Vil shut the door, and he and Aral made enough noise to cover my retreat to the window, where we were far enough from the door to speak in whispers.
"So, Vil," said Aral quietly. "What next? Sounds like the Assembly is going to be nice and lively! I just wish I knew what they are planning to do to us."
"I have absolutely no idea," replied Vilkas, his voice barely loud enough to hear. "I can't believe it will be only a lecture, we've already had one of those." He grinned, looking for an instant like an overgrown imp. "Do they throw folk out of here, or are we more like to face a slit throat and a gutter for a graveyard?"
"Mages are not allowed to kill, idiot," said Aral. "Remember? Though I don't suppose they'd hesitate to toss us out."
"Mages aren't allowed to deal with me Rakshasa either, hut Berys does so all the time," said Vilkas with some heat.
"That's quite an accusation, Vil," I said sternly but very quietly, "and for Erthik's sake, you'd best be sure you have proof if you say it in the Assembly."
"The things don't just appear, Will. Someone has to call them. We didn't." He looked across at me slowly. "I think it has come to the point, you know. I think he was hoping we'd react too slowly. If we hadn't been ready that demon would have killed me and it would look like an accident. I'd be dead and it would be Aral's word against his."
"Goddess," breathed Aral. "You're right, Vil. Sweet heaven. Has it gone so far? Does he really want you dead now?"
"That is the only reasonable explanation I can think of for his summoning those Rikti," said Vilkas. He was very cool about it.
"You're certain he did it?" I asked.
Vil frowned at me. "I told you, they can't just show up. Besides, can't you smell it on him?"
"Smell what?"
"That acrid stink that clings to him and everything he touches. It's the Raksha-trace. He fairly reeks of it, I can smell it across the room."
I smiled a little sadly. "You know, I should be flattered that you keep forgetting, but I must remind you that I have no Healer's talent at all. None. Not the slightest hint. I'm every bit as able to smell demons as, oh, that brick in the hearth. I'd know a demon was behind me if it bit me in the ass, but that's about it."
Aral sniggered but Vilkas remained solemn. "Will, do you have any idea what they might be planning to do at this Assembly?" he said.
"No, lad, I'm sorry," I said. "I've never heard of students being called before the entire Assembly. One or two of the Magistri have joined Berys for a disciplinary hearing, yes, but never all of them." I grinned. "Sounds like Erthik has a few ideas of her own, in any case. You might find that you are able to fade into the background when the real show begins."
"Possibly, but I don't expect we'll get away untouched," he said.
"Well, they can't kill us, there isn't a prison here, and they can't take away our power," said Aral, then her eyes grew wide. "Sweet Shia, Vil," she said, struggling to keep her voice low, "they can't take away our power, can they?"
"No," he said decisively. I looked the question. "I've done quite a bit of research on that subject, Will," he replied. Unexpectedly, he smiled. "Just making sure. But no, Aral, there is no known way to decrease or disperse a Mage's inborn power, though it is possible to put—a—block..."
And Vil started swearing, loud and creatively, pacing up and down the room like a caged heron on his long legs, and throwing in a little blasphemy for good measure. He didn't often crack like that. I watched, interested. I wouldn't have tried to stop him or even slow him down for worlds. He soon got himself under control again, but he was physically quivering with rage. I'd heard of such a thing but never seen it. In someone as intense as Vilkas, believe me, it's frightening.
Just then there came a strange soft noise from outside the door. I looked for somewhere to hide and found only bare walls behind me, but the noise was not repeated and no one knocked. In a moment Vilkas spoke, still in an undertone but with absolute fury in his voice.
"That's it, Aral, that's what they're going to do," he managed to growl. "I've read about it. They won't kill us. They'll just put a block on us that we won't be able to lift for three years. That's what the records say. Then we get sent away and warned not even to try to use our power lest it destroy us in the backlash." He stopped pacing and looked solemnly at her. "The only question is, do we run for it now, or do we hope they don't have the measure of our ability and try to get rid of the block once it's in place?"
Aral stared at him. "Do you really think we could run for it? How would we get past the two on the door?"
Vil said nothing but bowed and gestured at the window.
"We're two floors up!" hissed Aral.
"I've been levitating you for weeks now," murmured Vilkas, one corner of his mouth tilting up. "What makes you think I've forgotten so quickly?"
To my delight, Aral grinned back at him. "Hmm. Good point. I like it."
"I don't," I said. "What if Berys is ready for you?"
"I'd be willing to wager that Berys has never even considered that we might run," replied Vll urgently. "I saw him. He assumes that we'll come along to the Assembly if only to spite him and make accusations we can't possibly prove." Vilkas pulled himself to his full height, looming over Aral. "The more fool he," he said in a whisper, but with immense dignity. "I will not put myself in his power. Are you coming, Aral?"
"I can't talk you out of this?" she said with a sigh, knowing the answer.
"Are you coming?"
"Hell, blast and bugger it. Yes, I'm coming. Let me get my cloak so I don't freeze."
"Where will you go?" I asked quietly.
"Away," said Vilkas shortly. "If you don't know you can't be forced to tell."
"True enough, though I don't think it has quite got to the stage yet where Berys can torture the staff without someone noticing," I replied calmly. And suddenly it all seemed so unreal, so stupid, that I refused to play the silly game anymore. Honestly, grown men huddled whispering in a corner! "In fact," I said, standing up and speaking normally, "this whole thing is ridiculous." I felt like I was shouting, but suddenly I refused to allow this nonsense to continue. "Come on, you two. I need to speak to Magistra Erthik." I strode to the door and opened it.
Well, I wasn't to know.
Magistra Erthik was there but I wasn't able to speak to her. No one would ever speak to her again. Both she and Magister Caillin lay in crumpled heaps, like puppets with cut strings. His face showed only surprise. Hers was set in a mask of rage.
I leaned back into the room. "We're leaving. Now," I commanded. Don't ask me why they didn't argue or wonder—
Aral told me later I was snow-white and just for that moment had a voice like her father. They came without question.
Vilkas took one look, grabbed Aral by the arm and started dragging her away towards the front gate. I followed.
Ah well, I thought as I hurried behind them. That's me in it up to the eyeballs, at any rate.
As soon as we hit the deserted corridors outside the first years' chambers, we started to run.
X The Price of Belts and Bright Days
Varien
I learned that evening why Lanen had been so ill. Rella met me on the stair as I was returning from my bath.
"Varien, there's been a Healer in to see Lanen," she said, stopping one step above me. We each carried candles and the flickering shadows were disconcerting. I could hardly see her face, but her voice was grave. "She's a little better but she's not well."Rella's concern seemed greater now than before we had entered the city. "Was the Healer not able to aid her?" I asked. "I have seen Gedri healers bring Lanen back from the brink of death. What did the Healer say? What afflicts her so?"
Rella held the candle away from her face. "Go to her, Varien. She needs you."
I stood back to allow her to pass on her way down the stair. I climbed slowly, breathing in long deep breaths, taking myself through the first stages of the Discipline of Calmmat was so helpful in controlling the fierce passions of the Ka
ntri. I did manage to slow the rapid beating of my heart.
I opened the door to our room slowly, lest she should be sleeping.
I have tried to forget that moment, but I cannot. It is an odd trait—both Kantri and Gedri remember events in much the same way, but I find there is a curious effect when the heart is most deeply involved. The strangest visions choose to stamp themselves on the memory.
The long side of the bed faced the door with its head against the right-hand wall, and the single candle by the bedside shone on Lanen's gleaming hair, for her face was turned away from me, her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms around them. I thought she was gazing out the small window directly opposite the door.
"Lanen," I said softly, as I put the candleholder on the shelf by the door. She did not move.
"Lanen?" I called again. She did not respond as I closed the door, and I knew could not approach her. I was beginning to learn the Attitudes of the Gedri, and Lanen's especially. There is a set in the shoulders, a something in the tension of the back even under her shift, that speaks as loudly as words and warns off even a husband from a too-swift approach. I "listened" for her mindvoice and heard nothing.
I addressed her in traespeech, for my heart's fears threatened to break through the fragile calm I had imposed on them. "Dearling, forgive me, but I fear for you. Rella told me a Healer had been to see you but that you are not yet well."
I listened in the dark and the quiet and heard only the faintest response. As though from a great distance I heard her calling in traespeech, longing, desperate, lost.
"Akor! Akor! Help me—oh sweet Lady, help me—"
I had her in my arms all in a moment, comforting her with mind and voice and holding her tight to me. "Lanen my heart, I am here, I am here," I repeated. Senseless, I know, she knew perfectly well that I was there, but it seemed to be the right thing to say. She held on to my arms with all her strength and I did not hear her breathe for the longest time, when suddenly between one breath and another she shook me off and stood up. She began to pace the room, her arms crossed before her, her bare feet shaking the floor as she stamped her anger on the boards. She was breathing as though she had run a race.
"Akor—the Healer said—I can't—"
She stopped pacing and stared at me, holding her arms tight round her chest, shaking. "Akor, I'm pregnant. And the Healer said—the Healer said it's killing me. That's what's been wrong with me, why I can't hold down food, why I've been so tired and swollen and had a headache for so long."
I felt the world's fool, but I could not help it. "Forgive me, dearling, I know not that word. What means 'pregnant'?"
"I am carrying our child," she said quietly.
I was very glad that I was sitting down, else I would have fallen. "What, already?" I said stupidly.
"Yes, already," said Lanen, annoyed. "How long did you think it would take? We've been lovers for nearly four moons!" She cracked a little at that and managed a small smile. "And making good use of the time, as well."
"Dearling, you have taught me much, but of the getting of younglings in this body I know nothing. It takes us years to conceive, and the younglings grow for the best part of two full years before they are born."
"Oh Hells, Varien, I'm sorry. I forgot you really don't know," she said, coming slowly to where I sat. "We can conceive after just one encounter, and we give birth nine moons later."
"Nine moons!" I cried.
"If all goes well. And it isn't." She stood again and wrapped her arms about her. "Varien—the Healer said I was warring within myself, that—that it would be better if I could lose the child. And she said"—Lanen started pacing again, striving to speak past the tightness in her throat—"she said it would be as well, that my body knew what it was doing, that it was"—her throat closed again, but she managed to speak through it, her voice rough—"in case it wasn't—in case it was so ill-made it wouldn't live anyway."
That was it, that was the terrible thing past. I sprang up and caught her as her strength left her at last. She wept for a moment in my arms, allowing me to see her weakness as I held her to me. In Lanen that was an intimacy as deep and vulnerable as physical nakedness.
I lifted her tenderly in my arms and laid her gently on the bed, and she sat up against the pillows. I laid the blankets over her bare legs and sat down beside her.
"Lanen, kadreshi, your pain is mine," I said, stroking her hair, surprised at how tight my own throat was, "for this child you carry is mine as well as yours." I gazed deep into her eyes. "Dear one, if me Healer is right, what must we do?"
"No!" she cried. "No, I don't believe her! She tried to get rid of it without telling me, in any case, and couldn't." She sighed and put a hand on her belly. "I'm glad she couldn't. She doesn't know about you. Of course it is difficult for the babe." She laughed, harsh laughter through her anger, and said as quietly as she could, "Name of the Winds, Akor, it's got half a Dragon for a father, of course it's going to have a hard time being born."
"Could it be as simple as that?" I asked, stunned. "But surely if I have the form of a child of the Gedri, I am of the substance of the Gedri as well!"
"Are you so certain?" she replied. "You stopped that sword with your arm the night the bam burned, and you were only cut."
"A cut to the bone, and it still aches," I said.
"Akor, if you were a normal man you would now be one-armed if you were alive at all. I saw that bastard, he was huge. And don't forget what you did to the pell—I find it hard to believe that a man of your build could be so strong."
"What has build to do with it?" I asked, confused. "This form I was gifted with is light but very strong, muscle and bone, and—"
"Just like dragons. I've wondered how in the world such vast creatures manage to fly at all. It shouldn't be possible, unless you have wildly strong bones, hollow like a bird's, and muscles many times as strong as a man's." She paused, looking at me. "And if you are made still of the same stuff, only in the form of a man—sweet Lady—no wonder the Healer couldn't help you! And poor Jamie's pell!"
She was excited now, her anguish gone, her eyes sparkling in the dim candlelight, I love that spirit in her, that will not surrender to despair.
"Varien, that must be it! You are still in many ways one of the Kantri—your form is changed, but you are made still of the same stuff, and"—she glanced down at her belly, suddenly solemn—"and that is what is wrong. That's the war, it must be. This child is—oh Shia—"
Both her hands covered her mouth, as if she were trying to recall those words. I bespoke her, thanking the Winds and the Lady for truespeech.
"This child is what, Lanen?"
In reply I heard an echo in her mind, her memory of a voice I never thought to hear again—Rishkaan, who died half a year ago, speaking what were nearly his last words when Lanen stood trial before the Kantri.
She would mingle the blood of the Kantri and Gedri! Her children will be monsters, the world will fill with Raksha-fire and none to stand between because of her!
I took her by the shoulders and shook her. It made her angry, but it got her attention. "Stop it, Lanen! You are guessing. You know none of this as fact. All that you know for certain is that you are ill with this pregnancy." I managed a laugh, though it was not much of one. "Name of the Winds, dearling, if I were truly of the substance of my old people you would know dreadful pain when we joined in love, if indeed you survived it at all! Be reasonable. The seed of the Kantri would not quicken one of the Gedri, it could never happen. Rishkaan spoke from his hate, dearling. Do not be foolish. It cannot be."
She closed her eyes for a moment, hearing my words for the truth they were. She relaxed suddenly and sat again on the bed. "You're right, thank you, of course you're right. It just couldn't happen." She looked up at me, her eyes bright in the dim candlelight. "But I am having trouble with this child."
"Yes." I grinned. "I think we have come around to where we began. The question before us—before you—is, what is to do about it
?"
"The—the Healer said we need to find a Mage," she said. "Fast."
"Then that is what we must do. Where should we find such a person?"
"They live all over, there might even be one here in Kaibar, but the school that trains them is in Verfaren. But that's not the worst of it, Varien," she said quietly. "She said I had to find a Mage very quickly or I'd die of this child. Verfaren is three or four weeks away."
A vague idea had begun to form in my mind. "Lanen, do not fear it. There is always a way."
She stared at me, but I did not dare speak of what I was thinking. Not yet.
"In the meantime, am I correct in thinking that Mages are simply very strong Healers?"
"In general, yes," said Lanen. "That woman was only a Healer of the second rank. Mages are more than twice as powerful. Maikel was a Healer of the third rank and you saw what he could do. Mages would be called fifth rank if they could be called anything, but after the fourth I gather that their gifts differ in kind, not just in ability." She frowned. "I would guess there would be someone around here who can help, Kaibar's a big place and trouble in pregnancy isn't all that uncommon."
"Then let us seek out a Mage, my heart," I said. I had caught some of her hope, and combined with the mad thought that had occurred to me, I dared to think that both the child and Lanen might live yet.
Lanen stood and shrugged on her clothes. "Let's get down to dinner and ask Rella, or the innkeeper. Someone is bound to have some idea where we should look."
The smells rising from the common room as we came out of our room were delicious. Lanen clattered down the stair with more energy than I'd seen from her in weeks, and the small grain of hope that had been planted in my heart sent a tiny green seedling into the light and the air.
The variety of foods that the Gedri have created from simple ingredients has never yet ceased to amaze me. There was a thick vegetable soup and a slab of nutty brown bread with it, then a roasted ham served with some kind of root vegetable I had never seen—when Lanen told me it was called "parsnip" I laughed aloud at the sound of the name—and potatoes that had been magically transformed into a fluffy white mush.They were delicious. I was delighted to see Lanen eating heartily. She had lost so much flesh as we travelled, for the food we had carried was intended only to sustain on a journey and after the first se'ennight or so she could not keep it down. The Healer had done good work, however, and for the moment at least Lanen seemed much better. She was still far too thin, but her cheeks were no longer sunken with constant pain. The seedling grew another tiny leaf.