Law of the Broken Earth: The Griffin Mage Trilogy: Book Three

by Neumeier, Rachel

  The riders slowed as they breasted the crest of the path—if one could call that rugged cut through the stone a path—crossed the silver thread of the stream, came single-file into the little meadow and up to the cottage, and reined in their mules. The mules were too tired and too glad of the meadow to object very strenuously to Kairaithin’s presence, though the goat, wiser or not as weary, had not ventured from its hidden nook beneath the bed.

  King Iaor had changed very little, was Jos’s immediate judgment, but Lord Bertaud had changed a great deal.

  The king had grown perhaps a touch more settled, a touch more solid—that was how Jos described the quality to himself. More solid in his authority and his confidence. Though by no means an old man, Iaor Safiad had been king now for some decades and had grown by this time comfortable with his kingship. He had married just before the… trouble, six years ago. Jos knew nothing of recent events at the Feierabianden court, or any court, but looking at the king now, he was willing to lay good odds that the Safiad’s marriage had prospered. He had that air of satisfaction with himself and with life, though rather overlaid just now by weariness and unease.

  King Iaor was a hard man to read, kings having as much need to conceal their thoughts and emotions as spies. But to Jos, as the king gazed down at the Wall and the plumes of steam rising from it, he looked tired and a little disgusted, as though he found the possible failure of the Wall a personal provocation. That, too, was the reaction of a man with a family as well as the reaction of a king who was concerned to protect his people.

  Then Iaor pulled his gaze from the imposing, disturbing sight below to give Jos a little nod of recognition and acknowledgment.

  Jos nodded back, not bowing because this was not his king. He said formally, “Your Majesty,” which was the proper form of address in Feierabiand.

  “Jos,” said the king in a neutral tone. His gaze shifted to the griffin lounging near at hand. “Anasakuse Sipiike Kairaithin. What have we here?” He nodded down the pass toward the Wall.

  Kairaithin did not answer, leaving Jos to speak—a man to speak to men, indeed. Jos said, “The plumes show where the Wall is cracked through. The cracks appeared some days ago.” He was embarrassed to admit that he did not know precisely how many days. In these latter years, he had become unaccustomed to counting off each passing day according to the proper calendar and found the habit difficult to reacquire. He said instead, which was perhaps more to the point, “The fire mages on the desert side have been trying to split the Wall open along those cracks. Not Kairaithin. Two young griffin mages. And Kes.” He glanced at the somber Kairaithin, whose student the girl had been, then turned his gaze back at the king, who had known her, briefly, when she had been human. Or mostly human.

  King Iaor lifted an eyebrow, but it was Lord Bertaud who spoke. “She has become wholly a creature of fire, then.” It was a statement rather than a question, and there was an odd note to the lord’s voice, a note that Jos did not understand. He gave Lord Bertaud a close look.

  Where the king had grown a bit more solid and comfortable over the past years, Jos thought that Lord Bertaud had grown darker of mood and more inward. There was a grimness underlying his manner and tone, not something born of the anxieties of the moment, Jos thought, but something that had been shaped out of a deeper trouble or grief. Some grief of love lost, or some private longing deferred? Or something less recognizable? Jos saw the deliberation with which Bertaud avoided meeting Kairaithin’s eyes, and wondered at it. I carried word to Bertaud son of Boudan, the griffin had said. Why to Bertaud?

  Jos knew very little about Lord Bertaud; nothing about what the man had done with himself after those strange and difficult events six years ago. He had not been curious about the world for years. He had, indeed, been determinedly incurious, and it left him uncomfortably ignorant now.

  In the early years, when she had still remembered dimly what she had been, Kes had come sometimes to tell him about her life among the griffins. She had described to Jos the beauty of fire and the empty desert, and sometimes she and Opailikiita had carried him high aloft through the crystalline fire of the high desert night. It had been beautiful, and Jos had longed for wings of his own, that he might ride those high winds himself. But Kes had never been very interested in the human world even when she had been human, and after she became a creature of fire she cared even less for the affairs of men.

  In those years, and from time to time even now, it was Sipiike Kairaithin who brought Jos the odd tidbit of news from the human world. Certainly it had been Kairaithin who had explained how and why the Great Wall had been made, though never why he had bent his strength against his own people to help build it. The griffin had mentioned Bertaud now and again, however, and Jos understood, or thought he had understood, that Kairaithin stood as something of a friend to the man—as much as a griffin could befriend a man. He had envisioned a relationship something like the one he himself shared with the griffin: ill-defined, perhaps, and awkward to explain, but a relationship nevertheless.

  But what he saw in Bertaud, when the lord let his gaze cross the griffin’s, was something he did not recognize at all.

  She has become wholly a creature of fire, the lord had said. Jos looked at him for another moment and then answered slowly, “Well, lord, yes, I fear so. She has forgotten her past, or I expect she remembers it like a dream, maybe. She’s a mage now. The most powerful fire mage in the desert, I imagine—excepting Sipiike Kairaithin.” He gave Kairaithin a little nod.

  “I see.” Bertaud was looking at Jos now. His tone had become almost painfully neutral.

  Jos tried not to wince. He kept his own tone matter-of-fact. “Tastairiane Apailika is her iskarianere now. She’s listening to him, I guess, and she’s trying to break the Wall from the far side. And she will, too, eventually, if she keeps prying at those cracks.”

  “Tastairiane,” said King Iaor. “That white griffin. The savage one.”

  “Yes,” said Jos, not adding that all griffins were savage. Anyway, the king was, in every way that mattered, right about Tastairiane.

  “Little Kes has become that one’s friend?”

  “Friend” was not precisely correct, and though Kes was far from large, no one who met her now would say “little Kes” in anything like that tone. But Jos merely said, “Yes,” again, because this, too, was enough like the truth to serve. He added, “She and Tastairiane Apailika are alike in their ambition to see the desert grow, I think, and alike in their scorn for all the country of earth. The Wall was well and wisely made”—and how he wished he’d been there himself to watch that spectacular making!—“but now it’s started cracking, it won’t hold long, not with fire magic striking through against the earth magic on the other side. Do we know what caused the cracks in the first place?”

  King Iaor looked at Bertaud, who looked at Kairaithin. The griffin said nothing, only the feathers behind his head ruffled a little and then flattened again. Bertaud glanced uneasily away and said, “We’ve discussed this. We have an earth mage in our company, though under strict orders to keep hold of himself. But his first thought is to wonder whether the wild magic of these mountains, allied to ordinary earth magic but not of it, might possibly work against the magecraft set in that wall.” He cleared his throat and added to Kairaithin, “You might discuss this with him, if both of you can bear to, well, speak to one another.” He cleared his throat again, ducked his head a little, and finished, “We did send a message to Casmantium. To the Arobern, and his mages, and most particularly to Tehre Amnachudran Tanshan.”

  Lady Tehre was the Casmantian maker who, along with the last remaining cold mages of Casmantium, had been responsible for raising the Wall. Jos had got a brief sketch of those events from Kairaithin, but only a rough one. From the significant glance Bertaud gave the griffin mage, Kairaithin might have left out a good many details.

  Of course you have, the griffin said, without any inflection in the smooth, dangerous voice that slid around the edges o
f their minds. I will speak to the earth mage, as he is here and perhaps may understand the southern side of the Wall. But if this making does not stand—he meant the Great Wall, of course—it is difficult to imagine what more Casmantian strength can do.

  This was hard to argue, and for a long moment they all stood in silence.

  “Well,” said King Iaor, glancing around at them all and then looking away, down toward the Great Wall and the rising billows of steam where the magic of earth met inimical fire, “at least we are here, where all these events are unrolling before us. We must be grateful for fair warning and a chance to prepare, or else we would all be standing in the south with no idea what might be coming down on us and no opportunity to influence events at all.” He looked at Kairaithin. “We are grateful for that. And for any other assistance you might see your way to offering.”

  The griffin said nothing.

  After an awkward moment, the king added to Jos, “If you would be so good, I think we would welcome a chance to speak further—of Kes, and Tastairiane Apailika”—he stumbled only a little over the name, awkward for a human tongue—“and of what you think might happen if that Wall breaks.”

  “Yes,” said Jos, without enthusiasm. He had no idea what would happen if the Great Wall shattered, or what they would be able to do about it in the event. But he said, “I have little. But there is a fire, at least, and if Kairaithin would be good enough to take the shape of a man, we may all be able to fit under my roof.” If they could get the goat out from under the bed, they would also be more comfortable, he did not add. And wondered whether he might be able to send a couple of the king’s men to find the scattered hens.

  But even that thought was not quite enough to make him smile.

  CHAPTER 8

  Mienthe had been glad to see the queen and her little daughters heading out of Tiefenauer. She was relieved to know they would soon be safe in Sihannas. But she’d never for an instant intended to leave the town herself. She didn’t understand why anyone had supposed she would flee. Even if she wanted to—and she was willing to admit to herself that maybe she did—she couldn’t. How could she? She was sorry Bertaud would worry when he heard she had refused to leave Tiefenauer, but he would understand. She thought he would. She was fairly certain.

  Anyway, by the time her cousin heard about Linularinum’s boldness, she hoped that Tan’s enemies would have learned that he had escaped them. Then the Linularinan force would go away again and she could send her cousin that word, which would be much better than having him just hear that Tiefenauer was under attack.

  Anyway, Bertaud must be in the mountains now, as hard as he and the king had intended to ride. He might be looking down at the Wall right now. Then he would have other things to worry about than herself or even the Delta.

  As few as five days for the Wall to break, that’s what the griffin mage had said. Maybe as many as ten, but maybe as few as five. Four, now. Or even three, by the coming dawn. But maybe as many as seven, she reminded herself. And anyway, the Wall wasn’t her concern. Bertaud would fix the Wall. He would get his griffin friend to help him and put things right.

  And after he did, she wanted him to find a message waiting for him that assured him she was safe and the Delta was safe and the Linularinan force had once more withdrawn to its proper side of the river.

  She hoped she would be able to send him that message. She thought she would. Anyway, she doubted she was personally in any danger. No matter how enraged Tan’s enemies might be, they would undoubtedly think backward and forward before doing harm to the Lady of the Delta.

  No. She was safe enough. Tan was the one who, Mienthe thought, might face pursuit and danger; Tan, who despite any other suggestions he might have made, was clearly the Linularinan objective. Or one objective, at least, for it did not seem reasonable that such an outrageous Linularinan action had only Tan in mind. Though, indeed, in recent days, Mienthe had lost confidence in caution or good sense or even clear sanity on the Linularinan side of the river.

  Mienthe stood in the unlit solar, looking out across the gardens and the town but following Tan cross-country in her mind. The road to Kames was rougher and narrower than the river road, deeply rutted by traffic in the muddy spring, despite all that makers had done to build the road properly. And the countryside was cut through by numberless streams and sloughs and even a small river or two. A man couldn’t ride fast on that road, never mind how skilled a rider he might be or how good the horse.

  She wanted urgently to know Tan was safe—she even almost wished she’d gone to Kames with him. At least she wished she could have. She could have made sure he was welcomed by the staff at her father’s house. Sighing, she turned away from the windows, went out into the lantern-lit hallway. There were three guardsmen there, assigned to stay with her while this strange night played itself out. She wanted to ask them what was going on out in the town, but of course they would know no more than she. Less, since they hadn’t been gazing out the solar windows. Unless—“Has there been news?” she asked them.

  They shook their heads. “We’d have sent any messages on to you anyway, my lady,” one of them said. “But there’s nothing. Only what we knew already. There’s fighting. But so far as we know, for all they caught us by surprise, we’re still holding them on the other side of the square.”

  Mienthe nodded.

  “We’ll send immediately if there’s any other word,” the guardsman promised her.

  “Yes,” murmured Mienthe, and went back into the solar. She opened one of the windows and let in the chill of the night air and the distant sound of shouting and battle. Closer at hand there was almost no sound at all: The few remaining servants were keeping close and quiet, as though if they were very still, danger might not find them. Though in fact there was another faint sound, like someone singing… Well, no, that was ridiculous; the sound was nothing like singing, but then Mienthe did not know how better to describe it.

  The sound was getting louder, too, though it was still very faint. It might not be at all like a melody, but it was also not the sort of patternless sound the wind might make whistling past thin leaves or knife-edged grasses. It wound up and around, up and around, up and around.

  Mienthe found that she was trying to follow the sound, only it turned and turned back on itself, wound itself higher and higher… She could not actually hear it; it had become too high and faint to be heard. Only she could feel it, turning and turning, and that was when she realized at last that she was somehow listening to some kind of mageworking. That she had been listening to it for some time, and that she’d somehow been wound up in it herself. She could no longer see the shine of lamplight against the glass of the windows, or the dim shapes of the town outside, or the stars above, or the sparks from the torches guardsmen carried out in the gardens. In fact, she could not see even her own hands, though she thought she lifted them and opened and closed them before her eyes. She might have been sitting in a chair, or standing, or lying in her own bed, dreaming. She could not tell. She could see nothing, hear nothing. There was only the dark, winding tight all about her, and the sound that was not exactly a sound and that she could no longer hear.

  Young people who discovered the mage gift waking in them went to high Tiearanan to study, those who found in themselves the necessary dedication. That was not all of them, not nearly. Mienthe had known one boy, a servant’s son. When the boy, whose name was Ges, had been about twelve or fourteen, his mother had shown Bertaud a kitchen spoon made of delicate, opalescent stone and nervously explained that it had been ordinary wood until her son had stirred soup with it, and now look! Bertaud had run his fingers over the spoon and asked the boy whether he had indeed changed it, and Ges had answered, even more nervously, that he didn’t know but he was afraid to touch anything else. He’d said that he thought he’d started to hear the voices of the earth and the rain—the earth spoke in a deep, grinding mutter, he said, and the myriad voices of the rain flashed in and out, glittering.

/>   Mienthe had been jealous of the boy, not because of the spoon or even because he could hear the voices hidden in the rain, but because he’d gone to Tiearanan. Her cousin had given Ges money, and more to his mother, and sent a man of his with them, and though the man and the mother had returned to the Delta before the turning of the year, the boy had not. Mienthe supposed he was a mage now—or maybe still studying to be a mage, because his mother had said they studied for a long time and she didn’t know how any boy could have the patience for it, but that Ges had seemed to like it. But then, he’d always been a quiet, patient sort of boy, she’d added, with understandable pride.

  Mages—young people who woke into magecraft and then actually decided to be mages—studied for years to learn how to use their power, and here Mienthe was, trapped in the dark, with a single high-pitched note winding up around her, and neither teachers nor time to study.

  She did not panic. Or maybe she did panic. She had no way to run in circles, and no way to hear herself if she screamed, so how could she even tell? There was nothing in the dark with her except the inaudible whining note—other people heard the glittering voices of the rain, and here she was with nothing but this unpleasant mosquito-whine. That seemed almost funny, though not really.

  Mienthe followed the sound she almost heard because it was the only thing she could follow and she could not think of anything else to do. She could not have said how she followed it, because she had no sense of actual movement. Nevertheless, she pursued it up and around, up and around, up and around. She found herself curving in a tight inward path. It wound infinitely tight, she knew. It would never, ever let her out… she might have panicked then. She wanted to panic, but she still had no way to scream or flail about or cry, so instead she fled back the way she had come, down and around, down and down further still.