by Sharon Lee
"Once this bag is sealed with the third knot, the spell is made. Once made, it cannot be unmade." He extended the bag, the final knot incomplete, the spell burning, dangerously bright, above the woman's head.
Veverain took the cord in her two hands, and with infinite care made the final knot complete.
"Sealed with my heart, that I never forget," she said, and pulled the cord tight.
Above her head, invisible to all but the staring Witch, the flaming bars wheeled, blurred and vanished, leaving behind, for those who could hear such things, the definitive snap of a spell sturdy-built and bound.
"Stand," Lute said, doing so himself. Veverain rose and he set the bag on its rawhide cord about her neck. "Wear it. And never forget."
From the floor, a flash of white-and-black ascended, landing light-footed on the table. Tween the cat bumped against the housemother's arm, tail held joyously aloft.
Veverain smiled.
* * *
"HAVE YOU MASTERED the counter yet?" the magician asked his apprentice as they walked toward the high village in the morning. Behind them, their hostess was already engaged with broom and dust rag, the windows flung open to receive the day.
"You know I haven't!" his apprentice retorted, hotly. "If you must know, Master Lute, I don't think you ever made that counter disappear in the first place--you merely entranced me into believing you had done so!"
"Ah, very good!" Lute said unexpectedly. "You have learned a basic truth of our trade: People make their own magic."
Moonhawk faltered, thinking of what had gone forth last night. "Master Lute, the spell you made last night for Veverain..."
"An illustrative case," he said, refusing to meet her eyes.
"No," she said, and put a hand on his arm, stopping him. Determined, she waited until he met her eyes, though she did not compel him do so--indeed, she was not certain that she could compel him to do so, Witch though she was.
The black eyes were on hers.
"I wanted you to know--the spell you made for Veverain was true. I saw it building; I saw its binding." She took a breath. "It was well done, Master Lute."
"So." He sighed, then shrugged. "But that does not change the original premise--people do make their own magic, just as many see only what they wish to see. Now, about the disappearing counter...." He flipped his cloak behind his shoulders and showed her his hands.
"If you wish to make counters appear and disappear, you would do well to supply yourself with several of the same color and hide them about your person. I, for instance, keep several green counters behind my belt--" A flourish, in the grand style, and there they were--four green counters held between the fingers of his left hand.
"Your belt!" protested Moonhawk. "You never--"
"I also," Lute interrupted, implacable, "keep several behind my collar." Another grand flourish and there were four more--- yellow this time--between the fingers of his right hand.
"Master Lute--"
"And when you are done with them, why, it's a simple thing to put them away." A shake of both hands and the counters were gone.
Moonhawk drew a deep breath.
"Of course," said Lute, "it is often wise to keep a counter or two elsewhere than upon one's person. Like the one I store behind your ear."
"Behind my ear!" she cried, but there was Lute's hand, brushing past her cheek, and then reappearing, triumphantly displaying a red counter.
Moonhawk sighed.
"Master Lute?"
"Yes, Lady Moonhawk?"
"You're a dreadful master."
"And you," Lute said, turning toward the village, "are an impertinent apprentice. It is a good thing, don't you think, that we are so very well matched?"
Certain Symmetry
THE MORNING OF the sixth and final day of Little Festival dawned in pastel perfection, promising another pellucid day of pleasure for festival-goers.
Pat Rin yos'Phelium, Clan Korval, a faithful five-day attendee, had failed through press of pleasure to greet the dawn from the near side--and likewise failed of observing it from the far side, as he was most soundly asleep, and remained so for some hours beyond.
When he did rise and betake himself to his study, he found the day's letters and packets piled neatly to hand, the screen displaying his preferred news service, and a pot of tea gently steaming next to a porcelain cup.
Pat Rin poured for himself and settled into his chair, rapidly scanning the news summary.
The results of yesterday's skimmer races at Little Festival were, inevitably, top news. It could not be otherwise, with both the thodelm of yos'Galan and the nadelm of Korval entire in participation.
Pat Rin sighed, gently, and sipped his tea. One's mother was annoyed, however courteously she had accepted one's cousin's instruction in the matter. He sipped again, savoring the blend, and allowed his gaze to wander from the screen for a moment.
One's cousin had proven ...unanticipated. One encountered an edge--and a precision of cut--which had not been noted before cousin Val Con's departure for the Scouts. It might be that Scout training had produced this surprising alteration in the unassuming--even shy--halfling Pat Rin recalled. Or, as one's mother contended, it might simply be that Val Con was coming into his own, that genes would tell, and by the gods it had seemed for a long and telling moment as if her brother Daav himself had stood before her.
Well.
Pat Rin had some more tea, and set the cup aside. He would need to acquaint himself with this new iteration of Val Con. No doubt this skimmer race victory would bring to him any number of gentle inquiries as to the ...availability... of the nadelm. He made a note to speak--unofficially, of course!--to cousin Nova regarding Val Con's current standing with regard to the marriage mart. In the meanwhile, his own business beckoned.
He brought his attention once more to the news screen, noted that several of his more minor investments were performing with gratifying efficiency; read with bored interest the listing of contract-marriages negotiated and consummated; learned of a brawl in mid-Port between the crews of a Terran freighter and a Liaden tug; scanned the list of performances, contests and displays scheduled for this, the last day of Festival, and--blinked.
Fal Den ter'Antod Clan Imtal had died.
Pat Rin called for more information and quickly learned that Fal Den's kin had published a suicide to the Council of Clans and had declined, as was their right, to provide particulars. Business partners and allies of Clan Imtal were advised that the Clan was in full mourning; that the viewing box and pleasure tents held by Imtal would be closed for the remainder of the season, and that those who had been engaged in Balancing accounts with Fal Den should soon find themselves satisfied.
Pat Rin closed his eyes.
He could not name himself a close friend of Fal Den ter'Antod, but he had certainly known the man, and had placed a certain value upon him. Neither a great beauty nor a great intellect, Fal Den possessed charm and an engaging forthrightness of manner that made him an agreeable and even welcome companion. His faults included a belief in the forthrightness of others and a rather thin skin, yet despite these he capably managed both an impeccable melant'i and the not-inconsiderable interests of his family on the Port. To believe that Fal Den was dead, and by his own hand...
Pat Rin opened his eyes, reached out and touched the discreet pearly button set into his desk.
Fal Den dead. He had seen him only three days past, on the arm of Hia Cyn yo'Tonin, which was deplorable of course, and had Fal Den been the sibling Pat Rin did not possess, he would have been moved to whisper a word in his ear...
The door to his office slid open and the excellent pel'Tolian, his general man, stepped within and bowed.
"Good day, Lord Pat Rin."
"Alas, I must disagree," Pat Rin returned. "I find it thus far a singularly distressing day."
"Perhaps matters will improve, as the hours move on," Mr. pel'Tolian suggested.
"Perhaps they will. Certainly, it is possible. In the meanti
me, however, I must request you to procure a mourning basket and have it delivered to the House of Imtal. I will write the card myself."
"Very good, sir." The man bowed. "Shall you wish to partake of a meal?"
"A light nuncheon. And a glass of the jade."
"Very good, sir," Mr. pel'Tolian said again and went away, the door sliding silently shut behind him.
Pat Rin sat with his eyes closed for perhaps the count of twelve, then turned to deal with his mail.
There were four letters and two packets. Two letters were solicitations of funding for ventures so wonderfully risky that to describe them as "speculative" was to overreach the facts by several magnitudes of wishful thinking. Such letters originated with the same sort of person who thought it ...fitting... to invite him--as multi-season champion at pistol and short arms at Teydor's--to join hunting parties on distant outworlds where he might slog through underbrush for days and fire mini-cannons at blameless creatures while enjoying the company of those to whom nothing was more pleasurable.... He dropped both solicitations into the recycler.
Next was an invitation from Eyan yo'Lanna to make one of her house party, proposed for the middle of next relumma. That was good--sufficient time to have the tailor produce something new and appropriate, perhaps involving the yo'Lanna colors. The sudden fashion of declaring a party within hours or even minutes--the "express" mode, as it was called--made it difficult for one to plan ahead even as it made judging the party's ...desirability... all but impossible.
Eyan's parties, however, were often amusing, correct without being stifling, and always informative. Pat Rin reached into the right hand drawer of the desk, pulled out a stiff ivory card with Korval's Tree-and-Dragon embossed on the front, opened it and wrote the appropriate graceful acceptance. He slid the card into an envelope, penned the direction with his own hand, affixed one of Korval's postage coupons, and placed it in the carved wooden tray that served as his outbox.
The fourth letter was from his foster father, Luken bel'Tarda, begging the pleasure of his company that evening for a private dinner at Ongit's.
Pat Rin smiled. The invitation to Ongit's was a joke, by which Luken meant to convey that Pat Rin was arrears in visits. In which complaint, he thought, glancing at the calendar, Luken was entirely justified.
He pulled out a sheet of paper bearing only his name, wrote that he would be pleased to dine with his foster father this very evening and begged his pardon for being a light-minded flutter-about-town. He signed himself "Your affectionate son," sealed, directed, stamped, and placed the completed billet in the wooden tray.
The door of his study opened to admit Mr. pel'Tolian, bearing the requested light nuncheon and glass. This, he disposed upon the small table to Pat Rin's left, then picked up the completed mail and, cat-footed, departed,
Pat Rin turned his attention to the first of the two packets. The postage was Aragon's. He had shared several delightful and adventurous Festival hours with a daughter of the House only yesterday. As the adventure had been at the lady's initiative, Pat Rin assumed the packet to contain a Fairing--a gift of gratitude. He broke the seal, unfolded the box, shook out the silken garment enclosed--and very nearly groaned.
He had expected Shan and Val Con's escapade to result in a rash of monstrosities aping Val Con's innovative cloak, the so-called "skimmer" he'd used to such astonishing effect in yesterday's races. He had simply not expected the fashion to have taken so quickly.
Aragon's third daughter had sent him a skimmer--blue, where Val Con's original had been warning light orange--which modification was not, Pat Rin thought, as pleasing as one must have assuredly assumed that it would be. The name of the tailor was impeccable--in fact, his mother's own tailor--and the material flawless. Nor did it seem at all unlikely that the silk had been chosen to precisely match the color of his earring, of which the lady had been most fond. Ah, youth.
He sighed and folded the wretched thing onto his keyboard, and turned back to the opened box. There was no note, which was proper, and told him that Aragon's daughter had breeding, if not taste.
He picked up the second packet, frowned at Imtal's postal mark, broke the seal, and for the second time in a hour found himself at Point Non Plus.
For the packet contained a leather book no larger than Pat Rin's hand, stamped with the sigil of Clan Imtal. Foreknowing, he opened the volume to the first page and verified that what he held was indeed Fal Den ter'Antod's personal debt-book.
There was no note, as of course there would not be, the Code being explicit upon this point. By the act of sending this book, Fal Den had chosen the executor of his will. He, Pat Rin yos'Phelium, was to tend all accounts left unBalanced at the time of Fal Den's death, paying justly where the fault had been Fal Den's; collecting fully where the debt was owed. No light task, this, nor deniable.
And he had precisely thirty-six hours in which to complete it, assuming that all debts were on-planet, which seemed likely.
He did not read past the first page. Not yet. With the patience of a true gambler he closed the book and settled back into his chair.
First, something to eat, and some wine. His day would no doubt be full.
* * *
IN ANOTHER PART of the city of Solcintra, a second late-rising young gentleman rang for his morning-wine and likewise sat down to review his letters and the news.
His correspondence was sparse--two pieces only. The first was a terse page from his man of business, noting receipt into his lordship's portfolio of a substantial gift of stocks and other assets.
The second note was scarcely less terse, and its subject remarkably similar. Betea sen'Equa wished to know when the consideration she had earned would be forthcoming. Happily the young gentleman had lately expended some thought upon just this subject, and knew precisely how to answer her.
From the bottom drawer in his desk, he withdrew a blank sheet of thin paper, of the sort provided to the guests of Mid-Port hotels. On it, he scrawled a few lines with his off-hand, not forgetting to omit his name, nor the sixth-cantra required to hold the reservation, sealed it and slid it into his pocket.
That done, he sipped his wine and perused the news.
His preferred service concerned itself not at all with Port news, so he lacked the account of the disagreement between the Terran and Liaden crews; nor was his latest investment, which had done very well indeed, of the sort to make the board at the Exchange.
Fal Den ter'Antod's suicide, though--that news he did take in common with the other tardy young gentleman. He, too, blinked upon encountering the unexpected headline, for he had lately been at pains to become intimate with Fal Den and would not have wagered upon finding him thus weak-willed. In point of fact, he had erred in precisely the opposite direction.
The young gentleman sighed sharply, vexed; the note he had written to Betea sen'Equa absurdly heavy in his sleeve-pocket. He drank off the rest of his wine and sat in his chair, hands folded beneath his chin, staring sightlessly at the news screen.
Long minutes passed, with the gentleman sunk deep in his thoughts. Eventually, he blinked, and sighed a second time, considerably less vexed, and owned that his plans might go forward, unimpeded. The lack of Fal Den was--naturally!--a blow, but life, after all, went on.
Just so.
Satisfied in his reasoning, the young gentleman cleared the news screen, and filed away the letter from his man of business.
The note from Beta sen'Equa he carried over to the recycler. Reaching into inside pocket he withdrew one of his special sort of cigarillo, and sucked on it twice to light it. He puffed for a moment or two, tasting of the invigorating smoke, until the central embers came to red. Then he touched the tip of the cigarillo gently to one edge of the paper and held it gingerly by the opposite corner. When the quick flames licked toward his fingertips, he dropped the thing into the unit, which extinguished the flames and proceeded to process the carbon.
He puffed again, the sweet smoke rising to join that of the paper and di
sguise its odor. The cigarillo followed in a few moments; ashes to ashes, to further muddle any trail.
Satisfied with his morning's work, the young gentleman left his rooms, lightfooted and whistling.
* * *
"THAT'S PREPOSTEROUS." The man who said so was some years Pat Rin's elder; a tea merchant who owned a comfortable establishment in the High Port. Neither Shan nor Shan's father, Er Thom yos'Galan--master traders, both--had been strangers in this place, and Bed War tel'Pyton welcomed Pat Rin in the names of his cousins.
"Alas," Pat Rin said gently, and bowed.
Master tel'Pyton had recourse to his teacup.
"By his own hand? Forgive me, sir, but that's powerful hard to accommodate, for the Fal Den ter'Antod I knew was no such fool."
"I understand your perplexity," Pat Rin murmured. "Indeed, I share it. And yet it is truly said that we cannot know the necessities of another's secret heart."
"True," said the master. "Very true." He sighed, gustily. "So, doubtless you've fallen heir to Fal Den's debt-book, by which circumstance we find him once again to fail of foolishness. Pray name the price of my transgression." He tipped his head, apparently considering this. "I suppose it must have been my transgression, though I'll own there's nothing in my book under Fal Den's name. However, I'll bow to his judgment, for he was nice--very nice--in his measurements."
Pat Rin inclined his head and brought the book from his inner pocket. Carefully, he opened to the proper page--an early entry--and read out the recorded circumstances.
"In the fourth relumma of the year called Tofset, I misspoke in consultation with Master Tea Merchant Bed War tel'Pyton. This misinformation was the direct cause of the master ordering far too many tins of Morning Sunrise tea, which purchase greatly reduced the profits of his business. This fault is mine, and shall be Balanced at my earliest opportunity."
Master tel'Pyton blinked.
"Are you certain--I mean no disrespect!--that this is the matter that lies between myself and Fal Den? For I'll tell you, the incident was trivial when it happened--the tea was stasis sealed for one matter, and for another your cousin Er Thom was trading on port at the time and placed the overbought handily, to his own profit and to mine."
