“As much as I can be.”
Her answer didn’t satisfy him, but he wasn’t going to get a better reassurance. “What message?”
“She said to tell you that she was sorry, and that she knew you wanted to help her. But her place was with her father.”
“Her father!” Josiah exploded. “Do you know what he did to her? Elkan and I had to stop him from beating her!”
“I suspected as much. But she loves him, and is loyal to him.”
“What’s it going to take for her to see what a monster he is? Will she believe it if he gives her a black eye, like he did to her mother? Or breaks her bones? It wouldn’t surprise me if he did!” His anger abruptly ran out, leaving only tired resignation. “Smash her anyway. If that’s what she wants, nobody can stop her. I certainly couldn’t.”
“Nor I,” Kevessa whispered. They exchanged bleak looks. Wordlessly Josiah turned and led her back toward the Mother’s Hall.
When they started up the hill, Kevessa broke the silence. “When Master Dabiel speaks with the Mother, and asks her to change the Law, will it be like when you spoke with her?”
“Not exactly. I’ve never seen it. No one has, because she goes off to Gurion’s Chapel alone. But supposedly the Mother physically manifests in this world, not just in a vision. I’ve watched other people bond with familiars, and nobody but them sees the Mother. But when Gurion Thricebound spoke to the Mother for the first time, the other people with him saw and heard her, too. And I’ve heard that every now and then the Guildmaster has to show her speaking in a window to prove that she really named a certain person to be an apprentice.”
Kevessa stopped and stared at him. “Could you open a window into the chapel and see her appear?”
Josiah snorted. “I wish! But Sar would never cooperate. Not without a very good reason.” He quirked a grin at Kevessa. “And he wouldn’t consider your curiosity or mine a good enough reason.”
“Must you have his cooperation?”
“Yeah.” Josiah waved his hand and sidled around the truth. “He’d break our bond if I tried using the Mother’s power against her will.” He hoped the half-truth would satisfy her.
Apparently it did, for she was quiet for a while. When she spoke, her voice was grave. “My father doesn’t believe the Mother is real. Not as a person, at least. Just as a force, like light or wind or fire. He thinks Master Dabiel will pretend her message has come from the Mother, when in truth she’ll only say what everyone wants to hear.”
Josiah fumed. “I wish it were that easy. She’s doing the most extreme form of the fast, you know— no food, or even any water, just like the first time Gurion Thricebound summoned the Mother. He forced her to listen and respond by offering his own life. She’s going to have to do the same, because this is the wrong time of year. Usually she only talks to her in the spring.”
Anger bubbled inside him, aimed in equal measure at Kevessa and her father and the Mother herself. “Master Dabiel is old, and Buttons is ancient for a pig, and I don’t see why they have to put themselves through this to get the Mother’s attention. She should know that we need her to change the Law! She can speak directly to the familiars if she wants to, or she could appear without forcing Master Dabiel to beg her. I guess she’d probably say it had something to do with upsetting the balance of the world, and causing storms or earthquakes or whatever. That always seems to be her excuse for not helping us when we need it.”
Kevessa stared at him, shocked at his outburst. Josiah was a little shocked himself. He hadn’t realized his frustration went quite so deep. He shrugged. He seemed to be doing a lot of that today. There were just some things shoulders could express that words couldn’t.
It was still a while before the evening meal would be served. He sat down on one of the benches around the fountain in the middle of the plaza outside the Mother’s Hall. Kevessa settled next to him. It was prettier when the fountain was running, but even dry the intricate carvings were beautiful. Intertwined among the abstract curlicues were animals of every sort, portraits of the familiars alive when the fountain had been made, many centuries ago.
After a while Kevessa looked sideways at him. Her voice took on a teasing tone. “I wonder if there’s any way to see the Mother when she appears without using the Mother’s power, since you say that’s forbidden. Surely I’m not the first to wish to see her. With so many clever apprentices, don’t tell me no one’s ever tried.”
Josiah grinned back. “The chapel is in a clearing in the woods northwest of the city, about an hour’s walk from here. It’s a little square building with windows high up all around that let in the light. Supposedly Gurion Thricebound built it while he was Guildmaster, to remind him of the place back in Miarban where he first met the Mother. Elkan took me to see it once. The windows are all too high to look into, unless you had a ladder or something. And if you tried that, you’d be sure to get caught.” He shuddered. He’d only seen Master Dabiel truly angry a few times, but he didn’t want to repeat the experience. He didn’t know whether spying on the Guildmaster’s meeting with the Mother was an offense worthy of a broken bond, but he had a sinking feeling it might come close. “There are trees you might be able to climb to get up high enough, but they’re all a long way away. I don’t think you could see anything from that far.”
Kevessa straightened, her eyes snapping. She stared at Josiah for a long moment with a calculating look. Finally, she nodded. “I don’t think my father will have returned to his room yet. Come with me. I have something to show you.”
Baffled, Josiah trailed after her into the Hall. Inside, most of the wizards were occupied rearranging the furnishings to accommodate the next morning’s Restday service. Josiah clung to Kevessa’s heels, hoping his association with her would prevent him from being recruited to help. Whatever she had to show him would surely be far more interesting than putting away screens and carrying chairs.
It worked, because they made it across the Hall and up the stairs without being stopped. Kevessa opened the door to Gevan’s room, calling brightly, “Father?” When there was no answer she slipped inside, beckoning to Josiah. He glanced guiltily around, but no one was in the corridor, so he followed her.
Kevessa headed for the desk below a window on the far wall. Josiah recognized the leather case Gevan had snatched protectively from his hands. What could possibly be inside?
When Kevessa opened it and removed the contents, he was no wiser. She carefully fitted one of the long metal tubes into the other, ending up with a tapered cylinder nearly as long as Josiah’s arm. She raised it to her eye, pointed it at the window, and slid the two tubes in and out until she was satisfied. For several minutes she stared into the tube, shifting it with delicate little movements. Finally she lowered it and held it out to Josiah. “Hold it up to your eye and look through.”
“What does it do?” She didn’t answer, only shook her head and thrust the device at him. He took it carefully from her grasp and looked it up and down. There were clear glass pieces closing off each end, but that didn’t give him any further idea how it worked. He took a deep breath, glanced at Kevessa, and held the small end of the tube up to his eye, just as she had. Maybe she was playing an elaborate joke on him, and would break out in peals of laughter when he made himself look ridiculous following her nonsensical directions.
He’d play along. A little humiliation would be a small price to pay to hear her laugh. He peered through the tube, ready to see nothing, or at the most some silly picture concealed inside.
A bright circle met his eye. He closed the other so he could see it better. Was that the sky? He shifted the far end of the tube downward, and the bright circle blurred into a swirl of colors. When he stopped moving, the colors were still only blurry formless shapes.
“If it’s not clear, move the tubes in and out a bit until the focus sharpens. Different people’s eyes need different adjustments.”
He tweaked the tubes a tiny bit further apart. That produced even blurrie
r smears of color, so he pushed them slowly together. Gradually the forms resolved. A bit more, a bit more…
Josiah gasped. There at the end of the tube was the wall of a building, with the edge of a doorframe and the lantern sconce next to it, looking as if were no more than a foot or two away.
He pulled back from the tube and looked out the window, baffled. The nearest buildings were far across the broad street. He frowned at the device and raised it cautiously back to his eye. This time he saw only a dark smudge, until he twitched the tube to the side and again caught a glimpse of a stone wall, this time with the corner of a window. He had to force his hands to make only tiny movements, or the bright circle swooped and blurred like a poorly controlled window.
A break in the buildings allowed him to glimpse the river. Even the shore on the far side was clear. He spent a few minutes studying the way the water lapped against the reeds growing in the sand of the riverbank. Finally he lowered the device and turned to Kevessa. “What is this?”
“My father calls it a window-glass. He invented it.” She spoke calmly, but Josiah could hear the pride in her voice. “He sought to prove that the ancient wizards used no supernatural power, only clever manipulation of the same forces anyone can master. This was his first successful attempt to duplicate one of their powers.” She smiled without apology. “Though we know now his theory was mistaken, in his investigations he discovered much about the world that no one, not even the ancient wizards, ever knew before.”
“Huh.” Josiah turned the metal tube in his hands. “I guess it is kind of like a window. Except you can only see straight ahead, if nothing blocks you, just like with your eyes. And you can’t see the past—can you?”
“No.”
Josiah looked through the tube again, out toward the horizon. “But you know, I think you can see farther away with this than with a window. The watchers brought us a man once who attacked a woman out in the marshes, and we had to travel across the river to get close enough to be able to show it. But I can see that patch of trees pretty clearly, and it’s way beyond where that happened. And of course, anybody can use it, not just wizards.” He moved closer to the window, sweeping the tube around, studying everything he could capture within the bright circle. “Your father made it? That’s amazing.”
“You really think so? You’re not just flattering me?”
Josiah pulled the window-glass away from his eye and looked at Kevessa in surprise. “Of course I think so.” He floundered a moment before finding words to express what he felt. “It’s better than if he’d only managed to do exactly what the Mother’s power can do, because then it would just be a copy. This is… something completely new, different. Not just the same thing wizards have always been able to do. It’s exciting.”
Kevessa flushed and looked away. Josiah turned to study the device again, both to give her a moment to regain her composure and because it fascinated him. Was the effect produced by the pieces of glass at each end? The big one bulged out while the little one dished in. Maybe if he asked Gevan very politely, without letting on that he’d already messed with his precious invention, the Ramunnan would show him the window-glass and explain the principles of how it worked.
At length Kevessa spoke again. “Do you think this will allow us to see into the chapel while Master Dabiel speaks to the Mother?”
He pictured the little chapel and its surroundings. “Maybe. It depends on whether there’s a tree to climb where we can get the right angle.” He tilted the tube, imagining aiming it down at one of the small, dark windows.
“I’d like to try.”
Josiah looked at Kevessa, surprised at the determination in her voice. “Why is it so important to you? You believe me about the Mother, don’t you?”
She evaded his eyes. “I wish to believe you. But my father has always taught me to believe only the evidence of my own senses. And even then, senses can be fooled by clever illusions. I can’t help but be skeptical. But, Josiah, I do want to believe that the Mother is real, and that she spoke to you. That she might someday speak to me.” She stared at her hands, balled into fists in her lap. After a moment she raised her eyes again to Josiah. “Even if I were able to take your words as truth, my father would not. But he might believe me, if I told him that I had seen her for myself.”
Josiah nodded slowly. If Gevan fully accepted the reality of the Mother, and how the wizards of Tevenar were bound by her will, surely that could only help Master Dabiel in her dealings with him. And he desperately wanted to fulfill Kevessa’s desire.
He handed the window-glass back to her. As she disassembled it and fitted it back into its case, he spoke in a quiet voice. “Let’s do it. Tomorrow is Restday. After the service in the morning I’ll be free for the afternoon. I usually take Sar out to a meadow so he can graze. There’s one in the same direction as the chapel. If the Mother comes, it will be late afternoon, around the same time Master Dabiel started her vigil. We’ll have to get there early and hide somewhere we can see, but be out of sight ourselves, because Elkan and some of the other masters are going to meet Master Dabiel when she’s finished.”
Kevessa nodded at each of his points. “Shall we meet after the midday meal? Say, outside by the fountain. I’ll bring the window-glass.”
“I’ll be there with Sar. I don’t think he’ll be suspicious if you come along with us. He’ll just think—” Josiah flushed and looked away. “Anyway, once we get him settled grazing we can head off to the chapel.” He hesitated, blushing even hotter, but he had to say it. “Do you think you can climb a tree in that?” He gestured toward her voluminous skirt.
She showed no sign of discomfiture. “I have a garment that will be more suitable.”
“Good.” Josiah shifted. He didn’t want to leave Kevessa, but there seemed nothing more to say, and he’d hate to get caught here if her father came back to his room. “It’s going to be time to eat soon. I guess we should head back down to the dining hall. Do you think… I’m sure all the apprentices would like it if you sat with us again.”
“I’m sorry. I promised Father I would return to his table. He was not entirely pleased that I deserted him earlier.”
Josiah strove to hide his disappointment. “That’s all right.”
“I need to go to my room for a few moments. You may escort me there.” She set the window-glass case on the desk in the precise position they had found it and moved to wait expectantly by the door.
It took him a moment to realize what she wanted. He hurried to hold the door open for her and let it close again behind her swirling skirts. She waited for him and paced gravely at his side the few steps down the corridor to her room. He opened that door as well. With a little smile she sank into one of the low bows she had told him was called a “curtsy” and swept through.
He let the door close, feeling bemused. Sometimes she was so formal, holding serenely to the strange customs of her foreign homeland until he had no choice but to go along. Other times she was so casually bold. He’d never have dared attempt the venture they planned if she hadn’t proposed it. Maybe she didn’t fully understand the audacity of what they were going to try. Maybe he should attempt to talk her out of it.
But the next day, when he left the main doors of the Mother’s Hall with Sar and found her seated on the bench by the fountain, window-glass case in her lap, he only grinned, heart racing, and altered his course to pass nearby. She rose as he approached. With a friendly nod to Sar, she asked, “Would the two of you mind if I accompany you on your walk? My father suggested that I might enjoy escaping the city for the afternoon, but I was hesitant to go alone. Master Elkan said you wouldn’t mind escorting me. I persuaded the cooks in the kitchen to pack a snack we can share.” She displayed the leather case.
Josiah was impressed by her duplicity. He couldn’t tell which parts of her story were true and which invented. Maybe she really had talked to her father and Elkan. Surely it would fool Sar. “I don’t mind, if it’s all right with Sar.” Well?
>
Why should I object if you wish to spend a lovely Restday afternoon with a pleasant young woman?
Josiah hoped Kevessa didn’t notice his blush. Thanks.
They set out on the main road that led west. The weather was beautiful, the air crisp, the sun bright and just warm enough to offset the chill of the fresh breeze. Kevessa easily kept pace at Josiah’s side. He noticed she was wearing the promised tree-climbing garb. The skirt was plain, made of sturdy fabric, and much less full than her others, divided so it was almost like loose breeches. It looked as if it wouldn’t restrict her movements much.
They left the tall buildings of the city behind. Soon the small scattered homes and shops thinned out to occasional clusters. The meadow Sar favored was a series of rolling green hills along a small sparkling stream. The herder who tended her flocks of sheep there was always happy to accommodate a wizard’s familiar. Josiah opened the gate in the fence and let Sar through. If it weren’t for that necessity, the donkey could make the trip by himself, but although he was clever enough with his teeth to open the gate, he couldn’t fasten it behind him. They couldn’t repay the herder’s hospitality by letting her sheep wander loose.
Josiah swung the gate shut, hooked it closed, and leaned against it. Sar buried his nose in the waving grass and began tearing up mouthfuls. Usually while Sar grazed Josiah would flop on the warm hillside by the stream and take a nap or struggle through a few more pages of the Histories. But sometimes he’d go off with his friends, so he didn’t think his request to do so today would raise any suspicions in his familiar’s mind. He tried to think of words that would sound natural and casual.
Kevessa made it easy. After a few moments watching Sar graze, she gestured toward the stream. “Where does it go?”
“Down to join the Tarath. A little way upstream is a nice big pool. In the summer sometimes we go swimming there, but in the fall it’s even prettier. There’s a big stand of maples that should be nice and red now.”
“Oh, I’d love to see that! In Ramunna we have nothing like your color-changing trees.”
The Law of Isolation Page 35
