“What kind of experiments?” asked Rosethorn suspiciously.
Niko very carefully poured a spoonful of grainy black dust out of the bag. “We got this from the prisoners,” he explained. “It’s what they used to shatter the gate, and it’s what they use in the boom-stones. They just call it black powder. Its ingredients and the proportions are the pirate mage Enahar’s secret. That’s what we have to find out.”
“Surely Moonstream and Skyfire—” Lark began.
“They want all the masters to try it,” Niko said. “That way, everyone will have a working knowledge of the stuff. Now, dedicates, if we may begin?”
All five adults reached a hand out to the tiny pile, palms toward it, eyes closed; when they took deep breaths, clearing their minds, the four did the same.
“Charcoal,” Rosethorn and Frostpine announced at the same time.
Niko added, “Sulfur.”
“Niter,” Gorse told them, and Rosethorn nodded.
I couldn’t have done it so fast, Daja remarked silently to the other children. They nodded, agreeing.
The adults argued for half an hour over the proportions of each substance. At last they managed to agree: ten parts sulfur, fifteen parts charcoal, and seventy-five parts niter.
“It’s so basic!” Lark said then. “So—so simple! And it won’t take much to make it explode, once you get through the protections on the containers.”
“Which is why the containers have been so well protected magically,” added Frostpine.
“But what makes it boom?” Daja asked, worried. “What if it—?”
A crash split the air outside, making everyone flinch. Seconds later, they heard another loud bang, from the eastern side of the temple.
“They’ve started again,” whispered Daja. Tris was trembling.
“Let’s go outside,” Niko said, brushing the spoonful into the bag. “We can try to make it boom there. Fire does the trick, if what Tris and I saw on Bit was right.”
In front of Discipline, on a bare spot in the path, Niko dumped a pinch of the black powder on the ground. Someone brought a long, burning reed, and Niko touched the powder with it from a couple of feet away. As a boom-stone exploded over the south half of the temple, the tiny heap of powder flared and was consumed.
“They have to leave a gap in the spells on the containers,” Rosethorn pointed out, “so their mages can light the stones in the air.”
“Will our battle-mages find the gaps in time to explode the stones before they get too close to us?” Frostpine wanted to know.
Niko poured half a cupful of powder onto the path, then wiped his forehead with one hand, leaving a dark streak. “Everybody stand back when I light this.” He held the reed out to Gorse, who touched it with a finger. Flames leaped and caught on the tip of the reed.
“But the little sample just burned,” Lark said. “How do they make it boom?”
“Perhaps you need more?” suggested Rosethorn as everyone backed away from the larger pile. “Or it has to be confined, in a sphere or—”
The loudest explosion of all tore the air, making everyone stagger. The adults looked at each other, horrified, then turned their eyes on the horizon. A column of smoke boiled into the air south of the Water Temple.
“One of them hit,” Lark whispered.
Rosethorn raced into the cottage. Briar followed her.
“The carpenters’ shops,” said Gorse, his deep voice hushed. “All that wood—the glue, the varnishes—”
“It’ll burn fast and hot.” Frostpine made the gods-circle on his chest.
Tris was shaking so hard that her teeth were clicking. Where would the next stone fall? The image of the destroyed galley rose in her mind, a warning of the fate of anything struck by these ugly new weapons.
Lark turned to the four. “You are to stay right here.” They had never heard her this stern. “Don’t stir outside our fence. We’re going down there to help. I don’t want to have to worry about what you’re up to.”
“Can’t we help?” begged Sandry.
“No. No. There are plenty of adults trained to handle things like this. I won’t have you exposed unless it can’t be avoided.”
Rosethorn came out, lugging a heavy basket. Briar followed her with another. “Can’t I please go?” he asked as Frostpine took his burden.
“No, you may not,” snapped Rosethorn. “You’ll stay here—all of you!”
Without another word, the adults ran through the gate and down the spiral road. Little Bear sat on his rump and began to howl.
Three more boom-stones exploded overhead. Tris flinched at each one; her hair began to rise and crackle. She tucked her hand into her pocket and rubbed Aymery’s earring.
They had to distract Tris before something else happened, thought Daja. “What if you tried your lightning on that?” She pointed to the heap of black powder that lay forgotten in the path.
Tris stared at it. “I—I don’t know,” she said, her voice trembling.
“Well?” Sandry nudged.
“What lightning?” Briar demanded, sarcastic. “She’s just got the worst case of Runog’s Fire I’ve ever seen, is all.”
Daja knew the pale fire that played on ship masts and tower roofs in storms as well as he did. “What she’s got is seed lightning,” she retorted. “It’s not the same. Show him, Tris.”
Another boom-stone exploded over the Hub. “I c-c-can’t,” Tris replied, shivering with fright. What did they want from her? Couldn’t they see that each explosion felt like a sharp blow to her? Her muscles were clenched, awaiting the next strike, and her neck and back were aching.
“Don’t you have to learn control?” Sandry asked. “No matter what else is going on? Maybe this is a good time to practice.”
Tris glared at the other three, hating them for bothering her. She only wanted to run inside and hide under a bed.
“Ahhh, I knew it,” Briar remarked scornfully. “It’s just Runog’s Fire.”
Furious, Tris pointed to the heap of powder a foot away. Lightning jumped from her finger. There was a clap: dirt and smoke sprayed everywhere, blackening them and turning the observing Little Bear gray. The dog yipped and fled into Discipline. The four looked at each other, eyes wide in soot-streaked faces. There was now a hole in the path.
“You see?” Briar said at last. “You just have to know what to say to her.”
“You—” Tris snapped, and pointed at him without thinking what might result.
Briar grabbed her arms, hard, shaking her as lightning-sparks raced over his hands. “Don’t you ever do that,” he whispered, his eyes burning into hers. “Don’t you ever. If your pointing is a weapon, then don’t you point ‘less you’re ready to kill with it. You understand, you witless bleater?” He was so frightened he didn’t know where his shakes ended and hers began. “Niko’s right.” He let her go and pushed her away from him. “We’ve got to learn control, and you most of all.”
“I’m sorry.” Tris’s eyes were spilling over, but she made herself look Briar in the face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—I wouldn’t ever—”
Sandry put her arms around Tris’s shoulders. “We can’t just act without thinking anymore, Tris. They’ve been trying to teach us that all along. I guess if we’re mages, we can’t exactly be kids, can we?” she asked the other two. They shook their heads. “Briar knows you would have been sorry after.”
“After I was a nice crispy roast just off the spit,” the boy said cruelly.
Tris hid her face in her hands.
“Enough,” Daja said. “She got the point. Don’t bully her.”
I’m a scared bully, thought Briar, stuffing his hands into his pockets. And I want to be sure she’s scared, scared enough to think next time.
Tris yanked out of Sandry’s hold and ran up to her room.
Briar went to examine the miniature pine tree that sat on his window ledge, letting the shakkan’s years and plant-calm steady his nerves. Checking the dirt in its shallow basin, h
e decided it was a bit dry and went inside for water.
Daja and Sandry stayed where they were, staring at the hole in the ground.
“What do you suppose her reach is, with lightning?” Daja inquired. “Could she hit a boom-stone?”
Sandry tugged one of her braids. “I don’t know. Remember the day we all first met? Lightning struck a tree outside Administration when we were there. I think that was her—she was angry; I could tell the moment I laid eyes on her. And she wasn’t excited by lightning hitting so close to her. But it was stormy that morning. This lightning just seems to cling to her—it’s not part of a storm. It might not reach as far.”
“But when she holds onto it, it grows. Remember? It starts as a spark. Then she holds it, and it grows into a strip.” Daja scuffed at the dirt around the hole.
“I think we should find out how far she can send it.” Sandry bent down and petted Little Bear, who had crept out of the house again.
“I think you’re right,” said Daja.
The safest place looked to be the lee of the northern wall beside Discipline. There was a broad strip of grass with no other plants growing on it—Briar had refused to allow an experiment anywhere in Rosethorn’s garden. Only the sentries could see them, but for the most part they were looking to the north, or the south, where the fire was. By now the word had come up the road: a boom-stone had gotten through the magical barriers, exploding in one of the large buildings that housed Winding Circle’s carpentry shops. There were dead and wounded and people trapped inside. It would be a while before their teachers could be spared from rescue work.
Once Briar had been converted to the idea of lightning experiments, he made some reed circles for use as targets. Sandry dug in Lark’s scrap bag and brought out a number of cloth patches that she placed in different spots. Daja’s job was to get Tris to go along.
“I think this is stupid,” Tris informed them when Daja brought her to the spot they’d prepared. “I can only do it when I’m upset.”
“It’s magic; it’s there all the time,” Briar told her impatiently. “Stop it with the ladylike whining. ‘Oh, I can’t; I have to be scared.’ ”
Tris glared at him. “Why can’t you let me alone?”
“Because I’m tired of living with a merchant sniffer!” he told her. “Rosethorn’s out there putting healing in potions, and she’s been doing it ever since the quake—”
Tris pointed at a swatch of cloth two feet away. Lightning stretched across the gap between her and the path, but didn’t touch it.
“You need me to go on carping?” Briar asked. “I’ve got plenty more to say—”
“You aren’t always fun to live with, either, you know!” Tris snapped. She called the lightning back. For a moment she stood very still, eyes closed, breathing deep. She pointed again.
The bolt left a scorch mark on the cloth.
“Got to do better than that,” said Daja, shaking her head.
“I’d like to see you try,” muttered Tris. She wrapped her free hand around Aymery’s earring and pointed. The patch evaporated in a plume of smoke.
“I shouldn’t have used silk,” whispered Sandry. “It goes up so fast.”
Tris pointed to the wall, five feet in front of her, where another patch was fastened to a chink in the mortar with a thorn. Lightning stretched across the distance, but only halfway.
“Something closer,” said Daja. She tossed a cloth patch several inches beyond where the first had been.
An hour later there were scorch marks on the wall, and Tris had to feed her nestling. When she returned, she brought him with her and gave his nest to Sandry to hold. “He’s supposed to be kept quiet,” she said. “I guess there’s no chance of that now.” The boom-stones had been exploding overhead off and on all afternoon.
Sandry peeked at the bird and stopped Little Bear from trying the same thing. “He looks all right,” she told Tris. “He’s not shaking. I keep meaning to ask, what have you got in your pocket? You keep fiddling with something.”
Grimly Tris held up Aymery’s earring. “It helps me concentrate.”
Sandry turned her head to order Little Bear to stop chewing on grass and stopped. Light flickered at the corner of her eye, light that was not one of the other children. “That earring is magicked,” she said, shocked. “And what’s that thread coming out of it?”
Tris looked sidelong at it. “You’re right about the magic. Aymery told me the pirate mage created it, as a bond to enslave him. I don’t see a thread, though.”
“It’s there, heading off”—Sandry pointed due south—”that way.”
Daja squinted at the earring. “I see a ghost of a wire,” she admitted. “But I never noticed it before. Just that blasted flickering.”
“Blame Niko,” protested Tris. “I never thought that seeing-spell would cross between us like it does.”
“I bet the thread is the magical bond. It goes to that mage—Enahar? Stupid name,” said Briar. “Too bad we couldn’t send him a little lightning, by way of it.”
“It would have to go through buildings and the wall,” Daja pointed out. “I don’t believe it would get there.”
“Let’s try something more fun,” Briar said, holding up a reed circle. “Tris, get one of these while they’re in the air.”
“You’ve got to be joking.” Shaking her head, Tris planted her feet wide apart, to give her the best possible stance. As she gripped Aymery’s earring, sparks began to glimmer in her tumbling curls. “All right, Briar, but I still don’t think I can do it.”
Briar tossed a reed circle into the air. Tris pointed, but the lightning on her fingertip tangled, writhing around her hand like knotted string. Briar threw again, lower. This time the lightning missed by a hair. He threw a third time, and Little Bear jumped, grabbing the circle in his teeth. Tris burned a streak on the wall, keeping the lighting away from the pup.
“I can’t do this!” she cried, out of patience. “It’s like playing with poison! It—”
Daja gasped, pointing at the sky. High overhead, a small, round shape had begun to fall toward them.
A blazing strip of white heat roared past them. It struck the boom-stone, blowing it to pieces two hundred feet overhead. The children hid their faces as soot and pottery fragments rained down on them.
Tris wobbled. Her knees gave, and she sat down hard. Little Bear came to lick her cheek. The other three children turned to stare at her.
“I guess we just need to make it worth your while,” remarked Daja.
12
Taking supper from the cart sent up from the Hub and putting it on the table, the four were wondering if they would have to eat alone when their teachers returned. The adults had obviously bathed in the Water Temple baths before coming on to Discipline: all wore undyed robes and carried their own clothes in string bags. The bags were left near the back door. Sandry, looking at the garments, wondered if they could even be used for rags, as sooty, torn, and scorched as they were. The smell that rose from them was vile and made her queasy.
The adults spoke little and ate less. There seemed to be no way to mention controlled lightning after the first few “Not nows” the four got. Instead of following the chore schedule, they were sent to the Earth Temple baths, while the adults cleaned up. When the children came back, they went quietly to their rooms, to read or think.
They all slept badly. When Tris cried, the other three knew it. When Briar dreamed of starving and watching the bread he’d just snatched melt through his fingers, they knew it. When dawn came, they were roused not by the Hub clock, but by the first boom-stone explosion of the day.
Everyone was up after that. Like the night before, no one spoke much. Tris fed her nestling, barely smiling when Rosethorn pointed out that nearly all of his gray pinfeathers had come in. He might be ready to fly in another two weeks.
“Into a boom-stone,” Briar growled.
“Enough of that,” instructed Niko.
Breakfast was over when Moonstre
am and Skyfire arrived, looking as if they had spent as good a night as those at Discipline had. “We need to talk,” Moonstream said after she kissed Niko’s cheek. She looked meaningfully at the children.
“Upstairs,” Rosethorn ordered.
They started to argue. Niko said sharply, “Now.”
“Just like Mother in her captain mood,” Daja remarked mournfully. Gathering up dog and starling, they climbed the steep ladder-stair.
“They’re treating us like children,” Sandry commented rebelliously as the four sat on the floor around the topmost step.
“We are kids,” Briar reminded her.
“But if we’re mages, are we kids?” demanded Tris.
Frostpine appeared at the bottom of the stairs. “We would appreciate it if you would go into one of the rooms and not eavesdrop.” His dark eyes were bloodshot and level, with no hint of his usual laughter in them. “Scat.”
Grumbling, they obeyed. Tris hung back, shooing the others into her room. Making sure Frostpine had left the steps, she reached through the opening in the floor to grab a fistful of air from downstairs. Carefully she backed into her room, letting it out of her fingers a breath at a time. Once inside, she drew the breeze over to her window and sent it out that way. Now she had a steady draft coming from the ground floor.
“What—?” Briar started to ask.
Tris put a finger to her lips and cupped a hand around her ear.
“—used battlefire on the thorns late yesterday,” Skyfire was saying. “They’re pounding the spell-net in the east with the black powder balls. Those things make a deep hole when they strike the ground—they’re blowing the spell-net apart, working their way in. Two more days, and they’ll be at the east gate. And even though we’ve found out how their black powder works, there’s no guarantee some boom-stones won’t get past our mages. They’ll throw as many as they can over our walls, to soften us up. Some are bound to hit.”
“Have the war-mages been able to get through the protective barrier around the pirate fleet?” Rosethorn wanted to know.
“They’ve thrown all they have at that cursed thing—nothing gets through,” Skyfire replied bitterly. “Water-mages say it goes to the floor of the sea.”