The Universal Mirror (21 page)

He remained silent, not knowing if speaking would scare her away.  Then he rose, walking over to the table.  Meg was small enough that they were almost of a height with her sitting and he standing.  She smelled of rot herself as he drew closer, and he noticed that her gums were black with it.  The scab on her palm had a red halo around it as he took her hand in his.  It would not kill her, Quentin thought, but it would make her sicker.  Like the poor he passed on the streets near the warehouse, Meg was washed-out young, her skin as faded as the dye of her skirts.

“I don’t know how it will affect you.”  That much, he felt, needed to be said.

“You really think it can work.”  Her words were not question, but doubt. 

“Yes, I do.”  And he wasn’t lying.  They had been so close with the dead.  He could feel it in the way that the magic changed as it traveled through him to the bodies that lay on the table.  It had longed to change, to control, and Quentin had responded to it without thinking, allowing it to use him as its instrument.  It was Asahel who had seemed afraid, as Asahel always had. 

He touched the inside of her wrist to feel the beat of her heart.  It throbbed against his fingertips, too quick to easily count.

“You paid Taggart for it.  You ought to get your money’s worth,” Meg answered, her words harder than her eyes.  He could see hope in them and he wondered what dreams she was placing on his shoulders.

She had the chance to turn back, he told himself as he reached out to take her other hand.  He could feel her wrist trembling against his, a contrast to the harsh line of her jaw.  The things that Asahel had said to him came flooding back full force as his body began to pull the magic from the ground.  Meg’s eyes opened wide and he could see how long her lashes were as she blinked twice.  She had a freckle on the point of her nose, her chin was slightly cleft, and it was those small details that made him understand what she had meant when she’d told him he didn’t see her.

He fought against the magic then, feeling it begin to race up from the ground.  It coursed through his veins, its hunger to escape into the air sending every hair on him upright, and Quentin could feel her hands twisting in his even as she remained steady.

I can’t do this, he thought, but the energy burned through him, too furious to do anything but release.  He tightened his grip on her hands so fiercely that he heard her whimper as the first spark of magic passed between them.  The smell of burning skin wafted into the air, but Meg did not move.

The door slammed open, the force of it so hard that it rocked it on its hinges. 

“Let her go.”  Asahel stormed forward, shoving himself at Quentin.  He had only enough time to note the sword swinging at the other man’s side before magic lept wild into the air, crackling brilliant.  The woman fell to her knees, then pulled herself together, crawling under the table as Asahel reached for Quentin. 

The magicians’ hands met and Quentin felt pressure against his skin as Asahel gripped his fingers.  Then—He’s trying to crush my hands, he realized as the magic began to ebb.  He could feel Asahel pulling it back into his own body and yanked himself away, panting hard as the waves of heat spiked, then rapidly fell.  The other man was sweating, his black hair plastered to his forehead as the magic seared his skin.  Quentin let Asahel drop to the floorboards, taking a step back.  He reached for the chair, gripping it as his only weapon.

“I believed in you,” Asahel gasped, choking on the energy still caught within him.  “You made a promise.”  His dark eyes were those of a wounded child, hurt deeply and without the understanding to express it.

“I couldn’t keep it.”  Quentin said.  “Meg, show him your hands.”

It was blind faith that made him ask it of the woman.  He noticed that she was still trembling, her fists clenched around the table leg.  They uncurled, one finger at a time, before she held her left palm up.

It was unblemished.

Meg and Quentin both stared at it in wonder.  Asahel turned his head away, taking a deep, searching breath as he stood.  Quentin’s arm reached out, wanting to grab the other man and shake him.  Can’t you see?  He thought to himself.  Asahel, we’ve finally done it and you can’t understand it.  We’ve found the end—we were right after all.  But there was nothing in his friend’s face but contempt.

“What have you done?”  Asahel whispered.

“I healed her,” Quentin replied, their eyes meeting.

“You almost killed her.”

“I could have stopped.”

“You didn’t.”  The sound of Meg’s hiss interrupted Asahel’s words.  He stepped forward and said, only loud enough for Quentin to hear.  “You can’t control magic.  Aye, you can’t even control yourself.”

“I’m not stopping now.  Can’t you see?  We’re so blasted close.”  Quentin’s words were desperate now, his face pleading with Asahel not to stop.  He noticed that the other man’s hand had fallen to the hilt of the sword, a gesture that was familiar, although he couldn’t understand why.  “We have to keep going.”

“No.”  Asahel shook his head.  “It stops here, Quentin.  Can’t you understand?  I can’t trust you, and this isn’t a thing that you can play about with.  We should never have gone about it.”  His gaze lingered on Meg for a moment, then he offered the woman his hand.  She took it, looking over into Asahel’s brown eyes.  “Did he heal you?”

“What are you asking?”  Quentin snapped.  “Of course I did.  Who else would’ve been there?”

“What I want to know…” Asahel faltered, then caught himself and steadied his voice.  “Is whether there was really a hurt at all.”

Quentin stared at him, unable to believe what he’d just heard.  Whatever was between them, however badly he made mistakes, Asahel always returned to stand at his side.  He’d made his bargain with Taggart knowing that.  There was nothing that seemed to push the other man away forever, and that was one of the few constants in Quentin’s life.  Yet, here he was, looking at Quentin with angry dark eyes and accusing him of being a liar.

“I…” He didn’t know what to say, but he knew that no pretty words would cross the divide.

“He’s a liar, is what he is.”  Meg’s voice interrupted him, coarse and ugly as the hand in Asahel’s.  Quentin stared at her to see a spark of shining triumph in her eyes.  “I wasn’t hurt, not a bit.”

“She was—she had a scab,” he blurted out. 

She bared her front teeth as she smiled, the rotted teeth on the bottom giving her mouth the appearance of a pit.  Quentin couldn’t help the grimace that came as he saw it.  When Asahel looked back at him, he realized that it was that expression that had doomed him.

“Asahel,” Quentin whispered.

“No.  No, I’ll not…” The man dropped Meg’s hand, backing out of the room.  “No more promises, Quentin.”  Meg was quick on Asahel’s heels, too quick for Quentin to do more than grab crudely at her skirts, longing to catch her and force her to tell the truth.  The fabric ripped in his hands, leaving behind only a thin piece of it as the door slammed again, this time closed.

His hands crumpled around it, his throat closing up as he realized that he’d just lost his last chance.

Asahel stood outside the antechamber doors, barely able to think of anything beyond the pounding in his head and the catch of his breath.  The Winter Court was preparing its move into summer, and so his fear went unnoticed.  All around the man were the signs of organized chaos. Pages ran past, carrying heavy chests, as maids swept out the corners of the palace rooms.  Everywhere, it seemed, there was the sound of closing doors and sliding drawers.

In the midst of all this activity, Asahel alone was still.

He didn’t know for how long he waited.  The weight of the sword at his side distracted him, unfamiliar and awkward as it was.  He wished that he had never taken it, despite Felix’s urgings.  It had been that, Asahel believed, that had persuaded the steward that he was worthy of the audience that he requested.

When the doors opened, all that he could focus on were the maps inside the room that he now entered.  The outlines of countries, cities, and roads had been painstakingly scribed into parchment, black scrawls revealing intimate detail of faraway lands.  Hundreds of the maps lined the walls, the edges of the paper overlapping at points.  Magic pulsed through the lines, illuminating some roads, then sweeping over to light another place. 

The sheer number of papers dwarfed the man who sat below them.  The man was of massive girth, so large that his frame overtook the padded lounge upon which he lay.  He was swathed in opulent fabrics, red velvets and silks giving him an appearance larger even than the frame that he possessed.  He lifted a handkerchief, coughing into the blue silk at Asahel’s approach.  It drifted to the floor gracefully as Asahel neared, noticing that he did not bother to pick it up.

“My lord.”  Asahel knelt, his knee dropping next to the square of blue silk.  The sword banged the floor, its steel blade scraping against the marble.

“You may rise,” the Geographer answered.  Asahel did as he was told, uncertain of the proper ritual.  He glanced at the Steward who remained in the corner.  The Steward simply nodded, his expression offering no hint for behavior.

“I come, Lord Tycho, because I have to confess Heresy.”  The Steward’s breath hissed behind him but Asahel saw no distress in Tycho’s face, nor any change in the maps that surrounded them.  The Geographer simply lifted a thick wrist and waved at his servant, the hiss silenced before his hand fell back down to the cushion.  “I come to ask for… leniency.”

“Only a foolish man makes promises without knowing the requestor’s intent,” Tycho replied.  His eyes were lively though the rest of his body was not.  “Heresy is no small thing and you, no man of stature, to request such a boon.”

There it was—his social standing laid out between them, in a way that few rarely acknowledged.  The mercy that Felix had led Asahel to expect now seemed distant.  He had spoken the words, however, and there was no turning back now.  What Quentin was doing endangered them all and Asahel told himself silently that this betrayal was for the greater good.

“I’ve conspired with another to break the laws of magic,” he said.  “We thought that we’d got to use magic to do good for others—to heal disease, aye, or wounds, perhaps.”

“And did you succeed?”

Asahel hesitated, remembering the look in Quentin’s eyes when Meg had shown him her hand.  She said that she had not been hurt, he reminded himself.  This quest—it drove Quentin insane.  It drove us both insane.  For a bit, any road.  His mouth tightened, then he answered, “No.”

“I see.”  There was a cold light in the calculating eyes that followed him, waiting a minute too long before speaking again.  “You do not come to court.  Save for the once, some time ago.”

“No, my lord,” Asahel said.  “I’m not—I have no place here.”  He looked again at the rich fabric that Tycho wore, the golden threads woven within glinting as light hit them.  “I never did have.”

Tycho lifted his hands high into the air, clapping them once.  The steward nodded, leaving the room without comment.  He returned a moment later, carrying a tray with a bottle of wine and a single glass.  He poured the wine, handing it to the Geographer without even looking at Asahel.  Thick fingers grasped the stem of the glass, draining it slowly, before placing it on the tray and waving the steward off again.  Asahel noticed that the man leaned down and plucked the fallen handkerchief from the floor before leaving.

“The university never should have taken you,” the Geographer said.  “I’ll warrant you felt the pain of it. They took you from your proper place and tried to make you into a man.  Not without effort, I’m sure.”  The glance that he afforded Asahel indicated that the attempt had failed.  “It must have taken little work for your conspirator to convince you of his cause.  Did anyone else even bother with you?”

“It wasn’t…” Asahel stopped talking, unable to express what had happened to pull him towards Quentin.  The Geographer was too calm for him to feel that his conflicted loyalty would make any difference.  Tycho spoke to him as if he was that same student from the colleges, invisible only by virtue of birth in a land where birth was all that mattered.  His words were direct, those of a man who knew exactly of what he spoke.

He knows too much, Asahel thought, then he realized. No.  He already knows.  All of it.  And he couldn’t know it by looking at a map or viewing us from afar.  Felix left something out or Felix- His gaze dropped to the sword at his side, his fingers clenching the pommel rather than allowing his conscious mind to complete the thought that it had started.  He understood, now—something that he had never wanted to understand.

“I would consider that a threat,” the Geographer said, his smile a dry, twisted thing.  “If I didn’t know exactly what you must be thinking.” 

Asahel’s hand jerked away from the weapon, his palm sweating as he looked up.

“Lord Carnicus was right.  Everything you think is written across your face.”

The words stung, Asahel’s skin suddenly burning from the shame of it.

“I owe his family much,” Tycho continued.  “You have given me the opportunity to cancel the debt.  But know this—the talk of Heresy ends here, with us.  The Council has no patience with those who break its laws.”

Quentin, Asahel thought, unable to determine from Tycho’s speech or expression whether he had the other man’s name.  How much did Felix tell him?  Why did he tell him?  He choked on it inwardly, wishing that he had never come to the Court.  There was no time to warn Quentin more than he had done when he’d run from the cottage and he thought again of leniency, wondering if that was as much a myth as Felix’s friendship had been.