The Shattered Vine (22 page)

The loss of Master Malech was a fading pain after so many months, but Jerzy felt it keenly in that moment.

“Again?”

“Again,” Jerzy agreed.

He reclaimed the cudgel, and they resumed position for another round, Kaï looking thoughtful under his sweat, Jerzy trying to focus again on the task at hand, putting all other thoughts out of his head, as Cai had taught him.

It came with no warning; a faint indrawn breath, and then the wooden sword came swinging at him, Kaïnam’s entire body in the blow, with no intent of pulling back at the last instant, no practice involved but a killing move, a fighter’s strike. Jerzy had no time to do anything other than react, raising the quiet-magic in an instinctive defense against the weapon, even as he was aware of Kaïnam shifting his balance, one foot sweeping out to catch him off guard.

Instead, Jerzy stepped over the foot as he would a tangled vine, and found himself within Kaïnam’s inner guard just as his first weapons master had taught him, close enough to lay hands on the other man.

Dropping his cudgel, he did so, palms flat against Kaïnam’s chest, the magic rising within him even as he moved, instinctively calling on the quiet-magic, feeling not only the firewine but healwine as well move to his command.

“Sin Washer!” Startled, Kaïnam leaped backward, his sword still clenched in his hands, his eyes wide in a suddenly ashen face. “What the rot did you just do?”

Jerzy’s mind had gone blank. “What did it feel like?”

“Like . . . like all the warmth in my body fled, all at once.”

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you.” Jerzy was sweating, as though he were
standing under a summer’s sun, not pale winter light. “It shouldn’t have hurt you, only made you stop. I think.”

“You think?” Kaïnam shook his head, letting his sword lower slowly until it was in resting pose, while Jerzy struggled to find the words to explain what he didn’t understand himself. “No, don’t tell me. Sin Washer had the right of it, there are some things it’s best ordinary folk not know, nor poke fingers in. Just remember what you did, when you knew it was for real, and see if you can do it again.”

“Yes.” Jerzy looked thoughtfully at his hands. “But not today. I need to think about this.”

J
erzy ended the
session sweaty and his head still filled with too many questions. Rather than heading back to the House, he skirted the yard, walking around the great stone sleep house where he had spent so many nights, avoiding the slaves who were working outside, down to the river that bordered the House lands. The River Ivy was a rushing torrent in the spring, but in winter slowed to a steady flow, the water cold enough to pucker skin, and just deep enough to douse a body without risk of drowning.

Jerzy had learned to swim, slightly, when they were at sea, but he felt more comfortable when his feet were firmly on the ground. Plunging into the currents over and over again until his skin and thoughts were both washed clear, Jerzy put his clothing back on, and headed back to his workroom.

While the other three went about their work of gathering information from beyond the vintnery walls, the Household staff pretending that there were no concerns other than preparing meals and caring for stock and tools, Jerzy pulled down every text and manuscript
in Malech’s library, poring over the pages until his eyes crossed and his head ached.

What he had done with Kaï, that touch, that had been purely quiet-magic. He could repeat it, if he were ever in close combat again, as he had been with the merchant back in Irfan. Had he known that trick then, the man would not have escaped. If the man had not escaped, they would have more detailed information than what his assistant had knowledge of, and Jerzy would know where to direct the attack the others were urging him to make.

The regret was useless, and put aside.

But why had the spell worked against the slaves, and not when it was directed against Kaï, during practice?

“Guardian. Is there anything you know, anything to explain why the firespell works some times, but not all?”

A sense of cool, blank stone came back to him. If the Guardian knew anything, it was not sharing it. That meant it did not approve, or felt Jerzy was doing something wrong . . . but he was no longer the slave or student to be scolded, but master, and as such the Guardian was tasked to follow and protect, not instruct. Jerzy reminded himself of that, but the sense that he was somehow wrong stayed with him.

Vinearts stood apart. And yet . . . there was the text about Bradhai, who had defeated the sea serpents generations ago. He had not stood apart, but had gone in search of battle . . . against beasts, true, not men, but was there a difference? Jerzy searched through the papers until he found what he was looking for, not even noticing when several priceless sheets were pushed off the table and onto the stone floor.

“And the Vineart stood in the prow, a vat of the strongest weatherwine to be found, and called upon the storms, and called upon the seas, and called upon the flame . . .”

Three legacies. The Master Vineart had braided three legacies into one, on the seas, no less, surrounded by water, to strike a blow to destroy an entire pack of sea serpents.

Bradhai. No one bothered with “Master Vineart” before his name, because there was no need. There was only one Bradhai. None before, none since, had managed anything close.

Of course, the text Jerzy had in front of him was not a history, exactly. It was the retelling of a man who had been told what happened. Master Malech would snort and say it was merely a legend, as useful as a story of the silent gods.

But it was all Jerzy had to work with.

He stared at the text, his finger tracing the brown lettering, the gilt-picked design at the edge of the page, the slight stain at the corner, and felt an uneasy twitch on his skin, as though a spider walked along his flesh, only deeper. There were other stories in these pages as well, references to the horrors committed by the vine-mages when they ruled the Lands Vin. Stories of mages who ordered a town destroyed to expand a yard, or sent men to their death in a battle that meant nothing save ego and bragging rights for a season . . . and more, of women taken from their homes to breed children for the prince-mages, and children who disappeared, and worse. Rumors, legends, stories to scare those who came after into obedience to Sin Washer’s Command.

Jerzy let a sigh escape him. Vinearts did not take part in the world. And yet, if he was to keep Ximen from destroying the Lands Vin, what choice did Jerzy have but to take part, to do as Bradhai had, and turn his magic to counter it?

The Guardian worried, but said nothing.

The question weighed on Jerzy’s mind through the evening meal, making short answer to conversation until the others left him alone. It kept him company on his evening walk through the vineyard as he felt the ground sleeping under his feet and the cooling breeze on his skin. It even pushed aside the usual dreams that night, leaving him awake well before dawn, staring at the shadowed plaster of the ceiling, exhausted and shattered, his eyes so grainy he could barely open them, his muscles slack and aching.

He could feel the answer moving, deep, out of reach but coming
closer. He could not rush it, any more than he could rush the fruit ripening, but the need to
do
something screamed at him.

When the first sounds of dawn began, Jerzy got up, washed his face, drew on warm clothing, and walked quietly to the front path, where Mahault was already waiting, her face turned up to the starlit sky, watching a dark-feathered bird as it rustled its feathers sleepily, perched on a bare tree limb. They had fallen into the habit of walking together before the morning meal, both of them in need of some time where no conversation was required, comfortable with their own thoughts and each other’s company, the way neither Ao nor Kaïnam ever could.

She turned to acknowledge him, and they started walking without a word, heading down the cobbled road, away from the yard and toward the main road. Never past the marker, never off safe grounds, but as far as Jerzy could go, without risk of exposing himself.

The point of decision was coming. Jerzy could feel it in his skin. No matter if he was ready or not, he would have to act. The months they had sailed, their enemy would not have been idle, and while it was winter in The Berengia, they had experienced firsthand how the seasons were reversed there, which meant the enemy would be coming into the Harvest.

If Jerzy were to launch an attack, it would be then, once there were no more worries about weather—

“There was no damage to the yield.”

“What?” Mahault stopped to look at him, her expression curious.

“Detta said the harvest went smoothly. There was no damage. There should have been damage.”

“Jer, you aren’t making any sense.”

“There haven’t been any major storms in . . . years,” Jerzy went on, now speaking to himself, pacing back along the edge of the road, his gaze scanning the top of the sleeping vines, occasionally lifting up to the shadow-dark ridge beyond. A slave, carrying something from the sleep house across the road to the stables, was caught off guard by Jerzy’s sudden change in direction and scurried out of his way, but the Vineart
barely noticed. “Not since the hailstorm that destroyed the secondary field in the north. And nobody else has reported anything, not beyond the normal. In all that has been odd, that has been utterly . . . quiet.”

“And that is a bad thing?” Mahault was trying to follow his thoughts, and failing. “Aren’t storms bad?”

“Very bad,” he said, halting in his pacing long enough to answer her. She did not seem to take offense when he started walking again, merely waited for him to come back.

“Grapes are fragile,” he said on his return, speaking intently, as though he could make her understand by force of will alone. “Too much rain, not enough rain, too much sun, too little sun, a fungus or insects or a hundred other things can destroy the yield, make the grapes unusable, or drain the roots so much that all we get is
vin ordinaire.
”

“And . . . ?” Mahault shook her head, still not following. “You’re worried because you’ve not had any disasters?” Of all the things they had on their platter, that obviously seemed foolish to her.

“Think about it, Mahl,” he said, his voice tight with impatience. “If you wanted to undermine Vinearts, spread fear through the lands, cause the lords to snap the restrictions placed on them so that they were in clear violation of Sin Washer’s Commands . . . sending a drought, or a terrible storm, would cripple that Vineart for the season, force him to rely on older stock, if he had it, or do without, if he did not.”

“Weaken and distract the Vineart so that he would be caught off guard by a later strike.” Mahault began to see where Jerzy was thinking, now. “But there hasn’t been any of that.”

“No. Nothing that caused anyone significant worry, weather-wise. This is a man who sends out sea serpents, who drove root-blight into vineyards and swarms to attack travelers. Who had seabirds dive out of the sky, hours from the coastline. Think like Kaïnam for a moment. Our enemy is dangerous, but he is not subtle, nor does he favor any one tool. So why is he not using this particular tool?”

Mahault had no hesitation about her own intelligence, or how much
she had learned since leaving Aleppan, but she had also learned when to wait, and listen. The air was still and cold, and she pulled the sleeves of her heavy hide jacket down over her hands. Normally by now they would be walking quickly enough that the cold would be an incentive, not an annoyance.

She started walking again, thinking it through out loud. “No rain or winds . . . when we were at sea we encountered one storm, but only the one.”

Jerzy, caught off guard, had to stretch his legs to catch up. She was referring to the storm that had wrecked their first ship and driven them to where Kaïnam met them.

“I had assumed that was his work,” Jerzy said, “our enemy, but I never was certain. There was no way to prove it, one way or the other. A spellwine carries trace, quiet-magic carries a trace, but the effects of the magic itself . . . it fades as soon as the magic itself does. More, windspells travel so far, and if Kaï himself had been using one; all it would take would be a few to match . . . and the smell of the taint could have been from the serpents.” He was speaking to himself again, his mind turning over what he knew too quickly to explain to Mahault, even if she could understand.

Puffs of air appeared and then disappeared in front of their mouths as they breathed. The sun had risen enough now to cover the valley in a clear purple haze, and the air was still chill; Mahault was shivering, even under the jacket, but Jerzy had forgotten all about the cold.

“He has no weathervines.”

Jerzy’s tone was so triumphant, Mahault forgot about petty things like chilblains, waiting for him to explain.

“A
WEAKNESS
.” K
AïNAM’S
voice was low and fierce, like a cat that had just pounced on a particularly clever mouse.

“Not a weakness,” Jerzy corrected him, tearing off a chunk of bread and then waving it at Kaï as he gestured for emphasis. “Vinearts rarely
are called by more than two legacies, and most are limited by skill and soil to a single one. And you must never forget that any Vineart can do more with a spellwine than merely decant it.”

Quiet-magic: the greatest secret, kept nearly two thousand years, and he, Jerzy, had told not one but three outsiders. That was the very least of his worries now.

“More, I would not dare call this Ximen weak, given that he has learned how to reach across distances to work his spells, something that should have been impossible. But this—if I am right, he lacks at least one legacy, and that is the first real information we’ve learned. He lacks them, and he needs them. Either weathervines or—or the feral vines, like those in Irfan.”

Jerzy could see that he had lost them, and tried to explain.