“Thank you,” she whispered. No louder than a breath. Then she drew the cloak’s hood forward over her head once more, and with it the shadows of the night, until she became one with them, and slowly faded from his sight. He stood there until she was wholly gone, silent and unmoving, savoring the last moments of her presence, wondering if he would ever see her again except in a dream. While overhead the bloodred moons grew pale and silver even as she vanished, and the pines beneath them shed their frozen coats and the world became normal once more.
Except for the ache in his heart, more terrible than any earthly wound could ever be.
Go with the gods, he thought.
Chapter 23
THE PALACE of the Witch-Queen glowed like a beacon in the sunlight, its outer colonnade almost too bright to gaze upon directly. One could see it from miles away, perched on a hilltop overlooking the port city of Sankara, an elegant monument set against a backdrop of soft clouds and the rich turquoise of a late summer sky. Peaceful, Colivar thought. It always looked so peaceful.
The wind had been quiet for three days when he arrived, so the harbor below was filled with ships of all kinds, awaiting passage through the Narrows to the eastern seas. From the cliff-top gardens they looked like a flock of white birds perched upon the water, bobbing gently with the rhythm of the waves. Doubtless a few of the captains had access to a witch or Magister who could make the wind blow, but either those efforts had been stalemated by other sorcerers who wished it to remain calm, or all were simply content to wait. And why not? It was a beautiful city that had been catering to travelers for centuries, a regularly scheduled stop for merchant ships before they committed themselves to the waters of the east. Some considered themselves lucky if the wind died while they were there.
Most Magisters who visited the palace traveled in one winged form or another, but Colivar preferred to make the trip as the morati did, riding up past terraced gardens on horseback until at last he reached the uppermost levels. There were always servants waiting to see to the welfare of guests, and one took his reins as soon as he dismounted while another went running to the palace to announce his arrival. It was of course no problem that he had arrived without warning; the woman they called the Witch-Queen was always ready to receive Magisters, announced or otherwise, and their arrival took precedence over all other business.
Soon a young girl appeared to lead Colivar to her mistress. She was a slender little thing dressed in layers of silk that fluttered like butterfly wings as she moved, and she wore a veil of translucent gauze that did more to draw attention to her features than to hide them. Probably from the desert lands, Colivar thought. Siderea’s servants came from all over the world and she let them dress as they preferred, which made for a remarkable court. Doubtless she had sent this child to Colivar because she associated him with the tribes of Anshasa and thought it would please him, though if she knew him better she might have sent a hardy blonde in northern furs instead.
Siderea Aminestas was waiting for him in an audience chamber fashioned in the southern style, with low couches laden with silken coverlets and thick, plush cushions scattered about the room. She was a striking woman, not beautiful in the traditional sense, but possessed of a presence that permeated whatever space she was in. Her coffee-colored skin glowed with the warm highlights of the Sankaran sun, and her long black hair was braided with jewels that glittered as she moved. A thin line of gold paint bordered her eyes, giving her the aspect of a great cat, and as she stretched forth a hand to greet Colivar it was almost as if some feline spirit had entered her flesh, along with all the languid sensuality of its species.
“Colivar.” She smiled. “I was just thinking of you.”
He kissed the hand she offered and smiled in turn. “You say that to all the sorcerers.”
“Posh on that. Only to the pretty ones.” She rose to a more upright position on the couch, making room for him beside her. “Why do they come to me in such awful bodies? You would think if a man had the power to look like anything he wanted he would choose something more appealing. Like this.” Her slender hand caught up a lock of his hair, twisting it playfully around her index finger. “I have always liked this one.”
He chuckled. “It has served me well.”
As he settled himself on the couch beside her another servant entered and stood by the door, awaiting her word. “You will take refreshment?” she asked. “I have a fine pomegranate cordial I think you would like. Sent to me by an admirer in Eskadora. Will you try it?”
“You know I cannot refuse you, lady.”
She nodded to the girl, who backed out silently to fetch the drink. “You are my greatest flatterer, you know that, Colivar? Some days I think that Magisters are above mere social pleasantries and then you show up at my door, as silk-tongued as the finest courtier, and prove me wrong. In truth, you make the others seem like barbarians by contrast.”
He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it softly again. “And you, my lady, are known to flatter whichever sorcerer is by your side in terms so pleasing we do not care if there are others waiting in the shadows.”
She laughed softly. “Ah, but you would not wish to have me all to yourself, would you? For then I should become demanding, and perhaps expect loyalt in turn.”
“And we cannot have that,” he agreed.
The young girl returned, and the two of them fell silent. Colivar noted that she kept her eyes low as she set a silver tray on the table before them, as if she was not worthy of looking directly at her superiors. That too was a desert custom. He wondered if it was a habit natural to the girl, or something Siderea had asked her to do while Colivar was present.
When she was gone the Magister leaned back on the couch, watching as Siderea poured him a portion of the bloodred cordial. “So what do the barbarians gossip about, these days?”
“That the High King Danton is mad, and threw all the Magisters out of his domain.”
He chuckled as she handed him a glass. “All too true on the latter count, I am afraid. It was quite a scene. The madness . . . that is not news.”
“They say that another Magister has come to serve him now, one called Kostas, and he is a mystery to all of you.”
Colivar shrugged. “No Magister seems to have heard the name before, or recognizes the body he wears. Which in itself does not mean very much. We can change such things as easily as other men change their clothes.”
“But most do not do so, yes?” She sipped from her own glass and then reclined on the couch beside him. The layers of her gown parted over one leg, baring sleek copper skin. “Magisters seem to enjoy their reputations.”
“Aye, most do,” he agreed. He sipped the cordial, and nodded his approval as it slid warmly down his throat. “He is welcome to Danton as far as I am concerned. The man has been mad from the cradle.”
“But his madness has made him powerful, and men are drawn to power.”
He smiled slightly, running his glass along the line of her thigh. “And women are not?”
She sniffed. “I would rather bed an iguana.” “Interestingly,” he noted, “that is how I have heard this Kostas described. Perhaps you should add him to your collection.”
“You do not think he is dangerous, then?”
“All Magisters are dangerous, my lady.”
“I meant Danton.”
“Ah.” He stared into the deep red depths of his glass, considering an answer. “Danton has always been dangerous,” he said at last, “especially to princes who are in the way of his expansion. But I think perhaps his glory days are coming to an end. For years he had Ramirus to guide him, and to rein in his temper. The High King has yet to prove that he can manage the same feats without such a mentor.” He shook his head. “I never understood what that bearded old fool saw in him. Maybe just a challenging project.”
“Corialanus is worried.”
“Corialanus should be worried. As should all of Danton’s immediate neighbors. When madmen fall they tend to take o
ther people down with them.” He looked at her. “Sankara will be spared, I am sure. You have enough Magisters wrapped about your lovely little finger to see to that.”
She pouted sweetly. “I am not sure if that is a compliment or a challenge.”
“Perhaps both,” he said with an enigmatic smile.
You will be safe, he thought, because in all the world there is no other person who can offer the Magisters what you do. To serve as a repository for news of our kind, so that those who visit you may be thoroughly updated. To give us a way to ally our common interests, without needing to admit that we value alliance. Where else has such a thing ever existed, in our world? Who would take your place if Sankara fell?
He drained the last drops of cordial from his glass and set it aside. “What other news, besides madmen and iguanas?”
“There was a death in Gansang. A Magister. So my contacts say.”
He stiffened. “A Magister? Are you sure?”
“How can one be sure of things half a world away? I give you what I have heard. You have better means than I to discover the truth.”
He nodded. “Fair enough, then. Tell me more.”
“They say he fell from a high bridge, or else some sort of tower, my sources were not sure which. They say he hit the ground without aid of sorcery and died as mortal men die, crushed by the impact.”
“But that is . . .” He could not find an appropriate word. Yes, an accident might claim the life of a Magister, but it usually was an end that struck swiftly, so that the victim had no time to muster his power in self-defense. A falling man would have time enough to conjure up any of a dozen spells to save himself on his way to the ground. If this one was dead, then there was some reason he had not done so. Perhaps he was even dead before he had begun his fatal descent. Why? “How did he come to fall? Do you know?”
She shook her head. “Apparently he was following some woman at the time. None saw them meet. The next thing anyone knew was that passersby saw him plummet to the ground, and by the time anyone thought to look up to the place he had fallen from there was no one there. The woman is gone, apparently. Though they are searching.” She sighed. “I do not blame her—even if she is innocent of wrongdoing, they will want someone to blame, and women are always easy targets for that.”
“You know the names? The one who died? This woman they think he was following?”
With a smile she reached into her bodice and brought forth a folded slip of paper. “I thought you might ask for that. Here it is, all of it. And the names of three other Magisters said to be present. The woman was new to the city, I have only her name—for now.”
He took the paper from her. “You are a treasure as always, my jewel.”
He looked over the list of names. The Magister who had died was unknown to him; the others were vaguely familiar from ages past, men of minor power and little renown. Would any of them have breached the Law to bring down one of their own kind? It was a dark thought indeed, but not one he found likely. The Law was the Law because all Magisters understood that staying alive required such rules to be absolute. Magisters did not kill Magisters; never had, never would.
But there must be sorcery involved in this somehow, he thought. He would not have died otherwise.
“Tell me about this woman,” he said quietly.
“No one seems to know very much about her. Some witch that one of the local merchants had brought with him. They said she was very beautiful, but very cold. Do you think that is why he followed her?” Her lips curled into a smile. “Maybe the Magisters of the west are starved for beauty.”
“No doubt that is it,” he said distantly.
Andovan’s little fortune-teller had told him that a woman was killing him. Now there was a woman involved in a Magister’s death. Was there any connection between the two? Women of power were rare enough in the world that it was a reasonable thing to consider.
And then there was the Witch-Queen herself. He had defended her in the company of the other Magisters, insisting she had nothing to do with Andovan’s illness, but that was more to put others off her trail than because he was sure of her innocence. If a woman of power was somehow connected to the prince, draining him of strength . . . well, there were not all that many in the world who might be capable of such a thing, and Siderea Aminestas was one of them.
If she ever claimed her immortality, became a Magister in truth, would she even tell us? Or would she continue to play the same game she always has, delighting in our ignorance?
“Tell me,” he said softly. He leaned close and whispered the words into her hair, in lover’s tones. “What do you know of Prince Andovan, of the Aurelius line?”
“Danton’s get?” She drew back far enough to look up at him. “Isn’t he the one that killed himself?”
“Yes.”
She nodded. “There was quite a flurry after that one. I had more guests than I knew what to do with. Seating that many Magisters at the same dinner table is not unlike putting rival wolves in the same pit.”
He smiled faintly. “Doubtless those who were visiting from halfway across the world did not wish to return home without witnessing your legendary charms first, my lady.”
“They said he was a skilled hunter, strong in health until the illness took him. That Aurelius had called many Magisters together to find a cure, and they had failed him, and he had cast them all out in fury, including his own Magister Royal. Whom I have not yet met, by the way.”
“Ramirus?” Colivar chuckled. “He is not your type.”
“Ah, do I have a ‘type?’ I did not know.”
A Magister who can kiss a morati without feeling as if he is kissing dead flesh. That is no small thing, my queen.
“Perhaps not,” he said. “Tell me more of Andovan.”
She knew the invitation for what it was, and though she raised a finely plucked eyebrow in curiosity, did not ask why he required it. She had dealt with Magisters long enough and intimately enough to know that some secrets would not be shared. So she told him of Andovan, passing along such court gossip as had reached Sankara, while Colivar used his power to measure what was hidden deep within the depths of her soul.
She did not know him, he determined at last, or have any reason to harm him. She had nothing to do with his illness.
A wave of relief passed over him; a burden he had not even realized he was carrying was lifted suddenly from his shoulders. She must have sensed the change in him for she asked softly, “Are you satisfied?”
He nodded.
There were too many puzzle pieces to sort out in all this. Too little sense of the overall pattern. Not for the first time, he wished Siderea were someone he could truly confide in so that she could help him ferret out the answers. But she was morati, and no matter how many Magisters might trade gossip with her in her gardens, no matter how much useful information she might give him, that meant there was a barrier between them that could never be breached.
Another servant entered, this one a young boy with the fair skin of the northlands and a costume to match. He carried in his hands a finely carved ebony box with golden hinges, which he handled as if it were a priceless treasure. He came to where the two of them sat and knelt before them, offering the box to Siderea with his head bowed, as if he would not deem himself worthy to view its contents. She drew a small golden key on a chain from out of her bosom and unlocked it, fingered the few dozen papers inside, and at last drew one forth. “I believe this is for you.” She relocked the box, slid the key back into the neck of her gown, and nodded for the servant to leave them. “Left by a Magister named Sulah. A student of yours, I gather?”
“Long ago. I did not know he had made your acquaintance.”
“All Magisters do, in time.” She smiled. “Or so they tell me.”
The paper was a simple note, unsealed. He unfolded it and recognized Sulah’s neat handwriting within. Contact me soon, it said, with the single initial S scribed below. Colivar ran his fingers over the words and fe
lt the whisper of power adhering to them. Enough to enable him to establish a link with Sulah one time before it faded. Good enough.
He tucked the note away.
“I have served you well tonight, my sorcerer?” she murmured.
He reached up to her face and stroked her cheek softly, a lover’s touch. “Always. Now how may I serve you in turn?”
“That is not necessary. It is a humble woman’s honor to serve the Magisters.”
“And my pleasure to thank the humble woman for that service.”
“Ah. Well then. I would not deny you pleasure.”
“Speak, then.” He leaned back on the couch again. “The power is restless within me. Tell me where I may give it outlet.”
She lay down beside him, playing with a lock of his hair. Her skin smelled like sweet almonds, warm and inviting. “I hear the western fields of Corialanus are wanting rain. The summer has been long and dry there, the crops are suffering. Perhaps you would like to help?”
He chuckled softly. “You promised rain to Corialanus?”
“Lord Hadrian knows I am a witch. He asked me to help his people. How can I refuse?”
“I am surprised he does not ask his own king for aid. There are sorcerers enough in that court.”
“I gather he does not wish to become indebted to his king more than he must.” Her dark eyes glittered. “It is . . . interesting, yes?”
He chuckled softly. “He will pay you well enough to compensate for true witchery?”
“He will, when I require it. For now, let us say he will owe me a great debt.”
“Very great, when he asks that a portion of your life be expended for his sake.”
She laughed merrily. “Yet the people see that the years pass and I do not die, and they wonder why, Colivar. Do you know what they say now? They whisper that I am a Magister.”
“Yes. I have heard those whispers.”
“When the truth is merely that I please the Magisters.” She leaned close and brushed his lips with her own. It was a tantalizing half-kiss that stirred Colivar’s flesh more than he expected. Normally Magisters were immune to such temptation, not because they were incapable of physical indulgence, but simply because when a man could have any woman that he desired, or create a simulacra of any woman for an evening’s pleasure, the game simply lost its edge.