Flesh and Fire (9 page)

The stone dragon waited on the floor, patient as only an inanimate thing could be.

“I’m to come with you?”

The Guardian could not speak, and its stone muzzle could not convey expressions, but Jerzy nonetheless got a distinct sense of “what else?” from the creature.

“All right. Let me get dressed.” It wasn’t cold yet outside, but for all that the House was grander than any sleep house, it still had corners where a chill could and did linger once the sun went down. Detta had given him three pairs of pants and two brand-new shirts, plus a sleeveless jerkin and a quilted jacket that actually fit him across the shoulders. He put on a pair of those pants, a shirt, and the jerkin, and picked up the hard-soled shoes he was supposed to wear when outside, just in case. Lastly he wrapped the leather belt once across his hips, fastening it with the dragon-head buckle that was a smaller version of the Master’s own.

Whatever Master Malech had in mind, he was ready.

Chapter 5

The House was
silent, even the usual night-quiet sounds hushed. Guardian took him down the stairs by Master Malech’s study and through the stone hallway to a room he had not seen before, one with walls that seemed rounded at the corners in a way that confused the eye and made him slightly dizzy. Unlike the rest of the workrooms that held only tables and stools and cabinets of tools, there was actual furniture here, and a tapestry on one wall. What caught and held Jerzy’s attention, however, was the large mirror leaned up against the opposite wall. Jerzy knew, now, how much the simple looking glass he had used on his first day cost, how very rare it was, so the sight of this one took all of his attention, and it was only when a cough sounded before him that he realized that his master waited there, seated behind a wooden desk, a glass of
vin ordinaire
in his hand.

Jerzy didn’t know how he knew it was
ordinaire
rather than
magica,
but he knew it, the way he knew his hand was attached to his wrist.

“Good evening, Jerzy.”

“Good evening, Master Malech.” Even after these weeks studying with the Vineart, it was still strange to see the Master and know that he didn’t need to avert his eyes or fall to his knees or fear being cuffed by the overseer for insolence. Stranger still, to see his master relaxing, his quilted dressing robe over dark gray woven pants and an open-necked shirt of some deep blue color, his feet bare against the cool stone of the cellar floor.

Jerzy came all the way into the room and took what seemed to be the expected position on the wooden stool placed directly in front of the desk. The seat was worn smooth, and the height was just enough that he could tuck his legs underneath comfortably. He thought it might have been made for him, except the sheen of the wood suggested that it had been carved long before he had been born.

Guardian flew up into the ceiling, settling on a scarred wooden beam, its stone tail dropping straight down like a sculpture, save for the occasional twitch of its pointed tip.

“Are you ready, Jerzy?”

Ready for what? “I don’t know.” He might have lied, but what was the point? The room was cooler than expected, and he was glad he had taken the time to dress warmly.

“A fair answer, considering you don’t know what is in store. Nicely diplomatic. Your lessons are beginning to pay off.”

Jerzy didn’t know what Master Malech meant by that, either, so he just sat quietly and waited.

Malech placed his glass on the table in front of him. “The Washers tell the story of how Vinearts came to be: the guardians of a limited, reduced magic, the heirs of our forefathers’ foolish arrogance. How we now, by Sin Washer’s Command, turn inward and husband our vines rather than power over men. We are more than what the stories claim, and less. We are not the mages of generations past, no. And yet, a Vineart crafts more than spells, Jerzy. He crafts solutions, possibilities. Some are good. Some are. . .not good. Some heal; some cause harm. None of them are anything more than tools. A man who drinks a spell-wine and kills another man, is he any different from the man who takes a knife and kills? No. The responsibility for the action is the same.

“There are those who say that we who craft these tools are responsible as well. That it is our hand that kills. . .and our hand that heals, as well.”

Malech paused and looked at Jerzy, as though expecting him to say something. So Jerzy asked the next question that came into his head. “Can spellwine make someone do something they don’t want to do?”

His master touched his bearded chin with a forefinger, his dark blue eyes half lidded and his expression thoughtful. That wasn’t, Jerzy realized, the question his master had expected, but the Vineart answered it anyway. “In the southern regions of Altenne grows a spellwine, a healwine they call Lethá. It fogs the mind, but you must drink deeply and allow it to take effect. Can a spellwine cause a man to do a thing he does not wish? No. Not even a Master Vineart can do that, not with the most potent of grapes, no matter how deeply he might drink.”

“Could the prince-mages do it?” Jerzy held his breath, sure that this time he had asked a forbidden thing. No matter that Malech himself had spoken of the old vines, the First Growth of the prince-mages; merely to mention them was to receive a lecture from the Washers about the wages of arrogance and prideful folly.

His master, however, merely said: “The old vines. . .We have no idea what they could truly accomplish, left with only legends that grow into impossibilities with every generation. I suspect the prince-mages, yes, could force another to do their will. But those wines and the prince-mages who crafted them are long gone, and not even the scholars of the Altenne can bring back their knowledge.”

Malech leaned forward, his dressing gown falling open as he rested his hands on his knees. His intense gaze held Jerzy motionless, his eyes, in the dim light, seeming to glow from within. “But there is much knowledge we have reclaimed. Much we can do, within our limited modern scope. And I will teach you this, as my master taught me, and you will add to the knowledge.”

“Yes, Master.”

“And what will you do with that knowledge, once it is yours?”

Jerzy blinked. Things had happened so quickly, he was still dizzy, half expecting it to end as suddenly as it had begun. He had certainly not thought about that, never looked beyond the day, the week, the thought of the learning itself so overwhelming there could be no room for anything else.

Malech was waiting for his answer, and so he said the first thing that came to mind. “Use it to learn more.”

Malech leaned back, and rubbed his close-cropped beard with one long finger again, this time with obvious pleasure. “Then let us see what you are capable of, young Jerzy. Let us begin with the source of our magic.”

He stood, and walked to the wall. The stone gave way before him, not sliding away but simply disappearing. Jerzy didn’t have time to gape, Guardian’s tail thwapping him hard between the shoulders and knocking him off the stool to get him moving as well.

Stumbling to his feet, he rushed into the misty hole in the stone, holding his breath and hoping that the wall would not suddenly return when he was halfway through.

“The first mage, in the days when the world was young and full of discovery, drank of the mustus and felt the magic stir within him. But he did not understand what it was until he gave himself over to the mustus, took it into himself, and let the magic change him.”

It was only then that Jerzy saw the wooden vat in front of them. Taller than Master Malech, and wider than three men could reach around, it looked like the vats in the vintnery he had spent weeks punching down, but it. . .felt different. The air around it felt different.

“In you go.”

“Master?” His voice squeaked, and his eyes flicked back and forth from the Vineart to the vat, but the thought of running never entered his mind. Where would he go? Instead, he slipped off his leather shoes and pulled the shirt over his head, folding it and handing it to Malech, who took it with grave courtesy.

There was no ladder, no handholds on the vat. “How do I. . .”

Even as the words came out of his mouth, he felt himself rising into the air, as if someone had taken him by the back of his pants and lifted him.

“Sin Washer, save me,” he whispered, but before he had a chance to panic, the invisible hand had brought him over the rim of the vat and dropped him in.

The mustus went up his nose; that was his first realization. Sweet, clean, and suffocating, pressing against him even as his feet touched the bottom of the vat. He knew how to swim, at least enough to keep from drowning in the stream, but his arms and legs remained still, his brain fogged and unpanicked.

Drown. Drown yourself. Breathe in and breathe out and let the liquid enter your lungs.

It was impossible, but Malech’s voice urged him to relax, to give over and allow the must into his skin, his veins, his lungs, to trade out blood and bone for sweet juice.

He trusted his master. Trusting, he breathed in.

MALECH WAITED, STANDING easily by the vat, his body relaxed in a way that was not mirrored in his mind. Minutes passed, and he wished for the glass he had left in the other room.
Vin ordinaire
was not spellwine, it did not go through the final specification to bind magic to spell, but that cask had a pleasant kick to it that made time pass more easily. Yet this was no time for kicks, pleasant or otherwise. If something were to go wrong. . .

If something were to go wrong, his student would die, drowning horribly, and the entire vat would be ruined.

A Vineart did not form attachments, not even to those within his own House. A Vineart stood alone, as they had since the days of Sin Washer and the breaking of the Vine. And yet. . .the boy had potential, even more than any of his students before. There was magic fermenting in him, and a steady, careful hand could raise him to a magnificent vintage. If the boy did not falter, or fail.

“Rest easy, Jerzy. Trust the grape. Trust yourself. This is the first step, the most important step, and you cannot go further without first taking it.”

INSIDE THE VAT, Jerzy felt the mustus leaching into his skin, softening him, blurring the lines between juice and flesh. Once the shock wore off, he knew the liquid: this mustus was from bonegrape, the healgrape that grew higher on the ridge of the southern vineyards, where the cooler air swirled around its leaves and kept the juice tart and pungent. Picked, and pressed, and placed into this vat, waiting. . .for him. He knew it, and it knew him. Time ended, his lungs stilled, his limbs faded. Blood was mustus, and mustus, blood. Magic swam with him, into him, touching the magic the Master said was within him, and suddenly. . .he understood.

Not all. Not much. But there was a connection now where before there had been only confusion and frustration. He felt the magic in the mustus the way he had in the vineyard. . .and recognized it within himself.

A Vineart was not merely one who knew how to craft magic into spellwines. A Vineart
was
magic. . .and spellwines were
him
.

Surfacing, gasping as cool air replaced the liquid in his lungs, spluttering and coughing, Jerzy grabbed blindly, his fingers closing around the smooth metal band of the vat’s rim. He hauled himself out, throwing his legs over the edge and dropping down onto the ground. His pants made a sodden noise against his legs, and his skin prickled in the suddenly cold, dry air. A rivulet of mustus ran down his face, and he licked the drop off his lips without hesitation. It was clean and sweet and sang on his tongue.

Malech stood before him, his face solemn, his deep-set eyes cast into shadows, looking at him consideringly. “Give me your hand.”

Jerzy didn’t have to think, but lifted his left arm, presenting his hand, palm up, to his master. Those long fingers touched his palm, tilting the hand down. A sense of dislocation: the last time Malech had done this, he had been smaller, shorter, and his hand had to reach up.

Malech’s thumb stroked the skin over the mark, and Jerzy’s eye was drawn down to it, only to discover unmarked flesh. Before he could react, Malech turned his hand over, and presented Jerzy with it. The simple bright red brand that had identified him as a slave was gone, but a darker, rounded weal now rested on the outside of his wrist, as though a drop of wine had spilled from a cup and landed there, staining his skin indelibly.

On Malech’s left wrist, a similar, darker stain mirrored his own.

“You. . .did that.”

“Not I,” Malech said quietly. “The vines know their own. It is done, and sealed. Your true training will begin after lunch. Go wash yourself; you’re going to be very sticky in a few moments, and the insects will flock to you in an annoying fashion.”

Jerzy stared at the mark, wet hair plastered to his forehead and dripping into his eyes, and then looked up at his master. The Vineart smiled faintly, his angular face not softened at all by the motion, and then he turned and left.

Jerzy breathed in deep, trying to keep his legs from wobbling as the aftermath finally hit him. Picking up his shirt and shoes, he followed Malech out through the hazed-out wall. Malech was nowhere to be seen, but the Guardian still sat on the beam overhead, its tail swinging gently as though pushed by a breeze. Its pointed muzzle turned to watch Jerzy as he walked through the room and out the door, but the Guardian did not move to follow him.

The stairs seemed far steeper and longer than usual, and when he came to the first landing, Jerzy stopped and stared at the light that was streaming through one of the narrow windows.

Guardian had woken him at night. The sunlight in front of him reached well into the window, striking the halfway point on the stone floor. The day was half over, and he hadn’t even noticed.

Your true training will begin after lunch.

His slave-mark was gone.

Finding a burst of speed somewhere in his exhausted legs, Jerzy raced up the last flight of stairs and burst into his room, tossing his shirt and shoes onto the narrow bed, and stripping his wet pants off as quickly as possible, draping them over the windowsill to dry in the sunlight. Naked, he grabbed more clothing out of the drawers and started to put them on.

He stopped, one leg halfway in, and reconsidered: was it better to be on time, or clean?

The feel of his skin, starting to get sticky, decided him. The clothing was left on the bed while he used the pitcher of drinking water and a clean shirt to wipe the worst of the mustus off his skin, then the rest of the water was poured over his hair until it felt decently cleansed.

He would have preferred to go stand in the stream and let the cold water run over his body, but there was no time for that, much less go in search of one of the kitchen workers to have them heat water for an actual bath. Master Malech was waiting.