The Seekers of Fire (33 page)

Tears wet Jenelly's cheeks just as Rianor felt Linden's light touch on his arm. Master Keitaro rose from his chair.

"This is too harsh," Linden whispered so that only Rianor could hear. "You are too angry."

Was he, now? And since when did she know him so well as to dispense her omniscient judgement on him? Was she not angry, herself?

He did not snatch her light, feathery fingers on his arm only because he thought he might break them. And Master Keitaro was once again trudging with his crutch, taking forever to cross the three meters between Rianor and the table. The man had been dancing last night, Linden had said. Rianor himself knew how he could fight. Could he not use some of his strength to
walk?
Nan, too, could do without her silent, disproving gaze, and Inni could raise
her
gaze from that constant embroidery of hers. She could show some attitude, about something, anything.

Were they all just fools, slow to understand and slow to think—if they ever thought or understood anything. He had gathered them to get insight, but what use were they at all? Why on Mierenthia was he wasting his time with humans? Had he not had enough yesterday?

"High Lord," Master Keitaro said in his deep, quiet voice. Rianor's glare, which had so much affected Jenelly a moment earlier, seemed to pass through the man without affecting him in the least.

Rianor knew what would follow now. Some wisdom about how anger never did any good to anyone, or that Rianor was attacking members of his own House in times when there was a real threat from the outside. That an enemy's smartest move would be to cause just that, and why was Rianor himself doing their enemies' job for them?

Rianor already had a proper snapping response to all that by the time the small old man stood before him—and then Master Keitaro extended his hand, Linden's shower head in it.

"You read what was written on the other shower head, High Lord, but did you read this one?"

No. He had not had the time. He had given both heads to the old man upon entering the Council Room. Master Keitaro was very good at patterns. Now Rianor took the shower head and stared at it, unavailingly trying to find a symbol, until his eyes teared and his hand started shaking with the force of gripping the thing.

"Master Keitaro, now is not the time to teach me a new lesson."

The old man's eyes were too damn peaceful and calm. "No, lord, the lesson is an old one. Look again."

Rianor closed his eyes and steeled his hand and mind. Damn the old man if there were no writing at all. The way he had handed the shower head to Rianor, Rianor had assumed that there would be, but the Master had been known to surprise. Rianor always allowed him to surprise as he saw fit; there usually was a good reason.

Rianor opened his eyes yet again—and saw.

Not a malignant, unknown symbol. Not a subtle Magical threat.

"
DUMBASS,
" the holes formed, to eyes that would look without staring, without the intention of finding something else.

Rianor's hand dropped by his body. Suddenly he was very, very weary.

"Point taken, Master. Jenne, stop crying, will you? I apologize."

Rianor

Night 79 of the Fourth Quarter, Year of the Master 705

High Ruler madness. Sometimes it almost got to him. Sometimes he almost lost control and acted without thinking, despite all barriers that he had built; despite the willpower, of which he had throughout his life meticulously cultivated everything, even the measliest scraps that others in his place would not even know they possessed. He needed it all.

And it all took too much time and effort—time and effort that he could have used for Science, for life, for knowing and doing.

The Bers, of course, would not want him to know and do. One of Rianor's aberrant questions about life was whether anything could be known of yet unborn people, especially of those not yet conceived. He wanted to know whether the Bers could know about future character traits, and whether they had the power to plan who would be born where.

Rianor, in their place, would have made himself exactly a High Lord—doomed to madness, or to fighting madness till the end, with neither time nor strength to think and question.

Even the
Byas
in the Healers' Passage had mocked him. What did she, a creature out of fairytales, know? Could she perhaps heal madness? Or did she know no more, or knew even less, than the High Rulers themselves but used what scraps of knowledge she possessed to taunt and harm him? She had let him go, yes, but that did not mean that she would let him go whole.

If he had ever been whole.

The madness, like the Aetarx, was a part of a High Ruler's very being. They were all grateful to old Audric, were they not, even those not of Qynnsent. At night, when they could not sleep because their hearts would beat wildly and then suddenly almost stop, they would think of Audric the Insane. They would think that they were stronger than him, that they were better. That they endured still—that
they
had not gone where Audric had.

They were all, perhaps, fools. Perhaps Audric, in choosing his own madness, had found a path through the madness in the end. He had died a very old man, like few of the rest had. From what Rianor knew, Audric had been happy.

And more important than all that was that there were things that old Audric had known—things that Rianor did
not
know.

The "
DUMBASS
" had been Audric's, Rianor knew now, even if the other writing was Bers'.

Yet again, a message.

* * *

"Aunt Mathilda, tell Jenne and all of us why your news is so important that you would come here yourself, with what others would call treacherous words in your mouth, instead of simply sending a messenger."

Mathilda watched him for a long moment. "You jumped at Jenelly, but you, too, do not understand, do you? Tell me, please, High Lord—or anyone else who would care to answer—just how do you think those Mills would impact us?"

This time Rianor controlled himself well enough to let Desmond speak.

"No matter how much we get paid for our grain, we still need to pay for Milling the grain that remains for our own House's flour, and for transportation. The Mills in Blessedber and Lightber are closest to our own lands in Balkaene, at distances of two hundred kilometers and two hundred and fifty kilometers respectively. The Roseber Mill is four hundred kilometers away from our lands. With those Mills closed, we will have to supply our lands with flour from Mills located much further away.

"We won't even be able to use the three Mills here in Mierber, five hundred kilometers away, for these Mills are allocated to serve the Noble House Properties in Mierber itself and to provide the flour for Mierber's common citizens. I know these Mills don't have the capacity to accept more grain and to provide more flour than that. Similarly, the capacity of the Srednaber and Southber Mills in the South is limited. We'll have to work with the Mills in the Northwest, or we'll be a little more lucky and work with the Northber Mills in the North. But even trading with the North, it would be too far, at a distance of possibly seven hundred kilometers.

"Anyway, the Mills in the Northwest, in the Sunset Lands, would be our best bet, for those are the most numerous—but they are at least eight hundred kilometers from our lands in Balkaene. A wagon full of flour will need more than thirty days to travel between them and our lands. That would raise our transportation costs dramatically and disadvantage our House financially for the next year—with the possibility of serious long-term financial effects, especially if the Mill issues continue. I am not even considering the Mills in Dobria Province in the West. There are fewer Mills there than elsewhere, in addition to the Dobria Mountain being on the way. A good thousand kilometers to circumvent the Dobria Mountain to the north. Even more than that to circumvent the mountain on its southern side, in addition to passing too close to the Edge by the Pirin and Sredna Mountains."

Desmond looked at his wife. "
Now
do you understand? Whatever we are paid for the grain we sell to others, our House might become poor."

Mathilda nodded to her son. "A good analysis of the financial situation, as always."

Rianor met Mathilda's eyes. "But there is more, right?"

"Yes, there is. I knew you youngsters would not understand, for you have all lived in too safe a world. Money is not everything. Money matters not if there is no food. Mill problems might mean
starvation,
no flour and no cleansed wheat, rye, barley, beans, or potatoes. Nothing but some fruit and vegetables—the kind of food that only needs to be blessed by Mentors and not cleansed—and meat, for meat can be cleansed outside of Mills.

"But meat and fruit and vegetables won't be enough. I have seen it. It already happened once, for a short time while the Bers were building the Factories and the Mills and destroying the old craftshops and mills—when, this old woman thinks, the Bers had to focus all their power on something big and thus could not spare it for caring for the world properly. There was increased crime and despair in those days as well. Hundreds died, even though not nobles, of course. Hundreds also died later in the Factories themselves, before they started working properly."

Mathilda sighed. "The Bers are not all-powerful, aberrant as the thought might be. It seems that they, like the rest of us, need to allocate their resources—and I do not necessarily agree with their choices, children. There are rumors that it was like this with the Great Fire of three hundred years ago, too ..."

She shook her head. "But here is my other piece of news: you know that our peasants have been spreading rumors of
Bessove
on the Edge for some time now; we had dismissed them as a typical Balkaene superstition. Now, however, a source much more trusted than peasants mentions
Bessove
sighted close to the border between Waltraud and the Edge." She sighed again. "I know that they are supposed to be just a fairytale, but this old woman knows better than to dismiss evidence. Qynnsent will suffer because of this, mark my words."

"They are not just a fairytale," Rianor said, quietly. "And yes, if Houses will suffer because of whatever the Bers choose to do with this, Qynnsent will be one of the first, together with Laurent. Not Waltraud, even if the danger might be by their borders—for a part of
my
news is that they have a Ber of their own. Another piece of news is that the Bers now have Waltraud-independent reasons to hate me."

"Besides—" Desmond looked at Rianor for permission to speak, unsure if Rianor had said all he wanted to say.

"Besides, we did not pay much attention to this, but we in Qynnsent were allocated to buy a smaller amount of flour than usual this past autumn. The Bers gave us less than usual."

"Yes." This from Mathilda. "I have been making inquiries. It is not only us, it is mostly everyone. And it is not for lack of grain. All of Qynnsent, Waltraud, Laurent, and Iglika sold more grain than usual this last autumn, and so did Kadisha and Maeron from Dobria Province."

The four Balkaene Houses usually produced sixty percent of Mierenthia's grain, the two Dobria ones providing another twenty.

"High Lord," Desmond said, swallowing. Desmond was paler now, shadows evident beneath his eyes. Desmond must be very tired and in physical pain, Rianor suddenly realized. Strangely, he felt fine himself.

"High Lord, had I known yesterday what I know today, I would not have left you alone in the stables. Do me a favor, will you? Stop sending Robert away and wandering alone as you are apt to do. Or, no, Robert is just a manservant, that will no longer be enough. You should always have guards with you. Why is it now, of all times, that there is a former-noble Ber, and a Waltraud on top of that? I only know of three or four such other cases for more than seven hundred years of history. I thought she was dead."

"So did her family."

Rianor stared at a candle. "Or else they were very good actors. And I know that most nobles are—but Donald isn't. And I am wondering if the Bers would, after all, benefit House Waltraud. You saw what they did to Merlevine when she saw Donald."

"Perhaps only Donald didn't know about her. Perhaps all of the rest, herself included, were good actors."

"Perhaps. It is so little that we know, of
anything.
"

"In any case, there is a House that the Waltrauds hate even more than they hate us, and you have been told just which lady almost bled to death onto you yesterday, haven't you? Which lady's life you so obviously saved?"

"Mabelle of Laurent."

"Yes, High Lord Maurice's wife, whose son Merlevine of Waltraud murdered. Armand, the First Counselor of Laurent, sent a message of friendship to me today. I think the High Lord will send one personally to you. They owe us now. We should use this; we should see what information we can get from them, and if needed, what help."

"Excuse me?" That was Linden, who had been silent for some time. "Would you mind telling us what happened yesterday?"

Her eyes were too bright on her pale cheeks, and her good hand was cradling the bandaged one. She tried to stand—and sat back, her face paler and her eyes brighter. "Rianor, the rest of us
might
be of some help if we knew what exactly you two were talking about."

Well, it was true, Rianor had not yet told his own story. Linden, at least, might be of help, and of course Mathilda and Master Keitaro might, even though Rianor did not expect the old master to necessarily talk now. He often gave his help when least expected. As for the other women, Nan already knew the story, for she had heard it last night while caring for Desmond, and Rianor did not expect much help from Inni or Jenelly. Those two were only at Council because all lords and ladies of a House must be.

Right now Jenelly's face had acquired the greenish tint she'd had in the elevator—even the partial news must have been too much for her—and Inni was embroidering as if she had not heard anything, her fingers nimble, her face calm. Why did Rianor not simply send those two to sleep? Nan, too, come to think of it, for tonight she was too silent and shocked.