“That is not far from here,” Veria rebutted. “One day north by horse or carriage, and then a few hours on boat.”
“Firstly, it is uncommon for a former Consortium High Council member to come waltzing into the Shrine after decades of near solitude,” Daloes sighed. “Secondly, I do not do horses.”
“So, how do you travel?” Veria asked.
“Well, before I was two hundred and some odd years old, I walked everywhere, and took a boat when needed!” Daloes huffed. “So I think the more appropriate question is how did I travel?”
“Two hundred?!” Veria choked on a biscuit.
Daloes shrugged. “There was some water from a Mager at some festivity or other, a long time ago...I am not the only one.”
“Wait, you are saying that there is a group of Magers that drank some kind of immortality water at a...a party?”
“Not immortality,” Daloes said. “More like prolonging. Some of us now think that the intent of this mysterious Water Mager, who we did not know and never saw again to make the matter even stranger, was to preserve the quality of elemental skills that the era created. The people in that room that day just happened to be the group he chose to embody that time period for future generations. I am afraid we failed. The regulations that passed fifty years ago, and our very old bodies and minds have caused most of us to stop taking apprentices and become hermits. Hence, the original topic of conversation—me not traveling to Tarddiad and you going in my place.”
“Who else was there?” Veria pressed, enthralled by the whole story.
“You do not know any of them, nor will you likely meet any of them, so what does it matter? Remember how we are all decrepit old recluses?”
“You are not a recluse,” Veria argued.
“And I am the nicest one of the bunch!” Daloes exclaimed, striking a clownish pose.
“You do not like them do you? The other Magers,” she guessed.
“It is not a question of amicable relations, though, I will say you can have a past with someone that is too long, and we know that better than most,” he said. “We had disagreements, we grew old, we grew apart, we just...stopped thinking about each other.”
Hanging his head and staring at his lap, it was the first time Veria had seen her master look upset. His normally lively eyes were sunken and lost as they seemed to be searching for words to fill the silence.
“But,” he snapped his head up, recovering quickly, “now I have to tell you, otherwise I would be a terrible teacher—keeping it all trapped up and secret after I just told you to be open and truthful! We were about to be inducted as the next High Council members of the Mager Consortium. So, a little private ceremony occurs, and that is where the water appeared, for myself, my fellow Earth Mager, Ellory Mielyr; your mother's mentor, Strelzar Plazic, long before he ever took pupils; a Wind Mager named Virro Ladny and his wife, Adierre; and a very young Esperan Water Mager named Urtiz Agion.
“Urtiz was killed in the Second Tal'lean War—that is how we knew we were not immortal, though we had at that point figured out that something was different. Adierre died, as well, which sent Virro into a deep and lonely depression. I receive a notice now and again that he is alive, but he never says where he lives, or much of anything else but terse well wishes. Strelzar, as you know, has produced the world's most skilled Fire Magers for the past one hundred years—a hermit in his own right, but mainly from his obsessive dedication to his element and craft. And Ellory grew tired of Londess politics and found solitude in the Voss Mountains of Govaland, though he still actively seeks out promising apprentices to his interesting style,” Daloes said with distaste.
“Ellory is the Diamond Mager who developed memory clearing,” Veria guessed, and Daloes nodded. “How often do Magers develop new types of skills?” she asked.
“Not often, dear, but we have had longer than most to work on it,” he answered. “But, really, this is quite enough prattle about a bunch of old loons. We need to figure out how to get our hands on the evidence from the investigation—if you want to help, of course. Are you in?”
So much had happened to her over the past few months, and she knew she had changed in that time, too. But Veria had always been certain of one thing: she missed her father, and wanted to know what happened to him. She nodded affirmatively, and Daloes squealed in delight.
“Good,” he said. “Let's get to work then.”
-XIV-
Daloes and Veria had decided that it would be best for Veria to travel to Tarddiad as soon as possible, before she became burdened by a large belly, dwindling energy, and limited travel.
“We will need some sort of request from a member of the King's Council or the Consortium to reopen the case, and then you can examine the evidence,” Daloes had schemed with her in the tent. “Leave the rest of the evidence, but bring the letter back with you, and leave a fake copy in its place.”
“How will we get a request?” she had asked.
“You have a few options,” Daloes had plotted. “First, and the least likely, is to approach Willis Villicrey. Not only will that take too long, but he would probably prefer not to dig up his best friend's past.”
“Agreed. So what are the other options?”
“Your mother is still a member of the Consortium, though not an active one, and she might be too close to Lord Gordon for her written request to be valid. Though, it is certainly worth a try, if you are willing to ask for her help.”
“Let me hear the other options first,” Veria had groaned.
“Ask the King,” Daloes had stated plainly.
“I—how would I even meet the King? Let alone how crazy it is going to sound: 'Your Majesty, thrilled to meet you. Please reopen the investigation on my Father's suicide that you closed'!”
“I did not say any of the options were good,” Daloes had said with a shrug.
Veria had come home to rest for a few days after the camping trip with her master, and consider her options as far as pursuing a request to Tarddiad. She absolutely did not want to ask her mother for help, but it seemed like the best place to start. Plus, it would be pretty good practice for her training—Tanisca would definitely try to squeeze in some lies on the subject of her father.
At dinner, which was a roasted lamb so rich it made her nauseous, she dropped the subject on her mother in the middle of a conversation Tanisca had started about which section of forest to get firewood from for the winter.
“I need your help with something,” Veria stated, plainly, with no hint of begging.
“Oh, really?” Tanisca asked. “How may I be of service to you, after this rather ungrateful recent period of rejecting my counsel?”
“I would like you to write a request to reopen the case on father's death,” she answered, ignoring her mother's snide remark.
If Tanisca were shocked, she made no outward sign of it. She finished her bite of lamb and took a casual sip of meade, then ran her tongue across her sparkling white front teeth.
“I know,” she nodded, speaking in a quiet tone when she finally responded. “I know. I should have told you more—I should have let you read it, and talked about it with you but—”
Tanisca broke off and her head fell forward. Veria squinted her eyes at her mother. Was she...sad? Was she about to cry? No twinges of falsehood arose, and her mother seemed to be breathing rather deeply. Veria stayed silent, in hopes that her mother could finish her thought.
“As hard as it is for you to hear all these awful things, it is harder for me to talk about it, Via,” she finally said, not looking up from the table, muttering practically at her dish. “I am me! And he took up with that—that traitorous scoundrel! For a short period I even thought that he deserved whatever happened to him, just because of what he did to me—”
“Wait, so you don't think he killed himself?” Veria interrupted.
“I have no idea, Via,” she answered, “and I cannot spend more than five minutes thinking on it before I am a level of distraught that re
nders me ridiculously weak and useless.”
“Daloes suspects murder, and not suicide,” Veria said.
“Of course he does,” Tanisca sniffled, regaining her composure. “Gordon was his star pupil for a time.”
“Pupil?” Veria asked in surprise.
“Oh, yes,” Tanisca said, fondly remembering her husband. “Daloes is one of the only Magers in history to take two apprentices on at one time.”
“Willis,” Veria muttered.
“Of course.”
“Why did you not tell me this?” Veria asked, not in an accusatory tone, but merely curious.
“I would, and then he would just erase it, so I stopped wasting my breath,” she sighed.
Veria's head spun—not from a lie, but from the revelation that her father had not only the skill to alter memories, but that he had done so on her, his young daughter.
“I was proud of him for choosing to continue his education with a progressive-minded Mager like Ellory Mielyr, and for the incredible influence that he and Willis had on the young King. But he apparently did not want to burden his precious little Via with that knowledge. In fact, every time I told you about it, you made that exact face. The one you are making now.”
“Well of course I am making a face!” she shouted. “You let him do that to me? Just clear my memory like that?”
“He did it to me too, darling, for various different reasons,” she shrugged. “One of the perks of living with an Earth Mager.” She rolled her eyes to accent her sarcasm.
“Diamond Mager,” Veria corrected. “Not all Earth Magers do that.”
“You disapprove?” Tanisca questioned.
“Yes! I do! How were you okay with this happening to me—to you—to us!?”
“I kept a journal. As talented as your father was, he was not as observant as myself, and I caught him talking about many things that he had erased from my memory, and I would feel a bit...off,” her mother explained.
“You could detect it?”
“Not as strongly as a flat out lie or purposeful deception, but when he realized that I had no firm memory of these events, he generally became so fraught at the idea that I would figure him out that the deception became a little easier to decipher,” she continued. “But it was easier to keep a journal and read back through it, when I felt that something was missing.”
“I cannot believe this,” Veria groaned.
“Actually, you can, and you do,” Tanisca argued. “Otherwise you would be clutching your forehead and squinting your eyes like you do when you are trying to focus your power. You will have to get rid of that, otherwise people will know you are reading every word they say for deception. You will lose your advantage.”
Veria slammed her palm into the dining room table. “Does everything have to be about advantage and power—some tactical, calculated move?” she cried in frustration.
“Then why are you digging into this, if not for some knowledge or leverage?” Tanisca snapped back. “Why develop your power at all if not for advantage over others?”
“And what sort of advantage does one gain by plucking out memories from his family's heads and throwing them into the fire like unwanted trash?” Veria yelled, her voice cracking.
“Fire has nothing to do with this, so I will thank you to leave it out of the conversation,” Tanisca mumbled out of the corner of her mouth.
“So you think you are above this because it is the dirty secret of some element other than your own,” Veria accused. “That is typical.”
“I will have you know that part of my journal is strictly dedicated to studying a counter, or reversal or protection against memory clearing!” Tanisca defended, rising from her seat.
Veria shook her head. “So you do think you are better than him,” she growled, “because you were not the one doing it. No...” she goaded, “you were just letting it happen!”
And as she said the words, their full meaning hit her. Tanisca was just letting it happen...Tanisca dedicated a part of her journal to...
“No...” Veria sighed.
“Via—”
“You know, I have always felt so lost. Like I cannot remember being a child, thinking childish thoughts, having childhood memories,” Veria muttered, barely audible, her words not quite able to break through the stranglehold of almost-sobs.
“Darling—”
“No!” she cut her mother off, the latter began to weep quietly and bowed her head to hide it. “Both of you! How could you do this to me? I am your daughter! Your child! And you let it happen so that you could study. You could progress...” Veria spat the words like poison darts. “My whole life, and I—I am missing so much. I don't know who I am. And that is on you.”
“You know who you are, Via!” Tanisca sputtered, looking the most desperate Veria had ever seen her. “I know who you are. You are strong, and you are intelligent, and you are far more caring than anyone else in your terrible family.”
Suddenly sapped of all energy from the evening's revelations, Veria stood slowly and began to exit the room. Tanisca rounded the table and placed her hand around Veria's arm, which she instinctively shrugged off.
“And I know that you will never do anything to your child like what I have done to you,” she added.
The last thing Veria wanted to think about after the shaking news of her parents' treatment was how she was going to become a parent herself—a situation that she was beginning to think was beneficial for no one involved. She turned away from her mother and left the dining room without a word, and heard Tanisca crying behind her.
As she undressed and settled into her bed, Veria thought it ironically amusing that she had gone into her discussion with her mother fearing lies, only to find that the truth was much worse than any lies she could ever have imagined.
After a fitful night's sleep, interrupted often by the physical pain that accompanied her condition, and the mental distress that followed most of her conversations in her own home as of late, Veria awoke to a letter on her nightstand.
To the High Council and Keepers of the Shrine,
I, Tanisca Pyer-Laurelgate, esteemed member of the Elemental Consortium in good-standing, and former apprentice representative to High Council Historian Strelzar Plazic, do hereby request allowance into the records vault for my daughter, Lady Veria Laurelgate, on my account and behalf. This is a matter of historical record-keeping regarding recent investigations from the palace, and if it pleases the Council, I petition for permanent access—to be removed from the Shrine and returned after completion of the appropriate preservation and transcription process—of a number of records and pieces of evidence. If the pieces can not be removed, I request that a transcription of the body of the records by Lady Veria be arranged.
I have enclosed a list of investigations that have not yet been entered into the official historical records of the Fire Alliance, of which I am a proctor on behalf of Strelzar Plazic and Aslay Livida. I appreciate all cooperation on this matter that you can accommodate.
Sincerely,
Lady Tanisca Pyer-Laurelgate
The cooperation from her mother was appreciated, but did not merit forgiveness.
Nerves got the better of her for the rest of the day as she packed a few day's worth of simple clothing in a large, leather satchel and prepared for what was to be her first nautical trip in her life.
Veria was not particularly afraid of water, or boats or ships for that matter, but to be trying new things at her age, with her condition no less, made the unknown seem much more intimidating. And of all the things she did remember wanting to do as a child—the Fair, and learning how to cook, and the time she decided she wanted to move her room to the attic because she liked the sound of bats, or when she was convinced that she needed tree-climbing lessons from one of the guards that often traveled with Willis Villicrey when he would visit—she had never wanted to travel by sea. Riding ponies, climbing trees, walking around in the forest unaccompanied—all well and good. But she could say
with certainty that she had no recollection of ever wanting to hop on a boat, even if it were only to an island that could almost be seen from the shores of her homeland.
Though, she could not have any certainty in regards to her recollections anymore. For all she knew, she could have had extensive sea travel as a young girl. Maybe she had even been to Esperan, or some other country! Maybe she had seemed like a very stupid little child because as soon as she met someone or learned something or had a thought, it was ripped from her head by her father and she had no clue. She turned into some kind of empty porcelain doll, all dressed up and beautiful, but nothing on the inside. No memories, no wants or thoughts or desires or aspirations that could last long enough to mean anything to her. Just a little girl who had served her purpose, but was not, apparently, entitled to her own.
The carriage ride North to the dock where she had arranged for transport to Tarddiad was long and tiring, and she struggled to relax and quell the thoughts of her childhood. But, by the time she reached the dock, and the sky had turned indigo and bright, white stars began to peek through the wispy gauze of low-hanging clouds, she was so exhausted that she fell right to sleep in her quarters and missed the entirety of her first known trip away from the comfort and safety of the shores of Londess.
She awoke to the polite shoving of the first mate, who informed her that they had arrived safely, and had allowed her to sleep until sunrise, but now they were going to load the boat with fish and head back to shore.
She stretched and stood and grabbed her satchel in the haze of lingering sleep and dreams, and made her way up to the deck.
-XV-
The Island of Tarddiad was warm compared to the mainland, but every so often, a misty breeze swept along the bay and left her skin dewy with cool moisture. The dock area was practically void of any people, save for her fellow voyagers on the boat and a few workers who had begun loading the fish.
Lord and Servant: (Book I of the Elementals Series) Page 11
