by Carol Berg
Jacard’s color deepened. “To say truth, I tiptoed away as soon as they arrived. I didn’t want them deciding they’d drag me along if Dante chose not to be at home.”
“I feel quite the same.”
Danger drummed in my veins. Camarilla inquisitors could use whatever techniques they deemed necessary to get answers. Rumor spoke of spelled artifacts created before the Blood Wars—effective things, uncomfortable things. The arrogant, impatient Dante’s heretical teachings could get him branded and hung up in a cage.
“Jacard, I’m desperate to get to Dante’s chambers. The king has charged me to follow the damnable mage on some ghost chase this morning. If we get delayed by inquisitors, it’s my backside will be aflame. I’d be forever grateful if you could distract the prefect and Lord Baldwin long enough for me to creep past them.”
“Fiddle a prefect? Are you mad?”
Ilario would have done it, but he wasn’t there, and I knew no one else to ask. “I was mad to begin this holy venture, yes. Now I’m reaping havoc. So, never again. But for now, I’d give you—” Only one thing I knew might buy Jacard’s aid. “Help me and I’ll tell you the composition of Dante’s circumoccule.”
In an instant Jacard’s nervous excitement was supplanted by calculation. “You saw it made?”
“He had me sear the trough in the floor and build the ring with no fewer than fifteen distinct particles. I can tell you at least twelve of them, and how they were laid.”
“He works marvels there.” Jacard’s hunger echoed my own. “All right, all right. Give me a moment. Don’t want the prefect imagining I’m trouble. Be ready to move.”
Garbed in sober shirt and breeches rather than an academic gown, the sharp-chinned adept easily merged into a passing group of gentlemen and vanished down the gallery. Meanwhile, I slipped closer to the passage, gliding from one window niche to the next whenever a passing body shielded me from the prefect’s view.
I’d almost given up on Jacard, when a sharp popping noise heralded a spray of tinkling glass scattering on the tile floor. The crystal lamp mounted above the intersecting passages had shattered. Moments later another lamp, a short span from the first, did the same. Passersby ducked and shouted, and everyone, including the prefect and the First Counselor, spun to watch the lamps, bursting one and then another, each farther down the gallery in the direction Jacard had gone. I stepped out of my niche and slid round the corner not two metres from Prefect Angloria’s back.
Chest heaving entirely out of proportion to effort, I flattened myself into a niche alongside a tall, cedar cupboard. No one cried out the trespass. No boots pounded after me. A man’s conversational tone emanated from deeper in the passage.
“. . . entirely understand, Mage Inquisitor. I’ve no fear of questioning, though I would certainly have appreciated some forewarning. I could have come to the Bastionne on my own.” Orviene’s clear tenor carried down the way. “Allow me to don more seemly garb, while you examine my laboratorium. Do have a care with that box, Adept. . . .” The voice receded.
So they were taking Orviene as well. No time to dawdle. My only hope was to act as if I belonged here. The cupboard held a collection of refuse—a dented brass pitcher, a soiled towel, a cracked night jar, broken fans, and a torn pillow leaking feathers. I grabbed enough items to make a pile sufficiently tall to obscure my face.
Courage flagged as I stepped into the passage. The two mages outside Gaetana’s door wore close-fitting, dull green caps that covered their hair and ears. Sewn with long jowl strips that buttoned over the wearer’s mouth, an inquisitor’s cap left only eyes, nose, and cheeks exposed above the mage’s collar. The caps served as a reminder that inquisitors would neither hear pleas or testimony, nor speak comfort, reasons, or bargains, until their selected Witnesses were secure inside the Bastionne Camarilla, the fortress of the prefects.
Between the two inquisitors and two Camarilla adepts stood one such Witness, shrouded in a dark blue mantle and a thick, all-encompassing hood. Both mantle and hood had been sewn with iron rings to damp the effects of spellwork. Tradition mandated that none should know the Witnesses put to question by the Camarilla, lest rumor forever taint their works. Yet this particular Witness, taller than any other magical practitioner in the palace, could only be Gaetana.
I had always accepted strict, unbending inquisitors as necessary to ameliorate the risks of dangerous or reckless magic, dismissing rumors of cruelly forced testimony as the protestations of the guilty. But, somehow, witnessing this grotesque solemnity in the flesh upended my certainties. And I had brought it down on these people with lies. Holy saints, what had I been thinking?
Juggling my awkward armful of oddities, I strode down the passage past the somber group, as if well accustomed to macabre invaders. Without hesitation, I pushed through the charged enchantments of the door ward and into Dante’s apartments.
The mage’s great chamber was even more cluttered than usual. The man himself was nowhere to be seen, yet the air quivered with magical energies. Something was very odd. I spun slowly in place. Worktables, heaped with materials. Locking cupboards, doors hanging open. The amber circumoccule fixed in the scuffed mahogany floor. The couch, bathed in rosy light from the great east windows, unhindered by draperies. Ceiling, walls, plain and unbroken.
I blinked. Where was his bedchamber?
Memory insisted the doorway to the adjacent room ought to be midway along the west wall. I ran my hands over the smooth plaster. No mistaking when I found the doorway; the jolt of enchantment near set me on my backside. But only as long as my fingers touched the door frame did the spell allow me to see into the lesser chamber.
Dante sat at his desk, as I had seen him on my first visit so long ago—head bowed, eyes closed, white staff in the rigid grip of his maimed hand. His left hand rested on a small book, forefinger traversing a line of hand-scribed text on a yellowed page. Naught so extraordinary, save that purple sparks sprayed from the blackened tip of his finger, and plumes of frosty air billowed from his staff. The man himself trembled with such violence, his bones must have been near shattering.
I could spare no time for wonder. “Dante, we must get you away.”
He demonstrated no sign that he’d heard me.
One step past the threshold immersed me in a maelstrom of discordant energies—as if the sun and moon tried to shine at once in that chamber or the tide ebbed and flowed in confluence. I squatted at his side. His eyes remained fixed on the page. “Can you hear me? Stop this and listen.”
His brow creased, and his finger slowed, but more in the way of pushing on through a disturbance than deciphering my speech.
“Dante!” Gingerly I laid my hand on his shoulder.
He reared backward, near rising bodily into the air. His staff clattered to the floor.
“The Camarilla’s come for—”
The mage burst roaring from his chair, shoved me across the room, and slammed me to the wall, his formidable shoulders proving themselves no mere decorative accident of nature. Heat poured from his twisted face, darkened to the color of dried blood.
It took both my hands and all my strength to pry his forearm from my neck. “Let. Me. Go.”
In an instant, he released me and stumbled backward. A moment’s frantic search and he snatched up his staff and pressed his forehead to the wood, clinging to it as a seaman to his lifeline. “Did you ever consider that what I’m doing outside your presence might have some importance?” he said, tight jawed and breathless.
“Father Creator, how could I not know that?” I said, forcing equanimity. “But the Camarilla’s come for Gaetana. They’re taking Orviene as a Witness. You’ll be next . . . and perhaps me. You remember we were traveling to Vernase this morning?”
“Yes.” He bit off the word, the storm of violence scarce under his control.
“Our journey’s even more important now. The king’s had a letter from Michel de Vernase, all but admitting he’s the Aspirant. The conte claims innocence and
promises to send evidence of his ‘discoveries’ by Prince Desmond’s deathday. We cannot let the Camarilla delay us.”
As I forced myself to patience, his breathing slowed and his back straightened. Eventually he looked up, and only the familiar hauteur was written on him. “Never touch me when I’m in trance, fool of a student,” he said. “I could have killed you. Without intent.”
“So I’ve learned,” I said, appreciating the concession, while yet rubbing my overbruised throat. Someday I would know the roots of this violence that lay so close to his skin. Only a fool wielded a blade without understanding the irregularities in its tempering. “Now can we leave here before you’re hauled off to the Bastionne? They’ll be scratching at your door any moment.”
“Certainly, I know the officious little pricks are closing in. What took you so blasted long to get here?” It was as if the blazing orange sun had retreated below the eastern horizon, only to bounce back up again arrayed in soft green or lilac. And as it shone so peaceably, the overpowering dread that had driven me since waking dissipated. I was left speechless and limp as old linen.
He tapped the end of his staff on his desk. “I couldn’t afford to stop working. This could be my last chance to glean aught from this cursed book. Gaetana’s book.”
My breath halted, interrupting my rising fury at his manipulation. Gaetana’s book: a manuscript buried deep in layers of wards and ciphers. Perhaps even less savory, but carrying knowledge of the uses of magic that have been lost for generations. A manuscript that people of ethics might have difficulty with.
“Aye, the one I spoke of after Eltevire. If they’ve taken her, they’ll learn of it, too, yes? And when they take me as Witness, I must offer to yield it without coercion. But if I leave it here among my other reading material and fail to reset my flimsy and easily detectable chamber wards, it might not be here when they come back to search for it. Hardly my fault.”
“You want me to hide it.” We certainly could not allow them to confiscate the book before we knew what it was. “Better we both take it and go.”
Dante twisted and stretched his shoulders as if he’d been hunched over the book for a very long time. “Better I get this encounter over with. It has to come sometime, and I’d rather inquisitors not dog our steps as we go forward. Besides”—he twisted his mouth in his wry semblance of a smile—“we can always hope I’ll learn something of interest in the Bastionne Camarilla. The prefects have either deliberately overlooked these episodes of transference or kept their own investigation very close.”
“They’ll dig deep,” I said. “They’ve old magic that even you—”
“Be sure, I shall yield the butchers only what I wish them to have.” The mage’s brittle edge reasserted itself, like keen lancets snapped out of a shiny brass block.
“The Camarilla is pledged to preserve the art from those who would pervert it,” I said, hating this defensiveness his prejudices roused. “They must be strict, and they must keep their counsels, just as we do, to make their work effective. But Edmond de Roble is on his way to meet with Michel de Vernase. Every instinct and every reasoning bone in me is convinced that some piece of this conspiracy will come to a head twenty days from now—whether or not Gaetana is guilty. Someday the prefects need to hear what you can teach, but not today. I need you free. Alive.”
The mage looked at me askance, as might a healer observing a hopeless patient. “I promise to watch my mouth, student.”
Shifting uncomfortably inside my skin, I pointed at the book. Surely it pointed the way to Gaetana’s deeper purposes. To her guilt. “So what is it? What have you learned?”
He scooped it up and waggled his dark brows, his best humor peeking out like sunglints through breaking storm clouds. “A beginning. I’ve scarce unlocked ten pages and the language is as murky as a pond choked with algae. But the title is Diel Revienne—The Book of Return—and we’re not speaking of returning from a day’s outing to Vernase. It’s one of three. I’ll tell you more once we’re traveling. When the time is right, I’ll astonish you!”
A thunderous knock set off a searing whine almost beyond hearing.
Dante shoved me against a stretch of blank wall opposite the door between the chambers. “Stay exactly here. I’ve set a barrier to hide you—far better than the wall closure. And heed this, student: These barriers inside you are ridiculously strong. Anger stiffens them.”
I had no idea what he meant. Fingers of enchantment snugged me against the bedchamber wall like a well-fitted jacket, though naught hindered my view into the adjoining room. Dante stuffed the book inside my shirt. “Best keep still,” he said with a sidewise grin, then grabbed his staff and stepped into his great chamber. Bellowing, “Eximas!” he stretched the staff toward the outer door.
The whine of the wards ceased. The door flew open. An adept, thick folds of dark fabric draped over his arm, crossed the threshold and intoned, “Master Dante of unknown family and demesne, the Camarilla Magica summons thee to Witness.”
Though the man’s elongated face wore the habitually haughty expression of Camarilla adepts, his eyes circled quickly, as if to determine whether the ceiling might fall or furniture start flying. He passed Dante a rolled paper, which would be the personal warrant, indicating whether the mage was to be taken as a violator or informant.
Dante tossed the scroll unread onto one of his worktables. He did not respond to the adept’s greeting, nor did he bow to the inquisitor who followed the adept inside and began a cursory examination of the great chamber.
The inquisitor—whether man or woman was impossible to judge—brushed fingertips on the circumoccule, then moved on quickly to the cluttered worktables. The fleshy hands touched only one or two items, lifted a few lids, opened a book or two. Ripples of enchantment flowed through the room, splashing on me even where I sat. Dante, wreathed in disdain, remained near the door.
I swore under my breath when the inquisitor drew a flat leather case the length of my arm from a cabinet. Dante had assured me the spyglass and arrow were safely hidden. But the opened case revealed only three wicked-looking knives. I breathed again. Dante’s mouth twitched, and I would have sworn by all I held holy that he winked. Father Creator, he was enjoying this!
From then on, I observed Dante’s reactions, not solely the inquisitor’s. Even when the eyes peering out of the green cap heated at discovering the masked door, Dante remained cool. The hooded mage entered the bedchamber, but, astonishingly, took no note of me. A quick perusal of bed, desk, cupboard, and chest, and it was done. As I exhaled slowly, the inquisitor returned to the great chamber and waved a finger.
The adept held out his hand for Dante’s staff. Dante thumped his staff on the floor, and flame burped from its head. “My ancille goes where I do, Mage Inquisitor. If I’m forbid to carry it into the Bastionne, then you must do so yourself. ’Tis less stable than I would like. My finer skills remain imperfect.” No one would mistake his statement for either apology or humility.
“The inquisitor will carry it, Master,” said the adept. The inquisitor, naturally, did not speak.
Dante propped the staff against the wall and did not protest as the adept draped him in the shapeless gown of deepest blue, weighted with iron rings. Nor did he lash out as the adept dropped the heavy hood over his head. He wanted to, though. As clearly as blood pulsed in my veins, I experienced a smothered rage—a desire to break the cocky underling who led him, blind and suffocating, into the passage—and something else. . . .
I shook off the fancy. Dante would not fear the Camarilla.
The inquisitor spent a goodly time examining the markings on Dante’s staff, before laying a tentative finger on it. First one, then another; then he lifted it gingerly and departed. The door slammed behind him.
Not overeager to venture out of my hiding place, I pulled out the little book. Its binding of faded, brittle leather was crudely stitched, its lettering unreadable, the fore-edge of the pages ragged and stained. An oily residue of spent ench
antment made me grip it fiercely. Yet it remained enspelled. I opened to the first thin page. Though scribed in familiar characters—Sabrian script of approximately two centuries earlier—the words formed no familiar language. Indeed, all characters but the few fixed at a time by my eyes’ focus shifted their order at random.
Magical encryption, then. But I needed no magic to unravel the book’s origin. Inked on the opening page was a pair of dueling scorpions, the blazon of the Mondragoni.
Of a sudden, Dante’s good humor and promises of revelation lost flavor, as will tender shoots and leaves left too long in summer sun. Always in my life, I had desired to know everything of magic. Yet for days after we first stored the Mondragoni texts in Seravain’s vault, squeamish sensibility had prevented me pulling them out. Eventually I had yielded to temptation. Finding the pages locked away by the Gautieri wards, I’d convinced myself I was relieved. Now I saw the truth. I wanted to learn everything, even from the decadent masters of Eltevire.
Stuffing the little volume back into my doublet, I crossed to the window, careful not to be seen. On the carriageway, Guillam, the stableman, had brought up four horses. The Camarilla adepts aided the three shrouded Witnesses to mount. Prefect Angloria rode the fourth beast, and the inquisitors and adepts formed up marching ranks behind her. A wave from Angloria, and the bizarre procession moved around the corner of the palace, out of view.
The Camarilla warrant named Dante as informant, not accused. A relief, that. Unless they provoked him to some revelation of his ideas or his true power, he should be held only a short time.
I had not asked Dante what I should do to avoid being killed were I to find him “in trance” again, nor why an interruption should cause such rage. Nor had I inquired how, in Heaven’s truth, he had summoned me to his side. . . . barriers inside you . . . anger stiffens them. Certainly I had been angry that morning, with Dante, with Philippe, with Michel de Vernase, with the world that used such people as Maura and Edmond de Roble-Margeroux as pawns in terrible, dangerous games. It had taken the mage more than an hour to fetch me to protect this little book.
