The Charmed Sphere

by Catherine Asaro

  A stir came from across the hall. Hoping Muller had arrived, Chime turned toward the commotion. She didn’t recognize the noblewoman who entered. Then, incredibly, she realized it was Iris. The other girl wore a luminous yellow gown that clung to her body, and topazes threaded the chestnut hair piled high on her head. Although Iris appeared calm and collected, Chime knew her well enough to recognize the truth; she was stunned, in a daze.

  It surprised her to see Iris in yellow. On formal occasions, a mage dressed in the hue of her power. If Iris was a sapphire, as Della believed, she would wear blue. Knowing Iris, Chime suspected that Iris didn’t believe she had reached Jarid with her magecraft. In truth, Chime didn’t see how the two of them could have managed it even together. Either Iris could call on higher colors than sapphire, or Jarid had done it on his own, which would make him a mage with a power greater than any known in history.

  Flanked by Brant and Della, Iris took her place at the head of a reception line to greet their guests. Even after accepting that Iris would assume such duties, Chime felt a pang of loss. She reminded herself that only a year ago she had wanted nothing to do with Suncroft. But since then she had come to accept her duties; now she felt adrift, unsure where she fit. As much as she missed her family, she was involved in life here now. She folded her hand around the pendant she wore, a faceted emerald ball on a gold chain. She could no longer imagine going home to tend the orchards.

  “She looks different,” a voice said, rich and light.

  Chime turned with a start. Muller was leaning against the column, beautiful in ivory and gold, his hair gleaming, his blue eyes intent on her.

  “My greetings,” Chime said.

  “You are lovely tonight.”

  She smiled. “So are you.” Thoroughly.

  He scowled at her, his face radiant even when he was angry. “Chime, that is not a compliment.”

  “Would you prefer some mud?” She grinned. “We could go slide around in it.”

  He laughed ruefully. “It would certainly give everyone here a good shake up.”

  “That it would.” Her smile faded. “It feels so strange the way everything has suddenly changed.”

  Muller looked across the hall at Iris in the receiving line. “It is harder than I expected.”

  She took his hand. “Come walk outside with me.”

  He gave her a look of relief and nodded. They wandered out of the hall, past open double-doors with panes of beveled glass. Beyond them, the gardens waited, graced by what poets called the Azure Moon, full and blue in the sky, with the barest film of clouds veiling its disk. Its luminous rays silvered the sculpted bushes. One sculpture reared like a great dragon, the Saint of Chaos attacking a maze of trimmed bushes. Chime understood the moral of the Chaos story, that without tumult, serenity had no meaning. But the images still unsettled her. She drew closer to Muller, glad for his arm around her shoulders.

  They strolled into the woods, where moss-draped trees overhung their way and thorny vines heavy with silvery blossoms curled on the tiled path. It was as if they were escaping the real world into a mystical realm free from the uncertainties of their lives.

  Muller squeezed her shoulders. “You are so tense.”

  “It isn’t over,” she said in a low voice.

  “Iris and Jarid have a difficult route.” His strained tone hinted at his tension, but Chime respected his privacy and made no mood spell.

  “It isn’t only Iris and Jarid.” She shivered, though the night was warm. “Sometimes I feel Harsdown glowering in the dark, crouched across the mountains like a beast waiting to spring.”

  His arm tightened around her. “Uncle Daron and I met with King Varqelle a few years ago. We hoped to arrange a treaty that would let our merchants cross his lands. It was hopeless. Varqelle has no interest in compromise. He sees Aronsdale the way a lion sees a deer.”

  “Do you think he will invade?”

  “I don’t know.” Muller pushed aside a loop of vines hanging in their way. “He knows it would be a grueling war. Harsdown has a larger population than Aronsdale, including more trained warriors, which means he can put together a bigger army. But we are more robust. With our mages, we can do more. It evens up our sides.”

  “I don’t really understand why mages give us an advantage. I know they heal and predict, but it is more, yes?” She asked in part to draw his attention away from his disheartened thoughts about tonight’s ceremonies.

  “It isn’t one thing in particular,” he said thoughtfully. “By itself, each mage talent wouldn’t be enough to make such a big difference.” As always, he talked naturally to her, treating her as the intellectual equal of his top advisors. If for nothing else, she would have loved him for that. “But taken altogether, the gifts can change the tide of a battle: to heal and save lives; to sense, judge, and interpret moods of your enemy; to build morale; to aid military strategies by reading the emotions of your foe’s officers.”

  “But we give life,” Chime said. “Not take it.”

  “Yes.” His voice quieted. “Soldiers need the light mages give them: physical, emotional, healing. It eases their anguish.”

  “Hai, Muller.” Chime paused at a bench where the path opened up enough to let moonlight bathe the area. “I grieve that war brings so much darkness.”

  “I too.” He sat with her on the bench. “Chime—”

  “Yes?”

  He spoke with difficulty. “I don’t know if I can bear to see you watch another man receive what I had thought would be my legacy to you and our children.” He took an audible breath. “This is so much harder than I expected.”

  Chime held his hand. “I understand.” She looked up at the sky, at the perfect disk of the moon. Her spell formed without her thinking about it, telling her of his pensive mood. She let it fade; she needed no spell to tell her about his need to save face.

  “Why don’t you go back now to the Hall?” she said. “I can come later.”

  He leaned his head against hers. “Thank you.”

  Chime closed her eyes, wishing she could ease the hurt inside of him.

  He didn’t immediately leave, though. Instead he spoke softly. “Will you visit me later tonight?”

  That caught her off guard. In all the months they had known each other, he had never made such a request. He shouldn’t, of course, until they were married, but the formal distance they were expected to maintain during the royal betrothal had grown more and more difficult.

  Except they no longer had a royal betrothal. Uncertainty swept Chime. Was he asking her to be his lover instead of his wife? He had never actually said he wanted to marry; the King’s Advisors had made the decision. Given the choice, surely he preferred a woman of the nobility.

  After her silence grew long, Muller said, “I am sorry. That was presumptuous.”

  “I am on shifting sands,” she said. “I do not know where it is safe to stand.”

  He brushed her cheek. “Stand with me.”

  “And if you walk away?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “You no longer have to marry me.”

  Muller squinted at her. “I gave up the crown for you. I’m hardly going to walk away.”

  Her unease trickled away into the azure night. “I am glad.” She kept it simple, not wanting to mar this moment by fumbling her words.

  He waited. “Well?”

  “Well?” She wondered what she had said wrong.

  “I am glad you are glad.” The hint of exasperation in his voice didn’t hide his tension. “I would also appreciate being glad.”

  Ah. Now she understood. This time she hadn’t said enough. She curled her fingers around his. “Nor would I walk away from you.”

  He smiled, his lashes lowering, relief on his face. Chime had never fathomed why he disliked his eyes. They were gorgeous, especially in the moonlight. Perhaps she shouldn’t tell him the effect he had on her; he might use it to entice her into forbidden diversions, such as sneaking into his room to
night.

  Muller kissed her, first gently, then with more passion. As she gave herself to the pleasure, leaning into him, his hands roamed her dress, becoming bolder. She had to push them off her breasts.

  He moved his lips to her ear. “Come see me tonight.”

  She answered huskily. “You are a terrible rogue.”

  “You make me crazy.”

  Her lips quirked. “You have always been crazy.”

  “Now you break my heart.” He pulled her into another kiss, his most effective mode of persuasion. Chime began to forget why she couldn’t go with him.

  “Come on,” he coaxed, his lips against hers.

  She drew back. “Perhaps Sam Threadman should draw you a cold bath.”

  “You are maddening.”

  Chime touched his cheek. “Patience, love.”

  He frowned at her. “I have the patience of a saint.”

  “A handsome saint.”

  “Flattery won’t help.” His grin quirked. “Much.” Then his smile faded. “I really should return to the Shape-Hall. If I am gone too long, it will look strange.”

  “All right. I will come in a bit.”

  He brushed her lips with his. “I will see you later.”

  This time he left his invitation vague; “later” could be in the Shape-Hall or afterward in his suite. She could answer without committing herself.

  Taking his hand, she said, “All right.”

  He stood, his face silvered in the moonlight. Then he left, headed to the castle.

  Brooding, Muller stalked through the garden. He shouldn’t have asked Chime to come to his suite tonight. She might have a country girl’s lack of concern about her sensuality, but here in the royal court, custom allowed him and his betrothed only the briefest touches, no more. That distance from her proved more difficult to keep each day.

  He couldn’t bear for her to watch him tonight during the ceremony. His loss of status as the Aronsdale heir shouldn’t shame him, but it did. It made him want to hold Chime, lie with her, banish his doubts. She affected him at every level, more than the physical, but he didn’t know how to express what he felt in any way except by making love to her.

  Although in the country, people expected couples to wait until after marriage, they paid less attention to the behavior of a betrothed pair. He knew it well, having grown up on a country estate until his fourteenth year, when he came to Suncroft. Inheritance in rural areas went through the mother’s line and her husband usually came to live with her. If confusion existed as to the father’s identity, it might cause great pain to the people involved, but it had no effect on the legacy of the children.

  Not so for noble or royal families, including his own. They followed customs over a thousand years old, from the era when southern potentates had overrun Aronsdale and established the House of Dawnfield. Southern countries such a Shazire and Jazid had more patriarchal customs, in contrast to the matriarchal ways of rural Aronsdale. So titles in Aronsdale went through the male line. As Jarid’s closest male relative, Muller was next in line for the crown until Jarid had a son. No ambiguity would be allowed about who fathered Muller’s heirs.

  He knew why Chime worked so hard to refine herself. Her background as a rural commoner raised eyebrows. No one had openly questioned her conduct because she made such an effort to fit into the royal court. Nor did it hurt that with her golden beauty, she fit the part devastatingly well. But he knew she felt awkward with her role, causing an uncertainty on her part that led unperceptive people to assume she lacked intelligence. It angered him. They knew nothing. She had more common sense than the lot of them put together and her kindness was unsurpassed. She was everything special, desirable, and lovely, and well yes, maybe tact wasn’t her strong point, but even so, she was an angel.

  It had been wrong to invite her into his bed. Now that he would no longer be sovereign, the King’s Advisors would have little wish to see him marry one of Aronsdale’s most powerful mages. They would prefer she wed someone whose position and personality wouldn’t distract her from her work, men similar to the husbands they had found for Della and Skylark, pleasant fellows, farmers, well respected citizens of Croft’s Vale. Della was widowed now, but Skylark’s husband still worked his land. They wouldn’t openly force Chime to marry their choice any more than they had with Della or Skylark, but they could be persuasive.

  Muller knew they would also love to find him a wife to compensate for his shortcomings. If his desire for Chime led him to act with dishonor, it would give Brant the perfect opportunity to stop the wedding. He could just hear the craggy lord: Any unwed woman who lies with a man can’t be trusted to carry a Dawnfield heir. Muller would have laughed at the absurdity of it, except Brant really would use it to separate them. Given Muller’s position in the line of succession, the King’s Advisors had more authority to control his marriage than they did with Chime.

  Muller pushed his hand through his hair. He had never wanted to marry. Then he had fallen in love with Chime and confused himself. If he wasn’t careful, he could lose her even now, after he had given up a kingdom for her.

  Chime sat in the moonlit garden, thinking. At home, she had been so unaware of life. Her biggest concern had been how to evade doing her sums. The queens of Aronsdale had always encouraged education for their people, but Chime had never appreciated her fortune. She had known so little about so much. In the market at Croft’s Vale, it had stunned her to learn, from merchants who traveled, that most people in Harsdown were illiterate.

  She could no longer blithely go about life, assuming days would stretch into years, never too demanding, always happy. And she had been happy, despite thinking she always had some annoyance to deal with. Compared to the concerns of the people here, her life had been simple. No longer could she turn from her duties as a mage, not now that she had begun to understand their importance.

  Eventually she returned to the castle. She stood by a column near the door, content to watch the flow of people throughout the Shape-Hall, also called the Hall of Kings. Musicians were playing, a waterfall of bright melodies. People moved in graceful dances, forming and reforming patterns: stars, boxes, polygons, circles. The dais at the far end of the room was a great round disk, empty now. Flecks of gold in its white marble glimmered in the copious candlelight.

  Everyone had passed through the reception line. Iris was talking with Brant, her hands folded in front of her dress the way she did when she was nervous. Chime suddenly realized she had forgotten to go through the line. She flushed, hoping Iris had been too occupied with all these changes to notice her absence, which would look like yet another insult from her fellow mage student.

  Muller was standing across the room near the wall, his manner composed as he watched people dance. Chime held back her urge to go to him.

  Across the room, a man entered, a disk-captain in a blue dress-uniform with silver trim. When Chime had first arrived at Suncroft, she had thought officers in the King’s Army had shape-designations because they were mages. She soon realized her error. “Disk-captain” gave his status in the army. Each rank subdivided into shape-ranks, with triangle as lowest and sphere as highest. All captains outranked all lieutenants, so a sphere-lieutenant had lower rank than a triangle-captain, but he outranked all other types of lieutenant.

  As the disk-captain conferred with Brant and Iris, the hairs on Chime’s neck prickled. When Brant nodded to the captain, a chill went through Chime, though she had no idea why. The captain bowed to Iris, then to Brant, and then took his leave, striding through an archway behind them.

  Brant offered his arm to Iris. They walked together down the hall, stopping here and there to chat with guests, seemingly relaxed. Only Iris’s subtly tensed posture gave away her agitation. As she and Brant reached the dais, power stirred within the hall, pure and natural. With a start, Chime realized Iris was focusing her gifts through the dais. At first nothing happened, except that Chime had a sudden thought of forests, hills, and lakes.

 
A sense of peace spread in Chime. Iris’s spell flowed throughout the hall, uneven and uncertain, but with great strength. Even having suspected Iris was the stronger mage, Chime had never realized she wielded such luminous power.

  Iris and Brant went to the center of the dais, and Della joined them, along with a retinue of officers in blue and silver uniforms. Tall and stately, the Bishop of Orbs mounted the dais, his white hair swept under his miter, his gait regal. As the keeper of the Scrolls of the Saints, he was the highest spiritual authority in the land. Two pages accompanied him, one carrying a tasseled cushion that held two gold circlets inset with diamonds and amethysts. Iris stared at the sparkling crowns as if they were ghosts.

  All conversation stopped. The moment stretched out until Chime thought surely it would snap. Then guests began to turn, gazing down the glittering the hall. Puzzled, Chime looked to see what drew their attention. With stately progress, a retinue of officers from the King’s Army was coming down the long hall, escorting a potentate, perhaps a prince from Shazire, Land of Silk and Silver, or Jazid where they grew exquisite teas, or even Taka Mal, a country of bulb towers and lace bridges. The dazzling prince walked in their midst, come to Aronsdale for tonight’s ceremony.

  Then Chime realized he wasn’t a visiting king.

  It was Jarid.

  16

  Night Glimmers

  Jarid shone in the radiance of the candelabras, resplendent in a gold brocaded vest over a snowy-white shirt that accented his broad shoulders and well-built physique. Ivory-colored breeches clung to his long legs and tucked into gold knee-boots. Instead of a wild mane, now his luxuriant hair grazed his shoulders, neatly trimmed, glossy and night-black. It enhanced the classic lines of his face, his straight nose and high cheekbones. He had violet eyes, large and intense, framed by black lashes. A scar ran down his neck, giving his aristocratic features an edgy quality.