The Fire Mages (8 page)

“But I think we could support three Scribes quite comfortably,” Marisa said. “Business is good, just now. And we all get along, don’t we?”

Looking back on it, that year was perhaps the happiest of my life. I was a proper scribe at last, I was beginning to learn the law, I had money of my own, I had friends I met up with in taprooms and board houses for convivial evenings. I had a real home for the first time since leaving the village, and I was away from Hestanora. She had been taken up by one of the Masters, so I bumped into her in classes from time to time, but there was a pinched look about her. She was pale and had lost something of her snootiness.

~~~~~

Each new year at the scribery brought me access to a wider range of books. The scribery had an extensive collection of spell books, but those for higher ranked scribes were barred to me. I had soon exhausted all those I was allowed to read.

I turned as always to bookshops. There were several in Ardamurkan, and they all had a number of general purpose spell books, some of them very old. Books of basic spells for general good health or abundant harvests were freely available to anyone, and every house with any pretension to learning kept one or two on hand. A suitable spell could be recited, or written and burned, when there was no money for a true spellpage. Along with a prayer to the Moon Gods and an offering to the forest sprites, it was standard practice for illness or on important occasions like a birth or marriage or the start of a new business.

I loved whiling away an afternoon with dusty volumes not opened, perhaps, for decades. There was always a chance of turning up interesting variations of a routine spell or new information on long-forgotten practices. Who knew what treasures might lie inside?

One sun, I went into one of my favourite bookstores for the first time since I became a transaction scribe. The bookseller was a small man, round as an apple, and almost as red.

“Good afternoon,
Lady
Scribe Kyra.” He winked, and I smiled at the acknowledgement of my new status.

“Good afternoon, Master Torlion. Do you have anything new related to harvest spells?”

“Nothing in the public sections, my dear. Do you want to look in the scribes’ room?”

“The scribes’ room? I’ve never heard of that.”

“Ah, well, it’s restricted, of course. But now...” He gestured towards my necklace. “You have a gold chain, so I can let you in. Would you like to see it?”

A gold chain. My transaction scribe’s chain was gold, marking me as authorised to use magic. And now, authorised to enter the secret scribes’ room.

Torlion led me through the shop to a nondescript wooden door near the back. I’d always assumed it was just a store room, perhaps filled with mops and buckets and broken chairs waiting to be mended. Instead, it was full of spell books.

It wasn’t a large room, not much bigger than a broom cupboard, but I gazed round in awe at shelf upon shelf of books, marked with the various symbols of prohibited topics: not just the harmful spells but volume after volume on advanced variances and complex multi-level directives, conditionals and dependencies. Fifth year work at least. One or two I recognised as being illegal to use altogether, even for mages. And histories – far more histories of magic than even I could read.

I couldn’t afford to buy many books, but Master Tolmion was understanding. He let me buy a single book, then a few suns later, when I had exhausted its possibilities, he would buy it back from me at almost the same price. And he put a tiny table and wobbly chair in the room, and let me stay and read for as long as I liked.

“One sun you will be a law scribe,” he said airily, when I thanked him. “Then you will be able to buy many books from me.”

After that, I spent innumerable happy hours browsing through ancient musty tomes, filled with arcane spells I had never encountered before, or describing practices from long ago. I learned that there was once a higher rank than thought mage, something called a creation mage, who could invent new spells, but there hadn’t been one for centuries. There were other, lesser, mages who had more directed abilities so there were iron mages, tree mages, fire mages, wind mages, fruit mages, plough mages and even mushroom mages. I learned that all spells, not just the few marked as ineffective, had become less reliable over time, but no one knew why.

~~~~~

I tried to find out something about Cal’s renewal ceremony, which I would have to participate in, but it was so secret that very little was known about it. Except by the mages, of course, and they weren’t telling. There were rumours though, and rather unsettling ones at that. Mages could be taken by violent rages during the ritual and injure anyone nearby, or themselves. They were so filled with magical energy that they simply burned up, or destroyed the building around them.

And then there was the sex. Carnal pleasures, as the books had it. Unnatural, some said. Excessive lust, said another. Like beasts in the forest.

I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but when the first snows came, the mages began their cycle of renewals. One by one they returned with spouse or drusse undamaged and seemingly untainted by unnatural practices, so I stopped worrying about it.

My life was perfect that year, and only one ugly incident marred it. One evening I had gone to bed at the usual time, but the moon was still giving enough light to read by, so I was curled in the window seat with a book. It was an unusually detailed history of scribing that I’d found in a book shop. I was engrossed in my reading when I became aware of raised voices. The noise came from the corridor outside my room, but some distance away. Clearly it didn’t concern me, so I returned to my book. It was difficult to concentrate, though, for the argument drifted nearer. Was that Cal’s voice? And Raylan, perhaps. Well, they often squabbled, so again it was nothing to do with me.

I picked up my book, but dropped it almost at once. Now the voices were right outside my door, shouting, filled with venomous accusations and foul language.

Then the door crashed open, and Cal marched in.

“Cal, you just
can’t—”
Raylan said, his tall outline framed in the doorway.

“Fuck you!” Cal slammed the door in his face.

He stood still, legs apart, hands on hips, his head lowered and face twisted with anger, breathing hard, like a bull about to rampage. Outside the room there was silence. Had Raylan left? I heard no footsteps, so perhaps he still waited out there, ready for Cal to emerge. If he ever did.

He showed no sign of leaving. He paced rapidly up and down a few times, picked up a book, tossed it aside again. It fell open, crushing the pages. I raced over to set it straight.

“I suppose it amuses you,” he said angrily.

“What?”

“You think it’s funny, I daresay. Me and Raylan fighting over you.”

“Over me?” I croaked.

“He thinks I’m fucking you. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? Drives him wild. As you’ve seen.”

He picked up another book, but I snatched it out of his hand. “Leave my things alone! And I don’t care anything about you and Raylan. You can fight all you like.”

“Good,” he said, which took me by surprise. For a moment there was a look on his face which reminded me of my father, but then he scowled again. “Fucking stupid, he is. And you too, come to that. You’re both stupid. He’s probably
more
stupid, because he thinks I’m wonderful.
You
don’t, do you?”

“No, not at all.”

“Good,” he said again, puzzling me. Why was it a good thing for me to dislike him?

“And I’m not stupid.”

“Oh, but you are. You think you’re so clever, don’t you, Kyra abra Dayna endor Durmaston? You’re just a nobody from nowhere in particular, and yet here you are, mingling with the great ones. But you haven’t the slightest idea what’s going on around you, not really.”

I was too offended to answer him.

“And Raylan’s stupid because he’s jealous of you. Ha! My ex-drusse jealous of my new drusse! Of course, that’s because he thinks I’m fucking you. As if anyone would want to. You’re not even pretty, by the moon! Although I could.” His tone became speculative. “If I chose to.”

His eyes drifted down to my breasts, only partially concealed by my nightgown and robe.

For a heartbeat, I waited. A flicker of fear rushed through me. Anger still glittered in his eyes, and his lingering gaze made me feel uncomfortable. All this time he’d ignored me, and I wasn’t sure I wanted that to change when he was in this mood.

“So let’s see what you have.”

“What?”

“Take your clothes off, stupid.”

For a moment, I was shocked. It wasn’t exactly the romantic encounter I’d envisaged. I wondered if I should have taken up Bonnor’s offer to teach me, after all. I would have been more prepared.

But if it got the whole sex business out of the way, I’d be pleased with that. So I shrugged aside my robe and lifted the gown over my head. His eyes were everywhere, of course, but I was determined not be coy about it. If he couldn’t be bothered even to be polite as he seduced me, I certainly wasn’t going to simper and cower. I was embarrassed, naturally, but I stood straight and looked him in the eye. Or I would have, if his eyes had been looking at my face.

He grabbed me. There’s no other word to describe the rough way he reached for my breasts and began to squeeze them. It wasn’t painful, exactly, but definitely uncomfortable. As his hands pushed against me, I found myself edging backwards until my thighs bumped up against the bed, and I could go no further. Even then I was leaning away from him. He put a hand on one buttock, pulling me closer, while his other hand kneaded my breasts. His breath was rattling in my ear, and I could feel his hardness thrusting against me.

Without a word he pushed me onto the bed and fumbled with his trousers. For a moment, there was a respite, and then – a spear of intense pain, flaring, and just as quickly gone. After that, I felt nothing – no pain, no discomfort, no anger, just a curious detachment as I watched his face, red and distorted, and waited for it to be over. Which it soon was.

For a few moments, he didn’t move, simply stood there, eyes closed, as his breathing slowed. Then he pulled out of me, wiped himself on my nightgown, fastened his trousers and left without a word.

Cal was subdued the morning after, watching me covertly as I ate, but he said nothing. Raylan wasn’t there.

Oddly, having never noticed Raylan much before, I was now curious about him. I hadn’t realised that he’d been Cal’s previous drusse, although if I’d thought about it I could have worked it out. All mages had to have a spouse or drusse for the renewal ceremony, so there must have been one for Cal’s last renewal, which was just before he became my patron. So Cal and Raylan must have gone through the ritual together, and almost immediately Cal had taken up with me. No wonder Raylan was upset.

I suppose I should have been angry or distressed or traumatised by Cal’s treatment of me, but I wasn’t. It had been a disagreeable experience, but I was no longer a sexual novice. A full six years after the law declared me an adult and six moons after I became a drusse, I had finally had sex, and I was quietly pleased about it.

Even Cal’s insults that night had failed to affect me. I knew I wasn’t stupid – not in any way that mattered, at least – and as far as looks went, I’d been aware of male interest in me ever since I’d started braiding my hair. Although, to be fair, a lot of that interest settled somewhat lower than my face, for I’d never been skinny. So I had confidence in my ability to attract a man. After all, I’d been chosen to be drusse to the Kellon, so I wasn’t exactly the back end of a mule. And my sister, who looked very much like me, had also been chosen. We were at least acceptable, even to a great man like the Kellon. And Cal himself, despite his contempt, had found me desirable enough when it came down to it, although not enough to entice him back to my bed afterwards, it seemed.

~~~~~

I’d seen very little of Deyria. Sometimes, when business took the Kellon away, a smartly liveried servant from the Hall would bring me a note requesting my company, but as often as not I couldn’t go. When I did go, we sat like strangers talking about nothing at all, while I tried desperately not to notice her relentlessly flat belly. There was no sign of a baby, and no sign of a marriage, either.

My other visits to the Hall were more enjoyable. Whenever Cal was summoned, I went along too, and sat in a bubble of happiness in an obscure corner of the Kellon’s address chamber. Octagonal and smaller than the spellarium, it was a less impressive room than I’d expected. In the centre was an open space floored in plain marble, with a cluster of simple wooden chairs to one side. Outside were tiered marble seats for those watching, fortunately supplied with padded cushions. The Kellon took the largest chair, with his senior advisors around him. There he would listen to petitions, settle disputes, mete out justice and receive distinguished visitors.

Cal was rather splendid in the chamber. When called upon to speak, he would stride about striking poses and making impassioned and articulate speeches, with none of the simpering deference so many people displayed towards the Kellon. The mages were rarely asked for advice or spell-making. In fact, they were mostly there for show, to intimidate anyone addressing the Kellon because of their powers to detect when people were lying.

Although the oldest mage, Meristorna, told me that this was a myth.

“Mages used to be able to divine every thought in a man’s head,” she said, eyes twinkling in her wrinkled face, “but our powers have dwindled, and now no one can distinguish truth from lie.”

She laughed, and I wasn’t sure whether she really meant it, or whether it was some kind of magely joke.

The Kellon’s advisors were an uninteresting collection of middle-aged men, just as expensively dressed and immaculately groomed, running a little to fat just like him. Behind them sat various members of his family. The only one I knew was Deyria, my energetic little sister now learning to sit patiently for hours, a serious expression on her face, attending solemnly to everything that was said.

I saw Drei there sometimes, although he tended to come and go, for the sessions were long. When he noticed me, he would smile and give me a little wave. Frequently, though, he wasn’t there at all and his chair on his father’s right hand stood empty.

The other heir’s chair was always occupied, however. The Kellonor, the Lady Bellastria, was not a great beauty, but she had lovely hair that cascaded onto her shoulders in golden twists, and her gowns were elegantly simple. Each time I saw her she wore a different gown, and each time I longed to wear one just like it. Whatever deformities may have been hidden by the gown, outwardly I could see nothing but a slightly bent spine and a limp which necessitated a cane. She listened thoughtfully to every speech, and occasionally passed a note to her father.

On one occasion, the second time I had been to the chamber, she sent a note to me. A servant appeared in front of my seat, and held it out to me. I looked at him blankly.

“From the Gracious Lady Bellastria,” he whispered.

“Oh.” I looked across at her, and she smiled and waggled two fingers at me. I unfolded the note.

“Do come to visit me tomorrow at mid-afternoon. Deyria will be there.”

I smiled back at her and nodded, but I was shocked. What could I possibly say to the Kellonor? What did she want to say to me? Was it about Deyria?

I needn’t have worried. She was perfectly charming and friendly. Her rooms were large, but not as overpoweringly grand as I’d expected, with furnishings as beautifully simple as her gowns.

“I have only just realised who you are,” she said, laughing, as servants took away my coat. “Deyria had told me about her sister, of course, but I am slow to connect names to faces. I am so glad to meet you at last. Lord Mage Cal is a bit of a character, is he not?”

Bellastria was very well informed, knowing all the merchant contracts and trade agreements that I was currently studying, and explaining the entangled threads of the Drashon’s many family connections. She knew more of the law than I did. I suppose that was natural, given her position, but even so I was impressed.

By all appearances, she sympathised with Deyria’s situation.

“I cannot understand why Father is so set on Ria producing a child,” she said. “He loves her, so he should just marry her and be done with it. It is so cruel to keep her hanging on like this.”

My sister smiled with satisfaction, and I thought it very friendly of Bellastria to be so willing to accept Deyria into her family. It was only afterwards that it occurred to me that there would be less risk to her own position that way, if her father had a wife with no children to supplant her. But on the surface she seemed very fond of her own family.

When Deyria mentioned Drei, however, Bellastria pulled a face.

“He is a strange boy, Drei,” she said seriously. “He set the stables on fire once, did you know that?”

Deyria nodded. Obviously she had access to all the Hall gossip. I vaguely remembered some mention of a fire.

“He had this grand idea of becoming a mage, at one point,” Bellastria went on. “As if anyone could just choose it. Eventually one of the mages explained that it would mean five years of hard work, and then he would have to survive the initiation, so he gave up the idea.”

“He’s always been interested in Kyra,” Deyria said.

“Well, he has good taste, then,” Bellastria said briskly. “A little more from the pot, anyone?”

~~~~~

As the snows melted and the blossoms appeared, I began to think more seriously about the renewal ceremony. I was not afraid it would kill me, for it was only the transition from scribe to mage that was truly dangerous, or so I’d heard, but it was still a big unknown. I had tried asking all the mages for information, but none of them would tell me anything. “Just do whatever Cal tells you, dear,” was as much advice as I got, and it wasn’t terribly reassuring.

So I bent my head to my studies and put it out of my mind, telling myself that I was committed to it. Whatever the ceremony was, it would happen and I would get through it as best I could. It was only sometimes when I woke, restless, in the depths of the night that the niggling worry at the back of my mind surfaced and blotted out rational thought.

As the moons passed, the time drew inexorably nearer, and eventually a date was fixed. It was the same sun I acquired the third chain for my scribe’s necklace, becoming a contract scribe. It seemed auspicious. Renewal had to be done at darkmoon, for unexplained reasons, and at night.

Cal grew quiet as the appointed time drew nearer, and that worried me more than anything else. I told myself that it was an important occasion for him, which would replenish his powers for a full year, and it was only natural for him to hope it would go well, but it didn’t convince me. In truth, it was an unpredictable affair, and even experienced mages couldn’t be confident of a successful outcome. All of them went off subdued and came back relieved. All of them found it a stressful business.

The ritual took place at the very top of the Scribes’ Tower, and a whole tribe of silent servants accompanied us up the many steps, carrying boxes of equipment. They were not allowed inside the room itself – only those taking part were – so they deposited the boxes on the small landing beyond the topmost stair and scuttled back down.

There was a single closed door on the landing, but I could feel the power emanating from the room beyond, thrumming like the low growl in the throat of a big cat stalking its prey. My whole body throbbed in response. While Cal was rummaging in the boxes, I was drawn towards the door. Slowly, slowly, I stepped nearer. I rested my hand very gently on it and felt a warmth run up my arm.

With a soft snick it popped open. I dropped my hand in alarm.

“I’ll open the door in a minute,” Cal said, glancing up at me.

“It’s open.”

“No, it’s locked. Or it should be.” He came to stand beside me. “That’s odd. Did you turn the handle?”

“No, I just touched the door and it moved.”

“Hmm. Someone must have left it open.” He pulled the handle, and the door clicked back into place. He pushed, but it didn’t move. “Probably wasn’t closed properly. I’ve got the key here somewhere.”

He unlocked it, pushing it wide with one foot, and began to carry through an armful of blankets from the boxes.

“Can I help?” I said.

“No, I know where everything goes.”

I walked into the room. It was round, although smaller than the spellarium, and windowless.

Right in the centre a green marble pillar many paces round rose from floor to arched roof. All the power emanated from there. I’d thought the mirror room a furnace of power but there was vastly more in this simple column of marble. If I closed my eyes, I would still know where it was, for it burned in my mind, bright and warm and tingling. I lifted my face to it like a flower to the sun and drifted closer, mesmerised by so much energy.

As I drew nearer, I could feel increasing warmth from it, and perhaps it was my imagination but I thought it shimmered like the letters on a spellpage. I couldn’t resist; I laid both hands on it.

Something spat through my body, sizzling and vivid like lightning. I jumped back, and I must have cried out, for Cal came rushing over. I’d forgotten he was there.

“What the
fuck
are you doing! Don’t
touch
anything, all right? Everything has to be done properly, so don’t mess about. This is
serious
, for fuck’s sake. Just go and stand over there, and don’t move.”

I went and stood by the wall, where he pointed, while he stomped about getting everything ready. I didn’t know what had happened, but I was terrified that I’d spoiled his renewal somehow. Maybe I’d drained all the energy away.

But no – I could still feel it, vibrating deep in my chest, and the marble pillar still pulsed with power and shimmered. Maybe it was a protective mechanism, repelling non-mages. It hadn’t hurt, despite the shocking effect. I felt better with that thought, although I shook like a leaf and it was some time before I could force myself to stand still without wobbling about like a drunk.

When everything was arranged to his satisfaction, he called me into the centre of the room. “This is where it all happens,” he said, as proudly as if he’d created the room himself, pillar and all. “This column goes up through the roof to collect energy from the sun, and right through the centre of the tower to the earth, so that energy comes from both directions. It all comes from here, from this block of marble.”

“How does it do that?”

“What do you mean?”

“How does the pillar collect energy? Does all marble do that, or just this bit?”

“Well, this piece is special, obviously. Otherwise every floor up at the Hall would be full of energy.”

That was true enough. This one was definitely special. If every marble pillar gathered energy, I might have noticed that. “So how is this one made special?”

“How the fuck should I know? By the moon, Kyra, you do ask some weird questions. It doesn’t matter, it’s magic. Right, let’s begin. Just do exactly what I say, all right?”

So I did. It was the oddest experience of my life. I had sworn a solemn oath before witnesses that I wouldn’t repeat what I saw and heard, but I was in no danger of breaking my word. I couldn’t remember the half of it. We wore special robes. There were incantations and incense and chants. Sometimes we had to walk around the pillar while chanting, once we danced, after a fashion. There were periods of silence for meditation, or some such. I’d never seen anything like it.