by John March
“It's true, Ben-gan has created every last piece of sevyric iron we have, but you must understand the necessities of the time. At first, it served as a defence in the war which led to the fall of Volane. Later we needed the second form of the iron to preserve this city. Without the iron, we could not build our world-ships, and the ships bring food, without which our people would have long ago starved.
“Now, the second form of sevyric iron is used in so many things. There is a near limitless hunger for the stuff. When Ben-gan stopped fetching it, there was a great deal of theft. Some of the pieces stolen were so vital to the well-being of the city, his hand was forced, and he had to start again. You can see, it's easy to malign a man if you don't know all the facts,” Suru said.
“Is that why there's a cheg guarding the tower with the sevyric spike?” Sash asked.
Suru gave her an appraising look. “It may well be, or it may be part of some archaic tradition the cheg are wedded to — who can say? Now I believe you wanted to look at a map? Shall we see what we can find, hmm?”
“I'd like to find something big and detailed,” Ebryn said.
“No, you stay here,” Suru said to Ebryn as he pushed forward in his chair to stand up. “We don't need three to fetch a map.”
He sat back to wait, allowing his gaze to wander over the tables and bookshelves. Sevoi seemed to be giving Hoi a better game, and the old man had his head down, concentrating on the board. Ebryn tapped his fingers absent-mindedly on the polished table surface, until Tuk looked up with a frown on his face.
A handful of students wandered through the library foyer, some holding books, looking for unoccupied tables, while others headed at once into the dark cavernous recesses.
His eyes were drawn to a short man entering through the main doors, walking bent forward over a staff, hood pulled far forward to conceal the face.
“Who's that?” he asked Tuk, recalling the same man sprawled out on the floor of the menagerie.
Tuk turned his head, nose wrinkling, as if he'd discovered a bad smell. “He's called Fla. One of the worst troublemakers in years.”
“How so?” Ebryn asked. The man hobbling past the rows of shelves seemed barely capable of standing without support.
“He was of the Aremetuet, before he left the orders. Asked to leave, I suspect, but you'll never discover the true reason by asking. Wherever he went, hurt followed close behind.”
Fla moved out of sight behind a bookshelf just as Sash returned with Suru. They were both smiling at something, and Sash carried a large fabric roll almost two-thirds her height.
Unfolded, it occupied the full width of the table, with the tops and bottom parts hanging over the edge, and half the table length.
The map had been cut into a rough oval, to accommodate the shape of the city, following a line just beyond the edge of the city boundary. Fine lines marked out every street, down to the smallest lane, with every building drawn perfectly, as if seen from a great height. Hundreds of finely drawn symbols and annotations distinguished key places across the city, and looking closer Ebryn made out sections of waterways, and even tiny images of trees. Drawn on a thick material, like parchment, but smooth and flexible, the upper surface seemed to have been coated in a perfectly flexible clear lacquer.
“So we're here,” Sash said, placing a finger on a circular structure near the centre of the map, “and here are the Claws … and the spike.”
She leant over the back of his chair, studying the map, and tracing along the lines with her fingers. So close, Ebryn could feel the heat of her body where the fold of her clothing settled against his shoulder, and the rise and fall of her breath on his cheek.
In Conant village, standing so close would be seen as a clear invitation to courtship, yet Sash often seemed unaware of normal customs, or simply chose to ignore them.
He tried hard to focus on the movement of her hand, to concentrate on her words, sitting very still to avoid accidentally brushing against her, caught in a confusion of uncertainty and anticipation, surprised by the strength of his feelings.
“We saw the same pattern in the stone outside the spike tower we visited as the one at the top of the library hill. Is there some reason they're the same?” Sash asked Suru.
“They were all made at the same time,” Suru said. “I'm sure you've noticed many different styles of building around the city. I imagine they had some passing fashion the builder followed.”
Ebryn forced himself to examine the part of the map near their quarters, first finding the main market — Teblin's market, as he referred to it. He located the closer high market, clearly smaller, and another he hadn't heard of — the eel market, nearer The Etched Man.
Amongst the lanes, avenues and alleyways, he found fragmentary sections of waterway marked. As he traced the path of one waterway, past the places where it disappeared underground or travelled beneath buildings, he realised the map only reflected one view of the city.
Such a map might fully detail everything needed to understand any number of other places, but much of this city could only really be appreciated in its layered depth. Entire reservoirs were hidden beneath the surface, along with tunnels, and cavernous rooms from ancient buildings. Roads criss-crossed one another at different levels, often serving entirely different communities, with layers of dwellings stacked one on top of the other.
Feeling eyes on him, Ebryn looked up. Hoi leant forward over his game board, scratching at his eyebrows, puzzling over his next move, and Tyk-myrr had his head stooped over a book.
He found Suru watching him with a sad, faraway look in her eyes, as if seeing something long past, while Sevoi's hooded gaze moved back and forth between Sash and him with a calculating expression. Neither made him comfortable.
“What are you looking for?” he asked Sash.
“Hmm? Oh, nothing in particular. I'm trying to memorize as much of it as I can, and looking for the other spikes. Teblin said there were eight. I can only see six on here.”
“There are twelve — thirteen, if you count the one under the weatherstone,” Suru said. “Five won't be on that map.”
“That means there are five marked here we haven't visited yet,” Sash said.
“I suppose you're planning on going to all of them?” Ebryn asked.
Fla hid himself in a narrow corner, managing to conceal himself mere moments before Sashael and Suru emerged from between two rows of shelves. He knew all the good hiding places around the edge of the main room, from the time he'd spent trailing after Sketik.
As fortune would have it, he found he'd picked the perfect place. A thrill of anticipation went through him as she dropped a large map onto a table barely fifteen short paces away.
He watched avidly as Sashael lent over the map next to Ebryn, both of them tracing the details, drinking in the sound of her voice without listening to the words.
Fla stood in the shadows, irresolute, part of him desperate to take a chance, and walk out of hiding — to take a chair at the same table for a while. Perhaps find a way to join their conversation. He'd seen her welcome all sorts of other people, why not him? He knew he'd give nearly anything to be able to sit with her, to be so close.
A bitter ache rose up inside him, drowning out the glimmer of hope. So many times he'd seen a mask of kindness and cheer evaporate, draining away from those who'd seemed friendliest, whenever he chanced going near — as unwelcome as some creeping thing crawling near to them.
After a while, in which Sashael studied the map intently, obviously memorising details of the city while conversing back and forth with Suru, she straightened up, and refolded it.
“Well, it looks like your Ben-gan isn't going to be here today to find you more books,” she said to Ebryn. “I'm going back now, will you walk with me?”
Ebryn nodded as he stood. “I think you're right. Perhaps he's helping with something else.”
“I'll return this quickly—”
“No, you fetched it, I'll return it,” Ebryn said,
taking the map from her. “If Suru will show me, I'll know where to find it if you're not here.”
Sashael stopped barely eight paces from where Fla hid. “I'll wait here then. We can go to the Westerwall for something to eat.”
Close as she was, Fla strained to see her past the gaps between the rows of heavy books, without abandoning his concealment altogether.
“What you doing?” a harsh voice said near his ear.
He looked up to find a shaven-headed red-cloak sneering at him, blocking his way out. “What you doing in there?”
Too dim witted to arrive at the obvious conclusion without help, Fla thought, but standing where he could be seen from the entire entrance hall, drawing attention from everyone else in the room. The last thing he wanted was for them discover him here.
The brighter ones would know to leave him alone, but Brack always hired a new crop of dullards each year, seemingly selected for size and aggression, above all. And every few years, since he'd developed his full powers, he'd needed to hurt a few to warn the others away.
“It's a library you idiot. What do you think I'm doing here?”
Fla straightened up, turning in time for the man to grab the front of his robes, and haul him half out of the alcove. His staff slipped from his hand, bouncing noisily across the floor, and every person in the room looked at him.
Sashael crossed the short distance before anybody else reacted. “Leave him alone. You don't have the right to pick on people because of your order.”
“Ha, you call this people?”
“Like my friend Elouphe, you mean. Or anybody else who doesn't look like you?”
“Yeah, like the talking animals. Now go away, I'm not finished teaching this one respect,” the red-cloak said, putting out a hand to push her away.
She pivoted, and the outstretched arm slipped past her shoulder. In a moment, she had the red-cloak pinned against the side of the bookshelf, with his arm twisted up behind his back.
“Well, well. Aremetuet picking fights in the library — clever,” Sevoi said, slipping into view behind Sashael. “Trying to get your order banned?”
“Let go, or I'm gonna hurt you bad,” the man yelled.
“See the colour of her eyes, boy?” Sevoi asked, obviously enjoying himself. “Do you know where she comes from? Hurt her, and by this time tomorrow the leatherwings will be fighting over your entrails in the execution square.”
Fla saw a look pass between Sevoi and the red-cloak. When Sashael released her grip, the red-cloak stumbled past them heading for the exit, muttering a stream of curses and threats.
“Who says you can't educate people in a library?” Sevoi drawled, his eyes travelling from Fla to Sash. “It's busy here today. I can hardly imagine where this sudden yearning for learning arises.”
Sashael wheeled on Sevoi, her hands on her hips. “What did you interfere for, I don't need your help.”
Sevoi grinned, ignoring her, his lips pulling back to reveal rows of yellowing teeth. “It's so rare to see you in here with your friends, Fla. Aren't you mostly here following mine?”
Fla felt his cheeks flushing, the humiliation forcing a dark tear from the bad eye under his hood, trapped between the weighty shelves, unable to defend himself in this place, where Sashael and Sevoi would be able to see what he could do.
She stooped to pick up his staff, and thrust it back at him, glowering at Sevoi's retreating back. Sashael's eyes held no hint of recognition as she handed it over. She clearly didn't remember him from the menagerie, hadn't even noticed him in the moment she changed his life.
Everything around him reeled, feeling as if something vital had been crushed inside his heart. Light-headed and struggling to draw breath, Fla realised he didn't need a glamour to be invisible to her, and the thought went through him like a blade sliding between his ribs.
Rest
A FEW WEEKS after his journey to Guele, Ebryn attended his third lesson taught by Deme DeLare. He arrived as the last students filed into the underground chamber, but managed to find a place behind Addae and Elouphe.
He'd skipped a few of these general lessons, preferring to spend his time studying with Ben-gan. He would have ignored this one too, but for a note from Sash asking if he'd be going, and as he'd barely seen her in the previous ten days he decided to attend.
Sash arrived last, just as Deme started, edging past seated students to sit in the space next to him.
She looked tired, managing to tread on a few feet as she worked her way along the row, and sat down, yawning widely. “Sorry I didn't get here sooner. We were practising very late last night, almost to the morning. Teblin's been working on the last few scenes for the play, so he asked us to stay. I would have overslept, but Leth woke me up, making a lot of noise getting through the window.”
“Don't worry,” Ebryn said. “You haven't missed anything yet, she's just starting. Besides, if we do miss anything, I can always ask Ben-gan to explain it.”
Sash yawned again, clearly only half-listening. “That's good.”
Deme walked to the centre of the room, and stood, waiting for silence.
“So, up to this point we have considered some of the basic ideas you need to be familiar with. From here we will start to unravel some of the inner patterns which form the foundations of everything we do—”
Ebryn tried to concentrate, but found his attention drifting away. The lesson Deme was teaching was on the same things he'd learnt in the first few hours studying with Ben-gan. The man had proved extraordinarily adept at using what Ebryn already knew as a bridge to new insights, rapidly drawing together much of what Master Yale had taught.
Ebryn's eyes found Marus amongst a group of his Aremetuet friends, glowering in his direction. Not at him, he realised, rather someone up a row, and to one side. He followed Marus's eye-line and found Aara Sur sitting just over his right shoulder, and next to her Paz Romain — Marus's dark-haired sister.
Their heads were bowed as they talked together, so quietly he hadn't marked the conversation above the restless fidgeting, and stray coughing of the students. From the fragments he could hear, he guessed they must be discussing their homeland. Jure noticed Ebryn watching and grinned.
Jure stopped next to Ebryn on the way out. “So, what do you think, eh?”
Ebryn raised an eyebrow. “Romain's sister?”
“Yeah, I know,” Jure said, chuckling. “A high born noblewoman where she's from, but it turns out us lot — casters — are something special there too, kind of on the same level.”
“What about Marus? He doesn't look too happy about it.”
Jure smirked and leant in so only Ebryn could hear. “Not a problem. The worse he is, the easier it gets for me. That's how we got talking, me and Paz. She came to say sorry for what he did on the ship on our way here, and one thing led to another. It's like she feels she has to make up for him, if you know what I mean.”
“Be careful, some of the Aremetuet get violent,” Ebryn said.
“Yeah? Well I've gotta go, I'll see you around,” Jure said, slapping Ebryn on the back, and heading for the main door.
Sash's head came up as Jure walked away. “I think I've been asleep. Did I miss anything good.”
“Not much,” Ebryn said. “To be honest, I wasn't listening either.”
They stood waiting, as the students from the lower rows filed slowly out of the chamber.
Elouphe turned to them. “Sash, Eby, come swim now?”
“Not now, El, can we do it tomorrow morning before rehearsals?”
“Swimming?” Ebryn asked, thinking of the small weed-choked canal he'd last seen Elouphe in. “Where can you swim around here?”
“There's a large pool hidden away between the first and second Claws. Elouphe says it's warm enough for us to swim in.”
“Warm,” Elouphe said, “you swim in morning, Eby?”
“Yes, why not,” Ebryn said. “It's been a while since I swam.”
Sash yawned. “I'm going to have a rest. What
are you all doing now?”
“I have work which I must do. I too will see you in the morning,” Addae said.
“Swim, swim, swim,” Elouphe said.
Ebryn shrugged. “I don't have any plans. I thought we'd all be going to the Westerwall.”
“Do you want to walk back with me?” Sash asked.
Ebryn found Sash's rooms much the same as the last time he'd been in them. Although lavishly furnished, they felt hardly lived-in. He realised she must seldom use her rooms for anything other than somewhere to sleep, and store her things. And a place for her dragon, he thought, as Leth glided through the bedroom doorway, and performed a clumsy landing on the back of a divan.
He watched Leth's colours shift to match the deep plum and gold weave of the wall hanging behind him, while Sash pulled off her shoes.
“I'm just going to lie down for a bit before we get something to eat,” Sash said. “Will you wait?”
Ebryn nodded. They'd regularly met up for a meal together in the early evening, until a couple of weeks past, either at the Westerwall or the Genestuer dining hall. More often than not they were joined by Elouphe and Addae, and sometimes actors from Teblin's company. He'd been surprised how much he missed her when she wasn't there.
“Do you have any of your books with you?” Sash asked.
“A few books from the library, and Ullvenard's, I think.”
“Will you read it for me?”
“Ullvenard's? Uh … yes,” Ebryn said. “Which bit do you want to hear?”
“Read the piece about Senesella.”
“I thought you didn't like what he wrote about Senesella?”
“No, it's funny — and wrong,” Sash said. “But it reminds me of home.”
Ebryn nodded, and unfolded the book. It dropped, heavy and cold into the palm of his hand.
“Where should I read?” he asked.
“In here,” Sash said, moving through to her bedroom.
Ebryn followed her, and waited while she folded the heavy valance from her bed. Sash dropped it onto a chest in the corner before moving on to tidy away a stray brush and hand mirror.
