The Fire Mages (11 page)

“And how could that happen?” she said. “But Kyra, there’s something I must tell you.” My heart sank like a stone. I was in no mood for a confession. “Lethon and I had a – well, a bit of a falling out last night. No, don’t look like that, I’m not going to bore you with my private life, this is important. I was making a fuss about it all. Well, I was upset, naturally. It isn’t fair, what’s happened to you. You’ve done nothing wrong, and the Drashon should have seen that. Anyone could see it. But Lethon said... he got quite cross with me, actually. He said the Drashon
had
to punish you, because if he agreed that you were innocent, everyone would look at me and say, well, how did she get spelled, then? She must have done it herself. So the Drashon was protecting me.

“But I
didn’t
, Kyra! I never did anything at all, apart from that stupid fake spellpage. No herbs, nothing. I certainly never burned a true spellpage. And I can’t understand it at all, and it isn’t fair, because you did nothing wrong and now you can’t be a law scribe, and I did nothing wrong and I can’t have a baby, and it doesn’t make any sense!”

She sobbed for some time, too anguished to speak. I held her and rocked her a little, as I used to when she was a child.

I was ashamed of myself. All this time, I’d thought only of my own problems and how it affected me. Yet my sister was dealing with a tragedy of her own. All her hopes of a child and a happy life with her Kellon were quite dashed. I had no doubt at all that she spoke the truth. I’d never thought her capable of such deception, and her words confirmed it.

When she was calmer, she said, “I just wanted you to know. I don’t want you to hate me.”

“Of course I don’t hate you,” I murmured. “I never hated you, and I never for a moment believed you’d lied about this.” Well, that was almost true.

“That’s all right then,” she said, her head on my shoulder.

But it wasn’t all right, not in the slightest. Because that left the original problem stark and clear – if my sister had never used a true spellpage, how could she possibly be spelled?

When I got back to the mages’ house, Drei was waiting for me, sitting with his arms folded and legs stretched out on a wooden bench outside the entrance I used. His head rested against the wall, eyes closed, and I swear I made not a sound as I drew near but he sensed me coming somehow and jumped up, bowing a little. I never knew what to make of him, with his secretive little smile, as if he were permanently amused by some private joke. Or maybe it was just me who amused him.

“Will you walk with me, Kyra?” he said, indicating a path leading off into the garden. “I’d like to talk to you, if I may.”

It was the last thing I wanted, but perhaps he brought some message from the Kellon. He must have seen my reluctance. “I won’t keep you long, but I do have a proposal to discuss with you.”

I was intrigued enough to nod and turn to walk alongside him. Besides, he had been kind to me, and I owed him something for that.

To my relief, he didn’t ask me how I was or talk in hushed tones as if someone had died. Instead, he entertained me to all the gossipy little details of life at the Hall with the Drashon visiting; the kitchen disasters, the agitated servants, the tensions between the Kellon’s advisors and the Drashon’s, the manoeuvring for favour and subtle competitions going on. He talked, too, about the arguments over my trial, what one law scribe thought and how another disagreed with the Drashon, for all the world as if I were just another curious outsider instead of the very hub of the business. But I was grateful to be treated with such normality.

Then, quite conversationally, he said, “I wouldn’t presume to give you advice, Kyra, but I hope you’ll think carefully about what you do next, and don’t rush into anything. Have you made any decisions yet?”

“No. I have a few options.”

“Of course. What about Lord Mage Cal?”

“What about him?”

“He seems – fond of you.”

What could I say to that? It was none of his business what Cal felt for me.

“I don’t want to pry,” he went on, when I stayed silent, “but I have a proposal for you to consider, which wouldn’t work if you have a commitment to the mage. But if you are free, you can go anywhere.”

“Where did you have in mind?” I was interested to hear it, despite my suspicion of him.

“Kingswell,” he said at once. “I have been asked to go and see if I can drag home a not too reluctant suitor for Bellastria. It’s a good opportunity to do some research, and I thought you might like to come with me, to see what we can find out.”

“About what?”

“Well, about us, obviously. The Imperial Library might have some relevant texts from ancient times.”

“About us?”

“Yes. Aren’t you curious, just a bit?”

I felt as if I’d opened a book in the middle and was trying to pick up the threads of the story. What could he possibly mean? He saw my bewildered expression and looked at me quizzically.

“Come on, Kyra, there has to be a reason for it. There’s an explanation somewhere, if we only look in the right place. Oh look! A moon plant!”

He dashed off the path into a tangle of long grass, ragged herbs unpicked and gone to seed, and brambles. I followed and there in a clearing was the unobtrusive rosette of leaves, with a single thick stem swelling above it. It only reached up to my knees now but before the snows it would tower over my head, open its sweetly scented night blossoms, shrivel and die. A strange plant.

“See, the flower stalk is growing,” Drei said excitedly, kneeling beside it and touching it reverently. “That means one or other of the little moons will be visible soon.”

I laughed at him, but he stood up, looking aggrieved. “It's true! You don’t know everything, you know.”

“And I thought my village was superstitious. It’s just a plant that doesn’t flower very often, Gracious Lord.”

“I wish you would call me Drei,” he said. “We’re too alike to be formal with each other, Kyra.”

“We’re not at all alike,” I said, still amused, for I thought he was flirting with me, in his strange way. We walked back to the path, and continued on downhill.

“Of course we are. You must know that.”

“You’re the Kellon’s son. I’m a village nobody.”

He turned to face me fully, his expression full of surprise. “I didn’t mean like that. Don’t tease me, Kyra.” Then suddenly he was puzzled. “Surely you understand... You know we’re alike – the connection between us. Don’t you?”

I said nothing, confused.

“Look...” He held his hand up in front of me. “Now yours... There! Can you see it now?”

I looked at his hand, long and slim, brown, well cared for, a single bejewelled ring. Then my own, plump, white, ink bespattered, the nails cut very short to stop me biting them. I could detect no similarity between them.

“You really can’t see it?” His tone was almost horrified. “So you don’t know—? Oh! But when I picked you out of the crowd – whatever did you think? That must have been – so weird!”

I laughed then. “You mean the way you always know exactly where I am? It’s quite unnerving. How do you do that?”

“It’s hard to believe you can’t see it, when yours is so strong. You must have noticed... Mine is nothing to yours...”

“My what?”

“Your aura. It’s like a light inside you, a golden glow. Even if I close my eyes, I know where you are. You really can’t...? That’s amazing. Yours is so bright, I just assumed you would know about it. After you had the renewal with your mage, I could hardly bear to look at you, it was so dazzling. Mine is nothing by comparison. I – you must have thought I was insane. You don’t see anything at all?”

“Not a golden glow, no. I've never seen anything like that. Only the blue lights.”

He stopped dead. “Blue?
Blue!
What blue lights?” He almost trembled with excitement.

I shrugged. “You know – around people’s heads.”

“Heads? Which people’s heads? Do I have a blue light right now?”

“Oh no, it comes and goes. Actually, I’ve never seen it on you. Are you saying you don’t see that? You see this golden glow thing, but not the blue lights? I thought everyone could see that.”

He laughed in pure delight, and then threw his arms round me and hugged me. I stood rigid under his embrace, not knowing what to make of it all. What to make of
him
.

“You are amazing, you know,” he said, leaning towards me so that his nose almost touched mine. “You really don’t understand, do you? Come on, there’s an arbour just round the corner. Let’s sit down and you can tell me all about your blue lights and I can tell you about my golden ones.”

He raced along, fizzing with excitement. He knew his way around better than I did. I’d never been in this part of the gardens before, and I was surprised to find that the wilderness of trees and great dark shrubs we’d been walking beneath now thinned out and we were gazing at a wide open stretch of neatly trimmed grass, sloping down towards one corner of the mages’ house. Some distance away, a group of children were playing, some with wooden swords, some with balls or cloth dolls, watched over by a gossiping cluster of nurses.

Drei stopped dead, and when I looked at him, all the eagerness had washed out of him. I couldn’t read the expression on his face, but it wasn’t a happy one.

“What is it?”

“Hmm?” He turned to me as if he’d almost forgotten my presence, his hands tucked under his arms. “Did you play like that, when you were a child? Did you have friends?”

“Of course. My brothers and sisters, mostly, but I knew all the other children in the village. We all played together.”

“They never saw anything odd in you? Anything different about you?”

That was a strange question, and an interesting one. It’s true that I’d been one of them, but somehow not the same. I was the quiet one, lost in my own thoughts much of the time. I’d had ambitions, I wasn’t content to live and die without ever stepping beyond the boundaries of the village. But I wasn’t odd in any other way. At least I didn’t think so. Or maybe whatever oddness I had was not a problem in the village.

Drei was so pensive that I guessed it wasn’t like that for him. His own father had described him as a strange boy, and he unsettled me as well. There was something not quite normal about him.

“Have you any idea what it was like,” he said quietly, as we sat down in a small brick built shelter, “being the child no one wanted? I was the desperation child, the one who was there in case the worst happened. They thought Bella would die, they thought Cerandina might die too, or at least would never have another child, so my father took a drusse and, praise the Moon Gods, I came along. But Bella survived and Cerandina recovered and decided she would have another child after all – well, that didn’t happen, but they tried. It became a stupid competition between them, did you know that? She said it was his fault there were no more children, and he said it was hers and set out to prove it.”

“Which he did,” I said.

“Perhaps,” Drei said, looking sideways at me. “There are rumours about the children he’s had by his various gathering drusse. But either way, no one wanted
me
. My mother was sent away to appease the Lady Cerandina, and I was brought up by a succession of nurses. There was one of them – I can't remember her name, there were so many – she told me stories every night. Not the nice kind, the fairy stories with happy endings, but horrible tales about ogres and demons and half-dead creatures that eat small children. Not surprisingly, I had nightmares and – things started happening. Objects moved, or broke, or caught fire. Once a stable hand was stabbed in the middle of the night and she swore she saw the knife moving by itself, no hand holding it. Everyone suspected me, because I’d been angry with her the sun before – she hadn't taken proper care of my horse and I'd shouted at her – but I never left my bed, and there were witnesses to prove it.”

I said nothing, shocked and horrified in equal measure. No wonder he had such a reputation!

“Eventually the nightmares stopped. But when I was about ten or eleven, I’d been hauled up in front of Lady Cerandina for some alleged misdemeanour or other – which I hadn’t done, incidentally – and she ranted on for an age. I couldn’t defend myself. That would be answering back, and lords aren’t allowed to answer back, apparently. She called me ‘the whore’s little runt’ and other charming expressions.”

“How horrible!” I said, appalled. “She was supposed to be such a sweet, gentle lady.” Although there were other opinions, I recalled.

Drei gave me a wry smile. “Not so sweet to me, ever. Not terribly sweet to Bella or to her own husband, either. But then she left me alone with Bella which was a mistake, because Bella started in on me too. Even the same words. Well, I could just feel the anger boiling up in me. It’s very hard, at that age, to take such insults without being able to respond. Bella said something bad about my mother and – I don’t even know how it happened, but there was a flash of light and the curtains caught fire. Bella was terrified, so some good came out of it, I suppose. Everyone just assumed there was a candle or something, and nobody blamed me. But a few moons later it happened again, in my own room this time. The hearthrug. I’d been sent there after some supposed insult to Bella, and I was brooding. They were suspicious about that one. And then there was the matter of the stables.”

“I’ve heard about that,” I said.

“I suppose everyone in Ardamurkan has. A whole wing of the stables burnt to the ground, and a great scramble to get the horses out. That was the stable hand again, not looking after my horse properly. A lot of the servants are like that – they're not openly rude to me, but they have subtle ways to make it clear I’m not in favour.”

“But you’re the Kellon’s son! You’re Bai-Kellonor. If anything happens to the Lady Bellastria, or the nobles decide against her, you'll be the next Kellon.”

“And if ever it comes about, a lot of scores will be settled, you may be sure. I have a very good memory for who has been kind to me and who hasn’t. But it’s unlikely. One of the reasons for finding a husband for Bella is so that the nobles will be more likely to accept her. A strong leader... that’s what they want. I’m not sure there’s much future for me here.”

We were both silent for a while. Across the green, the children were being gathered together to go inside, perhaps for the noon board. I’d lost track of time. I was absorbed in his story, this strange, lonely man who claimed a connection with me. But it raised more questions than it answered.

“So it was you – starting the fires? How? Even mages can't create fire.”

“Look.”

He held out his hand, the same slim brown hand he’d asked me to compare with my own. Cupping it, he held it out in front of him and within a heartbeat flames appeared, a ball of gentle fire lapping around his palm.

I goggled at him, my mouth flapping open in shock. “Can you do that whenever you want?”

“Yes. It took me a long time and a lot of practice to control it. Even now I have to work to keep myself calm so that it doesn’t just – pop up.”

The flames flickered out, and then reappeared, then vanished again.

“I expect you could do it too, if you tried,” he said conversationally, as if he were talking about some mundane task like making pastry or playing the pipes.