Sword of Jashan (Book 2) (12 page)

The Castle stood gray and bannered above the houses of the wealthy. Guards wearing the King’s raven badge manned every gate. The stink of overheated horses and people surrounded Kirian; she had forgotten what the city was like in summer. As they entered the gate and proceeded to the great doors where the
righ
would enter, Kirian could not help but feel as if this long, strange year had ended in defeat.

* * * * *

Kirian was sent to a small room and provided with water for washing, and bread and cheese with wine. The afternoon passed in forlorn solitude. Kirian lay down to sleep early, wondering the whole time how Callo was faring.

In the morning she awoke to thunder and a knock on the door. The servant who waited there brought fruit and bread on a wooden tray, and a message directing her to see a representative from the Healer’s College that morning.

Kirian was escorted to the meeting. Once the door closed behind the man who had brought her, she waited in the small room alone. She wondered who from the Healer’s College had been assigned to deal with her. The shutters were closed against the pouring rain, making the little antechamber even dimmer. Thunder rolled. She hoped this was the end of the hot weather that had plagued them on the journey.

In any case, the late-summer heat did not penetrate Sugetre Castle’s thick stone walls. Kirian pulled her wrap closer about her shoulders, shivering.

The inner door opened and Hon Char Irilan, head of the Healer’s College, came out. He wore a dark green tunic with a belt that strained around his huge belly.

She stood. “Good day, Hon Char,” she greeted, bowing a little.

He glowered at her. “It is not a good day at all, not when a charity student drags the College into the affairs of Kings. What possessed you to leave your posting, girl?”

“Sir, I sent the College a message, explaining what happened. I did not leave my posting of my free will.”

“It is all an overblown series of dramatics. You were never in danger; you ran off after a
righ
you had no business looking at. The Royal Bastard, at that. And now decisions that should be in the purview of the Healer’s College are subject to the manipulations of politics.”

“I am sorry for the inconvenience, Hon Char.” Although Kirian thought the Healer’s College was well used to considering politics when making its assignments, she thought it best to apologize.

“I should hope so.” He hitched his belt higher, and made his way to the door. “Against my better judgment, I have agreed to allow you a choice in your next posting. Stay put there, and wait. Yhallin Magegard wants to see you, woman. Make sure you choose wisely.” He grimaced at her and left, allowing the door to slam behind him.

Kirian sighed and sat down. So the Healer’s College was not happy with her. This was no surprise; she expected a severe penalty. Hon Char was doubtless angry because she might escape the punishment set for her.

“You may come in now,” said a woman’s voice.

Kirian looked around her as she entered the interior room. A lamp burned on the corner of a desk, but the room was still dim; the sound of the rain was louder in here, as though the exterior wall was being lashed by the storm.

A woman stood beside the desk. She wore a messenger’s practical brown breeches, and a tunic made of the same material. She said, “You are Hon Kirian, assigned Healer at Seagard Castle?”

“Yes, I am. I was told I had been summoned by Yhallin Magegard. Are you here to take me to him?”

The woman grimaced. “I am Yhallin. I do not care for the appellation, Magegard. It is accompanied by too much fear and superstition.”

“I’m sorry, Hon Yhallin.” Kirian was surprised. For some reason she had thought Yhallin was an old, white-bearded man. Instead, the mage-healer looked to be no more than ten years or so Kirian’s senior. Her fine-boned face gave her an ascetic look, and her hair was cut even shorter than Kirian’s, clinging like dust to the woman’s scalp.

“Hon Char said you wish to offer me some alternative to the punishment the Healer’s College prescribed for me.”

“I have—negotiated—with the Healer’s College. They do not like me there, but I do the King’s will in this. If you agree, you are to be forgiven the rest of your term at Seagard Castle and assigned to me. You will remain here at Sugetre for now, and you will accompany me when I go to Deephold, or elsewhere.”

Kirian said, “Mage Yhallin, you must know I wish to remain with Lord Callo. But I do not yet know what you do, or what your methods are. What if I choose not to assist you?”

Yhallin smiled. Her teeth were tiny. Kirian pushed away the thought that Yhallin resembled a rat. “Give me a few sennights before you begin to think me irrevocably evil. I will not ask you to do anything you would object to during that time. After that—if you choose to go, you may go. I do not keep unwilling help. It’s counterproductive.”

Kirian blinked. “I suppose . . . I can only say thank you, Hon Yhallin.”

The woman walked around the side of the desk and dropped into the carved chair behind it. She waved Kirian to the bench before the desk. “So, sit, then. I know a little about you, which I have heard from sources at Seagard castle and at the Healer’s College. I doubt most of it is true. No need to tell me your history now, but I must know this—do you fancy yourself in love with Lord Callo ran Alkiran?”

Kirian flushed. “
Fancy
myself?”

Yhallin shrugged. The dark eyes were keen on Kirian’s face. “The man is a ku’an. He has powers of psychic magery. You have been in close contact with him, whereupon you follow him across the sea without a kel to your name, dropping all your obligations as a Healer at the place you were assigned.”

“
That
had nothing to do with Lord Callo,” Kirian flashed. “I had reason to fear for my life from the Collared Lord there, so I escaped.”

“And the rest of it?”

“The rest—is true,” she admitted. “I have followed Lord Callo. Yes, I love him. If I stay with you, it will be so I can learn from you and help him assimilate the energies he has to deal with.”

“But you claim you are not under any sort of psychic influence from him.”

“That is correct.” Kirian kept her head high. She knew it sounded unlikely, but it was true. Every step of her way she had decided on her own, sometimes against Callo’s express wishes, but at all times without any ku’an influence.

“How do you know?”

“I . . .” Kirian began to say that she knew what it felt like to be under psychic influence. Then she stopped; surely this admission would only hurt her cause. She added: “I know. That is all.”

Yhallin looked at her. Kirian could not decipher the expression on her face.

“You and Lord Callo’s manservant attempted to escape with your lord from the caravan that brought you here.”

On the third night of the journey from Northgard, Chiss had brought Callo out from his guarded wagon on some pretext, and then they had mounted stolen horses and attempted to flee. They had not gotten far. Lady Dria Mar’s men had surrounded them. Callo had made no effort to use his magery to help their escape; Chiss and Kirian dared not resist the armed horsemen that surrounded them. Balan ran Gesset had looked oddly disappointed as he and his men escorted them back to the caravan.

Kirian realized as they were returned to the caravan what was wrong with Callo.

“You did not attempt it a second time.”

“Well, no. It would have been pointless. Have you seen Lord Callo yet, Hon Yhallin?”

The mage healer nodded. “They had him drugged with mellweed, which was all they had. It served their purpose, but we have other ways to make sure he cannot escape using his psychic magery.”

Kirian did not like the sound of that. “They drugged him with mellweed the entire way here. It’s a wonder he is not desperately ill.”

“Mellweed is not so dangerous as you seem to think. They were careful with the dosage; Hon Jesel knows King Martan wants his bastard nephew back safe and sound. What did you expect them to do, take no action while my lord burned the caravan down with his color magery, or subverted their minds with his ku’an influence?”

“No.” Kirian did not know what she expected. It had hurt, though, to see Callo drugged so that the fire in his eyes was gone, and so that he went with their captors unresisting.

“There is a drug called phodian. You have heard of it?”

“Yes, if you mean the poison named phodian.”

Yhallin smiled, and stood up behind the desk. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her messenger’s tunic and pulled out a tiny vial, which she held out to Kirian. Kirian removed the stopper from the vial and held it near her nose. The heavy, oily fragrance confirmed it was the same drug she had learned of in Healer’s College. The drug was treasured in the sultry pleasure houses of the southern nations; a drop or two on the neck of a concubine lent her a seductive fragrance, but should the woman’s companion forget and try to mark her throat, the results could be fatal.

Kirian returned the vial to Yhallin. She conscientiously put her hands in her lap, resolving to wash thoroughly as soon as she was free to do so. “Surely you do not plan to use this on Lord Callo?”

The vial disappeared into Yhallin’s pocket. “I have found a way to use it on my troubled color mages.”

“But only a drop can kill!”

“Ah, but I do not use even a drop.” The mage healer remained standing, her hair and eyes dark in the shuttered study as rain still lashed the exterior wall. “The phodian is diluted, obviously. In the right quantity it dulls the man’s ability to access his color magery, and makes him safe to be around. But I will not lie to you, Healer Kirian. It must be used with extreme caution. It builds up in the body, you see; using it for long will cause the same result as if he had taken the drop at once. It is only a stopgap, until he can be treated.”

Kirian shivered. “I would not like to be responsible for dosing this drug.”

“Ah, but you will. I will teach you this, and you will administer it. I believe I can trust you to use extreme caution, can I not?”

Kirian stared at her.

Yhallin let the silence extend for a moment before continuing. “Here are my terms. You will stay for several sennights at least—I will inform you of when you are free to leave my service. There will be no attempt to escape or to assist your lord in escaping.” Red fire etched the woman’s hands, a timely reminder that she was, after all, an unlikely color mage, a half-common girl-child who had somehow inherited the dominant form of magery and then survived being abandoned on the streets of Sugetre to become one of the most feared color mages in Righar.

“You will work towards the purposes I set you, without complaint. And if you hear of any attempt to release Lord Callo, you will inform me immediately. I am, after all, a healer of mages, here to try to help Lord Callo.”

Kirian laced her hands together on her lap. More than anything she wanted Callo free of all this. She hated to see him drugged and held captive, when he had done no wrong. But no good would come of ignoring the fact that his color magery was killing him.

“You can really help him?” she asked.

“I believe I can. I have never worked with a ku’an before, but I have had moderate success with color mages.”

“I have heard stories, in the last sennight,” Kirian said. “Stories of dead mages, mages with hands and faces burnt black, brought out from your fortress in the dark of night and buried.” The servants in the caravan from Northgard had been full of gossip about the denizens of Sugetre Castle; apparently Yhallin Magegard was known to be fanatically loyal to the King. Her appearance and abilities inspired rumors. Kirian wondered why not one of those rumors had indicated Yhallin was a woman. But then, active color mages were never women. Yhallin was an oddity in more ways than one.

“Ah, yes,” Yhallin said. She looked down at her clasped hands. “That would be what gossip has made of the death of Mage Rhis Olhasan, who died in my care.”

It seemed that all the air left Kirian’s lungs. “So this is true!”

“Our efforts were not a success with Mage Rhis. He died last year, at my hold in the mountains.”

“By the Unknown God, what do you do to them?”

“I try to save them,” Yhallin said. She rose from the chair. Rain still lashed the castle walls, loud and intimidating. Yhallin loomed much larger than her inches against the stone wall. She no longer looked sympathetic; her eyes were dark pools, her mouth a grim line. “You may help or you may go back to Seagard as your healer’s oath requires, or to whatever punishment awaits you at the Healer’s College. I have sworn you need not do anything you find abhorrent.”

“Why do you want me? Why have you gone to this trouble?”

“I do not think Lord Callo will acquiesce to the treatment without your urging,” Yhallin said. “I cannot force him—he must cooperate. But he does not trust me and so far has proven quite stubborn, even rebelling against His Majesty’s orders.”

“I will not help convince him if you are only going to end up burying him,” Kirian snapped.

“And what do you think will happen to him if he does not cooperate with my treatment?” Yhallin asked. “Do you know what happens to a mage who cannot assimilate the energies he must deal with?”

“I have heard stories. I do not know if they are true.”

“Oh, they are true. It is why so much effort is put into training young mages. They live with the god’s fire inside them, all the time, for the duration of their lives. If they fail to learn to live with it, they may go mad. They may commit suicide, allowing the magefire to destroy them—or even worse, they may fail to commit suicide. I have seen a mage’s mind burnt out, so that he cannot converse or feed himself, and must be cared for by nurses until his body dies the way his mind already has.”

Kirian stared at the woman across from her. “And the psychic magery?”

“I do not know.” Yhallin lifted an eyebrow. “It is what makes this case a challenge. But I will do whatever I can to heal him and make him useful to His Majesty.”

“I will do it,” Kirian said. “Thank you for the chance.” She held up her hands, sure that she could still detect the dangerous fragrance of phodian clinging to them. “Unknown God, guide my hands through all this.”