He’s a snake. But he still has fangs. As do I, oh soon-to-be-ex Governor of Silbar. Do not forget that.
* * *
Chisaad did not allow his satisfaction at the exchange to show. She now knows I have sympathy for her side of that stupid rivalry and will want to cement it into outright favoritism.
He would have to be extremely careful. She was easily the most perceptive magic user in the city thanks to her unique nature. No other woman, and certainly no man, could command flesh, spirit, and elemental magics to the extent she could. The Aretzo Node Compact reserved one part in five hundred of the Node for her own use, a luxury as great as his own, and she had fewer duties to support with it. So she could meddle more than most, if she chose.
But with care, he could turn that perception to his own ends.
* * *
Ymera glanced up at the sound of silver chimes. Servants tapped xylophones to draw the assembly toward their hosts, who preened atop a dais accompanied by the baby and nursemaid. The crowd positioned itself before them and Ymera’s maids folded her train inward so that others might crowd closer, though few did. Hellas’ maids did the opposite with Keldra’s train, claiming extra space for their charge.
The leading priestess of the Dissenting sect took the forward space on the stage. Ymera suppressed a savage smile. Of course Arriga’s upstart merchant husband would be a Dissenter, neither Orthodox nor Purist. That would surely stick in the harridan’s craw.
Don’t gloat, she scolded herself. Simply enjoy what serendipity the evening throws your way and remember this too shall pass away.
Arriga and her man looked happy enough to burst but carried off their roles faultlessly. Ymera happily noted how Hellas stood wooden and stern, trying to mix approval of the ceremony with her obvious disapproval of the Dissenting priestess conducting it, and managed only to look sour.
Endearing yourself to absolutely nobody in this room, Ymera laughed inside as she joined the audience in polite applause for the presentation of the baby boy and the plucking of a few infant hairs from his scalp. Those were immediately sanctified and sealed away to be delivered to the Records Hall at the Mother Temple. The priestess followed that with the reading of the little boy’s three names and the anointing. Last came a brief closing prayer to which Ymera carefully bowed her own head as deeply as any. A nice spare ceremony, not long enough to bore anyone except Wailor’s whelp. Most of the Gwythlo lords had learned to accommodate Silbar’s religion. A few had even converted to it, much to the chagrin of the Druids that the conquerors had brought with them. Ymera had already noted that none of those were here tonight.
They know that they are losing their struggle with the Temple Hierarchy, she thought dispassionately. She had no stake in that fight and had been careful to stay apart from it.
Nursemaids bore the baby away to sleep, none too soon as a long wail accompanied them out the door. Arriga and her husband accepted congratulations. Ymera kept her own brief but did exchange mutual hugs.
My student has reached a pinnacle of social achievement, Ymera thought as she gracefully moved away to let someone else approach. May there be many more for her. Unbidden, a melancholy thought interposed itself like a cloud: before age claims her too, as it has all the ones I trained before.
She moved well aside and kept her face carefully smiling, but inside her mind the ashen years counted themselves. How many girls had passed through her hands, been placed into good marriages, found lives of fulfillment, and turned their backs on the Street where they started? Forgotten the ageless teacher that propelled them outward and upward? Even the few that did not forget still grew older and eventually died. Their daughters usually preferred not to remember their mothers’ questionable beginnings.
No. I will not indulge in melancholy, not here, not now.
Servants respectfully herded the multitude to the evening’s entertainment. They led her to a place on the left of the assemblage but in the front row. The stage thrust out into the audience enough to bend the rows of seats into long arcs. Arriga and her husband had seats in the right wing of the front arc, Ymera in the corresponding position on the left wing.
Another nice gesture. Arriga is signaling to the whole city that she’ll neither disavow nor forget me. Ymera hoped it would be true.
Wailor and his whelp were positioned on her left, Mage Blue beyond him. That seating must rankle Blue, though of course the leader of the Council of Colors gave no sign. Wailor promptly spoiled the careful ordering by swapping seats with his son. While his elders exchanged low comments, the youth peeled off his long Gwythlo surcoat, tossed it over his seat, plunked himself down and fidgeted next to her. Ymera noticed him swig from a wine cup and cast another lustful glance over her and beyond, to settle on Keldra like a hunting wolf. Ymera rolled her eyes and pointedly looked away from the boy-man.
Chisaad and Governor Ap Marn sat to her right between herself and Dona Keldra, with the harridan immediately after, followed by Mage Yellow and assorted other leading lights of Aretzo’s Council of Colors filling out the ends of this arc. Wailor Junior had practically drooled as he stared at Keldra’s dress, or rather, at the newly-ripe body displayed so effectively within it. Ap Marn managed more circumspection, but no less focus.
Ymera suppressed a grin. I should arrange for Wailor’s pup to be properly trained by one of my women so that he at least becomes a competent bed partner. His future wife will thank me. Ap Marn, I suspect, lacks any willingness to learn, and Chisaad has never seemed to care.
Keldra’s maids had arranged her split train in a sweeping double arc that cupped her feet and curled artfully on the floor in front of her. The mass reached almost to the edge of the stage. Keldra herself posed on the edge of her chair, bosom thrust forward and alternately concealed and revealed by her fan in a move that would have been clever if it weren’t so obvious. Ap Marn’s gaze grew every bit as transparent.
Hoping for a last fling before the Prince sends you home? Ymera thought. Ap Marn had a wife and a mistress and a roving eye—and a coldly practical expediency little colored by any sense of gratitude. This should be interesting. Is Hellas hypocritical enough to dangle her granddaughter in front of the outgoing Gwythlo Governor for a fleeting advantage? Her sect claims that Gwythlos don’t even have souls. And soon he’ll be gone back to the North.
From the angry look the harridan shot at Ap Marn, her answer would be a resounding No! accompanied by a high degree of frustration.
Aha. If the Prince had been here, that seat would be held by him. That’s why Hellas attended this event in the first place. She expected to dangle her granddaughter in front of the potential new ruler of Silbar! Who, despite his halfblood, is indisputably the leading member of the Twenty and a prime candidate for the Crown before this year is out. Instead she must tolerate a pale-skinned lecher who can offer her nothing. I detect Arriga’s hand in this seating. Ymera suppressed another laugh. Thank you, my pupil, for providing me with such entertainment.
* * *
It pleased Chisaad to find Ymera on his left, Ap Marn on his right and an unobstructed view of the stage before him.
The word in the crowd is that the DiUmbra Troupe does indeed have a halfbreed star performer. But how to woo him to my service without being obvious to the rest of the magic users gathered here? I must look for opportunity.
Chisaad glanced at his outgoing superior. Dona Keldra and her astonishing dress had him totally engrossed. Good. Chisaad dropped both from his thoughts and quietly adjusted the precast scrying spell he had devised for this occasion. He concentrated on the stage and prepared to present the façade that he wanted Ymera to see.
* * *
Ymera overheard Ap Marn exchange a few words with Keldra as Arriga’s household herald stepped up on the stage. The herald bowed to the audience with a flourish calculated to bring attention to his words.
“Lords and Ladies, Donas, Magisters, and Good Gentles all, pray attend as the DiUmbra Aerialist Troupe brings you that most b
eloved of Silbari tales, the Dance of Malik and Mercia!”
Ymera perked up at this choice both traditional and inspired. The DiUmbras had a good reputation. She recalled seeing works of theirs several times over the generations, though none in the last decade. I really must get out more. They might do interesting things with the old tale.
Chisaad’s profile caught her attention.
He’s fascinated, she thought, bemused. I didn’t know Chisaad liked acrobatic plays.
* * *
Kirin tried not to fidget. The troupe had waited for hours in a stuffy little courtyard squeezed between the ballroom and the kitchens. Setup had been simple since Millago’s carpenters were skilled and they didn’t argue with the exacting demands of Grandfather and Sevan the Elder. Pieter and Sevan had carefully tested the tightrope and the other ropes before the audience began to arrive. Now they waited.
“At least we’ve got a place to sit,” Carmella said to break the boredom.
Maia nodded silently where she sat on a bench against the wall. Her belly had begun to swell with their growing child, not too much yet but enough that the women of the troupe had devised a new costume for her to conceal it.
Kirin was glad they had had to cut the soaring scene and all of Maia’s trapeze work; it would have been dangerous for her now. He leaned beside her with their hands touching on the smooth wood of the old bench. His face glistened with fresh makeup and he tried to rest quietly to avoid smearing it before the white paste set. He could feel his wife’s withdrawn quiet. He turned his head to look at her, softly spoke with his voice pitched for her ears alone.
“It’s going to be fine, love.”
A smile flickered across her face and she nodded.
Within the hall, musicians began to play.
“Places, everybody,” Grandfather called. “Time to start.”
* * *
Drumbeats drew Ymera’s attention to the stage. A tightrope had been set up, ten feet off the stage and running across the center. Two muscular male dancers in black tights strode out on it, edgy, aggressive, meeting in the middle as if in combat, then between them unrolled a billowing sheet of black fabric to symbolize Hell. They hung it from another rope and leapt down to shake the cloth, reminding all present of the strife and violence of the Pale Realm. Others tumbled across the stage, miming pain and fear as they passed back and forth.
An acrobat vaulted up onto the wire from behind, probably lofted by his fellows. He posed momentarily above the fray, perfectly balanced and wearing black tights and black vest both savagely slashed with red dagging. His exposed skin had been blackened until he looked darker than a Xir from the Lesser Continent. The traditional fanged black helm masked his face and he bore a black sword and whip in his hands. Salim, the Tormenting Seraph, Lord of the Nine Hells, leaped down among his victims and drove them from the stage. When it he had emptied it of all save him, he strode to the front and raised his weapons high in exultation. But behind him white and yellow banners waved from side to side above the quaking black backdrop, reminding him and the audience that Hell still lay prostrate beneath Heaven, and would stay so until the end of time.
The Tormentor raged back and forth, tossed high by black-clad acrobats as he struck uselessly at the air above. He came back to the stage, weapons drooping in frustration, to sing of his envy and hate for the Good Seraphs, his wish to humble them. His voice turned cunning and he sang of his plan to waylay one of their angels, to break her and make her his own. And for that plan he summoned his chosen instrument, the Imp Malik.
The dancer who played the Imp leaped onto the high wire, cartwheeled across it and dived down to roll across the stage. He landed at his master’s feet amidst gasps from the audience. Her first sight of him made Ymera clap her hands together with delight at such a delicious and daring choice.
White paint coated the youth’s face, but his bared arms and chest revealed his real coloration. Golden brown skin under hair black as night with, yes, pointed ears showing amid the tied-back curls. Almost certainly a Gwythlo halfbreed on some Silbari woman of the Sump, or at least the Old City. Roughly eighteen years of age, too, bound to have been sired within days of Emperor Brion’s first step on the docks. She guessed that his mother must have been kin to the DiUmbras to gain him entry into the Troupe. From his poise and physique, he hadn’t wasted the opportunity. Now would he be up to the challenge of the story?
* * *
Chisaad’s had carefully adjusted his personal spells so that he could use his scry spell passively and undetected. It let him give full attention to the play’s star.
The halfbreed youth wore only black slippers, black tights, and black ribbons on his arms. His lighter skin gleamed as he knelt before his master, bowing lower, lower, until the Imp lay prostrate at Salim’s feet with arms and legs outstretched in submission. The Tormentor sang his intentions; the beautiful angel Mercia, to be lured into his domain and broken forevermore. The imp recoiled into a crouch, protested his inadequacy to the task and his terror of the Light. He dropped to his knees and begged to be assigned some lesser task that would be within his capacities. The Tormentor laughed and placed one foot on his chest, pushed him back and pinned him down supine to emphasize his hopeless enslavement to this most demonic of masters. Salim commanded him to undertake the task anyway. The Tormentor sang of the tortures that would befall the unhappy imp if he failed, for there was nowhere on or under the World that Salim could not reach one of his own.
Salim the Tormentor leaped back atop the wire with the aid of two more black-clad acrobats, sang of the triumph he would soon have, and exited to a drum crescendo.
A reed flute played softly as the unhappy Malik crawled to the front of the stage. The imp dragged himself to his feet all cowed and miserable, and bemoaned this fate that saddled him with an impossible task. For how could a flawed and ugly imp hope to lure the perfect beauty of an angel into Hell? The reed flute sank into silence and the imp went to his knees at the edge of the stage, despairing.
The youth is a complete blank, Chisaad thought. Bereft of mage talent, like so many others. Or is he?
* * *
Beautifully done, Ymera thought, and knew from the stillness that the crowd agreed. Now can they deliver on this opening promise?
Pipes wailed as a new character took the stage, skin covered with white makeup and clad in flowing red cloth subtly patterned with black. A plunging neckline reached below her waist and her skirts were slit all the way up the side. Desrey the Temptress positively slunk across the boards, oozing passion and singing of deception, the ancient bone-white seductress out for ruin and destruction of any she could misguide. She stalked the despondent imp, holding a long veil of grey gauze, every movement flaunting her body and her cruelty.
Ymera shivered. She understood the temptation of that path all too well. Perhaps Chisaad had been right to chastise her. Though she couldn’t forbear noticing that Desrey’s costume cleverly enhanced assets of the actress that were past their prime.
Golden-skinned Malik raised his black curls, looked at Desrey with a woebegone expression as she wrapped her grey veil about his chest and pinned his arms to his side. Aggressively she hauled him close, still on his knees, and sang to him of all the ways a human woman might be led astray. Were not the angels only a little more resistant?
Slowly his body moved from despair to eagerness, and gradually she loosened the imprisoning veil, releasing him entirely when he jumped to his feet and cried out his hope of success. He cartwheeled around her, sprang to the high wire and danced down it, caroling his surety of capturing Mercia. In his eagerness and ambition he dived off the wire and disappeared.
The Temptress laughed, mocked the foolish overconfidence of the imp, and predicted the coming disaster. She exited gloating, and the first act ended.
Ymera blinked. That had been surprisingly good. It pleased her to find that she enjoyed this show. The young man playing Malik fascinated her. Such energy!
The black-cl
ad pair drew up the black curtain and two others in white hose replaced it with a shimmering blue banner. They tumbled off the opposite sides and immediately came back with long green sheets that they ran across the stage and let settle to the floor. Two small girls in yellow pirouetted through, emplacing pots of real flowers, probably provided by Millago’s gardeners. They were followed by other dancing women with more pots; some of the blooms stood over a yard tall. The stage became a garden where white-clad Mercia danced with other angels, all save her robed in colors as varied as summer blossoms. One by one the other angels drifted offstage, leaving Mercia dancing alone. The angel, perceiving her aloneness, slowed in her dance and spoke to a tall flower. Red petals poured up from it, formed a whirling column in the air, and danced with her.
Superb levitation skill, Ymera thought. She shapes their movement to suggest the dance partner that she doesn’t have. Beautifully done! I remember hearing that the DiUmbras have developed a reputation for clever illusions. I should attend more of their performances.
A movement at the edge of the stage, a ripple in the shadows, and the white face of the imp appeared. Malik spied upon the angel, clothed in a shifting darkness that moved with him as he crept about.
Ingenious trick with the imitation shadows. And that youth, ah! He moves superbly! I’ll wager that half the women in this room already want to bed him. She chuckled silently. Then the corner of her eye caught Chisaad.
The Acting Royal Wizard stared, completely absorbed. But not at the beautiful angel—at the muscular imp.
I didn’t know he inclined toward Sathist ways, she thought, amused. He’s never married; perhaps that should have been a clue. She gave herself over to enjoying the show.
Shadow and Light Page 22
