YAJI took nearly an hour to get ready to do homework. Now, dressed in a black-and-gold robe, with her face hidden deep in the folds of a gold velvet cowl, she was carefully chalking along the circumference of one of the dorm's pentacles. Faia, still wearing her shepherd's clothes instead of the robe Yaji had offered, and seated on her bed, watched curiously.
"... and for the first level pentacle," Yaji was saying, "you have to sketch the outside circle first, drawn sunwise. You say,
"By Ehahe, by Vastee, by Glarinia,
Within the circle, about the circle,
By the Eye above, and the Sun her partner, her lover—
Once, twice, thrice.
Once, Ehahe,
Twice, Vastee,
Thrice, Glarinia.
So be ye within this circle."
"Close the circle, and start with the southwest point of your pentacle, drawing to the north point. Name each wall of your pentacle, like this:
"This, the wall of sound...
This, the wall of the sight...
This, the wall of touch...
This, the wall of taste...
This, the wall of smell...
To enclose me...
"Then you go back over each of your lines again, and rename them with the spirit lines.
"This, the window to Listening...
This, the window to Othersight...
This, the window to Bringing...
This, the window to Knowing...
And this, the window to Remembering...
To set me free."
What a total waste of time and energy, Faia thought wonderingly. She asked her roommate, "You go through all of that every time you want to work a spell? My gods, it is a wonder you accomplish anything."
She could see Yaji's back go up instantly. "Setting the circle prevents the intrusion of any unwanted elementals, and controls the spell so that it doesn't get out of hand," the slender girl said in a haughty voice. "If you haven't been setting a circle before you work, it's a wonder there's enough left of you to scrape off the floor."
"And since there obviously is, I must be doing something right," Faia countered. She stood and walked to the center of the other pentacle. "My way works just as well, and does not take so damned long. I close my eyes and see myself reaching down through the earth until I find an energy line. I connect my feet to that. Then I see my head stretching up until I feel an air energy line, and I connect my head to that. Then I run air energy down to my belly, and earth energy up to my belly, and I let them mix until I have filled with the power—and then I form a white ball out of this with my hands and spread the sphere out until it surrounds me.
"It takes longer to explain it than to do it." She closed her eyes and quickly mimed the making of a ball that grew invisibly until her arms were spread out straight. There was energy within easy reach in the city; it felt good to find it and hold onto it. When she touched the heartbeat of earth and sky, her beloved hills did not seem so far away.
Yaji sniffed. "And which gods do you invoke during this quaint little procedure of yours? Whom do you honor? Your method may be fast, but it's inelegant. There isn't any art to it... or any beauty."
"Inelegant?" Faia was hurt. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and glared at her roommate. "If you want art, paint a picture. If you want magic, be practical. It is like that silly outfit you are wearing—"
"My ceremonial robes," Yaji corrected in a knife-edged voice, "have the blessing of hundreds of years of tradition. Unlike your outfit, they wouldn't be suitable for wearing while mucking a pigsty—but since I don't plan to muck any pigsties soon, that shouldn't be a problem."
Faia refrained from pounding her roommate into paste with her fists only by sheer willpower. Her face went white and her voice grew strained. "Mucking pigsties?! This is shepherd's dress. You earn the right to wear it, if you have the gift of Tending. In Bright, a piddling little pretender to magic like you would have ended up digging potatoes and washing squalling babies with the rest of the Talentless. You would have had none of your silly clothes and fancy airs there!"
"Piddling little pretender to magic!" Yaji shrieked. "Piddling... little... pretender—I'll show you who's a piddling little pretender, you horse-faced, cow-assed cretin! Any gift that includes chasing sheep around a field like a dog isn't much of a gift." Inside her circle, Yaji began drawing symbols in the air.
Faia spread her arms out and closed her eyes. Around her, the air flickered with bright points of visible energy that coalesced into a glowing blue half-sphere whose edge followed the pentacle at her feet.
As the energy accumulated in a visible ball around Faia, Yaji stopped drawing symbols in the air and stared. "By Gatho's Balls," she whispered in horror. She had never actually seen a shield before. She had not realized until she saw the shield that such a feat was possible. It was not possible for her, she knew. "I quit," she said, and stepped out of her pentacle without a further word or gesture.
Faia, eyes still closed, felt a jolt as her roommate's circle shattered, and the ungrounded energy that was released bounced around the room. At the same instant, she felt the sudden arrival of a presence—a curious, somehow dangerous presence. When it sensed her awareness of it, it vanished without a trace.
That was odd, she thought, and opened her eyes. The bright blue glow that surrounded her startled her as much as it had Yaji. She sucked in her breath, and began to ground her energy. I could have cooked her, Faia realized. I almost did. When they told me that I needed to learn control, I did not realize how very right they were.
Yaji sulked on her side of the room. Faia regretted the fight, but did not really want to talk to Yaji in order to resolve it. So she climbed into her own bed without a word, and forced relaxation upon herself until she fell asleep.
Medwind commandeered one of Rakell's chairs for herself. She removed a stack of texts and manuscripts, a globe of crystal the size of a morka egg, and Flynn, who fixed her with the feline version of the evil eye before he stalked over to Rakell's unoccupied chair and curled up in it. "We off duty?" she yelled toward the kitchen.
The Mottemage yelled back, "Do wingmounts fly?"
"Thank the gods." Medwind slid into the chair and put her boot-shod feet up on the table next to the gargoyle and the goldfish and leaned back. She wriggled more comfortably into the chair and closed her eyes. "What a d'leffik day!"
"I imagine that is the kindest thing that could be said about it." Rakell came out to the sitting room with two giant bowls of crisped corn and two huge tankards of tare-ale. She plunked one of each next to Medwind's feet on her end table, raised her eyebrows, but refrained from comment, and chased Flynn out of her chair. Flynn spat and swore creatively in the ancient tongue of cats and demanded to be let out. "Get the door yourself, you sorry beast," Rakell snarled. "That's why I gave you hands in the first place."
The cat glared at her, then stalked over to the door and jumped up, hung on the door, and twisted. With his hind legs, he pushed against the doorjamb. The door popped open, and the tawny cat dropped to the ground and exited.
Medwind shuddered. "It makes my skin crawl, watching him do that."
Rakell sighed. "Not mine. I just wish that he would close the damned door when he let himself out, and that he could let himself back in."
"He can't get back in?"
"He can work the latch well enough, but the little business with the hind legs only works for pushing. So he can only open doors that swing inward."
"So you still have to tend the door for him."
"Yah." Rakell took a sip of her ale, and chewed with meditative concentration on her crisped corn. "Even if the modifications had worked so well that he opened and closed it for himself every time, I still wouldn't give another cat hands."
Medwind laughed and took a swig of her ale. "Don't tell me the mighty Rakell admits she made an error."
Rakell laughed. "Never. My technique was flawless—my results were exactly what I intended. I simply never realized what firebugs cats were. I cannot keep Flynn out of my quicklights, no matter what I do. If there were more like him, the city would burn to the ground inside of a week."
"It's a stone city."
"I can't imagine that making the slightest difference, somehow." Rakell curled up in her brocaded chair and stretched—a movement Medwind found disconcertingly reminiscent of the absent cat.
The barbarian munched corn chips and asked, around a mouthful of them, "So, what did the Council say?"
"They'll 'look into it.' They say a few of the local junior hedge-wizards went missing last night—they aren't willing to speculate on a connection—but all the missing, including our two, are young, pretty, and magically adept." The Mottemage stared out her window at the brightening stars.
"How, exactly, are they going to 'look into it,' did they say?"
"They're sending over Council Regents tomorrow to interview everyone who knew Enlee or Amelenda. They want to see if they can establish any connections. They're voting on sending out patrols."
"In the meantime, we sit and stare at the four walls and hope for the best? That sounds about as useful as their usual ideas."
Rakell waved her tankard at Medwind. "You lack sufficient respect for the Council."
"The Council—yourself excluded, dear Rakell—is made up of a bunch of doddering, neutered ninnies who insist on sitting on their hands, blocking progress at every turn, and keeping the magic of this city locked into patterns four hundred years old, no matter how insufficient to our needs those patterns have become."
"Med, you insist on thinking of gender-specific magic as aberrent. I assure you, it is highly efficient and functional. Your own distaste for celibacy is all that keeps you from admitting that."
The barbarian grinned around her ale. "My 'distaste for celibacy,' as you so lightly refer to it, is no minor detail. I'll give up men when you give up horses."
Rakell sputtered, "I don't like the parallel you've drawn there, Frelle Medwind."
"I was not implying any significant parallel, Mottemage." Medwind munched on her corn chips and smirked, though.
"Never mind. I won't let you draw me into one of your convoluted little sex talks. I want to know if you have any idea what happened with our students. With your outlander skills, I thought perhaps you would have some insights I don't have."
"I'm as lost in the fog as you are. That horrible business this morning was like nothing I experienced before—"
There was a burst of magic that screamed across both mages' nerve endings, cutting short whatever the barbarian had intended to say. Medwind pressed her hands to her temples; Rakell shut her eyes tightly and clenched her teeth. The effect was the magical equivalent of fingernails dragging across a slateboard. It brought both mages to their feet, ready to flay the perpetrators.
When it ceased, Medwind said, "You know who did that, don't you."
"My Senses work just fine—unfortunately. Apparently Faia and Yaji are having a fight."
"With that much energy flying around, they're going to blow each other up."
The Mottemage spoke through gritted teeth. "Faia and Yaji, who are quickly becoming everyone's two favorite students, might blow each other up. What a comforting idea. That will be a nice educational experience for them, too. Oh, dare I hope to be so lucky? Help me put up noise-shields so that I don't have to listen to them when they do it."
"You aren't seeing the seriousness of this," Medwind commented.
"I don't want to see the seriousness of two squabbling children. I have much larger problems worrying me right now, and I think those problems should take the precedence they deserve."
"Tell me that when Ariss is a melted puddle of slag in the middle of the bog," Medwind muttered. "And me roasted to a cinder with it, and nine healthy husbands out on the Hoos Plains that I haven't seen in ages—dead and gone and no one to give me a proper Hoos burial. You didn't see what was left of Bright. I did."
"Nonsense, Medwind. You're just terrified of the idea of dying in Ariss, Song."
"That's because you won't let me tell you what to do with my head if I die."
"It's going to be buried with your body, Song. That's the civilized thing to do."
"See!" Medwind said. "See! I have every right to worry about it, then. That's the wrong thing to do."
"I don't want to hear it."
Medwind hid her face in her hands and sighed. "I know. I know."
In the middle of deep sleep, in the middle of lonely night, the nightmare came for her.
Fear-pain-death. Fearpaindeath, closer and closer. Otherpain, ownpain, enveloping. Darkness/no eyes/no light/lost. Pain. Hot-cold-hot... no air, no air, I-cannot-breathe-Icannotbreathecannotbreathe...
:Come here!:
Pain. Skin pulling from bones—her skin, her bones. Liquid lead pouring down her throat.
:No!:
:COME HERE!:
Pain, pain, pain-pain-pain! Winter-cold, melting-hot, and hands all over her body, moving her arms, moving her legs, so that she walked through the blackness like a marionette in the market.
:L-l-leave—me—alone!:
:I want you.:
Icy, belly-freezing fear, and in the midst of the confusion, one thin tendril of rationality.
Shield!
Struggle to find the grounding line. Gods, where is it? Find-it-somewhere-down-here/I-know-it's-here.
:You cannot fight me.:
:Will—fight—you.: The line, oh thank-the-gods-thank-the-Lady, the line, here it is.
Energy. Just a little.
Through the feet, into the belly. Gods-it-is-so-hard-to-hold-it—so-slippery—
And the angry black weight of the hating thing fought against her grip of the energy like a demon.
But suddenly she could breathe.
And when she could breathe, she could think.
With the little energy she'd pulled in, Faia cast up shields, and the pain lessened. She fed more energy into them, and the confusion decreased, and as it decreased, she was able to locate and draw in more energy. She fed the shields until once again they glowed blue.
Even blind, she could "see" the blue of the shields—but once the shields were strongly in place and the evil, angry thing was confined outside of them, her sight came back. She became aware that she was slumped against the wall of her dorm nearest the door, and that her roommate, Yaji, was being dragged backwards toward that door, fighting silently against an invisible enemy.
Yaji was as surely in the thrall of that immense evil as she had been, but Yaji had neither the skill nor the strength to fight it.
Faia used every bit of her ability, and expanded the shield to include and enclose her hapless partner. The young apprentice promptly collapsed on the floor and began to scream. Faia dropped to her knees and, after a second's hesitation, wrapped her arms around her roommate.
"It's okay," she whispered. "You're safe now. Sh-h-h-h-h. Yaji, stop it. Stop it." She alternated between shaking the other girl and holding her, until finally Yaji quieted down to occasional skittish hiccups and a few stray sobs.
Yaji's glance ran from the bolted door to the tightly closed windows, and rested on Faia's face.
"What... what in the... hells was that?" she whispered.
"Something hungry," Faia answered. "It was trying to get me, too."
"I tried to stop it," Yaji said. "I couldn't."
"I almost could not. I do not know what it was, but it was strong."
Yaji wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked slowly from side to side. "I think I know why it came here, though. I broke my shield when we were fighting—didn't draw it in. I must have loosed an elemental when I did that... and... and it waited until we were asleep and our defenses were down before it came after us."
"I really do not think you did that, Yaji." Faia looked out the window into the darkness. "I do not see that thing being set loose just from you forgetting one of your hand-waves. It was probably..." she wrinkled her nose doubtfully, and paused, then shrugged, "... probably something that was already out there. I might have pulled it in when I set up such a... a noisy shield."
"Don't try to make me feel better, Faia. I was sloppy with my pentacle. That's just asking for trouble. You leave energy scattered around like I did, and it's like leaving food around for wild dogs." She shivered. "And what's really bad is that when the instructors find out, they'll drop me back a level. At least a level."
Faia sighed. "If it worries you that much, then we shall just make sure they do not find out."
"What?!"
"Why should they? Whatever it was, we ridded ourselves of it. We are both fine. We will clean up the energy in here, then see if we can track it back to wherever it came from. I do not see why the dear frelles need to know about it. Really, I do not."
Yaji looked relieved for almost a full minute. Then her brow wrinkled. "What if it comes back?"
Faia shivered. That did bear thinking about. She gave the possibility her complete attention. Finally, she sat down on the bed in front of Yaji. "I have an idea. You will clean up your shield energy. Then I shall set faeriefires to guard the room. Then we will sleep."
"I don't think I'll ever sleep again."
Faia shook her head slowly. "You will sleep."
Later, feeling secure within the faeriefire-guarded shields, and finally drowsy herself, Faia listened to the steady breathing on the other side of the room, and reflected that she could have made a pretty good prophet.
Faia woke long before first bell with a strong urge to stretch her legs and think, and to have another look at those giant otters in the lake. She went through her shields, but left them intact so Yaji could sleep, and headed out for the lake.
She returned to the giant rock where she had seen the otters. In the chill, damp pre-dawn fog, Faia found her rocky perch cold and slick. She shivered and pulled the warm wool erda close around her, and fished the rede-flute from her pocket. The giant otters were not on the rock. In this fog, she mused, they could be right beside it, though, and I would never see them. There was Seeing, of course. She didn't like it—not after her memories of the horrible Seeing in Bright—but she really wanted to get a closer look at those big beasts.
She closed her eyes and reached out over the lake.
There was the usual slight background glow of birds, fish, insects, and small furbearers. No people. Nothing big and familiar. And as for giant otters—nothing that could be mistaken for one or several of those, either.
Oh, well, she thought, a little relieved, I will just play the flute and hope they come to that.
She relaxed, and drew in energy, and focused on playing something she hoped would attract otters. She took a deep breath, and put her lips to the flute.
At that moment a hand gripped her shoulder, and a shrill voice in her ear demanded, "What in the names of the seven ugly gods do you think you are doing out in this fog at this time of the morning?!"
Faia jumped and dropped the flute, which careened toward the water. She scrabbled after it, and caught it, and nearly tottered into the lake in the process.
Her breathing was fast and she was shaking as she turned to face the unwelcome intruder. "Yaji," she snarled, "do not ever sneak up on me that way again."
"This is the second morning you skulked out of the room. I want to know why. And I want to know what happened last night."
Faia raised an eyebrow.
Yaji smirked. "I wasn't really asleep by the time you left the room yesterday. I simply didn't choose to follow you then."
"The reason I am out here does not concern you."
"I think it does."
Faia glowered at her roommate. "It doesn't have anything to do with last night. I just needed to think." Faia was more and more certain that, no matter whether her relationship with Yaji had improved or not, she did not want to share the giant otters with her. The otters were Faia's secret—and before she thought about the dreadful attack of the previous night, or her miserable classes later in the day, she wanted to think about the otters. By herself. "Go away and leave me alone for a while," she added.
Yaji stood on the boulder in the mist. Her long black hair fell freely, and her delicate gown billowed slowly in the slight breeze. Tatters of fog blew between her and Faia, giving Yaji an ethereal, ghostly appearance. She looked, in fact, very like one of the fragile young love goddesses Faia's mother had told stories about when Faia was little. Even as a child, Faia never cared for fragile young love goddesses, and discovering that her roommate looked like one when standing in damp, sticky, miserable fog did nothing to improve her feelings towards Yaji.
"I don't want to go away. I want to know what you're doing." The other girl crossed her arms and lifted her delicate chin.
Faia faced a nearly irresistible urge to throw Yaji into the lake. Reason told her that if she did such a thing, at some time in the near future, she would very likely find something unpleasant, and probably slimy, in her bed. With regret, she restrained herself.
Instead, she decided that telling Yaji a disemboweled version of the truth would be the easiest way to get rid of her. More than anything at the moment, she wanted that. So she concocted a little lie.
"If you must know," Faia said, feigning resignation, "I am trying to catch an otter to make into a pet."
"No animals are allowed in the dorm."
"And what of the cats and the dogs hidden under every bed in the place?" Faia knew this would be a telling point.
Yaji wrinkled her nose. "There aren't any in my room—I don't want to be bothered. If you really want an animal, though, I suppose I wouldn't report you if you got a kitten."
"I do not want a kitten. I like otters."
The other girl looked appalled. "Otters smell like fish!"
Faia shrugged. "The whole city smells like fish. I did not think you would notice."
Yaji would probably have made a brilliant retort right then, but one of the giant otters popped its head out of the lake and spoiled everything.
Faia winced. So much for her secret.
At the sight of the colossal animal, however, Yaji reacted considerably more violently than Faia would have anticipated. Her eyes grew round and frightened, and she began making passes in the air with her fingers. Her reaction was not surprise, Faia realized, but terror.
"You didn't mean one of those, surely!" Yaji's harsh gasp was almost inaudible.
"Well, yes, I did. Actually." Faia thought Yaji's reaction was excessive, but also puzzling.
"Lady Mother, Faia," Yaji whispered, "that's not an otter. That's a Fendle."
Others were up before the first bell. Medwind and her Mottemage sat in the sunroom, staring out at the dim light of first dawn.
"Another one of our students went missing last night, and there are reports from Mage-Ariss of more hedge-wizards who are suddenly missing. There were four times when I felt the start of that mind torture again—but each time the victims were weaker, and more quickly hidden. There is something else, Rakell. Last night I also felt a failed attack. The disturbance struck out at one of our students, but that student suddenly shielded." Medwind Song sat cross-legged at her Mottemage's feet. "Lady Motte—I fear. And I know shame at my fear."
The Mottemage curled in her chair and stared out her window into the featureless fog. Her voice, when she finally spoke, was as insubstantial and featureless. "Our shields are worthless. Our watchers—seemingly blind. And our finest students, abducted in the dark of night, seem helpless against this evil, whatever it may be."
She stroked Flynn absently as he lay curled on her lap. Her eyes looked at something invisible and far away. "I, too, know fear, Medwind. And though I was never the warrior you are, still I have faced my share of evil. In these attacks, I feel the taint of something strong and old. Where it has been before these last few days, I don't know. But now it is free, and it is here."
"Why is it taking students?" Medwind shifted nervously.
"If I knew that, I would, perhaps, know what it was. At the moment, I could rest easier if I knew what it was doing with the students it takes."
Flynn stretched and shifted. Suddenly alert, he stared at Medwind and hopped onto her leg. He reached up and grabbed at her nose-ring with his stubby, furry fingers.
"Touch that and die, cat," Song growled.
Flynn pulled back and sat watching the tiny arc described by the jewelry. His tail twitched in irritation.
"Sooner or later, we're sure to find out something," Song told the master mage.
"I wish I were as sure." The graying head shook slowly.
"A Fendle?" Faia looked into the deep brown, winsome eyes of the giant otter, then glanced at her roommate.
Yaji nodded vehemently. "A Fendle. One of the myths of Ariss. Hundreds of years ago, the story goes, the city wasn't divided. Male and female magicians worked side by side as equal partners. Earth, wind, water, and fire were drawn upon by all. But some of the sajes, led by one wicked Master Saje, plotted for power, and by bribes and trickery in the councils and meeting rooms, they limited the realms of women's influence. When they had accomplished this, they began warping and twisting their magics. Without the women's voices of reason and demands that they work only for the good, these evil men began drawing the energy from pain and death to fuel their horrible spells. That perverted magic created a monster that overwhelmed its creators, and devoured them. And the other men either bowed to the monster and called it master or refused to accept responsibility for the evil their brothers had wrought.
"So one old Wisewoman of great power created the Fendles, who are, according to our legend, sensitive to magic—protective of good magic and repelled by evil. The story goes that they led the old Wisewoman and some of her colleagues to the growing monster, the source of Ariss' evil, and helped fight the battle that divided Ariss and eventually conquered the horror. The Wisewoman and her friends and the Fendles pursued that great evil to the gates of hell. The Wisewoman and the other mages were killed in a final skirmish, but the Fendles survived. They were given the charge of standing guard throughout eternity, to see that the monster never escaped. It was said that the Fendles would never be seen again, so long as the evil was contained.
"I always thought it was just a myth," Yaji added.
Faia studied the great beast that had begun nuzzling its head against her waist. She scratched it behind the ears, and thought. At last, she whispered, "Then if this is a Fendle, that means..."
"It means that the gates of hell have broken open, and its denizens have been freed. Oh, gods." Yaji's eyes were round and frightened. She stared at the Fendle as if it were the chief devil of saje hell.
The Fendle chittered excitedly, and looked toward the deep wilds of the forest.
Yaji said, "I think we ought to get back to the dorm. We won't say anything about the Fendles..."
Faia was shaking her head.
"I don't want to know why they're here," Yaji continued, her voice taking on a pleading note. "Faia, I just want to go back to my studies and forget I ever saw a Fendle. I want to forget about that incident last night. I want things to be normal again."
The Fendle nattered angrily and snapped its teeth in Yaji's direction. Then it took Faia's hand gently in its mouth and pulled her toward the forest.
"Yaji, you said the Fendles were the guardians of the gates of the hells. Have you thought that whatever it was that tried to catch us last night might be the evil thing this beast is pledged to fight?"
"Yes," Yaji said. Her voice, ending on a rising inflection, indicated that she had indeed considered the idea—and wished she hadn't.
Faia frowned, irritated. "If we do not find out why it is here, we might not escape next time." Faia looked into the beast's dark eyes. "You are trying to tell us something?"
The Fendle's response was an excited trill.
Faia pulled her hand from the Fendle's mouth and rested it on one side of the big beast's head. "I could talk to my dogs, and they could answer me. Will you let me try to talk to you?"
The Fendle purred.
I hope that means "yes," Faia thought.
She rested the other hand on the Fendle's round, wet, soft-furred skull and closed her eyes. She could see the bright lifeforce and feel the Fendle's Self. As she studied what she saw, she suffered a pang of unease. A dog's Self was completely open. No part of its mind was beyond her touch. The Fendle, like humans, had a barrier around part of itself beyond which she could not see. So the Fendle was complex, like humans; not simple, like a dog.
The part of the creature's mind that she could speak to urgently wished that she accompany it into the woods. There was something in there it wanted her to see.
"Yaji, I am going with the Fendle. You go back to the school and tell the Mottemage and Medwind Song about what has happened."
Yaji's eyes darted from the sweet-faced Fendle to Faia. She shifted anxiously from foot to foot, and Faia could almost see her figuring the distance from the lake to the dorm through the thick fog, and remembering the thing that had tried to abduct her the night before.
"I don't want to walk alone back to the campus. I'll go with you," Yaji said. "When we've seen what that animal wants us to see, we'll tell the Motte and Song together."
Faia nodded. Secretly, she was relieved to have another person along. She had no wolfshot, only one little throwing knife, no sling. She did not even have her brass-tipped staff anymore. If she were attacked, at least Yaji should be more help in a fight than nothing. Maybe.
They set off through the fog, the Fendle leading with its sinuous, rollicking gait. It would race just to the point of disappearing into the fog, then turn and look back. It was obviously impatient.
"I don't like this," Yaji said. She trailed a step behind Faia. Her long skirts were hiked to her knees and tucked into her belt, and her delicate shoes were muddied and stained.
Faia did not mistake her complaint for one of displeasure over the state of her clothes, however. As the trees closed over their heads and the fog thinned slightly, Faia felt a malevolent presence. "I know. I wish your myth made the Fendles a sign of good fortune." Faia was suddenly finding it necessary to shove branches out of her way. The undergrowth became denser by the step, the ground soggier, the walking more precarious.
"Faia," Yaji whispered. "What happens if we get lost?"
Faia shook her head. "I do not get lost. I call the faeriefires, and they lead me where I need to go. The only reason we are following the Fendle right now is because only it knows what it wants us to see."
Yaji looked slightly relieved. "If you're sure..."
"I am."
Yaji subsided into silence and concentrated on her walking.
The Fendle crunched and crashed through the undergrowth, and Faia and Yaji followed. The fog refused to thin any further.
Slowly, Faia became aware of a faint scent that had been tugging at the back of her mind, demanding recognition for the past minute. At the same time that she realized the smell was there and began trying to figure it out, Yaji's whisper sounded in her ear again.
"I smell something strange."
"I, too."
"What is it?"
I do not know—shut your mouth and let me think a minute, Faia thought. She said nothing, though—merely shrugged.
Initially the smell was faint, slightly sweet, somewhat unpleasant. As it increased, it became overlaid by a strongly metallic scent, and the sweetness became cloying, and...
Bright. It smells just like Bright. I could never forget that smell....
And with the memory of the smell came the recognition of what she was probably walking into. The stench was almost overpowering. Faia shuddered. "Yaji, I do not think you should go any further," she said. "I think this will be bad—very bad."
Her protective instinct was a moment too late.
"Faia, look there," Yaji whispered. "What is—oh, gods, that looks almost like..."
Yaji screamed. Faia would have joined her, but she simply could not breathe.
Hands were what she recognized first. Hands, with bloodied fingernails, and fingers spread and splayed. Not, she realized, hands that were attached to bodies. Just hands. Lots of them.
No, she thought. No. I cannot look. She pressed her face against the rough bark of the nearest tree, and squinted her eyes tightly shut. And with the last of her conscious control, she sent up a faeriefire beacon to blaze over the charnel grove.
Cleanup had been a nightmare. Medwind Song was sure she would never erase the images of the slaughtered young women from her mind. Peeling the shocked Faia away from her tree and dragging hysterical Yaji back to campus had been no pleasant tasks, either. But one ugly chore still remained.
She stood in front of the assembled students of Daane University with the Mottemage at her side and took a deep breath. "By now," she started, "most of you have heard rumors of what Faia Rissedote and Yaji Jennedote uncovered today. And I am certain you have started hearing tales of the appearance of Fendles, and wild stories of what that is supposed to mean. Rumors on campuses get exaggerated. And even though things were bad, I imagine what you have heard has become worse than the truth by this time. I am here now to separate the rumors you have heard from the facts.
"There were seven young women involved. Not ten, or thirty, or a hundred, as I am sure some of you have heard. Seven. Three were students from this campus. The other four are unknown, but we expect they are some of the hedge-wizards reported missing from other parts of Mage-Ariss in the last two days. Due to the condition of the bodies, it will be difficult to identify them. We were only able to recognize our three students because we knew we were looking for them."
She shuddered as she recalled the exact condition of the bodies, but she continued doggedly. After all, her students needed to know what they were up against.
"You may think it harsh of me not to sweeten the facts for you, but whatever it was that killed those women is still free. We have no reason to think it has quit hunting. That means any one of you may be its next target. You have to be on guard.
"The Fendles are here, out in the lake right now. I don't know whether this means the gates of hell have broken loose and its demons are free among us as the stories say—or whether their presence has any meaning at all. Old myths frequently have a grain of truth to them, but rarely more than that."
Rakell, she noted, nodded agreement at her last remark. "You must not assume that the end of the world has come because the Fendles have arrived," the director interjected.
"Nevertheless," Medwind resumed, "precautions have been been taken to prevent any recurrence of this disaster, and the Mottemage and the Instructory have set out regulations that you will all follow."
Medwind heard a few rebellious mutters from the back of the room.
"There will be no punishment handed out by the Instructory for failure to conform to these regulations," she said, pointedly staring at the protesters in the back. "We assume that you are intelligent enough to see that these rules are for your protection, and that those of you who choose not to follow them can face the consequences as they occur. I suggest that you go into the secondary cold-storage room to view the bodies of your classmates if you choose to follow this second path, however."
All signs of rebellion died as the import of Medwind's suggestion sank in. Good. I was right to push for no punishment. Now they won't play any games with the rules, thinking that they're getting away with something by sneaking past us. They'll remember who the real enemy is—and who it isn't.
Rakell stepped forward. Her gravelly voice picked up where Medwind's left off. "The first and most important rule is this—you will stay in pairs at all times until the killer is caught. Please realize that this means that you will bathe in pairs, you will study in pairs, you will toilet in pairs. From this moment, your roommate is the other half of your body. You will be inseparable. No one—absolutely no one—is to be left alone in a hallway for just a moment while you go back to get something you forgot. No one is to leave you alone while you entertain visitors. There are no exceptions.
"Second, you will maintain personal shields at all times.
"Third, you will avoid the lake.
"Fourth, you will not permit anyone who is not a student, instructor, or Councillor, access to the campus. If you see a stranger on campus, you will report that stranger to an instructor or to one of the Council Regents, who will be on guard here until the killer is caught.
"Fifth—" Rakell started. Medwind heard her voice catch and soften. "Fifth, you will please remember that the students we lost were among the strongest and most magically capable on campus. They were not able to protect themselves. Don't let yourselves get into any situations where you might need to try." The Mottemage's eyes pleaded with the gathered mass of her beloved students. "Please—be careful."
"It has to be the sajes," Yaji said.
She sat at one table waiting for class to start. Faia sat cross-legged on the bench beside her. Around them, a group of classmates debated the cause of the murders.
A lean, mahogany-skinned girl nodded. "They split the city so long ago. If it weren't for them and their power-hungry tactics, mages and sajes would still be working together."
Faia asked, "Why would they murder mage students, though? You say that they have their own half of the city. No mage bothers the working of the sajes."
"Mages wouldn't. Women have honor. You just don't understand men, hill girl." Yaji looked at Faia disdainfully. "No matter what they have, it's never enough. They always want more."
Faia snorted. "Do you actually know any men? Have you ever worked with one? Shared a house with one? Bedded one?"
The expressions on the faces around Faia told her she had just committed blasphemy.
"Gods, no!" one student snarled.
"Have you?" another asked.
"All three, and plenty of times," Faia said.
The ring of young women pulled back from her.
"Every conjugal contact a mage has with a man takes away a portion of her power," Yaji said. "By devoting energy to men, she sacrifices her strength for unimportant things."
"That should give you something to think about, then," Faia said, and laughed. "Imagine what I could do if I had never tumbled any of the shepherd boys in the village." She shook her head in scorn. "Who told you that? To me, your story sounds like an excuse made up by old women who did not wish to supply their students with alsinthe. I have more power than any of you, and I have had all the men I wanted, and as often. And, no matter what you think, men have honor too."
"Go out and tell that to the sajes who murdered our classmates," one girl yelled.
"You do not know that a saje did murder your classmates," Faia yelled back. "You have no proof."
"Saje-lover," one student muttered. Others took up the refrain.
Medwind Song entered her classroom to find a fight starting. As soon as the students noticed her, the snarls died down. She stood in front of the class, suspiciously sure of the cause of the disagreement, and plastered a false expression of curiosity on her face.
"What's been going on?" she asked.
There was a pregnant silence.
"We have been discussing the murders," Faia finally said, glossing over the dangerous mood that had sprung up in the room.
Becoming something of a politician, our Faia, Medwind thought. That is something for the common good, in any case. She glared at her students. "It is time for class now. Please keep your speculations for appropriate times." The tall barbarian brought a small, spiny training ball from her pack and set it in front of her students. "Today we're going to work on using attack mode through defense shields. This is a repeat lesson—you should be competent at it by now."
Usually, Medwind's announcement of combat lessons would have been met by groans and displeasure. It was an indication of the mood of the campus that no one even questioned a refresher course.
When the frelle tossed the ball at the first of her students, it was slowed by the shield and pushed back by the force the student mustered. That marked the first time in memory that Medwind had not managed to hit at least the first student with the ball.
Good, she thought. Maybe I won't lose any more of my children. She continued grimly, tossing the ball, watching it fly away, and wishing for something she could offer her students that would guarantee them their lives.
After class, she stopped Faia and Yaji before they could leave.
"I need you two to come with me. The instructors are meeting to determine our course of action, and we want to know anything the two of you can tell us." She stepped into the crowded room, and studied the mob. "The rest of you, go to your next classes, and stay in pairs. If you are done with your classes for the day, go straight to your rooms and shield your quarters carefully. Tomorrow, at second bell, we will be meeting in the downstairs corridors of your dorms. We will go to antis as a group."
The instructors acted like an older version of the classroom crowd. Faia waited until Yaji had given her version, then told the assembled women what she had felt and seen. She described the method by which she fought off the invisible attacker. She told about being led by the Fendles to the bodies in the woods. And finally, she made it clear that she could not point any fingers at the sajes. She was as fair as she knew how to be.
Again, everyone was certain the sajes were responsible.
Rakell stood in front of the group after they finished grilling the two roommates.
"There are a few pieces of information none of the rest of you know yet. You need to know now. First, we have now obtained identification from families of two of the other women Faia and Yaji discovered. They were, as we had suspected, some of the more competent and powerful of the hedge-wizards in Mage-Ariss. You of the Council already knew when these women disappeared. What you did not know is that each woman was murdered in the same way; first the hands were cut off and the stumps cauterized to stop the bleeding, then the skin was flayed and certain organs were removed, and then the throat was cut. The method indicates that pain and suffering were prolonged in every case for as long as possible without causing death. The abilities of the victims and the fact that this pattern was followed consistently followed convinces me that this was a ritual and suggests to me that the deaths were an attempt to raise power."
The Mottemage paused. "There is one other thing. I hesitate to mention it, because I fear it will be the beginning of a greater nightmare than we already face. Still, facts are facts. A ring was found at the site of the murders, under one of the bodies." The older woman wrapped her arms across her chest and closed her eyes. "It is a ring of the style commonly worn by lower-level sajes. The presence of this ring may give us a strong clue to the identity of our killer. It also may give us a motive, if a lower-level saje was using blood magic to increase his strength."
Under the outcry that followed the Mottemage's announcement, Yaji leaned over and yelled in Faia's ear, "I told you so."
Faia bit her lip. "Then I was wrong. I was just so certain men could not do something like this to women."
"Men are beasts," Yaji yelled.
"I never knew any who were," Faia muttered to herself.
The Council members asked nonmembers to leave, so that motions could be heard and a vote taken on the proper course of action.
Faia and Yaji and Medwind went outside and sat on the hard stone benches that lined the grassway between the Mottehaus and One Round Way.
Traffic thinned and the sky darkened while they waited, and the Tide Mother rose red and garish and ugly and cast its ruddy shadows over the whitestone of Ariss. Faia had a vision in which blood, and not the nearby planet, stained the city—and when the Councillors finally came out of their meeting and the Mottemage came over to join the trio, Faia was sure the omen had been a true one.
"It's to be war," the Mottemage whispered.
No more needed to be said.
Medwind rested on her padded floor mat, breathing in the heavy scent of powdered amber, stoneweed, and musk burning on the brazier. Her fingers rolled restlessly across the worn skin head of her drum. She closed her eyes and remembered the felt walls of her b'dabba, the same incense thrown into her cookfire, the sounds and scents of camp—horses, laughter, the sizzle and scent of goat cooking on a spit, children screeching and playing one of a hundred versions of tag. She hungered for the chill, dry air of her homeland, for her good Hoos warsteed between her knees and one of her brawny Hoos husbands at her side. This city with its bogs and fogs and paranoias, its stupid intrigues, its infuriating sequestration of women from men, got no better no matter how long she waited.
I'm next in line to head the University. When Rakell steps down, or, gods forbid, dies, I'll step into her place. I could make some changes then... maybe.
She angrily pounded out a war-riff. Or I could go crazy trying. Ariss has been fending off "barbarian" ideas for centuries. Even Rakell, who has been my best friend for almost ten years, can't take my political suggestions seriously. Who am I to think that I could change all of Ariss—or even all of Daane?
Now the idiots on Council want to wipe out every human being in Saje-Ariss without having any idea whether the sajes are really responsible or not. Just because of a ring that may not even be related to the murders. Medwind's drumming got faster and harder. Not so. It's because they don't like men.
The barbarian, who had at some personal risk created a secret entrance to her quarters in order to smuggle her lovers in and out, rolled her eyes at that. That just proves they're idiots.
No matter how sure the rest of the mages were of the sajes' guilt, Medwind wasn't convinced. And before she participated in annihilating half a city, she was going to have to be rock-solid certain.
Tomorrow, she thought, I start doing a little tracking—my way. All this time in the city may have made me slow and stupid—but a stupid Hoos is brighter than a brilliant Arisser.
I'll find the ones who killed my students. And only they will pay.
There would be war.
Faia struggled with this thought, and tried to see the justice in it. Mages were going to destroy the saje side of the city, and all the people in it—men, women, children, magical, mundane, guilty, and innocent.
Men were not the way these women claimed. Faia knew that. The mages' angry rhetoric simply did not make sense.
She lay on her bed and stared at the dorm windows. There was nothing rosy about them at the moment. The cheerful pink glass was occulted by shutters, barred against the blackness of midnight—darkness and fear were held at bay by the gleam of lamps and the glow of shields. Yaji's bed had been moved next to hers. There was supposed to be safety in numbers.
Safety from men. Men!
How can they be so afraid of men?
She rolled over on her side and looked at her roommate, who stared at the shadows flickering on the ceiling. "How can you hate men so much, Yaji? There are none in your life."
"I don't hate them. I just don't need them. Men are a sign of failure."
"Failure?"
"If I fail to win my place as a mage in one of the Universities, or in the Greater Council of Ariss, I'll be expected to have at least one child. I suppose I'll have to consort with a man then. Full mages are above those base needs, though—and I have no intention of being a failure."
"Do you not want a bondmate and children? And have you never had a brother, or boys who were friends?"
"I had a brother. His name was Abenyar. He lived at home with my mother until he showed signs of magical ability. When his talents manifested, he was transferred to the saje side of the city and barred from returning. I haven't seen him since he was eight.... He ceased to be my brother when he left to become a saje." Yaji's voice held a faint tinge of regret. "And no, I don't want children."
Her voice became bitter. "All my life, I heard from my mother how dreary it was raising babies, being kept from the life she could have had—according to her, should have had. Every time a townswoman came to her door, wanting a spell or an amulet, I watched my mother die a little. She let everyone know that she could have been here, designing new plants or new animals, working on better systems of research—developing cures for illness, or wards against growing old, or even finding the spell to counteract death—but instead, there she was, working birth control spells. Successful mages maintain their concentration—how could a mage ever work and still find the time to bond to a man or mother a brood of squalling brats?"
"Why did she leave the University, if she loved it so much?"
"She was seduced by some ignorant merchant boy, and she got pregnant. The University refused to continue her training. The Mottemage who was here then threw her out."
"So you do not like men because your mother does not like men. But have you thought that your brother is on the other side of the city? That if the mages destroy the city, they will be killing your brother, too?"
"Abenyar isn't my brother anymore," Yaji said, but her voice cracked when she said it.
Faia felt a moment of triumph. Yaji did care about her brother. Now all that was necessary was to make Yaji admit it. "You and your brother must not have gotten along," she said, trying very hard to sound solicitous. "That is very sad. A brother is a wonderful thing. My brothers and I had such fun—we used to ride the plow horses and chase the sheep and the goats, and we sat in the barn in a cave we hollowed out of the hay and told ghost stories. Denje used to steal Mama's handpies and bring them out to us. We sat in the dark, smelling of hay and animals, and ate until our faces and hands were sticky with pie juice, and told of the One-Eyed Woman's Lover, and Piebur's Spirit, and the Horse Who Comes for the Dying." Remembering her brothers and her childhood in Bright, Faia's eyes filled with tears.
"Ben and I took Mother's airbox once," Yaji whispered. "Right after we both discovered we could work magic. We flew it around the courtyard and over the back wall into the main city. We got lost and ended up with the airbox stuck on the top of a building and Mother spent the whole day looking for us. It was the most fun I ever had.
"The sajes came and took Ben away just a few days after that," she added. "I cried for months. I never saw him again."
"You cannot let them kill him," Faia said.
"What if he's one of the killers?"
"Do you think he is?"
"No."
"I do not, either. And I do not believe it is right to kill good people who have done nothing wrong. If the mages do what they want, they will kill many innocent people."
Yaji sighed. "Yes—you may be right. But what can we do?"
"I have an idea. I will go to the saje side of the city, and I will talk to some of the sajes. I can tell when someone lies—not magically, but by signs my mother taught me to look for—I will know after I have talked to these sajes if they are involved."
"That's stupid. If they're involved, they'll just kill you."
"If they are not involved, they deserve a chance."
"I don't think dying is a good way to test your theory."
Faia grinned. "Neither do I. But if I am wrong, I can fight. I will not die easily, I think."
Yaji laughed, startled. "There is that," she agreed. "But I want to come with you."
"Could you steal and ride a wingmount?"
Yaji wrinkled up her nose and shuddered. "I hate horses. Horses that fly were creatures created by women with evil minds."
"Ah. Then I think perhaps you should stay here."
"What if whatever it was comes to get me again? I can't fight it off by myself."
Faia sat up and rested her chin on her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs. "Yes, you are right.... I know! We shall set a trap. Any magical thing that attempts to enter the room will look for the weak part of the shield. So we will make a weak part in the shield which will funnel into a mirror drain—"
"A mirror drain?"
"Two little mirrors that face each other. A pentacle is drawn on one, and reflected into the other—the reflections go on forever, gettting smaller and smaller. We hill-folk use them to trap spirits."
"Do they work?"
"Usually only once per bogan—so if we get anything, do not touch the trap. I will clean it out when I get back. You won't be able to get the nasty back in if it gets out."
"Not a problem. I wouldn't dream of touching your spirit trap."
"Then get two mirrors and let us get started. It is getting late."
"You aren't going tonight."
"I'm going as soon as you get those mirrors and tell me how to find the place I want."
"You're crazy."
"No... but someone is. I just want to know who."