Zania stiffened. “Did you say Avylos? Who is Avylos?”
This time Edmir roused himself enough to look at her. “The Blue Mage, of course—ah, I’d forgotten. He doesn’t like people to use his name. There’s only my sister and I, and my mother the queen, who use it now my father’s dead.”
“Avylos is the Blue Mage?” Zania swallowed. Her voice sounded far away.
“What of it?”
“Wait.” Her heart pounded in her ears so strongly she felt like the skin of a drum. Her hand shook as she thrust it into the pocket of her skirt where she had hidden Great-Uncle Therin’s journal. She tore the pocket’s edge, getting the journal free. She turned the pages until she found the one she was looking for. “Have you ever seen something like this?”
Edmir’s eyes narrowed; he took the book from her and his brows pulled down as he tilted the page until the light fell fully on it. After a moment his brows lifted.
“Where did you get this?” he said. “Avylos has a small casket just like this one on his workroom table.” He tapped the drawing of the open casket. “I’ve never seen inside it, but the clasps, and the handle, are identical. How can you know about this?”
“What is it has you both looking so serious?”
The Mercenaries had approached so quietly that both Zania and Edmir jumped.
“Zania has a drawing of something that belongs to the Blue Mage,” Edmir said before Zania could speak up.
“Does she?” Dhulyn Wolfshead looked not at the book Edmir was handing to her, but at Zania. I must look very odd, Zania thought. She felt Dhulyn take her firmly by the elbow, and she heard the older woman’s voice from far away.
“Parno, my soul, leave the packing. Bring food and strong spirits.”
“His name when he was with us was Avylyn,” the little Cat said. She held the piece of road bread Parno had given her as if she wasn’t aware of it. Parno had found some brandy, and a few swallows had restored most of the color to Zania’s face and something of the sparkle to her eye. “If it’s the same man,” she added.
Dhulyn sipped at her mug of water and swallowed. “Well, we can’t know how likely that is until you tell us the full tale. You say the man was part of your troupe?”
Zania nodded. “When the troupe was bigger, the whole family together, and we had other acts—dancers, jugglers, acrobats.” She looked around at them. “Shows of magic.”
“And this Avylyn was your magician?”
“I don’t think I really remember him,” Zania said. “I was little more than a baby when he left us, walking perhaps, no more. But people spoke of the magic. Small things. He could light a fire even in the rain. He could call a light to sit on the palm of his hand. He could make small objects appear and disappear. I don’t know if it was real.”
“If it was Avylos, then it was real.” Edmir sat across from Zania, turning his food over and over in his fingers. His eyes did not sparkle, but burned, cold and dark.
“Or it was the Muse Stone.” Zania put her hand on the book in her lap.
Dhulyn put down the strip of dried meat she’d been worrying between her teeth and took another sip of water. Now they were getting to the interesting part.
“This is a drawing of it?” Parno had put out his hand for Zania’s book.
“My Great-Uncle Therin said so—but we’d had it, my family I mean, forever, since there was a troupe. It was a relic of the blessed Caids . . .”
Edmir opened his mouth to speak, but Dhulyn silenced him with a negative motion of her head. Time enough later to explain the Caids were no more blessed than anyone else.
“The Ritual of the Stone was what united us as a troupe,” Zania said, her voice taking on the singsong cadence of words oft repeated. “What gave us our luck and our prowess, what made us better and more successful than ordinary traveling players. Than what we are now. Until it was stolen from us. We’ve looked for it since I can remember. All our journeyings have been following news of it.” She held out her hand for the book. “There are closer drawings of it on the next pages, and writing, but nothing that I can read.”
Dhulyn waited until Zania had found the pages she wanted before reaching out herself. “May I?” she said. “There are only nine written languages,” she added, as Zania hesitated. “And three of those are found only in the Scholars’ Libraries. I cannot read them all, but even if all I can do is recognize which one this is, it may be a help.”
“Come,” Parno said. “We know what we are all thinking. This Avylyn of yours and the Blue Mage may be the same person. If so, we are all on the same trail here, and can help one another.”
Zania’s smile when she finally nodded and handed Dhulyn the book was strained. And why not? Dhulyn thought. What a great triumph to find the thing her family had been searching for her whole life—what a tragedy that she would find it alone.
And finding was still not the same thing as having.
Dhulyn took the book and turned it over between her hands, examining it as she’d been taught during her year in the Scholars’ Library. There were things to be learned from the whole of the book, not just what was found on the pages themselves. The color and feel of the cow’s hide binding told her the book was old, much older than she was herself. The pages were made from very fine paper, such as was found beyond the country of the Great King in the West. It hadn’t been so very long—perhaps two generations—that pages were cut and sewn into bindings like this, for easy traveling and storage. This must have been a very early example of such work. The stitches were firm, even, and small, but not in the pattern of any Library she had ever seen. This book had likely been made privately, by some early practitioner of the art.
Finally she opened it. Unlike a copy of a work which already existed, the paper in this book had been bound blank, so it was created to be a journal, or a traveling record book. It was only about two thirds full, the final portion still blank. The same hand appeared throughout, the lettering uniformly even and neat, though larger as it neared the end, as if the sight of the person writing grew longer with age. Still, a practiced hand.
As for the language, Dhulyn smiled. Finally, Sun, Moon, and Stars were smiling on them.
“Were there Scholars in your family? Did anyone, your great-uncle perhaps, ever spend time in a Scholars’ Library?”
Zania leaned forward, squinting to see what Dhulyn was looking at.
“Not that I know of,” she said, looking at the book as if for the first time. “We can most of us read, but we were taught by the older ones, as we in our turn taught the younger ones.”
“This is the common tongue,” Dhulyn said, tapping at the words on the page. “Though it will take me some time to read it. It’s a Scholar’s quick way to take notes, they call it a ‘shorthand.’ It isn’t normally found in any book, just on wax tablets and such that Scholars use to prepare longer pieces and remind themselves of stray thoughts.”
“But you can read it, my heart?”
“Not so easily as I once could, it has been a long time, and it will cost me some effort, but yes, I think so.” Dhulyn turned to the pages that held the drawings of the Muse Stone. “It may be smart to start here, since the writing will have some reference to the drawing.”
At first glance the object Zania had called the Muse Stone appeared to be a fashioned cylinder—most unlikely that it was formed naturally in that shape. Tiny figures gave the dimensions . . . “Is this stone blue, by any chance?”
“I believe so, do you read that there?”
Dhulyn kept silent. Clearly this was the same blue crystal cylinder she’d Seen in her Visions, but whether saying so would get them any further just now . . . a detail on the side of the page showed symbols carved near one end.
Four symbols Dhulyn knew very well.
A hawk-faced woman. A blue crystal. A jeweler’s lens. A carving tool so fine the point of it seems like a wire.
“Dhulyn?”
“It is nothing, I am well.” She swallowed, and touch
ed the drawing again. This, this is what that long-ago woman—for though she could not say why, Dhulyn was sure the woman did live long ago—what she had been making.
Parno closed his hand on her wrist. “You see something,” he said, the double meaning intended. “Tell us.”
“The Stone may or may not be a relic of the Caids, but if your great-uncle has drawn accurately, it is a thing of the Marked. You said there were no Scholars in your family or troupe. What of the Marked?”
Zania shook her head while she finished chewing. “How does it concern the Marked?”
“You see these symbols?” Dhulyn tapped the detail with her index finger. “The circle with a dot in the middle stands for a Seer. This straight line for a Finder. This long triangle? Like a spearhead? That’s a Mender. And this rectangle is a Healer.”
“How do you know this?”
“She’s Marked herself,” Edmir said. “A Seer.”
“But then you can—” Zania fell silent in the face of Dhulyn’s raised hand.
“Wait. What I can do may be very little. And the more of the tale I have, the more I can do. Tell me,” she said. “What do you know of how the stone was used?”
“There was a ritual.” Zania looked for someplace to put down the last of the road bread she was holding, and finally Parno took it from her. “I should say, there is a ritual. Even though the Stone was gone, we still completed it before every performance, against the day the Stone would be returned. We would take hands and stand in a circle . . .”
Dhulyn caught Parno’s eye and twitched her left eyebrow. This was beginning to sound familiar.
“. . . and we would recite the words of the ritual, as Great-Uncle Therin had taught us. But, of course, without the Stone, nothing would happen.”
“And with the Stone?” Dhulyn said.
The girl looked from one face to another, teeth holding her lower lip. Finally, she shrugged. “One night, Great-Uncle got drunk, and he started talking about the ‘days before,’ the days when we still had the Muse Stone. He said that the ritual filled them with fire, with the spirit of the Muse, the god of players. He talked about how, in those days, you could hear the audience holding their breath during Nor-iRon Tarkina’s duel. He said that when he recited the storm clouds speech from The Mad King, the heavens answered him with thunder.”
The little Cat’s mouth had turned down, her eyes had lost their sparkle. “Aunt Ester started to cry, and Uncle Jovan told Great-Uncle to go to bed.”
“An enhancer,” Parno said. Edmir sat up straighter, his eyebrows raised.
“There are certain drugs that will improve performance . . .” Parno looked at Dhulyn. “Certain Shora do the same, though it’s thought through focus and concentration, rather than by calling on the gods.”
“Finders use their scrying bowls,” Dhulyn said. “Seers vera tiles.” Her brows knitted in thought. “Whose performance was enhanced by this ritual with the Muse Stone?”
“Everyone’s. Everyone who participated in the ritual.” Zania looked from one face to another. “At least, that’s what I always understood. That’s why we were so successful. All of the acts were improved.”
“And it was this Avylyn who took the Muse Stone?”
“My cousin told me that her mother, my aunt Ester, said that when he first came to us, the tricks he did were just that, tricks. He claimed not to believe in any magics, questioned even the actions of the Marked, which no sensible person doubts. He said he would show anyone who cared to see how the tricks were done. Grandfather Devin was troupe master then, and he told him to keep the tricks secret, that it made a better show if the audience thought the tricks were real.”
“There’s irony for you,” Dhulyn said, slapping her hands lightly down on her knees. “Our knife throwing is real, and here we are trying to convince our audiences that it is just a trick.”
Zania smiled, but her heart wasn’t in it. “You know what I mean,” she said.
“I do indeed,” Dhulyn said. “What’s real is a trick, and the tricks are real. That’s theater for you.”
For a moment Zania looked as though she would argue, but then the light faded out of her face.
“Let me see if I can shorten this tale,” Edmir said. “This Avylyn learned of the Muse Stone, learned how to use it, and one day he was gone, and the Stone also.”
“And the troupe broke up, first the smaller acts drifting away, the acrobats, jugglers, and jesters. Then the family split up and we have been looking for him and for the Stone ever since.” Zania looked around at them, her face set and determined. “I must go to Beolind.”
“So must we all. These revelations change nothing for us,” Parno said. “If anything, it just makes plainer what our task will be once we are in the Royal House. Confront Avylos, restore Edmir, and regain the Stone.”
“Jarlkevo still gives us our best odds of doing that,” Edmir said.
Dhulyn shook her head. “I must have time to read the book first,” she said. “Who knows what there may be in it that will help us defeat the Mage?”
“But in Jarlkevo—”
“Certainly, if your aunt knows you, and will support you, hide you,” Parno said. “But that is a great many ‘ifs,’ perhaps too many. Dhulyn is right, we need to do this before we reach Jarlkevo, in case we do not find an ally there.”
“What of this Luk the unit leader spoke of?” Zania said. “It’s not uncommon for a troupe of players to stay in one such village several days while they try out a new play. We could be doing both.”
Dhulyn looked up from the book. “Did your troupe initiate all its members to the use of the Stone?”
Zania’s brows drew down in a sharp vee. “They had to show some talent, I think. Sometimes Great-Uncle would say we were ‘ready for the Stone’ when we’d done something particularly well.” She looked up. “And they could not be people who had joined us for a season. Only firm members of the troupe would be taught the ritual.”
“And Avylos did this?” Was it a question, Dhulyn thought, when you knew the answer? “He became a firm member of the troupe?”
“He became my mother’s man. He took part in the ritual with the rest.”
“And likely found his powers enhanced, and his magics real instead of tricks.”
“All this happened when you were still a babe—he’s not your father, is he?”
The color drained completely from the little Cat’s face. She got to her feet and backed away from them, shaking her head. Before Dhulyn could retract her words, Zania turned and ran, pushing her way through the low bushes into the deeper forest. At a gesture from Parno, Edmir took off after her.
“Ah,” Parno said, as Edmir disappeared into the wood. “That went well.”
Dhulyn looked sidewise at him and smiled her wolf’s smile.
“Zania, Zania stop.”
Edmir had caught hold of her sleeve and Zania, out of breath, her heart pounding in her ears, wasn’t strong enough to jerk it from his grasp. He took her by her upper arms and shook her until she grabbed the front of his shirt.
“He can’t be your father, do you hear me? You don’t look like him, nothing like him at all. His coloring’s completely different, he’s very pale, with dark red hair and very blue eyes. Even if you took after your mother, there’d be something in you of him, and I tell you there isn’t.”
“I just thought . . .” she swallowed and tried to make her fingers loosen their grip on his shirt. “Sometimes it seemed that they treated me with extra care, my family, as if they were watching me. I told myself it was because my mother died when I was still so young. . . .”
“Of course it was that,” he said. But Zania shook her head, her eyes squeezed shut.
“Look at me, you half-wit.” Shock opened her eyes again.
“Were you a normal girl?”
“What?”
“You’re not a blessed Caid, are you? Incapable of doing wrong? Because you could have fooled me. Did you never behave so badly that you
made your aunt or uncle—or more likely your cousin, furious with you?”
Heat flushed her face. “Let go of me!”
“They would have said something then, don’t you see? If he had been your father, they would have thrown that in your face when you angered them. Any normal person would. People say things they regret when they’re angry.” As Zania stopped struggling, Edmir lowered his voice.
“They’d have told you if Avylos was your father, to punish you— and to explain to themselves why you were bad. Don’t you see, he can’t be your father. They would have said.”
Her heart resumed beating. “He’s not my father. He’s not.” She rested her head on Edmir’s shoulder. He smelled of woodsmoke.
“Zania.”
She felt his breath against her ear and lifted her head.
His lips felt very soft and warm on hers.
Twelve
AVYLOS SLID THE THICK glass lens off the map he’d been scrutinizing and let the parchment roll closed. He rubbed at his eyes, and straightened, stretching out his back. He selected the next scroll and unrolled it, using small carved stone weights to hold down the corners. Like the others, this map showed a section of northwest Tegrian, on a scale large enough to display roads and tracks, Houses, Holdings, and even certain Households. The lens revealed tiny drawings, and notations in a neat hand. Avylos moved the lens over to the area he wanted to examine, and blew out his breath in frustration.
When he’d seen Edmir in the pool, he’d seen a clearing in a wood with a fire laid and burning. A sword resting against a rock showed the Mercenaries were still with him, though the magic of the pool did not show any other people. The trouble was that there were so many wooded areas in Tegrian where the particular combination of trees—pine, ash, and birch—could be found. Even supposing that Edmir would choose one of the most direct routes to Beolind from Probic, Avylos had still found four different spots his camp could be in.
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