The Shattered Vine (45 page)

Zatim had seen the danger. He had not been a god, but a mortal. A prince-mage, great with power, so great that the magic had become him.

But unlike the vine-mage, he had seen the horror of what he had done.

The First Growth had been shattered, the Root reduced, constrained by Zatim’s blood. But he had not been able to destroy it utterly, not without destroying the magic itself and forever undoing the balance. So it lay hidden in their blood, the quiet-magic . . . until someone looked up and out beyond the walls and saw what could be had for the taking. . . .

The unblooded vines had been only a hint of what they had lost. Jerzy almost lost his focus at the thought, but the Exile shifted and drew his attention again.

Balance, not control.

“I have what you want,” Jerzy said, the growl now barely a whisper, opening the cage of fire a little more. “Are you strong enough to take it?”

As the Exile’s magic roared into him, Jerzy did not resist, but rather gave way.

“C
OME ON
!”

The Washer grabbed Mahault by the shoulder and hauled her forward, the two of them running in the sudden break of the wind, aiming themselves for the great doors of the House. Only one was ajar, the other closed tight for the first time that Mahault could remember, but they managed to make it through and into the relative safety of the entry hall before collapsing on the floor.

Behind them, someone slammed the remaining door shut, even as the wind picked up again, the noise like a scream, wrapping around the house and battering at its walls.

“What’s going on?” Ao, his wide eyes showing too much white around the edges, his hand gripping a wooden staff as though he were ready to take on an army of invaders, waiting only for something to actually appear.

Lil had been the one to shut the door, although there was no way to actually bar it: a Vineart did not worry about such things when constructing his house; there were no bolts or bars to be seen.

The light through the narrow, colored glass windows changed and moved, as though something were moving outside the House. For all they knew, for all they could tell, something was.

“Put that thing down,” Brion said to Ao wearily. “You’re more likely to hit one of us than anything useful.”

Ao glared but lowered the staff until it rested on the ground, using it to support his weight. “What’s going on?” he repeated. His voice shook a little, but none of them could claim better. “I thought Jerzy was going to lure the other mage here?”

“He did.”

“But . . .” Ao glanced at the windows. “That?”

“You’ve not much traffic with magic, have you?”

“My people . . .” Ao started to say, then shook his head. “Only what I’ve seen Jerzy do. This . . .”

“We should find him,” Lil said. “If he needs our help again . . .”

None of them spoke, feeling helpless. They were here because they could not bear to leave, but there was nothing they could do.

“If he needs us,” Mahault said, “he will find us.” She rested her back against a tapestry-covered wall, welcoming the cold, hard surface as an antidote to what was going on outside. “I hope Kaï’s all right.” They had no way of knowing, not until a message came.

J
erzy stood in
the featureless plain. The clouds were low overhead, the soil at his feet bare and brown. The roots were gone, returning into the deep stone where they had lain for two thousand years.

He could feel them, still.

He could not feel the Exile.

It had happened so swiftly, exactly the way Mil’ar Cai had taught him, allowing his enemy into his own space in order to bring him down. But he had done nothing, had not struck, had not raised magic against magic.

Jerzy had let the mage inside, had opened himself and given way. Like his first test with the mustus, when it had judged the slave and claimed him, he did not fight, did not resist, but gave way, let it sink into every space within him, remake him . . . and in the remaking, take on what was
Jerzy
, too.

The mage had tried to take Jerzy, had followed him down to the tangled roots of the world.

No man could destroy the Root. Not even Zatim.

The Root had taken its own.

Jerzy closed his eyes against the unreal scene, trying not to remember.
Still, the taste lingered, layering on his tongue and coating his throat, reminding him of the draught he had swallowed. A Vineart did not hold power, but the power held within him.

It could have been him. It still could be him.

Jerzy had not expected to survive. Now, the magic pressed from within his veins, demanding to be used. Jerzy gasped for breath, and felt something sharp under his ribs. He had broken something, somehow, in that last attack.

He raised a hand, pressing his palm down against the sharpness, and imagined it healed, the pain gone.

And it was, as simply as that.

Sin Washer had been no god, but he had not been a man, either. He had been a prince-mage, the greatest of his time, and he had seen what magic and men, unchecked, would become.

He had shattered the Vine to protect humanity from itself. From
himself
.

The Root, awoken, had been the blight Jerzy felt in the land, drawing from all other crops, all living things. The devastation the legends spoke of, the dying, and rebellion. . . .

And now the Root had come to the surface, had been fed, had been allowed to re-form. In him.

The thought made the world spin, and his stomach threaten to rebel.

Vinearts were commanded to abjure power, to restrain themselves within the limits they were given. But now the taste of that power lingered in his mouth. Sin Washer had not intended Vinearts to have the quiet-magic, but the magic had kept its hold on them, through blood and bone, the shattered fragments still part of them. If Jerzy wished, he could call it, could do as the Exile had done, and bind it to him.

The Command to respect limits, not to interfere with things beyond his lands . . . It did not matter that Jerzy had not meant to bring the legacies together. It did not matter than he had done so only to protect the Lands Vin. How long would he hold to that, if he could reach across oceans and influence men within the safety of their own walls?

Magic makes the man.
Once learned, it could not be unlearned. He would carry this with him, forever.

Jerzy sighed, allowing his hand to fall back onto the ground, opening his eyes to the pale sky overhead. In this sere land, the magic existed, and did not exist. He could remain here, keep the knowledge to himself, let it die with him, and not risk returning the world to the days of prince-mages again.

Vineart.

The Guardian’s voice, soft as clay. He could ignore it, push it into the soil, re-form it to his desire. He could . . .

Vineart.

Then, again:
Jerzy. Jer.

Ao. Mahault. Lil. Their voices, distant but insistent. Calling through the bonds of heart and vine. Their hands on him, his actual flesh, somewhere Else.

Vineart.
Not the Guardian, that time, but Kaïnam, his voice cool and distant, demanding an answer. The lord of his own land, once again, reaching through the mirror, bloodied but whole.

They were not clay, not stone, but flesh, aching and sore. He owed them so much; he owed them everything.

Safer to stay here, reject their voices. Safer to protect them from himself.

A Vineart stood alone. A prince-mage cared nothing for others, cultivated only his power.

You are Vineart,
a voice said to him, the soft whisper of leaves and the burst of fruit, the tang of blood and tears and the quick flare of pride.
And now you must be more.

“Sin Washer?”

Who could say a man who had become a god could not speak past his death. But there was only silence in response, and Jerzy half-convinced himself he had imagined it, all of this a delusion, a phantasm of magic and exhaustion.

Jer.

Ao’s voice.

Jer, come on.

The feel of hands on his other-body, urgent and gentle. The sound of a muffled sob, and a harsh curse, then the taste of healwine splashing into his other-mouth.

It would be safer to stay. Easier to stay.

His friend called to him again, willed him to return. They had sacrificed so much. . . .

He did not want to be a god. He did not want to be a sacrifice.

A slave survived.

Jerzy stared at the sky, tasted the rich magic against his tongue, and sighed, letting himself sink down into the soil, until the Root bound him up, and took him away.

H
E CAME TO
in his bed, the coverlet heavy against his bare skin. His lungs felt inflamed, his eyes swollen, and his thoughts sharp and painful as glass shards.

You live.

“What do I do now?” he asked the Guardian, his mouth barely moving around the words.

You live
.

“But I . . .”

Only you know.

The weight of it was already within him, the truth bitter as spoiled mustus and even as the door cracked open and he heard the sound of Detta’s steps and felt her hand cool on his forehead, he knew
.

A Vineart stood alone. Even with friends, companions: the burden was his. Would always be his.

“Welcome home, Vineart,” his House-keeper said, and he opened his eyes, and tried to smile.