by Sean Russell
“Tell them whatever you must. That she is a criminal. That she has stolen something from one of Farrland’s most influential citizens—which she has.”
Bryce shook his head. He was tired of it. Utterly exhausted by the lie. “Why do I not simply tell them the truth?” he said, suddenly a bit breathless. “That Lord Eldrich wants this woman for his own reasons.”
It was the only time Sir John had ever seen Bryce taken by surprise. No matter what happened now, he had that satisfaction, at least.
Bryce touched the corners of his mouth with finger tips, then he almost smiled—an act Sir John had thought unnatural for him. “Sir John, Sir John. Curiosity can be the greatest curse of man.” Bryce rose from his chair, pacing across the room, the soft touch of his boots on carpet, then the brittle sound as they struck wood.
Bryce turned suddenly on Sir John. “You were better off not knowing, you realize?”
“So parents tell their children, but ignorance is a curse, I believe.”
Bryce fixed him with his unreadable look. “Eldrich wants this woman found,” he said firmly. “It would be very unwise of you to try to back out of our arrangement now.”
“You need not threaten me, Mr. Bryce. I understand my position. But you ask a miracle of me. I am not the King’s Man, after all.”
Bryce gazed at him intently for a moment and then moved to the writing desk, uncorking the ink bottle and taking up a pen. After a moment he motioned for Sir John, and removing a small box and a thick sheaf of papers from his coat, placed them with the newly written letter into the knight’s hands. “Take these,” he said. “You will deliver them to a lodge on the road from Castlebough. You see, I have drawn a map.” He went over the directions so that Sir John could not mistake them.
Sir John looked at this, and the folded letter in his hand, “I have sealing wax,” he said.
This appeared to amuse Bryce. “Read it, if you like.”
Sir John hesitated a moment, not sure why, then he unfolded the paper. But it was no script he knew. He heard his breath catch and he looked quickly up at Bryce.
“He will want to speak with you, Sir John. You may not think ignorance such a curse, then.”
Eleven
When she watched his hands, she thought of a dancer. The movements were so fluid, the long, elegant fingers so sure. Even performing simple acts, like unstopping the bottle, they seemed to perform a dance. And everything he touched, he touched so lightly, as though the force commonly used by men was never required of a mage.
Eldrich tipped the bottle into the mortar and out tumbled small seeds, like peppercorns. He took up a pestle and began to crush them, releasing a pungent fragrance into the air.
“The seed was carried here by the first mages and has been cultivated by my kind ever since. It is the most precious commodity in the known world, for without it there are no arts, no ‘magic.’ One may study the arts for a lifetime and have talent in abundance, but without the seed to release that talent—” He continued to move the pestle, crushing the seed to powder, his beautiful hand moving in slow rhythm. “The elixir is simplicity itself to make, that is why we guard the seed above all else. It is death to touch this seed without the express permission of a mage. In my household only Walky may handle it. Teller stole seed, for which his life was to be forfeit, but he escaped us.” He continued grinding the seed to a fine powder.
The countess began to feel distinctly uncomfortable, though she was not sure why. As though she were afraid her hand might slip, and she would touch the seed and pay the arbitrary price.
“When the seed is first taken, waking dreams often occur. Some of these are ‘visions,’ though that depends upon the nature of one’s talent. One will often begin to dream vividly when asleep, as well. It is good to note such dreams down when waking, for one can never be sure of their significance and they are soon forgotten.” He stopped and stared down into the mortar. Satisfied, he lifted the steaming kettle off its hook over the fire and poured water into cups. Taking up the mortar and a dagger, he apportioned the powder into the cups, stirring them with the blade. The countess watched it glint in the candlelight, a little mesmerized by the movement.
“A transformation is initiated by the seed, for the path from man to mage is not merely through learning. It is more profound than that—profound and irreversible.” He lifted one of the cups and, leaning forward, set it before her. The second cup he raised, his dark gaze upon her.
“Me?!” she said, finally realizing that this was not to be a mere demonstration. “But I am no mage’s apprentice!”
He continued to regard her. “No, but in this world you are the closest thing. Do not drink it all in one rush, but sip it slowly your first time. You might find the experience a bit overwhelming otherwise.”
The countess drew her hands back off the table. Transformation? What in this round world was he talking about? “I did not agree to this.”
“Indeed, you did. You simply did not ask what our bargain entailed.” He held out his cup as though about to offer a toast. “Raise it,” he said, the music in his voice suddenly very cold.
She found this command so chilling, so utterly disturbing, that she moved her hands so they all but touched the cup.
“It is also the seed which lengthens one’s years and preserves the vigor and appearance of youth—like the apples of immortality.”
“But there was a cost to obtaining those apples,” she said softly.
“There is always a cost. The seed is habituating. You will require it. There are other effects as well, but these can be mitigated. Think of it, Lady Chilton. You have but to drink, and you will avoid the fate you saw at the roadside. The fate of all those who do not die young. The ruin of age, the loss of physical powers, of one’s mental acuity, of memory, of one’s past. It is a loss of dignity, Lady Chilton, the likes of which most cannot imagine . . . until it is upon them. But not for you. Youth. Imagine it. I am a century and a third old. A century and a third. Fifty years ago I looked no more than thirty.” He raised the cup to his lips, his eyes still on her, and then they closed—in pleasure, she thought.
She touched the cup, felt the warmth through its ancient glaze, for the cups themselves seemed very old. For a moment she stared down into the rising vapor, as though trying to see her future. The realization that this was a decisive moment, perhaps the decisive moment, of her life settled into her like glacial waters.
There is no road back, she told herself, numbness flooding through her being.
She raised the cup with two hands, for it had no handle, and inhaled the vapor. Her hands trembled as the rim touched her lip, and a drop spilled upon her dress. Closing her eyes, she tasted the liquid. It had no flavor she could name, though it was pungent and spicy.
She swallowed. And again. The liquid seemed to flow warmly throughout her body, as though it ran into the veins, driving out the numbness.
And then the dim room grew suddenly dark. She walked among the walls of a ruin, a castle or some great edifice. A moon rose above a toppled tower, and a hawk flitted from ledge to lintel overhead. Columns rose up or lay shattered on the ground. As the moon rose, it reflected on a pattern set in silver into the stone floor.
The beauty of the pattern struck her—intricate scrollwork winding among the precise lines of a geometric pattern. A silent wind rustled her dress. It was only then that she noticed the quiet of the place. Even her own footfall made not a sound.
Skirting the pattern she went on, deeper into the ruin. At a balustrade looking out over a moonlit valley she found a man, a small falcon perched upon his wrist.
For a moment she stood, afraid to approach. But then he turned slightly, and she saw that it was Kent, an aged and wrinkled Kent. For a moment he gazed directly at her, but registered nothing. Even so, she could see the sadness and loss in his eyes—as though she looked through them into the desolate valley
beyond.
“Where am I, Kent?” she asked, but he turned back to the valley, the bird fluttering up from his outstretched arm.
A shadow moved among the columns, someone tall and stooped. “Lord Eldrich?” she tried to call, though her voice emerged thin and weak. The figure blended into the shadow of a column, leaving her unsure of what she had seen.
I am alone. Alone but for a silent, aged Kent who cannot hear when I speak.
For a moment she collapsed on a fallen column, overwhelmed by sadness. Tears appeared, running down her cheeks, but when she went to rub them away, she found tiny, pear-shaped diamonds in her hand. They glittered in moonlight and shrank away, dissolving on her palm, leaving her skin cold where they had lain.
“Flames,” she heard herself whisper.
Surprisingly, she felt no fear, only a vague disquiet and uncertainty.
This is a vision, she told herself. You have taken king’s blood and walk within a waking dream. No harm can befall you.
She entered a round courtyard, though perhaps it had once been a chamber, its roof worn away long ago. In the center stood a fountain, empty of water and filled with spiderwebs, the strands silvered by moonlight. A sculpture of pale stone rose out of the web—a woman bent back beneath her lover, her face half-formed but lost to passion. Her lover bent over her with both tenderness and passion, though she could not understand how both these states had been conveyed.
“It is not me,” the countess said, her voice trembling. She pressed a hand to her heart and felt it beating wildly. “It is not Eldrich.” But the man’s face was obscured, and she could not say.
The bird that had perched upon Kent’s wrist alighted on the edge of the fount and regarded her with its unsettling gaze.
She skirted the sculpture, averting her eyes, but it drew her, and she glanced that way again. It had moved, she was sure, as though animated by the slow passion of stone. She fled through the first opening that offered itself.
Here she came upon a second balcony, and looked out over the moonlit valley. A lake shimmered in the distance, but the valley was in shadow. Trees, she thought she saw, perhaps hedgerows, and here and there regular shapes that could be houses or the structures of men.
For the first time she heard sounds, a low dirge, like monks chanting. The sound seemed to float up to her from a great distance, and then she saw the singers—men bearing a litter up a blue-shadowed stair. They passed through a shaft of moonlight, and she could see it was a bier they carried, and the singing was indeed a dirge—a lament of great power and sorrow.
“What king is this?” she whispered, for somehow she was sure that such music could only befit a king.
A breeze moved her hair and seemed to whisper next to her ear. . . . auralelauralelaural . . . She looked up at the sky, filled with stars, their light diffused into soft haloes. The heavens seemed to be spinning slowly, and she turned to follow. Faster it went, and the world tilted beneath her. She fell.
“. . . lauralelauralelauralelaura . . .”
* * *
* * *
A hand rested lightly on the countess’ shoulder; she could feel the warmth of it through the fabric of her dress.
He is touching me, she thought. Every finger was distinct, and her breath caught. The hand was so still. Only a mage could remain so motionless.
She opened her eyes and found she lay upon a divan in the great room, a single candle trembling on a table. Eldrich sat near her head, one hand resting on her shoulder. He was awake, she was certain by the sound of his breathing. But she was so tired. . . . Her eyes shut of their own accord.
“What do you want of me?” she whispered.
“What did you dream?” he asked, ignoring her question.
“I saw Kent standing on a balcony beneath a moon, looking out over a shadowed valley. A hawk rested upon his wrist. A pattern of moonlight was woven into the stone floor. . . .” She struggled to remember, to remain conscious. “And a dry fountain filled with spiderwebs held a sculpture of a woman . . . and a man.”
“You knew them?”
“No,” she said quickly, then remembered to whom she spoke. “The woman might have been me. The hawk lighted upon the fount as though it required something of me and I fled. Out onto a second balcony. Below me men chanted, a sad lament, and bore a body upon a bier. Only a king deserved such music, I thought. Only a king, yet there was no great train, no procession. Only a handful of men, as though this king died in exile. And then the stars began to spin, and I fell.”
Eldrich said nothing, and she felt herself falling away.
“If it was a vision, does that mean I foresaw a death?” she managed.
“Perhaps,” Eldrich said softly.
“But whose?”
“Sleep,” Eldrich said. “Sleep in peace, and let dreams trouble you not.”
Twelve
Kent walked through the night, through the moonlight that passed over the land like a searching owl. His increasingly lame mount slowed him, as did the shadows of hills, which flowed across the road in black pools.
And then the darkness began to pale, giving way to a still dawn, filled with the silence of calling birds—a world contained within a pearl.
The stableman looked askance at this city dweller who brought his horse in so injured, riding foolishly by night. Kent hardly cared what anyone thought, only let him sit and eat some food, then he would have energy to feel abashed.
He took a table in the near-empty common room, and leaned his head back against the wall, closing his burning eyes.
Food and coffee arrived after a moment. Guests came down to break their fasts, the men stepping out to check on the readiness of carriages. The travelers were bound for Castlebough or another scenic town, some few going to the border beyond and down into Entonne. They had that air of anticipation and release that people on journeys so often displayed. A great contrast to his own state.
The painter leaned his head on his hand as he ate, slumping in his chair.
I must look in a sorry state, he thought, and though his appearance was usually important to him, at that moment he did not care. How far ahead was Eldrich? Too far to ever be caught by natural means? The entire endeavor seemed even more foolish by the fresh light of morning than it had in the darkest hour of the previous night.
Kent rides off to slay a mage and win the hand of fair lady. Flames, but he was likely making a perfect ass of himself. Luckily there was no one there to see.
“Kent?”
The painter looked up.
“Sir John!”
“Kent, this is as far as you’ve traveled?”
Kent nodded sheepishly as Sir John took a seat at his table. “Have you been watching Eldrich?”
Kent shook his head. “No, they must be in the lowlands by now.”
Sir John fell quiet, breaking eye contact abruptly. “Ah . . .”
“And what of you, Sir John? What’s led you to be traveling by night?”
“I was called away suddenly,” Sir John said.
Kent eyed him. “A servant of the mage passed me as I traveled—I heard him speaking to his driver. It occurred to me later that this might be the man with whom you had dealings. Is it business of the mage that you are on?”
“No, just . . . business.” But the words had little strength in them.
“Well, at least I shall have a traveling companion until our ways part.”
“But, Kent.” Sir John stared down at his hands folded on the table, hanging his head like a man suddenly ill. “Kent, I don’t go to Avonel.” He took a long, uneven breath. “Do not ask me more.”
Kent sat back against the wall, gazing at the suddenly wretched man. What does he do for the mage?
“Will you want your carriage back?” Sir John asked, forcing his gaze up, shaking off his mood.
“No. I should
travel faster by horse. You managed through the night with those wretched lamps?”
“Yes, well enough.”
A servant came, and Sir John asked for a meal. The meal was interrupted only by small talk, neither man speaking his real concerns. Finally, as Sir John was about to rise, Kent put a hand on his arm. “Is there nothing you can tell me? Do you know where the mage has gone? Where he has taken her?”
Sir John tugged his arm gently free. “Kent, there is nothing you can do. Nothing anyone can do.” He leaned closer so that no one else might hear. “I have been forced to dissemble once to keep you from harm. I shall not get away with it twice. Kent . . . I implore you, give this up.” Sir John swept from the room, the eyes of everyone on him, wondering what disagreement beset these two gentlemen.
* * *
* * *
The road wound its way along the bottom of a high valley awash in the translucent green of spring. The breeze fluttered leaves and the sunlight caught them like sparkles on the sea. Kent sat his horse at the valley’s head, watching. His trap, which bore Sir John, appeared in a gap in the trees, then disappeared beneath a wave of phosphorescent green.
“Have you been watching Eldrich?” Sir John had asked.
The mage was nearby—it could mean nothing else. The countess was here, somewhere.
Sir John must know I follow, Kent thought. But is he going to meet the mage? Certainly Sir John had never encountered Eldrich before; his fear the night they had seen the mage proved that. There had always been an intermediary. . . . But at the recent meeting at the inn, Sir John had looked almost as frightened as he had the night above Baumgere’s home, though this fear was overlain by resignation.
What, other than a mage, could inspire such terror?
Kent nudged his horse forward, out of the shadow of the trees. He felt like a knight riding into a hopeless battle. It was one thing to pursue a mage with little chance of ever catching him, and quite another to think that he might actually come face-to-face with this terror. Whenever these fears appeared, he would think of the gratitude of the countess, and this would drive him on, even if it did not drive the fear away.
