Lesson of the Fire (41 page)

Ari took a deep breath to say something, but
Robert’s dark eyes bored into his own.

“Have no fear that I will hesitate to kill
him. He was my pupil once, but I will not lose my stomach for
revenge as you have.”

Ari glanced at the silent mundanes all
around them. “Once you kill the Mardux, will you set the people of
the Protectorates free?”

“Why should I? With the Mardux dead and
Flasten’s power broken, how will I make my way in the world?
Nightfire will no longer have me at his Academy. Wasfal will give
me sanctuary, but he will exact a price.” Robert laughed. “The
Protectorate slaves are the last currency left to me.”

“Stop talking,” Ari said
softly.
The laughter — it seemed
inappropriate.

“You asked to be my apprentice. You swore to
obey me in exchange for my knowledge. You are every bit as under my
control as they are. Are you still true to your oath, or will you
betray me as Sven did?” Robert’s eyes shone with challenge.

I can still think on my own, for now. How
much longer before he takes that away from me, too?

Ari swallowed. “I obey you, Weard Wost.”

Robert smiled. “Good. Now, I will show you
how the Mardux defeated three challengers for the Chair with such
ease.”

* * *

The magic died in Nightfire’s study. The
fire went out. The old wizard looked up from the book he was
editing when the room suddenly filled with a brilliant white-green
glow. He raised his arm to shade his eyes and closed the book.

The figure slashed at Nightfire with its
marsord, but his arm, clothed in Power, blocked the blade. All the
same, the fire set his clothes ablaze, and Nightfire was pushed out
of his chair against the wall. He opened his eyes to face Marrish,
the Lord of Wind and Fire, father of the gods and lord of
magic.

“Do not resist,” Marrish said, striking at
him again. “Your death is inevitable.”

Were he truly my patron, I
would already be dead.
Nightfire pushed his
arm back against the blade, encasing himself in
Vitality.

“Am I supposed to confuse you for Marrish?”
Nightfire said angrily. The marsord hurt as it bit deep into his
arms, but he healed almost immediately and maneuvered out of the
way. “I have done nothing but my duty as arbiter, and you owe me
your life twice over. Striking me down would be the end of your
rule in the eyes of the Council. They could not forgive that.” He
ducked a vicious blow aimed at his head.

“The Mardux’s order will prevail. I will see
to it.”

Nightfire nodded. He was certain who it was
now. “When have I stood in your way, Sven? What have I denied you?
Are you as ungrateful as Domin to threaten your master?”

The marsord drew away from Nightfire. The
glow faded, and Sven stood there, marsord in one gloved hand.

Nightfire suppressed a sigh of relief,
waited for the pain to subside and let down his shield. “It seems a
waste of its energy to keep that fire burning. Look at what you did
to my floor.”

“Nightfire, I swore an oath for you twice
before. Now I need you to swear an oath to me.”

“May I ask why?”

Sven did not move. This time, Nightfire did
sigh.

“Then let me guess. You wish your order to
prevail. What is your order? Teach the mundanes magic. You have
done that. You have changed the Unwritten Laws. Seruvus knows the
truth. But you may also know that this will bring the Mass upon us.
How will you win this war you have started?”

Sven raised his gloved hand in mute
response. His eyes burned.

Nightfire nodded, thinking fast. “Can you
handle a million Drakes? For if there are more than twenty million
Mar in the southern half of this subcontinent, there are certainly
as many Drakes in the north. No matter, you have this in your
plan.”

“The Mass is not real.”

Nightfire sat down. “It is very real, and
your sister cannot quench its thirst for blood.”

The Mardux hesitated, back stiff. “Brack is
dead?”

“No more than the Nightfire Tradition is.
Katla is Brack now.”

Sven’s eyes widened, but then he set his
jaw. “Then I must kill her before she can order the Drakes to
march.”

Nightfire stared back at him in shocked
horror for just a moment before shouting at him. “Are you my
apprentice, Sven Takraf? Sven Gematsud?” His face was purple with
rage. “Did you learn nothing of reason or ethics at my
Academy?”

Sven said nothing.

Have Katla and I made an
enemy now, like Volund and everyone but Einar seems to have?
Nightfire thought.

Nightfire regained some of his composure.
“Killing her would not help. That Brack sometimes has the ear of
the Mass is the closest thing to a treaty we have with the Drakes.
Correction, had. They have crossed the Fens of Reur by now.” He
clasped his hands together on the desk and met Sven’s one-eyed gaze
with his own two green eyes. “You had nobler goals when you
started. There was no talk of changing the Law. Remember our
conversation when you became a green?”

Sven threw his marsord into the charred wood
of the floor in irritation. “Another story! I know my life!”

Nightfire spoke evenly. “Then tell me about
it, Sven. Remind me why you became a wizard.”

Sven’s stillness answered Nightfire’s
question.

“The Mass is real and invading,” Nightfire
said. “How can you move the army to intercept it?” The aged wizard
sat down heavily. “Becoming my student meant you would not be a
slave. And you had a larger goal, one which I did not entirely
approve of.”

“I taught my people to read,” Sven said
quietly.

Nightfire nodded and began to talk.

Chapter 34

“
The mentor-student relationship is one
of the most important. If it is strong, the student never forgets
the mentor’s advice. If it is poisoned, the student still remembers
the lessons, but may look upon them with disdain.”

— Nightfire Tradition,

On Apprenticeship

Sven finished packing, readying himself for
the journey home. At last he was ready. At last his debt had been
paid. Shortly after dawn, he would be a wizard. As soon as he
donned the green, he could return to Rustiford.

“Are you sure you will not consider staying
on as one of my assistants?”

Sven jumped. He had not seen Nightfire step
into the room.

“You know what I have decided, master. I go
now to my people, to defend my home from the Drakes and Dinah’s
Curse.”

“You have the potential to be a powerful
wizard, perhaps wear a red cloak one day. Your contribution to
scholarship could be a great one, Sven. You think ... differently
than most other wizards.”

Sven grinned, but Nightfire did not. He
rarely did.

“You excel at finding uses for the
information that already exists. I look at a series of observations
and draw the conclusions to which the data point. You, however, see
results that seemingly have no bearing on those observations. With
the discoveries of others, you are capable of constructing new
practical applications.”

Sven beamed at the compliment. “Thank you,
master.”

“Innovation is not your only gift. You
discovered how to see the myst without the aid of torutsen. Most
wizards do not use such magic. It is almost unknown among
apprentices.”

Sven shrugged. “A crutch. It took me a long
time to abandon it and to trust timing.”

“Yes, but a very unusual crutch. It seemed
to your teachers that your skills were undiminished in spite of the
additional strain of calling Knowledge. Either you are stronger
with Knowledge than most Mar or you have greater stamina wielding
the myst than many.”

“Knowledge has more uses than simple
reconnaissance, master. Weard Wost speaks of farl applications
common to enchanters but nearly unknown to us. Not all of his hints
can be exaggerations.”

“It sounds like an interesting area of
specialization for a student pursuing higher education,” Nightfire
said, smiling encouragingly now. “Weard Wost speaks fondly of you.
I am certain you could learn much from him if you stayed. We are
also losing three of our adjunct faculty to other pursuits, and we
have more applicants this year than in the last four. If you would
like to teach a few classes at the Academy, we would welcome the
help.”

“I have other people I want to teach. They
need my teaching more.”

Nightfire sniffed dismissively.

“Rustiford is my home. I have friends there,
a family.”

“Do you intend to become a magocrat over
your own family? They may not welcome you as warmly as you might
expect. In truth, I can assure you they will not. You will be
wasting your time and energy.”

Sven rolled his eyes. This was not the first
time Nightfire had tried to turn his determination. “I will not be
a magocrat. I will teach them to read, master. I will take
apprentices from among them.”

“I wish you would consider staying on as a
teacher or research assistant or something. You are very talented.
Do not waste your education on a handful of mundanes who may not
appreciate your efforts.”

Does he intend to keep talking until I give
up?

Sven’s voice hardened. “You exacted no oath
of fealty from me in exchange for your knowledge, Nightfire. You
taught me because I showed promise as a wizard, not because I
shared your interests.”

Nightfire matched his tone. “And I encourage
you to follow your own path, wherever it may lead. I am merely
offering my advice as I would to any of my students. You are not
the only one of your peers I have invited to stay at the Academy,
you know.”

Sven felt a pang of frustration that his
master could not see his vision.

“We are wizards, master. We are a tiny
minority of the Mar population, yet we rule wherever we go in
Marrishland.” He tried to keep calm, but his passion burned too
fiercely. “Mundanes fear us. We are little more than Drakes and
Dinah’s Curse to them, yet another obstacle for them to survive.
Most are forced to pay tribute to a magocrat, and in turn magocrats
do little to improve the quality of their lives. They live in
communities built of sweat and blood. And they survive it all
without magic. Yet, despite their tenacity, they will go from the
cradle to the grave without knowing anything of the world beyond
their home towns.”

“And they will never miss it,” Nightfire
added. “Did you? You wanted to live the life of a mundane — never
wielding the power of magic and never leaving home until Domin at
last called you into his burning duxy. Do you know why I test
mundane apprentices?”

Sven said nothing.

“Those mundanes who pass the test have a
chance of success, and even they struggle. The others lack the
curiosity and determination to become serious students,” Nightfire
said. “Having struggled so desperately in your own first battle
with ignorance, can you honestly believe that you can rescue an
entire town as easily as one might rescue a friend from
quicksand?”

“At least I will try.”

Nightfire grabbed him by the shoulders. His
green eyes flickered with fury. “Do you think that I have not
tried, Sven? Every professor in this school is fighting the
ignorance of his or her students. Many will produce students with a
new understanding of the universe and their place in it. But the
battle leaves many casualties. As a mass, people do not want to be
enlightened. If you attempt to expose them to a new understanding,
they will reject it.”

“What do you suggest I do?” It seemed
important to ask, though Sven felt he knew the answer.

“Do as I do. Help the ones who want your
help. Enlighten those who seek enlightenment.” Nightfire was
preaching now. Here was his passion. “As a healer cannot bring life
to the dead, so even the greatest teacher in the world cannot bring
life to the mind that is dead. Help those who can be helped, or you
will merely end up wasting a lot of time fighting a losing battle
against someone’s comfortable ignorance. One at a time, Sven. Bring
enlightenment to one person at a time. Nothing else works. Trust
me.”

Sven turned away, looking out the window of
his room at the enormous kalysut that grew at the center of the
Academy. Its branches were bare — stripped by the hands of a
hundred apprentices and the cold winds of the coming winter.

He is partially right. I will have to be
patient.

“Eight years ago, you were wrong about me,
master. Becoming a wizard has not made me forget what it means to
be a mundane. I will return to Rustiford to serve my friends and
family.”

Nightfire stared at him for a long moment
before nodding slowly. “So be it. Some lessons can only be learned
from hard experience. I must finish preparations for tomorrow’s
ceremony. I will see you at the temple in the morning.”

The open-air temple sat in a broad clearing,
on a rise of land just west of Nightfire’s Academy. A long, broad
trunk split cleanly in half served as the altar. A circle of tall,
lacquered wooden statues of the gods surrounded it. The trees
beyond them were not the cypress and cedars which were the most
common in Marrishland, but kalysuts — hardy, thick-limbed trees
that seemed almost out of place here in the swamps, despite the
myriad stilt-like roots protecting the trunks from rot.

Kalysuts grew everywhere, in every nation,
across the planet. They thrived in the warm, wet climate of
Flecterra. They endured the dry, barren heat of Turuna. They broke
the otherwise treeless landscape of the Aflangi plains. They even
survived the cold deserts of the mountains of northern Huinsy. The
huge trees managed to grow tall and thick in the depths of the
swamps and marshes of Marrishland.

Their presence here, in a temple to the
gods, was no accident. The eight-pointed leaves, once dried and
boiled in water, produced torutsen — the bitter brown drink that
allowed an apprentice his first glimpse of the myst. Its sap, a
golden liquid extracted by trimming branches or drilling a hole in
the trunk, was morutsen, which, when consumed, prevented the wizard
from using any magic.