by JANRAE FRANK
Randilyn smiled then. "Yes, go find her."
* * * *
Jingen strolled through the gardens, thinking how starkly beautiful the winter landscape was. There were many apprentices with the masters and journeymyn. They all made him a bit hungry, but he knew better than to try anything with a mage. Besides, there was only one who held any interest for him: Chinisi.
He spotted her sitting in the rose arbor and walked over to her, bowing deeply as he had seen some of the older males doing to the females. "Good afternoon, fair Chinisi," he said.
"Don't 'fair Chinisi' me anything,'" she said hotly. "You lied."
That took Jingen off guard and he hesitated before asking, "What?"
"Nibble games are sex."
"I – uh – I. Chinisi, maybe this is what you called a 'matter of definition'. And my father was always big on getting the definitions right."
The color cooled in her cheeks. "So long as the definitions are harmless–"
"Well, trust me. I won't do anything you don't want me to." Jingen imagined what she would look like naked, wondering if the thatch between her loins would be as red as her hair.
"Good. Because otherwise I'll singe your buttocks." Chinisi punctuated her statement by summoning fire to dance on her finger tip.
Jingen had not seen her do that before, and his eyes widened a bit. "I'll remember that."
"Good, now you were saying?"
"Lord Edvarde's holding a dance. I'd like to accompany you."
"You aren't the only one to ask me. I'll have to think about it." Then she rose and glided away from him.
Jingen sat down on the bench and sulked. Stygean had beaten him to it again. Well, he'd fix that. Stygean would not get away with stealing what rightfully belonged to him. The Loosestrifes were always getting everything that Jingen wanted: the finest horses, the most beautiful nibari, the accolades and exclusive dinner parties. Liuthan had practically owned his parents. Every time Jingen asked for something wonderful, his father had started his replies with 'I'll speak to Liuthan..."
* * * *
Stygean came around the corner feeling very hopeful and ran smack into Chinisi. By then he had changed his mind about talking to her and decided he would simply be patient and ask Isranon first. He tried to walk past her, but she followed. "Go away," he said, gesturing at her.
"I want to talk to you."
"I don't want to talk to you. You're going to get me in trouble again."
"Are you going to this dance of Lord Edvarde's?"
Stygean stopped for a second. "Yes. I have to. Dawnreturning is the honored guest, although the king is said to be coming also."
"You'll escort me, won't you?"
"No." Stygean started walking and again she followed.
"Why not?" she asked, grabbing at his arm.
Stygean stopped and turned toward her. "Because it will make your uncle and my mentor unhappy with me."
Chinisi favored him with a disdainful frown and threw her shoulders back. "Jingen has asked me."
Stygean flushed. "Isn't there someone else?"
"No. So I'm going with him – unless I'm going with you."
A sigh shuddered through Stygean as he saw no way to get out of this without leaving Chinisi in Jingen's dirty clutches. "I'll do it, but we get your uncle's and my mentor's consent."
"Certainly."
"Then come on and let's get this over with." Stygean led her back inside, and they went up to the meeting room he had just left.
Chinisi chattered at him the entire way and kept him blushing. They proceeded through the corridors drawing looks from everyone they passed, and Stygean could feel his past whipping him across his back like the sting of a lash. They reached the meeting chamber and entered it.
Stygean held himself as straight as he could to mask his shaking as he walked up to the four mages. He gave Cordwainer a polite bow of his shoulders. "Sir," he said.
The mages all turned toward him as he interrupted their conversation. Isranon's eyebrow lifted as he saw Chinisi standing behind Stygean.
"Yes, boy?" Cordwainer asked, glancing behind him at his niece.
"I would like permission to escort Chinisi to Lord Edvarde's dance. You may trust me to prove a gentlemon."
"Please, uncle," Chinisi said, her eyes large and pleading.
Cordwainer eyed his niece curiously and then cleared his throat in an expression of severity. "Yes, you have my permission, but watch that you don't get out of line with her."
"I promise, sir," Stygean said.
Isranon gestured for Stygean to come over and he took him aside. "We will discuss this later? Since the dance is tomorrow?"
"Yes, Master."
"Good."
Chinisi came over and looked up at Isranon with a clear intensity and profound curiosity. "They say you can do it all … that you're the first since Abelard. Is it true?"
Isranon looked taken aback for an instant. He shifted his staff into the crook of his arm and extended his hands. He filled one with fire and the other with ice. "Is this what you mean?"
Chinisi laughed in delight. "Yes!"
Isranon dismissed the fire and ice, replacing one with vines of green energy and creating a small breeze with the other. The three master mages came close to watch. Again he dismissed them. Then he filled his hands with the black power of death and the other with the white power of life. Everyone was watching him by then, and a murmur of awe rose in the room. He pointed to a ewer of water. A cloud formed above it, and he drew the water from the ewer into the cloud. He sent the cloud to water Edvarde's potted plants near the windows.
Stygean stared. Isranon had never demonstrated all of it before. His mentor was, indeed, a pan-elementalist as he claimed.
* * * *
Nevin and Gordain sat at an oblong table in the drawing room, which Haig had claimed as the meeting chamber for himself and his vampires. Opposite them sat Haig with Jun standing behind him. Jun had his arms folded, his mouth tight and his head tilted at a sullen angle.
"This has to stop before it turns into a war, Haig," Nevin growled.
"A war?" Haig's face lost all expression. "Between your people and mine?
"Aye." Nevin jabbed a finger at Jun. "We've pulled him off Stygean three times now. We've watched him shadow the boy, trying to catch him alone."
"Stygean is under the protection of our clan," Gordain pointed out, meeting Jun's sullenness with devil-may-care cheek.
"This is something we ought to discuss with Isranon." Haig shifted in his chair to exchange glances with Jun; however, the tall vampire's expression never wavered.
"No." Nevin balled his fist up and struck the table. "The matter is between you and I, Haig. Not Isranon. He's overburdened as it is. We'll settle this here and now."
Haig took Nevin's impassioned response calmly, lacing his fingers together and resting his chin on them. "This must have been going on for a considerable time to have gotten you this worked up, Nevin."
The vampire captain's tone disarmed him, and the lycan heaved a sigh, nodding. "Too long, my friend. Too long. I'm the boy's guurmondru now. So I'm responsible for his safety."
"Interesting. Does the boy know that you've appointed yourself his father?"
"I don't know how much he understood when I explained what a guurmondru is, but he accepted me."
Jun glanced from face to face, lowering his arms. "He killed my Nolly, Haig."
Haig shook his head. "Amiri told all of us that Stygean was innocent."
"He killed her!"
"That's enough out of you, Jun. You'll stay away from the boy."
"No. Stygean disguised the seed in her hole somehow. He hid the truth."
"Jun!" Haig made a chopping gesture with his hand. "I am your captain. You will obey my orders."
"NO!" Jun fled the chamber.
It became Haig's turn to sigh. "He's upset. I'll talk to him. If you catch him bothering Stygean, come to me and I'll punish him."
* * * *
<
br /> Jingen cornered Stygean after dinner that night, shoving him into a corner alcove near the stairwell on the second floor. "You're taking her, aren't you?"
Stygean stiffened. "Yes. And it's none of your business."
"Are you putting it in her yet?"
Stygean scowled. "So what if I am? You are not to touch her. I won't let you."
"You can't stop me."
"Leave Chinisi alone, I'm warning you."
"What will you do? Bite me again? You know what that will get you? Dead. And your precious Dawnreturning will let them do it."
"Then you'll be past harming her and I don't care." Stygean shoved past Jingen and walked on.
Jingen caught up with him. "I still have my blade, Stygean. Don't stand between me and what I want."
Stygean turned and snarled at him. "Keep this up and I will call you out."
Jingen blinked in shock. "A duel? You wouldn't dare."
"Try me."
"You're a traitor and a coward, Stygean. Accept it." Jingen's words came flooding out in a frothing stream of vitriol that made Stygean cringe inwardly. "You'd lose. You always lose. I'm better than you are. I'm a true sa'necari. You're nothing. And that girl ... that girl is mine. You stay away from her."
Stygean turned his back on Jingen and stalked off, his ears alert for steps following him, but he heard nothing. It was clear that Jingen had not chosen to follow him. He was very uncertain whether that was a good thing or a bad one. Stygean felt shaken by the confrontation with Jingen. He could not say precisely why Chinisi affected him the way she did. She was constantly getting him into trouble, and when she wasn't, she was simply aggravating him with her endless intimate questions. Yet he felt protective of her. He also knew that he did not wish to go back to sharing a tent with Jingen once the ride north resumed. So he went to Isranon's door and knocked on it.
"Who is it?" Isranon asked.
Stygean threw his shoulders back and tried to look calm and steady. "Stygean, I wish to talk to you. It's important." Yes, very important. But he did not wish to sound desperate or childish.
"Come in."
Isranon sat at a small table with Anksha, sharing a single glass of wine that bore the misty imprint of both of their mouths. Stygean suspected they had been in the preliminaries of a bedroom game. Anksha's blouse was unbuttoned down to her navel, and Isranon's shirt was open. A tiny line of blood showed on Isranon's neck betraying the early stages of a nibble game. Stygean wondered if they had been going to do it on the floor.
"I want to change my living arrangements on the road."
"How so?" Isranon's expression turned serious.
"I wish to no longer share a tent with Jingen.
"Because of the trouble between the two of you? I thought you were friends."
Stygean shook his head. "No. We're not friends. Never really were."
"The only place I could put you would be in with the kandoyarin, and that will require Nans' permission."
Stygean drew himself up. He had heard how rowdy the kandoyarin were, especially the boys and youths among them. Roughly fifty percent of the kandoyarin, mercenaries, who had hired on with Nans as auxiliaries, were green troops. "I'm willing."
"Understand, Stygean, I will not move you back once I do this. You will have to cope."
"I will." Anything was better than waking up dead because Jingen had decided to make good on his threats.
CHAPTER TWELVE
RUMORS OF ZYNE
Veranoctem 23, 1077
Zorrance let Isranon into his modest suite. "Welcome, Holy One."
"Isranon. Just Isranon ... or Dawnreturning if you must."
They moved to the small table in Zorrance's chambers and settled there. Isranon placed the memory stone in Zorrance's fingers, and the refugee closed his hand over it. "What did you see, Zorrance?"
He closed his eyes, turning inward, letting the image flow into the stone. "Chaos. Women and children screaming. Smoke filling my nostrils."
"How did they get past the walls? I was in Charas the day it snowed at mid-summer."
"It happened a year later. The army seemed to just suddenly appear at the gates."
"The walls. How did they overcome the walls?"
"They didn't. She was beautiful. Perfection of the female form. Winged. They called her Zyne. She rose into the air and sang. Sensual ... seductive ... demanding that we surrender our will to her. It pulled at me. The guards opened the gates to her."
"How did you escape it?"
"I felt its pull and resisted. I'm more attracted to males than females. I focused upon all the men I have had sexual relations with and that broke her hold upon me. The only ones who did not fall to her spell were women, corsach – I like that lycan word for it – and children who had not yet felt the longings of puberty."
"All women? Anksha can take women as well as men if they feel the slightest attraction to their own sex." The nature of Zyne's powers were very similar in effect to Anksha's, and the more Isranon hunted for differences, the fewer he found.
"I did not see any women running in Zyne's direction. I suppose there might have been some."
Isranon nodded thoughtfully. "Go on with your story."
“They spellcorded every mon they could catch. Those of us who managed to get out were hunted down and butchered. But they could not catch all of us. At least a third of those who made it out reached the Hillora and were brought across. So far as I can tell, more children than adults survived. Never underestimate the resourcefulness of a mage-gifted child."
"How did you get out?"
"Sewers. There were seven children and two adults – both female. When we got out, we encountered a sa'necari hunting party and scattered in all directions. My fear was so great that I never registered the smells and such in the sewers. It's mostly a blank."
"What was her army comprised of?"
"I have no idea. I was in the Hall of Words at the time. When the screaming started, I fled to the sewers. I don't remember shoving all those books in my carrying globe, but somehow I brought the entire library with me. Afterward, it seemed like a good bargaining tool for wherever I ended up. I still have it."
"We need to know what kind of forces she has."
"Ask Alassance. He escaped weeks after the city fell. He's a street boy and thief by trade. He doesn't have any major talents, but dozens of little interesting ones."
"Is he among those Father Telamon brought me?"
"The eleven year old, scruffy black hair. That's Alassance." Zorrance pushed the crystal across the table to Isranon. "And he has not been claimed by any of the houses yet."
"If he wants to come, I'll take him."
"And me also. Take me also. I want some payback from that bitch."
"I'll not just take you both, I'll make you part of my house, if you're willing."
Zorrance went to his knees. "Thank you, Holy One ... Isranon." He reached into his pocket and brought out the carrying globe. "This is yours. May it aid us all."
"Dynanna was the first god of light to succor me, and she showed me that outcasts and misfits can prove useful. Spread word that I will take any and all of the Charisian refugees who can and wish to fight, regardless of the level of their talents."
Zorrance bowed his head. "I'm a level four fire mage with a modest affinity to earth and life forms. I can scan better than most level sixes. I won't let you down. Every last one of us is tough, especially Alassance. Our gifts may be trivial or strange, but we know how to use them to great effect."
"I need mages, especially ones who can think fast and creatively.
Zorrance lifted his head and smiled. "Then we'll be there for you."
* * * *
Isranon found Alassance in the rear yard watching the boys participating in the third of Jeevys' snow sports. The boy's face was aged beyond its years. His cheeks were hollow and his eyes hard as chips of obsidian in his pale face.
"Hello, Alassance. Zorrance tells me you're eleven."
"Twelve." The boy shrugged. "As of two weeks ago, holy one."
"Isranon. Just Isranon."
"Thank you for the clothes." Alassance tugged at the cloak and jacket.
"Zorrance tells me you know more than anyone else what happened in Charas."
"Information is worth good coin. So I lingered as long as I dared. Three whole weeks I was there. Only no one believes me. Except Zorrance and Father Telamon. So I've nothing to show for the risks I took."
"I believe you."
"I haven't told you yet."
"I have met Zyne. General Gryphonheart has encountered her also."
"I seen her up close. I seen what she does to the women. Most of them died quick, but some of them survived ... changed." Alassance flinched from his memories, shivering. "I saw hordes of women crying out for a chance to become one of the angels like her in full knowledge that they might not survive the change. It scared me."
Isranon put his arm around Alassance's thin shoulders. "Let's go to my chambers and talk. It's well shielded. I'll have Jeevys send up some lunch."
"And some pastries? Maybe some candy?" asked Alassance hopefully.
Isranon reached into his pocket and came out with a handful of honey-maple sweets wrapped in waxed paper. He filled Alassance's hand with it.
The boy's eyes widened, and he quickly unwrapped two and popped them into his mouth. A look of bliss suffused his features. "I've missed candy. I don't dare steal in Ildyrsetts. If I got caught, I'd get Father Telamon in trouble too. So I've done without."
"You won't need to do without any longer." Isranon put his arm around Alassance's shoulders again and walked him back to the front door of the manor. "What you did took courage and courage is what I need in my efforts to bring down Zyne and stop the Minnorian invasion."
"You're taking me?"
"As an apprentice and part of my household."
"Take Zorrance too. He's been good to me."
"I already have." Isranon gestured at a servant in passing. "Send lunch for three to my chambers."
The servant bowed and headed for the kitchen.
"Three?" Alassance glanced up at Isranon.
"In case you're as hungry as you look."
