The House of the Stag

by Kage Baker

  “My friend has been killed,” said Gard. “For nothing.”

  She put her arms around him. He leaned his face into her shoulder and wept out his sorrow and his wrath. All the while, quiet, urgent conversation was coming from the outer room. Gard caught the words “natural ability” and “stupid as a brick, but what power! If we could train him to work elementary spells …”

  At last he lifted his face. “Thank you.”

  She signed, That’s all right.

  “Can’t you speak?”

  A negation, a gesture at her throat: I was made without a voice. He likes silent women.

  Gard shook his head. He looked at the dish she was preparing. “Is your master planning on poisoning my mistress?”

  She shook her head.

  “What a pity.”

  She laughed at that. He had never seen anyone sign laughter before and was diverted.

  “I have made a decision, dear Icicle,” said the Narcissus of the Void. She looked up at him in her mirror, and her eyes were wide and her expression was one of childlike gravity. These past few days, in fact, she had played the little girl: all gaiety, laughter, and lisping talk, and many times she had asked for his assistance in opening some perfume vial or buttoning up some garment.

  He only looked at her, now, and waited for her to speak. “I have never known a slave like you,” she said, as though shyly. “You are so big, and strong, and yet so very clever! And Lord Vergoin feels that you might have it in you—if you were carefully trained, of course—to become a mage! Yes, just like one of us! Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

  “Yes, lady.” Gard waited to hear what else she would say.

  “And so I said at once that I thought that was a wonderful idea. It has made me so proud to have an undefeated champion in my service, and if it turned out you were a natural mage too—why, I just think I’d scream, I’d be so very, very pleased with you.” She turned and gave him a winsome smile.

  “Really, lady?” said Gard, his face as blank as a wall.

  “Yes.” Lady Pirihine turned all the way around on her dressing-table stool and drew her legs up, and leaned forward conspiratorially. “Now, I’m going to tell you a secret. You mustn’t tell the slaves, because—well, if everything goes as we hope, you won’t be a slave anymore, will you? And they’d all be jealous of you.

  “You must have heard the story, haven’t you, of how the great families came to live here under the mountain?” She put her hand on his arm. Gard thought of telling her that he had heard the story from Triphammer, but he held his tongue and only nodded.

  “And you may have heard that we’re all trapped here—the mages and their children, and their children’s children, forever. But it’s not exactly true.”

  “No, lady?”

  “No. You see, my own grandfather was the greatest mage of them all. Grand Magister Porlilon, that was his title. All the other mages were jealous of his power; that was why they so traitorously murdered him. But, just before he was killed, he was working on a spell of terrific power. It would have broken the mountain and freed us all, if he had lived to perform it.

  “All this while, my family have preserved his workbook, with his last great spell written therein. Alas! We were none of us his equal. I’m a weak little thing on my own, the last of my great line. The other mages have studied it and thrown their hands up in despair. It would take a truly great mage to make that spell work. They know they haven’t such power.

  “But you—you, dear Icicle, have such strength! So you will be trained. You will become a mage. If you are good enough, you will be made free! And perhaps you will be able to work Porlilon’s last spell. Oh, such power you might have! Wouldn’t you like that?”

  “Yes, lady. I would like power very much.”

  3rd day 3rd week 9th month in the 248th year from the Ascent of the Mountain. This day, Slave 4372301 registered as an adept-in-training at the request of Lady Pirihine.

  On a certain day, Gard was given a white loincloth to wear, and blindfolded, and led by Vergoin along several dank and echoing corridors. The tunnels slanted at first up and then down. In some parts the air was warm and steamy, and in others quite cold. At last they came into a place where echoes fell silent. Gard was stopped and felt Vergoin’s hand drop from his shoulder.

  There was a long, long silence then. Gard, annoyed with all the pretense, focused his attention and slipped out of himself a little. He perceived that he stood in a low and wide chamber in pitch-blackness. Along one wall was a long bench. Here were seated several hooded figures, and by each stood a slave robed and masked all in black, holding a dark lantern.

  One of the hooded figures gestured in silence for his slave, who obligingly opened the lamp’s shutter just far enough to allow a finger of light to glimmer out. By its illumination the hooded figure was able to peer at an hourglass, watching as the last grains ran out. He nodded and gestured an order at the slave. The slave closed the shutter once more, then reached up into the gloom and struck a gong.

  When its single note died away, the nearest of the figures threw back his hood, just as his attendant slave opened his lantern’s shutter. It bathed the master’s face in an ominous and bloody light; his head seemed to be floating in fathomless darkness. A Translator popped up and added its light to the chamber.

  “Unveil your eyes, slave,” intoned the master. Gard pulled away his blindfold gladly and blinked a moment in the darkness. The effect of the floating head looked even sillier when seen through eyes of flesh.

  Their power has dwindled, thought Gard. Else they wouldn’t need tricks with colored lanterns.

  “Is this the slave who calls himself Gard?”

  Vergoin spoke, from somewhere behind Gard. “He is, master and mage.”

  “And he is brought before us as a candidate for initiation into our mysteries?”

  “He is, master and mage.”

  “And who will speak for him? Who will testify that he is worthy?”

  “I will, master and mage.”

  “And I,” said another voice, hushed and trembling; Gard recognized it as Magister Naryath’s.

  “And I,” said a woman’s voice, Lady Pirihine’s.

  The red lantern was extinguished. A master on the far side of the room jabbed his lamp bearer rather impatiently, and a moment later the master’s bald head appeared to be swimming forward in a pool of golden light.

  “Three have spoken for you, candidate. Now you will be tested.”

  A slave hurried forward with his lantern, opening its shutter to throw light on a squat stone column that had been placed in the middle of the room.

  “Bring water forth from the stone!”

  Gard knit his brows. He looked for tricks, for hidden pipes, and saw none. He focused once again, went out of himself, and saw that the solid stone was no more than a mass of spinning lights. They moved in a certain pattern that made them appear as stone.

  But … if they moved in a different pattern …

  He surveyed the room, spotted a cup of water at the elbow of a palsied old master, who sipped from it frequently. The cup was a thin shell of lights flying in one pattern, but the lights it contained had their own dance. That was water.

  He studied the dance, then turned his attention back to the stone. Could he make the lights change their pattern of movement? Only some of them … some of the lights would have to be discarded.

  Gard reached out with his spirit self and, in a gesture that was like raking his hand through the lights but did not involve a hand or an arm, changed the lights’ pattern.

  The stone crumbled. Water rose from it in a jet, glittering in the light from the lamp. “He has done it!” murmured the palsied master, and there were indrawn breaths from the other masters, but one spoke with firm, raised voice:

  “Now from the water and stone, bring forth earth.”

  That much would be easy, for the trick was obviously in the play of lights. Gard sent the water jet spurting up to the ceiling of
the cavern, where it splattered and rained down. Of the stone, nothing was left but a handful of dry, sandy earth.

  He saw the masters’ concentration sharpen, now, and the bald-headed mage’s eyes bulged with … fear? Eagerness?

  “From the earth, now bring forth fire,” the mage commanded.

  Easier still to do. Gard looked on the mazy lights that were the discarded residue of the stone. He made them dance, and dance more quickly still. There was air, there was fuel, and in the friction of their dance now a spark. A little tongue of flame arose from the powdered earth.

  Gard looked with contempt on the mages in their theatrical darkness, their concealed lamps. He made the flame seek out different elements in the powder; he divided the flames and sent them shooting out above the heads of the masters, balls of fire in red, in gold, in blue and green. There they hung burning, as the slaves exclaimed and the old men and women gasped for air. Gard heard Lady Pirihine clap her hands, he heard Vergoin murmur triumphantly, “I told you!”

  And a voice murmured in his inner ear, gently mocking, Show-off. He turned, startled, and saw that one of the black-swathed slaves stood directly behind him. Black robes were not enough to disguise Balnshik’s figure.

  He let the lights burn out. There was a moment of silence. At last the bald mage said, “It is the judgment of this board that the slave is acceptable and will be trained.”

  Now his life became arduous once more, not least because the Narcissus of the Void seemed to desire his body’s service more than ever. She invited rather than commanded, she prattled and teased and showered him with sweetmeats and trinkets. Even so, as he coupled with her in grim silence, he hated her, and the song ran again in his head: If I ever get out of here….

  It ran in his head as Gard followed the course of study he had been set, for in all ways his work was monotonous as striking air with a pointed stick. He must learn to grind and compound incense; he must learn to cut and prepare herbs, and press oils, and distill waters and essences and attars.

  He was apprenticed in turn to each of the masters, learning to detest each of them: Paglatha, the bald one, irritable and given to striking him across the knuckles when he made an error in General Thaumic Theory. Hoptriot, cold and enigmatic behind his skin mask, who taught him the dissection of corpses for the harvest of certain necessary parts. Flaktrey, blue-lipped, ancient and breathless, who was prone to stroking Gard’s face as he taught him the correct pronunciation of certain spells. Pread, he who bore the mark of Balnshik’s lash with smug content, who oversaw as Gard learned sums, then geometry, then algebra arcane, and at last Ipsissimal Calculus.

  Sometime in these months, as he added to his store of languages arcane and modern, the Translators stopped appearing. He learned that they were drawn to ignorance and confusion, as fish are drawn to crumbs scattered on a pool, and he was no longer providing them with much of either.

  He was granted, still, his two hours in the day for honing his skills in the fighters’ hall, and was grateful. There Gard vented his sullen anger in violent exercise. All rage burned away, he was the better able to concentrate on his studies until day’s end. Then, alone in his alcove once more, he meditated and let any residual anger drift away like vapor. So Gard heated and cooled, a tempering sword.

  “And how is the young wonder of the world?” said a lazy voice behind him, one day when he had just run a practice dummy through the heart. He turned and saw Balnshik taking down a practice blade. “You’re looking fit; I had expected you to be pale and nearsighted by this time.”

  “They aren’t letting me near their books yet,” he said, grinning at her. “Will you strive with me, madame?”

  “I should love to,” she said, and went on the attack. He blocked and beat back, focusing, and went out of himself. To his delight, she did the same. She appeared to him as a drift of blue smoke, shot through with violet sparkles. They circled slowly above their vaulting bodies, and no onlooker could have told their attention was anywhere but on the play of blade on blade.

  My, my, you have learned. He heard her voice clearly, though it had not emanated from her throat.

  Can you hear me? he inquired.

  Of course I can, dear.

  Can you see me, like this?

  Oh, yes.

  What do I look like?

  Like leaf shadows and the light through leaves at high summer. If one subtracted the trees. And the sun. Quite nice, really.

  Couple with me! Like this!

  He felt rather than heard her laughter. My dear child, one requires flesh for that particular act.

  Oh.

  You see, now, why our people can be tempted into flesh and trapped there? I hear that you’re getting a great deal of pleasure out of Lady Pirihine.

  She’s getting pleasure out of me. I hate her. She had Triphammer killed!

  Poor little Triphammer. Yes, I saw that. But he’s free now, at least.

  Would I be able to see him again, like this?

  No, dear. The Children of the Sun go on to another place when they disembody. Only we—which is to say demons—inhabit this place naturally. You, being what you are, may walk in both worlds. Only one of the qualities that make you so valuable to our masters, I suspect.

  How did I come to be? Do you know?

  How should I, dear? Other than the rather obvious fact that some demon found a man or maid of the Earthborn fair and took flesh to lie with them. Tell me, how were you found? Wrapped in a blanket and left where you’d be noticed quickly?

  No. I was just—dropped. Like an animal. They found me by my crying.

  Ah. Then I would say your father was the Earthborn, and your mother was the demon. Don’t think the less of her for abandoning you; it would have taken all the flesh she could manifest to make you, and she’d have disembodied the moment you came into the world.

  Couldn’t she have taken on flesh again?

  Only by eating you, dear.

  Oh.

  And now you are to become a mighty mage! Very unusual for our masters to share their knowledge, you know. They have never admitted a slave to their august ranks before. Don’t you find that a little strange?

  I am more powerful than they are. The learning is easy! I can see the spells, I can see the lights moving in things when the magic works, and they can’t see them. Worn-out old fools, all of them.

  And so concerned that you stay in the prime of physical health. Remarkable, isn’t it?

  … Is it?

  I would have said so, yes. Of course, I’m not in the habit of giving advice to such powerful and clever fellows as famous Gard the Icicle … but if I were, I might be inclined to tell him never to reveal to anyone that he can see spell structures. And to study any propositions made to him very, very carefully indeed.

  Would you really?

  I would. But I have not done so, for, if I did, I should disobey the command of silence laid on me by my master. And I never disobey his commands. And why should you need a warning from me? Doubtless you will rise to a seat on the high council one day, if you continue your astonishing progress.

  I don’t want a seat on their council. When I’m powerful enough, I’ll escape from this place. I’ll go back to the valley where I was born and I’ll slaughter the Riders, all of them, at a blow, with fires of retribution! I won’t leave a stone of their houses standing. My—my brother’s people can live there in peace again.

  Impressive. What will you do then?

  I … perhaps they will welcome me, if I free them.

  Perhaps they will.

  A silence, while they beat back and forth, and lunged, and parried, and the bright steel rang like bells.

  I will consider the warning you didn’t give me.

  Spoken like a wise child.

  Gard progressed, over the months and following years, to ordeals by no means boring. In one trial, he must stay awake for seven days and nights together, watching a seething kettle the whole time, waiting for the seven-second interval in which the
mixture turned a suspicious and livid blue, in order that he might plunge in his hand without hurt and draw forth a lump of blue ointment, and drop it at once in a basin of cold water and present the same to Magister Tagletsit. What Magister Tagletsit wanted with it, Gard was not told.

  In his apprenticeship to Magister Karane, Gard was to memorize spells of a thousand words, then a thousand lines, then a thousand pages. Three mistakes Gard was permitted, but on the fourth Magister Karane seized a blade and cropped Gard’s ears, as a punishment for not hearing better. Gard bore it without a word, though Lady Pirihine raged at his disfigurement. Gard mastered the trick of deep memory at last. The week after, Magister Karane most unwisely ate of a gift of sugared violets he had been sent by an unknown admirer and died in agony within minutes. The Narcissus of the Void was seen to smile, but did not notice that Gard’s ears had already begun to grow back.

  He mentioned it to Balnshik, the next time he met her in the Training Hall. She inspected his ears and smiled. “You’re surprised? I thought you knew you were one of the Changeless. Surely the fact that you walk without crutches now gave you some idea?”

  “No,” said Gard. “What does Changeless mean?”

  Balnshik gestured at her own body. “I am one. We wear this flesh by default; but as long as we wear it, it neither fades nor withers. The very oldest demons are Changeless, and I’m quite old. Half-breeds are all Changeless, for some reason. Rather lucky, given all their other disadvantages.”

  But Gard thought of Teliva’s curse: Long life to him indeed, so long, too long …

  Magister Hohnduhl taught him spells that were chanted or sung and congratulated him on his strong voice and perfect pitch. Gard wove complex nets of music that lit fires, that created illusions or broke targets.

  He was proud of himself until the night he realized that this was what Ranwyr had striven so hard to learn, without success; and the truth had been simply that Ranwyr was tone-deaf. All the holiness in the world would not have made him an effective disciple of the Star’s. The unfairness of this, and the growing awareness that the Star had not been entirely false after all, drowned Gard deep in black anger and sorrow.