“Give me a moment.”
He shot a quelling glance at the young men, then shut his eyes and plunged his awareness into what his teacher had called the loom of nyama.
A warp and weft of energy undergirds the world, weaving into and through everything that exists. These energies could be transformed but never created or destroyed, and from them all actions and reactions arise. As a diviner he could spill like a fish through these dense waters and in them discern, like silvery fish in the sea, the life force of human souls. Cold mages had the ability to manipulate the ebb and flow of these energies. A trained mage radiated a pattern of light that was impossible to describe even to another diviner, for each diviner had to learn to understand how to perceive and negotiate the loom in their own way.
Deep in the ocean of ceaselessly moving energy, a bud of light might suddenly flare with a raw, unformed glamour: this was the mark of a person whose magic had burst into flower. Mostly these blooms were youths coming into their adolescence, although occasionally an older person who had lived for decades in quiescence would wake up to find themselves able to handle the threads of nyama, also called energy or power. In a mage House, of course, such people were immediately sent for training, a process that took many years. But not only the House-born had cold magic. Nyama flowed everywhere through the world. Thus anywhere and at any time a person might all unwittingly bloom. Such House-less people were fair game to whoever found them first. By this means—recruiting new potential mages—a small mage clan like Autumn House could restore its withering fortunes.
Swimming in his mind through the nearby shoals and bays of these intangible waters, he sought a flare of light but found nothing. Emerging, he turned his head to look at her with what he intended to be a kindly nod.
“You have mistaken the matter. There is no bloom.”
She spoke in her composed voice. “I sensed it first as a pressure against my heart. It’s not a bright light but as if a struggling flame is concealed beneath a gauze wrap.”
Her description was so oddly specific that he cast back into the waters just to see if he could discover what she meant, or else prove her wrong. Perhaps because divining came so easily to him, he might have missed a glimmer the girl had spotted. Maybe she was mistaken, but maybe she had looked harder because she was anxious to be accepted and thus acted with particular vigilance.
When he was young he’d experimented with different ways of sensing discrete signatures of magic within the great wash of energy, but the old diviner who had taught him had ridiculed as “womanly” any method but that of diviner’s sight. He retained a vague memory of letting touch guide him. Just as she had suggested.
And there it was, a breath of substance like an exhalation along his skin. In the diviner’s trance he flowed northward, letting the faint pressure lead his path until he passed a point and the pressure of exhalation shifted to the other side of his arm. So he came around to find himself in a hollow of glowing energy, an area where many living beings clustered. A town.
He saw the incipient bloom as if it were a candle glimpsed behind a translucent window shade. No! There were two candles there, one a bit brighter but the second rising behind it. The intensity of the light was building imperceptibly, noticeable only because the gauzy covering seemed to be slowly dissolving in two spots.
He opened his eyes with a surprised gasp. All heads turned toward him.
“If I do not mistake what I have just divined, there are two young mages on the cusp of blooming.”
Quite unlike her usual subdued and compliant manner, Serena broke in eagerly. “Two! I thought the fainter light was a mirror effect. But I haven’t your experience in divining, Magister. Two at once in the same household is unusual, is it not?”
“It is rare, and usually means twins.” He preened a little, glad to still be worth something alongside these fresh sprouts. “The gauzy shield that hides them means that possibly no other mage House is yet aware. We must reach the family before they fully burst into their power and another diviner with more to offer can find them.”
He rapped on the small window that opened onto the driver’s bench.
When it scraped open, he said, “Morcant, take us out of line for the ferry. Take the River Road toward Venta Erkunos.”
He was surprised at the certainty he felt. This was the right choice. One, he had to admit in all fairness, that he wouldn’t have noticed if not for the girl.
* * *
—
By late afternoon they reached the bustling market town.
“Our first concern is to track down and negotiate with the family,” he said to his three apprentices. “To that end, we will split up for faster searching.”
“As soon as I have secured rooms for the night,” said Kankou in the tone that assured no one would argue with her, and of course he would never have done so regardless.
Cold magic was anathema to fire. Thus, when traveling, cold mages stayed at inns built with a hypocaust. Any large town and ferry crossing boasted such an establishment. Even if no mages had ever slept there, the chance that they might someday meant the inn could advertise itself as of the highest quality of establishment, worthy of mages and princes alike.
An innkeeper greeted them at the gate, hands clasped, demeanor welcoming. A youth brought them water to drink in welcome, offering the refreshment to them in order of age beginning with Kankou.
“Maestra, we are honored by your presence. Magister, please be welcome. Of course we can arrange chambers.” He examined the women and the men as if trying to sort out relationships. “How many chambers will you need?”
“One for Magister Titus and one for Magister Serena and Leontia and myself to share,” Kankou said imperiously, then paused. She studied Anwell and Bala through narrowed eyes, although by no other means did she express disapproval. After a moment she nodded to Titus, inviting his input.
He saw an opportunity to let Anwell and Bala know they had overstepped in their treatment of Serena without directly scolding them. “The rest will sleep in whatever accommodations you provide for those who attend us.”
“Of course, Magister,” said the innkeeper, all pleasantry as he ignored the shocked expressions of the young men when they realized they were being sent to sleep with the servants.
Kankou gave Titus a curt nod of approval, fortunately brief since he preferred to avoid her notice altogether. She turned to the innkeeper. “We will retire to our chambers now, if you will be so kind.”
“My apologies, Maestra. Another group has just left unexpectedly, so it will take the housekeeper a short interval to make sure a proper set of rooms is readied for mages of your importance. If you will allow me, we have a private parlor where you may wait in comfort with food and drink. This way.”
Another group has just left unexpectedly. Titus chewed over these words as he followed the innkeeper to the parlor. Had they arrived too late? Had a diviner snatched the prize out from under his nose again?
The parlor was appointed with couches and tables but it was not in fact private, if by private one meant for their party alone, as would have been appropriate to a magister of his standing traveling with a venerable maestra who was sister to a mansa. As Titus entered, he was appalled to see an expensively dressed man seated at one of the tables, sipping at a cup of tea with an expression of discontent. The man wore a starched boubou of an exemplary gray-blue color. The cloth rustled as he stood to acknowledge their entry.
“Peace to you, Magister,” said the stranger. “Does the afternoon find you at peace?”
“I have peace, thanks to the mother who raised me. And you…” Titus hesitated. Sending out tendrils of magic he found himself in the presence of another cold mage, this one with the latticework aura of a diviner like himself, not just some mage House steward traveling about the business of his mansa. His worst fears founded! But he kept his
voice level as he continued the polite greeting. “Does the afternoon find you at peace, Magister? And your mother and father and the people of your household, I hope they are at peace.”
“There is no trouble. And your family also, may the Lord of All shower his mercy upon the world. I am Belenus Cissé, son of…”
He faltered, seeing the women as they crossed the threshold. His mouth, so round with pleasantries, turned shockingly flat and hard, and his eyes flared.
“Serena! I am thunderstruck that you have the audacity to show your face in public after what transpired. And yet why would it surprise me? The world already knows you as shameless!”
The hostility of the comment, baldly spoken without any softening allusion, took Titus aback. People halted in the entryway, whispering as they tried to catch a glimpse of the altercation. Anwell and Bala smirked as if they thought it the best joke of the trip to see the girl demeaned before witnesses. The innkeeper blanched as he looked from one mage to the other.
Kankou watched in stony silence. Of course she expected him to solve this, but the situation had burst so unexpectedly into his face that he was left struggling for words.
Into the silence left by his shock, Serena’s voice lifted, mild and humble in the manner befitting women and yet not at all quailing. “If the monkey can’t reach the fruit, he says it is rotten.”
Titus turned to see Serena regarding the man with a countenance so serene that he struggled with delight at her composure and a little residual disgust that she remained so calm while he had not been up to the task of defending the honor of their House.
Her gaze shifted to him, and she blinked twice.
“Magister, Aunt Kankou and I will modestly retire to be about our business. I am sure you and the Cissé from Twelve Horns House will be busy about your drink and dinner for some time, as it is said, let a man not hurry about his supper or his conversation.”
Of course Belenus Cissé was here on the same trail they were. But the man’s grimace lacked any of the triumphant glory a diviner naturally felt when he had fished a freshly bloomed mage from the ocean of power. That meant he either hadn’t found the pair yet or hadn’t yet convinced them to bind their fortunes to Twelve Horns House. As much as it grated, Titus was the only one who could keep him busy while the others went looking.
“Yes, I will certainly take my fill,” Titus agreed.
As soon as the door was shut to leave the two men alone, Belenus sat heavily, breathing hard.
“Are you…?” He seemed unable to speak the next word, as if he feared Titus was Serena’s new husband rather than her teacher.
As if any man would want that kind of trouble in his life! His marriage had foundered in indifference even before the death of their son had sundered their lives.
“I am the senior diviner of Autumn House. I am traveling with my three apprentices—Anwell, Bala, and the young woman.” He made no mention of Kankou; if the man couldn’t divine her exalted status as the mansa’s sister and chief administrator of Autumn House, then that was his problem.
“Forgive my bluntness.” The man gestured for Titus to join him at the table. “I was taken by surprise to meet her here, so far from either of our Houses.”
“Indeed, it is far. I hope you have had a peaceful journey, Magister.”
The other man opened his lips to reply but closed them when the innkeeper appeared with a fresh pot of tea and a tray of dates, sesame honey bars, and soft hot buns made of sweetened yam flour. In silence the innkeeper poured, lingering too long as if waiting for them to begin talking, and finally took away the cold teapot that had already been on the table. As soon as the door closed, the flood started.
“How can I have peace when I have been treated with such disrespect by that perfidious, ungrateful woman?”
“You are the husband? I did not know. I was traveling at the time.”
“I asked for nothing that any man does not expect, an obedient, modest wife to bear me children and concern herself with my comfort. I see she has gotten her way.”
“A woman’s mind goes no farther than the tip of her breast.”
“Quite true. Quite true. She was obedient enough when she came to me, and quite without any pretensions to divination. But then she began to speak of dreams and the touch of feathery petals on her face as if these ridiculous fantasies are the same as a man’s clear vision of magic blooming.”
“No man can understand a woman.”
“Indeed. Indeed. Worst, the women of my House indulged her. Her pretty manners deceived them into thinking her honest and compliant when all along she was hiding the terrible truth.”
“The hidden rot will soon break the branch.”
Belenus was no longer listening. Like floodwaters, he would run until the rains of his grievance stopped pouring. “You know, you people are not a prestigious mage House. It was as good a marriage alliance as a girl like her could expect. But she thought she was too good for me when I am a respectable diviner, having made a name for myself by finding three powerful young mages in the city of Havery before anyone else discovered the children. There was something wrong with her all along. Dry soil will sprout no growth.”
Titus winced, but the other man didn’t notice. He just kept going.
“What use is a barren woman? A woman gives birth to a mage. She does not become one. Whatever she may say, and that isn’t all that happened…”
Titus was already regretting being trapped at the table. Abruptly he realized Serena had known the man would spout endlessly in defense of his sour tale and tarnished pride. So he spoke a trite phrase of interest or query whenever the man paused long enough to draw breath. It was always enough to keep the man going.
The portrait painted of Serena was not a flattering one.
Outside the shadows grew long as the sun sank into the west.
The innkeeper appeared.
“Magister Titus, your chamber is ready. You may take supper as soon as you wish, or after dark, if that is more to your preference. We are fortunate in having a mage in town, a person with a humble gift, who comes at dusk to light cressets with cold fire for your convenience.”
“You will join me for supper, of course,” said Belenus.
“Of course,” said Titus politely. “Let me wash off the dust of the journey.”
“Yes, yes. In fact, I have some business to attend to before supper. I should have done it earlier, but then you came and have talked so much that I forgot my purpose here.” He called for a servant and hurried out of the inn.
Titus considered hurrying after him, but Serena had had such a sense of surety about her that he decided to seek her out instead.
The innkeeper led him to the back part of the inn with its three corridors letting onto guest rooms: one passage for men, one for women, and one for families. As he glanced down the women’s passage a door opened and Serena came out, wearing a different jacket than she’d had on earlier and with a freshly tied headwrap. She looked lovely and unflustered.
He halted in consternation as she walked up to him smiling that same serene smile which suddenly exasperated him.
“Did I endure that man’s petulant grumbling merely to discover you have spent your time grooming yourself in your room?”
She looked at the innkeeper, then back at him, and said, “Perhaps, Uncle, you will accompany me to the temple. As a stranger in this town, I do not feel comfortable making my offering alone.”
Titus was so astounded by this odd statement—all this time she had made only the ordinary offerings at altars within the inns in which they stayed—that the innkeeper beat him to a reply.
“Magister, please allow me to engage a guide to assist you in sightseeing. May I particularly recommend the architecture of our temple dedicated to Jupiter Taranis, which is famous throughout the region for its surviving Roman portico and ingenious
wheel design?”
Serena smiled, and smiled, and finally Titus remembered the way his son and littler daughters had used to signal to each other with silent smiles before they got up to mischief.
“My thanks, but we shall just take a family stroll,” he said, falling in with her fiction about kinship.
The innkeeper withdrew.
She walked briskly to the back of the building and led him out through a delivery passageway that led past the inn’s kitchen and stableyard into an alley.
“We have them,” she said in a low voice as he hastened to keep up, and something of the sweet nature of mischief entered his heart. His own pulse pounded harder with anticipation. A long time ago, watching his children about their lively frolics, he might even have laughed.
At the corner she glanced furtively both ways, then pressed a hand to his arm to stop him from stepping out onto the street. He peeked out past the corner of the inn to see Belenus Cissé flanked by a brace of servants and striding into the fading afternoon glow. She said nothing, nor did her expression give away her thoughts or indeed any tremor of dismay at having run into the man she had once called husband and afterward discarded.
“This way,” she said.
Rather than running after the other diviner, she led him right across the street into a humble votive temple with a sagging gate. The temple’s sad little courtyard was populated by two hens and a badger in a cage. A faded mural depicted a crowned woman riding a lion as she hurled a thunderbolt. A priestess wearing the crown of Celestial Juno waited on a cramped portico. The flame of the lamp by the door wavered and went out as the two mages approached.
She greeted Serena with a genuine smile that turned to a cautious stare as she greeted Titus. “Magister. May it be well with you under the crown of the holy queen of the heavens.”
“This is my teacher and elder, as I told you,” Serena reassured her. “Titus Kanté of Autumn House.”
He and the priestess exchanged polite greetings, and afterward the priestess said, “In here, Magister.”
The Book of Magic Page 53
