The Fire Mages

by Pauline M. Ross

  “That seems too simple.”

  Yet that was all it took. I held each practice spellpage in turn and pulled all the magical energy from it. The letters shimmered and vanished, and at the end each paper was blank and unenhanced.

  We settled on midnight for burning the spellpages. It was late enough that the Drashon wouldn’t be surrounded by hordes of people – one of his drusse, perhaps, and the night guards, people who would follow his orders implicitly. Since we had to bring him through the sewers, we needed a mage as well, and that was more difficult. Neither of us knew any of them very well, and there was a risk they would be somewhere public at midnight and might arrive with a trail of curious spectators. There was a real possibility that I wouldn’t be able to spell a mage at all. In the end, we had to take a chance. We decided on Krayfon because we felt the Drashon would be safest with him, and he’d already proved himself unflappable in a crisis.

  The scribery was the only place we could find a crucible – none of the houses seemed to have one, which was odd. We placed the two spellpages in the crucible, one for the Drashon and one for the mage, and Cal insisted on reciting the summoning and then igniting them with fire from his own fingers. It amused him to be able to do that. Then we went to the library.

  It was the first time I’d been there since Drei and I had found the pillar, and Cal had never got round to going at all, so it was a little strange for both of us. The lights were low, the great expanse of room slumbering at that time of night, but as we entered the walls slowly increased their glow. We arranged a table and some chairs in the middle of the open space, and set out the supplies we’d brought – wine, and cakes, and a few little pastries I’d saved from our noon and evening board. It wasn’t much to put before the Drashon, a man whose palate must be jaded with every exotic flavour his expert cooks could devise, but I thought he might be hungry from being dragged from his bed. If I woke in the middle of the night, I always needed something to eat before I could sleep again.

  The great stone ball loomed over us, mysterious and impossible to ignore. Cal was fascinated by it just as I was, feeling the deep vibrations of power from within it.

  “Can I touch it? It’ll be ages before they get here, I have to see what it feels like. It won’t take long.”

  “Later,” I said. “Let’s not get distracted.”

  “Where’s the harm? It doesn’t do anything, does it?”

  “How can you stand there, feeling the power in it, and say that it doesn’t do anything? We don’t know how it works yet, that’s all, and I don’t want to trigger anything now. Not tonight.”

  We stood and waited. We had no way of knowing whether our spellpages had been successful. Perhaps the Drashon slumbered on, unaffected. Perhaps he and the mage had woken, agreed that going to the library was a silly idea, and gone back to bed. Or – more worrying – perhaps they’d set out and got lost, somehow. I couldn’t detect anything in the tunnels below us. The five mages I had just about been conscious of, dimly, on the very edge of awareness, but a single mage and someone with no magic were below my threshold.

  So we waited, feverish with nerves, near the top of the stairs leading up from the sewers, trying very hard not to think about the things that could have gone wrong. And eventually we were rewarded. Voices first, a gentle murmuring. Then silence, a long nerve-wracking silence. And then two heads, one after the other.

  They were clad in night attire, with thick wraps, but bare feet. I was horrified. The ruler of Bennamore had walked barefoot through the sewers at my command. I should have thought of that.

  They were surprised to see us, but they didn’t stop or even slow down, marching in step up the final few stairs and straight past us into the body of the library. There at last they stood still, gazing round them in awe, not in the least afraid or angry or even curious. I’d expected more of a reaction.

  We followed them and skirted round so that we were in front of them, making formal bows.

  “Good evening, Highness, Lord Mage,” I said. “Will you please sit down? Would you like some wine?”

  “Well now, what are you doing here, Kyra?” the Drashon said, beaming at me. “Amazing place, is it not? However, I hardly expected to see you when I thought to take a little stroll.”

  “I’m here to talk to you, Highness.”

  I could see them struggling to reconcile conflicting ideas. They clearly believed that the idea to visit the Imperial Library unaccompanied in the middle of the night was their own, a perfectly sensible and pleasant one. Yet they were also aware that there was something wrong, and they decided it was me. When they registered Cal’s presence, they began to look very confused.

  I pulled out a chair. “Will you not sit here, Highness? You must be tired after your walk.”

  “Actually, I am. Will you fetch my body servant? Someone? Or send a guard...? I think I... Krayfon, why did we come here?”

  “I am not sure, Highness.”

  “You’re here because I brought you here,” I said crisply. “To be precise, I scribed spellpages to bring you here. I apologise for that, but I could find no other way to talk to you.”

  “You spelled us?” Krayfon said in outraged tones. “How? A command summoning, I suppose.”

  “No, a conditional waking first, then an incompleteness to create the desire to come here, then a dependent following, with some variances – secrecy and urgency, mainly. And a few conditionals, to ensure you came together and so on.”

  “It was a lot more complicated than she makes it sound,” Cal added proudly. “She had some very clever variances. There was a new one, to be sure you wore wraps.”

  “But I forgot about shoes,” I said. “I’m so sorry about your feet.”

  They stared at me in bewilderment, and at each other, and then at their bare feet, not quite sure what to make of it.

  Krayfon was the first to reach a decision. “We should leave, Highness. No good can come of this.”

  The Drashon looked appraisingly at me, and then, frowning, at Cal. “Lord Mage, I do not believe I recall your name.”

  “I am Cal from Ardamurkan, Highness. I was presented at court, but I daresay you meet a great many people.”

  “You came here with some problem for the mages to address, I recall.”

  “My vessel, Highness.”

  “I remember. And your role here, Lord Mage?”

  “To support Kyra. I don’t think it’s right that she should be penalised, perhaps executed, for something that’s part of her nature, a gift from the Gods. Will you not hear her?”

  A long pause. We all waited, Krayfon shifting nervously from foot to foot. Then abruptly, the Drashon sat. “Now that we are here we will stay, and hear what Kyra has to say.”

  “Highness, I must advise against it. It is for the mages to deal with her, not someone as valuable to the realm as yourself. She is very dangerous.” I almost laughed at that.

  “My dear friend,” the Drashon said, eyebrows raised, “if Kyra had wished to harm me, no doubt I would be dead in my bed already.”

  “Hardly, Rannassor. She is only a contract scribe, she cannot know any death spells.”

  I said nothing, but the Drashon laughed. “I think she knows far more than you suspect, Krayfon. And if she does not, her mage friend certainly does. She has brought us safely through those appalling tunnels, so I hardly think she has any intention of harming us.”

  “It is not her intentions that concern me, Highness. With wild mages, there is not the discipline, the training! A half-remembered or misunderstood spell is the very worst – anything might happen.”

  “That is exactly why I wish to talk to you,” I said.

  The Drashon nodded. “I will hear what you have to say, without commitment. Besides, these cakes look delicious.”

  Krayfon sighed. He waved me to a chair, and then stood beside the Drashon, as if to protect him. Cal stood further back, watching us but a little apart.

  I told the Drashon everything, starting wit
h my first knowledge of my own power and everything that had happened since, including the full story of my escape from the locked cellar, and about Cal’s disappearance. I even told him that I thought I’d killed the Asha-Kellon. I held nothing back, except the small detail of Cal’s jade belt.

  I couldn’t avoid mentioning Drei, because I would have known nothing without him, and would never have been at Kingswell without his involvement. It was a calculated risk, though. If the Drashon decided against me, then Drei would find himself in exactly the same position that I was now in – accused of an offence with a possible penalty of execution. I was fairly sure that the mages wouldn’t be able to bind him any more than me, but he would hate me for disrupting his life. On the other hand, Drei was about to marry the Drashon’s daughter, and surely that would weigh with him?

  The Drashon listened impassively, as always. As I talked, he chewed his way through most of the food, and drank some of the wine. Krayfon stood at his shoulder, eating and drinking nothing, although he asked questions from time to time. He exuded disapproval, but gradually he became interested, especially in my sleep spell, and, eyes twinkling, remembered his own comments about the ability of anyone who could have done such a thing.

  At last I felt I’d covered everything. The Drashon was inscrutable. What more could I say to convince him? “I know I’ve done some bad things, Highness, but that was never my intention. Lord Mage Krayfon is right, without knowledge and discipline this kind of magic is dangerous. It’s also very powerful, and could be useful to you. Isn’t it better to teach me to do some good rather than execute me and lose my abilities altogether?” I wasn’t used to pleading, but it was difficult not to, under the circumstances.

  “The risk is too high...” Krayfon began, but Cal held up a hand.

  “If I might make a point of law, Highness?” The Drashon nodded him to continue. “There have always been wild mages, and the law was written to allow for them to be properly trained as soon as they are identified. The current interpretation of the Regulation of Arcane Acts Statute is quite recent, and that entire subsection, relating to uncontrolled use of magic, was intended to apply only as a last resort, to those unable or unwilling to submit to training. Kyra is not to blame because the Gods gifted her with an unusual talent. We are surely not so uncivilised that we need to kill anyone different from the norm?”

  “Highness...” Krayfon began, but this time it was the Drashon who waved a hand to silence him.

  “Is this true, Krayfon? That these wild mages, like Kyra and Axandrei, were once trained to usefulness?” He made it sound as if we were no more than oxen, to be put to the plough. Still, perhaps the law could convince him?

  Krayfon chewed his lip. “It is true, but...”

  “Then why was this not considered here? And that boy from the coast seven years ago? That was a dreadful business – his distraught mother! She brought him here to us because she thought you mages would help him. Instead, I ordered him killed and had to tell her there was no alternative. Did you make a liar of me? Execution – it has to be the last resort, Krayfon, not the first. Yet you would have me execute Kyra here, and perhaps that boy my poor daughter thinks she loves. Tell me why, and the real reason, mind you, none of your clever obfuscation.”

  Krayfon was silent for a long time. Then he sighed and pulled over a chair to sit beside the Drashon.

  “It is difficult. A child, perhaps, if spotted in time... but history tells us that such people find it difficult to adapt to the necessary discipline. They are too unpredictable. And they are not needed. You already have mages when magic is called for, Rannassor.”

  “These are good points,” the Drashon said before Cal or I could comment. “But Kyra, at least, has already adapted to the discipline of the scribery, and as for Axandrei...” He raised one shoulder. “I daresay Yannassia can keep him in line. He will not ruffle feathers, I think. The second point – Tell me, Kyra, what can you do for me that my mages cannot.”

  “This,” I said, igniting a glowball in one hand. Krayfon’s eyes widened, but the Drashon laughed.

  “A nice little trick,” he said. “I have seen fire-eaters at the river festivals, they can do such things with ease.”

  I was tempted to scorch the hair off his head for his condescension, but I breathed deeply and cooled my anger, letting flames ripples across my fingertips, gradually increasing the size of them. “Can you do this, Lord Mage?”

  “No.” He was honest, anyway. “And the vine that you made grow – I know of no spell to do that, not so quickly.”

  “What about this?” I said, changing the Drashon’s wine goblet to glass in his hand. He was so startled that he dropped it. I instantly changed it back to metal, and then changed the wine to water, to minimise the effects of the fall.

  I heard Cal laughing behind me. “You can’t catch it before it hits the ground, then?”

  “Oh – I don’t know. I’ve never tried.”

  “This is all very well,” the Drashon said, “but I cannot see a use for such trickery.” He looked cross, unlike his usual placid self, and I saw him in a new light, just an elderly man dragged from his bed in the middle of the night. He was getting tired and petulant.

  “Would you like someone who can reliably detect a lie?” I said.

  “My mages can do that perfectly well.”

  “Can they? The mages at Ardamurkan couldn’t.”

  I could see by Krayfon’s face that I had scored a point, but he wasn’t going to concede my superiority easily. “Prove it,” he said.

  “Tell me something and I’ll say whether it’s true or false.”

  “Very well. I am thirty-seven.”

  “False.”

  “Forty-three.”

  “False.”

  “Forty-seven.”

  “Oh – that’s true, although you don’t look that old.”

  “Hmm. You could already know that. Or your mage friend could. Here is something you will not know. My brother has a horse called Sparkle.”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “True, if strange.”

  Krayfon’s lips quirked. “He was always a little odd. But that could be a lucky guess. Try this. My cousin has a drusse with only one hand and one eye.”

  “That is almost true. The drusse part is a lie, but the rest is true.”

  Krayfon’s intake of breath was audible. “Gods, Rannassor, she is very good. It is my cousin’s husband, her drusse has all his limbs and eyes.”

  “You cannot do this, Krayfon?”

  “I know of no mage who could say such a thing with any certainty. Truth-detection is a matter of intuition, and many mages – perhaps most – have no ability at all. For those who do, it is no more than a feeling. But you know for sure, Kyra.”

  “Yes. Lies create those blue lights I told you about.”

  “And your friend can see them too?”

  For a moment I thought he meant Cal, and a wash of alarm ran through me – he knew about Cal’s extra power! But then I realised my mistake. “Drei, you mean? Yes, he can see them.”

  Abruptly, the Drashon rose. “Very well. This I can certainly use. All the charges currently held against you will be suspended for now, Kyra. Your earlier conviction and penalty will be reviewed. Krayfon, you will examine Kyra and Axandrei to determine what they may be capable of, and devise a training program for them. You will report to me every ten-sun. Now, if you permit, my dear, I should like to return to my bed.”

  28: Fire Mage

  After almost a ten-sun in hiding, living in fear, I was free again. We emerged from the Imperial City the noon after our midnight meeting, using the vegetable market door, and walked hand in hand through the streets, in constant fear of a hand on the shoulder or an alarm going up, but the Drashon had issued his orders and the gate guards bowed as we passed into the Keep. Cal went off to his room at the mages’ house, and I returned to the plush new apartment I shared with Drei in the Drashon’s tower.

  I was nervous about it, though
. I didn’t want to be anywhere near him, but I had nowhere else to go and there was the baby’s future to consider. Until she was born, my life was bound up with Drei’s, whether I liked it or not. But would he want me back now that I’d revealed his secret? While the servants, silently masking their surprise at my abrupt arrival, found me clean clothes and prepared a washing tub, I paced about one of the sitting rooms anxiously.

  I didn’t have long to wait. He tore into the apartment in a whirlwind of crashing doors and angry words, followed by the low murmur of servants’ voices. Then boots thumped on the bare floor as he stormed into the room.

  “What the fuck have you done? You stupid little cow, you just couldn’t keep your mouth shut, could you? Now you’ve pulled me into this mess of yours, too.”