Flesh and Fire (38 page)

Windspells. He felt them, knew them, knew the touch of Giordan in their casting, that it had been done with the quiet-magic of a lifetime, built up and released all at once. Another gust nearly knocked over the men standing by the maiar, even as guards scrambled to position themselves between their master and the Vineart.

“Do not kill him!” the maiar shouted. “Take him alive!”

A hand grabbed Jerzy by the back of his collar and he struggled, resisting, until a vaguely familiar hand covered his, clenching hard enough to get his attention.

Mahault. With surprising strength, she dragged him toward the door, somehow remaining unchecked by any of the guards running to her father’s aid.

Ao met them at the door, untying the remains of Jerzy’s bindings even as they hurried down the hallway. None of the servants paid them any attention; the sight of Ao and Jerzy was common enough, and word had not yet spread of Jerzy’s disgrace. Certainly, even if they had, none of them would be brazen enough to stop Mahault, striding ahead of them as though she, not her father, ruled those halls. In her blue gown, her hair falling from the wooden pins holding it back, she seemed as much a creature of the winds as anything Giordan had ever wrought.

The three did not speak until they were back in the Vineart’s wing, and through the exterior gate to where—to Jerzy’s muted surprise, two horses waited, saddled and hobbled, ready to go.

“You. . .you planned this?”

“When you were taken. Ao came to find me,” Mahault said calmly, unhobbling the horses. “We had to assume that they weren’t simply going to let you go, not after such a fuss. We knew you were innocent, but my father. . .he does not trust anyone, these days.” Her voice turned bitter. “Any accusation of wrongdoing or betrayal would find belief in him.”

“We didn’t expect such a fuss to help us in the rescue, though,” Ao said. “Was that you, or. . .?”

“Giordan,” Jerzy said. “He panicked. They will kill him now, for sure.”

“You were both dead the moment you were taken,” Ao said. “And so are we, now, once someone remembers our part in all this. I know it wasn’t the plan,” he said to Mahault, as though expecting debate, “but too many people saw us. You can’t go back.”

“I know. Jerzy will ride double with me. Battus can carry us both.” Mahault was matter-of-fact, putting her hand on the neck of the nearest horse, a thick-bodied black.

“You never intended to go back,” Ao realized. “You planned to flee with us, all along?”

Mahault didn’t look at either of them. “There isn’t anything for me here. There never was, only I kept hoping. . .my father would return to himself. But he won’t.” She looked at Jerzy then, her face still and without hope. “Will he?”

He didn’t know why she was asking him or even what she was asking him; he didn’t know anything.

“A woman with sense, praise the silent gods. Get on, let’s go,” Ao said, reaching for the reins of the other horse, a lighter-built brown. “No telling how long the chaos will last, and then they’ll realize Jer is gone, and come looking, if they’re not already. Whatever was going on, those two needed him for it, so we need to not be here.”

Mahault put her foot in the stirrup and hiked her gown up enough to swing into the saddle unencumbered, and Jerzy looked away from the flash of bare leg. “Come on,” she said impatiently, holding out a hand. “Ao’s right, we need be gone, now.”

Still bewildered, feeling as though he had fallen into some kind of dream where all his intentions turned into disasters, Jerzy took her hand, and scrambled into the saddle behind her.

Chapter 24

Jerzy had no
idea where they were going, letting Mahault guide? their horse, Ao riding close behind. They did not gallop, but instead picked their way in a steady, unremarkable trot and walk pattern that covered almost as much ground, and attracted far less attention. They left the main road quickly, turning onto a narrower dirt track. Heavy ruts in the center of the track indicated that it was regularly used by wagons, but they saw no other traffic as they wound downward out of the Aleppan hills.

Mahault was surprisingly easy to hold on to; although the saddle was not built for two, Jerzy found that if he pushed back onto the leather rise, and kept one arm hooked around her rib cage and the other balanced on his leg, the horse’s motion kept them upright and steady, even at a fast trot.

He didn’t want to think what might happen if they were forced to run.

Ao suddenly trotted on up ahead, disappearing from sight. Jerzy had a moment of worry before the brown horse came back into view.

“There’s a creek around the turn,” Ao said. “We should follow it down, wash our scent off the track, then find a place to pack down for the night, and hope whoever’s after us decides we’ve gone another way.”

The spot Ao finally decided on was up from the banks of the creek, sheltered from view by trees but clear enough that there was no worry about building a fire. Mahault hobbled the horses and removed their saddles, while Ao quickly gathered fallen branches for a fire. Jerzy stood stupidly, watching them set up camp with casual competence, suddenly painfully aware that the familiar, comforting weight of his belt was missing, and along with it all of his tools.

“I don’t suppose you could just magic us up some food and fire?”

The request made Jerzy flinch, and Ao took a step back, his rounded face showing dismay at having, somehow, put his foot wrong.

“He doesn’t have spellwine with him,” Mahault said. She sat on a fallen log and spread her skirts out, frowning at the soaking-wet hems. They were all muddy, tired, damp, and on the edge of spoiling for a fight, without actually wanting to argue. “He’s useless.”

“Hey!” Ao started to defend him, but Jerzy held up a hand, stopping him mid-protest.

“No, she’s right. I am. I’d be in chains, or dead, if you hadn’t dragged me out of there. I gave them the excuse they were looking for, and wasn’t smart enough to take Sar Anton’s warning, and failed every step since my master sent me—” He stopped, aware they were both staring at him.

“What warning from Sar Anton?” Ao asked, even as Mahault wanted to know. “What excuse did you give them?”

Jerzy swallowed hard, and sat down on a rock opposite Mahault’s log. Letting Ao in on his mission had been bad enough, and look how he had tangled that even with help. Telling Mahault. . .

She had helped him. For her own reasons, he was sure, but she had helped him, maybe even saved his life. For good or ill, whatever yield this harvest brought would be hers as well.

He answered Ao first. “Sar Anton told me to stay silent and let Vineart Giordan take the blame. And. . .I think he killed the servant who attacked me, as part of a setup to make Giordan look guilty. I just don’t know
why,
or who actually sent the servant, or how any of it ties in with. . .what I was sent to find.”

He bent down and dug his fingers into the dirt, feeling the cool texture against his skin. It wasn’t vineyard soil, but he could almost feel the energy pulsing below, the endless root-path of Sin Washer’s blood still holding the world together. He thought of the vines of Aleppan, and wondered what would happen to them now.

“What excuse? What happened to start all of this, anyway?” Mahault asked. A cool breeze touched her skin, making her shiver in her damp clothing.

They had saved him. He needed to take care of them now.

“Gather the wood,” he told Ao. “There, between us.”

Ao did so, and stepped back, watching curiously. Jerzy sucked at the inside of his mouth, willing moisture to come forward, and then spat onto his palm, cupping the small amount of spittle protectively.

He had not worked firewines enough to have them in his system. But he knew the taste, the smell, the depth of the grapes, the shape and color of the leaves, the touch of the soil that fed their roots.

Was it enough?

“Fire, come.” The most basic firespell decantation. “Fire, come. Flame to fuel.” He placed his hand on the topmost branch, and barely let the command slip from his lips, a faint blowing whisper. “Go.”

It was barely a crackle at first, so faint he wasn’t sure he heard it, then the log warmed under his touch and when he removed his hand, a flicker of steady blue flame appeared in its place, dancing up and down the branch. It caught, moving from one bit of wood to another, until a small but cozy fire burned in front of him.

“Not so useless after all,” Mahault said, and Jerzy felt as though the fire was warming inside his chest as well.

“There are things both of you need to know,” he said, sitting back down on his stone and waiting while Ao sat next to Mahault on the log. They seemed strangers—they
were
strangers, unfamiliar faces made even more distant in the hazy air above the fire.

“You can trust us,” Mahault said. “On my honor, if not that of my father’s.” Ao said nothing, merely waited, his hands resting on his knees, his face calm and unworried, his dark gaze sharp even through the haze.

“It began almost a year ago,” he began. “When my master first heard rumors of strange disasters that could not be explained by normal means. . . .”

When he had finished bringing Ao and Mahault up to date with everything, from Malech’s first voiced concerns all the way through to the death of the servant boy in his room, the last of the sunlight had disappeared. The only illumination came from his little fire, still crackling merrily over the wood it was not consuming.

“You think that’s why he would not see my delegation?” Ao asked. “Because whoever was influencing him told him not to? But why? To what profit?”

“And he would not . . . would not be rational, would not listen to anyone who had counseled him fair in the past, because. . .someone was telling him otherwise, as Sar Anton claimed? But how does that tie into what you were sent to find?” Mahault was trying to put the pieces together in a recognizable mosaic, and failing.

“I don’t know,” Jerzy admitted. “My master sent me to harvest what news I could find, of strange doings or disasters aimed at Vinearts, against magic itself. Instead, I find—”

“That it’s not just Vinearts,” Mahault said, the pieces clicking for her, even as Jerzy saw the pattern in his own mind. “It is power itself that is being attacked. My father. . .” Her face could have been carved from the same stone her city was built from, once again cool and strong. “My father is being manipulated by those he trusted, coaxed into decisions that are not good for Aleppan. I don’t know if that Washer had anything to do with it—but Sar Anton certainly did, I would swear to it.”

“Intrigue,” Ao said. “Court intrigue. . .only rising from servants, not courtiers. From within the House itself, not external. If the maiar is being manipulated by an aide, was he set there by Sar Anton? Or the Washer, Darian? Washers are deep, and their Collegium has fingers in every pot. But what would be their complaint against Vineart Giordan? No, it makes no sense.”

Jerzy held up a hand, unconsciously imitating a pose he had seen often enough from Malech, when his master was thinking something through and did not want to be disturbed.

“What made you think something was wrong?” he asked Mahault. “You were following them, listening. . .and you’ve accepted everything I’ve told you without hesitation. Why?”

“My father. . .was a strong man, but a fair one, and he knew that there was a role for every soul born. ‘Like Vinearts,’ he would say. ‘They end up where they’re supposed to be.’ I had thought, when I told him I wished to be a solitaire, he would be proud. It is a seemly career, if not one often taken by the daughter of a maiar.”

“He refused you permission?”

“He refused permission, and set that. . .hound of a watchwoman on me, to ensure I did not leave without consent, and my mother would not gainsay him, too afraid of his uncertain temper. Without their dowry, or some great act of courage on my part, the solitaire would never accept me.”

“So you used us to make your escape,” Ao said.

Mahault looked up, but Ao was grinning, not at all annoyed. “Brilliant,” he said. “Brilliant. What a solitaire you’d make!” He sobered then, just as suddenly. “Not that I can offer any dowry to ease your way. My own clan. . .I’ll have caused them loss of face, taking something that belonged to another without compensation. It will take something equally brilliant to make them accept me again.”

Jerzy leaned back, starting to feel as though he were back where his master wanted him to be, after all. “Something like discovering who— or what—is trying to influence princes, and to what end? And you, Mahault. . .would finding those who tried to harm your father, and bringing them to light, be considered an act of courage?”

Ao’s expression was still solemn, but a hint of his usual mischief returned in the way his eyes crinkled slightly at the ends. “Oh, yes, indeed,” he said, even as Mahault turned his offer over in her quiet way.

Jerzy watched the two of them, coming to Agreement over the flickering tendrils of spellfire, and felt something twist in his gut. Serpents attacking shorelines, ships destroyed, Vinearts disappearing, and a trade-city’s ruler and the local Vineart both undermined. . .Giordan, the maiar, perhaps even Washer Darian: the touch of magic he had felt twice now, it came from none of them. That aide to the maiar. . .it was his unknown master who was the greater enemy, the cause of the unrest and distrust being sown across the Lands Vin.

And it was an enemy they could warn no one against. Without a name, or a reason, no one would believe their misfortunes were not caused by a visible enemy, an attackable foe. Panic would be the enemy’s ally, not theirs.

And if he returned to the Valle. . .they would take him there, him and his companions, and perhaps Master Malech as well. But he needed to warn his master. He had no mirror, no messenger birds, or coin to hire a
meme-courier.
. . .

The three of them, against an unknown force of unknown strength and purpose. The student, the trader, and the fighter.

That thought triggered a memory, and it was as though he heard Master Malech’s voice, too distant to be true and yet real as the fire in front of him.

“Magic, and knowledge, and strength,” he said, feeling a sense of impossible calm settle over him. “Those are the three things we need. . .and the three things we have. Ao, can you find us a ship? I have a plan.”

THE CAULIC FLEET struck during a night-storm, prows rising and falling over the white-capped waves. The storm itself was natural, although he knew his crew believed the scryers had called it up through some dire arts; not ideal weather to sail through, but a useful screen against their own actions, should anyone be watching for them.

The scryers stood, as they had for days now, in the bow of the
Risen
Moon,
three shadowed figures sodden and whipped by the storm, but solid as though planted in the planks of the ship itself. At the helm, the captain put his hand on the pilot’s shoulder. “Steady and true, boy. Steady and true. Through to dawn, and we’ll be in the royal bedchambers by midday.”

They had been lurking for days, waiting until the damned scryers said the time was right. They were short of supplies and long on nerves, but he had faith in his men, and they trusted him. Caulic skill and Caulic steel were a match for any Vineart’s tricks.

“Steady,” he said again, as the ship rocked in the wind. “Steady . . .”

“Firespouts!” came the cry from the scout’s mast, where a young sailor was lashed to his nest. “Firespouts ahead!”

The pilot swore, hauling hard on the wheel, and the
Risen Moon
shuddered under the sudden change of direction.

“A pox on their mothers,” the captain swore. “In this weather?”

As though in answer, a geyser of flame slammed up through the waves to the starboard, flickers reaching out toward the sails. The captain slammed his hands down hard on the rain-soaked rail. There were no firespouts near Atakus, not in any reports ever made of the well-traveled lanes, not in a hundred years.

“More damned trickery,” he muttered, swiping the back of his arm across his face in a useless attempt to clear the rain from his eyes. The band holding his hair from his forehead was soaked and likewise useless, and he pulled it off with another muttered oath, tossing it down to the deck. “They cannot blind us, so they think to singe us. But we shall not have it! We will not be denied. Steady on, lads!” he yelled into the storm. “Steady on and strong!

Sailors raced to the side, hands pulling on ropes, tugging the sails out of harm’s way, but another firespout to their rear caught a barrel of spellwine, and the crew was split between trying to protect their cargo and their means of propulsion.

“Steady,” he said again to the pilot, and went to help his crew, even as another firespout hit them dead-on.

In the bow of the battered ship, the three scryers never once took their gaze from where the shoreline of Atakus should be.

“KAÏNAM. KAÏNAM, WAKE. Wake quickly.”

Kaïnam sat upright. He had been reading an old text, and fallen asleep at his desk, when his sister’s voice called to him, urging him to rise.

“Am I late?” he asked her, rubbing the exhaustion from his face—and then remembered. Only a dream. Thaïs was dead, his father gone mad, his home cut off from the outside rather than face his sister’s killers, hiding in fear rather than demanding justice—

“Kaïnam, look!”

A dream, following him into his half-awake state. But the voice was so urgent, he found himself following its urgings, rising from his chair to the balcony of his bedchamber, looking out over the dark, rain-slicked night seascape.

A seascape blasted by sudden, short-lived pillars of flame.