A College of Magics

by Caroline Stevermer

  Faris felt her way into the darkness. It grew warmer as she climbed, so much warmer that she opened the woolen robe. Sweat prickled her scalp and ran down her neck. The air grew acrid. It seemed to thicken around her. Tyrian touched her wrist and she paused. Her apprehension grew.

  Something was very wrong. Tyrian’s breathing was heavy, broken. “Smoke,” he managed.

  It was impossible to see. Yet in her anxiety, in the long moment while Faris put her arm around his shoulders and steadied him, something happened to her eyes, or to her mind’s eye. Her exterior vision was blind, yet an interior vision showed her the stairwell opaque with smoke, and the smoke painted with every color fire possessed.

  A bonfire in winter, she thought. On the heels of that random memory, instinct brought forth certainty and she knew why that neglected place had frightened her.

  With perfect clarity Faris understood that on the warden’s stair, time lingered. The rift had been torn long ago, yet that moment lasted still. That moment hung all around her, like the dust in the air. And the air was very hard to breathe.

  Faris felt Tyrian’s arm close around her waist and realized he was steadying her as much as she was steadying him. Her eyes stung. Her throat ached.

  “Back,” he croaked.

  Faris shut her eyes and let the stair fill her mind’s eye. The spiral was as tightly furled as the stair in Hilarion’s house. Hilarion, warden of the west. They had climbed the warden’s stair, come to a place where there was no more climbing. Nor would there be retreat, not in time to escape the smoke.

  Perception and will, Faris thought. And then, It’s a hat as long as I say it’s a hat. Coughing racked her. She kept her eyes closed. No more climbing on this stair. So climb a different stair.

  Deliberately, Faris shut out her senses and remembered Greenlaw. With loving detail she recollected the stair to the pepper-pot tower, on the way to the spire and the northern anchor. Forbidden territory, presided over by St. Michael and St. Margaret, guarding one another’s backs. Forbidden territory and perhaps because of that, a place remembered so fondly and so well. Smoother walls. Broader steps, worn with time.

  Time. The air was hot and thick. Faris coughed until her throat was raw. She tasted blood. Tyrian, beside her, was bent double with the effort it took to draw a breath.

  Perception. Doggedly, Faris remembered the cool stone, the smooth, silvered gray stone of all Greenlaw, every stair, every tower. She coughed until her knees began to buckle.

  Will. And she remembered the dizzy heights, the wheeling of the world as she had once come out of the dimness of the tower stair into the sunlight.

  And the world was wheeling around Faris. Tyrian’s arm was all that kept her upright on the stair as the darkness shut in again. But it was cool darkness, natural darkness, and the heat failed before a fresh breeze, strong enough to stir her hair and tug at the folds of her robe.

  After many years, drafts stirred the dust imprisoned on the warden’s stair. At first the dust made it almost as hard to breathe as the smoke had. Then the breeze steadied, the dust settled, and the air cleared.

  Faris put her face into the hollow of Tyrian’s shoulder and let herself rest there in weary silence. For a while they both drew deep, crowing lungfuls of air, clean air that smelled of Greenlaw and the sea.

  “Well done,” Tyrian said. His voice was cracked.

  “Nothing’s done. The rift is still waiting.”

  “We’ll get there.”

  The steps that brought them up into early morning were the steps Faris had remembered from Greenlaw. The new stair ended with a familiar pepper-pot tower. But the tower door did not open on the heights of Greenlaw. Faris and Tyrian stepped out onto a rooftop covered with shattered brick and stone.

  After so long in the dark, Faris was struck silent by the light. She blinked stupidly around as Tyrian moved past her to reconnoiter the ruins of the old throne room.

  It was early morning, so early the city below had only just begun to stir. The sky in the east was bright with the coming dawn and the sparse clouds promised a fair morning. The lions ranged in the ruins around them were still asleep.

  Tyrian was nearly unrecognizable, weary, unshaven, filthy. Faris found it hard to judge what was bruise and what was grime. He had lost his jacket. His shirt was torn, gray with dirt, collarless, its cuffs stiff with something suspiciously like dried blood. His wrists were likewise stained and looked painfully swollen.

  Faris glanced down and discovered she was at least as dirty as he. What she had taken for dust on the stairs turned out to have been ash. Sweat had mingled with the soft gray stuff and the result daubed her like paint. She itched prodigiously.

  Tyrian covered the palace door and beckoned to her. Faris left the shadow of the pepper-pot tower.

  The sun had just begun to edge over the horizon and the world was changing color from moment to moment. There was light everywhere, so much light that Faris could hardly make out the pattern underfoot.

  Faris lifted her eyes. If she watched the horizon, she had her bearings. If she didn’t look where she was going, she knew where she had to go. She had seen the way the pattern shifted in the early light. She moved slowly, careful not to lose her footing.

  Touch showed her the rift before her other senses perceived it. She felt something alter subtly beneath her feet, as though the pattern were softening. She looked down. She was in the center of a pattern set in white glass against white stone. Beneath her battered slippers, the pattern had changed. White glass had become smoky green glass, the color of sunlight in seawater. The green glass rose into yet another flight of stairs. Wearily, Faris began to climb.

  When the green glass became clear glass, Faris stopped. With only reflected sunshine to betray its presence, the staircase continued up as far as she could see. Faris stood still, eyes lifted. After her time under the castle, the warmth of the sun was welcome, the sky was a fascinating thing. Faris did not mind keeping her attention on it. All around her, she could feel the rift.

  This was the moment she had dreaded all along. At last she had reached the rift. Yet she had no idea how to mend it. Whatever she had learned at Greenlaw, it had not prepared her for this.

  Or perhaps it had. Faris remembered the pepper-pot tower. Perception and will, she told herself sternly.

  She wished Hilarion were with her. She wished the Dean were too. And Jane, most of all.

  The ward, she reminded herself. The ward that balanced Greenlaw had two anchors.

  Remembering the silence of St. Margaret’s chapel under Greenlaw, she thought of the cisterns and passages beneath the castle. Set the lower anchor there, in Graelent’s chamber.

  Faris let the rest of the structure fall into place, all the while lifting her eyes to the sky. There would be an upper anchor when she was finished. Until then, there would be only the sky. Not the rift. She would not let her attention stray into the rift.

  So far, and no farther, Faris managed to go before she heard a rustle, a small sound, one that she could not put a name to. It might have been the flounce of starched petticoats. It might have been the little sigh a dry branch made as a fire took it, twigs and leaves and all.

  Faris knew she was no longer alone on the glass staircase before she turned.

  Five steps below her Menary stood, looking around as though admiring the view. She no longer wore a wig. Her own blond hair fell past her shoulders, richer silk than the gray silk gown she wore, which was just the color of her eyes. “What are you doing here?” Menary asked.

  Faris scowled. “What are you doing here?” The small sound came again. She realized she had heard the rustle of Menary’s silken skirts. How long had Menary been watching?

  “I’ve never been up this high before.” Menary craned her neck to look upward. “Why did you stop here?”

  “Who let you out?”

  Menary’s eyes were bright. “Someone knocked an extra bit of magic out of the rift for me on Twelfth Night. It overloaded every spell for
miles. So I left Sevenfold and came home to see my dear father. He told me you and Jane paid a call here that night.” Her small porcelain smile widened. “Do you think there’s any connection?”

  “Who told you about the rift?”

  “I grew up here, remember? I dreamed about the rift in my cradle. It sang to me.”

  “How very poetical.”

  “I found it when I was just a little girl. I tried to show the rift to Agnes but she was afraid. She told Father and he told Grandfather. I was punished. From then on, everyone tried to keep me away. They even brought lions to guard it. But I’m not afraid of the lions. I rather like them. They respect me.” Menary looked sharply at Faris. “Who told you about the rift?”

  Faris ignored the question. “You were lucky to get away from Sevenfold. Why come here and risk being sent back?”

  Menary looked around and drew a deep breath of sheer contentment. “Isn’t it obvious? The power is here.”

  As Menary gazed out at the horizon, she seemed to absorb the morning light, to take on some of its fire. It brought color to her face and blazed in her hair. “I used to think I would share the rift with Father, but he’s afraid of it. He didn’t want me to come up here. He’s so used to getting his way. I had to put him to sleep. I’ve put them all to sleep, everyone in the castle. I was in a hurry and it saved arguing. Now I think you should go to sleep too. I’m tired of explaining things.”

  The wind stirred Menary’s hair into a wild pale aureole as she lifted her hands to the sun. So brightly did she give the light back that her fingertips were nearly transparent against the sky. After a long moment, she folded her hands and smiled seraphically up at Faris.

  Faris stared back. Menary’s beauty made her painfully aware of her own dishevelment, and that made her cross. “How quickly your hair grew. I suppose you must have used some kind of spell on it.”

  Menary’s smile faded. “Why don’t you go to sleep?”

  “Must you talk like a six year-old? It’s so tiresome.”

  Menary stamped her foot. “Go to sleep.”

  Faris stamped back. “Make me.”

  “I am.” Menary’s eyes flashed. “Oh, I’d like to kill you.”

  “Yes, so I gather. I dislike you, too, but I don’t go around hiring assassins.”

  “Of course not. Father wouldn’t let you.”

  “What does your father have to say—oh.” Faris remembered Brinker’s perfidious arrangement with the king. “Believe it or not, I have no ambition to become your stepmother. In fact, I can’t imagine a worse fate. The moment I finish here, I’m going home to Galazon.”

  Menary looked sly. “Finish what?”

  Faris put her hands on her hips. “Well, first I thought I’d kick you downstairs.”

  “You’re trying to close the rift, aren’t you? I could feel it before. I’m sorry but I can tell you right now it isn’t going to work.” Menary smiled scornfully. “Don’t let me distract you. Go ahead. Try.”

  Perception and will, Faris reminded herself. Before Menary’s blazing power, she felt woefully ill-prepared. She wished for a ring or a wand or any other sort of magical artifact. Even the comforting heft of a poker. A pointed hat sprinkled with silver stars and moons would be nice, she thought wistfully. She could not even make impressive hand gestures. All she could do was stand, bedraggled and sullen, on the glass staircase, while she felt the rift gaping all around her.

  “Tell me when you’re through.” Menary looked bored but the malice in her voice betrayed her interest.

  The rift shifted. Faris felt the glass staircase soften a little beneath her. Green rose. The clear glass retreated five steps.

  Faris sat down on a step and put her hands flat against the glass. It was cold but not slick, more like sea glass than window glass. Faris smoothed her hands across the step, gentling it as if it were alive. The staircase trembled and steadied.

  Menary’s voice seemed to come from a distance. The condescension in her tone was impossible to miss. “That was nice. Are you finished?”

  It took an effort to see Menary, so brightly did the sun shine upon her. Faris squinted. “You did that on purpose.”

  “You can’t close the rift. I knew you couldn’t. But it’s so amusing to watch you try.”

  “Keep watching. I was given this job for a good reason.”

  “Fool. You think you were the first choice? When have you ever had a thing that I haven’t had before you and discarded?”

  Menary’s scorn struck Faris where she did not even know she was weak. “What are you talking about?”

  “What do you think? If I’d wanted to be the warden of the north, I would have been the warden of the north. You only get my castoffs.”

  Faris hardly trusted herself to speak. “You’re mistaken.”

  “Go ahead. Name one thing you’ve had before I was finished with it.” Menary smiled sweetly. “I dare you.”

  “That’s easy.” Faris felt her hands curl into fists. The glass was icy against her knuckles. “Love.”

  “Love? You?” Menary’s laughter was prolonged. “Oh, do you mean your blond servant? That’s really very funny. Do you think I would have let you have him back if he hadn’t already bored me? Oh, you’re too quaint. Try again.”

  If love were the only thing … Well, it wasn’t, was it? “Friendship,” said Faris.

  “Are you thinking of your time at Greenlaw? At Greenlaw, where I did everything there was to do before you even thought of it? At Greenlaw, where your so-called friends referred to you as the Ferret behind your back?” Menary shook her head, still chuckling. “Is that the best you can do?”

  Faris was accustomed to Menary, but in her weariness she found the mockery difficult to bear. It was all true, in its way. She thought hard before she spoke again. “Responsibility,” she said at last.

  Menary looked puzzled. After a moment, her brow cleared, and her voice grew still more patronizing. “I’ve tried everything, dear. I’m bored with all of it.”

  It was finally Faris’s turn to be amused. “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you? Whatever you have, you don’t have Galazon. You’ll never have anything like it, and you wouldn’t know how to take care of it if you did. You have only yourself.”

  Menary’s laugh was golden. “I have the rift.”

  “Do you? Are you sure?” Faris raised an eyebrow and pressed her palms flat on the step. The next wind that lifted Menary’s wild mane of hair did not release it. “Are you quite sure?”

  Menary’s eyes widened. She raised first her hands and then her voice. “Stop!” Still her hair blazed above her like a candle flame. She struggled to escape.

  The glass under Faris’s hands grew so cold her fingers burned. Perception and will. She could feel the rift straining toward Menary’s long hair, a blind hunger, like the moth for the flame. Take it back then.

  Menary cried out as the illusion of long blond hair left her. More beautiful than before, her own hair as fine and short as a child’s, she glared at Faris. “Just try that again.” Her tone was ugly. “Go on, try. You can’t do anything to me. You can only send back the power I took for myself.”

  Faris did not waste breath on a reply. Into the rift she sent the power Menary had used to satisfy her great vanity. She felt the rift respond subtly, as if eager to reclaim its power.

  Had it been anyone else, anyone less tangled in the forces of the rift, Faris’s sending would have had little effect. Even so, there was not much to see.

  Menary did not scream. She did not lift a hand. She simply went out, as completely as a candle flame. The rift flinched, then gaped for more.

  Faris found herself alone on the glass staircase. “You took more power than you knew, perhaps,” she whispered into the emptiness.

  She could still feel the rift all around her. Sending Menary’s power back should have aided the balance. Yet her refusal to surrender the power had sent Menary into the rift along with it. That had upset the balance further. She w
as keenly aware of the eagerness in the rift. Menary had been best at taking. Perhaps nothing had ever been given to the rift before.

  Faris pressed her grimy fingers against the cold glass. What else belonged in the rift? She groped hastily after shreds of the rift’s influence.

  The mist that wreathed the heights of the castle went in easily. The phantom walls that lingered from the days before the rift was torn went in. The damage done to the fabric of the castle took a little longer. Faris worked until every drifting pattern in the castle, from the floor of the ruined throne room to the oriental rugs, surrendered something to the rift. The balance shifted subtly.

  Everything that belonged to the rift was in it. Yet the rift still gaped. In desperation, Faris offered it the memory of her first sight of Aravis, crowned with the ruined heights of the castle, seen from a distance.

  The rift accepted something more than mere recollection. Faris kept her memory but once the rift seized it, the memory seemed to diminish. She could no longer envision that familiar silhouette of dragon’s spine ridge for herself. She still knew what it looked like, but only as if someone had told her of it. The first-hand knowledge was gone.

  The rift still shifted, but much more slowly. As it slowed, the white light grew stronger. There was light everywhere.

  If it couldn’t be mended, perhaps it could be plugged. Faris deliberated for a moment, then set herself to choke the rift with the city of Aravis, narrow noisy streets lit here and there with Twelfth Night bonfires. She offered the Spanish ambassador’s fox hunt, and felt the pleasure she had taken in riding grow stale and remote. She gave her memory of the countryside, the gardens at Sevenfold, the quays at Shene.

  She surrendered her ride in the Minerva limousine, her journey on the Orient-Express, and her bruising hours in the diligence with Jane. Sticky dark cake, feathery pastry crumbs, and hot strong coffee were given up, along with the silken fire of cognac.

  She gave up the taste of tea brewed far too long—and with relief discovered that no more of Greenlaw College would go into the rift. The wards held steady. She realized no more than stewed tea was hers to bestow. Paris too, safe in Hilarion’s wardency, was proof against her efforts to fill the rift.