Reader and Raelynx (Twelve Houses)

by Sharon Shinn

  “Lot of people seem to be interested in this story you’re telling about the king needing an army of mystics,” Ward said. He was so big he seemed to be crowding them back into the booth, though he didn’t actually try to sit.

  “It’s the truth, as—with your ability—you surely know,” Senneth replied.

  “Might be true, but people need a reason to follow someone like you. A total stranger,” Ward said. “Maybe you don’t have any power of your own, or not much, anyway. People want to know how strong you are.”

  “Other people want to know, or just you?” Kirra inquired sweetly.

  Senneth ignored her. “I’m a fire mystic. I’d be pleased to demonstrate my ability. Would you like me to burn Carrebos to the ground? I can do that, but I doubt it would make anybody truly happy.”

  Ward put his hand on his companion’s shoulder. “Jase here’s a fire mystic, too,” Ward says. “We’ve all seen him call up flame—and settle it down, too, when a house was about to burn. Maybe you could have a sort of competition with Jase—show us what you can do that he can’t. People might be impressed by that. If you were better.”

  “Oh, a duel!” Kirra said, clapping her hands together. “What fun!”

  Senneth didn’t even look at her. “It’s not remotely fair,” she said quietly. “I’m twenty years older than he is and far stronger than you realize. He has no chance of besting me.”

  Ward shrugged. “Well, if you’re afraid to try—”

  Kirra strangled a laugh. Senneth dropped her eyes to Jase’s face. “How old are you?” she asked him.

  “Thirteen a week ago.”

  “You’re pretty good with fire.”

  He shrugged, but his eyes were blazing with excitement, so she guessed he had a nice combustible power. “Well, Jase, I tell you this just so you know what to expect. I’ve never met a mystic who’s stronger than I am, no matter what his skill. And I can see I’m going to have to show off a little to prove a point to your friend here. So don’t be upset if I don’t hold back. Don’t let it discourage you.”

  He grinned. “All right.”

  “When shall we have our little contest?” she asked Ward. “Do you need time to alert the town?”

  “How about right after dinner?” he said. “Sky’ll be dark. Fire’ll show up real pretty then.”

  “Agreed,” she said. “Let’s meet out on the main street in about two hours.”

  Tayse was back about an hour later, Donnal at his heels, so they ate a surprisingly delicious meal in Eddie’s tavern. Darryn joined them and endured their teasing until talk turned to the upcoming competition.

  “How do I play this?” Senneth asked Tayse, the consummate tactician. “Start small and build, or just open with conflagration?”

  He considered. “Open big, but save something for a final showdown. Awe them, and then terrify them.”

  “Any chance the boy could really be better than Senneth?” Darryn asked.

  “No,” Senneth, Kirra, and Tayse all answered in unison.

  Senneth laughed. “And if he is, then I’m certainly bringing him back to Ghosenhall, whether or not he wants to come! Anyone with more power than me should definitely be in service to the king.”

  When it was full dark, Senneth and her party emerged from Eddie’s tavern to find a sizable portion of Carrebos’s population already lining the main street. An iron brazier had been set in the middle of the road. Ward and Jase stood right in front of it, tending a small fire, while the townspeople waited a respectful distance back. Senneth made her way through the crowd with quite a contingent following her—Tayse, Kirra, Donnal-the-dog, Darryn, Sosie, Eddie, and Eddie’s wife. None of the spectators appeared worried, Senneth thought. They all looked like they had come out for an evening of rare entertainment.

  She couldn’t imagine another city in Gillengaria that would be so complacent at the notion of witnessing a duel between mystics.

  She stepped up to the brazier and smiled at Jase. “Do you require a little fire to begin with? To get your own fires going?”

  He eyed her uncertainly. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried to start one on my own. But I can put out any fire that’s set.”

  “Let’s see, then,” Senneth said. She held up her hand, closed her fingers, and tamped out the blaze.

  There was a small ripple of response from the crowd, but she wasn’t done yet. She raised her arm and offered a quick twist of her wrist, and every window of every building in town went dark. Candles blown out, hearth fires extinguished, light and heat smothered at every source. The murmuring of the crowd grew louder.

  “Ah, but we need a bit of fire, don’t we, just to see what we’re doing,” she said. Pivoting slowly on one foot, she pointed at building after building—the taverns, the shops, the cottages—and reignited each separate flame inside each one. Then she made the circle one more time, spinning a little faster, setting fire to objects that had never been meant to be torches. A short pole holding a merchant’s sign. The tall chimney of a two-story boardinghouse. A bare, scrubby tree lurking on one side of the road. A cart. A wine barrel. The coals in the brazier sprang back to life.

  Undaunted, Jase whirled around just a second or two behind her, dousing each unnatural blaze, leaving the hearth fires unmolested and the candles primly flickering.

  She had to laugh. “Very good,” she approved. “Now, can you put this one out?”

  She set herself on fire.

  “Mercy!” someone shouted, and she felt the whole crowd shift back. She viewed the world through a wall of violent colors, orange and red and yellow and black. Her clothes writhed with flame, her short hair was a crackling wick. She felt the tickling heat on her skin, breathed the scorched air—she knew she was burning—but she felt relaxed, familiar, ordinary. She was always a degree or two away from combustion anyway; she harbored fire in her heart, felt it running always through her veins. Sometimes it surprised her to think she didn’t always exist surrounded by a prismatic inferno.

  She felt Jase’s magic tugging at the flames, dampening them to short little licks of fire. She let him succeed for a few minutes, enough for the crowd to notice, enough for Jase himself to feel a little thrill of accomplishment. Then she flung her arms upward and a column of flame shot above her head, reaching so high no one on the ground could see the end of it. She pivoted again, more quickly this time, and gestured. Here. Here. This place. Here. And each time she pointed her fingers, something else erupted into fire. Eddie’s tavern. Ward’s inn. The house of some poor onlooker, who instantly started wailing. The whole street was hemmed in with heat; every intent face was illuminated by the erratic, dramatic light.

  Jase gamely stabbed his own hands toward a few burning buildings, and the fires went cold. But for every one he put out, Senneth started two more. He waved his arms and scrambled around her, but he could not keep up. Another house consumed by fire—another. She made one broad sweeping gesture, and every structure in the town suddenly burst into flame.

  This audience knew magic, but even they were beginning to grow fearful. And she wasn’t done yet. Make it spectacular, Tayse had said. So Senneth reached out—not laying her hand on a soul—and one by one set spectators on fire. Jase. Ward. Eddie. Sosie. Anyone who stepped too close.

  Then she raised her voice over the excited consternation of the crowd. “You must realize by now that anything I touch with sorcerous flame will only burn if I want it to,” she said. Indeed, Sosie and a young man at the front of the crowd both appeared utterly delighted, lifting up their incendiary hands and turning them this way and that. “Yet I hope you will believe me when I say I could bring this whole town down in a matter of minutes and no one—not even this talented boy—could stop me.”

  Abruptly she lowered her arms and all the fires vanished, except the small one twinkling in the brazier and an uneven halo glittering around her own fair head. “I truly possess a great deal of power, and I have the absolute confidence of the king. Anyone who wants to travel to G
hosenhall would be welcome to leave with us when we return. We would be glad to have you in our army. We know just how formidable a weapon magic can be.”

  Of course, that unleashed a maelstrom of conversation as everyone in the crowd began speaking at once—though most of them were talking to their neighbors about the extraordinary sights they had just seen. A few pressed closer to speak with Senneth herself, but she turned first to Jase, who had darted to her side the minute fire fell away from his body.

  “I hope you aren’t too disappointed,” she began, but he was skipping in place.

  “I want to learn that!” he exclaimed. “Can you show me? How do you make it burn without burning? Without hurting?”

  She laughed but had no time to explain before others pushed between them. “Come see me tomorrow,” she called to Jase. “I’ll show you some basic exercises.”

  Then she was swallowed by the people of Carrebos, who seemed, for the most part, to be thrilled by her exhibition and suddenly willing to share with her their own tricks and abilities. Even the hostile Ward came up to clap her on the back and express his admiration. It doesn’t make sense to me, she thought as she smiled and nodded. When I want to be convinced a person is worthwhile, I want to listen to his arguments and understand his mind. I don’t suddenly trust him because he’s put on a gaudy display of power and might. But Tayse had counseled her correctly, and it was just such a gaudy display that had won her friends throughout the town of Carrebos.

  CHAPTER

  20

  THE next day Senneth and Kirra spoke to even more mystics, all of them suddenly eager to hear about the opportunities in Ghosenhall.

  “I’m jealous,” Kirra said. “Perhaps I should challenge a shape-shifter to see who can take the most forms in the shortest amount of time.”

  “You’d lose that one,” Senneth observed. “Donnal’s faster than you are. Maybe he should run that competition.”

  Kirra pretended to be insulted. “Well, then, I’ll see who else can transform another human to animal shape,” she said. “I’ll bet I’m the only mystic who can do that.”

  “I’ll bet you are. And tolerant of magic though the townspeople seem to be, perhaps that’s not a skill you should put on display, since it’s generally considered an abomination,” Senneth said. “You might have the distinction of being the first mystic stoned to death in Carrebos.”

  “I live to earn such distinctions,” Kirra replied.

  But Kirra was just as popular as Senneth was with a party that visited Eddie’s right before lunch. The group consisted of an attractive young woman, her squirming toddler, and a fair-haired man with dreamy eyes. Kirra recognized the woman first and jumped up to give her a hug.

  “Annie!” she said. “Look at you! The last time I saw you, you were on the threshold of death. Oh, and this must be Kinnon. What a troublesome boy you were the night you were born.”

  Annie laughed, introduced her husband, and thanked them as earnestly as Sosie had for saving both her baby and herself. “We were glad to do it,” Kirra said merrily. “Always delighted to show off our magic to a town full of people who hate mystics! And Senneth got to set a bunch of people on fire, so that made her especially happy. So tell me about the little one! He seemed awfully willful as he was coming into the world. Is it too much to hope that he’s gotten easier to handle?”

  They only chatted a few minutes before more strangers showed up, looking for an audience with Senneth. It was late before there was a break in the stream of visitors, and by then, Senneth and Kirra were starving. Tayse and Donnal had joined them, so Sosie brought meals to all of them, putting a bowl of stew on the floor for Donnal. They’d just finished eating when Sosie returned, wrapping a towel around her hands and glancing back toward the kitchen door.

  “Would you be willing to go to the kitchen a moment?” she asked in a diffident voice. “There’s someone you might want to meet, but she’s shy and she’s strange and I don’t think she’ll come to the front room.”

  Senneth and Kirra exchanged glances and quickly rose to their feet. Tayse and Donnal followed them through the door, too curious to stay behind.

  A young woman was moving through the small kitchen as if she didn’t really see the layout of table and oven and baker’s rack. Her muddy green eyes were focused on something invisible to the rest of them; her hands were half lifted as if to catch something that might be tossed her way. Her hair was tangled, her face was none too clean, and Senneth noted with astonishment that her feet were bare. Yet a faint fragrance clung to her of roses or lilies or irises. Kirra caught it, too, for Senneth saw her sniff and look around as if trying to locate an unseasonal bouquet.

  Sosie touched the woman’s arm to catch her attention. “Lara,” she said, and then repeated the name. “Lara, remember I wanted you to meet Senneth.”

  Lara’s strange eyes passed unseeingly over Senneth’s face and went to Kirra. She nodded silently and then turned her gaze toward the window.

  “Are you a mystic?” Senneth tried.

  Lara said nothing, so Sosie answered for her. “She is, though I don’t really understand her power. She’s a healer of some kind. I’ve seen her bring people back from the brink of death, but it’s not the kind of power that Kirra has. And she can make anything grow—she can touch a tree and ripen fruit two months out of season. It’s as if her power was spring, or maybe life itself.” Sosie smiled, as if that sounded foolish. “Or maybe her power is hope.”

  Kirra’s voice sounded behind her, quiet and unalarming. “Surely there must be a goddess of growing things,” Kirra said. “Such a one would claim a woman like this.”

  “Can she hear us?” Senneth said.

  “I don’t know. Sometimes she participates in conversations, but I’m never sure of what she does and doesn’t hear. She’s only here rarely—I think she just wanders barefoot around Gillengaria most of the year.”

  “Well, Lara, I hope you wander to Ghosenhall someday soon,” Senneth said in a friendly way. “I’m sure we will need all the healers we can accumulate if war really does descend on us.”

  For a moment, it seemed as though Senneth’s voice penetrated the other woman’s abstraction. Lara’s eyes rested on Senneth’s face. “War,” she repeated.

  “Though I hope not,” Senneth added.

  Lara’s attention drifted back to Kirra, down to Donnal, and over to Tayse—and then suddenly sharpened. She took in his stance, his weapons, the gold lions embroidered on his sash. “King’s Rider,” she said distinctly.

  They all froze, and then Tayse said quietly, “Yes, I’m a Rider. How do you know of such as me?”

  “Justin,” Lara said.

  Now they were all astonished and having no luck hiding it. “You know Justin?” Tayse repeated.

  “Cammon,” the strange woman added.

  “Justin and Cammon?” Kirra said. “Wait—are you the mystic they rescued last fall when Justin was on his way to Neft?”

  Lara turned her attention back to Senneth. “I will help you,” she said, “if war comes.” Before they could recover from their amazement, she turned to Sosie, gave the other girl a quick embrace, and slipped out the back door, making no noise with her bare feet.

  They all stared after her, though Sosie was choking on a giggle. “And that’s a fairly typical conversation with Lara,” she said at last. “But I thought you should meet her if you got a chance. She is—I think she’s very good. But she’s not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

  “Can anyone else smell roses?” Kirra demanded.

  “Sosie’s right,” Senneth said. “Her power is spring.”

  “Well, spring is coming, and war might be coming with it,” Tayse said. “I would be relieved if it came wearing Lara’s face instead of Halchon Gisseltess’s countenance.”

  Senneth gave a last glance at the door where Lara had disappeared and offered a sigh. “Maybe it will come wearing both.”

  SHORTLY afterward, Jase dropped by for lessons. By the time Senneth
had spent an hour with him, he was able to manufacture fire from his own body heat and keep a piece of paper from burning even though it was red with flame. “If you come to Ghosenhall, there’s a man who would love to tutor you,” Senneth told him, writing Jerril’s name and address on a piece of paper.

  He pocketed it carefully but shook his head. “Probably not anytime soon. My folks brought me here to keep me safe and I don’t think they like the idea of leaving just yet.”

  “And we hardly want to strip the place of all its magic,” Kirra added to Senneth after he’d left and they had settled back into the booth. “How strange to have a town of mystics if all the mystics have fled.”

  Senneth grinned. “I’d guess only a handful will come to Ghosenhall now—the adventurous ones who are starting to chafe at the safe but dull existence they’re leading,” she said. “Well, think about it! Neither you nor I would have been able to live here more than a month or two without suddenly feeling the urge to wander off and explore the world again.”

  “Mystics are restless,” Kirra agreed. “Hard to believe that this many of them could have settled down long enough to actually form a town.”

  Senneth was watching two men enter the tavern, a younger one supporting an older one who appeared to be both blind and physically weak. “What I think,” she said slowly, “is that enough of them were in danger enough times that they were willing to trade their love of adventure for a sense of security. They’d had their fill of back-alley beatings and midnight escapes. Life in Carrebos might not be exciting—but excitement can sometimes mean death.”

  The two strangers approached the booth and Senneth and Kirra both rose to show their respect for the older man. He looked to be in his mid-eighties, with thin white hair rather wildly styled and huge blue eyes that were cloudy with age. Brown spots dotted the wrinkled skin of his face and his mouth hung open as if he had found that was the most convenient way to breathe.