HER mount's legs thrust against the air with each wingbeat, and Faia relaxed into the rocking gait. The soothing rhythm and the steady rush of chill wind against her face made her sleepy. The white terrain of solid-looking clouds so close underfoot promised safety, even though she knew that those clouds would not hold her if she fell.
The clouds startled Faia. She had always imagined them as dry and fluffy and warm—while they were, in fact, quite cold and wet. She could not see or feel or taste any difference between them and fog, actually, and she began to wonder if a difference existed. She discovered, too, that the world above the rainstorm was one of cold, brilliant light.
The sun had climbed from its place on the horizon to directly overhead when Medwind gave a signal. Abruptly they began to descend. Faia was once again battered by rain that stung her face and hands.
The travelers broke free of the clouds, and Faia saw an enormous city crowded onto a monstrous artificial hill built between towering cliffs and a huge bay. Surrounding the city was marsh, running along the base of the cliffs in both directions as far as her eyes could see. This was Ariss. And what an astonishing place it was. Faia had heard the word city before, but only at her first sight of the panorama below her did she begin to understand what it meant. Buildings piled on top of buildings to fill every inch of the raised ground; they spread from a massive pile of structures that lay at the city's center outward and downward in concentric circles. Walls defined the circles, and broad, white thoroughfares counterpointed them, running through walls and circles like spokes in a wheel. The whole metropolis was a giant mandala of towering white stone dotted with the green of parks and the blue of lakes and streams. And even though it was immense and terrifying, still Faia thought she had never seen anything more beautiful in her life.
As they drew nearer, she could overlook the walls—and the image of a city of white swiftly altered to that of a city of riotous color. Beneath the white walls and white buildings spread all the colors of imagination. Gaudy tents of red and green, gold and pink, purple and orange and brilliant blue filled the open marketplaces; rainbow pennants with fanciful devices flapped from windows and doorways; and the human occupants, in garb of colors and styles that defied description, scurried like overdressed ants through the broad, curving thoroughfares.
Her mount stiffened his wings into a glide and cruised toward the city's center at a gentle angle, following the lead of the other two wingmounts. The trio passed over line after line of walls; thousands of buildings lay beneath her, and more roads, that twisted and turned and doubled back until Faia doubted that she would ever have the courage to wander through those streets, lest she be lost forever. Unidentifiable and unlikely-seeming vehicles raced on the streets underneath her and soared through the air beside her—the drivers of the flying vehicles shouted and waved and cursed as the three wingmounts flew through their midst. Faia's stomach tightened from the tension and the strangeness of it all.
"Hold on tight now!" Medwind bellowed above the rush of the wind. "Landings can be rough!"
Just when I was beginning to think I liked this, Faia thought dryly, and wrapped her arms around the wingmount's neck and locked her legs tightly against his belly.
The wingmounts began backwinging, bodies lurching wildly. All three came down stiff-legged in a white-fenced pasture within sight of a single, immense, gleaming white tower.
They bounced when they hit.
Faia paled as her own mount nearly threw her off while getting his feet under him. His legs windmilled, and he careened into the ground at a dead gallop, lurching twice more into the air before he finally pulled his wings in to his sides and slowed gradually to canter, then trot, then gentle walk. He carried Faia to the gate, and a large, well-kept stone barn.
Faia dismounted quickly, legs shaking. She seriously considered kissing the earth under her feet.
Lady of the Beasts—my thanks for safe arrival! Never, beloved Goddess, never give me reason to do that again! she prayed.
The two city-women handed off the three wingmounts to a young stablegirl, who clucked her tongue at them and led them away to be cooled down and watered.
Medwind stretched, catlike, and grinned. "When the breeding program gives us one that can land without nearly crashing, then I'll believe wingmounts may become something more than a curiosity—or the Mottemage's personal fetish."
Jann laughed. "I'm sure every time I come in will be my last."
Medwind turned to Faia, and rubbed her hands together briskly. "So. Welcome to Ariss, known by those of us who aren't from here as 'The City of Fogs and Bogs.' You'll find out why all too soon." She chuckled. "We made it back in time to let you get cleaned up and still pick up midday meal from the Greathall if you hurry. Then we'll show you around campus, and get you lined up for testing tomorrow, and find you a roommate and a room. And we'll need to get your supplies together, too. I'll take a look at what you brought, so we can fill out the papers, and requisition the rest of what you need. I want you started in classes as soon as possible. After all, the sooner you get that power under control, the sooner the rest of us will be able to sleep again at night. But I'm ravenous—so let's stop by the bath house first, then eat."
Faia jammed her hands into the pockets of her breeches because she did not know what else to do with them. She wished that she had her staff with her. She could not have carried it on the wingmount—what would have happened to her had she fouled her mount's wings with it?—but she felt awkward now, standing without it. She shifted the weight of her pack, trying to get comfortable. Then she waited for the two women to lead her where they wanted her to go.
Medwind stood watching her. "Well—is that satisfactory?"
Faia bit her lip. "I did not realize we were pretending that I had a choice in any of this. But since you ask, yes, that is satisfactory."
Medwind looked startled, and an angry gleam lit Jann's eyes.
"The education you'll get here is worth a fortune, you ungrateful peon. Our own people work for years to pay for the training we have offered you for free. You ought to be thankful that we came and pulled you out of that little mud-hole country hamlet," Jann snarled. "That we went to the trouble to bring an ignorant peasant like you from the back country all the way to Ariss to teach you and train you—"
Medwind's face was a study in horror. Jann's fanatical loyalty to Daane University and all things related was legend, but Medwind wouldn't have credited her colleague with insanity. Not before this outburst, anyway. "Jann—" she whispered as she not-too-surreptitiously stepped on Jann's foot. "Think about this a minute."
Faia ignored Medwind, and stepped directly in front of Jann, so that she towered over the dainty red-haired beauty. Calmly, she crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Look, you shriveled, dry-dugged milk-cow, I did not ask to be here. I do not want to be here. You came and got me and made me come. I will be happy to return to a little 'mud-hole country village' any time you decide you do not want me here—but as long as I am here, let us not pretend that it is because you are doing me some great favor."
Jann backed up, her face dark and flushed. She glared at Medwind. "Did you hear what she said?!" she shrieked.
Medwind looked at her fellow instructor with an expression that suggested the woman had abruptly sprouted several extra heads. Finally, she shrugged her shoulders, and nodded. "Mmm-hmm."
Jann's voice became even shriller. "Aren't you going to do something about it?!"
Medwind always found Jann funny when she lost her temper. She arched one eyebrow and bit back a smile. "No," she said, after giving the matter considerable thought. "I don't think I will. Why don't you go ahead and get midden now, Jann; I'll take Faia over to the bath house, and meet you at the Greathall when we're done."
Jann's face was an ugly shade of red when she stomped away. Medwind watched her leave, wearing a thoughtful expression.
When she was out of earshot, Medwind sighed. "There are people I would rather have as enemies, Faia. Still, I can't say that I blame you for choosing to make her one. I just hope that you find you can live with your decision."
Faia looked startled. "I did not choose to make her an enemy!"
"Was what you said to her an accident?"
The young hill woman cocked her head and stared at the Daane instructor. "No. Of course not."
"And what effect did you think your words would have?"
"Well—I was fighting back—"
Medwind crossed her arms and leaned against a fence. "Actions have consequences, Faia. First rule of magic, first rule of life. And the second rule is this—you are the only one responsible for your own actions. Jann chose to be obnoxious. You chose to be obnoxious. The two sets of behavior are in no way related to each other."
"That is nonsense! She started the whole thing—I just treated her the way she deserved to be treated."
"Oh, no. That isn't the way responsibility works. Jann will have to take the blame for treating you badly—but you will have to take your own blame for treating her the same way. If you don't accept responsibility for your own actions, then you are forever chained to a position of defense." Medwind's head lowered, and she moved away from the fence and began to pace back and forth through the tall grass. Her shoulders were hunched and tense, and Faia thought she looked worried.
Finally the instructor stopped her pacing and glanced back up.
"Offense is a better position for a mage," she continued. "It gives power, but in order to take the offensive, you have to admit your own ability to effect change—and consequently, to make mistakes."
The look in Medwind's eyes became fierce. "You are far too powerful to blame somebody else for the things you do. Any action you take could have potentially overwhelming repercussions, not just for yourself, but for all of us. So you must learn to face the fact, always, that you choose to do what you do, and that everything you do affects not only you but others."
Faia snorted. "I did not choose to come here."
"Didn't you? You got on the wingmount of your own free will. We insisted that you come, but really, I don't think we could have forced you. Had you chosen, you could have resisted—leveled us the way you did Bright. You chose to take the path of least resistance, to make things easier for the boy you had with you, to leave the people of Willowlake who, you could see, would not have welcomed you. You chose to admit, if only to yourself, that you needed the training that we could provide."
Medwind flipped the bangs of her fine, black hair back out of her eyes, and tipped her head at an angle to study Faia. "First, actions have consequences," she said. "Second, you are the only one responsible for your actions. Those are your first two lessons as you join us."
Medwind stood an instant longer, staring at Faia as if she were trying to read her mind. Then, with a nearly imperceptible shrug, she turned and marched through the barn, leading Faia across the landscaped green in front to a busy street.
"Enough of that.... Let's get you clean and dry and fed. We'll have time to talk later."
Faia stewed along in Medwind's wake, keeping her anger under wraps. It did not seem that anyone was prepared to be sympathetic.
I am being blamed for Jann's nastiness. Just how did Medwind expect me to react when she treated me that way? Actions surely do have consequences, but sometimes you get caught up in the consequences of someone else's actions—then what happens is not your fault, is it? And no matter what Medwind says, I did not choose to have Jann treat me like an ignorant peasant. She did that on her own—I am what I am, and if they do not like that, well, Faljon says, "Wool yarn will not/a cotton shirt make."
Her head began to hurt. There was a smell to the city of sweat, heavy perfumes, incense in a dozen ill-matched varieties, and cooking smoke. Spices both unfamiliar and somehow unpleasant mingled with the overwhelming odor of old fish—Lady, how much fish could these people possibly eat to leave such a reek? she wondered. And on top of that, there was barnyard stink and the all-pervasive scent of too many people crowded together.
But the smell was not the only thing overpowering about Ariss. Sound, too, assaulted senses used to lonely hills, to the cries of birds and the rush of wind through trees and over rocks. Here, two-wheeled machines whirred and beeped, their riders screamed obscenities at any who failed to move out of the way fast enough; street hawkers shouted nasal, sing-songed lies about their wares; horses clattered, metal-shod, over the stone street, dragging wagons that clanked appallingly; riders of flying beasts and flying rugs and flying crates howled at each other, and evidently beneath it all, every single person in the city talked at the same time.
Medwind caught her wrist at an intersection and suddenly darted across the road, dodging two-wheelers and horse-carriages with reckless abandon. One two-wheeler screeched to a halt a fingers' breadth away from running over Faia, and two others plowed into him. The ensuing tangle-up left irate riders casting imprecations and cursing vigorously behind the two running women. Faia felt herself to have been barely snatched from the fangs of death for the second time in one day.
Medwind was breathing hard from the run. "We shouldn't have done that, but it was another quarter-furlong to a designated crossing, and then the same distance back. The place where we're going is right over there. I didn't want to walk the extra distance."
Faia looked over at the big, single-storied stone hall that stood in front of the tower she'd noticed earlier, then at the street clogged with traffic, then back at Medwind. Her expression mirrored her disbelief.
Medwind grinned, her smile apologetic. "I do it all the time. It's not as dangerous as it seemed."
Faia took a deep breath and said with profound sincerity, "I do not wish to do that ever again. I would rather walk the length of the city."
Medwind laughed. "Oh, you'll get used to it."
Faia stared through the massive wooden doors, down the long stone corridor of the bath house, noting the patterns of light that scattered across the pale floor from the arched windows high overhead.
Medwind Song, standing quietly beside her, noted the look and said, "I'll never forget my first time in here—I came from the eastern plains, and I had never seen an indoor privy before, much less running water. I thought Rakell—she's the Mottemage now, but she was just a primary instructor then—was going to laugh herself into a coma. I didn't understand what the water chair was for, and had no idea the little rope pull made the thing flush. You should have seen me jump. The wall basin was a wonder—but the tub—I thought that had to be for watering livestock. It was a terrible shock for a barbarian kid when hot water came straight out of the wall—I was sure these folks had a direct line tapped into hell."
Faia bit her lip and nodded. "So you are not from the Flatterlands, either?"
"Flatterlands? That's what you call this? It fits." Medwind chuckled and headed down the corridor. "No, the locals would be appalled that you mistook me for one of them. I'm from the wide plains just west of the Stone Teeth fjord, way southeast of here. I'm a warrior of the Huong Hoos tribe. 'Round here, I'm called a barbarian—sometimes a headhunter. There's some truth to both descriptions... enough, anyway, to keep these bog-loving makcjeks from bothering me too much. Well," she stopped and indicated a door that did not have a blue marker hung on the latch, "this one is empty. Go on in, give me your clothes, and I'll get you some clean ones while you wash up."
Faia figured out the workings of the big metal tub by trial and error, and silently thanked Aldar for his description of city bathtubs and Medwind for her own descriptions of her first experience—she had had no intention of admitting to Medwind that she had never seen indoor running water before, but the instructor's tactful remarks around the subject gave her a fairly good idea of what to expect.
When the bath was full, she climbed in and sank into the deep, hot water. The novelty of flying horses had worn off, and she had become numbed to the wonder of soaring through the air like a great falcon. The beauty of Ariss was much less noticeable up close, being obscured by the noises and smells, and in any case, the charm of any city was hard to find without someone to share the wonders with. In the bathroom, she was by herself for the first time since she had walked into Bright and found it desolate.
In the emptiness of the pale stone room, the extent of her isolation settled over her like a gray, suffocating blanket. I am in a stinking, noisy city, without even Aldar—everyone and everything I ever loved is dead or gone. Oh, Goddess, I wish I were dead too! Nobody here cares about me—their only interest is in the Lady's Gift. They would as soon be rid of me as not, if they could be sure I would not wipe out another village. She allowed herself, at last, to weep.
How simple it would be if I could drown myself now. I could put an end to this—and why should I not? I have nothing to live for. I would leave if I knew for sure that I would not hurt someone accidentally. But I am dangerous to everyone around me.
It would not be hard to die, Faia decided. There would be one quick moment of pain and fear, and then the waiting Wheel, where her spirit would heal and rest, and perhaps, choose another, better, life to live.
There are no solutions to my problems. I cannot be where I want to be, I am not wanted where I am, and I do not dare leave. I am trapped, I am lonely, I am miserable, I am friendless. I want out.
Drowning was not supposed to be a bad way to die, although, Faia admitted she had not actually talked to anyone who had died that way. There was always speculation in the village, though. The faces of those who drowned always looked peaceful....
Face down in the tub, she thought. That way my nose will not float to the top by accident.
She rolled over, sobbing, and braced herself on her hands and knees in the hot water. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Again she saw Kasara, and her mother's grave, and Aldar's face just before she abandoned him.
She forced the air out of her lungs in a slow, hard breath. The fact that she could not stop crying made it difficult to keep all the air out of her lungs.
Lady, please just let this all end!
She held her head under the water and gasped in...
... And came flying out of the water, coughing and sputtering, her throat and eyes and lungs burning. She lurched to the side of the tub and hung her head over and vomited until nothing was left to come up. Then she retched in painful dry heaves. Every labored breath was agony. The chill air of the stone room made her shiver, and the mess on the floor made her cringe with embarrassment.
I do not want to die, her mind shrieked, as she clung to the side of the tub. Lady, Lady, what sort of idiot am I? She shivered and shuddered, and slowly caught her breath, and allowed herself to slump back into the tub.
I do not want to die, she told herself again, beginning to believe it. In spite of everything, I still want to live.
Faia looked at the mess she had made, and felt ashamed—both for her weakness in trying to kill herself, and for the weakness of her body when she failed. Finally she felt strong enough to do something about it. She clambered onto the cold stone floor, grabbed one of the coarse white towels dangling from the rack, and began mopping up the bile.
"How did you know she wouldn't kill herself?" Medwind Song looked slit-eyed at the short, round woman who propped casually against the wall of the bath house.
The Mottemage of Daane University shrugged. "I didn't know. I only knew that if we interfered when we sensed her intent, and stopped her from trying, she would try again later, in some manner perhaps more likely to succeed than by drowning herself in the bathtub."
"She almost did succeed, Rakell."
"Motte Rakell, you heathen. And yes, indeed she did. Her will to die was very powerful, and her grief was powerful, and she almost managed to suicide in a manner I would have thought impossible." The Mottemage dropped her voice to a whisper as several students drifted by on their way to the Greathall. "She knows she almost succeeded, though—and that is all to the good. Right at this moment, she is very, very thankful that she didn't. Your feel the emotions she projects as clearly as I do. Now, finally, she is grateful to be alive—and that is something, Med, that we could not have given her, no matter how we talked to her about the wonders of life or the promises of tomorrow."
Faia waited impatiently for Medwind to bring her clothes back. The coldness of the stone room made it impossible to sit outside of the tub, but her skin was as wrinkled as the hide of a hairless cat, and she had already added hot water to her bath twice to keep from freezing.
The discomfiting notions that Medwind might have been delayed, or have forgotten her, or have gotten even hungrier than she had been and abandoned her, naked, in the bath house, flitted through Faia's mind.
The slam of a door echoed through the bath house, and she overheard the chattering voices of two young women coming closer. Neither voice was Medwind's—and Faia didn't want to be joined, even accidentally, by strangers.
She slipped out of the cooling water of the tub and silently locked the door of her bath cubicle.
The words of the girls' conversation became distinct.
"—and I think she got bored with the Magerie's rules and ran off with a man."
"Hah! Hasn't that thought crossed your mind, too, more than once, Layadar?"
"Of course. But then, I'm not Enlee. Enlee was so close to graduation. She was the best adept in her Circle—she could have had almost any open position in the University. And she had all that talent—I can't imagine giving up a lifetime career in the University for a mere man."
The second speaker mumbled something that was drowned out by the sound of water filling a tub.
"Sure, it was strange she left her stuff behind. But maybe she hadn't planned on running off with him. If he was really, you know, exciting, maybe she forgot all about her stuff. I mean, if she'd give up a position in the Magerie, what would a few possessions be? Nothing but things you have to drag around behind you from place to place, that's what." Layadar sounded confident about that.
The second voice held a knowing smirk. "You'd leave your precious stuff behind, hmmm?"
Layadar giggled. "Well, I don't know... but maybe for the right man—"
"Sure. If he comes along, let me know. I want your beakers and your athame. Mine are getting really shabby."
Faia heard the two dissolving into peals of laughter. She winced.
I could just sink under the water a bit. Then I would not be eavesdropping.
The first voice took on a conspiratorial tone, and Faia's attention was captured in spite of her intentions.
"By the way, our instructors found the cause of that massive energy drain. Did you hear?"
"No. What made it?"
"Some big, hulking peasant shepherd girl— Lavia saw Frelle Medwind bringing her from the wingmount stables."
"You jest."
"Sworn truth. Covered in mud and wearing men's clothing. I heard she's going to train here."
"Rutting gods!—a hedge-wizard, huh? Who would have guessed?" Layadar began to giggle. "Anchee, you know where they're going to have to room her, don't you?"
Anchee thought about that for a moment and apparently came up empty. "No. Where?"
"With her Immaculate and Bitchy Highness, Yaji. She's the only one not sharing quarters right now. Yaji will just die. Can you imagine?"
Anchee apparently could. Faia heard her response—"The Glorious Spoiled Yaji and a stinking peasant!"—and the cruel laughter echoing around her little stone cubicle until finally she lay down under the water and the sound muffled and lost its sting.
Well enough, she thought. If they want a peasant, by the Lady and Lord, they shall have a peasant—and no compromises. I'll shove peasant down their throats until they never laugh at one of us again. Bitches!
After the grief, anger felt good.
Medwind tapped at the cubicle door, and arranged her face to look cheerful. She didn't want Faia to know that she knew about the suicide attempt. That seemed to be the best course of action.
"Faia," she called, "it took me a while to find some student's gear that would fit you, but I have it now. Sorry about the wait." She handed a nice belted jade green robe and some matching undergarments and a pair of calfskin slippers in through the door.
Faia shoved them back out. The hostility in the girl's voice carried clearly. "I will wear my clothes. No others."
Ouch! What has set her off like that? I wouldn't have expected her to be angry at me at this point.
"Your clothes will make you stand out among the other students, Faia. You are already very different. If you at least look as they look, they may have an easier time accepting you—and you won't find yourself so lonely."
"My clothes, lady, or none. Either suits me."
Medwind thought about that. There was a certain determination in the girl's voice that made her think Faia might actually choose to tromp around the campus stark naked if she didn't get her own d'leffik clothes back. Wouldn't that look good to the Mottemage, who would hold none other than Medwind Song responsible for the breach of etiquette?
It's your life, dear, the instructor thought grimly. You can make it as lonely and unhappy as you like.
"I'll get your clothes, then, but we are going to be very late for midden."
"I will not starve."
And that is to be that. I've been put in my place, and as far as she's concerned, I'll stay there. That attitude isn't going to make her one of the great favorites around here.
A thread of the Mottemage's thoughtspeech broke through Medwind's irritable musings. :She doesn't have to be a great favorite. She has to learn control, and discipline, and responsibility—and the path she is choosing now will take her to that knowledge faster than a path full of air-headed silliness—though I am sure this is not her intent.:
Two giggling students came out of one of the bath cubicles, rosy-cheeked and with their hair dripping. They nearly bumped into Medwind, so lost were they in their own gossipy conversation—until they recognized her, when they both paled and shut up.
Medwind watched their scurrying forms disappearing down the hall with bemusement.
I guess lonely is less objectionable than dizzy. She sent her own thoughtspoken comment back to the school's head mage. :Yes, Mottemage, I believe I see what you mean.:
She couldn't imagine the dour, reserved Faia acting like that—but, well, one never knew.
Yaji Jennedote sat at the far end of the Fourth Circle's trestle table, pretending she didn't notice the seat across from her was the only one empty—again. Her spine was ramrod straight and her chin held high; and she ate her thick, crusty bread and spiced stew as if she were the Mottemage dining on erd glabon and fine sturgeon roe. She told herself she didn't care that the others of Fourth Circle despised her—after all, they were just jealous.
But eating alone every day grew tiresome. And the giggling, whispered conversations that mocked and excluded Yaji hurt more than she would have ever admitted.
So Yaji sulked in her own little world at the far end of the table. She was almost too far gone in her own grim fantasies of personal glory and retribution to notice the astonished hush that fell over the Greathall. Almost... but not quite—
She glanced down to the double doors of the Greathall, where the stunned gazes of the rest of the students and instructors were fixed.
By Broeyd's eyes, where did they find her?
Yaji had never seen the like of the woman who stood framed by the ancient stone doors. She was taller than any woman Yaji knew—in truth, she was taller than most men Yaji had seen. She even towered over that barbarian Medwind Song. Her square jaw and high cheekbones gave her a proud, stubborn look; her pale eyes beneath their dark brows missed nothing as she stared across the lines of tables.
Her white cotton tunic draped gracefully from her broad shoulders and cinched at her small waist with a woven belt that held a dagger on her right hip and a magic bag on her left; she'd braided her thigh-length brown hair in a complex pattern and had woven red and blue cords through it. She wore a primitive silver-and-bone necklace, too, which had an aura of Power that made Yaji nervous. Even the woman's worn leather pants and stained leather knee-high boots looked right on her somehow, in spite of the setting.
Yaji thought the woman could pass for a heathen goddess easily enough. All she'd need would be a flaming sword—and an army of lusty men behind her.
What a heathen goddess was going to do at midden in the Greathall was a mystery to Yaji, however.
The instructor that stood at the goddess' side said something to her, and Yaji watched, fascinated, as the two fixed their eyes on the empty seat across from her and began working their way to the back of the hall.
"That's her," the girl seated beside Yaji whispered to the friend that sat across from her. "That's the one they brought in by wingmount this morning. She's a big thing, isn't she?"
"Gods, Lavia," the friend whispered back. "Is she the mage everyone has been so lathered up about?"
"I guess so."
They fell silent as the tall woman and the instructor neared.
Yaji bit her lip nervously. If this was the mysterious mage, then even Yaji, notoriously insensitive to Power, had felt her surge several days earlier. Yaji had heard the rumors—that the surge she'd felt had made a city and everyone in it disappear, and had flattened trees for ten leagues in every direction, and had raised tornadoes and earthquakes and turned loose the demons of the saje-hells.
Lavia, sitting beside her, elbowed her sharply, and flashed a malicious grin in her face.
"Your new roommate," she whispered.
Yaji's stomach tightened and her appetite vanished. The idea of rooming with a powerful and perhaps temperamental mage who had the look of a goddess would make anyone lose her appetite, she thought.
Medwind Song looked at the peasant and said, "Faia Rissedote, this is Yaji Jennedote. She'll be your roommate."
Faia glanced at her without interest, and nodded to show she had heard.
Medwind raised an eyebrow, but shrugged and said, "I'll leave you to make your own introductions, then."
When she left, the tall girl sat down across from Yaji without making a sound, as haughty and standoffish as if she were the goddess she seemed to be. She ladled a bit of stew from the tureen into her bowl, then fixed her eyes on that bowl, eliminating any chance of introductions.
That, Yaji decided after watching her for a moment, would be just fine.
Because Yaji had come to the conclusion that the peasant girl was not quite so imposing sitting down. The clothes that looked impressive from a distance smelled faintly of sheep from close up. The silver wolf
's-head amulet around the girl's neck hung on a silly peasant fortune-telling chain like those Yaji had seen in the local market—cheap, worthless trinkets, those chains. Which meant that the amulet was undoubtedly a cheap trinket, too. And the girl looked younger up close than she had at a distance—and she was simply covered with freckles, and her eyes were red from crying. Yaji guessed the stranger was at least several years her junior.
So. Not a goddess, after all. Just another brawny peasant girl—big as an ox and about as attractive. And slated to be my roommate, too.
Yaji dipped delicately into her spiced stew and studied the girl from under her eyelashes.
Not likely that she was responsible for that rush of Power, no matter what the rumors are. She doesn't have the look of a mage. More likely she's someone who might know who was responsible. And they're going to stick her with me until they find out what she does know—which, from the look of her, could take forever.
Yaji wrinkled her nose. She hated the idea of sharing her room with anyone; she'd had roommates, and had managed to, well—"encourage" might be the right word—she'd managed to encourage them to ask for transfers in short order. She supposed if she had to share, a powerful mage, even an untrained one, would have been livable. After all, rooming with a real Power would have reflected some glory on her.
But rooming with a peasant—
Yaji smiled slyly. It shouldn't be any problem to get a timid country mouse to ask for a transfer. A few demonstrations of Yaji's magic would scare her off in a hurry.
Faia tried to count the number of people she saw in front of her in the Greathall, failed, and was reduced to estimating the way she would have estimated the size of another shepherd's flock.
More than eight hundred people! More than in the villages of Willowlake and Bright together. The shepherd with a flock that size, she decided, would need a pack of sheepdogs, two assistant shepherds, and horses to ride while chasing after the whole mess.
Every single person in the huge hall was a woman, Faia noticed—and all of them were staring at her.
She straightened, presenting to them the same aura of fearlessness she had presented to the mountain lion that attacked her flock in the highlands. At that moment, not Faljon's words, but her mother's, came back to her. They were the words Faia heard when she made ready to take her mother's flock to the highlands alone for the first time, when she was fourteen years old.
Faia, wolves sense weakness, test for it, watch for it—and if they are not stopped by something stronger than they are, the weakest of your flock will die. With wolves, you have two tasks to perform in order to be a good shepherd. First, you must be stronger than they are. Second, you must make sure that they know you are stronger.
Faia imagined the women before her transformed into a pack of wolves. These were her enemies. She could respect them, as she respected the wolves—they had strength and cunning and courage, perhaps—but she could never forget that they only waited for her weakness to cull her out of their midst. She could see the hunting look in their eyes. The hunger was there. She was not one of them, and that meant that she was either a stronger predator... or prey.
She would never let herself become prey.
So she strolled calmly through their midst to the empty seat Medwind pointed out, ignoring them as only a great predator can ignore lesser predators. She took her seat at the end of the table without faltering, and spooned some of the foul-smelling stew into a bowl. Then she forced herself to eat the noxious stuff, even though the spices made her throat burn and her tender eyes water. She ignored the fragile, raven-haired beauty who sat across from her, and the young women who sat to her right. She was not a wolf as they were wolves—but neither was she prey. She was a solitary predator, and greater and more deadly than a pack of wolves.
She kept reminding herself of that.
A tentative ray of sunlight peeked through the clouds and shone into the study in the Mottemage's private quarters. The light shimmered through half a dozen colored crystals that hung on the windowpane, then fragmented and bounced off of carelessly piled stacks of books and got lost amid hundreds of oddly shaped and colored candles. One of the fragments of light made it far enough to flash off the side of a delicate, fan-tailed goldfish that swam in a miniature fountain in the corner of the room.
The sunlight never reached the tawny, gold-pointed, blue-eyed cat who sat on a gargoyle that adorned Rakell's oak end table, patiently trying to strike a quicklight on the starter strip on the side of the box. The cat looked out the window as the fragile beam vanished behind the clouds. He gave an enormous sigh and returned his attention to the quicklights.
"Flynn, put the damned firesticks down and go catch some mice or I'll slice you into tidbits and feed you to the fish." The voice was husky, scratchy—and very stern. The cat's tail twitched and his ears flattened back for the briefest of instants before he thought better of it. Then he dropped the matches and arched fluidly off the end table, neatly missing the various books and pieces of magical paraphernalia and art objects that covered the floor.
"Mottemage, I wonder at the wisdom of giving a cat hands—even rudimentary ones."
"As I have wondered at someone else's wisdom in giving humans hands. I assume it will all begin to make sense to me in some far future life." The raspy voice laughed.
Medwind had to search for a moment before locating the owner of the voice. She finally found her—a woman with graying hair that still held a touch of its original auburn, and blue-fire eyes that were, even at that moment, lit by inner amusement. The Mottemage curled deeper into the heavy brocades of the chair and snorted.
Medwind thought the snort sounded more than a little like that of one of the Motte's pet wingmounts, but she shielded that errant impression carefully.
"Your new peasant prote[aage[aa and her screaming aura must be giving you a headache by this time," the Mottemage observed.
Medwind grinned. "She is a little loud. I just left her at midden, facing off the entire campus as if they were a pack of wolves."
"I know that, dear. I could feel the tension from here."
"The amulet she wears amplifies her emotions. She's a very weak empath, if she senses emotions at all—and I don't think she's aware that she's projecting. But even when she was fully shielded at Willowlake, I could pick up her grief, Rakell."
The Mottemage took a long draw on the huge silver stein she held, sighed deeply, then grinned at her favorite. "Motte Rakell, Medwind, dear. I don't care if you are a damned barbarian—you can remember the formalities with me... or I'll turn you into a neutered wingmount. You'd hate that. So—get the girl to quit wearing the bloody amulet, if it's what's making her emotions scrape across the back of my mind that way. She's grating on my nerves."
Medwind chuckled. "I'll take care of it, my'etje."
"Don't give me any of you foreign nicknames, either, you. I could still eat you and a dozen of your ilk for nondes." Motte Rakell flipped a page of the mammoth tome that rested on her lap, and focused for a moment on the contents of the page. Her eyebrow flicked with interest, and she glanced up at Medwind.
"Hand me one of those plants, Med."
"Which one?"
"Doesn't matter. This looks interesting, and I want to try it."
Medwind picked a small, sickly looking philos off the windowsill, thinking that there weren't many people in the world who could wreck a philos. The Mottemage could—she put her love and her energy into animals and people; her plants got taken care of on the sly by any of the instructors or students who could slip the poor green martyrs something when she wasn't looking.
Motte Rakell picked up the yellowed plant and rested her fingers on the glossy, heart-shaped leaves. She closed her eyes, and for a moment, nothing happened.
Then Medwind saw the plant's shape change. Its flat leaves curled in on themselves and grew long, shiny spines along their inside surfaces. Its stalk pushed out hairy, dew-covered needles which thickened and darkened.
The spiny stalks began to move up and down on their own, slowly, while the spiny leaves spread open like toothed jaws.
The Mottemage opened her eyes, studied the results of her experiment critically for a moment, then smiled. She handed the potted plant back to Medwind.
"Now the damned thing will feed itself," she growled. "Careful how you pick it up or it may try to make you its next meal."
Medwind gingerly carried the plant over to the windowsill and returned it to its place.
"Now," the Mottemage said from her perch in the brocaded chair, "why are you interrupting my rest?"
Medwind searched for a chair that wasn't occupied by books, papers, paraphernalia, or cats, and gave up. She settled cross-legged on the floor, then nodded. "As a matter of fact, I wanted your opinion on something."
"Your hulking country mage."
Medwind grinned ruefully. "I want to room her with somebody other than Yaji."
"Yaji has the only open room."
"I know. But I think she would be willing to take in someone other than Faia."
The Mottemage's sarcastic snort was not lost on Medwind. "Of course she'd be willing to share with someone other than your big, ignorant peasant. And what would she learn from that?"
"I'm not worried about what Yaji will learn at this point. She isn't living up to her potential because she's lazy and self-indulgent. I am worried about how her hostility will affect Faia—and Faia has suffered so much already."
"Yes, she has. And Faia has already proven that she's a big girl who can take care of herself."
Medwind watched the Mottemage out of the corners of her eyes, studying her thoughtfully. "How do you mean?" she asked.
"Did you think that Jann wouldn't come racing in here looking for blood after her little fight with Faia? That story, in a dozen variations, is making its way around campus right now, by the way. Faia has garnered a bit of support for her attack. Apparently Frelle Jann has been stepping on toes other than ones wearing peasant's boots of late." The Mottemage smiled slowly. "No, Medwind. Your prize pupil may not make rooms full of new friends in the next few days, but I think you'll see that she won't become a stepping mat for Yaji, either. And I think she may be just the medicine that will boost Yaji into living up to her potential."
Medwind sighed. "As you wish, then, Motte Rakell."
Medwind rose and prepared to leave.
"By the way," her superior said, "it's nice to see you without that damned bone thing sticking through your nose. I hope you've gotten rid of it for good."
"Only for today."
The Motte sighed excessively and rolled her eyes in mock-dismay. "Too bad."
As Medwind left her superior's apartment, she heard Rakell shouting again. "Flynn, you infernal beast, if you strike that quicklight, I'll hang you by your whiskers and rip your tail off with my bare hands!"
Medwind grinned. The Mottemage deserved Flynn.
The trees arched overhead, leaving the forest floor in twilight gloom even at midday. A slender young woman, dressed in student robes, lay on the ground. Her wrists and ankles were bound with ropes clumsily twisted from vines. A wad of cloth torn from her robe and shoved in her mouth kept her from screaming. She struggled, and lashed out magically at her captors. Rocks, leaves, twigs, and other detritus from the forest floor spun in a miniature tornado that the group clustered about her shielded themselves from, then effectively ignored.
The leader of her captors mindspoke the others. :Have you readied her for the ritual?:
One of those spoken to groveled. :Oh, yes. Yes—and is she not lovely? Surely you will find her fair enough, and young enough, and mighty enough—:
The first speaker regarded the groveler with disdain, :I will find her all of these things if this works. If not, you will find me someone more suitable.: The leader studied the intended victim with sudden displeasure. :Why does she fight? Why have you not subdued her? Why, you snivellers?!:
:We have not the strength to control her mind. She is strong, and we are still weak.:
:If this fails, we will be weaker still.:
:There is still mehevar.:
The leader was suddenly thoughtful. :There is. But we will try this first.:
The leader leaned over the student and stared into her eyes. The aura of wicked magic pervaded the area. The girl's eyes grew huge, then narrowed with concentration. After an instant, miniature bolts of lightning erupted from her body and leapt at her captor. The leader, however, fended them off without apparent difficulty. The girl appeared to realize she was lost, and struggled harder, fighting to free herself from her bonds, to rid her mouth of the gag—then abruptly, she lay still, staring up into the eyes of her tormentor. Her color changed to ash-white, and when she failed to blink, the leader backed off, swearing.
:She's not breathing,: one of the observers mindwhispered. :Look at her—she's dead!:
:She was defective,: the leader noted bitterly. :There was a weakness in her heart—she would have been useless, even for mehevar. Thank the gods the weakness manifested before I took her over. But now I have wasted all of that energy for nothing.:
The leader snarled at the followers and demanded, :Nevertheless, some power may linger from her death. Glean off what you can, then use the energy to find me someone more suitable. When you are finished, dispose of her body in the woods. And hurry. I weary of this long wait.: