The stone shattered into dust, which the wind dashed away in a blink. She bent, picked up a smaller stone, and this time attempted to transfer it inside the tower.
Magic glowed, blue and threatening. It flashed in echo far in the distance, against one of the mountains.
Her stone landed with a thok! at her feet.
Two ineffectual tries, the transfer, and the cold left her feeling as brittle as old leaves. With the last of her strength, she transferred back to her spot by the fire and stood there until she’d recovered, her hands out and head bowed to hide the reaction. Hide her defeat. Hide the fact that no amount of magic that she could concoct any time soon was going to make any difference to that level of power.
She closed her eyes. It wasn’t just this tower. The weird, mysterious magic of whatever origin that she’d heard so much about was real, and furthermore it was free again. Free, and maybe even stronger than it had been, after the long binding.
Maybe this was why Detlev had dropped the matter into her hands. He might know that he wasn’t going to prevail, so he was in effect leaving someone else in charge of a disaster. No—that was too easy. This is Sartor. Its loss would catch the eye of Them, in the Garden of the Twelve.
If that was so, then the logical conclusion was that Detlev expected her power to be great enough to prevail here.
Once, the idea would have pleased her. That was before she stood on this frozen rampart and nearly destroyed herself concocting spells that had about as much strength as a firefly in a rainstorm.
She had better think of something else.
She summoned one of the runners. “I am going to set wards over the roads connecting to the city. Then I will return to the base to make more preparations. Tell Kessler he’s in command here.”
And she transferred out.
o0o
Lilah finished exploring a very old cave with Hinder and his friends, had a good swim at a falls, and then returned to watch Rel drilling Mendaen’s group.
Lilah sighed inwardly. She’d already decided that a few lessons with one of those swords wasn’t going to make her any good at all, even with a great teacher like Rel. Nothing was going to fix the fact that she also needed years of practice.
So she’d just stay out of the way.
Yet she wanted to ask Rel some questions. But he was so... so... what was he? He looked so stern. No, not stern. Formidable. Yes, that was the word. Though from Atan’s reactions the brief times Lilah saw Rel and Atan together, he couldn’t be all that formidable. Atan had actually laughed, which meant he had to be making jokes, even though you sure couldn’t tell from looking at him. Deon at home was like that—made her funniest cracks with a very straight face. Maybe it was just the fact that he was so tall and strong-looking, and his face reminded her of those old stone carvings of ancient heroes.
As she stood there in doubt, the drill broke up and the sweaty kids flopped down on their mats to rest, or went to get something to eat and drink. Up above, Atan came out of her little stone room with the newly-arrived magician lady, who wore a rumpled dress and bare feet, even though her brown skin and hair made it clear she was not morvende. The mage went off in the other direction with some grownups, leaving magic lessons above, sword practice below.
Atan looked tired as she whispered to her little cousin, who had been playing nearby. They walked hand in hand to get some food. Lilah took a step to join them, but then Irza crowded in behind them, and Lilah hung back. Every time Irza was there, she always talked about dukes and duchesses and Sartor’s great days. Atan liked hearing about the family she never got to meet, so Lilah didn’t want to interrupt.
So she turned away and discovered Rel alone, neatening the pile of practice sticks that the younger ones had thrown down when they ran off to get their meal.
Since no one was around, Lilah decided to try talking to him.
“Rel, do you mind a question?” she asked.
The craggy face turned. His expression didn’t change, at least not overtly, but there was something in the way his dark brows curved upward and his eyes crinkled that made her think he was smiling inside.
“How about we swap, one for one?” he said, his voice a low rumble.
Lilah nodded, surprised. “Me? I mean, sure, but wouldn’t it be better to ask one of the grownups or Atan?”
Rel dropped down to sit with his back to the stone, and laid his sword gently beside him. “Maybe,” he said. Now a shadow quirked at the corners of his mouth, definitely a smile, if not very much of one. “Go ahead. You first.”
“I wanted to hear more about those kids you mentioned before. The ones our age who have adventures. Where do they live? What are they like?”
“They live in Mearsies Heili, which is on Toar. Some distance north, and about halfway around the world either east or west. As for what they’re like...” He shrugged. “They love jokes and fun, but at the same time they’re fierce in defending their little kingdom.”
“Like Atan and Mendaen,” Lilah said.
Rel nodded, smiling inwardly. He’d spent his time drilling these Sartoran kids until they were woozy from exhaustion. He never told them that they wouldn’t be good enough, that a few days’ sweating out blade drills and footwork—no matter how long or how earnestly they worked at it—was not going to prepare them to face Norsunder.
They were going to face Norsunder anyway, if his decoy plan didn’t work. So he drilled them and also listened to them talk, trying to figure out how they thought. There was a lot about honor, for instance. Some of that was what he thought of as real, that is, a groping toward a greater good, but the rest of the honor-talk was the familiar, desperate not-quite-bragging that was akin to beating one’s sword blade against a shield, a courage booster, a way to brace oneself to face almost certain defeat.
Then, of course, there were the one or two who had a tendency to make well-rehearsed speeches about honor and glory, as if invisible heralds were hiding behind rocks, noting them down.
Lilah was different. She really did remind him of the Mearsiean kids. The honor talk seemed to embarrass her. She certainly didn’t add to it.
So, when she said, her slanted eyes apprehensive, “Your turn. You had a question?”
“Yep. And I don’t want to accidentally stumble over someone’s honor without knowing it.”
“Oh,” Lilah said.
“My question concerns Dorea, who told me she’s a curtain runner. What’s that?”
Lilah gasped, then clapped her hand over her mouth lest a snicker escape. “I can answer that,” she whispered. “But it’s only because I had to read so much Sartoran history. It’s a very old fashioned custom—at least, we don’t have it in Sarendan anymore. Maybe they still do in other countries. But in Eidervaen and the other big cities, only people at the highest rank issue invitations for parties and things. Everyone else either has their parlor curtains open when they want company after the late morning bells and before evening bells, or have them closed if they don’t want company. Like if they’re going out to visit.”
“So a curtain runner does what? Opens and closes the curtains?” Rel asked. “Or does it take two or three for that job?”
“No!” Lilah saw the quirk deepen beside his mouth. He was making a joke! “The runner goes about whatever streets he or she is told and sees who is home and who not, and returns with the news, and then the people decide who they’ll call on. I guess runners could be sent out many times in a day, no matter what the weather, and they were expected to be accurate and fast,” Lilah added. “And some were good at peeking inside and seeing who was there, but they weren’t supposed to be caught at it. That would be vulgar.”
Rel nodded. “Now I see why Dorea mentioned it. She’s got amazing endurance.”
A new voice interrupted. “Anyone hungry?”
Rel and Lilah looked up. Here was Atan, alone. Lilah glanced past her and discovered little Julian sitting with Irza and her sister close on either side, like two pieces of bread ou
tside of a piece of cheese. Julian’s round face turned, her eyes wistful, then Irza whispered something, and the little girl turned back.
“I can wait,” Lilah said.
Rel lifted a shoulder. “So can I. Turn anyone into a snake today?”
He said it with no change in expression, and Atan replied in her quiet, serious voice, “Rocks. Half a hundred fewer morvende, lots more rocks.”
“So that’s where they get ’em all,” Rel said, and smacked his hand against the rock he leaned against. “Did I know this one?”
“A nosy traveler,” Atan said.
Lilah’s mouth opened. They were joking! Just like Lilah had joked with her fellow adventurers in Sarendan! She gawked in surprise. Nobody’d ever gotten Atan to joke like that before!
Then, without any change in his face, Rel said, “We’re looking as good as we can.” His voice had changed slightly, and he tipped his head. This time the chin pointed in Mendaen’s direction. He was serious again.
So was Atan. “And I finished preparing my spells,” she said. Swallowed. No, tried to swallow. She discovered her throat was too dry, that it hurt, that saying the words would make it real.
But she said them anyway. “So I guess this is it. After we get a good sleep, we’re starting for Eidervaen.”
ELEVEN
Atan’s inner nightmare began when Rel appeared to say goodbye. He didn’t stay long, only smiled, lifted his hand, and said, “Fare well. We’ll meet again in the city.”
He walked away. Atan watched him go, surprised at the sharp sense of loss that hurt behind her ribs.
She tried to banish it by keeping busy, making certain everyone was ready, had eaten, had thanked their hosts, and had dressed warmly. But her wish to depart with good spirits and gratitude expressed toward their morvende hosts smashed against Julian’s sudden, shockingly wild weeping. “I won’t stay, I won’t, I won’t!” Her voice rose to a shrill screech.
She pushed away from Coral, Hinder’s mother, who had been so kind to Julian, and whom Julian had seemed to like.
Atan stared in dismay, unable to move, even to speak. The line of kids had frozen, everyone looking back. At her. For a decision.
Atan didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t take a six year old into Eidervaen, not with Norsundrians swarming everywhere!
Irza left the line and marched up to Julian. “You said you would stay with Coral,” she said in a coaxing voice that did not quite hide her exasperation.
“I thought everybody was staying,” Julian howled. “You can’t leave me!”
“You are being willful and troublesome,” Irza whispered, but her voice carried. She didn’t care if anyone heard, because it was true.
Atan gripped her hands tightly together. She understood that Julian was being both willful and troublesome, but was that a bad thing when you were six and you thought you were being abandoned?
It’s a dangerous thing, Atan thought. I would be completely wrong to bring a six year old. But aren’t I just as wrong to bring these others, some of whom are only a few years older?
“I won’t stay, I won’t stay,” Julian sobbed. “Atan, you promised...”
Irza knelt down and took Julian’s shoulders. “Can’t you see we don’t want you on this quest?” she hissed.
Atan’s nerves flared. She didn’t want to see how many agreed—she pushed forward, held out her hands, hoping no one else saw how they trembled, and said, “Julian, come with me. But you will have to be as a mouse when we need you to. All right?”
Julian shoved past Irza and ran to Atan, and though she still hiccoughed, and her face was wet with tears and snot, she was no longer crying.
Atan said over her head to Coral, “I’m sorry.”
Hinder’s mother looked sad, but all she said was, “The child seems to need you. And you are all in danger.”
Her soft words hit Atan like an invisible fist. Atan drew in a breath. “Let’s be quick.”
The trip didn’t take long. Julian clung tightly to Atan’s hand, but when it came time to move up the last tunnel in the dark, Arlas and Irza caught up, and Arlas whispered to Julian, “We do want you, Julian. We do, it’s just we didn’t want you in danger, and that’s where we’re going.”
Irza said, “That’s right.”
Julian replied, “I will be quiet as a mouse.” She hiccoughed. “But you promised, Atan. You promised.”
“What did I promise?” Atan asked. “I didn’t think I promised to take you into danger.”
To Julian, that meant nothing. “You promised not to leave me behind.”
Atan’s throat hurt. “Julian, when I go into the tower, I might have to go alone. The worst danger will be there, where I am. But if, that is, when I finish, then I’ll come for you, first thing. But... if I have to go alone, will you stay with the others?”
“Not in the caves,” Julian said, hiccoughing again.
“Not in the caves,” Atan agreed in defeat.
“It’s time for quiet,” came Hinder’s soft voice from the front of the line. “Take hands, for we will be walking in the dark the last little way.”
Atan’s fingers were tight in Julian’s grip. She reached with her free hand to take Lilah’s square, capable hand. Somehow she felt a little better, though she knew that nothing was better, their task was still impossible.
The darkness closed in. Atan listened to the quiet shuffle of their feet. To distract herself, she tried counting steps until light shafted ahead, cold air rolled in, causing shivers, and they emerged from the tunnel into a wintry day.
Lilah dropped Atan’s hand so that the Sartoran princess could go to the front of the group and do the magic fog spell she’d prepared. Urgh, Julian trotted after, and Lilah hoped that the little one wouldn’t get hurt. She didn’t want anybody hurt!
She turned away, and amusement spurted through her when she saw Irza poking about the entry. Did she think she was fooling anyone, pretending to fix the tie on her shoe as she scanned for some sort of sign? I’ll bet anything they’re going to change this tunnel as soon as we’re out of sight, she thought, chuckling to herself. Why would Irza want so badly to know how to get in and out? She didn’t seem to be interested in the caves all that much. Maybe she was one of those who liked knowing secrets just because they were secrets.
From the silver world to the gold world, Merewen thought happily as she took in the peachy-yellow early morning light. The morvende and the surface worlds were both beautiful, and so different!
Mendaen searched the horizon all the way around for warriors. His breath hurt, he was so worried. Atan was a mage, but what if Norsundrian warriors found them? He wished Rel was there to lead them. How could they possibly fight off Norsundrians? He gripped his sword hilt in his sweaty fingers. Defend Atan. Fight until I die.
While he watched the horizon, Atan completed her spell, then looked around at the early sunlight shafting between the big snow clouds drifting across the morning sky. The hills lay smooth and white around her and her band of kids as they picked their way down a rocky ledge that the wind had swept clean. An icy wind buffeted their faces. Here and there, low-lying tendrils of fog coalesced and drifted along the ground in puffy cotton snakes.
She breathed in the dank-stone smell of fog, sensed no magic, and appreciated the subtlety of light magic, with just the right very minor spell, drawing moisture upward out of the water-saturated ground, air and breeze mixed naturally. Dark magic would have forced a fog so heavy and so pervaded with magic that it would warn every mage who saw it, and the effects would rile the weather patterns for weeks. Or longer.
“Try not to leave prints,” Mendaen muttered to a couple of the smaller kids, who had ranged away from the rocky trail into the thin layer of snow, glancing around anxiously.
Atan took in the morning-lit faces, red noses, and hunched shoulders as the kids hastily backtracked, scraping their feet to blur their tracks. They didn’t really have warm enough clothing for winter, but no one said anything. Atan
could see in the sharp angles of skinny shoulders, the stiff or nervous fingers, the quick glances that everybody was aware that today’s work would either permit them to change their clothes, or clothing would no longer matter because they’d be dead.
It was time to move.
Atan bent, put one palm on the cold rock, and jumped down to the next level. She half-lifted Julian down, then they rounded a huge boulder and skidded to the flat ground. Julian gave a soft laugh after skidding. Atan was relieved to hear the sound, but then the worry closed in the sharper because Julian was so small.
Atan looked around. The wind scoured over an overturned wagon, one wheel spinning with lazy slowness.
“Oh,” someone said.
They surrounded the wagon, and a couple of the smaller kids searched around in the snow, finding a broken basket and a bundle of cloth that had frozen solid. Atan’s stomach churned. The wagon had been looted more than a hundred years ago, the drivers killed and gone—but it had happened recently to the Sartorans they would soon meet. The kids stared at the wagon in muted horror, some turning anxious glances at the road.
Atan gently disengaged her hand from Julian’s so she could lay her hand on the wood, old and not old, but before she took two steps, a flash of light color startled her, and Merewen stood between her and the wagon.
Merewen did not seem to mind the cold any more than the morvende did. She gazed up into Atan’s face, her own anxious in the strengthening sunlight, as she said, “I—I don’t know why. But I wish you wouldn’t touch that thing.”
“Why not?” Atan asked.
Someone muttered about splinters, but Merewen frowned at the ground, then at the sky, and shook her head. “Fire. I saw fire, here.” She touched her head. “And here, too.” She laid her hand over her heart. “When you started toward it.”
Atan drew in a slow breath. “Of course. I know, that is, I think I know what it means. Tsauderei has taught me about the standard dark magic wards when they want to prevent someone entering a place. There are probably fire wards on every single conveyance within half a day’s travel. They do not know that we are walking.”