take no offense. “Some,” Carver replied. “Not much.”
Torvan nodded, unsurprised. Jewel merely shook her head.
“Follow.” He led them quickly past the tapestried walls and the standing weapon racks of the outer chamber and into a room that housed six of his companions.
“Torvan?” Alayra, the Captain of the Chosen, rose from the chair she had occupied. Her expression shaded from curious to the quiet of worry before she had finished speaking his name.
He snapped a salute that was in every way the equal of the salute he offered his lord.
It offered her no comfort. “What is it? What brings you here?”
“We have a hostile mage on the grounds. In Gabriel ATerafin’s office.”
Jay looked up as he spoke. Carver saw her face pale—and he knew that whatever she said next would be two things: bad, and true. “Torvan?” Her voice was soft, and broke between syllables.
“What?”
“He’s—he’s with her.”
The other five Chosen rose at once, joining Alayra.
“He’s with The Terafin?”
“Yes.”
“Let me pass, Primus Alayra,” Torvan told his commander.
Her face was now almost the color of Jay’s, which made the scar down the left of her forehead stand out. “And what will you do?” she asked, although it was clear she knew what the answer would be.
“I’m going to summon the mage.”
“On your head, then.”
“On my head alone.” But he caught Jay by the hand, and he dragged her past the assembled Chosen and into the final chamber.
This room, unlike the previous two, was unadorned by paintings, weapon racks, or armor; it likewise had no tables or chairs. It was not a small room, but it was empty, if you didn’t count the bronze brazier that burned in its center.
The three doorless walls framed that brazier; torches, in sconces, burned against those walls. There were no magestones here; the light was flickering and uneven. But had it not been for that light, they would have been in utter darkness.
As it was, it took Carver’s eyes a few minutes to adjust to the lesser light. When they did, he saw that the walls were not blank, as he’d first thought: they were carved, in slight relief. Each wall contained a single arch, with fine, tall pillars and elaborate keystones. Beneath those arches? Stone. Just stone. It was a very strange room.
Torvan, however, wasn’t concerned. He told them to stay put, and then began to walk, three times, around the burning brazier. At the end of the third small circuit, he raised his hand, drew a small knife, and cut his palm. His fingers wide, he let blood drip into the fire, and as it did, it sizzled, and the smoke the brazier emitted grew black.
Torvan ATerafin then turned toward one wall.
22nd of Scaral, 410 AA The Order of Knowledge, Averalaan Aramarelas
Meralonne APhaniel sat in the tower rooms he occupied. In his hand was the bowl of his favorite pipe, but although he had taken the time to line its bed with the finest of leaf, he had yet to light it. This was not because he did not wish to smoke; he did. But he knew, from hard experience, that the moment he lit the pipe, someone would knock at his door, and the promise of that lined bowl would be ash—and not through any enjoyment on his part.
He rose, and walked the short distance to the tower windows that overlooked the Isle, and beyond it, the stretch of endless sea, whose color did not shift or change for simple things like weather. Storms came, and the port closed for days or weeks, but that was all. He watched the waves strike the seawall, and he turned away; he was restless. A storm was in the air, although it was not carried by cloud.
This morning, he had been summoned to the Chamber of the Magi, in which Sigurne sat unattended by any save Matteos Corvel. She had looked up as he entered the room, and then had simply waved Matteos aside. Matteos did not care for Meralonne, which bothered neither man overmuch, but inasmuch as he trusted any of the First Circle mages, he was willing to trust Meralonne, and he had retreated without comment.
Matteos was just the type of starched and well-behaved individual who was highly unlikely to satisfy his curiosity by eavesdropping; it was one of the more annoying things about him. But Matteos, this morning, was not a concern.
Sigurne looked both delicate and weary. Only one of these things was accurate. Meralonne tendered her a bow; it was not a formal bow, as befit rank; it was, however, not an affectionate gesture. It was a test. Sigurne disliked formality.
But she failed to note—or comment—upon the gesture, and Meralonne understood in that instant the information she wished to impart to him. Saw, from the slight rise of her brow, that she suspected he now knew. She had always been—even as a young woman barely over the threshold of adulthood—canny.
“Ararath failed to report last night.”
Ararath Handernesse seldom ventured into the Order of Knowledge, and the manner in which he made these reports was unknown to Meralonne APhaniel. But he did not doubt her words; nor did he doubt the significance of them.
Meralonne nodded. “I will repair to my quarters,” he told her. “There, I will prepare.”
She lifted a pale jade-veined hand. “It would not be the first time that he has failed to report.”
“This close to Scarran, Sigurne?”
Her eyes were enormous and unblinking, an owl’s eyes. But after a moment, she nodded. She did not look away; she did not lift hand to eyes or face. Her expression rippled briefly as if at familiar and unwelcome pain, no more. “That was my thought. Very well.”
“If he was correct in his assumptions, and if he played his game well, we will have our answer.”
“Too many ‘ifs’ for my liking. Too much risk. I dislike the Winter Solstice.”
“With cause, Sigurne. I will wait in my quarters.”
She nodded and he turned toward the doors, but paused before they opened. “I will wait two full days. If it is at all possible, I would like to be uninterrupted.”
“It is not, as you well know, possible,” she replied grimly.
He shrugged.
But he had, of course, been less than entirely truthful. He had been prepared for many days now. The preparations themselves had required thought and planning; they had also required the subtle and deep use of magic and the contingency theories so beloved of the academically inclined Magi. These men—and women—would remain in ignorance of his work. So, too, would those rare members of the Order of Knowledge who were also members of House Terafin, for it was within the walls of the Terafin manse that he had labored, waiting Ararath’s final move.
Sigurne grieved.
Meralonne did not. He thought instead. Until the enemy was exposed, their allies could remain hidden. And while it was not explicitly stated in his discussions with Sigurne, it was clear, to him and the woman who ruled the Order of Knowledge, that mages of some power were no doubt involved with the demon-kin.
It angered Sigurne; it was one of the few things that still had the power to do so. She had gained wisdom in her tenure, first as student, then as master, and wisdom had dulled almost all of her youthful edges. Not that one, however. It would be blunted with her death, and little else.
Meralonne was neither angered nor outraged. Men of power sought power, consorted with power, and hoped to gain advantage from it, regardless of the form the power took. It had been true for the whole of his life; it would no doubt be true long after. He did not have a high opinion of human nature, and because he did not, he was seldom disappointed.
He was, however, careful. Once, in his own youth, he would not have been; then, power only needed to be hidden if one was weak. Now? Power required subtlety if one was lazy.
He glanced at his pipe, and then, with reluctance, set it to one side. The chair in front of the desk was cluttered with books and papers; the chair behind it was empty. The former was meant to be a strong hint to those who m
ight come to visit—and thankfully, they were few—but the latter was for his use. Taking that chair, he now began to sort through the papers that lined the surface of his desk. Some were old enough that they radiated magic; in no other way would they have weathered the centuries.
But that magic, and the magic that began to fill the room, were not the same. He smiled for a moment as he glanced at the color of the light that was apparent to his eyes; it bore his signature, folded among the lattice of white and gray.
“What now?” he said, as the power grew stronger. “I’m a busy man, and I don’t have time for insignificant interruptions. I’ve students, patricians, and merchants clamoring for attention; you’d best set yourself apart from them very quickly.”
The voice that replied caused him to lift his head; it was a young voice; too young for The Terafin’s Chosen. “We need your help,” it said. “The Terafin is about to be—”
“We call upon you,” an older, and male voice broke in. “To fulfill your bond. I am Torvan of the Chosen, and I summon you to The Terafin’s side.”
At last.
He let curiosity about the girl’s voice dissipate, and he lifted his face so that he could see, in the lines above his desk, the face of the man who now summoned him. He recognized him as Torvan ATerafin, although he had not troubled to hide his identity.
With a simple gesture, he changed his robes from the plain and unremarkable robes of the Order to robes that shifted in light, gray and white and all colors in between.
“Torvan, what is the danger that you perceive?”
Torvan, however, did not answer the question, not directly. Instead, he turned and spoke a single word. “Jewel.”
“My lord,” the girl said, and as she spoke, the vision shifted to frame her face. She was young; by Averalaan standards, not quite adult, although she hovered at its edge. Her eyes were dark, and her hair a brown that suggested auburn; his magic did not convey such nuances well.
“We—I—there is an—an assassin on the grounds. He looks like a friend, but he—but he’s not human.”
Obviously the girl was not accustomed to speaking in public. Or to speaking clearly at all. In spite of this, Meralonne was curious; it was to this girl that Torvan of the Chosen had deferred.
“Not human? What is he?”
“I don’t know. But he—he jumped off the top of a three-story building and made a hole in the road.”
“I see. I take it he then continued to move?”
She nodded.
He lifted a hand, and he gestured; along the relay he had placed just the hint of compulsion. It was not, strictly speaking, legal. Nor did the lack of legality trouble him; the girl was clearly unlearned and not therefore adept at maneuvering the nicety of Imperial Law. “You will wait until our business is done, for I wish to speak with you further.”
She nodded, silent, and then, to his surprise, she broke from his gaze and turned to look off to one side. To Torvan.
“I will come,” Meralonne told them both. “Step back.”
And so, he thought, rising from his desk and arming himself, it begins. At last.
My thanks, scion of Handernesse.
22nd of Scaral 410 AA Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas
Carver watched as the wall burned. White flames, with hearts of orange and gold, scoured stone engravings clean. It should have been impossible, but the man who now stepped through that solid rock surface was a mage, and mages defied the possible. He wore robes that looked as if they were made of fine, fine steel, and when the last of those robes cleared the wall, the rock cracked and settled at his back.
While he watched, Jay grim and silent by his side, Torvan shouted orders. This room, the one he had led them to, was filled only by guards. By, Torvan had said, the Chosen.
Those guards now obeyed his commands, but they weren’t wordless.
“You’d better be right about this,” a tall and grim- faced woman said. She was older than Torvan, and shorter, but her shoulders were broad and her arms suggested that the weight of armor meant less to her than cotton gauze would have to Carver. She wore a sword at her hip, and she carried a helm in the crook of her left arm.
Torvan said quietly, “I know.” He meant to say more; Carver saw that, and it made him wonder who this woman was.
But the mage clearly didn’t give a damn. “Where is your intruder?” His voice was cool, clipped; Carver would have said he was irritated or annoyed, but something about his eyes were wrong for that. They were gray, those eyes, and right now they glimmered like steel reflecting light.
Torvan, however, didn’t find the interruption off-putting. “We believe that he is either with, or on his way, to The Terafin.”
“Then let us repair to her quarters in haste.”
The guards nodded, and Carver tried to find the tail of their six-man escort, so that he and Jay could slip behind them and follow. But the mage walked only as far as the wall opposite the one his arrival had seemed to destroy.
“What is he doing?” Jay asked Torvan, in something close to a whisper.
“He made this room, these walls, and these arches. That wall, the one that he’s standing in front of, leads through the fireplace into The Terafin’s audience chambers. We must follow; wait for us here.”
She glanced, briefly, at the third wall with its stylized engravings, but she didn’t have the courage to ask what it was for. Not now, and maybe not ever. Carver nodded, but he knew she had no intention of being left behind; if it came to that, neither did he.
Of course, he was stupid. Jay had no excuse.
The mage touched the wall, and the stone beneath the carved arch began to lose the consistency of rock. Carver had seen it happen once already, but it was still jarring to watch stone fade into something that resembled gray-and-white mist.
Through those mists, pale and insubstantial at first, Carver could see the unmistakable figure of The Terafin. She was not seated; she stood.
He had thought she might be in the room they had first entered, but the room the mist slowly parted to reveal was grander and larger, with paintings, and small statues in recessed alcoves in the wall, adorned on either side by glassed cases. She appeared to be alone.
But she looked up, and her eyes widened slightly as she saw who sought entry into her room, and why. “What is this?”
Torvan did not reply; instead, led by the mage, he entered the room, along with the other Chosen, Jay and Carver himself, who almost thought the better of it when he saw the expression on the face of the woman who ruled this House.
But he followed, and before anyone could answer her question—and Carver could understand why no one wanted to—he froze.
Standing between the Chosen and The Terafin, well-dressed, clean-shaven, and unarmed, was Old Rath.
The Terafin stood, silent, Ararath before her, and behind him, outlined by the wavering shape of an entirely magical arch, her Chosen, the mage whose services Terafin retained, and, all but hidden by both, two of the street children that she had chosen—for her own reasons—to take into her House. Only one of these people was welcome, had been welcome, even if that welcome had been fraught. Not even Morretz was in this room, because Amarais had some dignity, and she had been surprisingly uncertain how this interview would go.
She had not seen her brother for years. For decades. At one point in time, she could number the days. Nor had she expected to see him again. She saw him now, older and careworn; the streets had not been as kind to Ararath, in the end, as the House had been to her. When she had received word of his probable death, she had felt—carefully—nothing.
When she had received word of his presence, that nothing had crumbled, like an ancient and poorly kept wall—but what it would reveal, not even she could be certain. And yet, uncertain, she had agreed—in haste—to meet with him, choosing the function rooms that only the most important of her visitors might see.
She had thought to preserve privacy. To preserve the part of the past that she,
foolish in ways that years had not completely eradicated, had both hidden and, in the end, cherished.
Yet he had not spoken four words, and those a stiff and formal greeting, before she had seen the wall, and the great mantel that was the centerpiece of this room, shiver and become translucent, as if made of glass and smoke.
Her own words, she was now forced to choose with care. “Gentlemen,” she said, each syllable as sharp as any harsh word she had ever spoken, “while it’s been a pleasure to have your company, unless we can come to an understanding of circumstance, I will be forced to ask you to leave.”
The Chosen were inscrutable. But she saw the flicker of her captain’s eyes as Alayra’s gaze brushed Torvan’s profile. Her own glance strayed to Ararath; he had not moved.
She forced her hands not to gather in fists at her sides. “I have, as you can see, a visitor who arranged to speak with me.”
That visitor now frowned. “If I’ve come at an inopportune moment, I can return at another time.”
And would he? He had not come when she had been granted the Terafin name; he had not come while she had struggled to survive the war that had led, in the end, to the Terafin Seat upon the High Council in Avantari, the Palace of Kings. If she let him go, now, all of her words and all of his would remain unspoken. She could barely believe he had come at all. He would vanish; the streets would once again swallow him.
“No.” She turned to look at her Chosen; she could not keep the ice from her voice, and no longer bothered to try. What her expression told them, she did not know, and did not, at this particular moment, care. “Gentlemen?”
They offered no answer.
But Ararath said, in a sharper voice, “What are you doing?”
The Terafin glanced briefly at the painting that rested, in a gold frame, above the mantel. It was not merely decorative, although it was pleasant enough; a seaside painting, with brief sand dunes broken by waves and two large, standing stones. The sky in the painting, however, paled or deepened in the presence of magic.
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