The Creator looked down from the heavens and saw what the First Kings were doing and how their vanity had laid waste to the land.
And He said, “Enough!”
Book of Penitence
Transgressions 7:15-19
Chapter 1
IT HAD been cool that afternoon in the pine-clad mountains, and no sorcery was needed to forecast that the coming night would be a chilly one. In the open plains to the west the summer heat was relentless and clouds of dust could be seen rising up from acres of dying crops, staining the sunset russet. But the mountains were another world entirely. In the cool, pine-scented shade it was a rare nightfall that did not bring a cooling breeze in its wake, even in the worst of the summer season, and this evening was no exception.
Both moons could be seen overhead now, a slender crescent to the west and a nearly perfect orb just above the eastern horizon; their light filtered down through the thickly layered branches, mottling the ground with shadows. Peaceful. Timeless. Ethanus paused for a few minutes to watch the shadows creep slowly eastward, then turned back to his work, the collecting of canthus leaves. With night falling it was getting harder to see, and for a moment he was tempted to conjure light to aid him in his work. Then the moment passed. Such things were no longer reflexive for him, as they had once been. Lighting a lamp took far less effort and no one need die for it.
The plant’s sharp, minty scent filled the clearing as he worked. It was strange how much pleasure a simple smell could provide, he thought. Once his life had been full of all the riches and power that morati men could dream of . . . yet nothing then had been quite so satisfying as this simple smell and the sweet peace of a mountain evening.
Finally he had gathered all he could and he rose up, stretched, and then followed the faint glow of lamplight back to his house.
The girl who lay upon a makeshift bed in the far corner of the small house was asleep, as she had been for many days now. He had set her broken bones with care, in the morati manner, not because sorcery couldn’t have cured her wounds faster, but because he did not believe in waste. Besides, he’d thought it would be a good lesson for his young student to heal slowly and painfully, as the morati did. Maybe it would teach her something about caution.
Would that it was ever so easy with her, he thought wryly.
As he walked by to add a few leaves of fresh canthus to the teakettle over the fire, he suddenly noted that she had shifted position. Then he saw that one of the bandages he’d wrapped about her arm had been severed down the middle as neatly as if it had been scored by a knife, to free the limb beneath; the flesh that had once been bruised and broken now looked whole again. So she had been awake while he was gone, for a few minutes at least, and coherent enough to be wielding sorcery. That meant that all her broken bones had probably been repaired, and all other signs of her near-fatal confrontation would likewise have been banished from her flesh. Patience had never been her forte.
He dropped a few canthus leaves into the pot, set it aside, and watched the pattern of steam rise from the hot water as he waited for the herb to steep. Giving her a chance to say something first, if she wanted to. Finally, when the color of the water was a deep golden brown and the smell of it had filled the small cabin like perfume, he poured two cups full, blew on them softly, and walked over to where Kamala lay.
Her eyes were half open but not quite focused; alert, but not yet oriented.
“Here,” he said. He gave her a moment to fix her sight on the cup of canthus tea and struggle to a sitting position. As she took the cup from him—her hands trembling slightly as she used them for the first time in days—he reached out and took up a piece of paper that had been lying on the nearby table. “And here,” he said, giving it to her, as he pulled up a chair to sit next to her.
She tried to sip from her cup, but her expression made it clear the tea was too hot for her taste. He could see a faint glimmer of power dance upon the surface of the liquid as she bound a bit of soulfire to cool it. How casually she drained a man of life, he thought, to save herself the trouble of a single cooling breath! Yet he knew deep inside that it was anything but casual. The action was deeply significant to her, for it was made possible by her triumph over the limitations of her sex. Killing a morati to cool a cup of tea was a luxury reserved for a precious few.
Thank the gods for that, he thought.
He could see the color come slowly back into her cheeks as the tea warmed her blood; the minty herb would help her clear her head as well. There was a dusting of pale freckles across her brow, he noticed, souvenir of a sunnier clime than his own. For a brief, disconcerting moment he was jealous.
Of what?
She put the cup aside then, her hand still shaking slightly, and turned her attention to the paper in her hand. For a minute she stared at it blankly, as if she had forgotten how to read.
Then her brow furrowed as the writing on the paper came into focus. “What is this?”
“A list of all the unpleasant things I might have done to you while you were asleep. Assuming I did not immediately turn you over to the other Magisters for past crimes. Call it a reminder to you of what the consequences might be the next time you show up half dead on a Magister’s doorstep with a death warrant on your head.” He sipped briefly from his own cup as he watched her look over the list. To his surprise, she did not answer him with defiance or excuses but just asked quietly, “Are there that many hunting me? Truly?”
“There have been at least a dozen sorcerous queries focused on you since you came here, and some even found their way to this forest. That is not to say that my defenses weren’t up to the task, but I would like to know who and what I am defending you against. And why I should do so.”
She lowered the cup and shut her eyes. A tremor seemed to pass through her flesh. “They hunt me for killing that Magister? Or something else?”
“Do they know you were the one responsible for that?”
“One Magister knows. I think. He might have told others.”
With a sigh he sat back heavily in his chair; the aged wood creaked beneath his weight. “Which one?”
“Does it matter?”
“It might.”
“Colivar.”
He muttered something under his breath. It might have been a profanity.
“Bad?”
He got up from his chair and walked to the fireplace, pretending that the tea needed stirring. He didn’t want her to see his face. “Colivar holds his secrets close,” he said at last. “It’s not likely he’ll tell the others the truth about you unless he stands to gain from it. And he won’t hunt you down too quickly, if he thinks that doing it slowly will afford him more entertainment.” He looked at her sharply. “But he holds to the Law, the same as all the others. Never forget that. And if he means to keep you alive for a while, it is not for any benign purpose.”
She nodded solemnly.
He turned back to her. His expression was stern. “You know you’ve compromised me by coming here. Didn’t you once promise me you would never do that? There are Magisters who would call for my execution as well as yours if they knew that I had given you shelter.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I had nowhere else to go.”
If she’d argued with him he might have known what to say. But not like this. He was used to a fiery, defiant apprentice, not one with all the spirit leached out of her.
But then again, she wasn’t his apprentice anymore. He needed to remember that, even if she kept forgetting it. Once a new Magister was sent out into the world he was his own man—or woman—and no one else of that brotherhood was expected to aid him, shelter him, or even tolerate his company unless he had something to gain from it. And even then there was no guarantee that a so-called ally might not take advantage of a moment’s weakness to gain a more permanent advantage. Yes, according to the code they all lived by, she had done the most foolish thing imaginable, arriving on his doorstep the way she had. After breaking the
one Law they all were sworn to enforce.
But you are without precedent to start with, my fiery little strumpet. So who is to say there will not be a host of other surprises? I knew that might be the case when I first took you in. So it’s my own fault if that gets me in trouble now, yes?
With a sigh he sat down again beside her. Her wild red hair was longer than it had been when she’d left him, he noted. It was almost a feminine length now, falling in bright red wisps almost to her shoulders. No doubt she would cut it again as soon as she realized that.
Ironically, her repeated efforts to deny that she had any concern with her appearance only added to her allure. With her hair grown long, neatly brushed, and plaited in a feminine style, she might have been an attractive woman, but only that. In this state she was something more. Something primal and elemental, he thought. A force of nature.
“It may be that not all of those queries knew what they were focusing on,” he said gruffly. He was trying to make his voice as unsympathetic as possible, but old habits were hard to break. “Anyone attempting to investigate your actions, even if he didn’t know exactly who was responsible for them, might send a bit of power questing in this direction to seek answers. And I might rightfully respond to such a thing as an invasion of my territory and drive it off. No one will question any of that.” He sighed and sipped his tea again. “So I gather you have done something else that others would want to know about? Besides the death of that Magister?”
Her lips tight, she nodded.
“Another breach of the Law?”
“No, Master Ethanus.” The words were a whisper.
“What, then? And please remember, I am no longer your Master.”
In answer she held out her hand to him, palm up. Sparks of light gathered above it and slowly coalesced into an image of a strange creature with a body like that of a long, dark snake and wings like those of a dragonfly.
Recognition was like a blow to the chest. For a moment Ethanus could not find his voice.
She said, “Prince Andovan called it a Souleater.”
He had never seen one before, but he had heard enough of the old tales to recognize it for what it was. And the memory of how those tales ended made his blood freeze in his veins.
“What do you have to do with this . . . thing?”
“I fought it,” she told him. “I did as you taught me, and struck for the joints, where its armor was weakest. And it worked.” A bit of the old defiance was coming back into her voice. “Wasn’t that news worth bringing here? Isn’t such a report worth the risk of your harboring a fugitive, at least until she is strong enough to deliver it?”
“You killed this creature?”
“No. I might have, but . . .” She shut her eyes for a moment, trying to think back to what had happened. It all seemed a blur now, especially the last few terrifying moments. “Andovan must have died while I was fighting it. That is the only thing that could explain it.”
“Andovan?”
“My consort.”
He exhaled in an exasperated hiss. “You learned your consort’s name?”
To his amazement, her face reddened. “A bit more than that, actually.”
“How much more?” he demanded. Fascinated and repelled by the concept. Could you kill a man whose name you knew? Drain him of his vital energy while gazing into his eyes? What would it do to a Magister’s soul, to experience such a thing?
“Enough to know that you were right,” she said, with rare humility. “We should never learn the names of those we steal life from, lest it weaken our resolve. A weaker spirit than mine might have failed such a test.” She met his eyes with a diamond-hard gaze; the flicker of pain in them was so fleeting he almost missed it. “But I’m still alive, yes? So I was strong enough to pass the test. That’s all that matters, isn’t it?”
Or selfish enough, he thought. Bloodthirsty enough. Callous enough. For our kind, there is no other measure that matters.
“You will not be alive for long if you do not keep away from Magisters. And that includes me.” His tone was harsh. “You did a foolish thing, counting on my sympathy when you came here. I would expect better understanding from you.”
Anger flashed in her eyes. “And I would expect better from you. Do you really think that a Magister whom you trained would gamble so heavily on human sentiment? Maybe instead she decided to take a chance that your curiosity would be sparked by her confrontation with a creature out of legend . . . enough that you would shelter her until she could share what she had seen. Is that not in keeping with what you taught me? That information is the coin of the realm among Magisters? That a sorcerer will take great risks for the sake of novelty when nothing else will move him? Or did I mistake that lesson also, my Master?”
For a moment he said nothing. It took all his self-control to keep his expression impassive, so that she could not guess what he was thinking. Then he walked to his writing desk, picked up a sheaf of blank papers, a pen and inkwell, and brought them back to her. “Write down all you have seen.” He dropped the papers onto her lap and put the writing instruments on the table beside her. “And append a sorcerous image of the Souleater as well, that I might study it in greater detail later.” He did not meet her eyes this time; perhaps he was afraid of what his own might reveal. “In the morning, when that is finished, I will take you to the Magisters for justice. As is my duty.” He paused. “Do not attempt to leave this house before then, Kamala.”
“I will not, Magister Ethanus.” Her tone was one of unquestioning obedience. Of course. No other tone would be acceptable where the Law was concerned.
He ached to look at her again, to fix her in his memory one last time. But because it was an ache that came from his heart, he denied it.
“Should they choose to set you free,” he said “—unlikely though I think that is—beware of the northlands. Most especially of the sorcerous barrier that holds the Souleaters at bay, which locals call the ‘Wrath of the Gods.’ I have heard it can play havoc with sorcery, and few Magisters ever go to that region unless their business requires it.”
“I understand,” she said quietly, nodding.
“A Magister who learned the secrets of the northlands would possess something of value to our brotherhood. Something he might later trade for assistance in . . . sensitive matters.”
“I will remember that,” she promised.
I really should betray your trust someday, he thought. Just to remind you that such a thing is possible. Does it make me a bad teacher if I choose not to do so?
How he ached to have her stay here longer! To drink in her maverick beauty for a bit more time, to bask in her youthful, defiant energy in a way that he had not been able to do while she’d been asleep . . . but it was too dangerous now. If the ones that were hunting her ever got close enough to eavesdrop on her memories, they must not see such weakness in him. He was pushing the limits of the Law as it was; he dared not risk the other Magisters suspecting the depth of his attachment to her.
Not to mention he might then have to admit it to himself.
“I will see you are given fair trial,” he said sternly. “That is the most I can do.”
And this is the closest I can come to saying good-bye.
“I understand,” she whispered. Not saying good-bye either. That was a good thing, he thought. Words could not always be trusted.
Silently he turned back to the door, taking a lantern from its hook as he did so. Behind him there was no rustle of parchment, no sound of an inkwell being opened, no soft scratching of quill on paper. If he had been given such a task he would have spent the whole night working on it, writing until his fingers ached, using the exercise as a chance to review what had happened to him, and perhaps derive some valuable lesson from it. She, on the other hand, would accomplish the assignment with a moment’s sorcery—a whisper of stolen life—and then move on to more important things.
Nothing is more important than knowledge, he thought. Self-knowledge in particula
r.
With a heavy sigh he headed out into the night, so that later, if asked, he might honestly say that he had not seen her leave.
Chapter 2
HE ARRIVED without fanfare, without servants, without guards. A dozen monks in plain woolen cassocks approached the palace gate together and he was simply one of them, dressed in the same coarse fabric, covered with dust from the same long journey.
The royal guards, on edge ever since Danton’s death, gathered themselves into a tight formation at the gate as the small retinue approached. An onlooker might have been amused. It was hard to imagine any weapons such a company might carry that would be cause for concern, but the royal household was edgy without a Magister to guard it, and even though a dozen witches had pledged themselves to aiding in the transition of power—in return for enough gold that they would never have to sell their talents to any man again—it was clear the guards did not consider that good enough.
“Halt!” the captain of the watch called as the party of monks approached the gate.
All but one of them obeyed. That one, a tall man, continued for several steps more, until he stood apart from his companions.
“Halt!” the captain called again, and behind him his men tightened their grips on their lances, wondering what source of trouble might lie hidden beneath those dusty robes.
Then the lead monk raised his hands to the hood that shadowed his features, and slowly pushed it back. “Tell Her Majesty that Salvator Aurelius, son of Danton Aurelius, has returned.”
For a moment the captain just stared at him, slack-jawed. It had been almost four years since anyone had seen Danton’s second-born, and he had changed much in that time. The gangly youth who had gone off years ago in search of spiritual enlightenment had come into his manhood along the way, and the steady calm that emanated from him now was so uncharacteristic of the young prince the captain remembered that for a moment he was not sure they were the same person.