Ash and Silver (3 page)

Clumps of spreading, fat-stemmed glasswort provided more solid footing than did the sodden muck. Kitaro stepped awkwardly from one to another to retrieve a bundle from a nest of plants. He stripped burlap wrappings from a small green jar and proffered it gingerly.

“Have a care, masked one. The substance you require is immersed in water and must remain so, else Deunor Lightbringer's wrath will consume your hand and body in flame that can reduce city and forest, bone and mountain to ash. Break the jar and you unleash the holocaust.”

Inek had told me much the same. But he'd also cautioned me against trickery.

I pulled long, slim pincers from my knife sheath. “Open it. You understand I must verify the contents.”

Holding the jar as far as possible from his body, Kitaro did as I asked.

Magelight revealed a yellowish, thumb-sized lump suspended in the water. I probed the waxy glob with the sharp-tipped pincers and picked off a nub the size and color of a maggot.

“Think of it as a gatzé's cod,” gibbered Kitaro, blanching as I drew the pale nub from the jar. “Pop it and we'll have burning holes in our skin.”

Holding the pincers well away, I sent a touch of warmth along the handle—only enough to take off the day's chill. Then I dropped the bit on a mound of sodden weeds and stepped back.

The tiny lump pulsed with a yellow-white gleam, softened a bit, and sent out tendrils of vapor. A sudden burst of white light, more brilliant than magelight, almost made me drop the tool.

“Told you.
Cereus iniga
, also known as bonefire. Now I'm off before this rain rots my weary bones.” The brown-toothed grin spoke glee. The outstretched hand spoke naught but business.

Shaking off amazement, I tossed him the heavy bag. He peeked into it
and sighed with pleasure. “May Deunor's light illumine your soul, masked one.”

My fist touched my breast to acknowledge the blessing—one I heartily welcomed.

Yet good manners could not make me forget duty. Kitaro mounted the donkey, and as he turned the beast inland, I called out, “One more matter, Ganache de Kitaro! Return my master's token.”

He looked back, grinning, and held out the wood disk. Magic ripped through my fingers into the splinter of silver embedded in my own token's center. A silver arc streaked toward Kitaro's hand. Though less showy, the power manifested far surpassed that of the green jar's contents.

Kitaro's token fell to ash. His expression fell slack, his gaze gliding through me as if I were but another reed brushed by the rain. Wide brow creased ever so slightly, he dusted his tingling fingers, clucked at his donkey, and rode away.

He would recall nothing of our transaction save for its initiation with the carved token, his comfortable familiarity with the masked strangers, and the gold coins he'd reaped. Those few things he would remember only if he was presented with another one of our tokens. All else, even this location and the particular material he'd brought here, would vanish from his mind over the next hours and days, as if a maidservant with a dust broom swept up his footsteps as he passed.

For two centuries the
Equites Cineré
had held the keys to manipulating human memory—astonishing, intricate, awful magic that only those of extraordinary power and proven honor could or should wield. I'd been taught the ways of it already, and in the coming months before my investiture as a knight, I would learn the practice. Once I'd understood that gift to come, no personal doubts and no challenge my commanders threw in my path had been sufficiently difficult to deter me. For out of all my lessons at Evanide, one thing had come clear: The skill to master such magic was in me. If I developed the strength needed to use it, I could help untangle the horrors of the world. Who could ask for a richer life?

Carefully I bundled the jar in its burlap wrapping and hurried back through the path of broken reeds, hoping to catch tide's ebb to ease the passage back to Fortress Evanide. My eyes stayed fixed to the green jar, so wary was I of its contents. Only when the rippling of the drowned river intruded on my consciousness did I pause and extend my senses to check for danger.

Amid the odors of fish, cold brine, and sea wrack floated an entirely untoward scent—a mix of meadowsweet and sun-warmed grass. Summer came to mind, and places far from Evanide.

It seemed impossible that such slight variance in the air—likely some marsh flower bloomed early—should rouse sensations so entirely alien to the life I led. My knees softened like warmed dough; my chest grew tight as shutters swollen in the damp. And a heat roused my nether parts, a sensation I'd assumed had been excised along with memories of friends and lovers.

I crept forward slowly. Paused at first glimpse of the flooded river.

A woman was singing, her eerie melody heating my skin. Perhaps it was so affecting because I'd not heard a woman's voice in so very long. But how had I not detected her coming?

Not entirely bereft of reason, I summoned power. I'd no permission to show myself to strangers, even masked. Touching eyes, lips, ears, tongue, and brow, I drew an enchanted veil around me and slipped out of the reeds.

She sat in my skiff, legs crossed, a pile of marsh grass in her apron. Thick, unruly curls the hue of chestnuts fell over her face and shoulders. As long, deft fingers wove the yellow-green stems, her song fell into humming.

I dared not breathe as I tried to decide how best to oust her from my boat. She must have heard my step, for her head popped up. And to my horror, my veil enchantment was flawed, for when she shook the lush curls from her face, her eyes, fiery green and slightly angled, locked with my own. The corners of her lips quirked, emptying my lungs of breath and my mind of thought. Then she smiled, breaking the gloom as if the sun had burnt away the fog.

“Fully masked, now? Oh, take it off, please, that I might look upon thy comely face once more. My shy, dear, gentle Lucian, how I've missed thee!”

I
should retreat. But the woman occupied my boat, and though the tide had begun its ebb, it would be hours before I could cross the bay afoot. And her greeting . . .

“You mistake me for someone else, mistress,” I said, trying not to sound like a pithless boy.

Though I might wish it otherwise, she could not possibly know me. Wherever the knights had recruited me, they would have ensured we were not followed, bringing the full power of the Order's memory magic to bear on anyone who tried. Anonymity was our lifeblood. Our safety. Our first and strongest weapon.

“Get out of my boat.” No magic sparked anywhere about the woman. My veil enchantment felt solid. How was I to explain such failure? Inek would have me a squire again!

The woman laid aside her weaving and her smile, concern clouding jade-hued eyes. “Sure I've not changed so much. Whereas thou . . .”

She jumped lightly from the boat, graceful as a leaping deer. Slender as the reeds, taller than I'd thought, near matching my own height, she swept around me like a summer eddy. Long fingers plucked at my knuckle-length hair, then brushed my shoulder and upper arm, near sapping what composure I had left.

“'Tis true thy bearing is something different, and hair sheared so close hides the ebon sheen I so adored. And thou'rt grown in strength, most surely. But this”—she leaned her face to mine and inhaled deeply—“I could never mistake. Thy sweat is ever clean, unlike so many of thy brothers. Thy appetite yet favors grain and fish and green things more than blood meats. And though 'tis fainter than before, I catch the scent of thy beloved inks and pages.”

She pressed the tip of her finger to her lips, hesitant, and then reached
toward my face. “This custom I do sincerely regret, as I did in those sweet hours we spent together. To hide thy face entire—”

I jumped back when she touched my mask, shaking off the mesmer of her beauty as two years' training snapped into place . . . with no small sting of panic. Was I so weak as to be taken in by brilliant eyes? This mission must be Inek's test.

“Who are you? What business have you on a desolate shore where no one comes save those summoned? Perhaps you followed the trader. You'll come with me and we'll find out.”

Sadness wafted over me like incense. “Oh, Lucian, I cannot. I do not fear, as I know 'tis thee behind the mask. We are ever bound by what we did together, closer than thine own heart could imagine. Yet thine eyes tell me—”

She stepped back, her manner grown sharp and wary. “Is this some game or some dread penance since I beheld thee last? Humankind is ever fickle. Cruel . . .”

“You're a stranger to me, lady, as is anyone named
Lucian
. I wish you no harm, but I'll not allow you to carry tales.” Spinning a net spell to keep her close, I reached for her arm.

She slipped my grasp as deftly as an eel and . . . vanished.

I spun in place, blinking raindrops from my eyes. How could anyone move so quickly?

“Come to this place again one day,” she said, from every direction at once, “and thou'lt find proof of our friendship. My people sorely need thy counsel.”

And then she was gone. Neither trained senses nor magic could detect a breath, a heart's pulse, or a spot of warmth in the failing light. And though I inhaled half the wind, no meadowsweet freshened the stink of the marsh.

Lucian.
The name itself held no meaning for me, yet when I spoke it aloud, I fancied other names waited just beyond hearing. Glimmers of light trailed in the wake of her presence, fading just at the point other images lurked.

I possessed no personal memory of any woman. Even so I knew she was extraordinary. Not just in beauty or grace. Her passions blazed from deep inside, shining through her skin and her words, through every expression and movement. Was it possible I'd known her in my former life, despite being bound up with rules and protocols as all purebloods were?

She was correct about many things. The change in my physical bulk,
certainly. My preference for fish, bread, and lettuces over heavy meat. My hair that was, indeed, black as a magpie's head. Anyone at Evanide would know those things. But
beloved inks and pages
? No comrade of the Order, not even Inek, could possibly have guessed the aching pleasure the scent of ink and parchment roused in me. Yes, I was bound to explore every passing thought and feeling with my guide, but that one had always seemed too trivial to mention, in the same wise as my mask having a coarse thread that itched my left ear. Did she know that, too?

I dragged the skiff into the water and hopped in. As I unshipped the oars, I forced aside all thought of the woman's mystery. I had a long row ahead in dangerous waters and failing daylight. Distraction would see me dead.

Knight Commander Inek had served as father, mother, counselor, tormentor, employer, tutor, and priest for two years, since the night two of his knights-in-training had dragged me gibbering across the bay at mid-tide and dropped me on Evanide's great stair at his feet. Wreathed in fog, tall, stern, serene, and ageless, he had seemed a silver-haired god whose favored rites I had never learned. Shivering and dripping, the world yet swirling like the black waters of the bay, I had groveled at his feet, offering eternal service if he would but return my life to me. “I accept,” he'd said. “But it will be a life forever changed. And it begins now. On your feet, tyro . . .”

He had guided me through every step, and I respected, honored, and loathed him. I craved the hour I could be shed of his cold presence for the last time. Yet that event must surely be a small death I would carry with me always.

As I moored the boat, Fix the boatmaster told me Inek was likely in the armory, as it was time to advance the enchantments on his current tyros' blades. I dared not delay reporting. Fix had witnessed my return. Inek would know of it before I reached him.

Thus I hurried smartly past the boathouse and up a short stair and winding ramp into the sleeping citadel, through the cavernous undervaults where we competed in games of strength or agility, and then upward into the Common Hall, where all at the fortress ate and where tyros, squires, and retainers slept on the floor like household dogs. Outdoors again and across the Inner Court. Shivering in my wet garments, I ascended the steep and exposed stair up the north face of Idolon Mount, Fortress Evanide's foundation.

In the vestibule at the top of the stair, I lowered my eyes, touching
forehead and heart in respect for the two standing watch. “I am in-mission, sir knights, as yet unreported. I was told Commander Inek worked in the armory.”

“Blessed return, Greenshank,” said a soft-spoken knight masked in gray and red. “The commander is where you say. Enter.”

A maze of passages burrowed deep into the rock. They led to our three most secure rooms: the armory, the fortress treasury, and most precious of all, the dark, ever-misty cave of the spring—the source of fresh water that allowed any but birds to live on this rocky islet.

A beam of magelight led me deep into the armory. Darkness obscured most of the vast cavern's stores of spelled swords, knives, shields, and armor, the bundled staves, bows, arrows, and caskets of medallions, tokens, and jewels. A basket held tiny squares of silver called untraceables, used to ferret out those who might be alerted to enchantment without revealing the magic's nature or origin. A lacquered box held silver splinters, which could be linked to transfer enchantments as did those embedded in memory-wipe tokens.

A magelight globe hung over a long worktable illuminating a well-used sword. From his coarse tunic and slops, the lean man hunched over the sword might have been a smith's assistant or the squire who catalogued the armory. Until he glanced up, that is, and the ice-blue eyes scraped one's skin raw, and the sculpted lines of his face registered his judgment. His knuckle-length hair was entirely silver, but he could have been any age from thirty to seventy. And, in truth, if one heard him command the sun to rise in the west, one would believe entirely that the orb would reverse its habit.

I bowed and touched my brow. “Knight Commander Inek, I report my mission complete.”

“Blessed return, Greenshank. Unmask and speak.”

I stripped off the mask and set my bundle on the end of the table. “The purveyor of rarities carried the proper token,” I said, pulling away the wrapping. “Once sure of that, I tested the substance as ordered. I judged it
cereus iniga
, yielded the payment, and excised Kitaro's memory.”

As I spoke, the commander's attention returned to his work modifying the protections on his tyros' swords. Enchanting weapons to minimize sepsis or loss of limbs, while maintaining the feel and proper risks of sword – or knifework, was a delicate business. Inek altered the protective spells frequently as his students advanced, sometimes tightening them if the moves to be practiced were particularly dangerous, sometimes loosening them to
keep us wary. Sometimes it seemed he did exactly the reverse. It kept his students on edge, alert and focused, as we were always required to fight to our personal limits. We were never quite sure if we might die or wound a comrade on any particular day, but reading an opponent's weapon was the first step to preventing either disaster.

At Evanide, one either learned the necessary lessons or broke or died. Rumor told that only one in fifty tyros became a knight. No gossip ever tallied how many of those nine-and-forty failed, their memories of the Order and Evanide erased. Or how many withdrew from the journey with honor, the most trustworthy allowed to retain knowledge of their time here. Or how many died.

I began again. “I practiced a veil as I was waiting.”

He glanced up sharply. “You were masked?”

“Yes. I arrived early. I donned my mask as soon as I heard Kitaro's footsteps. But the veil enchantment failed, though I detected nothing wrong with it.”

I could not have said when I had decided to withhold the tale of the woman. If this was a test and Inek already knew of her, punishment was certain; at Evanide, omission and dissembling were equivalent to deliberate untruth. But if she was what she claimed—a friend from the past—and I reported her, Inek would certainly strip away my memory of the incident, while our Knight Marshal decided if her presence compromised the purposes of the Order. I had to know more before I could allow that.

“I thought to work another veil tomorrow and ask one of the senior parati to inspect it.”

“Ask Cormorant. He's expert at veils.” Inek's forefinger drew a scarlet flame along the sword's cutting edge. Very, very carefully. “What of your navigation? Night fell on your return. . . .” As he had known it would when he set me the mission in the last hour of a rising tide and said it must be done that day.

“I made good speed, though I depended too heavily on the Seal Rock beacon. If it had been submerged, I might yet be trying to extricate myself from the Spinner or Hercal's Downspout. I'll need to practice the same route when the full moon grows the tide.” Deception grew like a fungus. But I needed to get back to the estuary.

“Full moon's six days hence. Highest tide seven.” He lifted his finger from the blade and pinched off the light at the sword's point. “I'll note a practice crossing in your training schedule.”

“As you say,
rectoré
.”

Scarlet, vermillion, blood . . . the sword pulsed every hue of red for a few moments. Inek watched it intently, and I took the anxious moment to order my thoughts.

When the color faded, Inek set the blade aside and laid a second one on the table. His fingers flexed, ready to work. “Is there anything more?”

A thousand things more, threatening to burst my chest. “Questions plague me,
rectoré
, as you warned. Not doubts. I am entirely committed. I cannot believe the past holds anything to compare to the gifts of power and good service offered me here. But surely to
know
myself would make the final relinquishing all the more significant.”

As ever, his glance of assessment scraped my spirit raw. “You've a great deal more to learn before we speak of commitment or the final relinquishing. You've held paratus rank for what . . . forty days? You've not even begun to feel the plague of questioning you'll suffer. And inevitably, doubts will follow. Don't tell me of your resolve, Greenshank; prove it.”

“Yes,
rectoré
.”

“You did well today. Three of our brother knights will use the
cereus iniga
to save a great city from a terrible foe. Think of the price
they
will pay, once it's done—the price you will pay to do such service if and when your time comes. Then see how long you can stave off doubts.”

As always, he was right. “They'll not remember what they've done,” I said.

To preserve our ability to serve those who needed our skills, and to ensure that those who joined us did so for the right reasons, knights sacrificed not only their past, but also their glory.

“Nor will those whose future they save remember who it was defended them,” he said.

A knight retained everything of his training and experiences inside Evanide. But once he submitted a mission report to the Archivist so that all could study it, the knowledge of his own part in that venture was stripped from him. His body's understanding of the lessons learned would remain, but if he happened to review that mission in the archives, he wouldn't recognize it as his own. A harsh, rigorous life, but one that made sense to me. It felt honorable and clean, unlike my wavering conscience.

“
Rectoré
, I need—”

“Enough, Greenshank. You've an early call tomorrow, as do I. And if
I'm to prevent our lackwit tyros from slaughtering one another, I need to finish this. Go to bed.”

I touched my forehead. “
Dalle cineré
, Knight Commander.”