Bones of the Fair

by Host, Andrea K

  It was meant to make her laugh again, but she gripped his hands in return, looking far too solemn and stern. "Take care of yourself, Aspen. And watch Aristide's back. I'm not entirely certain we could manage Darest without him."

  ooOoo

  It had been an uncomfortably honest thing to say, and it niggled at Aspen while he ran about begging, borrowing and pleading for the essentials necessary to face the world beyond the Darien Court. King Aluster's popularity waxed ever greater, but the success of his reign was without doubt to the credit of Aristide Couerveur. The Diamond owned the Court, served Darest with unparalleled virtuosity, and could never be its King. Not while Soren's lover and child lived.

  Aspen had long coveted the Diamond, and thought he understood the man well enough to recognise the logic, not to mention the devotion to Darest, which had led him to bind himself with the saecstra rather than risk his kingdom in a battle for the throne. For it was his kingdom: he'd been raised in the expectation of ruling it, had fought and won its battles for years, had lived and breathed Darest his entire life. The Diamond Couerveur and the new King were working well together, and there even lingered rumours about them eventually marrying, but the most upright creature in the world would surely chafe at the turn of fortune, and search for a way to alter such a sour fate as eternal second.

  The thing that should not be forgotten was that Aristide Couerveur was a pragmatic man. The whole Court knew anyone fool enough to manoeuvre against him was swiftly and thoroughly made to regret it: an object lesson to other conspirators. Pointedly polite, wonderful to look at, and carrying a tangible air of menace. Just the thought of bringing him to his knees tied Aspen's stomach in tingling knots. He was the ultimate challenge.

  The familiar thrill came as the Diamond emerged from the Councillor of Mages' apartments. Without the usual tightly tailored demi-robe, his clothes were unexpectedly like the King's. He'd even abandoned white for a charcoal grey that made his pale skin glow. This alone was enough to set every second person in Fleeting Hall to taking second looks, sparking a wildfire of speculation that would probably reach the border before they did. Aristide, utterly self-contained, strolled toward the room's centre, Vaselte following with travelling bags slung on either side.

  Aspen hurried his step to beat the Diamond there, joining what must be the third of their merry band. At first sight not too daunting: a small woman with delicate features, her soft brown hair feathered close to a fine-boned skull, and her figure hidden by travelling clothes and packs.

  As Aspen came up alongside her she switched her gaze to him and suddenly he was uncertain. She might remind him of a solemn child, all big hazel eyes and unsmiling little mouth, but there was something of the Diamond's total self-possession about her, a centred authority that suggested she hadn't ignored her studies with anything like Aspen's devotion.

  "Hello," she said, with an air of careful good manners. "Are you coming too?"

  "I am." He dropped into a flourishing bow, casting a glance up through his lashes as he did so, but catching no change of expression. "Aspen Choraide, at your service."

  "Gentian Calder."

  "I have to admit, Gentian Calder, I didn't know you existed till a few minutes ago. You did your 'prentice work out of Darest?"

  She left a pause before replying: "Most of it. My parents taught me a great deal, but I don't think I could have escaped Shaping if I'd 'prenticed with them. I studied in the East, then went to Atlarus for a few years."

  Not freshly passed up then, which meant she was probably older than his own twenty-five years. But true-mages rarely looked their ages, and this one could be mistaken for a schoolroom inmate. "No desire to follow in their footsteps, keep us in coloured flax?" he asked ingenuously, very aware of the Diamond just reaching earshot.

  And he'd been too obvious. A flicker of amusement touched green and brown-flecked eyes, but she just said "Shaping can be monstrous dull," and turned to make her courtesy to the Diamond.

  Aristide Couerveur's opinion of mages who deserted Darest was evidently not preoccupying him at that moment, though the glance he threw Aspen suggested that he, too, had found the ploy transparent. But a mere mis-step could not dampen Aspen's spirits this afternoon.

  "All present and correct, M'Lord," he said, almost unable to keep from smirking openly.

  "So it appears," Aristide replied, considering Aspen's motley collection of borrowed bags and satchels. He had this trick of lifting one corner of his mouth, just a tiny fraction. It was no doubt designed to make encroaching courtiers feel like idiots, but had always struck Aspen as a strangely compassionate expression.

  The Diamond was in too great a hurry to waste any more time sending darts Aspen's way. With a polite nod for Magister Calder, he said, "Estharos with certainty, somewhere in Runath if the winds are favourable, heading out again at dawn tomorrow. We'll leave from the west stable yard."

  Flying. Every gift of honey had its gnat to mar golden sweetness. Aspen had the strength for flying, and most fortunately had freshly reviewed the various methods as part of his hopeful preparation for winning 'prenticeship with the Diamond. But if there ever was an exhausting, unpleasant way to rush to the border, it was hurling yourself through the air.

  Short hops were quite different. You rose gracefully from the ground, grandly ignoring the people gaping in awe, and wafted gently to your destination. Pleasantly invigorating, really. But distance travel in a hurry, where you had to sling all your belongings about your shoulders and go for hours on end, buffeted by inevitably frozen gales while you discovered that the boundless and bare skies were seething with more grit and insect life than seemed possible, all of it intent on colliding with your face, forcing its way into your mouth or piercing your eyeballs – no.

  Out in the stable yard, they made preparations for the ordeal. Vaselte furnished Aristide with a heavy cloak, then a backpack and three long-strapped satchels to sling over his shoulders. This was followed by thick gloves, a scarf wound about the neck and finally a supple leather faceguard which left only a slit for those marvellous eyes. Aspen owned one, and had searched fruitlessly for too long before recalling turning it to more exotic purposes a year or two before. He had to make do with several layers of scarf, wound round and round his head. Hardly ideal, but sustained flying required all your energy, so there wasn't even hope of casting a basic shield to keep the worst of it away.

  The little gardening mage watched him mummifying himself with a kind of absorbed interest, and then unhooked from one of her arms what Aspen had taken to be a strange kind of basket. Instead it revealed itself to be a leather helmet, which she plonked unceremoniously on her head, tightening a strap beneath her chin. As well as the usual nose-guard there was, Aspen saw with a sudden pitch of envy, a pinkish-purple glass covering most of her face.

  Perfectly aware of his reaction, she treated him to an unexpected grin, wicked and engaging after all that staring solemnity. "All the rage in Atlarus this year," she explained. "Hard to believe no-one thought of it before."

  "A mere oversight." Aspen let his voice drop to an intense whisper. "Guard yourself well tonight. That will be mine."

  "For the warning, I thank you." She'd gone all unsmiling again, but there was laughter in the tone. Then she looked aside, and a moment later Aspen felt the trickle of drawn power. The Diamond was casting, and Aspen wasn't sure he'd even noticed their by-play, his mind already at the border.

  That was sobering. No time for games. Lost heirs and political crises and who knew what kind of traps and mare's nests waiting for them to stumble into? Aspen remembered Soren's face, worried and pensive as she told him to watch the Diamond's back. The Lord Aristide had his enemies among the Western kingdoms, opponents who'd be only too pleased to see him exposed, without sufficient guard. Watching the Diamond's back had never been a trial, but for once it could be important, critical. And an unparalleled opportunity.

  Rising rapidly into the air, Aspen focused on the black-swathed figure, and antici
pated protecting him closely indeed.

  Chapter Four

  Gentian had long ago learned not to move until her heart stopped racing. The shock of waking always left her wanting to fling herself out of the room, to run away, to get out under the sky and breathe free, but actually doing so would prolong the after-effects of the morning's attack. So she would lie still and take careful breaths until she could move without shaking. Going back to sleep after was something she'd rarely even attempted.

  Her fifth morning back in Darest, and she at least had reason to be up and about so early. Good winds had seen them well past the town of Estharos by sunset. When the moon had risen clear and large, Lord Aristide had decided to press on through the night, and they'd ended just shy of midnight in a village in the Barony of Runath. They were to depart an hour after dawn, and expected to reach the border by late morning.

  While she washed and packed, muffled noises began to drift up to her narrow room. The single hostelry of the village had been ill-equipped to cope with a trio of mages literally descending on them just when they were turning out the late drunks, and had reacted to the prospect of hosting the kingdom's infamous Councillor of Mages with poorly concealed horror. Gentian had been too limply drained from hours of flying to properly appreciate their haste to relocate an unlucky family to provide sufficient beds, or even to listen to the tumble of apologies that had accompanied the spicy pot-scraping, tough bread and cold apple pie.

  Heading down as the light shifted out of grey, Gentian glanced toward the bustle in the kitchen, then left her bags on one of the tables and went out. The air was sharp and crisp, making her nose hurt with the memory of winter, and clouds had come and gone between midnight and dawn to leave everything wet and glistening. She inhaled deeply, letting the slight, honest pain banish that day's serving of hate, then set out at a fast walk along the road.

  Runath was a place of fields and farms, dark earth squelching with spring melt, and every view bright with vivid green shoots. And it was Darest, far more Darest to Gentian's mind than the capital, for here familiar laceblossoms embroidered every ditch, and mountains cut the horizon. Those were the Skorese, which had loomed over the southwest of her childhood and were close to due north from this part of Runath. The familiar peaks, even from a different angle, struck her with sudden loss. Home, in the Barony of Dwyallin, was just beyond them, and though this place did not speak to her in quite the same tones – for nothing spoke to her like Goldenrod – it was like a cousin, and had the power to make her chest ache for those fourteen years of exile.

  A hurried patter of steps brought Gentian's attention back to her immediate surroundings. A loaded basket was coming down the road toward her, the boy struggling to hold it upright little more than legs bowed beneath its weight. One of the hosteller's children, sent to fetch the village's finest in hopes of pleasing a guest second in consequence in the entire kingdom, not to mention being a great-mage and heir of the former Regent, Baroness Couerveur. The Diamond they called him, and loved and feared him, and until yesterday he'd probably been little more than a myth to these people. She wondered how many, in the days and months to follow, would visit the village to hear just how he had looked and acted. If he had any sense the hosteller would seize fortune's gift and charge an extortionate price for folk to sleep in, to even see the room, the very bed where Aristide Couerveur himself had slept. The idea made her laugh.

  With a gasp, the approaching child gave a violent jerk and more or less hurled his burden forward. He let out an anguished wail even as the basket left his hands, eyes round with dismay at what he'd done. They went wider still as the spray of eggs and onions, leeks, cheeses and jars slowed, came to a gradual stop, hesitated, then arranged themselves tidily back into the basket.

  As his reassembled burden drifted back into his arms, the boy gaped numbly, but he had the wherewithal to clutch the basket tightly when it bumped against his chest.

  "I'm sorry for startling you," Gentian said, and watched him shiver and gulp and almost set a few eggs tumbling again as he bobbed a hasty courtesy. Awe and terror competed for dominance on his face as he hastily circled past her and made his escape.

  With a twist of her lips, Gentian walked on, idly picking flowers and wondering what it would be like to not be a mage, to fear even benign ones. To not be able to reach out and catch a falling egg with will and power alone. Only true-mages could do that, could feel the magic that was everywhere in the world, and draw on it without device or the use of word-magic. She'd felt the nature of places since birth, and had been little more than six when she'd grown strong enough to start really pulling at it, flexing those muscles that made her true-mage. It was as much a part of her as her sense of smell, or her fingers.

  Atlarus had been a good place to live, for the use of word-magic was far more widely spread, less jealously guarded. Most everyone had the inner strength to carry off spoken magic of some sort, and in Atlarus straightforward, useful spells were taught to all who had the patience to learn the exacting rules of pronunciation. Tekla, they called it: hearth magic. Atlarus was full of magic, and very far away, and she had often found herself happy there.

  Pushing aside the bad decision of her return, Gentian spoke a few words of power, and then traced a glowing symbol in the air to focus a sigil-call. Soon her mother was looking through a square of light before her, dragging curling blond hair off a sun-burned and drowsy face. "Gentian," she said, pleased but frowning. "Where are you?"

  "Runath. But I've been diverted into some problem on the border and don't know when I'll get to Goldenrod."

  "Yes, we heard about that. Wait – Laeth wants to talk to you."

  A few moments later Gentian's father's face, so like her own, swam into focus, the image wavering as it tried to stay with her mother.

  "Daughter," Laeth Varpatten said, in his subdued way.

  "Father," Gentian replied with perfect solemnity, enjoying the pleasure this small ritual of naming gave him. "Is the redvine flowering well?"

  "It buries us. The birds drop from the sky with its scent. The kingrod will be in bloom within a week, and the trees are in their prime. We are putting on our best plumage for you."

  Goldenrod was blue, crimson and gold in spring, all heady scents. "I'll try to be there as soon as I can," she said. "Tomorrow, if I can manage it." Today, even, if her luck was good.

  "I will look for you." There was an ache in her father's eyes, one that had been there since she'd first crossed Darest's border and refused to return. "Gentian, I felt something yesterday morning. A burst of power in the mountains unlike anything I've ever encountered."

  "In the mountains? This barge went from the river flats."

  "It felt closer than that, though not a great deal. I could not feel any intent from it at all."

  "I see." Her father was far from the strongest mage in Darest, but his sensitivity to the arcane was renowned in all Sumica. He was close enough to the Skorese to have felt a major casting there, though she didn't understand why he couldn't sort out the intent.

  "Take especial care of yourself, daughter. You have been away too long, and Goldenrod is uneasy."

  "I will." She broke the casting, glanced toward the snow still sitting on the peaks of the Skorese, then turned and walked back to the hostelry.

  Standing in splendid isolation just outside the front door was a figure in charcoal grey. Gentian had met his mother a long time ago, and took a moment to compare the two and commit to memory this vision of Aristide Couerveur: white-blond hair sleeked back from porcelain brow, elegant outline framed by a rough wooden building, dripping trees, and a few cows looking curiously over a fence. Alien, yet not at all out of place, for he was one who existed by sheer force of self. Mud could not overset him. It was far more difficult to picture the Lady Arista in the same place.

  "Research, Magister Calder?"

  Gentian blinked, then looked down at the forgotten bouquet. "I will certainly need to put a great deal of thought into the exact c
hoice of plants," she replied, bland in the face of the highly misleading expression of polite attention he was directing at her. "If the King has a penchant for wildflowers, I imagine a salt-resistant strain of laceblossom could be produced."

  "I trust this little matter will not greatly discommode you."

  "Not at all," she replied as gravely as she could. "The banks of the Galassas teem with life. I will not be wasting my time."

  "You must consider Maistrice Choraide at your disposal."

  "Oh, I'd not deprive you of him, M'Lord. And, well, not a gardener, don't you think?"

  Was that a quiver of genuine amusement? Whatever his opinion of her profession, Aristide Couerveur enjoyed fencing over it. "Perhaps an as-yet undiscovered talent?" he suggested.

  She laughed, appreciating this sudden show of humanity, but set the game aside. "I have just spoken to my father," she said. "He told me he sensed a burst of power in the mountains yesterday morning. He felt that it was closer than the flatlands where the Galassas runs along the border."

  Aristide Couerveur's gaze became momentarily abstract, then he nodded. "That fits with what we've been told. The searchers have been heading upriver, despite cascades that would logically founder any barge. We will join them, rather than visit the site of the original disappearance."

  Gentian nodded, and preceded him back inside. Somehow, she doubted she would reach home tomorrow.

  ooOoo

  There were more than sixty people scattered along the river, working their way up a series of small waterfalls among the foothills of the Skorese, many miles inside Darest's border. Sax, Cya and Ceria, all missing their heirs. It occurred to Gentian that some of the people here would have been sent in hopes of making sure they didn't come back.

  She'd felt the search party before she'd seen them. There were a lot of mages down there, a great many active enchantments. The sight of three flyers set off a swirl of new activity, though the power spent in flight and the near presence of Aristide's saecstra made it harder than usual for Gentian to sort intent. Shields mainly, and one or two – over there to the left – who had darts of force ready to loose. And others with arrows set to bow, or hands near sword should magic fail. This was a search in company with suspicion and threat.