The Shattered Vine (37 page)

He was talking too much, too fast. They already knew what they needed to know. Jerzy stopped, pushed his shoulders back, took a deep breath, not looking at the other three in the room.

“It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that there is a spell that works through mirrors. This,” and Jerzy indicated the mirror propped up against the wall, “has always been in Master Malech’s study,
propped up at an angle that reflected nothing. Not until the spell was decanted.”

Mahault stepped forward, looking into the mirror. It was as wide across as Jerzy could reach, and almost as tall as he was—when he had first seen it, his entire length had fit easily within the silvered depths—framed by delicate gold and silver wires worked into lifelike vines. As Jerzy had said, nothing—not even her form, directly in front of it—reflected in the dull silvered surface.

“This . . . can be spoken through?”

“Yes.” Jerzy hoped so, anyway. He had never used the small hand mirror Malech had given him, so he wasn’t sure exactly how it worked. The boy he had been would not dared have asked Malech for specifics or details, but trusted that his master would tell him whatever he needed to know.

“And he would have . . . eventually,” Jerzy said softly.

“What?”

“Nothing. I just . . . there is a notation in one of Master Malech’s cellar books that I think is the right decantation.” The problem was, the notation had not specified which legacy to use. It would not be a healing spell, Jerzy was quite certain of that, and Malech had not used weatherspells overmuch, so that was unlikely . . . that left fire, earth, and aether.

Earth seemed an odd choice, considering the mirror was not made of living things. He would put that aside for the moment. That left fire and aether.

“Aether is rare, and expensive. I would say that pointed to fire . . . except that Master Malech did not use this spell easily, so it would not have been of his making.”

“So, aether,” Ao said, confident as a master.

“That would be my thought.”

“And you cast this decantation and it . . . does what?”

Jerzy ran a hand over his face, noting with surprise that his chin was
scratchy. He did not have to shave more than a few times a week, but he must have forgotten. A quick look into a smaller mirror, faceup on the table in front of him, confirmed the suspicion. His chin was indeed covered with dark red stubble.

The mirror also revealed the fact that his eyes were blue-shadowed, and his cheeks hollow from stress and lack of sleep, and Jerzy thought that perhaps there was a reason that, for all its wealth, House Malech did not contain many mirrors.

“I’m not sure exactly what it does,” Jerzy said slowly, reluctantly. “This mirror’s old, older than Malech—he inherited it from his master, along with the yards. I think it . . . the decantation
should
form a connection between the large mirror and the ones I made for you.” Mahault, Ao, and Kaïnam each stepped forward at that, and picked up one of the smaller mirrors: actually, three shards broken from a larger piece and the edges smoothed with a firespell so that they would not cut their owners.

“And then we speak into it, and you see us? Hear us?” Ao looked absolutely fascinated, while Kaïnam appeared slightly queasy.

“Yes.”

“Amazing. If only they weren’t so fragile—we would lose more on a caravan than we could recoup in sales, I suspect. Although . . .”

“Ao. This is not a tradesgood.”

“Everything someone wants can be a tradesgood, Jer,” Ao said in return, but his tone was light enough to be teasing. “All right, we can wait for another day to discuss it. Do whatever it is you’re going to do.”

“Bring me your mirror,” Jerzy said, reaching for the aeatherwine flask. “Lean it against the wall, like that,” and he indicated the wall opposite the mirror, so that the surfaces could reflect into each other.

Ao did so and then stepped back, while Jerzy poured the spellwine into his tasting spoon and lifted it to his tongue.

Aetherwine seemed to change its personality every time he tasted it. Here, it was smooth and sweet, almost overripe the way late summer fruit became when it hung too long on the tree. Jerzy let it soak into the
surface of his tongue, breathing in the aroma until it filled his awareness and he could feel the odd tickling tingle of the spellwine beginning to rise.

Turning, he touched the larger mirror with his hand, letting the Guardian guide him as he imagined the mirror behind him, asking the larger mirror to recognize it, identify it, own it.

“Reflect and return,” he told the larger mirror, waiting until the surface shimmered slightly in acknowledgment, and then turned to the smaller one. “Return and reflect.” It took longer, the smaller sheet seeming to resist the order, until it, too, shimmered and fogged over. Jerzy felt a click inside him, as though the two surfaces had been pieced together, and swallowed the spellwine, his “go” barely audible even to himself.

“Sometimes you command,”
he could hear Malech telling him, a long-ago lecture.
“And sometimes you coax. Knowing the difference can make all of the difference.”

“Did it work?” Ao waited, staring at the smaller mirror with fascination.

“There’s ever only one way to know,” Jerzy said. He tried to hide his uncertainty, stepping back to allow Ao to reclaim the smaller mirror.

“So, what do I do?”

“Place your hand on the mirror, and repeat the decantation. Words, hear. Words return.”

Ao repeated the spell, his voice steady, and the surface of his mirror cleared, reflecting first his own round face, scrunched up in concentration, and then fogged over again. When it recleared, it showed not Ao’s face, but the lower half of Jerzy’s body, where he stood in front of the larger mirror.

The larger mirror, on the other hand, now showed Ao’s face.

“That . . . is the most incredible thing I have ever seen.”

There was an odd lapse: Jerzy could hear Ao’s voice behind him, while he watched the mirror-figure’s mouth move, and then a second later, he heard the words again from the mirror’s surface.

“Incredible,” Ao said again, before Mahault stepped forward, her face bright with anticipation. “And now mine!”

Jerzy, still puzzling over the lapse between seeing and hearing, shook his head and turned around, directing her to put her shard where Ao’s had been.

“I need you to stand between the two mirrors.”

“What?” That made Mahault look slightly alarmed. “You didn’t ask Ao to do that.”

“Ao is already connected to the House.” He didn’t look at Ao’s vine-grafted legs, but the implication was clear. “This . . . I need to . . . introduce you to the mirror.”

This wasn’t part of Master Malech’s incantation: the understanding what needed to be done must come from the dragon: it knew more than even it was aware, absorbing it all those years of watching Malech work from its perch above the door. He would not trust the earlier
vina-
connection here. Not for this.

“All right.” She stood in the middle, slightly closer to her own mirror, and waited, her hands at her hips and anticipation in every bone of her body.

This time, before Jerzy decanted the spell, he called up his own quiet-magic and, one hand pressed to the flat of the main mirror, extended the other toward Mahault. “Touch my hand. Palm to palm.”

Her hand was cool and slightly sweaty, and when he invited the mirror to acknowledge her, something sparked between their palms, making her gasp, although she did not pull away.

“It’s done?”

Jerzy nodded. “I think so.” He dropped his hand and asked the mirror to find Mahault. The surface shimmered again, then showed Mahault . . . but from an odd angle, as though the mirror were placed by the doorway, not against the wall.

Mahault let out an exclamation of surprise and awe, as though she had never seen magic decanted before. “Ao’s right. That spell is . . .”

“Is limited to those who are connected to the main mirror,” Jerzy reminded her. “And it requires quiet-magic to operate.”

“Oh.”

“And, no,” he said, before Ao could even open his mouth, “I hear what you’re thinking and no, I don’t know how to make the main mirror, and even if I did I would not try and change the spell so that anyone could decant it. There is a reason Vinearts are held to their vineyards, remember? And part of it is so that magic like this doesn’t get into the larger world.”

Ao started to protest, and Jerzy overrode him ruthlessly. “Don’t you understand?
This is a prince-mage spell
. If anyone knew I had it, could use it, they would assume that
I
was the one behind the attacks!”

The truth of that silenced even Ao.

A
S HE HAD
a season before, Jerzy once again found himself standing at the edges of the House, watching his friends ride away. Kaïnam had departed that morning, to connect with the Caulic ships heading for Atakus. Now Mahault, too, was leaving, although merely heading northwest, following up on her plan to meet with the solitaires under Agreement with Lord Ranulf.

“You think that this will work?”

Mahault finished checking the saddle band, pressing her elbow into the horse’s belly until it exhaled and allowed her to tighten the buckle, and turned to face the Vineart.

“I don’t know. Keren said he would welcome another fighter, and not ask closely about my training. Once I’m there, I should be able to make some noise.”

Jerzy had already set the cat among pigeons with the Washers; now it was Mahault’s turn. Her plan had been simple: if Kaïnam was right, and their enemy was finally attacking by sea, then they needed to distract his attention, make him less able to protect the ships against Caul’s attack.

A band of solitaires riding the Berengian coastline, calming fears and training villagers to properly defend their land, might attract more attention, and require the enemy to put more of his energy into that, allowing Jerzy more time to prepare.

“If Ranulf lets you redirect his hires . . .”

“If I choose my words properly,” she said with a smile, “he won’t have a choice. Keren and the others will present it to him as a finished Agreement.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Ao.”

“Most likely,” she agreed comfortably. “Jer . . .”

“It’s all right.” And it was. Unlike Mahault, Jerzy hadn’t seen Kaïnam’s leaving as any kind of betrayal, and he understood why she was riding off now. The fact that there was a hollow feeling in his chest had nothing at all to do with that, nor the fact that he had not been sleeping at all, recently. Every time he closed his eyes, the Root pushed at him, seeking entrance he dared not give. But the worry that chewed at him now was directed outward, not in. They would handle the physical world, the politics and power. Magic was his responsibility. His alone.

“Be careful,” he told her.

“Survive to be paid, that’s the solitaire way,” she quipped, then pulled him into a rough hug.

And then she was gone, swinging into the saddle and riding down the road and out of sight.

The House was no quieter with her gone; the normal noises came from the kitchen, where Lil had everyone working on the day’s meals. Jerzy looked to the right, toward his study, and then turned left instead.

The first time he had come into the House, the dirt of the yards still ground into his skin, his sweat smelling like the sleep house, the kitchen had been the single familiar thing he encountered. Shinier, cleaner, more controlled than the sleep house’s kitchen, there was nonetheless a calming sameness to it.

Then, Lil had been one of the kitchen children, learning how to run a House from Detta. Now she was Cook, and the kitchen was her domain.

“And don’t turn too quickly,” she was instructing a small child sitting by the great fireplace. The towheaded youngster nodded, almost comically intent on his chore of turning the spit. Jerzy frowned; had
Detta mentioned taking on new servants? She must have, and he must have nodded, but he had no recollection of the event. Still. Detta was House-keeper precisely so that he need not. Just as he now left the physical details with Kaï and Mahault.

Lil saw him come into the kitchen and nodded, a tight gesture that didn’t take her attention away from any of the other things occurring, turning to follow the action. “Roan, halve the dough, we’ll need less bread this week. And get the meat from the icehouse before you begin the grinding. Will someone please stir that pot, before it overboils?”

Jerzy picked a meat roll off a platter as he sidled through, passing it from hand to hand so that it did not burn his skin.

“Vineart, there is break-fast already on the table,” Lil said, knowing even with her back to him that he’d pilfered food. “Go eat.”

Ao was at the table, a stack of papers at one elbow, a mug of ale at the other. He looked up when Jerzy entered the dining hall. “She off?”

“Yes. You didn’t say good-bye?”

The trader looked down at the papers. “No. And I didn’t say it to Kaïnam, either. You say good-bye, people think they’ve closed negotiations.”

“She’s annoyed with me.”

“Of course she is.”

Jerzy sat down, taking a bite out of the roll and wiping his now-greasy hands on his trou’s leg. “Of course?”

“She wants you to do something already, make a move, finally launch your attack. Or at least tell her about what you’re going to do, so she can see it laid out on a map and markers.”

“I did tell her. I told all of you.” The tai smelled good, a sure sign that he needed sleep, although he had managed to doze for a few hours the night before, once all their plans had been set in motion. He poured himself a mug and gulped it down.

Ao laughed, and looked up again from his notes. “Jer, the one thing I’ve learned is that you Vinearts look open and guileless, but you’re as deep as your damn roots, and twice as tangled. And you don’t even
realize it. You think you are being obvious, but all you’ve done is talk around them and assume we’d pick up on it. And Mahl? Mahl’s not really a subtle creature.”

Jerzy frowned, feeling as though either he or Mahault, or both, had just been insulted, but not sure how.