Night of the Eye

by Mary Kirchoff

  Suddenly the milling spectators reached him, and he was yanked from Esme’s side, tossed high on the shoulders of the crowd, and passed around. The faces beneath him were a smiling, indistinguishable blur. Their joy began to work at the edges of his distraction, until it overwhelmed his feelings of apprehension. His heart lighter, Guerrand actually started to enjoy being the center of attention.

  Then, like a beacon in the crowd, one face demanded his notice. Arms folded before him, hands tucked into the bells of his red cuffs, his master, Justarius, was regarding him with an uncharacteristic expression of deep concern.

  Guerrand’s apprehension returned in a flash.

  “No, Justarius.” Guerrand gulped hoarsely, twirling the delicate stem of his half-filled wineglass between cold fingers. “I can’t—I won’t—believe Lyim was actually trying to kill me.” His hand shook as he lifted the glass to his lips and swallowed the acrid, blood-red liquid.

  If the subject was not enough to jangle Guerrand’s nerves, the audience in Justarius’s private laboratory was. Guerrand had been in Justarius’s lab only twice before. The first time had been part of an orientation tour when he arrived at the villa.

  The second trip had been less auspicious. Denbigh had escorted him here after the master discovered that Guerrand, in his impatience to progress, was trying to cast a spell beyond his ability. Justarius never told Guerrand how he’d learned of his attempts, or even allowed Guerrand to explain his actions. The archmage simply, curtly ordered his apprentice to stop at once and scrub the kitchen as punishment. Ever after, Guerrand remembered his master’s pronouncement that very little occurred in Villa Rosad of which Justarius was unaware.

  Both times Guerrand had been awed by the number of scrolls, books, and other paraphernalia Justarius managed to keep in this relatively small room. Everything was meticulously organized and catalogued in the wizard’s head.

  The room was more enclosed than others in the villa. It lacked the big windows and skylights so common elsewhere. There was only one small window, and the space would have been very dark if not for the floating glass globes that emitted a soft light. They hovered effortlessly in the air and could be positioned anywhere, creating perfect lighting conditions for whatever task was at hand. The room could easily be made totally lightless as well, a useful condition for some types of spell research.

  The master of the villa refilled Guerrand’s wineglass, then strode to the small chest-high window that overlooked the peristyle. “You misunderstood me, Guerrand. I said nothing about someone trying to kill you.” Justarius’s elbow was propped on the high windowsill, but his tone belied the casual pose.

  “You asked me if I knew my enemies from my friends,” accused Guerrand, “then what I knew about Lyim. I just assumed you meant …”

  “Do you have reason to assume Lyim wants you dead?”

  “Lyim? No!”

  “Someone else, perhaps?”

  “No!”

  Justarius arched one brow. “Your tone suggests otherwise.”

  “I’m sorry, Justarius. My tone suggests that this discussion is making me uneasy.”

  “I could use a spell to determine the truth, and you wouldn’t even be aware of it.” Justarius sounded more apologetic than threatening. “I don’t think you want me to do that.”

  Guerrand shook his head mutely, torn with indecision. He jumped up and fidgeted with some of Justarius’s component beakers on a nearby table. “If you don’t think someone is after me,” he asked abruptly, “why did you ask about my enemies?”

  “Again, you misunderstand me.”

  “Then why don’t you stop this cat-and-mouse game,” demanded Guerrand, “and tell me what you suspect. Just what do you want from me?” He stopped, and his hand flew to his mouth in horror. “I’m sorry, master. I should not—”

  “Never mind, Guerrand.” Justarius moved to sit on the corner of his ornately carved mahogany desk. “Passion—anger, even—is part of a balanced character. Just guard against its becoming impertinence.”

  He motioned for Guerrand to sit again. “I did not intend to play cat to your mouse,” he explained. “I simply wished to learn what you knew without biasing it with my own observations. I will share those with you first, if it makes it easier for you to speak.”

  Justarius hesitated, then spoke softly over steepled fingers. “There was magic at play in your jest with Lyim—”

  “Magic?” exclaimed Guerrand. “But we were forbidden to use it! Lyim knew that as well as I.” He found himself getting angry at his friend all over again. “When next I see him, I’ll—”

  “I don’t believe Lyim was at fault,” interrupted Justarius. He frowned as he hopped off the desk, then came back to the table. “You have a most unfortunate habit of jumping to conclusions, Guerrand. You would do well to curb the tendency, for that is the sort of thing that might one day lead you into a dire dilemma.”

  Guerrand, though still confused, had the grace to hang his head at the observation. “I will endeavor to correct it, Justarius. Please continue. I promise not to speak until you’re finished.”

  Justarius swirled the herbs and slices of lemon in the acrid drink he favored. “As I said, I’m nearly certain Lyim was not the spellcaster. In fact, the spell was cast on him.”

  Justarius looked up as a sound blurted from Guerrand, who had obviously begun a question, then remembered his vow of silence.

  “My guess is that the spell affected his emotions,” Justarius supplied, accurately guessing the nature of Guerrand’s unspoken question. “Didn’t you notice the change in Lyim’s attitude during the jest, his sudden burst of strength?”

  Guerrand blinked. “Of course, but I attributed it to anger over not winning as easily as he’d expected. Lyim does not like to appear the fool.”

  “Who but a court jester does?” Justarius shook his dark head briefly. “No, it was a spell. The questions that remain are why it was cast, and who cast it? In a city of mages, it could have been anyone. I was there, as was Esme, and every other apprentice in the city. Perhaps it was simply a mage who’d bet on the outcome and wished to guarantee victory for his favorite.”

  “If you truly believed that, we wouldn’t be here,” said Guerrand.

  “Who do you think cast the spell?” asked Justarius.

  Guerrand felt that cold chill up his spine as he remembered his conversation with Lyim’s master and Esme. “The obvious answer is Belize. He clearly doesn’t like me. Esme thinks the mage was mad because Lyim lost after he’d made such a fuss about fighting for his master.”

  “Highly unlikely.” Justarius chuckled out loud. “Belize cares less for what others think of him than anyone I know. Frankly, I was surprised to see him at the fair at all.” He shook his head firmly again. “I find it difficult to believe that Belize would risk a spell on his own apprentice, or try to kill one of his order, for such a petty emotion as pride. Still, we will not eliminate anyone from our list of suspects.”

  “Who else is on the list?”

  “Who, indeed?” asked Justarius archly.

  Guerrand drew a big breath and let it out in a rush. “Perhaps it’s my family.”

  The answer surprised even Justarius. “Your family? You told me your brother disapproved of magic.”

  “Despises it,” corrected Guerrand. “I believe I told you Cormac would be furious if he found out I had joined the order.” Guerrand set down his wineglass. “What I didn’t say was that he might be angry enough to kill me because I ran out on an arranged political marriage.”

  “I see.”

  The two men fell silent. “I have difficulty envisioning Cormac hiring a mage to track me down, but it’s possible,” Guerrand said at length, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I’ve wondered, too, if it wasn’t the father of the woman I was to marry. The Berwicks run the biggest shipping line on the Sirrion Sea. I paid passage on one of their ships to Wayreth, and then to Palanthas, before Lyim and I got tossed off.”

  “You’re s
aying this sort of thing has happened before?”

  Guerrand nodded. He told Justarius what he’d revealed to Zagarus earlier in the day about the ambush in the hills and the incident in the alley. “I didn’t mention it to you,” he added quickly, “because nothing ever seemed to happen at the villa, and—”

  “You were afraid I would throw you out,” supplied Justarius.

  Guerrand looked sheepish. “The thought had occurred to me.” He paused before whispering, “Will you, Justarius? Ask me to leave, that is?”

  The archmage gave Guerrand a sidelong glance. “Young man, you underestimate me if you think me so easily threatened or distressed.”

  He stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Do you honestly think your brother or this Berwick fellow would go so far as to harm you over this collapsed betrothal?”

  “I don’t know Anton Berwick,” said Guerrand, “so I can’t guess at his response.”

  Pondering Cormac’s attitudes, he grimaced. “My brother is given to deep, emotional extremes, especially when he’s been drinking. And his wife is definitely the vengeful sort. I could believe that she would suggest this sort of retribution, and he would comply. Cormac probably would regret it when he sobered up, but by then it might be too late.”

  Justarius gave a shrug. “We can fashion all manner of guesses, or we can conjure the truth in a heartbeat,” said Justarius, taking a last sip of his lemon water. “Would you like to see what’s happening back at your … Thonvil, is it?”

  “Yes!” exclaimed Guerrand, jumping to his feet. He knocked over his chair in his haste.

  Frowning slightly, the distinguished mage waved his apprentice forward, around the chair. “Then come with me now. Do exactly as I say, and make no untoward step or gesture. Few have seen the elaborate magical ritual that I am about to reveal to you.”

  Scarcely breathing, Guerrand followed Justarius in silent wonder to the narrow velvet curtain Guerrand had assumed covered an alcove or bookshelf. The master’s hands swept back the heavy fabric, revealing a simple, seamless birchwood door. There was no handle, knob, or knocker. Instead, at eye-height hung a recessed carving of a hideous face, very like a gargoyle’s, about the size of an ogre’s fist. Suddenly the eyes of the carving snapped to life.

  Passage to the crystal device

  Demands that entrants pay the price.

  Bring the guard its sacrifice:

  Fish of gold, once, twice, thrice!

  While Guerrand watched, Justarius reached into his robe and withdrew three live, wiggling goldfish. The archmage popped the little orange creatures into the door guard’s open, waiting mouth. Chewing noisily, with much slurping and splashing, it gulped one last time, burped loudly, then gave a delicious, sated, though still hideous, grin. The face disappeared entirely from view as the birchwood door slid into a pocket in the left wall, granting the mages passage to whatever lay behind it.

  Guerrand took two steps into darkness behind Justarius before the archmage stopped them both. Slowly Guerrand’s eyes adjusted, and he determined that the room was circular and exceedingly small, no wider than three men abreast. Justarius was so close to him that he obscured most of the view.

  A dim light filtered down from high above. Looking up, the apprentice mage caught his breath at the sight of the most intricately pieced pane of stained glass he had ever seen. The narrow chamber felt like a life-size kaleidoscope. At first Guerrand thought it a colorful model of the lacy petals of the wild carrot flower, but the pattern was not that random. In fact, it was somehow familiar.

  “The constellations,” supplied Justarius, following his gaze to the colored glass some two stories above them. “See Gilean, there in the middle?” Justarius tried to raise his arm to point, a difficult move in the cramped silo. “He’s the book-shaped constellation. Gilean is the patriarch of maintaining a balance in the universe. That’s why he’s between Paladine and the Black Queen. Gilean holds the Book of Tobril, which contains all the knowledge possessed by the gods.

  “Of course, you can see Solinari, of Good magic. By now your magical skills should be developed enough to easily reveal the red moon, Lunitari, to you, as well. We can only hope that you’ll never have the sight for the black moon, evil Nuitari.”

  “But if I’m to be truly neutral, shouldn’t I be able to see both sides, Evil and Good?”

  “Seeing both sides of an issue and viewing the gods are two different things,” explained Justarius. “Only mages who wear the black robes can see Nuitari in the night sky.” Justarius hitched up his robes, sat down, and slid around a half-circle bench that followed the curve of the far wall. Jerking his head, Justarius indicated Guerrand should follow him. The apprentice quickly complied.

  Guerrand could now see a murky glass ball of enormous proportion cradled between the points of an odd pedestal of antlers. He estimated the diameter of the globe to be nearly the length of his arm.

  “Before the Cataclysm,” said Justarius, “crystal balls were to mages what picklocks are to thieves. But, like most things of great value, the Cataclysm reduced nearly all of them to rubble. In the years shortly after my own apprenticeship, I rescued this one from the flower garden of a nymph. She obviously had no idea of its value, calling it her ‘gazing ball.’ She was just as happy to gaze at the steel piece I gave her in exchange.”

  “What do you have to do to make it work?” breathed Guerrand, staring wide-eyed into the pastel mists that roiled within the large glass ball.

  “I don’t have to do anything this time. You do.”

  Guerrand’s blue eyes snapped away from the mesmerizing mist. “I know nothing of crystal balls!”

  “But you know everything about your brother Cormac and the castle in which you were raised. That’s all the ball requires of you.”

  Noting Guerrand’s skeptical look, Justarius continued. “To use the ball, simply peer into it with open eyes and concentrate on that which you want to see. It can be a person, place, or thing, but places are usually easier for beginners. With some practice, you’ll be able to look for whatever you want.”

  Justarius held up two fingers. “Keep in mind several things, Guerrand. The more familiar the sought thing is, the easier it is to locate. It’s even more important to remember that the globe feeds on your energy. If you are skeptical or fearful or distracted, it won’t respond to you as well as it otherwise might.”

  Eager to succeed in Justarius’s eyes and learn what he could of his own family, Guerrand closed his eyes briefly to chase away all distractions. Opening them again, he rubbed the orb and stared into its depths. He envisioned Cormac’s study as he’d last seen it, floor-to-ceiling shelves of books, the path of worn carpeting from the door to Cormac’s cluttered desk, the bright windows that overlooked the sea.

  Gradually, within the mists, Guerrand caught glimpses of the image he sought, hazy at first, but slowly clearing. Anxious, he squeezed his eyes shut to concentrate as he did when spellcasting. Instantly he knew his mistake.

  “You lose the image when you close your eyes,” said Justarius, confirming Guerrand’s suspicion. “You’ll have to start all over.”

  Heaving a disheartened sigh, Guerrand chased away his frustration and tried again with open eyes. To his delight, the image of Cormac’s study blinked into sight almost instantly. He was getting the hang of it! Unfortunately, the study was empty.

  “I don’t understand,” muttered Guerrand. “Cormac is almost always holed up in his study.”

  “Try focusing on Cormac himself,” suggested Justarius. “I think you can do it.”

  Guerrand nodded once and then tried to summon a mental picture of his brother. He was surprised to realize that, despite having lived his entire life with him, he could recall few details of Cormac’s face. When he remembered their encounters in recent years, Guerrand saw his own feet, or the bottom of a port glass. It had probably been years since Guerrand had been able to meet his brother’s gaze. Was Cormac’s nose long or short? Eyes close- or wide-set? Guerrand had n
o answers. In the end, he focused his thoughts on memories of Cormac’s size and stance, of his disapproving stare, of the clothing he was prone to wear.

  The memory was apparently enough. With a sizzling electrical snap, Cormac’s visage parted the mists, and he leaped into view inside the crystal ball. He was seated at the head of the table in Castle DiThon’s seldom-used council room. A thick layer of dust coated the tabletop, except where lines had recently been traced.

  Gradually Guerrand could see whose fingers and elbows had sliced through the dust. Gathered around the long table were Cormac’s council of cavaliers, all the important warriors who served the lord, including Guerrand’s old weapon master, Milford. While Guerrand watched, his brother leaned forward in his chair and thumped the table. A cloud of dust puffed into the air around his fist.

  “Didn’t I say I could take the land like that—” he snapped his fingers “—from those pompous merchants?” He pushed back his chair and stood. “I didn’t need either of my brothers—the one who was foolish enough to get himself killed, or the coward who ran away. I didn’t need to further taint my family’s bloodlines, either. My only regret is that I didn’t think of it sooner.” Cormac sat again and leaned back, laced his fingers behind his head, and slapped his boots up on the table in a gesture of supreme confidence and satisfaction.

  “In fact, the day Guerrand ran away like a thief in the night was very likely the best in the DiThon family history!” Watching, Guerrand winced. “I hereby decree that day a half year ago as a local holiday!”

  Milford coughed uncomfortably, his scar pulling at his cheek. “I would advise you, sir, not to get too complacent about the seizure of Berwick land.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” barked Cormac, leaning forward again with the disapproving eyes that Guerrand remembered too well. Cormac looked drunk, his nose red, his movements slow. “We snatched that land from right under their noses. They’re merchants, not warriors. We needn’t fear anyone we can best so easily.”

  “Too easily, if you ask me,” said Milford under his breath.