The Spirit Lens

by Carol Berg

  “Fail my classes?” Even afraid and angry, the girl trumpeted scorn. “Do you think I’m a loony? I’ve talent leaking out my ears, could the old cods here bear to admit it. I should already be studying for an adept’s level. There’s nowhere else I can earn my collar or stay in the Camarilla’s grace. No one can make me give up my place here. No one.”

  Souleater, spare me; how could I, of all men, argue that? What right had I to steal her future? She had survived for almost a year. And yet . . .

  “Do you understand what these leeches do, child? Every day they pierce your veins and attach their cups and tubes and pumps. Only a few millilitres today, they say. Only a thimbleful. But over the months, as the blood drains away, your flesh withers until you cannot tolerate food or drink. Your soul withers until you’re incapable of reason. They leave you nothing.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her face but a pale blotch, she backed away to the end of the pergola. “I don’t need you. Stay away from me.”

  Indeed, this very conversation dragged her deeper into danger. Why hadn’t Michel de Vernase taken both girls? Had this one convinced him so easily, or was he simply careless of her safety? Blessed angels, the girls had trusted him. Yet I’d seen naught to evidence him as sympathetic to the wreckage he’d left in the wake of his investigation. First Calvino de Santo, then Ophelie . . . Perhaps Ilario’s opinion of Michel was not so far off the mark.

  “Lianelle, just tell me one more thing: Why did he wait? The conte? Why didn’t he take Ophelie that first day, when he saw what they were doing to her? It was cruel . . . despicable . . . to leave her in such circumstances.”

  “He was not cruel!” she cried, her armored silence cracked.

  As ruthless as any villain, I plunged my fist into that crack. “The conte killed Ophelie, Lianelle. Waiting . . . leaving her here those extra days . . . killed her.”

  “No! Ophelie agreed to go back. He had to know where to find what he was looking for; the place where everything started. As soon as she learned the name, I wrote him a letter, and he came for her. Only, I guess”—a sob escaped her—“I guess it was too late.” Her presence fluttered like that of a bird poised to take flight.

  “What was the name, child? I swear on everything good and worthy in this world, I mean no harm to you or the conte. What did your brave, beautiful friend tell him? What was the place he was looking for?”

  She bolted as she spoke, leaving the answer hanging in the thick air: “Altevierre.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  21 QAT 40 DAYS UNTIL THE ANNIVERSARY

  Altevierre. The word scratched on the crypt wall. The word Oph elie de Marangel had spoken with her last breath. The mystery Michel de Vernase had pursued to his doom. The place where everything started. I held the name close as I scurried back to the library and stomped up the stair, grumbling loudly about recalcitrant students. Was it a town, a village, a crossroads, a house?

  Nidallo sat at his high desk near the library entrance, reading a volume of the Encyclopaediae of Workable Formulae. He broke off pieces of a steamed bun as he read, dabbing his fingers on a kerchief before turning each page. The Catalog Geographia, a bloated volume that purported to list all place names in the kingdom, sat enticingly nearby on a book stand. But its size made it impossible to disguise amid my lists and books, and my purported mission provided me no cause to consult it. Nidallo’s presence put me back to work, sorting and packing the materials Lianelle and Benat had gathered.

  As ninth hour of the evening watch boomed from the clock tower, I stuffed the last packet into Dante’s crates. The last student had scurried off to his bed. Nidallo was dozing.

  I had no sooner opened the Catalog, excited at the prospect of enlightenment, than a rangy, silver-haired man burst through the library door, his blue robes flying, his long arms spread in welcome. “Portier! Bless my heart, it is good to see you. I squeeze in a long-delayed sabbatical to visit my family—a short few months only—and what happens? My prized curator takes a whim to abandon his outpost of sanity and take up residence at Castelle Escalon! Do tell me you’ve come to reclaim your seat.”

  “Master Kajetan!” The room felt excessively hot of a sudden, as guilt robbed a long-delayed reunion of its pleasure.

  “No pouting, Nidallo!” The mage waved an eloquent hand at the groggy adept, stumbling to his feet. “You know Portier has ever been my goodson. Absent yourself for half an hour.”

  I crossed to my worktable before the chancellor’s exuberant survey of my turnout could take in the open Catalog. “It’s fine to see you, sir. No one told me you were expected back any time soon.” In fact I had rejoiced that my long-time mentor remained on leave. Far easier to tell him lies in prose than while facing his iron gray gaze.

  “I’m not actually returned.” Kajetan paused as a sullen Nidallo gathered bun and book and left us. “To speak truth, I was visiting my sister in Tigano,” he said, silver collar flashing in the lamplight, “debating whether to extend my leave a while longer. But Charica sends me a daily report on collegia business, and there at the top is your name. So I needs must come and demand explanation.” He spun and surveyed the open crates, stacked books, and my journal, ink, and scattered lists. “Are you truly reduced to groveling for your cousin’s favor? I believed I had instilled in you some sense of your own worth.”

  “It’s very complicated, Master. I . . . needed to move on. Or rather, to come to some resolution about my father. I’d like to get the past out of my head once and for all. You know the conflicts it has caused me. . . .” I embellished those points of motivation and uncertainty that jibed with what he knew of me—likely more than anyone in the world, including my mother.

  Philippe could not know what hardship he had imposed when compelling me to deceive this man. As a new student at Seravain, I had lived in awe of Kajetan’s magic, skills that allowed me to explore cities while sitting in a forest or to stroke a purring cat in my lap when only a block of wood lay there. But as I grew more sophisticated in analyzing spellwork, I came to see that his illusions resembled pretty paintings on silk more than fully fleshed sculptures. His greater gifts were incisive intellect and devotion to a world enriched and strengthened by our glorious art. Inspired by his eloquence and demand for excellence, every student at Seravain held strong against the winds of popular scorn.

  The chancellor had personally assumed my tutorial when a broken leg forced me to spend my first harvest holiday at Seravain. Unlike most of the collegia’s mages, he had never chastised me as I repeatedly failed at the magical tasks he set, nor had he offered maudlin sympathy when I recognized my defeat. Rather, with unyielding candor, he forced me to confront the truth of my failed magic and confess it aloud, so that I might hear the verdict in both ear and heart, and then he guided me through the storm that followed. He had saved my life both in metaphor and in literal truth. For on that terrible night when I confessed my failure to my father and became a father-slayer, Kajetan had stanched the bleeding. Once I had recovered, he gave me a refuge among these books, a position ordinarily forbidden to incapable sorcerers. I could never repay such debts.

  “I don’t understand this need to humiliate yourself to enhance Onfroi’s afterlife,” he said, resting his backside on my worktable. “You despised your father—and rightly so. Weak and willfully blind, he allowed an insignificant detail of birth to consume his life. He turned his back as his only son came near destroying himself to prove himself a man of substance, and then laid his own hand to complete that destruction. Onfroi deserves to languish in Ixtador and endure whatever unpleasantness that entails. Let the Souleater take him on the Last Day.”

  “Master, please don’t. . . .”

  He clapped me on the shoulder. “But then, you’ve always had a tender heart. No matter that I’ve tried to stiffen it a bit.”

  He had hammered honesty into me, and honesty stripped away any argument that might rebut his disrespectful logic. So I let the matter drop. When he picked up
the spectacles I’d set aside and waved them in the air, I yielded to his good humor and returned his teasing grin. “You forced me to study too much, Master. My eyes are old before their time.”

  But I near choked as he set the spectacles aside and fluttered the pages of my journal. And I relaxed only slightly when he picked up Dante’s scrawled list of materials. I truly did not want to explain my day’s work. Kajetan was intimately familiar with my record keeping and knew how unlikely I was to forget the very details I’d used to confuse Nidallo.

  As much as Kajetan was my friend and mentor, he was a prefect of the Camarilla. The mages I pursued lived under the aegis of the Camarilla, as well. In no way could I imagine Kajetan a partner in horrors, but, as I had oft told Ilario, personal feelings could not chart our course. Our success and safety as agentes confide mandated absolute secrecy.

  “So this mage who can dispatch you on errands like a mindless lackey is our mysterious Exsanguin?” he said.

  “It seems he is.”

  I deliberately released my fingers that were clenched in nail-digging knots. Dante had earned his rank legitimately. He served at the queen’s pleasure, under her protection, and had done nothing to draw Camarilla censure. It was only natural Kajetan would be curious.

  “My current employer, the queen’s foster brother who is addicted to charms and luck spells, ran across this Dante practicing in some village in southern Louvel, the very demesne Exsanguin claimed as residence. His collar is properly sealed with the Seravain mark; yet the woman who administers the consilium told me he submitted no references and refused to claim even a birthplace as a surname. Master Dante told her the Camarilla wouldn’t know him, save by ‘the annoyance of his collaring.’ ”

  “I don’t like it,” said Kajetan, his lean face skewed to a frown. “Naturally, the Camarilla requires regular communications from Orviene and Gaetana, but their work has so little commonality with what we do here, their reports are quite arid and dismissive. I think those two are something jealous of their privileges.” His brows lifted and his full lips stretched wide in good humor. “So tell me about our extraordinary mage. Have you witnessed his work?”

  “Some.” Knowing with what severity the Camarilla viewed uncan onical teaching, I was inclined to minimize the truly startling aspects of Dante’s practice. Yet our plans required that Dante tread the boundaries of legality close enough to avoid Camarilla indictment, while demonstrating power of the kind valuable to rogues. Kajetan communicated with everyone in the Camarilla and his rumor could only further our aims. Thus, I set about filtering the truth. Omitting all mention of spyglasses and strange patterns written inside my eyelids, I reported my experience of Dante. “He is ill-mannered and has an unwholesome affinity for violent behavior, but I’ll say I’ve rarely sensed such power as he wields. . . .”

  The chancellor did not interrupt as I told of the strangely composed circumoccule, the fiery display in the deadhouse, the shattered gaud, the rumors of mind healing, and the extraordinary, lingering virility of Dante’s public magic.

  When I’d done, Kajetan’s fingers combed his close-trimmed silver beard. “Hearing of such strength in an unknown of such erratic temper. We’ve heard rumor of transference revived—”

  “No, no, Master!” My explosive dismay sharpened Kajetan’s attention, leaving me fumbling to recover. “I mean, I can’t believe any mage would be mad enough to start that up again. Even Dante, disagreeable as he is.”

  But how could I defend him? A mage so driven to discovery and so little grounded by family, society, or moral persuasion as Dante was certainly capable.

  Kajetan fingered the scattered pages on my table. “Portier, would you feel it unseemly to leave me a copy of these lists? We live in a delicate balance. Should our art be dragged into evil yet again, I cannot imagine we would survive it.”

  Our art. We. The Camarilla. My kind mentor had never overdrawn the line that excluded me from his fraternity. Yet Kajetan’s quiet request, spoken with such sincere concern, exposed that boundary for an uncomfortable fracture. My mentor and I did not, and would never, share a position in life, or experience the “delicate balance” of sorcerous power and political governance in the same way. But I dared not challenge him on it, lest it suggest some personal investment in Dante’s concerns.

  “I understand, sir. I see no harm in leaving you Dante’s lists. He never claimed them private. I’ll leave copies with Nidallo.”

  Kajetan smiled and clasped my hand, his smooth thumb tracing the Savin mark on the back of my hand and the knife scar that scored my wrist and vanished under my sleeve. “I could not persuade you to come back here, my son? Nidallo, for all his gifts, has not your good mind or your love for the art, both of which have been left stronger, I believe, by your deficiency in practice. I feel better trusting all this”—he waved his hand to encompass library and archives—“to one who has actually read our history.”

  I drew my hand away, and my gaze dropped to the region of his hem lest he observe my guilt. “Someday, Master, perhaps. The world remains an uncomfortable place.”

  “Indeed so. Have you found acquaintances in Merona? Here, alas, you seemed caught between students and staff. I hoped your new situation might provide you companionship at least.”

  “Not many at court deem a fool’s private secretary worth cultivating, though I’ve met a few friendly sorts—the steward’s third secretary, a guardsman or two.”

  “Your blush betrays you, lad. Could you have found a woman undaunted by your awkward connections?” Though his own wife chose to reside with her wealthy family in Tallemant, Kajetan had ever urged me to ensure my future beyond the Veil by contracting marriage—through a marriage agent, if naught else. “Tell me, who is she?”

  “I’ve met someone amiable. Likely no more will come of it than usual.” No matter my disclaimer, thoughts of Maura induced a most pleasurable anticipation. She was so different from anyone I’d met—so sensible, so lacking in artifice.

  He laughed heartily and jumped up. “Forget the past, Portier, and forge ahead. I’ll be awaiting happy news. Now, I must be off. If I wish to continue my sabbatical, I must be away again before Charica hears I’ve come.”

  “Good night, Master.”

  He paused in the doorway, sobriety erasing good humor. “I must insist, Portier: Anything you learn of this Dante, send it to me. Particles that fit no known formulas, mind healing, extraordinary power—his practice feels most disturbing.”

  Had my old friend made this request a month before, I would have acceded instantly. I’d have agreed that a prefect of the Camarilla could not but draw on every resource to ensure magic’s purity. But no matter urgency or righteousness, my newfound understanding of spying made his demand distasteful. Unlike Philippe, whose position gave him authority to demand such uncomfortable service, and with whom I had no personal bond but common ancestry, Kajetan compelled my obedience with ties of respect, affection, and gratitude. Transference—the worst perversion of sorcery—had occurred here, under his own watch. Did he suspect? How could he have missed it?

  I could speak none of these arguments, nor question him. Sure as I stood there, he would prod and poke for explanation. I rubbed my arm, where the ragged scar yet pricked from his touch, an indelicate reminder of debts unpaid.

  “Certainly, Master. As you wish.” It was the only answer possible. “Though I fully intend to avoid the man, now I’ve satisfied his requirements. As ever, I am an abject coward at confrontation.”

  “Nay, lad. Speak not so slighting of my best work.” His elegant hand touched my cheek, and with his usual wink and flourish, he hurried away.

  Unsettled with these conflicts, propelled with a heightened urgency to complete my mission before Nidallo returned, I sped to the lectern and leafed quickly to the alphabetical listing of the Catalog Geographia. No entry corresponded with the name Ophelie had bled to discover.

  The royal geographers who assembled the Catalog were known for their prejudices. The
y listed locales in Louvel, Aubine, Nivanne, and Tallemant in detail. But they frequently left out much from the less-prosperous demesnes-major, or places that lay in the demesne-minor of a personal or family rival. To find the most accurate information, of which the Catalog was but an organized extract, one had to look to the unwieldy volumes of the Survey, the census taken at the outset of each Sabrian king’s reign.

  Hastening into the Survey Room, I pulled out the index volume of the Survey Philippi. Even more than before, the painful sense that I must not expose my purposes consumed me.

  Altevierre did not appear in the Survey’s summary list of great houses, nor anywhere in its sparse index. I removed my spectacles and pressed the heels of my hands into my gritty eyes, forcing myself to concentrate. I had no time to read the entire Survey. The spelling of Altevierre rooted the word in central Louvel, whose lexicon had become standard as printed books spread throughout the kingdom. But Ophelie might have mis spelled an overheard name. Perhaps the word drew from an older tradition. . . .

  Altevierre could be interpreted as highest view. I pulled out the Survey volume devoted to Grenville, the rugged demesne to the north, where local dialects had evolved from the same invaders who had populated Dante’s Coverge. I scoured every entry—every farmstead, house, village, and crossroads—and found nothing.

  Growling in frustration, I tore through the slim collection of pages devoted to mountainous Coverge, but Sabria’s poorest demesne-major had no great houses, farms, or towns, only scattered mining settlements, none of which came anything close. I ran my fingers over the remaining volumes. As a fish hooked and drawn, my finger halted on the slender volume entitled Demesnes-major: Arabasca. I snatched the book from the stack.