City of Sorcery

  “Not particularly,” Camilla said. “Why? And what has the Sisterhood to do with Lexie Anders?” She reached across the bench and picked up her cold tea, sipping at it.

  Magda said, “Let me make you a fresh cup,” took both mugs, and poured the tea. She went to refill the kettle.

  At last, knowing she was delaying, she said, “During that meeting, I saw—something. I didn’t know then what to call it, I thought it was a—a thought-form of the Goddess Avarra. Of course, at the time, I thought I was hallucinating, that it wasn’t really there.”

  Camilla said, “I have seen it too, during meetings of the Sisterhood. You know that the Renunciates were formed from two societies: the Sisterhood of the Sword, who were a soldier-caste, and the priestesses of Avarra, who were healers. I believe the Sisterhood invokes Avarra in their meetings. Again—what have their religious practices to do with Lexie Anders?”

  Magda stood braced against the table, leaning on her fists. Her face was drawn and distant, remembering. She said, and it was no more than a whisper of horror, “Twice more, I saw—something. Not the Goddess Avarra. Robed figures. A whisper of—of a sound like crows calling. Once I asked: Who are you?”

  Camilla asked, her voice dropping in response to the frozen dread in Magda’s, “Did they—was there any answer?”

  “None that made any sense to me. I seemed to hear—not quite to hear, to sense—the words, The Dark Sisterhood. Something—” Magda wrinkled up her face, tensely; it was tenuous, like trying to remember a dream in daylight. “Only that they were guardians of some sort, but couldn’t interfere. And just as I was about to reach the point where Lexie relived and remembered the crash, I saw that. Again.”

  Her throat closed, her voice was reduced to a thready whisper. “Walls. A city. Robed figures. Then the sound of crows calling. And nothing. After that—nothing.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER FOUR

  « ^ »

  Camilla turned away and banked the fire. She felt carefully about the legs of Magda’s breeches to see if they were dry.

  “Leave them for a few minutes more,” she said.

  “Camilla! You know something of the Sisterhood; what are they?”

  Camilla was still fussing with the half-dried clothing.

  “If I knew,” she said, “I would be like Marisela— sworn to secrecy. Why do you think those people don’t make it, whatever it is that they know, part of the regular Training sessions? Secrets, bah! Once Marisela tried to get me to join them. When I would not, she was very annoyed with me. Weren’t you angry when Lexie refused to join the Penta Cori’yo?

  That was different, Magda thought, even though she could not define how. She was not accustomed to defending herself against Camilla, not anymore.

  “You don’t like Marisela?”

  “Certainly I like her. But I refused to make her the keeper of my conscience and of course she has never forgiven me for that. But when first she insisted I should join them, she did tell me something of the original purposes of the Sisterhood. Most of it is what you would expect from the Oath, the usual business about women as sisters, Men dia pre’ zhiuro, sister and mother and daughter to all women—but there is more; it is to give teaching in laran to those who were not born Comyn and thus are not eligible for training in the ordinary Towers. She even tried to frighten me— threatened me with all kinds of dreadful consequences if I was not willing to swallow her kind of medicine for my ills. ”

  “That does not sound like Marisela,” Magda said.

  “Oh, believe me, she did not say it in those words. She didn’t bully me, or say do what I suggest or you will have to suffer all kinds of things—no, it was more a matter of being afraid for me. More a matter of—Let me help you, you poor thing, or you cannot imagine how dreadful it will be. You know the kind of thing I mean.” Magda heard the unspoken part of that, and you know how much I would hate that kind of thing, just as clearly as she had heard what Camilla had said aloud. She knew Camilla trusted her enough not to take advantage, or she would never have allowed that.

  “Among other things, Marisela tried to tell me that an untrained telepath is a danger to herself and to everyone around her.” Camilla’s scornful look showed what she thought of that.

  But that is perfectly true, Magda thought, remembering her own training. And the attempt to block her own laran had all but destroyed Jaelle. If Camilla had done so unharmed, it would have taken such iron control, such perfect self-discipline—

  But Camilla did have both iron control and perfect self-discipline; she had had to have them, or she could never have survived what had happened to her. And if she had the strength to survive all that—not unscarred, but simply to survive—then she had the control and discipline for that too. But Magda was not surprised that Marisela did not believe it.

  “At that time—after I was—changed, and recovered,” Camilla said, almost inaudibly, “Leonie offered me this. She said something of the same sort—that I had been born into the caste with laran and therefore could not survive without that teaching. I honor Leonie—she was kind to me when I greatly needed that kindness. She saved more than my life; she saved my reason. For all that, I would have been more comfortable with the bandits who so misused me; at least, when they violated me, they didn’t pretend they were doing it for my own good.”

  Magda did not say a word. Only twice in the years they had known each other had Camilla referred to the trauma of her girlhood, which had made her what she was; Magda had some idea what it had cost Camilla to say this much, even to her. Abruptly, Camilla jerked the drying tunic and undervest off the rack and began vigorously to fold them.

  “Like Jaelle, I was asked to join the Sisterhood. And like Jaelle, I refused. I have no love for secret societies and sisterhoods, and what I know, I reserve the right to tell as I choose, to whomever I choose. I think most of what they believe they know is superstition and nonsense.” She pursed her mouth and looked grim.

  “Then how do you explain what happened to me, Camilla? Out there in the Kilghard Hills, in that cave. I know what happened, because it happened to me. We were marooned. Jaelle was dying. We would both have died there in that cave in the hills—I cried out for help. And I—I was answered. Answered, I tell you!”

  “You have laran,” Camilla said, “and I suppose the Terran from the Forbidden Tower—what is his name, Andrew Carr? I suppose this Andrew Carr heard you and answered.”

  “Ann’dra.” Magda deliberately used Carr’s Darkovan name. “Yes, he has laran. But what prompted him to go looking for me in the first place? For all he knew, I was in Thendara, snug in the Guild-house as a bug in a saddlebag. Instead he sent out a search party for us and found us in time to save Jaelle’s life.”

  “Ferrika,” said Camilla. “She is a member of the Sisterhood. And so is Marisela. Marisela knew you had gone, and knew the state Jaelle was in. And Ferrika is midwife at Armida—”

  “She is more than that,” Magda said. “She is a full member of the Tower Circle.”

  Camilla looked skeptical, and Magda insisted, “She is, I tell you, as much as I am myself.”

  Camilla shrugged. “Then, there is your answer.”

  “And the vision I had? Robed women—crows calling—”

  “You said it yourself. You were desperate. You believed Jaelle was dying. Desperate people see visions. I don’t believe there was anything supernatural about your answer at all.”

  “You don’t believe that a—a cry for help of that kind can be answered?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Camilla’s lips were set in a hard line. “Don’t you suppose that I—prayed? I cried out for help with all my strength. Not only for human help, I cried out to all the Gods and to any supernatural forces that might have been hanging around to help me. If they could have heard you, where were they when I cried out to heaven, or even hell, for help? If they heard you, why did they not hear me? And if they heard me, and did not answer—
what sort of Gods or helpers were they?”

  Magda flinched before the unanswerable bitterness of that.

  Camilla went on, without interruption, “You had a vision, bredhiya.” She used the word, which meant originally sister, in the intimate inflection which could make it mean darling or beloved, and was used only in close family intimacy or to a sworn lover.

  “You had a vision, a dream; it was your Ann’dra who heard you. Or perhaps, Marisela, who sent word to Ferrika that a sister was in peril.”

  Since that was certainly possible, and was in any case more rational than her own belief, Magda did not try further to convince her. Camilla’s face relaxed a little; she went on.

  “The Sisterhood, I have heard, was designed to do for women what the cristoforo brethren at Nevarsin do for men. But unlike the Nevarsin brotherhood or the Comyn, the Sisterhood—so I am told—do not exact piety nor conformity in return for their instruction. There is an old tale, a fable if you will, but some of the Comyn believe it, that the laran of the Seven Domains is because they are the descendants of Gods.” Camilla’s scornfully arched eyebrows told Magda what the emmasca thought of that. “It did not suit them that the common folk should have this gift, or believe they have it, or be trained to use it if, as sometimes happens, they have it though they were born outside the sacred caste. I do not know what will happen to the Comyn when they fully get it through their minds that laran appears even in Terrans like your Andrew Carr. To do them credit, if it is brought to the attention of Comyn that a commoner possesses laran, they will sometimes have him trained— usually in one of the lesser Towers like Neskaya. I don’t doubt at all that your Andrew could—”

  “You keep calling him my Andrew. He isn’t, Camilla.”

  Camilla shrugged. She said, “Do you want more tea? This is cold.” And indeed, despite the fire on the hearth, a thin skin of ice had begun to form on Magda’s tea. “Or would you rather go up and sleep?”

  “I am not sleepy.” Magda shivered; the memory of what she had seen in Lexie’s mind was still alive in her, and she wondered how she would ever manage to sleep. She got up and poured boiling water into her mug; tilted the spout toward Camilla. The older woman shook her bead.

  “If I drink any more, I will never sleep! Nor will you.”

  “Why should I sleep? I had hoped to be away at daybreak, and now I cannot. Cholayna has asked me to stay until this is resolved.”

  “And of course you must do as Cholayna commands?”

  “She is my friend. I would stay if you asked me; why not for her? But I would like to get back to my child.”

  “A few more days will not weaken the bond, bredhiya.” Camilla’s face relaxed and she smiled. “I would like to see her—your daughter.”

  “The journey to Armida is not so long as all that, and for all your talk of being old, Camilla, I know perfectly well that you could be off tomorrow to the Dry-Towns, or to Dalereuth, or the Wall Around the World itself, if you had some reason! Why not ride back with me when I go, and see my little Shaya?”

  Camilla smiled. “I? Among those leronyn?”

  “They are my friends and my family, Camilla. They would welcome you if only as my friend.”

  “One day, then, perhaps. Not this time, I think. Shaya—we called Jaelle so, as a child. So she is Jaelle’s namesake? What does she look like? Is she like you, your daughter?”

  “Her hair curls like mine, but not so dark; her eyes are like mine, but Ferrika thinks they will darken as she grows older. To me, she has a look of my father: I know she has his hands. Strange, is it not? We renounce our fathers when we swear the Oath, yet we cannot wholly renounce them; they reappear in the faces of our children.”

  “Perhaps it is as well I had no daughter. I would not have cared to see in her the face of the man who renounced me before ever I renounced him! Your father, though, seems to have been a remarkable man, and I dare say you have no reason to resent the likeness. But what of her father? I had assumed, of course, it was the same Lord Damon Ridenow who fathered Jaelle’s child— Comyn lords are encouraged to breed sons and daughters everywhere, as my own real father did. It’s odd that although my mother was with child by a man far above her own station and was then married off in consequence to a man far below it, still both of them were too proud to accept that I might be pregnant with the child of one of the rogues who—well, enough of that. But as I was saying—it seemed reasonable to me that it would be Lord Damon who fathered your child, as he did Jaelle’s.”

  Magda laughed. “Oh, Damon is not like that. Believe me, he is not. Jaelle chose him for her child’s father, but it was her choice. Damon is very dear to me, but he is not my lover.”

  “That Terran then? Your Andrew Carr, Lord Ann’dra? He is of your own people. I could understand that— well, as much as I could ever understand desire for a man.”

  “At least you do not condemn it, as do so many women of the Guild, as treason to the Oath.”

  Camilla chuckled. “No, I lived for years among men, as one of them, and I know that men are very like women—only not, perhaps, so free to be what they are. It’s a pity there’s no Guild-house for them. Jaelle has talked to me, a little, about Damon. But is it this Andrew, then?”

  “I love Andrew,” Magda said, “almost as much as I love Lady Callista. When first I decided that I wanted a child, we talked of it, all three of us.”

  She knew she could never have explained to Camilla what the bond was like within the Tower. It was nothing like any other bond she had ever known. In many ways she felt closer to Camilla than to any other human being; she wished that she could share this with her, too. But how could she make Camilla understand? Camilla, who had chosen to block away her laran and live forever as one of the head-blind. It hurt to feel Camilla’s mind closed to her.

  The bond of the Forbidden Tower had reached out to take her in; she had become a part, mind and body and heart, of the Tower circle there. Until Jaelle’s child was born, she had not really known how much she wanted a child of her own. They had grown so close, all of them, that for a time it had seemed natural that she too should have Damon’s child, so that her child and Jaelle’s might be truly sisters. Yet even more than with Damon, she shared a close bond with Andrew Carr: like herself, Andrew had found that the world of the Terrans could not hold him.

  “In the end, though,” Magda said, “Andrew and I decided not. It was really Andrew’s choice, not mine. He felt that he would not want to father a child that he could not rear as his own, and I would not give up that privilege to him. I chose my child’s father because, though we felt kindness toward one another, he was someone from whom I felt I could part again without too much grief.” She was silent, her eyes faraway, and Camilla wondered what she was thinking.

  “I will tell you his name, if you ask me, bredhiya. He has his own household, and sons of his own; but he promised, if I bore a son and could not care for him, that he would foster him and give him such a start in life as he could. If I had a daughter, he swore he would make no claim on her. His wife was willing—I would not do such a thing without his wife’s consent.”

  “I am curious about this paragon,” Camilla said, “but you are welcome to your secrets, my dear.” She rose again and felt the legs of Magda’s breeches. “Cover the fire. It is time, and past, that we were in bed. Even if you need not ride at daybreak, there are things I must do tomorrow.” She put her arm around Magda as they went silently up the stairs; and not until she was on the very edge of sleep did Magda realize that Camilla had really said nothing about the Sisterhood, after all.

  A day or two later, she found Marisela, the Guild-house’s senior midwife, enjoying a rare moment of solitude in the music room, idly strumming a rryl. But when Magda apologized for her intrusion and would have gone away again, Marisela set down the small lap-harp, and said, “Please don’t go. I haven’t really anything to do with myself, and I was only killing time pretending I could play. Do sit down and talk to me. We never see each other
these days.”

  Magda sat down and watched as Marisela put the instrument into its case.

  “Remind me to tell Rafaella that a string has broken; I took it off, but could not replace it. Well, Margali, do you just want to chat, or do you want to ask me something?”

  Magda asked, “Do you remember when I was first in the house, during my housebound time? In my first Training Session, I saw a vision of the Goddess Avarra. I know it came from the Sisterhood. And now again I have encountered—Marisela, will you tell me something about the Sisterhood?”

  Marisela fiddled with the clasps on the instrument case.

  “There was a time,” she said after a moment, “when I felt you were ready for the Sisterhood, and would willingly have had you among us. But when you left the Guild-house, you went elsewhere for the training of your laran. For that reason, I do not feel free to discuss the secrets of the Sisterhood with you. I can tell you nothing, my dear. I am sure you are as well among the Forbidden Tower as with us, and if there was ever a time when I resented your choice, it was long ago. But I am sorry. I may not talk of this to an outsider.”

  Magda felt a sense of total frustration. She said, “If these people who call themselves the Dark Sisterhood reached out to me, how can you say I am an outsider? If they spoke to me—”

  “If they did,” repeated Marisela. “Oh, no, my dear, I am sure you are not lying, but when this happened, you were under great stress. This much I can say: the Sisterhood are those who serve Avarra; we on the plane which we call physical life, and they, the Dark Ones, on the plane of existence known as the overworld. I suppose—in such extremity—if you have the talent of reaching out into it, they might hear you from the overworld and relay a message. You are strongly gifted with laran; you may have reached Those Who Hear, and they may have answered you from where they dwell.” Deliberately, she changed the subject.

  “But now, tell me what you have been doing with yourself these last few years. I haven’t really had a chance to talk with you since your daughter was born. Is she well and thriving? Was she a big, strong baby? You told Doria that she was weaned—how long did you feed her yourself?”