THE frightened thoughts of the follower scurried like rat feet across the leader's mind.
:She returns, Sahedre.:
Sahedre's angry response lashed out at the hapless follower. :Well for you, Takai. Had she vanished forever while you held the watch, I would have killed you slowly. That she escaped without your notice in the first order—for that, I think you must still die. But not yet. I give you a chance to redeem yourself.:
:What of my wounds?:
:You dallied while on watch—they are no honest battle wounds. Learn to live with them.:
:But—yes, Sahedre.:
Sahedre calmed, mollified. :You know now which of these children she is. You shall not touch any others for the nonce. I do not need the energy. So. We shall let peace return to the University. But at your first opportunity, bring the mage-girl to me. I grow weary of waiting. I wish to regain my life.:
:If I bring her to you—will you forgive me?:
Sahedre's mental chuckle was chilling. :Perhaps. But you had best hurry. I'll not be so sweet for long.:
In pairs, the students hurried along paths toward the Greathall. Faia could see them clearly from her vantage point beside the window in the Mottemage's tower. With her whole heart, she wished herself with them. But wishes were useless things.
"—You will not leave the campus again until this issue with the sajes has been settled." The Mottemage stomped back and forth in front of Faia, punching the air for emphasis. "You will not go off campus with Yaji, nor without her. You will not go to the market, nor to the alehouses, nor to the musicrooms."
Faia bit her lip. "Mottemage—"
"Listen! I am not through speaking with you yet. How dare you fly off at night?! Fly, by the gods—and on my Makketh, too! How dare you leave your roommate unprotected?! How dare you make such a major decision regarding our policy toward the sajes all alone?! How dare you bed the enemy?!" The Mottemage's face deepened to an unflattering red-purple hue. "Answer me, damn you!"
Faia shivered and hung her head. "Kirgen isn't the enemy, Motte. He had nothing to do with the murders."
"You didn't know that before you met with him last night. He could as easily have been, and have killed you. And we'd be scraping pieces of you into our cold-room today, labeled so we didn't bury part of you with part of someone else. That was a stupid stunt, Faia. Stupid!"
"I only wanted to help."
The Mottemage rounded on the girl furiously. "Some of the greatest disasters in history have been perpetrated by those who meant well. Delmuirie's Barrier, that cost the life of the idiot who erected it, that traps us from the world outside Arhel, is there because Delmuirie only wanted to help. The Singing Stones of the Fey Desert mesmerize and kill a few poor lost souls every year, but the sajes who built them there didn't mean for this to happen. They just wanted a desert beacon. They just wanted to help.
"Heavens preserve me from people who just want to help!"
"I am sorry," Faia whispered.
The Mottemage softened a little. "Girl, I understand that you aren't one of us yet. Nothing here is like home; you don't know how we do things; you don't agree with all the things we do. No one blames you for being different. But gods, devils, and bugs on the floor, child, don't go bounding off on some damned foolish save-the-world errand without checking with the Mage Council first. I'd like to see if we can get through this without anyone else being killed."
Faia jammed her hands in her pockets and stared at the floor. "I will not do it again, Motte."
The Mottemage brushed graying strands of auburn hair out of her eyes and sighed up at her student. "I know you won't. Your punishment still stands. This—" she clasped a soft, heavy gray bracelet around Faia's wrist, "will stay on until I take it off. It will scream the instant you step foot out of your permitted area. It will get louder with every step you take, and it won't stop until you get back where you belong. I don't like doing this, but I also don't feel that I can trust you.
"I'm not angry, Faia, but the times are too dangerous to be left in the hands of children. Now get out of my office. Yaji will be stuck in your dorm room pretending you two slept in until you show up. I'm sure she's starving by this time."
"So how much trouble are you in?" Yaji munched on a crunchy, sweet kafarol and sipped her steaming cup of tea.
Faia flicked one eyebrow upward. One corner of her mouth curled into a sardonic smile. "How much trouble is it possible to be in?"
"That much, huh?"
"Yes. Probably even more. I am confined to the campus. No trips to the market, no trips anywhere."
Yaji laughed. "She thinks she can keep you on campus?"
"She thinks rightly." Faia waved her wrist with the bracelet at Yaji, and said, "I cannot remove it. I have tried. And while I wear it, it will make noise and alert everyone nearby if I try to sneak out."
"That's terrible."
"I am a prisoner here, now more than ever."
"I'm really sorry, Faia." Yaji studied her roommate with an expression of sympathy. "You've had a rotten time, haven't you?"
"Except for last night, yes, I have."
Yaji caught something in Faia's tone, and her smile became conspiratorial. "So what happened last night?"
Faia grinned and told her.
Yaji was wide-eyed. "Does the Mottemage know you slept with him?"
"We did not actually sleep."
Yaji reddened. "You know what I mean."
"Did I tell her we frolicked naked around his room and had wild, wonderful sex for most of the night? Of course not. After you told me that mages are not allowed to bed men or they get kicked out of training? I am not crazy."
She stopped and stared into space. "Or am I? Oh, gods, we have to get to the market. No—I cannot go. You have to go to the market for me."
"What for?"
"Alsinthe."
"Alsinthe, Faia?"
"It is an herb. Brewed into a tea and drunk within a day or two after mating, it prevents the accidental birth of a child."
The city-girl whistled softly. "Oh, Faia—what are you going to do?"
"Probably nothing. It was really the wrong time of the month, I think—but my mother told me never to take chances."
"This time, I'm afraid you'll have to." Yaji shook her head with regret.
"Why so?"
"You can't buy alsinthe in Ariss. It's called 'baby-not' here, and it's illegal. It's illegal to prevent the conception or the bearing of a child. Tampering with the gods' decrees, it's called."
"The gods have blessed little to do with that." Faia sighed. "That makes as much sense and anything else in this accursed city, though. I suppose I should have guessed."
"Faia, I'm sorry. What will you do?"
"What can I do? I shall hope for the best."
Kirgen sat in the outer office of Als Havburre, the Fourth Sub-Dean of Saje-Studies, Political, and kicked restlessly at a loose tile in the floor. He watched the shadows creep across the ranks of gray and yellow squares, one block at a time. He noticed the spider busily crafting a web in the dusty corner window. He sighed, loudly and intentionally, for the eighth time in a row, and watched the shave-headed clerk in the corner stiffen and flinch. He got up and paced back and forth near the clerk's desk, squeaking his boot sole each time he came up behind him, and was finally rewarded when the clerk's pen nib exploded from the pressure and splattered ink all over the clerk, his desk and his paper.
"Look, you," the clerk snarled, "I've already told you—he doesn't meet with students on Tidedaes or Terradaes. I'll make an appointment for you for next Watterdae—"
"And I already told you, this is an emergency."
The clerk looked bored. "So you say. Tell me what the emergency is, and I'll tell him, and he'll decide whether it needs to be dealt with today or not."
"I'll tell him. Not you."
The clerk smiled around gritted teeth. "If you don't tell me, you won't see him."
"If you don't let me in to see him, I'll keep you company for the rest of the day."
They stared at each other across the desk, the clerk red-faced and scowling, Kirgen smiling with insane cheerfulness.
"Excrement," the clerk muttered bitterly. "I don't get paid enough to put up with this." He opened the door a crack, leaned in and yelled, "Sir, student to see you. I can't get rid of him, and he won't let me get my work done until he talks with you personally."
Kirgen heard a spectacular burst of swearing and some rapid-fire mumbling. Then the clerk said, "I know, sir. I tried to tell him, but he won't listen."
The clerk's face returned from behind the door wearing an evil smile. With a mocking bow, he said, "Go right in. I'm sure the Sub-Dean will be delighted to see you."
After Kirgen finished his story, the Sub-Dean stared at him in astonishment.
"You're Kirgen Marsonne? Fifth level? Specialty path in Fire Elementals, minor in Chemistry?
"Yes, sir."
"Amazing that you've made it this far. Insanity usually shows up sooner." The Sub-Dean walked over to a little blackwood calendar that sat on one dusty shelf beside his desk and ticked the inner wheel through three cycles. "Let's see... the Brotherhoods don't get going again for another two Majors," he muttered to himself, "so you can't be pledging one of those." He turned back to Kirgen and his eyes narrowed. "Or are you already a member?"
"Sir?"
"Member of a Brotherhood."
"Yes, sir." Kirgen drew the sigil of the Rat and Trap in the air, hoping the man might be a brother.
The Sub-Dean looked at him with distaste. "I never approved of the Brotherhoods. Elitist, I thought. And silly. So this is some Brotherhood prank?"
"No, sir. This is real, sir."
"Girl flies on her horse to your bedroom window in the middle of the night and tells you all of Mage-Ariss is about to blast all of Saje-Ariss to eternity and beyond for some supposed murder plot we're suspected of being involved in. That's ripe. Have any idea how utterly ludicrous you sound?"
Kirgen squirmed on the hard wooden stool and tried to look righteously indignant. "You can see the hoofprints outside my window if you like, sir."
Sub-Dean Havburre snorted. "I just bet I can. Look—we trade with Mage-Ariss. If there were any gory murders over there, I would have heard of them. And as for the return of mythical beasties from the hells, I certainly don't think news like that would hide around waiting for you to bring it to me. I'll tell you what, though, young saje Marsonne. I'll run your story through channels, and if I get so much as a squeak that indicates there might be truth to it, I won't have you suspended for a term for barging in here disrupting my workday. Satisfied?"
The Sub-Dean sat down at his desk and picked up a sheaf of papers. Kirgen felt that he had been excused.
He couldn't just leave. "Is there enough time to go through channels?" he asked. "What about the attack, sir? We're all in danger."
"From mages? Please, Marsonne, haven't you learned anything? Sajes do things with their magic—mages just make things. They make pretty little flying horses and trees with three kinds of fruit and heavier-bearing wheat. We command the elementals and raise storms and travel from place to place in the blink of an eye. You're worried they will attack us?"
"Yes, sir." Kirgen looked the Sub-Dean straight in the eye. "Yes, sir. I'm worried."
Frelle Delis stood in front of her Advanced Botanicals class and announced, "Today, instead of your regular studies, you will be participating in a war drill. The frelles have written out the ritual that we will be following to charge our weapons in the coming battles. As students of magic and future members of the mage community, charging the weapons will be your responsibility, since you do not have enough experience to use them."
The frelle scurried from student to student, handing out slips of drypress.
"This is the ritual. We'll be using blackstone as a practice focus. It is stable and fairly inert—if you make a mistake, it won't destroy everyone in the room. However, it could still damage us all, so please pay attention to your technique. We will work with more dangerous materials as the battle date draws nearer—in actual battle, you will be focusing your energy on the mages themselves. By that time, you will have no margin for error—so please, ladies, remember that your lives and ours will eventually rest on what you do here."
The work tables had been pushed back. Now Faia knew why. She had a sick feeling in her stomach as she watched the frelle place the blackstone focus in the center of the cleared space. They cannot ask me to do this, she thought, and knew that they not only could ask her to do it—but would.
Faia took the drypress leaflet, folded it without looking at it, and slipped it into her pouch. Then she found a seat well away from the center of the room, and took it.
Frelle Delis stopped and smiled brightly. "I want you to participate, too, Faia—not just watch. If you can't read the words, I'll be happy to help you."
"It is not the reading, Frelle Delis. I think I could do that now. It is the drill."
The frelle stared at Faia and the friendly expression in her eyes vanished. "What about the drill?"
"After what happened in Bright, I swore I would never use the Lady's Gifts again—but I came here because the mages convinced me I would not hurt people if I knew how to use the Gifts, and I might hurt them if I did not." Faia's hands curled into fists which she pressed with all her strength into her belly. The sick feeling would not leave. "The mages said they would teach me how not to kill. Now you want to teach me to kill." Faia stared at the ground, dejected. Tears blurred her eyes and down the back of her throat. "I cannot."
Delis paled. "No one is asking you to destroy guiltless villagers. We are not at war against innocent people. This is war against sajes—people who tortured and slaughtered our people. My students." Her voice cracked, and she paused to catch her breath. Faia saw the instructor's anguish. Delis spoke again, softly but with intensity. "The Magerie needs every one of us to add our strength against that evil—evil so terrible that the Fendles left the gates of the hells to help us fight. We need you. In your heart, even you must understand this. If we die in battle and you have not helped us, our deaths will be on your hands."
Faia wiped the tears from her cheeks and shook her head. She looked into Delis' eyes. "Your deaths will be on your own hands, Frelle Delis. You chose the path of war. If you are so afraid of dying in battle, perhaps it is because your heart tells you what you are doing is wrong."
Frelle Delis pressed her lips together so tightly they turned white. She turned her back to Faia without another word, and directed the rest of her students into the center of the classroom.
In a shaky voice, Delis told her students, "Form a circle about the focus, and begin by reading the chant."
She stood to one side of the circle and watched.
The students droned:
"Hail, Kallee, darknight mother—
We embrace your hungry glory
And your sundering voice.
Our cause is just;
Lend us your sword."
"Again," Delis said. "With more feeling." She demonstrated, and her voice rang with emotion, echoing among the high vaulted ceilings of the stone room.
The student chanted again—and again. With each repetition, their faces changed. They became submerged in their instructor's anger—in their own fury at the death of their classmates—until the room crackled with energy. Delis was satisfied. "Better. Now you must learn the "Song of Mehtrys." This song will bring the power to the focus.
She sang:
"Atczhilloth, atczhilloth,
Yetzhirah, breyiah."
The students imitated the melody. When they went through it a few times on their own, Delis added the descant. The eerie harmonies and dissonances echoed off the high ceilings of the stone chamber and set Faia's teeth on edge. Delis split the group into two. The girls with very high voices she taught the second part. They practiced a bit longer.
When Delis finally had them channel the energy they raised into the blackstone, the stone burned with an ugly red blaze.
This is real magic, Faia realized. There is power here—as strong and as real as the power I draw from the earth and the sky—but it does not come from earth or sky. This is magic they feed with their own anger and fear—and hatred. This magic could not be used for good. It could never be turned from its intended purpose. This is the evil they most fear—and it is born by their own hands. She shivered, enveloped by the seething wizardry that her classmates had drawn down. The atmosphere in the room recalled to Faia a day when she stood on the side of the mountain, watching the sky blacken and the thunderclouds build—a day when she knew she had no shelter, and the sky was about to open up and devour her.
After the class, Yaji came over to where Faia sat. The aura of compressed rage built by the ritual still clung to the city-girl—Yaji stared at Faia blearily for a moment, as if she were a stranger. The two walked down the long corridors to their next class; they were almost there before Yaji finally shook off the last lingering effects of magic.
"Are you sick?" Faia asked.
"I'm fine now. That spell just took a lot out of me."
Faia nodded. "That was not good magic."
"Would you just leave it alone?!" Yaji snapped. "Gods on hot rocks, Faia—the war is wrong, the instructor is wrong, the magic is wrong! You can't always be right, Faia. Nobody is always right. You just can't get along with anyone, can you?"
Her roommate shrugged. "This war is wrong, and the instructor is wrong, and the magic is wrong. And I am right."
"That will be small comfort if the Council executes you for treason after this is all over."
"I would rather be right and die than be wrong and kill."
Faia's roommate sighed. "I admire your courage," Yaji said softly. "I think you're an idiot—but I truly do admire your courage."
After nonce, Yaji and Faia hurried back to their dorm. Once their door was locked and their shields were erected, Yaji sprawled on her bed with a sigh of relief. "I used to love to walk across campus at night," she told her roommate. "Now I feel as if I'm going to be sucked back into that horror that grabbed us every time I walk out of the room. And after dark is worst of all."
"I know. My nightmares will not go away. I dream of that voice dragging me into a pool of lightless fire—and of blazing eyes staring at me—and every time I wake, I expect to find it was not a dream at all." Faia sat cross-legged on her own bed and brushed her hair absently, staring at the shuttered and locked window. "I wish I could just go home. I wish I could just go anywhere. I am so scared. If I could get this bracelet off, I would run away."
In the two fivedays after the Council voted to destroy Saje-Ariss, Medwind Song scrambled to find some proof that she was right. The barbarian and the hill girl shared a high opinion of men, and a doubt that sajes were involved in the perfidy and horror of the campus's bizarre murders. Medwind suspected that the murders were tied into the Fendle prophecy instead, and had spent every waking minute in Mage-Ariss' libraries, looking for some substantiation for her theory.
It had been a long, frustrating search. Medwind Song traced one finger down the index of her last available sourcebook, a little-known illuminated tome titled Magickal Historie of Ariss-Magera, by one Lady Melipsera. It was so old the sheepskin vellum it was written on was yellowed and brittle, in spite of the library's careful preservation, and the hand-calligraphed and hand-illustrated pages were faded and difficult to read. Medwind guessed it had probably been written only fifty to seventy-five years after the original incident with the Wisewoman and her Fendles. It was the only copy that existed, and one of Medwind's other sources on the incident made a brief reference back to it. Medwind held great hopes that at last, she could get to the heart of the ancient mystery.
She sat in the dry cold of the book storage room in which the massive, gaudy tome was housed, wearing the white leather gloves the librarian provided and being careful to treat the pages with special reverence because the librarian was standing right beside her, watching her with eyes that would have made a starving raptor's look friendly.
Once she unraveled the archaic spelling, she found an entry on the Fendles. Melipsera had the annoying habit of addressing her readers directly, and she was flowery, but Medwind's eyes immediately picked out details in the Magickal Historie account that hadn't been anywhere else. She read,
Chapter 18—The Battle of The Ladie Sahedre
Onosdotte and the Fendelles Againste the Sajes
and the Forces of EvilleAriss was not, in yeare River-Five-Lion-Nine, splitte in twain as it is todae."
Which would put the split a good twenty-five years later than conventional sources claim. Interesting, if she's right.
Nor Ariss-Magera nor Ariss-Sajera were begat at that time; the citie was simplie Ariss, and renouwned far and wide for its graces and majestie. But alle was not welle, and thee must remember that I withe mine owne eyes saw what came to passe of these straunge events.
For there was amonge the number in the Magerie one faire Mage, the Ladie Sahedre Onosdotte, who loved and was loved by alle. She taughte her especial and kindlie magickes and alle listened. But wicked Sajes amonge the scholars did take her magickes and perverte them, and did use them to make greate monstres and terrores, and they did kille babies and eate them in terrible rites, and they did seake to wrest Ariss from the handes of those who loved the greate citie. And this did wounde the Ladie Sahedre greatlie, and did breake her heart.
And withe her broken heart did she make magicke, and then did she weep greate tears. From these tears sprange fourthe the sweete Fendelles, faire creatures with sad eyes and greate pure hearts as broken from grief as the heart of their Mistresse.
"Oh, please," Medwind muttered. "Spare me the maudlin rantings of the ancients. One more 'greate, sweete, pure, faire' word and I'm going to throw up all over this book."
Which would be redundant, she decided. It reads like good old Melipsera already did.
But, regardless the questionable origin of the "sweete Fendelles" from the Lady Sahedre's tears, there were Fendles. And somebody, somewhere, had to know what they were for.
Medwind took a long, slow breath to strengthen her resolve and read on.
The Ladie Sahedre challenged the eville Sajes to sette bye their eville, and joine with the Mages in the pathes of goodeness. In answer, the Sajes did mehevar upon the children of the Mages of Arisse, pure and innocent, and they did use them in their terrible rites, and they did kille them and gain power therebye, and did make their actions known to the Ladie Sahedre, with muche laughter and mocking.
Then was battle enjoined of which thee shall never see the like (one hopes, Medwind thought, considering the current situation), wherein the Sajes and their eville beastiarie of monstrous heroes, their wind-devilles and fire-devilles, their smoke-demons and watter-wightes, did align againste the poor, noble Sahedre, daughter of alle that is goode, and her few smalle Fendelles. And the goode Mages of Ariss were appalled by the greateness and the wickedness exceeding of the Saje armie, and by the valiant fighting of the wise Sahedre and her loyal companiounes, and did lende their armes and their heartes to the battle. Then there was muche bloode and dying, and great anguishe.
Alle this I saw withe mine owne eyes, that I mae tell thee trulie, whilst I was but a childe. And mine own mother did die in the battle against the Sajes, and mine own father did fight on the side of eville, so that now I knowe not whether he lives, nor care I, for I am not his issue, and he is no father of mine.
And the Ladie Sahedre and the brave Fendelles foughte to the gates of the Helles, with all the Mages, and at the laste, the Ladie Sahedre took grievous woundes and did die, and the Fendelles in their fury did rise up and did make greate magickes and in their anger at the death of their faire Mistresse did overcome the Sajes at laste, and did force them back through the gates of the Helles, and the Fendelles did magickallie lock the gates and did chain themselves to them, that they might better guard againste the evilles inside for alle eternitie.
Thus came the citie to be divided, and the Mages and the Sajes to forsake each the other.
And all of this historie I have from my mother's mother, that thee mae know it is true.
"Not that your mother's mother might have any grudges to bear against the Sajes, Melipsera." Medwind pulled out her notepaper and quickly wrote the details the Historie account added—the name of the Wisewoman, the year, and the name of the ritual, the bit about child sacrifice.
Child sacrifice is pretty nasty business, she thought, and that part of the account at least rings true. But the business of the Fendles working magic...
She carefully closed the book, and nodded to the librarian that she was finished with it. She handed back the soft leather gloves, as well, and after brief thanks, left.
Creatures created by magic cannot work magic. Melipsera knew that. She wrote enough of the standard texts on magic—some of her work is still in use. Medwind grinned suddenly. Thank the gods, only in revised and updated versions.
Melipsera was my last hope. It took me a full fivedays just to find her accursed book, and she gave me almost nothing of any use.
She tapped her heels to her horse's flanks and got set to aim him home along Three Round Way, when the quadrangle of towers of the Faulea Lyceum caught her attention. The university was within sight but in the other direction, only about two miles away, and higher on the hub of Ariss. But it was separated from her by two thick, well-guarded walls, watched over by men who held the sajes interests at heart. However, in Faulea Lyceum there would also be a library with books—lots of books. All of them from the saje point of view.
And maybe, just maybe, the sajes will have something to say about the Wisewoman and her Fendles that the mages don't.
She steadied her big roan and sat rock-still in the middle of traffic, ignoring the shouts and curses of the other travelers. She scrutinized the tower, and then glanced down at the abhorrent red Daane uniform with loathing. There was no way in Arhel that a tenured frelle from the mage-training university could get into a saje university library.
A wicked smile crossed her face.
She'd bet anything, however, that a literate Hoos barbarian, bringing gifts and oozing awe and lust, could.
When she finally headed toward home, it was at a gallop that sent pedestrians diving for the curbs and that would have lost her her throughway access pass if she'd gotten caught.
While on the other side of the city, Medwind read of the doings of the Lady Sahedre and her Fendles, Faia sprawled on her stomach on the big rock, trailing her fingers into the lake and wiggling them at the fishes. The sun beat down on her back and warmed the soles of her bare feet that waved in the air. Her boots and her books lay in the grass on the shore, along with Yaji's.
Yaji finished sweeping the last bits of a fish skeleton she had found lying on the rock into the water, and with a shudder of revulsion, she turned to Faia. "I hate this place. We aren't supposed to be here. Besides, it smells and it gives me the shivers."
"Then go back to the dorm." Faia's gloomy voice echoed off of the water and bounced back in little whispers.
"Great. Let's go. We've done with classes and drills. We have the whole rest of the day to study or read or work on our own spells—or something."
Faia lay her head down on her arm and glanced over her shoulder at her roommate. "I'm not going back to that damned room. If you don't like it here, you go on back, but I am staying."
"You want me to get in trouble, too? Is that it? You know we have to stay together."
"I am only saying, you do what you want to do. This place is the only freedom I have right now. You can go anywhere. You can just find one of our classmates who can stay with me, and off you could go with someone else—out into the city or anywhere. This is the only place I can go that is not four damned stone walls and a roof."
"You're miserable," Yaji snapped. "You have just gotten more and more impossible—"
"—You try being stuck on this campus forever with a stupid screaming bracelet around your wrist and see how you like it."
Yaji stood up. "You've only been stuck here two fivedays, and it isn't like it's forever. Besides, we need to work on your reading, Faia. You're finally getting the knack of it. Why don't we go back to the dorm and go over Pictusa's Meditative Magic? You liked that one."
"I am not of a mind to study now."
"But you're doing so well."
Faia sighed. "Go away, Yaji. I want to be alone for a while."
"But—"
"Nothing has happened to anyone since we found the bodies and started keeping watch. The instructors are about to lift the curfew and their restrictions and set everything back as it was. You have heard everyone say that the Council is discussing termination of the drills and reversal of the war decision. No one has even seen the Fendles in the last few days. Whatever was killing the mage-students is gone now. So I shall be fine."
Yaji threw a vicious glance in Faia's direction and tromped off the rock. "May your afternoon be pleasant," she snapped. "I hope the fish eat you." She picked up her books and her shoes and flounced over the lawn in the direction of their dorm.
"And greetings of the season to you, too," Faia muttered.
Rakell relaxed in the yearling paddock of the wingmount stable with several beautiful but wingless colts and fillies. She chided herself for taking time away from her ledgers and her students and her Council business and the war preparations—but she kept on sitting in the straw anyway, scratching their ears or feeding them slices of apple and staring off into space.
She was tired. Old and tired, she decided. And depressed.
She reflected that she should have felt better with every day that passed uneventfully, but an aching weight still pressed between her eyes and into her heart. Even yet, no one truly knew who was responsible for the deaths of her students or the other young women, and she was no nearer finding out than she had been when the terror first struck. The Mage Council perched on the precipice of all-out war, waiting only for a shove from a recognizable enemy to throw them into that bottomless chasm. The first-strike attack was ready. The defenses against saje retaliation were ready. Trade with Saje-Ariss had been cut to a trickle of non-essentials, and mage spies had all been prepared for a pull-out from Saje-Ariss to safety. But now the mages in the Council sat helpless, waiting and watching—because the enemy had vanished like mist in sunlight.
Old, tired, depressed—and a failure.
Because this, she could not help but realize, would be the landmark event in the record of her tenure as the Mottemage of Daane University—an academically adequate but uneventful rule, finished by a war that would blot out any meager educational accomplishments she might have taken with her into the history books.
I always had great hopes for the future, she thought. I wanted to bring mage-studies at Daane to new heights. I wanted to be the mage who finally broke the cell-code, the one who learned to fix magically created characteristics so that they could be passed on from generation to generation. And I knew that when I had this wonderful knowledge, my position in history would be secure. I would pass the secrets of the universe on to my adoring prote[aage[aas so that they would never be lost, and I would be assured of a place in the memory of my peers.
"But I've failed, haven't I?" she asked one colt who nuzzled at her pockets hopefully. "I can give you wings, but I couldn't make your mama and daddy so that they could give you wings. And your babies will be as firmly nailed to the ground as you are right now."
It rankles. Nothing I've accomplished will survive me. The one student who understood my work and worked in my field is dead, my other prote[aage[aas have different interests, the rest of the students who could use my techniques aren't far enough along to learn them yet—especially not Faia, who could be the one who learns to break the cell-code if she would just acquire some control—
"Stargazing by day?" The husky voice from above was full of laughter.
Rakell jumped and stared up. Medwind Song peered over the high stall gate at her, grinning fiercely.
And then there is Medwind Song. My barbarian friend, my most promising prote[aage[aa for years—and her interests are not in new research, or even in applications, but in dusty books and arcane papers and the "mysteries" of the dead-and-gone past. A heathen viewpoint, if ever there was one.
"I was getting ready to start the wing-work on this batch, Med. You blew my concentration. And, heavens have mercy, you look like a nightmare."
Medwind laughed. "Thanks—and I've seen your concentration before. That was stargazing."
Rakell ignored the jibe. "Why have you painted yourself up like a tabby-cat and stuck that bone thing through your nose again?"
"It's esca and a sslis, dear Mottemage, and I'm riding over to the Faire to buy some things. I thought I'd get a better deal if I dressed up."
"You'd get a better deal if you looked like a normal human being."
Medwind laughed merrily. "You keep saying that, Rakell—but, you know, I think with a 'nize, tick Hoos akk-zent'—and my 'nize, tick Hoos svord' on my hip—I will make out fine."
"Have it your way and pay three prices. You still look like hell. And what are you bothering me for, anyway?"
"It was purely accidental. I came to get my old tack out of storage."
"Lot of trouble to go to for a shopping expedition, old friend." Rakell got up from her seat on the straw bale and brushed coarse, clinging straw-dust off her pants. She cocked her head at an angle and studied her friend from the corners of her eyes for a long moment. "I don't think so," she said at last.
"Honest—I came to get my old Hoos saddle and bridle."
"No. I wasn't referring to why you're here. I was referring to where you're going. All of a sudden, I don't think you're going to the market. What are you really up to?"
Medwind smiled at her mentor and shrugged. "Research. It's important."
"Ah. I see. And I suspect that I should not ask any more than that." The left corner of Rakell's mouth twitched with the smile she tried hard to suppress.
"That would be best, I think," the barbarian agreed.
"Don't get yourself killed, then."
White teeth flashed in a cocky grin. "I never do."
The heat was becoming oppressive. Kirgen shed his blue-velvet robe and wiped the sweat from his face. He noted the confectionery that sat next to the Raronde Building of Herbal Arts, and the short line of young men that stood in front of it buying sweet ices. If he hurried, he'd have time to get something cold and wet before his next class.
He changed directions—and was immediately intercepted by two full sajes whose gold-bound beards and gold-braided hair gleamed against the splendor of their velvets and silks. Each sage took one of his arms, and without a word, both executed a neat about-face that headed all three in the direction of the university's back gate.
Kirgen felt his heart drop into his belly. "Hey—" he started to protest.
"Don't make a scene," the first saje warned. "As it is, we've debated conjuring you into deep-freeze, and I only won the argument by a narrow margin."
Kirgen swallowed hard and nodded and hoped that the winner of the debate had been taking the side "against." Deep-freezing someone was exactly the sort of thing sajes did plot, and argue about, and bet upon, and that he was the subject of one such prank was entirely possible—but he hadn't done anything—lately—that would warrant the attention of full sajes, who usually picked deserving victims for their weirder experiments. Holding out the hope that he was involved in a simple case of mistaken identity, he whispered, "My name is Kirgen Marsonne. I think you have the wrong student."
"We know who you are, Marsonne," the first saje said, dousing that hope.
"Where are we going?" he asked in another whisper.
"Speak normally—whispering will look odd," the second saje advised. "We're going to meet with a few people who would like to hear your tale of the girl on the flying horse."
"Now? But I told the Sub-Dean about that a long time ago."
The two sajes stopped so abruptly that Kirgen stumbled. "How long ago?" the first asked.
"One or two fivedays ago," Kirgen said.
"Damn," the second muttered, and the first nodded. "How could he hold onto information like that?! Havburre is going to have a lot to answer for."
"Havburre doesn't know what in the hells is going on, and never did, but nobody caught on to that until he'd already made tenure. That's why he got shunted off to that dusty old office and the Fourth Sub-Dean spot."
"We ought to fry this kid for taking sensitive information like that to a Fourth Sub-Dean anyway."
Kirgen yelped. "Nobody else would see me! He wasn't going to, but I hung around and bothered his clerk until the fellow got angry and let me in. And Sub-Dean Havburre didn't believe me. It wasn't my fault."
"Well, Marsonne, if we have as much trouble on our hands as I think we do, you're going to find that mighty small consolation."
The sajes put their heads together and muttered at each other for a brief time. Then the first said, "Never mind the prelim group. We don't have a fivedays to debate this anymore. We'll have to take the second option."
"It's on your head," the second saje snapped. "I'll alert Faulea's Sajerie. You take care of the bellmaster—and him."
Little children fell silent and stood on the walkways with their sticks and strings dangling forgotten from their fingers. Their mothers caught sight of the object of their fascination, and with shrill cries, raced out to hurry them inside. Carpenters put down their hammers, bakers laid aside their dough, hawkers ceased their bellowing—and on Faulea Spoke Street, a stunned hush surrounded the apparition that moved proudly up the hill toward the university.
The apparition was not silent. Medwind Song's wrists jingled with tiny coin bracelets, her ears sported bell-laden hoop earrings, the up-curved toes of her best black boots rang with silver jangles. Even her horse's bridle, carved red saddle, and silver hock-rings were bell-bedecked. And, as she was a feast for the ears, so too was she a feast for the eyes. She had braided her hair over the Hoos red-feather war crest, so that the ruddy feathers seemed to sprout from her skull and trail in billowing waves down her back. Beaded and be-ribboned necklaces nestled over the red-black-and-silver brocade staarne that glittered in the sunlight; the ruby eye of her nose-sslis sparkled merrily; her sword and dagger and flatbow gleamed with utilitarian menace. Under the sacred cat-patterning of the esca, her face wore a haughty smile.
She was, she noted with real pleasure, still quite able to scare the hells out of a crowd.
A velvet-swathed saje, whose magnificence paled in her shadow, stepped from the walkway and bowed from the hips in the fashion that was Hoos-approved for the harmless and unwarlike.
"Mekaals-ke-areve ho-ve k'ehjherm, bahaada," he said in frightfully bad Trade Hoos. "For what you (many) this place flee-like-a-scared-goat, sweetie?"
Medwind bit the inside of her cheek to keep from howling, and made the appropriate Hoos saddle-bow, which was not so low as the saje's bow—because a Hoos warrior preferred not to spill arrows or drop her bow or tangle her sword or dagger when bowing to new-found friends, in case the weapons might be needed to beat the stuffing out of the same new-found friends right away.
She spoke Arissonese, and intentionally mangled the accent. "I bring books, fine Hoos books, vis pictures, for jour book-hus. I vould like reading in jour book-hus," she said, and smiled. "We trade, jess?"
She could tell the saje found this idea appalling.
"Books? Oh, yes, I'm sure we can work something out. You want to use our library, though? You want to read?"
"Jah. I vish to read. Jah, jah. I read verra goot—not speak so verra goot—I read verra goot. I vant look at all jour books. Right now."
The saje looked doubtful.
Medwind wanted to laugh so much her sides ached in sympathy. I haven't had a chance to play full-out barbarian in ages. This is wonderful. She let herself get into the part. "I bring trade books—gifts," she told him solemnly. "You vill like dem. I show jou."
The saje was backing up and shaking his head slowly. He continued to look doubtful. "I'm sure they're very nice books, but we don't grant library access to every stranger who asks, ah—what is your name?"
"My name iss Saba... how to say?... Riverwalker—I am Huong tribe of Hoos-people, jess?" She nudged her mount imperceptibly, so that the warsteed began to dance and shift beneath her, which made the bells ring, and caused all her weapons to clatter. Then she made a great show of calming the huge red beast. "I am great warrior-magician of my people—much loved."
The saje became edgy.
"Yes, honored Saba. Huong tribe...." He looked down and muttered into his beard, just loud enough that Medwind could pick up his whisperings. "Huong tribe... Huong tribe... where have I heard of the—oh, hells!" He straightened and his eyes met hers, and Medwind saw a sudden respect—one might even say fear—in them. "Huong tribe. Ahh. Bearing gifts." He came to a decision. "Right. You will follow me, and I will take you to the library—er, book-house—and give your gifts to the librarian, and he will let you read. We are honored, noble Saba," he added with another deep bow. "Greatly honored."
There are some advantages, Medwind noted, in being from a tribe known far and wide for the fondness with which it looks on other peoples' heads—and for the skill it has developed in acquiring them without the consent of the owners.
Led by the saje and followed by townfolk, she rode up the cobblestone street, a parading hero. At the great staircase that led to the double-doors of the massive whitestone library, she dismounted with a rattle and a clank, fixed one young saje-apprentice with an evil expression, and demanded, "You, boy, you vill hold horse for me, jess?"
The student looked at the saje who led the barbarian, and Medwind noted with glee the quick interchange of panicked glances. When the student looked back at her, his eyes were round and white-edged. "Yes," he agreed. "I'll hold horse—er, your horse—for you."
Medwind pounded him on the back. "Verra goot. You goot boy." She stroked her index finger along his jawline and smiled appreciatively. "You gotta goot head, boy. Verra goot."
The apprentice gave her a sickly grin, and behind her, the saje gasped and started coughing. Medwind's smile widened. "You vatcha horse now," she said again, and strode up the expanse of whitestone steps with the saje scurrying behind.
The chief librarian was a kindly old gentleman with beard and braids so long they swept the ground. The saje made another bow to Medwind, then to the librarian, and the old librarian smiled politely to Medwind and made slight obeisance with his head. Medwind bowed more deeply to the old librarian, and the saje introduced them. "Chief Librarian Nokar Feldosonne, this is the honorable Saba Riverwalker. Warrior Saba, this is the Revered and Ancient Nokar Feldosonne."
Medwind played her barbaric role to the hilt. "Greetings from the glorious realm of the Hoos Domain, Oh Ancient Nokar (bow). Bright blessings on jou and jour hus (bow) and on jour families for seven generations (bow)."
The grizzled man stared at Medwind, his quick, bright old eyes lingering on the details of her tribal costume and make-up. He muttered, "Holy Saint Futhyark." Then, in only slightly accented Huong Hoos, he said, "Welcome, Saba, warrior-magician, battle veteran of the Pelarmine Siege and the War of Stone Teeth, woman with nine husbands and three herds of goats. We are honored by the presence of so rich and mighty a woman. What are the stranger-names of your children, that I may give honor to them?"
The saje who had led her in gaped at the smooth rush of exotic syllables that poured from his superior's mouth. Medwind would have done the same if it would not have compromised her dignity.
"I have no children. It is my only grief," she answered in her native tongue. Just my luck—an honest-to-gods Hoosophile scholar. Sharp old buzzard, too, she thought. Wonder if he's sharp enough to notice that my crest doesn't match my name. This could make things sticky.
"I grieve with you," the old man continued in his fine Hoos. "I see that you wear no necklaces for the Booar War or the Char River War."
Yeeks. Haven't been home in a while—I missed those. "I have forsaken the battlefield for a time, noble Nokar," she ad-libbed, "and have sojourned far from my beloved b'dabba and my adoring husbands, seeking wisdom," Medwind said, "and now I come at last to your door, honorable keeper-of-books. And I bring gifts."
The old man's eyes gleamed. "Books? Hoos books?" He turned to the saje and shoo-ed him out. "Ha! She's got books for the library, Virven. Thanks for bringing her, but no need you staying around. I'll see you later."
Virven tugged on his beard and started to argue, then changed his mind and left with a relieved look in his eyes.
Medwind dug into the beaded and brocaded black-and-red pouch at her side and pulled out two waterproof bear-gut tubes. She removed the tops and laid two creamy white scrolls on the library desk. "Philosophies of Angdoru. Only a copy, but a good one," she said in Huong Hoos, handing him the first.
He looked at it and smiled. "Lovely. We completely lack Angdoru's work—and I came to admire him greatly when I traversed the Hoos Domain. And the other?"
"The original copy of a work done by a lesser writer. Still, though it is unworthy, it is something you may not have." She handed him the other scroll.
"Sayings of Medwind Song." His eyes met hers with a twinkle of delight, and in his impeccable Hoos, he burbled, "Do not sell yourself so short, Warrior-Mage Song. We have several translated and bound copies of this, but certainly not the original scroll. And if you agree to autograph this copy for me before you go, I'll let you dig through my library. If you tell me what the hells you're really after, I may even help you look."
Medwind laughed in spite of herself. "Dammit," she said, switching back to Arissonese, "how long did you know?"
"Dear scholar," the old man grinned, and also changed languages, "when a mighty and much-decorated warrior in full ceremonial dress arrives on my doorstep in strange times, wearing the headdress of the mighty Song family and claiming the name of the piddling Riverwalkers, I think to myself that the times get even stranger. And when this same warrior, of supposed lowly Riverwalker origin, happens to have the original manuscript of a fairly well-known treatise on magic by none other than the infamous Medwind Song, Hoos warrior-turned-barbarian scholar who just happens to teach next door in Mage-Ariss, my belief in coincidences snaps like a dried oak twig under the hoof of a warhorse."
"Well said, old man. Would that I knew so much about you."
The old man chuckled. "I'm just as glad you don't. You might take a fancy to my head, and I like it where it is. So. What are you looking for?"
Medwind rubbed her palms together and nodded. "Everything you have on war in Ariss in the year River-Five-Lion-Nine—I have reason to believe the city actually split that year, and not twenty years earlier, as I'd always supposed. Also Fendles, cross-referenced with Lady Sahedre Onosdotte, a ritual called mehevar, and maybe ancient child-sacrifice."
"Fascinating." The old man chuckled gleefully. "Just fascinating. The times get even stranger. If we find your information, dear Song, you must let me know what you need it for. Rumors bedevil my days, and whispers leech my brain nights, until I would gladly roast an ox or two for the first person who could give me a few decent facts."
It was Medwind's turn to chuckle. "For a roasted ox, I'll see what I can do."
The old man led her into the stacks, and Medwind cheerfully followed.
:She waits at the rock, Sahedre.:
:I did not ask reports of you—only results. Can you lure her closer?:
:I think so, Great One. But if this works, the rock will be a good enough place. And if we succeed, she will surely follow.:
:Then we shall go to her.:
The Mottemage's bracelet weighed around Faia's wrist like a millstone, tying her to a place and a way of life she became daily more sure she didn't want. With Yaji gone back to the dorm, the silence of the lake surrounded and enveloped her, and increased her loneliness and despair. She dipped her fingers in and out of the water and listened to the soft "plink, plink" of the droplets she scattered, and basked in the hard afternoon sunlight that beat down on her back. Her eyes were half-lidded against the glare; her breath went slow and lazy; her belly soaked up the heat of the sandstone through her thin leather jerkin.
I wish I had stayed in Saje-Ariss, she thought. Or that I had taken the damned wingmount and started flying and just kept on going until I got someplace I liked. She slapped the water, splashing a wave across the glass-smooth surface that sent ripples racing away in all directions. I would have been fine if I'd done that.
The soft "ploosh" of something heavy going into the water sounded from around the tree-covered point off to Faia's left. The splash was followed by six more.
Faia looked up. At first there was nothing, and then she could make out the smooth "V" of something swimming toward her. It became a line of somethings, one after the other—and she recognized the Fendles.
They haven't abandoned us, she thought, first delighted—then frightened as she realized, If they haven't abandoned us, neither has the killer. She sat up and watched them racing across the lake toward her.
The Fendles swam up to the rock, and jumped on it one by one, chittering with anxious, high-pitched squeals. She caught the terror in their eyes and in their movements, and flashes and fragments of their thoughts. Slowly she began to understand, and cold fear settled into her belly, heavy as lead. Something—something terrible—was coming.