The Charmed Sphere

by Catherine Asaro

  “Why do you stare at me like that?” he asked.

  “You’re a mage, aren’t you?”

  Muller laughed too loudly. “What an innovative idea.”

  “A mage.” She had suspected it when he scorched her tunic in the cottage, but now she felt certain. “You’ve never told anyone and no one has figured it out, not even Della.” That baffled her; given Della’s ability to recognize mages, how could she have missed one as obvious as Muller?

  “Ridiculous.” He was losing his overly studied calm. “That is the most absurd accusation I have heard.”

  “Accusation?” The word hung between them. “Aren’t you the one who called me a coward for evading my gifts?”

  “You could help Aronsdale a great deal.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t that matter to you? If I could help that way, I surely would.”

  “Then why do you refuse to acknowledge your gifts?”

  “I have no gifts.” His voice actually shook.

  This made no sense. “You deny you are a mage and no one else seems to realize it. But I see it clearly.”

  “Don’t speak so loud.” His panic flared. “You must never repeat what you just said.”

  “Why?” She crossed her arms. “You keep pestering me to use my mage gifts.”

  “Pester!” He glared. “I never pester.”

  “Pah.”

  “Chime, your gifts shine. You are light.” The warmth in his voice faded. “I will tell you a truth, but you must swear never to reveal it to anyone.”

  That sounded intriguing. “I swear.”

  Muller lowered his voice. “I am a terrible mage. I can use only imperfect shapes. My spells are like the shapes that focus them. Imperfect. No matter how hard I try to achieve good, I cause damage instead.” He spoke darkly. “I can never lead Aronsdale. I would do far more harm than good.”

  “Muller, no.” She couldn’t imagine such a thing.

  “It is true. I am evil. My spells only destroy.”

  It puzzled her that he saw himself as in such a manner. He might be a scoundrel, but that didn’t make him evil. He seemed oblivious to the purity of his emotions. She touched his arm. “You have much good in you.”

  He pulled away from her. “Don’t be foolish. This isn’t something that will go away with a few soft words.”

  Chime heard little beyond the word foolish. He thought her stupid, just like everyone else. “My apologies.” Frost could have formed on her words. “Next time I won’t be so foolish as to suggest you might be a better person than you allow yourself to believe.”

  His long lashes lowered. “You don’t understand.”

  “Of course I don’t.” She thought of all the things he had said to her on the Star Walk. “I am a coward because I mislike being a mage, but I am foolish for thinking you are wrong to mislike being a mage.”

  He scowled at her. “Sarcasm doesn’t become you, wife.”

  “I’m not your wife.” Nor would she ever be, she decided. “Perhaps you ought to think less about what becomes people and more about what is inside of them.”

  “Very well.” He motioned to a mosaic of yellow rings on the wall that represented the sun. A few tiles were gone, leaving gaps in the circles. “You see those tiles?”

  “Yes.” She paused. “They are pretty. But broken.”

  “I was in a hurry, not thinking about shapes. I came around the corner and looked straight at the broken rings. My power focused through them before I realized it. When you startled me, I lost control.” He motioned at the shards strewn across the floor. “This is the result.”

  She squinted at them. “Maybe you just need to learn how to make spells that work.”

  “What makes you think it didn’t work?”

  Chime looked up at him. “You wanted to break the window?”

  “No. I was thinking about how much I disliked the cold drafts in here.”

  “What drafts?” It was completely still and warm.

  He tilted his head toward the window. “You don’t think it is odd to feel no breezes right now? The window is gone.”

  Chime stared at jagged frame with pieces of broken glass. It was all that remained of the window. She hadn’t noticed the quiet air because she didn’t expect wind inside the castle. But yes, it ought to be gusting in here. Outside, pennants on a nearby tower snapped in the wind.

  She went to the window and stretched out her hand. No invisible barrier blocked it, nothing that would keep out wind. As soon as she reached past the frame, breezes rushed across her skin, yet not the slightest gust came inside.

  She turned to Muller, impressed. “What did you do?”

  “I’m not sure. I didn’t plan the spell; it just happened—and exploded the window.” His face paled. “That was a circle spell. What would happen if I went to higher shapes? Would I heal a person’s arm by cutting it off? Cure unrequited love by making the desired person hideous? I don’t even want to think of the harm I could cause people. My uncle. My friends.” He swallowed. “The family I will someday have.”

  Chime wished she had a solution. “Can you learn to do better spells?”

  He fisted his hand and banged it on his thigh. “I’ve tried. It doesn’t work. I can only use flawed shapes to make flawed spells.”

  “Can Della help?”

  “I asked her once if she thought I had mage ability. She said no. She was very apologetic.” Wearily he added, “She can’t see it because I am twisted inside. I can’t tell her, because honor would require she tell my uncle. Then what? For the good of Aronsdale, they would have to remove me from the line of succession. Uncle Daron would have no heir. The crown would go to someone other than a Dawnfield.” He rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe it should.”

  “But you aren’t twisted.” Chime had never been good with words. She spoke as if stepping through broken glass. “I will tell you a secret, as you trusted me with yours.”

  “A secret?” Now he looked intrigued.

  “I have often felt emotions, but I wanted no one to know. And it is so erratic, how it happens.”

  “So you admit it.”

  “Only to you.” She indicated the mosaics on the wall. “These focus my mood spells. I can tell this: the good inside you goes deep. You would never deliberately hurt anyone. If your spells twist, it must be because you don’t know what to do with them.” She hesitated. “Probably no one does. I’ve never heard of a mage like you before.” Not that she knew anything about mages.

  “That I have no wish to do harm changes nothing.” He shook his head. “The harm still comes.”

  “Listen to us. We’re so sure we aren’t good enough to do what everyone says we must.”

  His face gentled. “You could almost make me believe otherwise.” He took her hands slowly, giving her a chance to pull away. When she didn’t, he drew her into an embrace. Chime laid her head against his shoulder, letting herself relax into his warmth. He bent his head, his cheek rubbing hers until she turned her head toward his. Then he kissed her. She knew she should stop, given that she intended to leave Suncroft in four weeks. But instead she savored his kiss, unable to remember why she wanted to go home.

  “Mistress No-Cozen is gone?” Chime stood at the door of Della’s cottage.

  The circle-maid in the doorway had a scarf holding back her hair and she held a dusty mop. “I am sorry. She left this morning.”

  “But I had a lesson with her today.” Now that Chime had seen how her ability to feel moods helped her understand Muller, she wanted to learn more. “We have so much work to do.”

  The maid smiled shyly. “I am sorry she isn’t here, milady. I will tell her of your dedication.”

  Milady? Chime felt her cheeks redden. They treated her as a noblewoman, but she wasn’t one. She needed to learn so much, not only magecraft, but protocols, customs, etiquette. She had to do it exactly right; otherwise, everyone would know Della had brought a fraud to Suncroft. The task seemed impossible.

  King Daron had given he
r four weeks to decide about the marriage, but she had no doubt he was also deciding if he wanted her to marry his nephew. Unless they saw her make a good effort, she might lose Muller. Saints knew, he could be an exasperating man, and often she wanted to pack up and leave. But other times she felt confused and warm when she thought of him, unable to say what she wanted. He drew her, intruded on her thoughts, distracted her.

  She finally registered what else the circle-maid had said. Dedication. No one had ever before used that word to describe Chime. In fact, when it came to her studies, they said the opposite. She stood straighter. “Do you know where I might find Mistress No-Cozen?”

  The maid was apologetic. “She be in the Tallwalk Mountains, ma’am.”

  “Whatever for?” It was a ten-day ride from here.

  “She heard rumors of another mage.” The girl’s face lit up. “Perhaps you will have a classmate, eh?”

  “Oh. Maybe so.” Dismay swept over Chime. Of course they were searching for another mage to marry the prince. Their present candidate had already run off once and might leave in a few weeks. What if Della came back with a better mage? Two weeks ago Chime would have been grateful to have another woman rescue her from marriage, but much had changed in the ten days since she had met Muller.

  She tried to hide her anxiety. “Please let me know as soon as Mistress No-Cozen returns.”

  “I will, milady.”

  “Thank you.”

  Chime left then, miserable despite the bright day. If a better mage showed up, Chime would have to go home—and she wasn’t sure she wanted to anymore.

  Unbent straightened slowly and wished that his body, once so strong, matched his name. Years of toil had worn him down. He had spent the morning outside, under a leaden sky, cutting firewood for the winter and carrying stones to the cabin, to shore up its crumbling walls.

  A rustle drew his attention. Dani had come outside and was standing near the door, staring with unseeing eyes toward the stunted woods beyond the cabin. His tangled locks blew around his face and shoulders. Unbent had washed Dani’s hair this morning and shaved his beard. Now he could see the fine line of Dani’s face, his regular features, the breadth of his shoulders and length of his legs. This was no rough youth. He had long suspected Dani belonged to the gentry, perhaps even the nobility. It was one reason Unbent had hidden here, high in the Boxer-Mage Mountains, avoiding all contact with people. The penalty for murdering a member of the gentry was life imprisonment; for a member of the nobility it was execution.

  Several times Unbent had tried to take Dani down the mountain. But the youth refused to leave this cabin, protesting violently until Unbent gave in. So they remained isolated here, both of them safe, though whether from outer dangers or inner guilt, he never knew.

  It grieved Unbent that he had so little to give his ward besides this rocky patch of hell. He had nothing else to his name. His one attempt to gain more had ended in catastrophe. What stupidity had possessed him to believe, even for one night, that highway robbery was the answer to his poverty? He and Dani would pay the price of that crime forever. He owed the boy the best life he could provide.

  Over the years Unbent had come to love Dani as a son. He walked over now and stood with him, aware of Dani’s greater height and strength. The youth had been exercising; sweat soaked his ragged gray shirt and rough trousers.

  He laid his hand on Dani’s arm, and the youth turned, his gaze directed above Unbent’s head. Reaching out, Dani brushed Unbent’s shoulder. He folded his large hand around Unbent’s arm and tugged him toward the east side of the house.

  Baffled, Unbent followed. This side looked much like the other, with cracked walls and thatching from the roof sagging down, but with no door or window. Dani pulled him to one corner and knelt on the ground, placing his hand on a stone there.

  “I don’t understand.” Unbent knelt next to him. He talked to his son constantly. Dani never heard and never responded; for over a decade, Unbent had conversed with only himself or the rare visitors that happened by every few years. Dani had stopped speaking the night his parents died, when the boy had been six, if Unbent estimated his age correctly. That would make Dani nineteen now, a man, no longer a child, but unable to live on his own.

  Dani set Unbent’s hand on the stone. It was perfectly round. A sphere. Lifting it, Unbent realized someone had sculpted the rock, Dani certainly, since it hadn’t been here a few days ago. He handed it to the youth, trying to understand. Dani settled cross-legged on the ground and bent his head over the orb.

  Light brightened around them.

  The radiance shifted through the colors of a rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo. Then white light bathed them, beautiful light that defied the overcast sky. A sense of peace filled Unbent, one he didn’t deserve. Did his son know he made light and joy? He didn’t understand how Dani wove his spells, but he never doubted them.

  Unbent would never forget that night when Murk, the other highwayman, had realized Dani had seen their faces and heard their voices. Murk tried to kill the boy then, intending to make sure Dani never saw, heard, or spoke again. Dani had survived the crash because his mother made a spell of protection. But just as she had only one life, so she could save only one life—that of her son.

  Unable to talk with his foster son, Unbent would never fully understand what had driven Dani that night. He could only guess. In desperation, reeling from the loss of his parents, perhaps blaming himself because they died so he could live, Dani had done what should have been impossible. He had grasped his mother’s spell and wrenched it, for some inexplicable reason completing what Murk threatened—Dani had taken his own sight, hearing, and voice.

  No matter how Unbent tried to heal his son, nothing helped. Dani became a shadow mage, unseen and unknown. He cut himself off from his past life. Unbent had long suspected Dani feared that if he went among people, he would lose control of his power and hurt people as he had hurt himself.

  Unbent had no mage gifts of light or healing, none at all, and it took an indigo mage to heal emotions. As far as he knew, no indigos existed, except perhaps Dani himself. He had heard legends of indigo mages in long ago times, but before Dani he had never believed those tales any more than he had believed a Saint of Waterfalls turned diamonds into liquid or a Saint of Buds made flowers open in the morning. This much he knew; he had in his keeping one of the most powerful mages alive.

  And he could tell no one.

  9

  Iris

  Chime paced through her suite in the castle. Blue and white sky mosaics tiled the domed ceiling, and the ivory walls had scenes of forests and lakes painted in their upper half. Gilt trim accented the moldings. But right now even the beauty of these peaceful rooms couldn’t ease her agitation.

  Today Della was bringing another mage to Suncroft.

  A knock came at the door. Chime hurried to answer, stopped when she recalled her circle-maid was supposed to do it, and then remembered she had let the maid off for the day. It flustered her to have other people do her chores. Not that she had ever liked doing them herself, but she had never imagined people could make a living doing them for her. By rights, she should be the servant here, instead of the lady.

  The knock came again. So Chime opened the door. Muller stood outside, his face creased with worry, his body resplendent in a brocaded blue vest and gold silk shirt, with blue leggings tucked into knee-boots, his gold hair glistening in the sunlight from a nearby window. He looked utterly gorgeous and thoroughly distressed.

  Chime tugged him inside and closed the door. “Have you heard anything?”

  “Nothing.” He grabbed her around the waist and kissed her soundly. Every time he held her this way, she told herself to chastise him for taking liberties, but what she really wanted to do was take her own liberties with him.

  After several moments, they parted. Muller smoothed a tendril of hair around her face. “My greetings.”

  She glared at him. “You are as much a rogue as ev
er.”

  He laughed and set her back so he could look over her dress, a gift his valet had brought this morning. It had a snug bodice, an ivory underskirt, and a brocaded overskirt that swept to the floor, all in colors and material that matched his clothes.

  “You are a heavenly sight,” he said. “I like the way the darker blue trim matches the embroidery on the hems.”

  Chime smiled. “You sound like a dressmaker.”

  He grinned. “I would make a great one, eh?” His smile faded. “Except I have to be a king instead and command the army.”

  Chime suspected he would have thoroughly enjoyed his life if he could have lived on a farm and designed clothes for the nobility. Unfortunately, not much demand existed for farmers with such skills.

  “Della hasn’t arrived yet,” she said darkly.

  “Run away with me,” he urged. “Before she returns.”

  “You want me to run off with you?” She tried to look affronted, though in truth she wanted to flee, too. “You, sir, are incorrigible.”

  He put his arms around her waist. “You break my heart. Say yes.”

  She set her hands against his shoulders. “What is all this about going away?”

  “If I have to marry, I want it to be you.”

  Her heart felt as if stuttered. She hadn’t given him an answer about the marriage, yet he freely spoke of his feelings. The boys she had known in Jacob’s Vale were sturdy, stoic types. They rarely mentioned to a girl how they felt, especially not without some reason to believe she returned their feelings. But then, perhaps she wasn’t hiding hers from Muller as well as she thought. He was a mage, even if he didn’t want to admit it any more than she did for herself.

  Chime wasn’t ready to say yes to the betrothal, though her heart bade her to do so. She wanted to scold him, to protect her emotions. But when she spoke, hope filtered into her voice. “Just because she is bringing a new mage, that doesn’t mean you will have a new betrothed. Della says few have my ability.” Chime didn’t believe it; she struggled just to understand the word polyhedron, let alone use one for spells. But for the first time in her life, her studies interested her. She liked magecraft. “It would be unlikely this new mage is stronger.”