It took us more than a ten-sun to travel to Kingswell. Despite the numbers journeying, everything was very well organised. Each overnight stop, time of departure and the place of every rider and vehicle in the caravan – all was meticulously planned. We were far back in the order, well behind the Drashon and his various relatives, then those of Durshalon rank and even behind most of the representatives of other Kellons. Drei might be an important person in Ardamurkan, but the Bai-Kellonor of the seventh ranked Kellon of the fifth Kell-Durshalon was not of great significance in the realm of Bennamore.
My departure from Ardamurkan in a luxurious carriage, the drusse of the Bai-Kellonor, was very different from my arrival three years earlier, perched on a turnip wagon. Durmaston seemed very distant to me now. I hadn’t visited this year because of my trial, and last year I’d been too excited about having a mage patron, so it was two years since I’d seen most of my family, apart from Deyria. I seldom even heard news of them, for Mother never wasted coin on messages if she could help it.
Now I was leaving even my sister behind. I felt a pang of regret for her as she wept all over me before I left. It was sad to see her dreams turned to dust, for the spell on her was so strong it might never wear off, but I’m ashamed to say I had forgotten her before we reached the first marker post.
Drei usually rode on such journeys, but he chose to sit in the carriage with me, keeping me entertained with all the most scurrilous rumours about the people we travelled with. He was a terrible gossip, I discovered, and liked nothing better than to speculate on who was having an affair with whom, and who was pretending to be friendly while harbouring active dislike. He was very good company.
He always managed to get hold of a basket of fruits or sweetmeats for the carriage – “You never know when the next meal will be,” he explained – and there was a flask or two of wine or ale, as well as water. He pointed out all the landmarks we passed, and explained their histories: the battles, the revolts, the crop failures and epidemics and migrations. I was as astonished as he was at how little I knew. My education must have been sadly lacking, but Drei set out to inform me.
We left each morning at a reasonable time, but as the sun progressed the long line of travellers became increasingly strung out, so we generally arrived late in the evening, exhausted and hungry. There was always a bath, a hot meal and a comfortable bed awaiting us. Mostly we stayed at inns, occasionally we descended on the hall of some hapless Kellon or Durshalon, but every location was carefully chosen and provided with sufficient accommodation even for our large party, plus large dormitories for the numerous guards, servants, wagon drivers, and various other essential retainers.
Drei hadn’t so much as touched me yet. I wasn’t sure why he professed to be uninterested. Perhaps he preferred men, or maybe he thought it was what I wanted. I hadn’t done anything about it at Ardamurkan, but I knew the journey would give me a chance to test his resolve to stay away from me.
The first night was an inn, but we were allocated a bedroom with an attached dressing room with a single bed, and Drei took himself off there to sleep, without discussion. The second night he was ill with a bad headache, so he retired early and was asleep before I went to bed.
But the third night we had just the one room with a massive double bed; a good opportunity, I thought, to find out whether he truly had no interest in me as a bed-partner. I undressed slowly, not flaunting myself, exactly, but giving him time to notice. He watched me covertly from the opposite corner of the room, keeping his head down while his eyes slid in my direction constantly. I could see his erection from across the room.
“You go to bed,” he said, trying not to look at me. “I think I might read for a while.”
I crossed the room to stand in front of him. “Don’t you want a little bed-play?”
The look on his face when he lifted his head was pure panic. “I don’t think... Kyra, I... No, I said I wouldn’t.”
“I’m your drusse. It’s part of the deal, and I don’t mind.”
I thought perhaps if he touched me, if I could slide his hand inside my bed-gown to rest on my breast – then I would find out what he wanted. I reached out for him but to my horror some kind of warmth passed between us. I jumped back, shocked, dropping his hand.
“What was that?” he whispered, eyes wide.
“You felt it too?” It was some kind of magical tingle between us, like an echo of the feeling from the marble pillar in the renewal room. It was very slight, but enough for both of us to notice it. “It’s magic of some sort.”
“Magic? Oh.” He seemed disappointed. “It’s not a normal response, then? For – you know, a man and woman.”
“No.” The idea amused me. Sex might be more fun if there was always magic involved. “Although – at the renewal, something like that happened.” Something like that – such prosaic words for an experience entirely beyond words.
“Can I try it again?”
He touched my hand, let go, touched it again, let go again. Each time there was a little buzz, which then died away. “That’s nice,” he said.
I took his hand and firmly pushed it onto my breast. “So – bed?”
The panicked look was back in an instant. “Kyra – I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“I’d love to, but...” He hung his head, almost as if he were ashamed. “I daren’t risk it. I don’t know what might happen. If I lose control.”
“Oh. The fires?” He nodded. “So you’ve never—? But haven’t you even – you know, done it yourself?”
A shake of the head. He looked abjectly miserable. Poor, poor Drei. My brothers would have gone insane without an untiring right hand. They’d spent their early years of adulthood single-mindedly pursuing any woman who seemed likely to lift her skirts for them. Yet Drei, who must have had every ambitious serving maid at the Hall trying to crawl into his bed, could never allow himself to be seduced. Not once.
“Well. That is a problem. We’ll just have to find a place with nothing you can set on fire. Then we can experiment.”
“The middle of a desert, maybe?” His wan smile cut me to the heart. There was so little I could do for him to repay his generosity, and even that little was denied me. We climbed into bed, lying so close but facing away from each other. I don’t think either of us slept.
~~~~~
On the fourth sun we crossed the Taysil River, a wide and tranquil waterway with a line of barges being towed upstream along one bank, while the swift current in the centre allowed a more rapid passage in the opposite direction. The bridge was stone-built, one of seven such, Drei told me, with an eighth under construction to the east. After a brief glimpse of open sky and many waterside buildings, to my disappointment we were soon enclosed by pine forest again.
On the seventh sun, the scenery changed. The heavy pine forests gave way abruptly to spindly trees with pale bark and slender leaves that rustled in the breeze, dry and browning this late in the year. Here and there stands of more solid trees, with thick trunks and wide crowns, some heavy with nuts, provided shade. Even I, in my ignorance, had heard of the sudden transition to the northern reaches of Bennamore. I asked Drei why this part was so different, doubting he would know. To my amazement he explained that the soil was different, and when we next stopped, he found a bare patch to show me.
“Do you see? It’s sandy, poor soil, and this pale colour means it was formed from sea shells.”
“Shells? But we’re nowhere near the sea!”
He laughed at my ignorance. “I know, but nevertheless it’s true. And the soil won’t hold water, so that limits what kind of trees can grow. There are lakes here, though, and the bigger trees grow around the water.”
“How did you learn so much?”
“I had very good tutors. They taught me this and much more besides.”
“Why would you need to know about soil? You’re not a farmer.”
“No, but I’m noble born and I might one year be a ruler. I ne
ed to understand everything about the land I rule over.”
“You’re never going to rule over northern Bennamore, though, are you? You don’t need to know about this soil.”
“You never know what might happen,” he answered seriously. “Besides, I might marry someone from here.”
That was true enough. He was only twenty-four, and although he was going to Kingswell to find a spouse for Bellastria, he could easily acquire one for himself.
Northern Bennamore was very pleasant country, with gentle hills, lush green valleys and still pools of reed-fringed water. There were innumerable tiny deer and huge rodents, enabling our guards to practise their archery and fill the stew-pots for evening board at the same time. The carriage was uncomfortably hot in the afternoons, and Drei and I dozed the hours away, but as evening drew on we needed a rug to keep the chill at bay. Drei was quite happy to snuggle up to me for warmth, and he liked to hold my hand or rest his face against my bare neck. It gave him the little magic buzz, and made him feel better, he said. It wasn’t the kind of touching I’d expected, but if it gave him comfort I was glad of it.
Before too long the hills began to flatten, and as each little rise gave us a view over the land beyond, a dark mass appeared on the horizon, with a pale ribbon of road leading directly there. We were within sight of Kingswell. Gradually the amorphous dark mass dissolved into three clear shapes: the solid red of the King’s Keep, the brown stain of the town around it, and, nestled in the arms of a single mountain behind, a small golden blob. For the first time I didn’t need Drei to explain what I saw, for even in my village at the other end of the realm I had heard of Candle Mountain and the Imperial City.
The last sun of our journey was the longest, with one delay after another, so it was close to midnight when our wagon rolled through the town’s streets and into the Keep. I had been half asleep for hours, so even though it was brightmoon, I saw nothing except great red walls punctuated by many windows rising above me before Drei bundled me inside. Servants scurried around and in no time we were shown to our apartment, hot food was brought and baths were being filled. Drei sat quietly in a chair, eyes closed, until the servants vanished and peace descended.
“Are you all right?” I asked. He looked very tired.
“My eyes hurt,” he said plaintively. “May I hold your hand? Would you mind?”
“Of course not.” I knelt on the floor in front of him and took both his hands. “Ah,” he murmured. “That’s better.”
We sat for some time, and he seemed more peaceful. “Do you feel it?” he asked.
“Feel what?”
“The energy flowing out of you into me. My eyes have almost stopped hurting.”
“Are you serious? Am I healing you?”
“That’s what it feels like.” He opened his eyes, and smiled at me. “Could you do it deliberately, do you think?”
I had no idea what to do. I tried to remember what Cal did when he healed. Firstly, he waved his hands around, while he concentrated on the spell, then he laid his hands on the patient, usually on the injured area, then there was more hand-waving. That wouldn’t work for me. There needed to be physical contact. So, feeling foolish, I closed my eyes and concentrated while I held Drei’s hands.
Nothing happened. I could hear noises clearly. A servant clinking a bucket, perhaps, in the corridor. Male voices drifting up from the yard below. Some small rodent scrabbling behind the wooden wall panels. I tried focusing on Drei’s hands. I could feel the energy oozing through them, bubbling lethargically from my body to his.
Then something odd happened. As soon as I became aware of the magic inside me, my mind somehow opened up and I became aware of Drei in a quite different way. I could see his golden aura – not with my eyes, but in my mind. It seemed to emanate from inside his chest, with long tendrils into his arms and legs and a small concentration in his head. I could see a little trickle of gold flowing through my hands and into his. But there were other colours too. A greenish colour around his stomach. Swirling red a little below that. A long black line on his back. White with a couple of small purple blobs in his head. And a deep reddish brown around his eyes.
Some I didn’t understand but I knew at once the colour round the eyes was his pain. I didn’t have to think about what to do, or concentrate any more than I already was. As soon as I recognised the problem, energy gushed out of my hands and raced to his eyes. Within a few heartbeats the colour had gone.
My eyes flew open. Drei looked shocked too. “Well,” he said. “Well... That was – weird.”
“For both of us, I imagine. So am I a healer?”
“A healer? Kyra, my dear, you’re a mage.” He began to laugh, setting me off too, and it was a long time before we sobered up. That night we both slept like babies.
13: The King's Keep
I woke late the next morning, tired and lethargic. Drei was already up and dressed, fizzing with energy. He had a pot steeping, so he brought me a hot herby drink, heavy with fruit flavours. He sat on the edge of the bed, bouncing a little in enthusiasm, so that I had to hold my cup carefully to avoid spilling it.
“This is so much fun, isn’t it? You’re a mage and a healer and who knows what else. All those colours! We must find out what it all means. But you’ll be so useful to me. I get terrible headaches – you’ll be able to get rid of them for me. And winter chills and fevers, I get everything there is. I won’t need to suffer now.”
He rattled on while I sat and sipped my drink, letting my head clear.
“It’s no good if it wipes me out like this every time,” I pointed out.
His face fell at once. “True. But I suppose your energy levels will replenish themselves.”
“I don’t know how, though.”
He’d had time to explore our apartment while I slept. There wasn’t much to it, just a bedroom with a small dressing room, a single large general purpose room, and a door concealing a narrow corridor to some functional rooms – a kitchen, scullery, store-rooms and sleeping rooms for the servants. Outside the front door was an alcove where two guards stood watch. We had brought a troop of ten guards, plus a captain, and six servants, and were given two local servants as well. It seemed excessive to me, but I suppose it was normal for the Kellon’s son.
Morning board was served in the apartment, a collection of fruit, meat and cheese, nothing hot except for the inevitable pot of some herbal brew. After that, Drei showed me round my home for the next few moons.
The King’s Keep was one of the few places I’d seen a picture of in one of my mother’s books, so I knew of the eight octagonal towers and the solidly impregnable outer wall. A picture gives no idea of scale, however, and it was another matter to be inside it. Each tower was several times larger than the Kellon’s hall, and the inside of the joining walls was filled with rooms too, so that the whole inner wall was speckled with windows, with washing hanging from lines and blankets set to air.
Around the inside of the walls squatted stalls and low buildings - bakeries, stables, shops, board houses, craft workshops and much more besides. A smooth road circled through the middle of it, with runners pulling wooden carts to convey people swiftly from place to place. The centre of the Keep was given over to gardens, both pleasure and productive, so that a walking path leading to a statue or fountain would be edged with fruit trees or nut bushes or neat rows of vegetables. In the very centre was the well that gave the town its name.
I walked around with my mouth hanging open as Drei showed me wonder after wonder. The Keep was a town in its own right, housing many thousands of people and providing for them so well that they need never leave it. Many of its inhabitants lived their whole lives within these walls, and never even saw the outer town.
Eventually we came to the base of one of the towers. “Is this ours?” I asked. I had completely lost my sense of direction, but I knew we had reached our apartment through one of the massive tower doors.
Drei was amused by my bewilderment. “No, we live i
n the South East Tower. This is the North Tower, one of the ones kept for the Drashon and his all too large family. But we can go into some of the rooms to look around.”
“He won’t mind?” I squeaked, imagining guards tossing us into dungeons for entering the Drashon’s domain uninvited.
“They’re public rooms, anyone can go in, unless the Drashon wants them for something. Come on.”
He took my hand, smiling at the little burst of magic, and led me up the stone steps to the entrance. The great wood and metal doors were closed, but a human-sized door stood open and we passed through into an entrance hall. I would have been overwhelmed by the size of it, but it was an exact match for the one in our own tower. I supposed they were all built to the same pattern.
An obsequious servant showed us through a series of antechambers into a long rectangular hall with high windows down one side. The opposite wall was covered with tapestries and paintings, and marble plinths arranged in lines displayed various items – a sword, metal cauldron of some sort, some rocks, a full-sized marble statue of a man on a horse, arrayed for battle and frozen in the act of spearing something – a barbarian, perhaps, missing from the ensemble. A history lesson, I realised.
The Fire Mages Page 13
