Circle Opens #03: Cold Fire

by Tamora Pierce

  “I pity this firesetter,” Ben said, smiling at Daja. “If Heluda Salt takes an interest, he should hang himself now, or he’ll surely burn later.”

  “Is she good?” Daja asked.

  “She’s one of the best in the whole empire,” Ben told her. “Certificate and advanced certificate from the university at Lightsbridge, crown honors by the basketload — I’m impressed.” Reluctantly he put the second glove on the table. “When will these be ready?”

  “I should be done by Firesday.” Daja looked Ben over, making rough estimates of his height, shoulder breadth, waist, legs, and arms. “Should I bring them to your warehouse Sunsday afternoon?”

  “Actually, Watersday is better. Come to the house in the afternoon, around one,” Ben suggested.

  Daja murmured, “Watersday is fine.” She grabbed a slate and began to write down numbers. Only the major weight-bearing struts of the iron form need be heavy. Perhaps she needn’t use thin iron rods to support the metal at all, but wire cables or even chain mesh …

  “I’d best go,” she heard Ben say.

  She nodded absently. “The maid will let you out.” She glanced at his head. If she hung the weight from his shoulders, she might create a helm that was also a long sack, a cloaklike bag filled with air. That would solve the breathing problem, if only for short periods. What about living metal coated over a fine mesh? There was still the vision problem to settle, but the suit appeared to be emerging from a tangle of half thoughts and problems.

  “You won’t let me down, will you, Daja?” he asked.

  She smiled quickly at him, still lost in her plans. He would understand her liking for him was true when she created his suit. He just didn’t know that mages above all understood what it was like to be obsessed. She was as fixed on her magic — most of the people she cared about were as fixed on their magic — as he was on fire. “I try not to let my friends down,” she told him.

  When she thought to look up from her notes again, he was gone. She didn’t remember that he hadn’t said if he’d talked to the magistrate’s mages.

  13

  Over the next two days Daja continued her staff classes with Jory, who began to grasp the idea of waiting emptiness that would open the door to her power. When breakfast was over Daja continued work on her gift jewelry and on her plans for the living metal suit. As the days ended she would go for a nice, long skate to air out her mind.

  The first day she timed her return to meet Nia under Everall Bridge as the younger girl came home from Master Camoc’s. The next day she reached Bancanor House as Morrachane dropped Nia off. It seemed that she had “just happened” to be driving past Camoc’s as Nia left for the day.

  “I feel so sorry for her,” Nia confided as she and Daja climbed the stairs to the schoolroom. They stood aside as the two youngest Bancanors, free to play outside after their lessons, raced by yelling at the tops of their lungs. Their harassed nursemaid followed, murmuring apologies as she tried to catch her charges.

  When the older girls could hear again, Nia continued, “She misses her grandchildren. She never sees the families of her other two sons, and …”

  “She blames Ben,” Daja said drily, nodding to the young Bancanors’ tutor as he left the schoolroom.

  “I wish she wouldn’t,” Nia admitted, and sighed. “She’s so dreadful to him and her servants at the same time she’s good to Jory and me.”

  “That’s what Jory says,” Daja told her as she closed the schoolroom door. “Now, let’s begin.”

  They settled to their meditation. Nia reached the next step, pulling all of her magic into a small object — she had chosen a pine knot — as Daja had once fitted her power into the striking head of one of her favorite hammers. Supper followed, then an evening in the book room with the Bancanors and Frostpine.

  On Firesday Daja left the book room early. Her grip on her power was strong at last. It was time to finish the gloves. She mixed two washes, each blended from different herbs, powders, and oils, then thinned with boiling water. One she applied inside the gloves, the other outside. After that was done, she hung them out the window overnight. In the morning, after her session with Jory, Daja brought the gloves in. A final polish inside and out with a soft cloth, and her creations were finished.

  Watersday morning dragged: she wanted to go to Ladradun House. She wanted to see Ben’s face when he tried the gloves. The Bancanors and Frostpine went to temple; Daja worshipped at her personal Trader shrine. For the first time in years other thoughts distracted her during prayers for her family and ancestors. She loved it when she created something people could use, not simply admire. This was the first time she had made something that might save lives. She wanted Ben to have it before the next fire broke out.

  Midday came and went. Daja finally set out for Ladradun House.

  Ben opened the door so quickly after she rang the bell that she had to think he’d been waiting for her to arrive just as impatiently as she had waited for the hour set for her visit. Any odd feelings she’d had after their last, strange conversation evaporated as she noted his blazing indigo eyes and eager face. “Daja, you came! Come in, come in!”

  She obeyed with a grin, smelling fresh beeswax, lemon oil, and wool, the smells of a well-kept Namornese house. Ben disposed of her coat, hat, and scarf while she carefully wiped her boots on the coarse mat. She didn’t want Morrachane to get annoyed with her son because his guests left tracks on her perfect floors.

  “Mother’s at a meeting — these merchants have to do some business every day, I think,” he told Daja as he led her to his study. A pot of tea and a plate of cakes waited on his desk. He poured the tea out like a good host, but his hands trembled; he was that eager to try the gloves. Daja took them from the satchel and offered them to him.

  He slid them onto his arms without a word, opened his small stove and thrust one gloved hand inside, scooping up coals. He dumped them, grabbed a second handful, and squeezed. The coals broke apart in his metal-clad fingers.

  “And …?” Daja asked.

  He looked up at her, the stove’s heat turning his cheeks a feverish crimson. “I may as well be holding sand, or salt. How hot a fire could they withstand?” He withdrew one arm and dug in the fiery coals with the other, stirring them with a gleaming finger, shoving them together in a pile.

  “Well, the living metal came about in a forest fire. I suppose maybe if the governor’s palace was to burn, they might get warm.”

  Ben snorted. “Governor’s palace? He builds in stone, like the rest of the nobility. He’s no fool. I’ve been trying to convince Mother to rebuild in stone. She says wood is good enough for her neighbors, it’s good enough for us.” He shut the stove. “I know I’m being rude, but … would you mind if I tried these in the kitchen hearth? It’s a bigger fire. You can stay here — I won’t be long.” He didn’t even wait for Daja’s answer, but left the study at a trot.

  Daja smiled, shook her head, and tried one of the cookies — they were very good. So was the tea. She hoped that Ben hadn’t dipped into Morrachane’s finest supplies. Though the woman did her best to be polite to someone who was Jory’s and Nia’s friend, she always made Daja feel as if she must have cheated somehow to get her medallion. Daja had the feeling Morrachane wouldn’t like knowing Ben had given her the best tea and cakes.

  Bored after a few minutes’ wait with no sign of him, she got up to look around the room. A touch of the stove told her it wasn’t as badly made as the one in his warehouse office. His books interested her for a moment, as did his pen-and-ink drawings and knickknacks. She tried to keep her attention on those things, but time stretched. They weren’t very interesting. Daja found herself standing before the shelves half hidden in the shadows behind his desk. There was the skeleton hand with its molten gold ring. Looking at it, Daja felt the hair stand on the back of her neck. What if it had come from Ben’s dead wife?

  She shook her head. Where had such a gruesome imagining come from? That was more the kind of nonsens
ical thing Sandry or Tris might think. There would be something very wrong with Ben for him to keep his dead wife’s hand. The only thing that was wrong with him was that he lived with his dreadful mother, a mistake any widower could make. That didn’t make him bad or cracked enough to keep a piece of his dead wife on a shelf.

  She had stared at the hand too long. She forced her eyes to other things: the partly melted soldier, the glass lump, pieces he said he saved from fires he had beaten. Her nostrils twitched: the odor of smoke was stronger than it had been the first time she had seen these shelves.

  Her eyes moved higher through the collection. The upper shelves were empty, except … Daja blinked. She had thought the shelf on a level with her own face was empty last time. Yet here were three objects. One looked like a half-burned corner piece from a Namornese outer door, carved with good luck signs. One was a scorched glass bowl; its contents smelled like burned sugar. The last was a blackened female figure with a loop on the back, as if it were a pendant. Silver gleamed through cracked gilt. Daja stared at it, memory stirring at the back of her mind like that gleam of silver. She had seen that figure around someone’s neck.

  Goosebumps prowled her arms and her spine. Was she falling ill? The stench of smoke was thick around this shelf. It made her stomach lurch. That alone was proof that she might be ill, because smoke never made her queasy.

  She backed away from the shelves and smashed her thigh into one of the sharp corners on Ben’s desk. Daja yelped and bent over, grabbing the hurt muscle, all other thoughts banished in that white-hot burst of pain. I hit it on exactly the wrong place, she thought, exasperated, as her head cleared.

  Ben strode back in and grabbed Daja in a hug that lifted her off her feet. “They’re incredible!” he cried, putting her down at last. He still wore the gloves. “I’ve never seen anything like them. No wonder they gave you the medallion at fourteen!”

  She wanted to correct him, to say she’d actually been thirteen, but it wasn’t important. His delight in her creation was important. “I’m glad you like them.”

  Ben grabbed her face, the metal gloves flesh-warm against her skin. Enthusiastically he kissed her first on one cheek, then the other, before he let her go. “Is a whole suit really so much trouble?” he asked.

  Any reluctance she felt about the suit evaporated. He did so much for others: she could do this for him. “I started my calculations,” she reassured him. “I have the air problem solved, at least for short periods. There’s still how you’ll see, but we have all winter to thrash that out. If you’ll come by Bancanor House on your way home a couple of nights next week, I’ll take all the measurements I need.”

  “Yes, of course I’ll come. I never thought I’d be grateful for our long winters,” Ben said with a grin. “Now tell me, how did you do all this? Please, I’d love to know.”

  They were still talking an hour later when the front door slammed. Morrachane had returned. Daja managed to leave without talking to the woman beyond the usual polite exchanges. Once outside, she heaved a sigh of relief. Ben was a good man, maybe a great one, but she didn’t like being near him and Morrachane at the same time. Something wasn’t right there. She wished she could talk to Ben about his mother. It was strange to think that even though she felt they were friends, she didn’t feel able to discuss Morrachane with him. It ran contrary to her last four years, spent with friends she could and did say anything to. It made her feel sad and lonely.

  Nia would be home by now. Daja hurried her steps. Maybe they could go skating.

  Now that Jory could block most of Daja’s strikes without watching her, they began the work of controlling her power. Jory envisioned a jar like those in which spices were stored, trying to draw her power into it as Daja circled her. Each time she tapped Jory gently with the staff, the younger girl was distracted and lost control of her magic. She was cross enough to growl and stamp on the floor when the house clock chimed.

  “Calm down,” Daja ordered, shaking her gently by one thin shoulder. “You thought you’d never know when I was about to hit you either.” Remembering her talk with Ben, she added, “We’ve got all winter.”

  Jory sighed as Daja opened their protective circle. “Olennika says you must be a wonderful teacher, because I’m learning really well,” she said.

  Warmth crept into Daja’s cheeks. She had developed a hearty respect for Jory’s teacher that one night in the great kitchen. “She did?”

  “I’m glad you two think I’m doing well.” Jory grumbled, leaning her staff against the wall. “I don’t notice anything different.”

  “That’s why you’re the student, and we’re the teachers,” Daja said in her loftiest tone.

  “And I thought full mages were so wonderful they didn’t need to tease their students,” Jory retorted with a sniff.

  “Tell that to Frostpine,” Daja suggested. “He’s been teasing me for years.”

  “It’s just that Nia does so well,” Jory said. “I see her getting better. She’s turning into a lamp that glows all the time, only I don’t think anyone notices.”

  “Only those who see magic can,” Daja pointed out. “You’re not used to her getting ahead of you?”

  “I didn’t say it was a nice way for me to feel,” grumbled Jory.

  Memory suddenly kicked Daja. In their second year at Winding Circle, the four of them had taken classes in anatomy under Water temple healers. Time after time she had watched Tris and Briar answer questions: they always knew the answers. Sandry hadn’t cared about being second best, but Daja had.

  “Don’t worry about how well Nia does,” she told Jory more kindly. “You picked a kind of meditation that’s more complicated. I don’t know if I would have made as much progress in the same time you have, if I hadn’t learned the easier way first.”

  Jory only shrugged, her mouth set in an unhappy line.

  Daja scrambled for something to brighten the younger girl’s spirits, and found it. “Would you like to try an attack-defense combination for staff fighting? I think we have time.”

  Jory’s eyes lit. “Not magic?”

  Daja grinned. “Just combat.”

  Jory grabbed the staff she’d put aside.

  After breakfast Daja returned to Teraud’s shop and lost herself in plain work with no issues of magic to distract her. It was relaxing not to have to think of anything but iron as she heated and hammered. When they stopped for midday her muscles were pleasantly warm, well exercised and tingling. Over the meal everyone wanted to know about the Jossaryk House fire. Daja told them as much as she could without going into the grim details. When the journeymen tried to press her, Teraud changed the subject. He caught Daja’s grateful look and winked.

  Once the journeymen and apprentices had left the table, Teraud leaned back in his chair and fixed Daja with his deep-set eyes. “I hear dat fire was set.”

  She looked down. She wasn’t sure if she ought to speak of that to anyone other than Heluda or Ben.

  “Two killer fires on Alakut, after months of no fires bigger dan my forge, except Ladradun’s warehouse.” Teraud shook his head. “So either the firesprites came back from holidays, or we got a firebug. I ain’t never seen no firesprites. I seen a firebug, though. Boy twelve years old, couldn’t stop, whatever they done to him. Dey finally burned him after he did a fire killed five people.”

  Daja shuddered. When she was nine, she had seen a firesetter burned alive. She’d had nightmares for weeks. She couldn’t think of a worse death.

  “I’ll pray the gods dat lawkeepers catch dis one soon,” Teraud said, getting to his feet with a sigh. “Nothin’ scarier than a firebug. Nothin’.”

  “I’ll pray, too,” Daja assured him.

  Daja skated home. She was too late to meet Nia: the skies were dark, the lamplighters busy at their work, and shadows lay over the canal ice. Daja stumbled three times on uneven spots, but managed not to fall each time. She was proud of herself as she glided into the basin at Bancanor House. Like Jory and Nia, she ha
d come a good way in a short time.

  Frostpine was in Anyussa’s kitchen, basking in front of the large hearth as he idly made links of steel wire for mail. Nia sat across from him, dutifully carving buttons.

  “Would you mind if I came?” Frostpine asked when Nia stood to follow Daja. “I won’t be in the way.”

  Daja put her hands on her hips. “I could have used your help when I started this,” she pointed out, perturbed. Did he want to take over Nia’s teaching? Had he seen things Daja had done wrong? If he wanted to take over, shouldn’t she be glad that an experienced mage wanted to step in?

  Stop that, replied her sensible self. If he thought you had done badly, he would have mentioned it the night you saw him meditate with her.

  “No, you couldn’t have used my help earlier,” Frostpine said coolly. “When you four were given medallions, it meant you had permission to fumble your way to a teaching style, just as the rest of us did. It was also understood that you knew enough about magic to do so successfully. Most who wear it never have their teachers close enough to oversee when they find their first students, you know.”

  “That seems careless,” Daja informed him.

  “Magic so often is,” Frostpine reminded her.

  Daja sighed. He had to be telling the truth about teaching — he never lied to her. “The schoolroom’s cold,” she pointed out.

  “No, it isn’t,” Anyussa said. She was basting a roast. “I sent a footman up to build the fire when Ravvikki Nia came home.”

  Daja shook her head at the grinning Frostpine. “Come on if you’re coming, then,” she said, letting Nia lead the way.

  Once their protections were set, Daja and Nia returned to their work as Nia tucked her magic into her pine knot. Frostpine slipped into his own power, keeping it in the small, tight ball it normally occupied inside his chest. His attention was turned inward: he’d simply wanted to meditate. Daja, relieved, concentrated on Nia. Tonight only a double handful of tendrils escaped the younger girl; she pulled each back quickly, her face serene. Daja enjoyed Nia’s quiet and Frostpine’s solidity so much that she jumped when the clock struck.