The wild girl, indeed. She shook her head. Her life was a series of loose ends, things half-finished because the otherwhen took her from them in mid-stride. The wild girl, in this place, was one such thing. It was clear that they were to walk the same road today—an echo of the past. She shuddered, and took a breath to steady herself. Think about yesterday tomorrow. Think about Meralonne today.
When the door to one side opened, she was ready for him. Or so she thought.
“Who are you?” It was his voice, and not his voice. She had heard him in many moods and in many tempers before, but this was new. She turned in surprise to find him quite alone; the girl was not at his side. She would have spoken, but silence came in the wake of surprise as she looked upon the man who had been her teacher.
Standing just inside the door’s frame, he was taller than he had ever been. He wore his bed robes loosely about his body, but she could see the very threads crackling with energy, with magery. Some of it was the orange threads of protection and cancellation, some of it was the white of discernment, and some of it was a deep, steady violet, so calm she might once have missed it. His hair was white and very wild, as hers was dark and wild, and his eyes were the color of a sword blade, but less friendly.
“Who are you?” He did not lift a hand or utter a word, but she could see the colors ebb and flow around him as a spell took shape.
“I am Evayne,” she whispered, against her will. There was a command in his words that was almost bardic.
“So you’ve said,” he replied. “And you are telling the truth, as you believe it.” A little of the ice seemed to leave his eyes, but they were still hard, still keen. “But you are not the Evayne that I know, or that this room knows.”
“No,” she said, “I’m not.” She rose, pulling her robes more tightly to her body.
“Those are the same robes. That much, I can see.” He took another step into the room, and the door swung shut at his back. It surprised Evayne. He was not usually a man given to display, and the use of magic for the triviality of shutting a door was quite unlike the Meralonne that she knew. “Very well, Evayne,” and his voice was quiet. “Why have you come?”
“I have come,” she replied, as carefully neutral as she could be, “to take the girl that I left in your keeping.”
“I see. And where exactly would you take her?”
“I’m afraid that is not a concern of the Order, and it is best left so.”
“That,” he said, his voice so soft she almost missed the word, “is not for you to decide. You intrude here. You are the stranger.”
She started to speak when she saw his power flare again. It was quick; there was no hint of word-focus, no gesture, to presage the spell itself. Gray mage-light touched her cheeks, her chin, her eyes, as her hood was yanked back. She smiled grimly as the midnight-blue material struggled free of Meralonne’s spell and settled around her face once again.
But he had seen enough.
“You are Evayne,” he whispered. “What’s happened to you?” He took a step toward her, and she a step back, although she could not have said why.
“We do not have time,” she said. “Bring me the girl that I left in your care, and I will leave.”
“We don’t have—” His eyes narrowed. He walked the length of the room to his desk and pulled his chair free from the debris that inhabited it. Then he sank back, his fingers a steeple before his eyes. “Your age is not the effect of spell.”
She said nothing.
He gestured; that single fact told her he used a greater magic. She needed to conserve her power. She let the rings of coruscating light spring up from the floor to the ceiling around her still body without raising a finger in her own defense. The circles flashed by so quickly it was impossible to discern their color, but she could guess what the spell conveyed to its caster. She knew that he wouldn’t harm her.
When at last he finished, his eyes were slits, he was stiff, and his face, long and thin, had never looked so unusual. “You have great power,” he said at last. “And more. You have walked hidden ways, Evayne.”
“I walked,” she pointed out, “the hidden path to bring the girl to you.”
“You walked it,” he countered, “but it did not change you. You invoked it on High Summer. No, you’ve walked in the Winter, along the dark road. I can see the scars.”
She offered him no answer; he spoke the truth.
“What you’ve learned, I didn’t teach you.”
“Experience is a good teacher, Meralonne—but in magery, indeed, you were my only master.”
“‘Were?’”
“Are.”
He smiled, but the expression was neither friendly nor pleasant. Not for the first time, Evayne wondered who he was, and who he had been before he joined the Order. She did not ask.
“You have learned to cross time. It is not an art I would have thought possible.”
“It is not an art,” she agreed. “It’s an accident or a curse. Meralonne, you must know that if I could share this with you, I would. But in no wise am I able; indeed, I am compelled to do otherwise. I ask your forgiveness and your indulgence in this, but even if you do not grant it. . . .” She let the words trail off into uncomfortable silence.
“Yes?” He would not let the silence lie.
“What do you think I was going to say? Why do you seek to force my words?”
“Why are you afraid to give them?”
She lowered her chin. Why, indeed? We will argue, and we will part. Nothing I say or do can prevent it. It has happened. “There is nothing you can do to take the information from me. If I have to, I will die to protect it.”
“I . . . see.”
“There are forces at work that even I do not understand. Meralonne—”
“You deny me this—this spell. And yet, you had not learned it, Evayne. Not . . . not yesterday.” His eyes changed color and shape. “I would give much to be able to travel time; to correct old wrongs and old crimes.” There was a hunger to the words. Evayne wondered if it had always been there, lurking behind the mercurial, peculiar man who had been her master, and would never be again.
I never came to you as an adult, she thought, until now. I do not even know who you are. “I would as well, Master APhaniel of the Magi. I would give more than you could possibly imagine. But I do not choose where I walk, and I can change nothing of what has been.”
“I see.” He spun round on the chair, showing her his slender back. “And what if I do not choose to release this girl to you?”
“Then you doom us, for she is part of what we need to face the demon-kin. The darkness is coming, Meralonne, and whether we are at hand to fight it or merely to be trampled underfoot is our choice.”
“You ask me to make a choice without facts, without knowledge.”
“I ask you to make the same choice that I have had to. Do you think I know what will happen, or why, or how?”
“You know more than I.”
“Yes. But I have paid for that knowledge.”
“There is always a price to be paid for knowledge!” He wheeled, sudden in his rage; his face was transformed. Then he lifted his hands to his face and fell silent, kneading his forehead with his pointed fingers.
“Yes,” she said bitterly, although this blaze of anger was something that she had never seen from him. “There is always a price. But you would pay it, even knowing what that price was. I—” Bitter smile. She cast her gaze groundward, offering him silence.
“I am,” he said at last, “nothing if not a judge of character. Whether I was willing to pay your price or no, you would not give me the answers I seek.”
“No.”
“What, then, do you know of the demon-kin?”
“Too much, Meralonne, and I have not the time to tell you all. Suffice it to say that they hunt the girl that you keep, as we
surmised years—no, yesterday.”
He did not blink as he met her eyes. “Evayne.”
She looked away. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I see glimpses, Meralonne, but never the whole picture. I see the facets, but not the gem; the trees, but not the forest.” It was as much a plea as she was willing to make. She turned. “The girl?”
“She comes.” He sank back into his seat, the fire gone from his gaze. “I know you well, Evayne a’Nolan. If you say it’s important, it’s important—that much I trust. But can you tell me where you go?”
“I’m not sure.” As a pupil, she had always been a child; even in their final argument, their break, she had been a willful, headstrong girl to him. Not now.
He raised a brow, and then shook his head. From out of his bed robes he pulled his pipe. He lit it, and only when he did did Evayne realize that the room was covered in shadows. Smoke wreathed his face like a halo gone awry. “You . . . don’t know.” He smiled, but it was the veneer of an expression.
“Meralonne, I—” She drew her shoulders up and lifted her chin. “I am not a child any longer. We are equals, or we are nothing. My word that I will explain all will have to suffice.”
“When will you tender this explanation?”
“When it does not threaten our future.”
He chuckled and brought the pipe to his lips again. “I will accept your word.”
But he wouldn’t. She knew it, and knew that his inability would shame him. “Thank you, Master APhaniel. I’ve—I’ve always done my best to be true to your teachings.”
His eyes shone with a genuine pride, and for a moment his expression was soft, almost gentle. “You are an odd student, but easily the best I have had.”
The door to the study swung open. In the shadow of the door frame, lit by golden spell-light and not by day, stood the girl. She cocked her head to one side and gave Evayne a puzzled look.
“Come,” Evayne said. “We have far to go today, if I have guessed correctly.” She walked toward the girl, and then stopped to look back.
It hurt, suddenly, to leave his study as a stranger. She had never done it before. Never look back, she told herself bitterly, as she turned away for the last time. Especially when there’s nothing you can do but mourn.
• • •
Meralonne APhaniel watched her leave, his lips tightening around the stem of his long, ancient pipe. When she was gone, he nodded and the door swung shut. On her. On their discussion.
But other doors had opened. A past that he rarely thought about, and never spoke of, had been recalled by the strangely aged Evayne’s visit. Smoke wreathed the air again, eddying in the currents of his breath, his silent words. He brushed long, ivory strands out of his eyes as he stared into a past that he had thought lost forever.
He did not move. Were it not for the smoke that continued to curl in an upward spiral, he could have been mistaken for one of the statues in the gallery.
Sunlight, filtered by exterior glass and interior shutters, worked its way into the room. He had work to do; things to see to. Perhaps it was time to investigate the findings in Breodanir.
• • •
A rock skittered across cobbled stone as a sulky young man let fly with a kick. His hands were jammed into his pockets, and his hat was pulled down over his forehead; stray, unkempt curls jutted out to either side. Were it not for his expression, he would have looked quite pleasant. He was slim, with a fine-boned face and large eyes. His limbs were slender and his skin pale. It was obvious that his day was not taken up with hard physical labor, or perhaps any labor at all. An elderly woman, walking by with two attendants, gave him a distinct frown. He met it with a scowl, but moved out of her way.
Kepton Crescent was lively enough for an off-market street, and it would become more lively still as Korven’s Drinking Establishment opened for the day. The public baths kept the morning traffic brisk, especially when the day was bright, warm, and reasonably clear. Today was just such a day, and the outdoor springs—although they were no more than trumped-up fountains—meant that the baths would be in great demand.
The young man found it hard to loiter without being nudged off the road by any number of parties who were making their treks toward the baths. Finally his patience ran out and in a fit of pique and surly annoyance, he stood his ground, glaring at a young woman and her attendant, a rather stiff, plainly attired matron.
The older woman in the mottled dress looked down the bridge of her nose out of stern, violet eyes. “Excuse me, young man, but you impede our passage.” Before he could reply, she turned to the young girl who walked behind her and took her hand, both protectively and forcefully.
The young man lifted the corner of his hat, and then mumbled something under his breath. “Ma’am.”
“Kallandras.” Evayne a’Nolan, dressed in the matronly, severe style of decades past, inclined her head slightly. Her voice very soft, she said, “Are you almost ready?”
He shrugged, and then fell into step beside her as she continued to walk down the street. His tone and his words belied each other; the casual listener would have no reason to suspect anything other than wheedling ill humor. “Where do we go?”
“I’m not sure. Not precisely.”
He nodded as if he expected no more and then glanced casually at the young girl who was fidgeting with her skirts. “Who is she?”
Evayne was certain that although he had only just met the wild girl, Kallandras was more likely than she to be able to answer questions about her height, her weight, her age. He would know, if he never looked at her again, what she wore, what its colors were, where the style of the dress originated. “She is a rather unusual young lady.”
“Which means you won’t say.” He shrugged. “You’re old, this time. Does this mean trouble?”
“I’m not that old,” she replied. “And, yes, it does.” Evayne at forty still did not understand the otherwhen, but she could begin to see a pattern to the course the path chose for her. She was a mage now of no little power; her knowledge was up to the test of the best of the Order; her ability to protect both herself and any she chose to champion had never been greater.
It was not a coincidence that, as she aged, the dangers she found herself facing grew more potent and more deadly. At least, it did not appear to Evayne to be so.
She glanced out of the corner of her eyes and saw that Kallandras was watching her intently. He was young, this time, but his youth was not the liability that it would have been for any other.
“Which is why you summoned me.”
“Yes,” Evayne said softly. She looked up at Kallandras. His eyes were, in youth, the same piercing blue that they would always be; meeting them, she could almost forget to notice the rest of his face. His attention always seemed entirely focused, entirely absorbed. “You won’t be missed?”
“Evayne—Lady.” He frowned a moment, and then smoothed the expression from his face. “When you forced me to make the choice, I was already one of the best of my number. It’s important to your mission that I not be missed; I will not be missed.” He fell silent as they walked to the end of the street. “I’ve arranged,” he said, waving his arm, “for transport—but it would’ve helped to know where we are going.”
Evayne let herself relax a little bit as a single-horse cab pulled to the side of the road. As always, Kallandras had looked to the details of their meeting. He offered her companion an arm, and the girl looked at it dubiously before scampering up into the body of the carriage. He shrugged, offered Evayne his arm, and then joined them. “I’ve told the driver we wish to go to the northwestern quarter. Will that be out of our way?”
“No. You’ve done well.” Evayne sat back in the padded chair and let the city begin to move by.
“Good.” He gazed out of the windows as well, his face losing all signs of surliness or aimlessness. Then, after a moment,
he turned to her and met her gaze. She knew what he would ask next, but it always unnerved her to hear it, especially on occasions when he was young. But in youth, she reminded herself, we have less compassion and more of a will to absolutes, to brutality. When you are older, Kallan, even you will mellow. But not much, if she was being honest; not much at all. The Kovaschaii took their members very young and trained them well.
“Who do you wish me to kill?” His expression was completely neutral; there was no judgment in it, and no curiosity whatsoever. He became, for the moment, just another weapon; one to be held with care and used with confidence.
She did not wish him to be such a thing. “Kallan,” she began. “How has Senniel fared?”
“The college fares well, with me and without.”
“And Sioban?”
“As far as I know, she’s fine. She’s still the headmaster of the college, if that’s what you mean. I haven’t seen her in a month, but I’ve been avoiding it. She means to give me my papers and my route and have me travel the empire between Attariel, Senniel, and Morniel.”
They were three of the five bardic colleges in Essalieyan; Senniel was oldest and foremost. Evayne nodded as if the conversation were a normal one. “And training of the voice?”
“She says that she hasn’t seen a talent as strong as mine in all of her years at the college. She also says that she can’t train it further; it will grow with experience or not at all.” The reply was smooth and without inflection. Kallandras took no pride or joy in being bard-born. It was a fact, like the weather, only slightly more relevant. His very detachment made it hard to envy him. It also made it hard to like him much.
“Kallan, do you enjoy the music?”
He shrugged. “It’s music, like any other skill.” But she thought his expression just a touch softer. “You haven’t answered my question.”
She grimaced. “I don’t want you to kill.”
“You want me to kill, or you would not have summoned me.” He turned his gaze back to the city streets.
The Sacred Hunt Duology Page 12
