The Shattered Vine (27 page)

“And what of above-surface?”

“Crew reported one flag, a few hects to the eastward, just before dawn.”

Aron nodded, and noted that down. “Colors?”

The Captain hawked and spit onto the weathered planks of the deck. “Black.”

Pirates were on the rise since last winter, but that was none of their concern; these were not Caulic waters, and since the destruction of the fleet sent to find Atakus, few Caulic-backed vessels came this way to be disturbed by brigands. Let the local islands deal with these intruders, if they wished.

The
Hope
did not want to be here, not so near where their kin had disappeared, but Aron’s orders, and the Captain’s responsibility, were to follow any ships coming from outland, and note what they did, where they went, and if they interacted with any others on the seas.

Aron did not know why they had been set to this duty, and he did not wonder at it; he merely did as ordered, and trusted his master to make sense of his reports.

“Should we follow?”

Eastward was back toward the Vin Lands, back toward land. Odds were that the pirates, having also failed to locate the hidden port of Atakus, were now looking to raid the outlying islands to make some profit. They would not lead the
Hope of Rain
to anything useful.

Aron looked out over the endless waves, his eyes squinting closed against the reflection of the sunlight. On the other hand, if the pirates were truly desperate, they would not hesitate to attack another ship were they to encounter it, and might even go after one deliberately. The
Hope of Rain
would not tempt them, but any ship carrying an unknown banner could be carrying untold wealth in its hold. What surer way to find a school of fish than to follow a fish eater?

“Old man?”

Aron did not take affront at the sailor’s words, or his tone: he was,
in fact, an old man, and had seen and heard far more offensive things in his time.

“No,” he said finally, dropping his gaze from the glittering waves and back to the relatively soothing maps on his hand. “We are here now to watch over Invisible Atakus, and so we shall.”

T
he morning after
the Washer’s appearance, Jerzy began writing the details of the unfolding plan into the leather-bound journal he had found among his master’s belongings, the pages empty, as though waiting for him to begin. His lettering was not smooth, but Detta had taught him well enough to be legible, and he was determined to mark down as much as he could remember of what had occurred. Some day, however this ended, he might need to refer back . . . or someone else might need to know what happened.

He was the master of a House holding a conspiracy to undermine the Commands, laid down by a demigod, meant to safeguard the Lands Vin, for the good of the Lands Vin. Even if they succeeded, and survived, it would take some explaining to, well, explain.

The thought, in his exhaustion-thick mind, made him laugh, a short, harsh bark. If the Washers did not burn the vintnery, and everything in it, before they were done. If Ximen did not defeat them, destroy all traces of what had been, and take the Lands for his own, some prince-mage of old come again.

Jerzy put down the pen, blotting his work carefully, and stretched
his arms over his head, feeling muscles crackle. His eyes felt gritty, his face remained flushed no matter how much cold water he splashed on it, and somehow the facts seemed both muddy and clear in his mind. Only magic could defeat magic. Yet, magic could not be used—not in the quiet-magic form, the way it was most powerful—as a reliable, consistent weapon. Why not? Jerzy did not know—he was no scholar of Altenne, and he had no access to them, now, to ask.

“Rot, I don’t even know if they still
are
.” There had been no communication from that part of the Lands, despite birds sent to postings there. For all Jerzy knew, anything beyond the mountains, Altenne, and Corguruth, had fallen into chaos.

There was a pitcher of twice-brewed tai at his elbow, and he poured another mug and gulped it down, not even noticing the taste.

Somehow, Ximen was using blood to intensify and corrupt his magic, sending tendrils into unsuspecting lands, worms into unsuspecting ears, destroying even Vinearts who should have been protected. But how could they have known? So long in the balance, how could they have expected one of their own would war on them?

Jerzy knew him now, guarded against him. Was ready to turn the war back onto him, to balance the Lands again. Magic to magic.

Ximen would come. He could not refuse, not if he wanted—needed—the lure Jerzy held out, the hint of weathervines and unblooded grapes to graft onto his own twisted magic, the one piece he still lacked to become as the prince-mages of old.

And when he took the lure, when Ximen came looking for Jerzy directly, what then?

Magic to magic. Vinearts were not as the mages of legend. Quiet-magic, the innate strength of a Vineart, could not be used to attack, to initiate a strike. That had been the lesson of the fight session, Jerzy suspected. To defend, to repel, to injure, yes. The firespell, used offensively, to warn slaves off from where they should not be. A healspell, turned backward to cause weakness in an attacker. Defensive moves . . . no. Passive moves.

There was something in all that, the solution to everything, waiting for him, tied somehow to the awareness in his dreams. But unlike magic, the answer did not rise up when called, and unlike fighting, it did not come with practice. It merely lurked just out of reach, until Jerzy’s head ached from the effort of coaxing it closer. Or that might have been the lack of sleep; even as a slave, Jerzy had gotten a full night of sleep. Now, he was fortunate if he managed half that, and no amount of tai could compensate for long.

Jerzy shook his head and turned the page of the journal, inking the next letter with careful deliberation, letting the worry fade to the back of his mind. You could not harvest before the fruit was ready. Focus on the task at hand.

The slaves.

“I know.” He kept writing, trying to let himself think only of what he wanted to say, careful not to blot the page. Trust the Guardian to remind him of yet another problem to be dealt with. Not that he had forgotten it. Like Neth, the uncertainty of what that man’s arrival might bring, the unease nibbled at him.

A slave that would leave the yard without direct order, who would spy on his master . . . unusual. Two? Impossible. Even in these uncertain times, even with the changes occurring . . . it should have driven them to stay low, out of sight, not risk everything.

They were drawn to you.

The Guardian said no more, and Jerzy shook his head, not understanding.

They sensed the magic.

Understanding came, not from the Guardian’s words, but his own memory. They sensed it the way he had sensed it, as a slave, in the grapes he tended and harvested. The way he had known, somehow, that not-so-distant day, that the mustus from the first crush he had worked was not acceptable.

They had the Sense. They were potential Vinearts, being shaped and formed by the vines they tended.

Or they are being pushed by something else.
One slave with potential was rare enough, Malech had told him. Two at once, and willing to lurk and spy? It was out of the natural order. Jerzy had not sensed a taint around them, had not felt it anywhere other than in the birds that had attacked them, but that did not mean it did not exist. Jerzy could not bring himself to believe that the stone walls of the vineyards, and the stone wings of the Guardian, could protect them forever, or even for very long.

The world beyond pressed closer, the unrest in the world touching even here; his nightmares attested to that.

As though he summoned it, the sensation of roots growing and stretching upward underneath his feet returned, stronger and closer than before; a sense that all he need do was reach down and touch it, and . . .

And what? Jerzy hesitated, desire and fear holding him evenly. The Guardian pressed a sense of caution at him, a need to be careful. This was unknown, and therefore dangerous.

Jerzy twitched, for the first time feeling the Guardian’s weight not as comfort, but imposition, frustration. The nightmare frightened him, but at the same time it was seductive, the fear almost a thrill, the hint of something to come, if he would only take it in hand, take it into himself. Power. The kind of power that he needed, to match his enemy.

Driven by impulse, the need to prove that he was not afraid, that he was no longer a slave to stay low and hide from notice, that he knew what he was doing, Jerzy let himself reach out, following the seductive whisper that stroked along his skin, reached into his chest and pulled him in.

Power. Cold, fierce, and unrelenting, it rushed into his veins, scraped his skin, and made his mouth pucker as though he’d just taken a gulp of
vin magica
when he expected
ordinaire,
had inhaled fire instead of air. Roots, thick and twisting, deeper in the earth than any roots could grow, wrapped around salty rock and twisted through heavy flame, surging with a magic Jerzy had felt only once before, when he touched the feral vines of Irfan.

No. His body shuddered as though under assault. Not the unblooded vines, but similar. Deeper, wider, more vast; like being immersed in a vat of mustus that never ended, that constantly moved, bringing skins from the top and sending raw juice to the top, sucking in air and turning itself continually into something new, something fierce and cold and strong and too much for Jerzy to bear.

He dropped the connection, willing himself away, shooting through the dirt and back into the air, gasping for breath even as he shuddered, certain that there were tangles of root around his ankles, trying to pull him back in. It felt as though an entire day must have passed but the study was the same; the ink still wet on the page in front of him.

Jerzy waited for the dragon to say something, but it did not seem to notice anything unusual, still in its customary place over the doorframe, looking as though it had been carved out of the wall itself. Whatever he had just experienced, it had been his alone, so deep within his quiet-magic that even the Guardian could not follow.

Jerzy felt as though he should be staggering, woozy from too much ale, sick from the motion of the sea, although the ground was firm under his feet. Unblooded. Magic itself, unblooded. The word suddenly took on a new meaning, the taste of it flooding his mouth and nose. Envined magic, even the unblooded vines of Irfan, were softer, melded to those who worked it. Tamed and controlled, as Vinearts were tamed and controlled, each broken to the yoke of the other.

This was not a feral vine. This was
wild.

“Dragon.”

Yes?

“When the First Vine was broken . . . what happened to it?”

There was a long silence, and a sense of puzzlement.

“I mean . . .” Jerzy struggled to explain what he was asking. “The stories, the way the Washers tell it, they all say that Sin Washer’s blood ran through it, breaking it into the legacies.”

Yes.

“But what happened to it?” Not all the unblooded vines had been
changed; he knew that now, although he had not shared that fact with anyone, not even the Guardian. Did it know, anyway? How much did it simply take from his memories?

It changed. Became lesser.

And that, for the Guardian, was as far as the answer went. What had been was no more. But Jerzy, with the awareness of what lay deep underground, in the core of the world, was not so certain. Something remained there, fierce and cold, too powerful for any mortal to touch, much less use. But its existence might explain how Ximen reached so far, yet remained safe-rooted within his own yard.

The Vine: not broken but shattered. Not the First Growth, but what remained, ungentled by Sin Washer’s blood. Deep-seated roots, sunk into the bones of the world. Power, waiting below the surface.

Had his master known of it? Was this something he, Jerzy, would have learned, or would they have averted their eyes, letting what was beyond Command stay untouched, unused? Or had it been hidden for ages, the secret of apostates and fools?

And if a Vineart were to match that cold power, and blood?

Giordan’s single drop of blood, to tame an entire cask of mustus. Ximen’s creatures, filled with blood. Magic in their blood, the connection between magic and creature. Whispers in the ear, whispers in the blood, turning men from their traditional roles, cracking the foundations of the world.

His own blood felt cold, sluggish in the aftermath, the power he had touched leaving him raw and small.

Something bothers you.

Jerzy paused and glared up at the Guardian. Had he known it, he was a perfect echo of Master Malech, caught mid-thought by the Guardian’s prodding.

“Something? Everything.” The sickness turned from cold to heat as Jerzy let his anger rise. “Call me Vineart if it suits you, let others treat me as I am, but in truth I’m scarce more than a student myself, and no idea if we’ll survive another week, much less a year. We play at magic, we
play at power, but the truth is as far beyond us as the valley is to a worm, the ocean to a single fish. And the others, they think I can . . . I can do something. Anything. And I can’t. Not without destroying everything I’m supposed to save.”

The fury ran down from him as suddenly as it came, leaving him panting like a tired dog. Lashing out against the Guardian served no purpose.

“And now these slaves . . . anything that is out of season, now, is suspect, Guardian. Even slaves.”

There was a sense of something moving in the air around him, slow and heavy.
If they are a threat . . .

Jerzy felt hollowed out and dry. Too much piled onto him, too much to bear. But the Guardian was right. If the Washers themselves had been influenced, then nothing could be secure. A slave who was drawn to magic, who had even the merest glimmer of the sense, was a potential Vineart. Rare, searched for. Worth all the rest of the slaves together. Two, in one season? It might be to balance out those who had been lost . . . or they might be tainted. A slave who had the Sense could so easily be pulled in by Ximen’s whispers, taken whole, without the ability to resist.