Eighteen
Flashes of light sparked on the northern horizon, and low rumbles like thunder vibrated the stones under Tesi’s feet, but this was no natural storm approaching. She stroked Mimi’s head to keep her fingers from shaking. The other wizards gazed intently across the ocean, but she turned to study the woman who had brought them to this high stone balcony.
The Matriarch held a long metal tube to her eye. Tesi had heard how Kevessa’s father had invented the combination of lenses that granted distant sight. He’d named it a “window-glass” when he’d still believed the ancient wizards’ powers had been achieved by purely natural means. But she’d never had an opportunity to observe Gevan’s device in action. It did appear to allow the Matriarch a better view of the battle than the rest of them had. After a particularly brilliant flash, she lowered it with a vicious curse. A muffled boom resonated in Tesi’s stomach.
“What is it, Verinna?” her husband asked.
She glanced at the cluster of guards who stood a short distance away and shook her head. She probably didn’t fully trust any of them, after being so recently betrayed by one of their number. She lowered her voice until Tesi had to strain to hear her words. “They’ve built some sort of device that flings fire. They’re burning our ships. If the flames aren’t quenched before they reach the room where the Secret is stored…” She shuddered.
Tesi didn’t fully grasp what she meant, but it must be terrible, for Lord Renarre’s face reflected her horror. “How many have we lost?”
“I counted thirty-eight still fighting.” Another bright flash made her flinch. The booming sound followed, sooner and louder than last time. “Thirty-seven,” she amended, voice grim. “Out of the fifty I left in the blockade. They’re retreating down the coast, Marvannan ships pursuing. The wind is in the enemy’s favor.”
“We’ll lose more before they reach the city.” Renarre crossed his arms and turned to survey the sleeping city that blanketed the hillside. “How many ships do the Marvannans have?”
“At least sixty,” the Matriarch told him. She handed him the window-glass. He raised it to his eye and aimed it toward the battle.
Tesi strained her eyes, but she could only make out indistinct dark shapes against the horizon. A dense pall of haze billowed around them, illuminated by intermittent orange flashes, some dim and followed by rumbles, some long and bright but silent.
Lord Renarre lowered the window-glass. “What are you going to do?” he asked quietly.
She continued staring at the battle. “I don’t have much choice, do I? Admiral Dorrinne will make them pay for every league, but they’re going to reach the city. They’ll besiege the palace. We could hold out for a while, but eventually they’d starve us into surrender. Better to be gone before they arrive.”
Her voice strengthened, a note of iron determination replacing the bitterness. “We flee on my private vessel. Any Armada ships that remain when the Marvannans reach the city will withdraw and regroup. The Marvannans should let them go; they’ll be too busy subduing the ground forces to pursue. We’ll join the remnants of the Armada and retreat.”
“Where?” Renarre asked. “South to Dirra? The Marvannans will follow as soon as they secure the city.”
“No.” There was definite satisfaction in the Matriarch’s voice. “East to Tevenar. If any Marvannan ships pursue us, we’ll lose them on the crossing or in the archipelago. Then we’ll join the rest of the Armada. We can take as long as we need to rest and restock. When the Marvannans least expect it, after they’ve withdrawn most of their fleet back to Marvanna, we’ll return and drive them out.”
Beside Tesi, Vigorre swiveled to face the Matriarch. “You can’t. The wizards—”
She waved a dismissive hand. “If any still live, I’ll apologize for allowing the Purifiers and Dualists to deceive me. But I expect to find them dead or captive and Tevenar firmly in Ramunnan hands.”
Vigorre stared at her, his lips parted but no sound emerging. Kevessa moved to stand beside him and spoke in a reasonable, persuasive voice. “Since you admit you sent the Armada to Tevenar under false premises, once you’ve gotten what you need you can withdraw the Armada and restore Tevenar to its people.”
“Why would I do that?” The Matriarch gave a dry laugh. “It doesn’t matter what prompted me to launch the attack. Tevenar is mine by right of conquest.”
Tesi held herself very still and quiet, hoping neither the Matriarch nor the wizards would notice her and draw her into their argument. Luckily, they were intently focused on each other. Vigorre swallowed and took a deep breath. “But you had an agreement. Master Elkan did everything he could to fulfill his end of the bargain.”
Kevessa added, “My father signed the treaty in your name. You acknowledge now that the Tevenarans never broke it. Do you want Ramunna to become known as a country that betrays its loyal allies?”
The Matriarch shook her head wearily. “You’re both very young; it’s not surprising you’re naive. But it’s time you learned how the world really works. Treaties are only as good as the swords behind them. Tevenar was weak. I’ve spent a lifetime, and my mother and grandmothers before me, making Ramunna strong.” Her voice hardened. “Marvanna thinks they’re about to conquer Ramunna once and for all, the way they’ve wanted for centuries. I’ve got one chance to prove them wrong. I will do anything—anything—to drive the Marvannans out of Ramunna. I’ll suck Tevenar dry without a second thought to achieve that goal.”
Vigorre raised his chin. “The Mother—”
“Can either help me, or get out of my way.” The Matriarch took the window-glass from Renarre and passed it to Vigorre. “Look at the Marvannans’ new weapon. Could the Mother’s power deflect the burning projectiles?”
Vigorre gave her a long searching look, but eventually he raised the glass to his eye. He spent several minutes observing the battle. Tesi wondered what he was seeing, and why he was taking so long to respond. It seemed to her that the task would be simple enough.
At last he lowered the glass. “I think so.”
“Good. You will come with me to Tevenar, all of you. When we return with the full Armada, you and any surviving Tevenaran wizards will be aboard my ships, defending them. Throwing the fire back on the Marvannans if you can. Quenching any flames that reach our ships. Between your power, the full strength of the Armada, and the Secret, we’ll destroy Marvanna’s fleet.”
Tesi’s stomach lurched. She held her breath. The Matriarch was ruthless. What might she do when the Ramunnan wizards refused to participate in her cruel scheme, as surely they must?.
Vigorre gave the Matriarch a brittle smile as he handed the window-glass back. “To quote your own words, your Majesty, why would we do that?”
She smiled back at him, equally brittle. “Because you’re loyal subjects of Ramunna, and don’t want to see it conquered by Marvanna any more than I do. Because you want to establish your Wizards’ Guild here, and I have the power to make that happen—if we win. But most of all, because you want to live.”
Vigorre put his hand on Nirre. “You can’t threaten us.”
“Are you so sure?” The Matriarch eyed him arrogantly, then shook her head. “It’s the Marvannans you should fear, not me. Have you forgotten they’re a Purifier nation? They’ll stop at nothing to destroy your beasts, and you, too. Helping me is the best chance you have to survive.”
“She’s right,” Borlen put in quickly. His eyes burned with anger as he glanced at the approaching battle. “Fighting the Marvannans is fully within the Mother’s will. Especially if her majesty will let us work openly in Ramunna afterward.” He bowed to the Matriarch.
“I’ll certainly reward you if you serve me well.” The Matriarch beamed at him.
Vigorre’s gaze wavered from the Matriarch to Borlen. “I suppose… Kevessa, what do you think?”
Kevessa looked down at Nina in her arms, then up at Vigorre with a resolute expression. “I think we should.”
Tesi couldn’t belie
ve what she was hearing. She felt frozen in horror. But perhaps Vigorre, at least, would object.
“All right.” Vigorre took a deep breath. “Your majesty, the Wizards’ Guild agrees to—”
“No!”
All eyes swung to look at Tesi. She trembled, but no matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t look away. “I will not fight for you.”
Vigorre took a quick step forward, holding out his hand. “Tesi, I know you don’t want—”
She ignored him and fixed the Matriarch with her boldest stare. “I will not kill. Nor engage in battle. Nor do anything that might lead, directly or indirectly, to peoples’ deaths. Not for you, not for Ramunna, not for Giroda. Not even to save my own life. Or the lives of those I love. I will not.” She folded her hands in the manner that indicated uncompromising defiance and bowed to the Matriarch.
Mimi twined around her ankles. Tesi could feel her purring. She didn’t look down, or move in any other way. A sense of peace flooded her heart. Even if the Matriarch ordered her put to death, even if she herself struck Tesi down in the next moment, Tesi knew she had made the right choice.
Of all the Great Sage’s teachings, the sacredness of all life was first and highest. Tesi had never questioned it. She had always known the wizards did not hold to that principle in quite the same way she did, for they ate meat without qualm, as did the familiars of carnivorous species. But she’d never dreamed they might use their power to injure and kill. The Mother’s power was capable of holding a person still and harmless—why would her fellow wizards use it in any other way, if violence must be opposed?
That was how she had expected them to stop the assassins. Yet freezing only two in place had proven a far greater drain on her energy than she had expected. She’d had no strength left for Mimi to entrap another. Or to act against the other wizards when they started inflicting disabling injuries on their foes.
She hadn’t realized what Borlen and Kevessa intended to do until they’d already harmed her two captives. The men had lain helpless as the Matriarch and her husband slaughtered them, and she’d been too weak and stunned to do anything but weep.
Never again. She could no more fling the Marvannan’s burning missiles back at their ships than at her own home. Even the seemingly innocent act of diverting the flames from Ramunnan ships would allow those vessels to deal out more death. The only way to avoid participating in the slaughter was to avoid the battle altogether.
The Matriarch’s voice was cold. “And who are you?”
Vigorre stepped to her side. “Tesi is Girodan, your Majesty. One of the healers Ozor brought. The Mother chose her as a wizard so she could take her power back to Giroda. This isn’t her war.”
Kevessa added, “If all of us go to Tevenar with you, your people will be completely without the Mother’s power. But if you let Tesi return to Little Tevenar, she can continue to heal those who can’t be helped by Nalini or the others.”
To Tesi’s surprise, Borlen added his voice to theirs. “It’s dangerous to have a noncombatant aboard a warship. Tesi will be of far more use to you if she stays.”
Tesi raised her head to find the Matriarch regarding her through narrowed eyes. She dropped her gaze again.
The Matriarch sighed impatiently. “She’s coming with us. If I let her stay she’d probably feel obligated to heal the Marvannans. Or they’d capture her and force her to work against me.”
Tesi opened her mouth to argue, but the Matriarch silenced her with a glance. “I’ll have months to discover what sort of persuasion will make you compliant.” She took a last long look at the battle, then swept around. “To my ship, all of you. There’s no time to waste.”
* * *
For the dozenth time, Kevessa considered having Nina freeze the Matriarch and trying to escape, but once again she discarded the idea. They’d succeeded in persuading the Matriarch that the wizards had never betrayed her. She was ready to again support them in establishing the Ramunnan Wizards’ Guild. Accompanying her to Tevenar and helping her retake Ramunna from the Marvannans seemed the best route to accomplish that goal. If Kevessa fled the palace and remained in the city as the Marvannan fleet landed and their forces overwhelmed what little land-based defense Ramunna had, she’d have to go back into hiding. The Matriarch was right that the Marvannan Purifiers would slaughter any familiars they could find.
But every step through the secret passages felt like dragging her feet through mud. Father would be worried sick when she didn’t return. He’d been unhappy enough about her spying mission, even though Nalini had given him daily reports of her continued well-being. And Mama, and Papa, and her cousins… what would the Marvannans do to them?
Her mind filled with images of smoke and flames and blood. All the beautiful buildings on their street burning. Papa and Hethem cut down as they valiantly defended their home. Brutal Marvannan soldiers looting and smashing and seizing Mama and Yarra and the rest, dragging them off to—
She forced the thoughts away. She was powerless to prevent it. One wizard and familiar pair, or even all four of them together, couldn’t stop the Marvannans. Even if they burned themselves out, killing hundreds of enemies for every life spent, it wouldn’t be enough to turn back the invasion.
They reached the level where Borlen had said the kitchens and servants’ quarters were located. The Matriarch strode at the head of the group. Lord Renarre carried a torch close behind her. The wizards followed, and a small group of guards with more torches brought up the rear. If any of them were Purifier spies, they’d be in trouble. But Borlen had greeted most of them by name, and hadn’t objected to any of them being included in the escape.
The Matriarch turned down a different corridor than they’d used on the way up. After a few hundred feet she opened a locked door and led them through. Beyond it the wooden walls gave way to rough-hewn stone. The tunnel wound downward for what seemed like miles. Kevessa put Nina down and let her run for a while, but eventually the squirrel tired and leaped back into her arms.
Vigorre dropped back to walk beside her. On his shoulder Nirre looked deeply disgruntled, her shoulders hunched and her yellow eyes glaring balefully at the back of the Matriarch’s head.
Kevessa nodded at the eagle. “She looks like she’d like to rip into the Matriarch the way she ripped into that fish earlier.”
Vigorre snorted. “That might be the only thing that could cheer her up. She’s not made to be away from the sky so long.”
“She’ll have months to do all the flying she wants on the way to Tevenar.” Kevessa shivered. “Do you think the Armada really could have defeated the wizards so easily? The Matriarch seems very sure…”
Vigorre shook his head hard, but Kevessa knew him well enough to hear the doubt behind his reassuring words. “She doesn’t know everything the Mother’s power can do. Master Elkan was confident they’d be able to hold the Armada off. We’ll probably meet the ships as they retreat. I hope there’s enough of them left to defeat the Marvannans.”
“Maybe.” Kevessa couldn’t share his bravado. “You saw what the Armada ships were doing to the Marvannans. They were blasting them with something that tore their ships apart. I knew they had a secret weapon, but I didn’t realize how destructive it is, or how long a reach it has. It took the Marvannans fifty years to devise a weapon that could counter it. What good will the Mother’s power do against something that can destroy a ship from too far away to reach?”
“I’m sure Master Elkan came up with something. And if he couldn’t, Josiah did.”
Kevessa’s heart flipped at the mention of their fellow apprentice. “But what if—” Her throat closed on the words. Her feelings toward Josiah were a confused tangle, but the thought that he might have been killed in the Armada’s assault cut through the knot with a shaft of pure terror and grief.
Vigorre put a hand on her arm. “At least now we’ll be able to see for ourselves what happened.” His voice took on a tone of forced brightness. “I hope while we’re in Tevenar I
can spend some time training with Elkan or some other master wizard. I know you’ve done your best, but we’re all hopeless beginners beside him. Trying to figure things out on my own these past three months has shown me how much I have to learn.” A note of bitter self-recrimination crept into his voice. “If only I hadn’t wasted the time he could have been teaching me…”
It was Kevessa’s turn to lay a comforting hand on his arm. “I had all that time, and the voyage from Tevenar as well, and we barely scratched the surface. There’s a good reason apprenticeships in Tevenar last seven years. Wizards spend three years learning before they even bond with a familiar.” She nuzzled Nina. “At least the familiars know what to do without our help most of the time.”
“Thank the Mother for that.” Vigorre’s gaze went distant. “I’ll be able to get my own copy of the Law. Elkan would have given me his, but it got left behind with the rest of his things in the palace. And I’ll be able to read the Histories. I feel like I’ve been groping along blind, when there’s a thousand years worth of accumulated wisdom that could be guiding me. I want to know the full story of how the Prophet Guron founded Tevenar. Elkan said they have many volumes of writing from his own hand; can you believe it? The scholars at the University will fall down and kiss my feet if I’m able to bring copies back.”
Kevessa looked away. “Father obtained several of the documents while we were there. He told me his colleagues were both delighted and horrified when he presented them. He said they’ll revolutionize the study of ancient Marvanna and the fall of the wizards, even though many of the scholars refused to acknowledge their authenticity.”
“That’s not surprising.” Vigorre’s voice softened. “I’m sure your father will be all right, Kevessa. The rest of your family as well. The Marvannans won’t dare harm members of the aristocracy.”
The Wizards' War Page 27
