by Carol Berg
“Truly, Coroner Bastien, you ought to dress your servants for the weather.” Demetreo’s restraint in the glow of his triumph was admirable. His mouth twitched and his dark brows lifted, all false innocence.
Before Bastien could snap a retort, the red door swung open, producing a gust of winter and a Ciceron newcomer large enough to dwarf the coroner and Demetreo put together. Half the man’s teeth were missing and his hair was parted into myriad braids threaded with gleaming wire. At Demetreo’s direction he lifted Garen as if the young man were a sleeping pup.
Bastien threw his own cloak over Garen and motioned the giant out the door. After a last warning glare at me, he followed, spluttering in discontent.
As the old woman bundled bloody towels and rags from the piled cushions, Demetreo leaned his back on the red door. “What spurs this interest in the mark of the hand, pureblood?”
“My grandsire was a great influence on my youth,” I said, picking carefully through the truth. “He used his magic to study ancient times, to understand our world by learning of our ancestors, their cities, and their wars. This white hand against a field of black appeared in a magical vision, worn by some who looked like Ciceron warriors, but he never learned what it meant. Seeing it here intrigues me.”
The pulsing red-gold of the dying fire gave life to Demetreo’s aspect. “Insufficient,” he said after a few moments’ contemplation. “What urgency is connected to a dead man’s studies, especially for a knife-wit city coroner and a bloody, frozen sorcerer?”
“My reasons do not figure in this bargain,” I said. “I’ve seen the mark before and wish to know more of it. Sooner, rather than later, if I’m to provide some service for you in this hour.”
“Very well. Here is a bit of history,” he said, his gaze like black needles. “Purebloods have an especial spite for Cicerons. Registry investigators pursue reports of our petty crimes through town and village. Registry witnesses testify in proceedings far beyond the concerns of their contracts. We but cross a sorcerer’s path and we’re accused of insolence or violation. Your curators would as soon sweep us from the lands of Navronne with jitter dogs and offal. Or, better, hang us all. Do you deny it?”
“Why would I? Respectable ordinaries would profess no different sentiment.” No need to list the multitudinous reasons. “The only mystery is why you’ve not been chased out of Palinur long since.” Indeed I’d never heard of Cicerons forming such permanent settlements as this one, even to having sentries and a commons house like a normal village.
“And yet unlike those respectable ordinaries, those chosen of the gods have little to fear from light fingers or vengeful knives,” said the headman, digging. “Sorcerers who refuse to play our games of chance cannot suffer from our . . . skill . . . at winning them. What have we done to earn such spite?”
“If you wish to address matters of crime and justice, better you should consult Coroner Bastien,” I said. “I’ve little experience to offer.”
“Yet in no lawbreaking amongst ordinaries do purebloods take such an interest as in ours. Did you never wonder about it?”
“No.” It was true that purebloods testified inordinately often against Cicerons; my uncle Patrus had been contracted to a merchants’ fair and spent more than half his time witnessing to Ciceron thuggery, calling down raids on their caravans, expelling them. . . .
“Do you yet believe the god has provided us this sorcerer, Naema?” said Demetreo, shifting his attention behind me. “A stubborn prevaricator exiled by his own, one who gets his master’s lover bloodied and cannot see beyond the prattle of fools?”
“How can you doubt, boy, when the sorcerer speaks to your questions before you ask them? Bring him.” A woman’s powerful voice came from the back of the house.
Naema! I whipped my head around. Oldmeg sat in a tall-backed wooden chair. A thick mantle woven of every color of nature overlaid her ruffled black skirt and bloodstained tunic.
I was no linguist, but all knew the title Naema—“grandmother” in the oldest language of Ardra and Morian, long before those became provinces of Navronne. It was a name associated with the Goddess Mother, Samele, or human women who wore her mantle, those who saw things others could not, those who read the signs of earth and air, those who spoke of past and future with wisdom beyond human knowing. No clan or family dared bestow it lightly. Even purebloods heeded those who wore it.
I bowed to her in deepest respect.
“What am I to make of you, sorcerer?” she said. “You ignore your kind’s particular antipathy for Cicerons even as you read the tale of the reasons here in this holy place.”
Was it only the dying fire sent a shiver up my back? The Registry was ferocious about those who made false claims to power for magic, naming them charlatans, deceivers, pretenders to the gods’ gifts. And the terms of the Writ of Balance meant that neither Crown nor Temple could interfere with the Registry’s retribution. And what did she mean, this holy place?
“’Tis only to set terms for our consultation that we speak of your kind’s especial loathing,” she went on. “Mayhap then you’ll understand how much our need outstrips our shyness. In the usual course, we invite no dealings with Registry folk.”
“I am hardly a Registry man anymore,” I said. “But then”—Oldmeg had leaned forward on the arms of her chair, her whole body listening, observing me, her posture telling its own tales—“you know that.” They had watched me since the beginning.
Oldmeg’s head bobbed slightly in the way of the very old. “Indeed, your separation from your kind emboldens us,” she said. “And my grandson deems you trustworthy.” The old woman’s faded lips squeezed away the beginnings of a smile. “But we cannot allow you to speak of what you see or hear in this chamber, whether to your own kind or any other; thus, we require your blood-bound oath of silence.”
She produced a small dagger with a twisted hilt, and with a motion so expert as to be near invisible, nicked her paper-skinned palm. She extended the dagger hilt and her bleeding hand in my direction.
My stomach lurched with the remembrance of knife striking rubbery flesh and warm blood drenching my hand. The temple guardsman’s blood had soaked my shirt. I stank of it.
“We do not draw our own blood,” I said, staring at the scarlet beads welling from her palm. “It is touched by the gods, carries their magic.”
Demetreo blocked the red door, his body a nocked arrow ready to fly. To refuse this oath would likely loose that arrow, for a word to the Registry about traces of magic in a Ciceron lair—even Lucian de Remeni’s word—would be enough to bring down a bloodbath.
Yet to keep silent—to pledge my honor to it—would violate the discipline that was the foundation of my people’s compact with the gods. I had devoted my life to Registry discipline. I had sacrificed my sister and my freedom to it. Yet my suspicions of those who proclaimed that discipline now festered like plague sores. What if our centuries of trust had been misplaced?
Oldmeg’s hands remained steady. “Swear, or our bargain is voided and you learn nothing.”
The white hand loomed behind her, a mystery bordering on the divine. Layer upon layer of spellwork teased at my senses. I could not leave here without knowing.
I snatched the dagger and pricked my palm, and then pressed the stinging wound to hers. Her hand was dry and cold, save for the blood.
“The secrets you tell this night shall remain with me,” I said. “On my family name and blood, on our holy gifts, on the lines of magic unbroken. Witness my oath, great Deunor, Lord of Fire and Magic. Witness my truth, mighty Erdru, Lord of Vines.”
I heaved a great breath. “Now, Naema, sengé, tell me all.”
CHAPTER 25
Before I could blot my bleeding palm, Oldmeg was on her feet and Demetreo had dragged her chair aside.
“Here is our question and your answer all at one,” said the woman, gesturing to the wall of smoke-stained plaster. “A marvel lies hid beneath the mark of the white hand. As my mothers before m
e, I’ve spent my days wandering the world in search of it, and once we found it, trying to unmask it.”
Awe and reverence engulfed her small body as she gazed on the fresco, causing the hairs on my arms to rise. But when she reverted her gaze to me, it was only a wry, sad humor sparked her smile. “But my feet grow cold and my bones weary, and with these times—good Eodward’s death, a new king of less scruple, no matter which brother takes the throne, famine, riot, winter, and everyone seeking to blame those who are ever scapegoats—we’ve no more days to spare. So tell us what a man with stronger blood than mine finds here.”
Demetreo folded his arms across his breast. Oldmeg bowed her head and spread her arms. Waiting for magic.
Warmth and drink had restored me somewhat. Yet it was the need to know that drove me past depletion to dredge up every scrap and seed of power in me. Whatever mystery entangled my gift, a creature straight out of myth had told me that some meaning lay down a path marked with a white hand. I would have stolen power from the gods themselves to find meaning in the events of these past months.
Closing my eyes, I stretched my spread fingers toward the wall. Eerie enchantment flowed from the stained wall, an illusion that swirled around me like veils of silk, soft, smooth, flimsy, but not at all crude. The plaster wasn’t real.
With a twitch of my finger, I expelled a single sharp burst of magic.
“Magrog’s balls!” It felt as if the entirety of my blood had been sucked out through my eyes, drained by the unraveling veil.
Perhaps a third of the plaster had vanished, exposing a stony bulwark—not the even courses of pale blocks found in Caedmon’s Wall, but age-blackened, undressed stones, laid and mortared as they were dug from the ground.
Centered on this crude expanse was a low, round arch, worked of bronze and decorated with vines, flowers, leaves, and beasts of all kinds. Exquisite work. Yet my eyes did not dawdle, for within the arch writhed sheets and strings of light, deep purples and blues and colors beyond those my paint pots could mime. They shaped and reshaped themselves into patterns of line and color—scenes of meadows and mountains and seasons, as well as purest abstractions—a living tapestry woven of magic as deep and rich and fresh as the grasses of Ardran meadows in springtimes that came no more to Navronne. Enchantment so complex, so far beyond what I knew, it made my chest ache with yearning.
“Ah,” said Oldmeg, breathing a long sigh.
“What is it?” I whispered, unable to peel my eyes from the wall.
“Our elder stories tell of hidden doors across Navronne,” said Demetreo with ill-contained eagerness. “We have ever been told that the sign of the white hand marks each of these doorways. We hope you can show us where this one leads.”
Magical doors. A path marked. That connection made sense—astonishing, but reasonable. But surely they knew more. “The hand marks more than doorways, yes?”
“Naught else that we know,” said Demetreo. “We hold the mark secret. Sacred. Some wear it inside their clothes, believing it will bring strength in time of need.”
“But Cicerons once wore it openly, like a blazon. Why you? Who told you of hidden doorways? Who worked the magic?”
Demetreo’s earrings glinted in the enchanted light and his dark eyes glittered. “Some tales say the doors were created by your ancestors in days when we were friends. Some say they were created by the god Valo himself—he you name Deunor, Lord of Magic—as a heritage for his lost children. There are a thousand stories. But in all the years of our wandering, this is the only one we’ve found.”
“Deunor’s lost children?” Unsure whether to laugh or yell or run, I threw my hands up. “You say these rogue magics are yours? This wonder, yours? You claim yourselves pureblood?” How could one express the death-inviting madness of it? “That is sheerest lunacy. Our bloodlines are recorded back to the earliest Aurellian invaders.”
“Certainly not pureblood.” Demetreo shrugged, unimpressed by my outrage. “We’ve no magic to match yours and would never be so foolish to claim so. Who knows where stories come from? At every fire, we sing and spin tales of those who wear the white hand—hero tales, magic tales. Oldmeg studies the stories; I do not. But if you can teach us more of this one, and it saves us from the next scouring”—Demetreo shrugged, his gaze never leaving the old woman—“perhaps I’ll pay closer mind to them.”
Oldmeg had approached the bronze arch close enough that the light of its shifting scenes bathed her face. Abruptly, she pressed her bony fingers to the magical artwork that for the moment appeared as concentric rings of sunlight. The tapestry of light dipped inward, but her touch did not penetrate. She withdrew and the pattern continued its shifting from a vista of rippling grass to a well of night, sprinkled with stars. At each change, she tried again.
I held my breath, half expecting, half hoping, entirely terrified that she would succeed. If a Ciceron elder could master such magic, then nothing in the world was as I believed.
After yet another failure, the old woman heaved a great sigh. “No further revelation comes to me.”
She glanced up and read my question: What was she expecting? “Alas, naught in our lore tells us how to use the door. We’ve always believed we would know in our hour of need. And that hour is so near we can smell it.”
And here, so near I could taste it, was the answer I craved—the key to mysteries that had grown to encompass matters far beyond my own life. “Use it for what?”
Neither of them answered. Yet as my question faded into their silence, logic and practice drew links among Oldmeg’s words—concerns of war and winter and famine, reminders of powerful families who damned Cicerons for every wickedness—and Demetreo’s desire to protect his people from the next murderous rampage that would drive them from their shacks and alleys. Rumors, sickness, plagues . . . all were laid at their doorstep. I had laid such slanders myself and believed them. They wanted to survive what was coming.
One could not have a much better back door from the hirudo than the narrow gate that led to the necropolis. But these two weren’t just thinking of crossing Caedmon’s Wall.
“You think to use this portal for escape.” A Dané had spoken the word that brought the Ciceron’s mystery and mine to a meeting point, as if some mystical circle was now complete. “You seek sanctuary.”
“If the gods could grant us a boon, that would be its name,” said Demetreo. “That name is whispered in our tales. We cannot abandon this place unless this door gives us the means to find something better, something safer. We need to know.”
Why the Cicerons? How were they connected to the Dané and her cryptic references to a place of safety? Surely the clues to these larger questions lay in the magic. Craving understanding, I pressed my own fingers to a writhing nest of spiderwebs . . .
. . . and in the same instant yanked them back, clenching them to my breast until the burning agony went away, checking by the moment to make sure acid had not eaten away my livelihood.
“You didn’t feel—?”
The two Cicerons watched me, brows creased. Oldmeg’s bony fingers were folded at her breast, apparently unharmed.
Steeling myself, I tried again, pressing the shifting surface that felt like tight-stretched canvas woven with honed blades. With the last shreds of my magic, I tried to penetrate the barrier.
Again, nothing.
“I don’t think I can tell you what you want,” I said, when my jaw was no longer clenched against a groan. “The enchantment is seamless, impermeable. And I sense no hook or release point. Perhaps some other sorcerer could do better.” Though how I, deemed a murdering madman, could persuade a pureblood to aid a Ciceron was beyond imagining.
Demetreo’s foot beat an impatient cadence. “We’ve no time for bargaining, Naema. We should tell him.”
With a small gesture Oldmeg agreed.
“We don’t believe any other sorcerer would do,” said Demetreo. “When we heard the coroner had got himself a pureblood, we rejoiced. Never before had a true sorc
erer come so near the hirudo, much less walked amongst us alone. We schemed to capture and force you, but then you showed us your magic—”
“—and later you saw me in chains. And tonight I walked straight into your lair and gave you what you wanted with no trouble at all. Is your triumph sweet?”
Childish. Weak. I pressed the heel of my hand to my brow. The hour was so late and depletion had my bones rattling. I longed for a real bed. For clean sheets. For good wine. For Maia’s roast venison. For warmth and peace and a family to surround and shield me from this cursed world.
“Your presence here is not by chance, not dependent on a failed errand to Arrosa’s Temple or your damnation by your own kind,” said Oldmeg, unfazed by my petulance. “Once we saw, we were prepared to ask you for your help. Can you not recognize your own gift? This door magic is unlike any other pureblood magic used in Navronne. Nigh on a hundredyear have I breathed the air of this world and read the lines of enchantments strewn about by Registry sorcerers. None is like to this, save only yours.”
“The same as this?” I snorted. “That’s ridiculous. I’ve never been here before tonight. My hand burns like acid when I touch it.”
“Not that you yourself cast these spells, no. But I recognize the likeness in that way a master weaver can look at the wool, the stitch, the artistry, the rough or delicate hand and say for certain where a fine tapestry was woven—in the port of Morian or a particular warlord’s fastness in Evanore, in the western cliff cities or in that Karish monastery down to Elanus.”
“That makes no sense. I wish— Great gods, if my gifts could create something like this, I would be one of the Registry curators already. How could you possibly know anything of my work?”
The old woman smiled in sympathy. “Did you not demonstrate your magic for us one morning as you walked to Caton? And on that same evening, you knelt in the mud behind the willows and invoked a kind of power I had never witnessed, save in what lies behind this wall. Whoever created this portal could be your twin, Lucian de Remeni. If any sorcerer can explain its mystery, it is you.”
