Liaden Universe Constellation Volume 3

by Sharon Lee

  “Yes?” the taller woman said with a false sweetness that set Lute’s teeth on edge. “And yourself?”

  “You—dare! On what hour was Moonhawk named Circle’s Center? I draw my duties from the Circle, and to the Circle alone do I explain my reasons!”

  “Strange,” murmured Lute, climbing to his feet and wincing at the persisting headache, “I’d have thought you might reserve time for that which the Goddess sends you.”

  “Be silent!” snapped the dark woman, tracing a sharp sign before her. Lute saw the image shine against the air for an instant, then vanish.

  “Certainly,” he said and bowed, slightly and with irony. “Since you ask it so nicely.”

  The dark woman fairly gaped, but her escort was at no loss of words.

  “Respect for Lady Rowan!” he cried and came two strides forward, fist rising. Lute watched his approach calmly; saw him stop as if suddenly rooted as the tall Witch wove her hand through glittering air.

  “Shame, Feldris Circleman! To move for violence within these walls!”

  Feldris Circleman. Lute stared at the other, searching the soft face and haughty eyes. A servant of the Temple, perhaps even the angry lady’s consort. Thus might Lute have been . . .

  “This man,” Lady Rowan was telling—Moonhawk?—pointing at Lute’s very self, “is a breaker of the peace and one who actively works to rend Circle and lead the ignorant into error. He must be brought before Truth-seers at once.”

  Lute stirred. “I am of course honored that word of my skill has come to the ears of the ladies of Dyan Circle,” he said smoothly. “However, I have traveled hard the last few days and doubt not my work is grown ragged.” He smiled, noting how Lady Rowan’s eyes sparked with fury even as her cheeks seemed to pale.

  “I would bring nothing less than my best performance,” he said gently, “before your sisters.”

  Lady Rowan walked forward, heavy, deliberate steps that crushed the new grass beneath her bare feet. Straight past Feldris Circleman she went until she stood less than an arm’s length from Lute and there stopped, looking up at him with her hands on her hips.

  “I bade you be silent. Magician.”

  Lute felt a spark of anger, though he kept his face pleasant. Make a curse-word of his profession, would she? He bowed once again, slight and mocking.

  “Why, so you did,” he said, smiling down at her. “Forgive me a faulty memory.”

  Her lips tightened, and she brought her hands sharply up, tracing a design that shone like living bars of fire in the air between them. He heard the other woman make a small sound even as his tongue began to burn.

  Never anger a Witch, he thought as the pain grew and he felt the roof of his mouth scalding. The inside of his cheeks began to fry and he wanted, desperately, to scream—

  “Avert!” One word, that seemed to lance through his tortured mouth like a spear of ice. The pain died on the instant and Lute closed his eyes in blessed relief. He opened them again to see Lady Rowan turning toward Moonhawk.

  “You will cease to meddle! You will free my servant and return to your meditations. When Mother Portal hears of this—”

  “Which she will better hear from my lips than yours, I think, Sister,” said Moonhawk coolly. “Let us go together, why not?”

  “Together?” Lady Rowan had gone very still.

  “Together,” Moonhawk replied, looking down upon her. “Where should this man better go than to Mother Portal, who knows Truth as plain as any other Seer?” She smiled, but not warmly. “And how better to bring word of my trespass most quickly to her ear?”

  There was a hard silence, then a nod. “Very well,” said Lady Rowan stiffly. “Join with me in subduing the magician—”

  “Subduing?” Lute felt Moonhawk’s glance like a physical thing. “He hardly seems frantic, though he has every right to be. Few folk, you know, Sister, would stand calm while their tongue was set afire.”

  “Oh,” said Lady Rowan, ignoring the rebuke. “So you think he’ll come quiet, do you?”

  “Why should he not?” returned Moonhawk, then lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “But, there, you’re distraught yourself and hardly in condition to lend support. I’ll lead him and there will be no trouble.” Another thoughtful blue glance at his face. “Will there, Master Lute?”

  His name, which he had not told her. He stared, speechless now that he was required to speak, then drew himself up, conjuring a grin.

  “No trouble at all, Lady. My word upon it.”

  Mother Portal’s rooms were hung with silvery tapestries, upholstered in velvets and furs. Green and silver candles burned at the four prime points—green for the Spring Goddess, silver for the Moon. A fat white cat with a green riband about his neck sprawled across a low round table inlaid with gemstones. Incense hung in a pall, overburdening the air with the scent of false roses, and the windows were shut tight against the fine spring night.

  “Take off your cloak,” Lady Rowan snapped and Lute froze, eyes going to his patroness.

  Moonhawk returned his glance gravely. “You’ve no need of your cloak here, Master Lute. The room is warm. And it is discourteous to come covered before Mother Portal.”

  “Ah,” he said, around the dread in his heart. “Moon knows I would not be churlish.”

  He raised his hand and twisted the copper brooch at his shoulder, let the cloak slip free and caught it up in a practiced motion that never brought the lining to sight. Feldris Circleman had it off of his arm the next instant, and Lute bit back a protest.

  “He’s only gone to hang it up,” said Moonhawk. “You shall have it again when you go.”

  “Yes,” said Lute gently, for she seemed out of reason young and touchingly certain of his eventual freedom. “Of course I shall.”

  Lady Rowan was a different matter. “That!” she snapped, pointing at the bag, suspended from its leather strap and hanging at his hip. “Give that to me!”

  It was the command voice again. Lute stilled the involuntary move of his muscles to obey, took three deep breaths and looked into Lady Rowan’s eyes.

  “No.”

  Her breath hissed. “You—charlatan! Have a care what enemies you make, lest you buy above your means.” She snapped her fingers. “Give me the bag.”

  “No.”

  “And why should he?” Moonhawk demanded, cutting through whatever new pain Lady Rowan was doubtless contemplating inflicting upon him. “It is his, after all.”

  “It is proof of his villainy and it shall be set out now, ready for Lady Portal’s hand.”

  “It is my life and my livelihood,” Lute cried, anger breaking its barriers for an instant. “Nor is it safe for Lady Portal or any other except myself to touch it!”

  “That is True,” said Moonhawk into the small silence that followed this outburst. “He believes what he has said, completely.”

  There was more silence, then a flicker of Lady Rowan’s fingers. “Show him the logic of putting it aside, Sister, do,” she said, but to Lute’s ear it sounded more an order than a request. “If the thing is as dangerous as that and he the only one who may control it, we can hardly take the chance of him unchaining it and making good his escape.”

  “Escape.” Once more those blue eyes rested fully on him. “Do you wish to escape us, Master Lute?”

  “Yes,” he told her with utter truth.

  She frowned. “I am sorry to hear it,” she said gravely, “but I can scarcely blame you. Rough treatment has been your share here thus far. Still, Lady Rowan speaks sensibly, you know. If your bag is as dangerous as you believe, with yourself distressed and likely to err, perhaps it would be best for all, if you simply put the strap off and set the bag here.” She pointed to a place upon the costly carpet exactly halfway between them. “Is that an acceptable compromise?”

  He stared at the spot where her finger pointed, felt the weight of the bag across his shoulder, and thought, briefly and wildly, of the mountain village he had quit nine days ago, when the compulsion had com
e upon him—

  “Lady,” he said, seeking Moonhawk’s glance, willing her to see the Truth in him. “I have no more will to break Circle than that cat!”

  She held his eyes for a long moment, until Lute felt himself sliding into lightheadedness, then glanced aside, a tiny line between her brows.

  “But you know,” she said in her grave deep voice, “that is not quite true, Master Lute.” She moved her hand, showing him the spot on the carpet once more. “The bag here, if you please.”

  There was no help for it. With a flourish he slid the strap free, leaned forward and placed his bag precisely upon the designated place, face betraying none of the profound dismay in his heart.

  “Thank you,” said Moonhawk. “I will see that none harm it, Master Lute. I say so before the Goddess.”

  “Fine promises,” mocked Lady Rowan, and Moonhawk spun quick, eyes flashing and lips parting for a scorching reply, so Lute was certain. But—

  “Enough!” cried a new voice, accompanied by the sharp sound of a clap. “Can I not be out of my rooms for an hour without returning to find two Sisters squabbling like brats?”

  The lady who demanded it wore a shawl across her bony shoulders, and her fine Circle robe was rumpled as if she had passed many nights in it. Her hair was gray, with a bluish cast to it, snarled as if she had been out in the wind. Overall, she was tiny—small on height and short on meat, as the country folk told it—and her face was rodent-sharp, dominated by a pair of enormous brown eyes. Her hands glittered with the inevitable Moon rings, but she held them poised, ready for any movement, as if she were a magician trained.

  Lute bowed. “Mother Portal.”

  The bright brown eyes locked on him with a force that nearly took him to his knees. She returned his bow with a nod of her head. “Child. Be welcome.” Her voice was unexpectedly soft.

  Lady Rowan thrust herself forward. “Mother Portal, this—”

  But the older lady’s eyes had moved, to rest upon Moonhawk.

  “I had thought you were to meditate until I called you here.”

  “Yes, Mother,” said Moonhawk, with poise.

  “‘Yes, Mother’,” repeated the sharp lady. “And have I called you here? Refresh my memory.”

  “No, Mother,” Moonhawk returned, never moving her eyes from those of her interrogator.

  There was a small pause before Mother Portal moved her eyes and walked across the room to the cat. “How extraordinary. No doubt you have your reasons.” She extended a wire-thin hand and stroked the cat from head-top to rump. Satisfied rumbling rose in the scented air.

  “So,” said Mother Portal, looking down at her hand stroking the cat. “But Rowan had something of urgency to impart. What was that, Rowan?”

  “Mother, this man is a Circle-breaker and an intruder. He was found within the walls of the Inner Garden.” Malice glinted in Lady Rowan’s dark eyes. “With Sister Moonhawk.”

  “Circle-breaker. That is serious,” Mother Portal told the cat. She glanced up, capturing Lute’s gaze. “Are you a Circle-breaker, my son?”

  Lute met her eyes straightly, and held himself utterly calm. “No, Mother.”

  “Said plainly enough. Were you in the Inner Garden with Lady Moonhawk?”

  “Yes,” said Lute, and folded his lips tightly over. But.

  Mother Portal’s eyes sharpened. “There were circumstances, were there? But you don’t care to name yourself a fool. Pride belongs to the foolish, you know, but no matter. Lady Moonhawk.”

  “Mother?”

  “How came this man to be in the Garden with you?”

  “I was meditating upon the Garden, that its peace would fill me, when there was—discord. Only an instant—only a flicker. If I had not been one with the Garden, I would never have noticed. As it was, trance was broken . . .” She tipped her head, a trick of the pathetically young, thought Lute, watching her.

  “I sought the source and touched a thought—a thought of being hunted, Mother, and a taste of desperation. So I descended into the Garden, to see if I might aid one who was being hunted upon Beltane.”

  “And you found this man?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “What was he doing?”

  Moonhawk’s lips curved upward, very slightly. “He was being invisible.”

  “Invisible!” That was Lady Rowan. Mother Portal spared her a glance and she subsided.

  “Invisible,” Moonhawk reiterated. “He did well with it, too. If I had not been looking for him, I would have passed within a yard and never known he was there.”

  “Unconvincing,” snapped Lady Rowan, “when it most likely yourself who let him in—just as you let him in the Plaza Gate!”

  “Alas,” Lute said gently, “I fear you are out there, Lady. I let myself in through the gate.”

  “Certainly you did,” she said with cordial sarcasm. “And with merely a wave of your hand.”

  “No,” said Lute, “with a picklock.” He gestured and the instrument in question appeared between his fingers, vanished. “I’ve studied the old locks. The type you have on the gate is very simple. No trouble at all to pick.”

  “No trouble to pick.” That was Lady Portal, who had turned away from the cat. She pulled a tarot deck from a fold of her robe and began to shuffle, the cards nearly as large as her small hands. She looked up, deep into Lute’s eyes.

  “But who showed you where to look for the Gate, I wonder?”

  He moved his shoulders in an irritable shrug. “No one needs to teach me to see what is in plain sight. I had noted the gate earlier this evening. When three of your Temple were striving to herd me against the wall, I recalled its location, and made use of it.”

  The cards made a slight sandpapery sound in the silence.

  “Lady Rowan,” Mother Portal said dreamily, “you were once a novice. How many levels of spell are woven about that Gate?”

  “Twenty-six, Mother.”

  “Twenty-six. And also the several layers of spell we have woven about the Temple entire.” She shuffled in silence, her eyes on the cards, then glanced up, sharp, into Lute’s face. “You interest me, child. Have you perhaps had Circle training, as I hear is sometimes offered boys in the out-country, in years when girls are few?”

  He laughed; he could not stop himself.

  “Respect for Mother Portal!” cried Rowan, and Lute raised his hand in protest.

  “Every respect for Mother Portal,” he replied, bringing himself under control. He bowed to the tiny woman. “Forgive me, Mother, but Circle would not have me. My mother brought us to the Temple, she having fallen into hard times, and offered us both for service. They wanted only her daughter and turned her and me out with a loaf of bread in trade.” He deliberately relaxed his shoulders, which were tense with the old bitterness.

  “What came forth then?” asked Mother Portal.

  He smiled at her. “Why, then, my mother sold me, Lady, to a man with clever hands who said he had need of an apprentice, and who promised to feed me and give me a trade and who paid her in good minted silver.”

  “He did those things?”

  “Lady, he did. Only imagine my dismay to find that the trade I learned so well now makes me outlaw.” He gestured and the parchment came to hand, unrolling with the weight of the ribbons and pentagram. He held it steady for her to read.

  “By the hand of Greenlady . . .” she said softly, and her eyes when she looked into Lute’s face were knife-sharp. “Lady Moonhawk, what do you make of this?”

  The tall woman came a few steps forward, frowned at the proclamation. “To name an entire guild outlaw?” she said in wondering accents. “For what wrong?”

  “An excellent question. Perhaps Lady Rowan may instruct us.”

  “Certainly,” said that Lady, nervously folding her hands before her. “It was decided among Thirteen that the kitchen and hearth magicians confuse the simple, who are not trained to mark the difference between mere trickery and the true magic of those who are Circle. The Way is diffi
cult enough, to the simple, and we owe them the care of removing falsehood from their path, that they not stumble because of our inattention.”

  “And so this—document—was drafted and posted in the city?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “And it was considered too small a thing, I gather,” pursued Portal, unrelentingly gentle, “with which to trouble the High Priestess of Dyan Temple?”

  There was silence; a beginning of speech, cut off as Mother Portal turned back to Lute.

  “Where were you bound with this thing, child?”

  “To the Magician’s Guildhall, Mother, to show it to the Master.” He looked down at her bleakly, the hairs standing tall on his nape. If the Mother of Dyan Temple were not impervious to political maneuverings within her own Circle . . . He broke her gaze, looked up, located and pointed at Feldris.

  “This man was there. He told me he was newly named Guildmaster. He said that the magicians of Dyan City are no longer within walls. I ran, thinking to lose myself in the outer rim and win free of the city tomorrow. He and three Witches pursued me across Goddess Square. I saw the gate, picked the lock . . .”

  “And thus came to the Inner Garden. I see. Lady Moonhawk, take that document, if you will, and put it on my desk. Master Lute.”

  He started, looked down to find the tarot deck fanned face down, in a half-circle that all but hid her hand. “Draw a card.”

  He did so, holding it between the tips of his fingers, face still toward the floor.

  “Show me,” Mother Portal said, and he turned the card up, swallowing his shock, staring at the horrific black figure that leered from the creamy background.

  “Do you know what card that is, Master Lute?”

  He swallowed. “Death.”

  “Hah. And it frightens you, does it? Lady Moonhawk—what card is this?”

  A quick blue glance. “The change card, Mother.”

  “So.” She folded the deck, shot a glance at Rowan. “Bring me my pen. Master Lute, your card.”

  She took it from him, and the pen from Rowan, and scrawled some lines across the creamy stock before offering it back.

  Lute stood still. “Mother . . .”