Denuis’s face went ashen, but... not from shock. Ennalen knew the expression. She had seen it countless times from subjects in the Revelator’s Circle.
His was a look of doomed resignation.
He knows! she thought. He knows it’s true!
Despite the validation that crackled through her, she kept her poise.
After a long silence, Denuis cleared his throat. “You mentioned there was more.”
“Indeed there is, Lord Magistrate.”
Denuis gave a minute shrug. “Well?”
Ennalen leaned forward and tapped her finger to her lips, then cupped her hand beside her mouth and spoke in a sarcastically overdone whisper.
“I’ve found the Heart of the Sisters.”
That time, the Lord Magistrate was clearly, genuinely taken aback. His look of stupefaction rewarded her perfectly.
“So, you see,” she continued, “what you mistook as a crisis of faith was in fact clever perceptiveness on your part. Because it does exists. And what’s more, I’m going to get it.”
Denuis placed his hands on the back of the sofa and hung his head. Then he stood again, cupped his hands over his mouth then pushed them up through his greying beard and hair.
“Ennalen…”
“It took some time to gain comfort with that admittedly extraordinary conclusion, that I was the Apostate. It all started with a vague interest that long preceded the Lord Elder’s little chase and my seeing his notes. Just a tiny, intellectual itch that needed scratching, was all. And you know me: Never leave a stone unturned.”
The stirring within her became more forceful with every word she spoke, and no longer allowed her to remain seated.
“So I took to reading everything I could get my hands on about the old legends, and each book or scroll led me farther and farther—literally—into the depths of the Library, and then to the Energumen itself. And with the help of that forsaken curio I found more answers than to which I could have ever possibly formed questions. One step led me to the next, and the purpose behind that seemingly innocuous tickle in my mind became clearer and clearer. As did my own purpose.”
“You’re saying you discovered your purpose,” Denuis asked, “in the nonsensical scribbles of the most famous lunatic in history?”
Ennalen smiled. “Oh, this is far from lunacy. And no, it is not Herahm I have to thank for showing me my way, no more than I would credit a flute after a stirring recital. You see, originally I’d have been content to gain control of the College, using the cantle I’ve kept hidden to influence the Elders, and finally see that the aristocracy no longer subjected us to their vapid whims. It would have taken time, obviously, but you know my patience. Discovering the resting place of the Heart and that it was likely all in one piece made me realize I no longer had need for pretense or subtlety. The scope of my plans need not be limited to the College.”
Her smile became an outright laugh. “Say, that was quite the villainous monologue, don’t you think? A bit long-winded, perhaps, but in perfect keeping with our storybook theme.”
“Ennalen,” Denuis said, “I want you to listen to me, for I have never spoken truer words to you than I do now. Abandon this course. It will mean your destruction.”
Ennalen laughed even more loudly. “Abandon? I think not! Indeed, I’m only beginning to witness the results of my work. And believe me, Lord Magistrate, I’ve put a great deal of effort into all of this.” She winked. “You’d be proud.”
Denuis stepped around the sofa toward Ennalen, clenching his fist at her. “He knows, damn you! Do you hear me? Thaucian knows everything you’ve been doing!”
The declaration startled Ennalen—
They did not, could not know.
—but the growing thing pushing from inside her stomach and chest whispered not to worry, that Denuis was lying, that Denuis was old and obtuse, that she long ago had intuited Thaucian’s suspicion of her, which still put her far ahead of them all.
She recovered her composure as quickly as it had faltered. “I’ll wager there’s an interesting tale behind that claim.”
Denuis moved to a nearby bookcase and from a tray of bottles on the lower shelf poured a shot of liquor. As Denuis tilted the decanter, its neck clinked a brief staccato against the small glass. Ennalen smirked at never having seen her mentor so unnerved.
“You recall the night you first came to me,” he said, then threw back a gulp from his glass.
Ennalen’s amusement vanished. “I do,” she said coldly.
“In all your applications of the law to others, did you never question how it was you came to be spared the consequences of what you did to Solamito that night?”
Ennalen set her jaw, bearing down against the now vehement urges. “You made it clear, Lord Magistrate, what you expected of me in exchange for clemency.”
“No,” Denuis replied with a shake of his head as he poured himself another glassful. “I told you precisely what Thaucian wanted me to tell you. Your life was spared to test his theory.”
The fire flared hotter, seeking a weak point in her resolve through which it might escape.
“What theory?” she asked.
Denuis swallowed the shot. “From the moment you came here, your life has been carefully manipulated by the Lord Elder, Ennalen. Not a single day of your existence has gone unbent in some way to suit his interests.”
Silence pervaded as Ennalen searched the depths of Denuis’s eyes. She found nothing but grim conviction. “You’re lying,” she said, even as she felt the world begin to crumble.
“No, child. I am not. In all the obfuscations in your life to which I have been a party, I have never once lied to you. And I’ll prove it: You had a visitor to your chambers a few nights past, did you not?”
Ennalen felt as though she’s been placed in the Revelator’s Circle, consigned to fend off statements she desperately wanted not to be true, with no regard to whether they might be.
“I did,” she said.
“A magician by the name of Biddleby, looking for his lost apprentice—a boy named Niel, who at this very moment is on a similar journey designed in no small part by Thaucian.”
The image blared through Ennalen’s mind of Uhniethi reaching over bloody masses to scoop her up into the air. But not just her. Someone else, as well, but too far away to see.
She shook her head. “No…”
“The Apostate almost by definition is someone who exists outside the reach of the College. You, my dear, have never been anywhere but in its very clutches. Believe me when I say you are not this person, Ennalen. You are not the Apostate.”
Suddenly, she found herself trying to conjure butterflies from dust clouds.
“A mage of none magic, Denuis!” she yelled. “My preference for investigation over Canon is practically infamous.”
“You work plenty of magic, Ennalen. I’ve seen you.”
Suddenly, she was a mouse trying to haul a bar of lead.
“Petty charms and glamours are a far cry from the meat of what is taught here, Denuis, and you know it!”
“Fine,” Denuis replied. “But you are a far cry from being an apprentice, as the legend implies the Apostate to be.”
Her arms dropped to her sides. “You are the Lord Magistrate of the Ministry of Law of the College of Magic and Conjuring Art! I am a Magistrate sworn to your service! Your pupil! Your heir apparent! Your apprentice!” She jabbed her finger at him. “An apprentice who did what no one else in the history of the College has done—nearly killing her rightly appointed teacher, and then not only escaping the punishment due her offense, but being elevated to a post above most others as a direct result.”
Denuis bowed his head. “But as I’ve been trying to get through to you, Ennalen, you did not do that. Everything you just mentioned was brought about by others and allowed to happen. Just as has been done for so long, and with so many others.”
Ennalen fell quiet. “There have been others?”
“Yes, child. You
are by no means the first.”
“How many others?”
“Hard to say. Since long before I came here.”
Too many whirling thoughts, too many unbridled emotions, and at the core a brilliant fury that blazed. But then amidst the tempest formed an unexpected, horrible oasis of clarity born from the light from that blaze.
Ennalen lifted her face slightly. “You say everything that’s happened in my life has been by design?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes widened, her throat tightened, and her breathing stopped.
She managed only a hoarse whimper. “Solamito?”
Denuis’s long, slow nod was clearly both admission and remorse.
“Yes,” he said. “Even that.”
Ennalen lowered her face against her fists, shutting her eyes tight.
Too many whirling thoughts—
Lies.
—too many unbridled emotions—
Everything I am is a lie…
—and when she looked at Denuis one more time, it was not him she saw. In his place stood Solamito, tongue snaking over glistening, grouper-like lips; eyes flicking hungrily across wherever her robe met her figure—
…so many others…
The avalanche Ennalen thought she had so cleverly sidestepped instead seized her up and carried her away.
“NO!”
The primal, fiery explosion of her rage buffeted the walls and sent Denuis sprawling.
Bleeding from a gash across his forehead, Denuis pressed his back against the column into which he’d collided and struggled to his feet.
With a sweep of her hand she flung him doll-like across the room, where he landed hard in front of the fireplace.
“My intention, dear Lord Magistrate,” Ennalen spat as she stalked toward him, “had been to forge a glorious New College that would finally claim its rightful place in the world. But once I heal the Heart, I will reshape the world itself!”
Another gesture from her lifted Denuis from the floor and threw him violently into the nearby chair.
“I came to offer you an exalted position at my side,” she said. “Even gods require others to carry out their will.”
“So,” Denuis said with a pained swallow and shallow smile, “you would solve my crisis of faith by having me worship you?”
Ennalen ceased her approach and narrowed her eyes at his patronizing tone.
“No,” he said. “I will do no such thing.”
“Now I shall speak words truer than any which you have ever heard,” she seethed, jaw gnashed tight, hands trembling. “I am a hair’s breadth from killing you here and now for your deceptions, Denuis. But at the same time I wish not to be unmindful of your guidance. Your help would no doubt be of value. So I will ask you one last time.”
Denuis coughed as he cast his eyes at the floor. “Ennalen, I am so weary of all this. Conspiracy within conspiracy, deceit in place of virtue. Nothing has come to be as I’d hoped. I’ve already told you, or tried to tell you, that in all my years of service here I’ve found nothing truly worthy of my devotion. Not in the heavens, not in the College or the duties of my office.”
He looked up, and deep into her eyes. “And most certainly not in this room.”
Rage flared from Ennalen’s skin in white-hot rays, and she shrieked with everything she could summon of the raw hatred that stormed through her being.
She squeezed her fists, capturing the Lord Magistrate magically within, and shook them with wild frenzy. Only distantly did she perceive her former master’s tortured screams as bone ground to pulp within the confines of his flesh. In that instant she felt as though she was the very axis upon which the universe turned, and no other thing could have possibly mattered while its energies wheeled through her.
The torrent ended with such immediacy that Ennalen lurched to one side and nearly stumbled over. All fell still, save for the rasp of her labored breathing.
Ennalen peered down at Denuis. His head and neck lay wrenched at a ghastly angle from his shoulders. His lifeless eyes stared out at nothing. Dark blood seeped from his nose and ears. Even broken and mangled there remained a dignity about the man that brought to her eyes the quick sting of tears.
She grabbed her hair in two fistfuls, shoved the unwelcome sentiment aside, and reminded herself of the true malefactor at hand. Even Denuis would be an insignificant price once her goals had been achieved, but his death had never been her intention. It would not have happened had the Lord Elder not made a vile farce of her existence by playing puppeteer.
At that, another ball of fury ignited.
Thaucian…
28
It shouldn’t have bothered him, but it did. Given the affinity all things incredible and absurd had for him as of late, Niel knew he should not have been troubled that of all the places in the city Lleryth could have chosen to gather, he picked the same room in which Uhniethi had made him a prisoner. The solemnity of the study did fit Lleryth’s mood, but surely another location could have sufficed.
The Galiiantha provided them a simple breakfast of fruit, bread, and fresh, sweet spring water, all of which they devoured while seated on large, plush pillows around a low table.
All but Jharal. He pushed his food away and growled at the young girl who served it, then sat with arms crossed over his massive chest. Niel supposed it should have been expected. Even after explaining everything that had happened while separated, getting Jharal to submit to magical comprehension of the Galiiantha tongue had been task enough.
Then again, despite his increasing confidence in the benevolence of their host, Niel had yet to sort out his own feelings about the goings-on.
Briajl and Riahnn stood poised on either side of Lleryth, bristling with watchfulness—at Niel, in particular. Their scrutiny had not gone unnoticed by Arwin, Cally or Jharal, but Peck seemed oblivious as he busied himself with admiring the room’s contents. The tension from the glares and counter-glares worsened the pain in Niel’s head.
Lleryth stood patiently, hands clasped, before a wide set of twin bookshelves easily twice Niel’s height. Finally, when he saw the meal nearing an end, he approached.
Though it was halfmorn and outside the day beamed bright and cheerful, the room seemed to dim as he spoke.
“We haven’t long, my friends, so I will be direct, and as brief as thoroughness allows.”
Niel’s companions settled themselves in to listen. Peck ceased his explorations and lowered himself cross-legged to the floor.
“For more than a thousand years,” Lleryth said, “the College of Magic and Conjuring Arts has been engaged in endeavors to heal the gem known to you as the Heart of the Sisters.”
The Heart of the Sisters?
Serrated fear gouged at Niel’s stomach. Peck leaned forward and rested his chin on his thumb and forefinger; the others exchanged looks of shock.
“And you know this how?” Cally asked, a distinct quaver in her voice.
Lleryth gestured at Niel, who spoke reluctantly. “They’ve apparently had spies within the College for a very long time.”
Again the group stirred. “How long?” Jharal asked.
“Long enough to have discovered what the Board of Elders has been doing,” Lleryth said. “We’ve kept as close a watch on them as possible.”
Arwin raised a finger like a scholar at a lecture. “Given the scope of what you’re suggesting, why haven’t you tried to stop them? It seems to me the element of surprise would have been on your side for, oh, centuries now.”
Riahnn stepped forward. “Hold your smart tongue and let the Keeper finish what he has to say!”
“You should consider a more cordial tone yourself,” Peck replied. “We are now your guests, not your captives.”
Riahnn responded by closing her mouth and resuming—not at all happily—her place beside Lleryth.
“To do so would have risked discovery,” Lleryth answered, “and following that, war. Knowing the power the Heart is reputed to possess, a confrontat
ion would not have been wise. Our goal was not to interfere, only observe.”
“Forgive me, Keeper,” Cally said, “but wouldn’t the College having the Heart in their possession have consequences for the Galiiantha as well?”
Lleryth nodded. “Fortunately, we had foreknowledge of their progress.”
“And this is where Uhniethi comes in, I’ll wager,” Arwin said.
“In a sense, yes.” Lleryth replied. “After the Devastation, the College’s Board of Elders initially sought out portions of the Heart to fortify itself against another attack. However, the Elders soon succumbed to the allure of the stones and kept the fragments for themselves. They studied and hoarded away larger cantles as they became available, reaping the benefits their bits of the Heart had to offer.”
“Benefits?” Cally asked. “Such as?”
“As a minor example, my people tend to have longer lives than outsiders, yet my prolonged exposure to the small stone Niel possesses allowed me to live many times beyond that.”
Niel pulled out the black pouch and set it on the table. “This is a piece of the Heart of the Sisters?”
Lleryth nodded again.
“And you say Uhniethi gave that to you,” Arwin said.
“Yes.”
“So that must mean he could afford to part with it,” Cally said. “That it wasn’t of any use to him anymore.”
Seeing where the conversation would end, Niel put his head in his hands. If Uhniethi had parted with something as precious as a cantle of the Heart, it was possible he’d acquired an even greater portion, just as Lleryth said the Elders had done. And if that small fragment granted its keeper a life span far exceeding the norm…
“Then Uhniethi could still be alive,” Niel whispered.
“Perhaps,” Lleryth answered grimly.
A heavy silence fell upon the room.
“Keeper,” Arwin said, his tone more respectful, “what does this have to do with us?”
Though Lleryth spoke to Arwin, his eyes fixed on Niel.
“There is a young woman from the College, a Magistrate, who spent most of her adult life seeking out a cantle of her own. Though the Board had been aware of her efforts the entire time, when she finally located a fragment of the stone, they were not prepared for the speed with which she harnessed its powers. Her fluency approached, and on some levels surpassed, their own. More troubling than that, she believes she has located the remainder of the Heart. She intends to retrieve it.”
A Mage Of None Magic (Book 1) Page 21
