Nor Iron Bars A Cage (23 page)

“He’s aware you were apprenticed to Meldov. He knows I thought you were dead, and just found out you survived the fire. I told him you were burned and retired to a quiet life. No more.”

I was grateful to have my confidences kept. I trusted Tobin with my weakness, but no one else. But if that was all the king knew, with not a hint of my fears or their source, he must be wondering even more why I’d failed to volunteer for Firstmage’s mad scheme. Although… he called me “Translator”. “Does he know I was a qualified sorcerer myself, before the end?”

“I didn’t tell him.” Tobin’s voice was dragging, slow and thick. “He might know.”

Too many possibilities, so much potential for disaster, and my panic lying in wait— I took slow calming breaths and tried to let it go. Tonight would come, no matter what I did now, and perhaps Xan would simply tell us what we needed to know. If not, then we’d see if the old sorcerer truly had the skill he claimed or was deluded. And if he managed a transference, and didn’t have the vaunted control… I trembled, and even though he was dropping off into post-climax stupor, Tobin felt it, and murmured something. I took more slow breaths. At least if Firstmage failed to restrain the ghost, it wouldn’t be my knife slitting Secondmage’s throat. I burrowed in harder against Tobin and tried to sleep.

****

We rested fitfully. Once, a boy woke us with a knock, bringing food and drink, and later we dressed in preparation, and went back to bed fully clothed to wait for the summons. We spoke very little, but touched often. Tobin made an effort to seem calm, but I felt a tight-strung tension slowly building in him as well.

As the sky outside our small window darkened, we reluctantly got off the bed. Tobin stretched, which was worth my pausing to watch. He limbered up deliberately, like a fighter preparing for battle, spending extra time stretching and working his bad leg. He saw me standing staring, and gave me a thin smile. “I stiffen up so much faster in my dotage here.”

“Hah.” For that foolishness he had to be kissed, until he sighed under my mouth. I said, “You’re such an old man.”

“Less so with you pressed up against me.” He held me still, and returned my kiss with interest. But neither of us could keep our attention on the pleasures of touch, and we drew apart again. Tobin slipped on his boots, then lent a hand under my elbow as I forced my feet into the sweat-damp confines of my own. He hooked his knife on his belt and checked that it moved easily in its sheath.

“That’s not making me feel better,” I muttered.

“How about the thought that it will only be drawn on your behalf or the king’s?”

“I guess. High company I’m keeping these days.” I felt queasy, and was regretting eating.

There was a loud tap on the door, and one of the King’s Own Guard glanced in to tell us, “Time, sirs. I’ll follow you down.”

The cellar had been cleared and lined with extra torches, but it somehow felt smaller and stuffier. The King’s Mages had already laid out their square and circle, with all the right runes, but there was no power of sorcery raised in them yet. The king and his officers stood to one side, talking quietly. When we came in, they all looked up. I tried not to react to that scrutiny.

A final soldier came in close on our heels and closed the cellar door, setting his back to it. The flicker of the torches sent shadows dancing across the wall. Tobin was steady at my side. The king said, “We’re ready then.”

And I said, “Wait.”

If I’d thought they were looking at me before, it was nothing to the glares I got now. But I’d been thinking this over and over and
over,
and if we could avoid mistakes before it got complicated, so much the better. Before someone rented out space in their mind to a dead man. The thought of that sent cold fingers down my spine. Not something I’d
ever
be able to do, and not something I wanted to even witness, unless the chance of success was really high. I said, “I want to say something in ancient
tridescant
and have Secondmage repeat it back. See how close he can get.”

The king nodded. “Good idea.”

Secondmage turned to me and raised an elegant eyebrow, waiting. His superior attitude washed away my hesitation and I said, “Repeat after me
, ‘I see only five men’.”

He tried. He said something that sounded like uninflected word-salad, with the terms for “see” and “men” understandable. Maybe. If I tried hard. I shook my head. “That would be worthless. Try again. Listen to the way my tone rises and falls, as well as the sounds.” I went for short and simple. “
I saw a horse.”

His repeat said,
Mumble-sounds “a feather.
”

I laughed shortly. The king stared at me. “What?”

“If you want to go finding men mounted on giant birds, just say the word. This isn’t going to work.”

Secondmage said, “You’ll have to show me how to get it right. Give me some guidance to the language.”

I shook my head. “If we had a month, or even a week, I might try to teach you. But in an hour, all you could learn would be enough to confuse your words more effectively. The transference won’t gain us anything this way. We should stick to regular questioning.”

One of the King’s Voices, a short, middle-aged man with a weathered face that I remembered vaguely from recent days, said diffidently, “You know I speak modern
tridescant
fluently
.
I agree with Translator Lyon— Secondmage is clearly not hearing the inflection and pitch components of the language. But perhaps I could do this. I could render the sounds more clearly.”

“The transference host must be a sorcerer,” Secondmage snapped. “Unless you’ve developed new skills in the last month, Doyd, I doubt you qualify.”

The king slammed his hand down on the table in frustration, and I felt Tobin move restlessly behind me. “There must be a way,” the king said. He turned to Secondmage. “Could you perhaps ride out with the transferred ghost in your head, and have him just point out the right direction without speaking?”

Firstmage said, “The ghost won’t have that kind of ability, to do anything physical. It can only speak as a disembodied voice to its host. Anything beyond mere speech is possible only if a revenant has an unhealthy grip on the host’s mind and the strength to go with it, to break through that barrier. That’s possible only for undead, wraiths and such. Which this ghost is clearly not. ”

All praise to the gods and the goddess for that.
I gritted my teeth, and heard Tobin clear his throat at my shoulder.

“Damnation. Then we must do our best with just the questioning, I guess,” the king said. “Unless Firstmage or Third have more skill with
tridescant
?”

Both men shook their heads with reluctance, and Thirdmage said, “I could try, I suppose. Translator Lyon?”

I opened my mouth to give him a test phrase, when Tobin grabbed my arm and squeezed hard enough to silence me to a squeak. He said, “Your Majesty, by your leave, I’d like to speak to Translator Lyon alone for a minute.”

Before King Faro even nodded, he was propelling me toward the door. The guard stepped aside, staring at us, and Tobin pushed me through and up the first flight of stairs. I recovered enough to pull my arm free. “What in the hells, Tobin!”

“Not here,” he muttered. He looked around, spotted a door and dragged me through it. The small room was some kind of root storage, dank with the earth-musty smell of potatoes and turnips. He pushed the door half-shut, letting just a sliver of light come in the crack.

“Okay,” I said with what felt like miraculous patience, in the sense that I hadn’t hit him yet. “What are you thinking of, you maniac, dragging me out of the room in front of King and company?”

“Don’t do it.” His tone was low and urgent.

“Do what?’

“Volunteer for that transference thing. I could see you were about to say something about being a sorcerer yourself. Just don’t, all right? They don’t need it that badly. Not badly enough for you to let another dead man into your head.”

I was silent, stunned. Stunned by Tobin telling me not to do something that would help his king, and even more by his casual assumption that I’d been about to offer. I wasn’t sure if it bothered me more to see his faith in my courage, or his lack of faith in my strength. Or maybe it was my stability he doubted. “It can’t be that dangerous, if Secondmage was willing to do it. He seems like a man with a healthy regard for his own skin.”

“You don’t know that. He’s bound to serve the king to the best of his skill. Maybe he thought he had to volunteer. Anyway, it could be more dangerous to you than to him.”

“I know I don’t have his skills.”

“And he doesn’t have your past.”

“Is that what worries you?”

Tobin sighed, and held my head as he pressed his forehead to mine. “I just got you back. That wraith took you, and you needed fifteen years to recover from it.”

“And that means I’m too weak to do this for our country?” I pushed him away.

“Not weak. Gods, Lyon, anyone would have been damaged by what happened to you. But maybe you
are
more vulnerable. Maybe having had the wraith changed something. The point is, we can’t know that. I don’t want to take a chance.”

“So you get to put your life on the line in battle, but I should avoid taking any risks?”

“You’re putting words in my mouth.”

“Then tell me what you really are saying.”

“I…” He paused. “All right, sort of. But when I fight, which I don’t really do any more, all I’m risking is death. Not losing my mind.”

“You could lose a leg, or your eyes, or anything, really. And Firstmage will be protecting me, not trying to put a sword through me.”

“It’s not necessary, though! We’re here in the right part of the hills, waiting for them. And that’s thanks to you. If there’s an invasion, we won’t be distracted and off at the coast. We’ll stop it. We don’t need the last location details, really. Or you might succeed with just questions. You don’t need to offer this.”

“But it would save lives, wouldn’t it? To be waiting at the exit of the tunnel, rather than finding them already emerged and an army strong, two days too late?”

He was silent for a moment. “Yes. It might.”

“And one of the lives I save could be yours.”

“I don’t want you to risk it.”

“You don’t get to make that choice for me.” I stopped, suddenly dizzy. How was it that three minutes ago I’d been absolutely determined to remain silent and a coward forever, and now suddenly I was committed to offering this? It was all Tobin’s fault, for his unquestioning belief that I’d been about to volunteer. I’d rather be eaten by the ghost than let him see I wasn’t the man he’d thought I was.

“Lyon… lion-boy, I hear you still scream at night. I know how often you wake up shaking. You haven’t put the wraith behind you yet. What if this brings it all back?”

“Then I deal with it. Again.” Because the truest thing I’d said was that the life I saved might be his. I
did
have to offer. If I didn’t, and Tobin was killed, it would damage me far more than the wraith ever had. “With your help?” I made that a question.

For just an instant he shook his head, but then he pulled me into a hug. “If you have to… Damnation. Hells, yes, any help I can give.”

I clung to him, cursing even more violently, if silently, in my head. How had I come to this? He always made me want to be more than I was for him. But my blood ran like ice water in my veins.

“You’ll keep watch on me, right? No one knows me better than you. If I act… not like myself, you’ll stop me somehow. Tie me up. Kill me if you have to. I won’t be a tool for a ghost again.” I felt it, horribly, vividly, that unstoppable puppeting as my hand moved at the wraith’s command and I could only watch. One inch more of control and it would have had me, body and soul. It could have made me cut Meldov’s throat on command. Although, in the end it hadn’t needed to…

Without easing his grip, Tobin said in my ear, “Are you truly set on doing this?”

“Yes.” My mouth was bone-dry.

“Well, no matter what comes, I won’t kill you. Not ever. You can’t ask me that!”

“I’d rather be dead than… taken.”

“Then, by all that’s holy, don’t volunteer!” His arms tightened until I could hardly breathe.

“I have to. You know I do. You would, if you were able.”

“That’s different.” He sighed and rubbed his cheek on my hair. “Gods, Lyon,
I don’t want to lose you.
”

I tried to joke, my voice coming out hoarse. “Oh, nice. That’s showing a lot of faith.”

“It’s not a matter of not having faith. Or maybe yes, but not in you. In those old, grey sorcerers.”

I swallowed hard. I was placing my fate in their unknown hands. “They’re the best in the land, right?”

“Right.” I felt his heart beating fast against my chest. “Damn. All right. I can promise to restrain you, if need be, and find a way to free you. That I do promise.”

“The King’s Sorcerers act like it’s pretty routine.”

“Yes.”

“I can do this. Chat with an old ghost for a day, get the information, then have him banished. I can.” I was trying to convince myself more than him, but Tobin didn’t hear that.

“I don’t doubt you. I’m just scared. There’s always something that can’t be anticipated.”

“I do doubt me,” I admitted. “But I hid behind my walls and iron bars for so long. I’m tired of hiding.”

For another moment we stood there, pressed together in the musty, cool, little room. Then I set Tobin away from me and pulled open the door. We went down the stairs calmly, with Tobin at my shoulder. In the work-room, the king had been in conversation with one of his colonels over the maps, but everyone looked at us as we entered.

I said thinly, “Your Majesty, I’m also a sorcerer.”

Secondmage said, “An apprentice is not…”

“A full sorcerer,” I cut in over him. “Apprentice for two years with Meldov of Riverrun, and then his qualified trainee for two more. I’ve done summonings before.”

I waited for the king to ask why I’d taken so long to mention it, but instead his expression simply lightened. “Well, that’s a bit of good luck. Thank you! Firstmage, what’s needed to include Translator… Sorcerer Lyon in the working?”