The Shattered Vine (14 page)

Ao swallowed hard, obviously remembering the beast falling on him as it died, the thick, spellbound blood splattering him. “Could . . . this be done to humans?”

Jerzy had spent the morning putting together everything they’d seen and heard, to one inescapable conclusion. “I think it already has.”

He had thought to shock them. His companions, however, had been less sheltered than he, as a slave.

“The aide in my father’s court, and the merchant in Irfan? You think they were . . . like that? Not coerced or seduced but twisted, changed? Like those birds?” Mahault’s tone was doubtful, but more of her own understanding than the possibility of its truth.

“It makes sense. These birds, the twisted form he perfected with the serpents, the control he had over men”—and Jerzy noted how, despite having a name for their enemy, none of them used it now, as though trying not to attract his attention—”he’s going deeper. He’s not casting them onto his victims, he’s . . . blending them.”

Jerzy had tried blending spellwines before rather than using the established incantations or crafting new ones. They had gone wrong, filling the study with a noxious fume, or given back unpredictable results, like the masthead on the
Vine’s Heart
that still left him uneasy for all that it seemed like a mark of Sin Washer’s favor.

He was nowhere as skilled as their enemy. He did not use blood. Jerzy swallowed around a strangely dry throat, almost afraid to bring up moisture in his disordered state. What could their enemy do, if he had mastered that?

“The earlier attempts were lighter, touching only the surface of his targets. Like the spell used on us, it pushed a natural reaction, made
what was already there stronger, more likely to be acted upon.” Anger, or greed, or fear. They had resisted only because Jerzy realized what was happening, had felt the taint and warned them.

“The whisperers in my father’s ear, the one who murdered Kaï’s sister . . . they acted of free will.” Mahault sounded less certain than she wanted to be, however.

“Ximen took what was there, fear or greed or anger, and used it to his own ends, crafting it the way I would the crush, into something more potent, something that could take direction.”

Blood and flesh and bone and magic.

“If he has progressed to the point where he can twist living things to go against their base nature, twist his own desire into theirs . . .”

Magic could not make a person do what it did not want to do, merely bring forward thoughts, desires, that were buried deep. That was dangerous enough. Changing those desires to suit another’s needs or desires? Forcing a being to go against its nature?

Abomination. The act of a prince-mage.

“To do such a thing, and at such a distance . . .” Kaïnam had already come to the same conclusion Jerzy had been circling around, unable to accept until now. They looked at each other, gray eyes and brown equally worried.

“How?” Ao asked, always curious, even when he looked a little ill at the thought of what that progression could mean.

“I don’t know.” Jerzy stopped speaking to them, and was talking to himself. “I need to know. If I can understand it, I can—” He could do what? Defeat it? Stop it? Use it himself? The thought, the memory, of the taint, coiled inside the bird, made him want to gag. What kind of man—and magic—could do such a thing? An ordinary man might decant a spell without harm or influence, but a Vineart could not separate the two: the man made the magic, the magic . . . created the man. Magic so twisted . . .

Jerzy did not have the time to chase that notion down further, as
Kaïnam had already gone to a more immediate, tactical concern. “Those beasts found you there, on the open road. Can you stop them from attacking here, from influencing us?”

Jerzy bit the inside of his lip, instinctively checking for his quiet-magic, although he did not call it. “I think so.” Malech had not been able to protect himself when attacked, but he had not understood the nature of what he faced. Once Jerzy understood, the Guardian had kept the taint out. Both of them here, forewarned . . . yes. He could keep this place safe.

“Then, while you do that, we will prepare a counterattack, taking advantage of his ocean-blindness.” Kaïnam, for the first time in weeks, looked as though he anticipated something rather than dreading it. “Our knowledge, our contacts, and your magic. We are stronger than any single man, no matter what he has done.”

Jerzy, still worried, nonetheless felt some of the weight slide away. He was Vineart. But he was not alone.

He could feel the Guardian worry, not certain that this was wise, but it did not interfere.

“We’re going to need more information,” Ao said, claiming his own role with relief. “Jer, you have a pigeon coop?”

“In the stables. One of the slaves handles them; he will be able to bring you whatever you need.” He looked at the three of them: Kaïnam, the fierce and proud prince, as much advisor as warrior; Ao, equal amounts worry and mischief in his eyes, his body canted with excitement; Mahault, cool and strong, like a well-tempered blade waiting to be brought to bear. In that instant, Jerzy understood something he hadn’t before. He didn’t know quite what it was, had no word for it, no incantation to make it take form. But it made his throat sore, and his eyes itch.

“What we’re doing . . . whatever comes now . . .” He tried to make them each understand, meeting their gazes as he spoke. “There is no justification under the Commands; I will be in complete apostasy. We have no proof of Ximen’s existence, no court of judgment we may
appeal to. The Collegium will have no doubt and no hesitation in killing me, in taking down all of House Malech. I don’t know what they might do to you, perhaps nothing, but . . .”

“And the other option is what?” Mahault tucked a strand of pale yellow hair back into her braid, her gaze steady on his even as her hand shook a little. “To sit and wait, and let whatever happens, happen? To hide, and hope it blows over without touching us? That whatever our enemy wants, it will end well?”

“The Washers,” Jerzy tried again, and Ao made a wet, rude noise, and the words came out of him like a flood, cutting off anything the Vineart had meant to say. “The Washers have chosen their ground, Jer, and it’s right smack in the middle, like merchants who have nothing to sell and don’t want to buy, but don’t want anyone else to sell or buy, either.” The weight of frustration and fear pushed his words out hard, as though it were all he could do to keep up. “I’m not a Vineart, or a lord, or anything that’s important, by Sin Washer’s rule, but I didn’t go through all this”—and although he didn’t draw any attention to his missing limbs, they might as well have been bleeding anew for how aware the others were of the hard-scabbed stumps under the blanket—“to sit back and let someone else decide my fate.”

He took a heavy breath, and Mahault added, “If we stop now, then what was it all for?”

She did not specify “it.” She did not have to. They had all sacrificed to reach this point, this place.

Jerzy looked at Kaïnam, who merely looked back, waiting. The princeling had his own reasons for being there, for wanting the mage not only stopped, but exposed.

They had been running so long, trying merely to stay one step ahead of those who chased Jerzy, trying to discover what had caused all this, who was behind the attacks, and then to come home, one question had never the chance to surface, much less be asked.

“Why me?” he said finally, as much to the Guardian, or the vines, as the three around him. “Why do you trust me to decide what we will do,
where we will go?” He was Vineart, he knew magic, but they were all more experienced in these things of power and conflict, even Mahault. He was a slave, who—no matter what he had seen or done—knew the stone boundaries of his yard, the slats of a wine barrel, the cycle of a Harvest, not what happened in the outside world.

He wasn’t expecting an answer. To his surprise, he got one.

“Because you transform us,” Ao said, and for once there was no humor in his voice, no spark of mischief hiding in his eyes. “Jer, before I met you, all I ever wanted was to be the same as my father and brothers. Being part of a trader delegation, thinking only of the deal and the advantage, planning of the day I’d lead a caravan myself, it was enough, until I saw you in the hallway in Aleppan. I thought I could teach you something, for a laugh, and instead . . .” he searched for the words to express what he meant, but floundered. “Whatever it is that makes grapes into spellwines, you do that with people. You give us something to make us greater.” His nose and mouth scrunched in dislike, as though his words tasted off, and added, “Or, at least, different.”

Mahl had obviously thought about this before, as the moment Ao paused, she leaped in. “You’re not afraid of change. We’ve all done the same thing for so long, calling it tradition, or Commands, or whatever reason we had, that even when someone else came in and changed things, we were stuck in our same responses—or worse, we panicked, flailed around and made things worse. Are still making things worse. Something is wrong, and we circled around it, but couldn’t see, and couldn’t do anything. You saw; you did something. And you made your choices out of what was needed, not fear. That’s why.”

Jerzy listened to the words, but did not recognize himself in them. Fear? Since returning home, since opening that creature and seeing what waited inside, decaying even as he studied it, he had been afraid, and not even the weight of the Guardian’s presence against his mind or the rooted strength of the vineyard could counteract the growing fear that they were too small, too weak, and too unprepared, that the
coming storm would blow them over, all of them, and beat them down until there was no chance of recovery, no opportunity to regrow.

“With your permission, Vineart.” Kaïnam was in formal mode, standing like a soldier in front of him, or a captain, waiting for word of the tide. “If we are to build a defense against our enemy, we will need ears and hands in the world beyond, as well as magic within. I would follow Trader Ao’s lead and make use of the pigeon cote in order to send messages out to those who might answer our call.”

And there, Kaï hit at the heart of the matter. Vinearts were not meant to interact with the rest of the world. Their lives were contained within the walls of their vineyards, their efforts concentrated within the limits of their legacies. The command of men was forbidden them.

If Jerzy had changed his companions, they were changing him as well. He looked up to where the dragon crouched on the roof, its stone claws curled around the edge, tail curled around its hindquarters. Slave to student. Student to Vineart. Vineart to . . . what? His earlier uncertainty bloomed again. There was no tradition here, no legacy to guide him. He had no idea what he was supposed to do.

The dragon’s blunt gray muzzle turned, the blind eyes looking directly at him.

Vineart crushes what the Harvest brings.

Jerzy turned back to Kaïnam and nodded once, his face stiff, trying to remember how Master Malech had looked when he came to Agreement on something, aware that on his face such an expression looked more foolish than formidable. “Yes,” he said, not only in response to Kaï’s formal request. “Yes.”

Ao exhaled, a relived gust of wind. “Let’s get to it, then, O Princeling.” He turned his chair, intending to leave, but the back wheel jammed hard enough that Ao winced as a shock ran through his stumps. Jerzy and Mahault watched as the trader tried to get the chair moving again, both of them straining to help, but aware that it would not be welcomed. Finally, in disgust, Ao had Kaïnam back the chair up and lift the
younger man through the doorway, careful not to jar his upper body. The princeling did so without comment, coming back to reclaim the chair and push it easily through the door.

“It must hurt,” Mahault said softly. “The pain, every day . . .”

Jerzy felt guilt push at him, that he had not immediately found the right healspell to complete Ao’s healing. Never mind that they had been home only a day and the beast-bird had taken priority, never mind that the serpent’s teeth had torn away Ao’s legs mid-thigh and he had been bleeding so fiercely all of the quiet-magic within Jerzy had been spent sealing off those wounds before he had no more blood left to spill, that the trader would have died on the spot had Jerzy not been there. If Jerzy had not been there, Ao would not have had to rescue him in the first place.

“Hurts less than dying,” Jerzy said brusquely, now. It was the answer Master Malech or Detta might have given. It was the answer he believed. He wondered, not for the first time, if it was the answer Ao would have given.

“It wasn’t an accusation,” Mahl said softly, her hand warm on his shoulder, fingers curling against the cloth of his shirt. “This is war. People get hurt.”

But Ao was not a fighter, had never trained in anything save the battle of words and wits. If he had changed Ao . . . was it for the better?

Jerzy looked at Mahl, remembering the last time they had been together in this same place, the day she had said there was no place for her within the walls of the House of Malech, when she had gone to chase after her dream of becoming a solitaire.

Everyone made sacrifices.

“Do you regret it? Not going with the solitaire?”

“With Keren?” Mahault took the question under consideration, not dashing off a response the way Ao might have, but it was only a minute before she shook her head, her smile sad but sweet. “Mahault, daughter of Niccolo, maiar of Aleppan had dreams. Mahl, sword-second to Kaïnam, honored in service to the House of Malech? This is . . . real. This is where I am meant to be.”

Jerzy met her gaze, his face composed and calm, and something in his throat eased.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he admitted.

“You’ll figure it out,” she said, letting her hand fall away. “You always do.”

M
AHL’S WORDS, AND
the sight of Ao carried like a helpless babe, drove Jerzy not to the vineyards, although he felt the urge to return, but down the stone stairs to his master’s workrooms. His workrooms, now. His cellar.