Lightborn

by Alison Sinclair

  Vladimer waylaid a passing engineer to question him about whether the trains would keep their schedule, given the crisis. Telmaine had not thought to wonder how they would find out what had happened outside without betraying that they had not come from outside, but Vladimer did it artfully.

  “Sweet Imogene,” Telmaine breathed after the engineer had gone his way, having delivered his pungent observations of the state of the doors after the Lightborn assault.

  “Indeed,” said Vladimer, grim. None of the trains were running to schedule; most would not leave until a preliminary inspection of track had been completed, and then they would go only slowly for fear of sabotage. The reports coming out of Stranhorne were few and contradictory, and the coastal Borders Express had been canceled for the day. The inland train itself was in question.

  Until this moment, she had thought of this Borders trip with ambivalence; now she was desperate to get down there and find out what had happened to her husband, and to Ishmael. “Can’t you commission a special?”

  “Yes. But it will not leave for at least another hour, at the earliest. Maybe we should get a coach.”

  Shuddersome notion, since no coach even came close to a train’s comforts, or speed. They would be a day on the road, another day in unwelcome proximity. For Vladimer, with his wound, it would be excruciating. “We should get breakfast,” she said firmly. “It would be the normal thing for two delayed travelers. I’m sure you have a lounge you use, where you won’t be pestered.”

  He did, a secluded, off-the-concourse bar, where, no doubt, assignations and illicit transactions could pass unobserved. It was not yet open for business, but the waiter recognized Vladimer, and allowed them in. Vladimer waited, standing, while she settled herself into the alcove. Then abruptly he said, “Stay here. I need to make arrangements.” She got halfway to her feet before sense and temper both got the better of the impulse—whether to protect or to cling, she could not have said. He could cursed well mind his own safety, if he insisted. While she waited, she ordered tea for Vladimer, and hot chocolate for herself, and whatever leftovers remained from the night before, since no deliveries had reached the station yet. She hadn’t eaten since the boardinghouse, and before that, at the archducal breakfast. And Vladimer couldn’t keep going on the contents of his little bottles, whatever he fancied.

  Vladimer returned before the food, easing himself down onto the bench seat, and laid his cane on the table between them with casual purpose, tip toward the door. “The railway officials have agreed to provide a special train, with a crew and guards,” he said, in a low voice. “It will also carry a crew for the inspection of the tracks and the telegraph. We will be going first to Strumheller, then across to Stranhorne. It won’t be the safest journey.” Her expression conveyed her option of that useless and decidedly hypocritical concern. The corner of his mouth twitched in amusement, the rat bastard. “They’ll tell us when it is ready. We may have company by then. If not, it is again you and I.”

  The steward arrived with their tea and hot chocolate, preventing any unwise comment on her part. The hot chocolate was a painful reminder of her and Balthasar’s flight to the coast, where they had fortified themselves with hot chocolate for the final confrontation. Her throat tightened so that she could hardly swallow; she choked it, and a roll, down. Vladimer was doing the same, with equal resolution and lack of appetite.

  There was one thing to be said for this. Life could not contain many social encounters more fraught and awkward than breakfast with a disgraced and possibly erstwhile spymaster who had saved one from death and killed one’s best friend. She said, with a certain morbid curiosity, “I presume they’re going to announce my passing at some point. And from what?”

  “If it is left up to Kalamay and Mycene, it will be sooner rather than later. It will probably be put out as a sudden illness. There will be no mention of magic.”

  “Merivan—won’t let it rest until she’s satisfied she has had the truth.”

  “She would regret that,” Vladimer noted. “I expect your mother to exert a restraining influence.”

  “You know my mother?” Telmaine said, startled out of her cynical pose, but remembering the dowager duchess speaking of Vladimer as a poor boy.

  “She was always very gracious to me.”

  “Mama—is a kind person,” Telmaine said, translating. “I hope she—” She could not finish. Her mother could not possibly know she had fulfilled her whispered promise to escape if she could, given such convincing evidence of Telmaine’s destruction as she and Vladimer had left behind. She swallowed down a threatened sob.

  “I must admit,” Vladimer said, almost conversationally, “I was surprised by that deception your mother was party to, the first time you escaped the palace.”

  Was he asking who was responsible, or what had motivated her mother? There was nothing to be lost in concealing that now; the consequences to the family of that decades-old scandal were entirely outweighed by Telmaine’s own. “Did you know about my uncle Artos?”

  “The one who exposed himself, with no gambling debts, no unwise speculations, and—despite the gossip—no thwarted or shameful entanglements. I had presumed it was inborn melancholia. . . .” And then he sonned her. “Ah.”

  She lowered her head, in acquiescence. “You, my lady,” he said, his voice not quite as harsh, “are made of sterner stuff.”

  “Why, Lord Vladimer, a compliment.”

  Another twitch of the lips, at her acerbic tone. “If you will. It is not, I assure you from personal experience, consolation.”

  She knew she did not want to interpret that remark. She heard with relief the sudden commotion at the entrance to the bar, Phoebe Broome’s clear voice saying, “Yes, I know he’s there; he told me to meet him here, and he is very reliable. A tall, lean gentlemen, with a limp and a cane, and a bad right arm.”

  Vladimer was not pleased with the mention of the last, but he mustered his manners and confirmed to the waiter that he was indeed expecting another lady and possible company. Phoebe Broome in person was taller than most men, dressed for practicality rather than fashion in a long, plain coat worn open over a divided skirt, and jacket, the attire of a modern city woman. On her small, dainty head, she wore a cloche hat, not unbecomingly. And on her hands, gloves. Her companion this time was an equally tall old man in a similar coat over a suit that was at least four decades out of fashion. He had the shriveled, puckish face of some forest sprite depicted in the legends as ancient, crazed, and full of mischief. He poked his head over Phoebe’s shoulder, sonned Telmaine, and tsked like a tutor over a miscreant pupil. “My dear, you must have been quite wicked, though maybe not entirely so; either that or someone was careless, leaving that big hole.”

  “Father—,” said Phoebe Broome, though Telmaine was aware of her fascinated and perhaps appalled attention to herself and presumably the binding.

  Vladimer recalled their attention to himself. “Magistra Broome. This, I deduce, is Magister Farquhar Broome himself.”

  “I’m sorry to intrude upon you this way, Lord Vladimer,” Phoebe said, a little diffidently, “but you did indicate it was urgent, and—it was easiest to follow my sense of your vitality than start asking. It’s—becoming quite busy out there. A lot of people trying to get out of the city, before things get worse.”

  Worse than—Telmaine wished she could ask. Farquhar Broome had slipped into place beside her, and like an idiot child entranced by a soft fur jacket was moving his hand up and down her arm, lingering over her wrist.

  “Father—”

  At that moment Broome made a small motion with his hand and Telmaine felt the binding unravel. Her mage sense bloomed with shocking, revelatory suddenness. She sensed the serene, quixotic personality of the odd old man beside her, a personality that overlaid a power like a vast lake. She sensed the narrower river of power, swift and disciplined, running through the woman, and Vladimer’s familiar vitality, shot through with pain and stimulants. A little farther away sh
e jolted up against a cluster of mages, twenty- five or thirty of them, including a vitality with an oddly familiar sense to it: Balthasar’s sister—her sister in marriage—Olivede.

  Telmaine snatched back her awareness with dizzying force, and sat trembling slightly, waiting for repercussions. But Olivede was not a woman given to flying into rooms and ready confrontations. And Tammorn was silent. Dead?

  “Now that’s much better,” Farquhar Broome approved. “Now, about that nasty thing—”

  “Father, what have you done?” Phoebe said. Vladimer brought his cane up and over, not violently, but decisively, setting the deadly tip on Farquhar Broome’s wrist. “This woman’s magic is uncontrolled and dangerous,” he said, in a harsh voice.

  Farquhar Broome reached over and gently set aside the cane. “My dear lady, my noble lord, I do apologize. It is so rare that I have a chance to examine novel magic, and it was a fascinating binding. I would—”

  “No, Father, whatever it is,” Phoebe said.

  “But there is no need to worry. She is untrained, of course, and she has a nasty and rather powerful magical impression in her, but I am well able to manage that.” He sounded now like one of Balthasar’s older colleagues, briskly reassuring an anxious and difficult family member. “And you, young man, ought not to be stressing your system the way you are; you shall be ill if you go on like this—” He waved his hand. “Yes, yes, I know, the young; they are all immortal and invulnerable. . . . But we shall be traveling together, won’t we, so we will have leisure to get to know each other.” He smiled benignly over them all. “Let me go and reassure the rest of our party—hot chocolate seems an excellent idea—and let you have a chance to talk.”

  He sallied blithely forth, moving lightly for a man of his apparent age. Phoebe Broome’s mouth opened, closed. “Please have . . . a seat, Magistra Broome,” said Vladimer, at his most bland.

  Self-consciously, she took the seat beside Telmaine her father had just vacated, facing Vladimer. Let out her breath, waiting for his reaction. “Well,” she said at last. “You’ve now met my father. At his worst.”

  “Being myself widely considered my family’s difficult member, I would not presume to comment.”

  “That is . . . gentlemanly of you,” Magistra Broome murmured, and straightened, seeming at last to believe him. “You did ask me to bring the strongest mages amongst us, and he is the very strongest.”

  Telmaine, remembering her impression of vastness, nodded involuntarily, the motion catching both Vladimer’s and Phoebe Broome’s attention. Phoebe left anything she would have said unsaid for the moment. Bracing herself, she said, “Lord Vladimer, my brother . . .”

  “Is, as far as I know, still at the palace. He took care to reassure me that you knew nothing of his activities.”

  She shook her head, denying the importance of that, but said, “I didn’t. Until he left me a decidedly peculiar note. What . . . has he done?”

  “I believe,” Vladimer said, “he chose to warn Duke Mycene that I was consorting with a dangerous mage.”

  Phoebe’s head twitched toward Telmaine, though she did not sonn. “Is he under arrest?”

  “Not yet, at least not by my agents. I exchanged my silence for his silence on a matter essential to the state. Unfortunately, he has placed himself in the position where he may be implicated, amongst Darkborn at least, in last night’s murder of the Lightborn mages. There was, apparently, a mage involved in the planning of it.”

  “If he enabled that slaughter in any way, he deserves to die,” Phoebe said harshly. Vladimer’s silence was reassessing.

  “Lord Vladimer, you could only imagine what happened the night before last; we lived through it. We sensed the deaths, and we sensed the magic that slaughtered them.”

  She turned her head to Telmaine, her neat features hardening. “Please tell me,” she said, “why you have the taint of Shadowborn on you.”

  A billowing surge of magic rippled from her to the group outside, not a simple communion, but a mustering of force.

  “The binding that my father released was imposed by one of the Lightborn, was it not? For what reason?”

  “Answer her, Lady Telmaine,” Vladimer said, dispassionately. “It seems I have somewhat mistaken their purpose in coming here.”

  Her sonn showed his intense, poised expression, his hand on the hilt of his cane. She realized then what he meant—that Phoebe Broome, like her brother, like Tam, thought she was one with the Shadowborn. That Magistra Broome had come, with her fellows, to protect Vladimer, and to sit in judgment on her.

  “If you knew,” Telmaine burst out, “what I and my family have suffered at the—hands—of these creatures.” She caught herself then, terrified that she would smell smoke, or sense the sudden heat of flame.

  Vladimer, by his very stillness, by the rapid pulse in his throat, feared the same. Phoebe Broome seemed very calm.

  “Ishmael told you,” Telmaine said, struggling for composure, “about Tercelle Amberley’s children, and what happened to my husband.”

  “Your . . . husband is Balthasar Hearne? But Olivede—”

  “Didn’t know,” Telmaine said. “Balthasar didn’t know. Nobody knew. Ishmael was the first, ever . . .” Except, maybe, her mother. “I helped him save Balthasar’s life. I walked through fire to rescue my daughter from her kidnappers, and Ishmael—Ishmael saved me from the flames when my magic failed.”

  “Oh, sweet Imogene, that was what happened. No wonder he . . .”

  She did not want to think about Ishmael’s sacrifice for her sake, any more than Phoebe wanted to name his loss. But the woman’s obvious regret, for Ishmael at least, steadied her further. “When we reached Lord Vladimer’s bedside, we fought the Shadowborn, only I was losing, and he—put his magic into my mind—before Ishmael killed him.” She told how the taint had drawn Magister Tammorn’s attention, and how, distraught by the attempt on the life of his prince, he had tried to bind her. How in throwing off the binding, she had critically injured the archduke. She did not notice, until Phoebe Broome laid her hand on its tip, how Vladimer’s cane lay. He did not resist when she eased it off-line. Telmaine told of her return to save the archduke, its means, and its mortal consequences—Phoebe Broome made an inarticulate sound of protest at the sentence of execution, and breathed again only when she sketched her escape, without details as to how she and Vladimer had reached the station.

  The mage was quiet for several breaths after she had done. “I am relieved that this is the way it is. You at least . . .” She stopped, certainly thinking of her brother.

  Vladimer, unexpectedly, said, “It is more than likely that the mage involved in the planning of the destruction was one of our Shadowborn, rather than your brother. It is far more of a piece with their behavior than his.” But as Phoebe turned a grateful expression on him, he continued. “It is, unfortunately, also more than likely that amongst the Darkborn, there is no one to appreciate the distinction. I did warn your brother; it is for him to save himself now.”

  She swallowed, and rubbed her trembling lips with a gloved hand. “I’m sorry—in many ways—that your magic has caused you, and others, such difficulty, Lady Telmaine. Father—will be able to help. When it comes to high-level magic, he really is quite sensible. Ishmael wasn’t really—” Fortunately, she did not repeat Tammorn’s opinion that Ishmael was no adequate tutor for Telmaine, if that was what she was thinking.

  Phoebe turned to Vladimer. “I have a confession to make, Lord Vladimer. We have Tercelle Amberley’s children. After Ishmael told me about them, I made it my business to find them.”

  Vladimer shook his head slightly. “It might have made a difference two days ago. Not now.”

  “For you, maybe,” Phoebe Broome reminded him. “It still matters to them.” Her shoulders shifted. “Aside from the fact that they do seem to be sighted, there is nothing about them that indicates they were not born to a Darkborn mother and father. But then Lightborn and Darkborn are of common stock. Why
not Shadowborn, or at least some among them?”

  The waiter arrived then, with a cup of coffee for the mage, and she smiled and thanked him, and sipped carefully at the pungent beverage. Vladimer shifted on the bench, drawing his hand away from his cane to brace his right arm unobtrusively against his body.

  Phoebe Broome said, “Your message said that you wanted mages to accompany you to the Borders to investigate Shadowborn activities.”

  “Yes,” Vladimer said. “Three nights ago Ishmael di Studier and Balthasar Hearne took the coastal train into the Borders. I have not heard from either of them since. The last information I had suggested that both were bound for Stranhorne, and that the weather around Stranhorne had been extremely abnormal—a snowstorm, to be precise.” The mage straightened: it took a very strong mage to influence the weather. “The last message out of Stranhorne conveyed the impression it had been overrun by an unknown force. Have you had any sense of something amiss?”

  “Father . . . may have, but none of the rest of us could have any sense of anything amiss. We decided to get out of the city tonight. It did not seem a safe place for mages, anymore.” She hesitated, as though waiting for a question, but none came. “The adults who did not want to join us have taken the children and dependents to a place we hope will be safe, in the northwest.”

  “In many respects, it is a wise decision. In others, a problematic one. If, as I have come to suspect, the Lightborn either cannot or will not contend with Shadowborn magic, it leaves the city uncovered.”

  And the archduke . . . Did Phoebe Broome hear the effort to achieve that indifferent tone?

  She paused, seemed about to say one thing, said instead, “What did you think twenty-five mages—less if some of us stay—and yourselves could accomplish in the Borders?”