Count Scar - SA (16 page)

I was kneeling on the cold stones, staring into a book depicting the stations of the Cross and repeating its familiar phrases for the third time, when I realized that a confused clamor of sound had
been echoing along the corridor for several moments. Flickering orange lights and leaping shadows appeared as I hurried down the spiral staircase toward the noise, but nothing prepared me for the
sight that met me when I rushed into the hall.

Men ran in every direction, shouting and gesturing, but their words were inaudible against the force of a great sound that seemed to vibrate the very stones. It roanns came from a prodigious
wind blasting down the fine new chimney and pouring out of the hearth, bearing a huge plume of flames before it. As if from the bellows of a giant forge, this terrible mass of fire shot straight to
the count's great curtained bed and encircled it within an impenetrable whirlwind of flames that towered up high into the vaulting. The rushes on the floor all around were burning fiercely. As I
stared in horror, a black form appeared within the terrible whirlwind of fire, twitching and jerking like one of the big insects that sometimes fly into the tapers upon the altar in midsummer.

Suddenly the figure lurched halfway out of the flames and crashed to the floor. By the time I reached the spot the seneschal and some of the knights had managed to drag the burning man clear.

Raymbaud and two of the men hurriedly muffled the flames on him with blankets while the rest beat at spots of fire on their own clothing. But it was not the count; it was Bruno.

"I couldn't get—to him—Father," he gasped through blackened lips. "They've got to—save him."

"Water! Where's the barrel of water?" I screamed into a knight's face, pointing toward the entrance of the hall where a huge cask was always kept brim-full in case of need.

"Empty, Father!" the seneschal shouted. "Someone bored a hole in the back side and let it all run out! Here they come with some from the kitchen cisterns."

I whirled to look and saw the cook and two men stagger in from the kitchen carrying a huge tub, which they emptied into the flames around Count Galoran's burning bed. But the water vanished
into steam like a single drop on hot iron, without the slightest effect. This could not be an ordinary fire! I covered my ears against the tumult and concentrated my attention upon my inner eye.

Yes, there could be no doubt. The wind blasting from the hearth, the great plume of fire, the wall of flames around the count's bed: all vibrated with magic. And all were being interwoven into a
powerful vortex of magic, terrible in its furious beauty, emanating from within the burning curtains of the bed itself.

There was but one thing to be done, and it must be done instantly, for even those thick winter curtains of wool would fly up into ash in another moment. I groped within my cassock until my
hand found the cool carved stick of old ivory given to me long ago by my first tutor in magic, the man who had scorned to employ its aid himself at the last. Drawing it forth, I held it before me,
so that the image and symbols of Aquarius faced the flames, and walked toward the hearth. Waves of heat beat into my face, and my robes began to smoke. Standing as close as my weak flesh
would allow, I called out the words I had learned so long ago from a well-loved Auccitan-accented voice.

"Flamma impero tibi

Ut nihil fias

Hoc est hora."

Within the ivory in my hand, I felt a stirring of long-latent power as the lines of magic I'd laid down within it through many days of difficult incantations awoke all together to sudden life. I
strained my mind to its utmost and directed that flow of power straight into the fireplace. With a surge that staggered me, a full third of the stored-up magic poured itself out through the mouth
of the little jar held by the carved Aquarius and into the heart of the inferno upon the hearth. The huge wind ceased instantly, as if a giant lid had been clapped over the chimney high above.

Within the fireplace itself, the monstrous flames leaped high, then collapsed into a little heap of glowing coals, all that remained of the pile of thick logs that would have sustained any natural
hearth-fire throughout the entire night. I spun about, to see the whirling pillar of fire around the count's bed begin to waver and grow thinner. But then the lines of magic from the hearth reached
out to the vortex of magic within those curtains, and the flames reared high once more. Stretching out the ivory rod again and focusing my attention now upon that nexus of magic, I again spoke
the activating incantation. In another instant every trace of flame and magic had vanished from both bed and hall.

The cook and his scullions had been standing transfixed in the doorway with another huge tub, watching all this. Now they hurried forward and doused the smoldering rushes and bed curtains
with water. The curtains, reduced to ash, dissolved and collapsed like sodden cobwebs, and the count staggered out into the room wearing nothing but his long shirt. I started toward the bed, then
sank to my knees, weak as a baby from channeling so much magic so swiftly. As a knight bent to help me, his face wavered and dimmed before my eyes while a roaring filled my ears, and all went
dark.

My next sensation was of lying on my back with my eyes closed. When I opened them, the faces of Count Caloran and the seneschal loomed over me. The scar on the count's grim visage looked red
and angry but he himself appeared unhurt. He was dressed now in the usual rough soldiers jerkin and hose he favored at home.

"So, Father Melchior, I learn I have you to thank for saving my life," he said. "You shall find me appreciative, but those masons may think more ill of you for doing so when I catch up with
them."

"The masons are not to blame—at least not the whole crew of them." Weak as I felt, my mind seemed startlingly clear and the thoughts within it quite complete. It was as if I had been pondering
deeply the whole time I had been unconscious.

"What do you mean, Father?"

"That was no mishap due to faulty construction. It was a magical attack upon you."

I saw him shoot a look at the seneschal, who dropped his sad eyes. "So, I actually suspected as much. It was well I had a magic-worker of my own at hand, it seems. As it is I'm likely to lose a good
man."

The memory of Bruno enveloped in the whirl of flames leaped up before me and I struggled to rise. "Where is he? Take me to him! I must confess him at once."

"You should rest, Father; it is still the middle of the night. We are going to send for the priest from the village," the seneschal told me, trying to make me lie down again. But the count waved
him away. He took my arm and helped me to my feet with what looked like a grim smile of approval.

"He's right across the room, Father Melchior. We set up a little infirmary for the two of you here in the great guest chamber."

I had to lean on his hard arm just to get across the room to the other bed, where a serving boy with a frightened face stood watch. The scorched clothing had been cut away from Bruno's body, and
he'd been wrapped in a clean length of white linen, but I could see enough to know that he was burned everywhere. As I knelt by the bed, I saw the count beside me press his lips together and turn
his face away.

The old soldier's eyes flew open as soon as I spoke his name and called upon him to confess his sins and be absolved. But when he spoke, his urgent words were unintelligible.

"He's talking border Allemann," Count Caloran told me, taking up a cup and pitcher from the stand. "The tongue of his boyhood. He is asking for some water, and then to be shriven. Will it do,
Father, if I translate between the two of you?"

"That will be perfectly all right," I told the count as he cradled Bruno like a baby while the old soldier drank through blistered lips. "The Lord knows all the tongues of women and men, and in the
end cares only for what they have within their hearts."

By the time I'd heard the aged knight's translated confession and repeated the old comforting formulas and prayers over him, I felt slightly stronger. The count started to lead me back to my own
bed, but I stopped him. "No, take me down to the hall. I must examine the hearth at once."

We got there just in time to forestall the servants upon the point of kindling a new fire. I had them lever the big logs back out onto the hearth-stones. Even the slight magical effort required to
peer into the ashes with my second eye made me dizzy once more. The count called for a stool to be brought, and I sank down onto it. Fortunately, I found what I was seeking almost at once,
wedged firmly into a gap between two stones behind the iron at the back of the hearth.

"It is a telesma," I said once a servant had worked the object free with his knife and placed it in the count's hand. "An object gradually charged with great magical force sometime in the past and
capable of releasing that force whenever it is given a specific incantation, or else exposed to a specific situation." I pulled forth my carved ivory rod. "I used a telesma of my own to extinguish the
fire."

Count Caloran stared at the telesma from the hearth, then put it hastily in my hand. "Do you think this thing could kindle another such fire?" he asked.

I took a deep breath to gather strength and examined the telesma with both my fleshly and second eyes. It was nothing more than a small piece of ceramic tile that had been stamped with
alchemical symbols, then glazed and fired. Traces of the magical lines that had been laid into it were still discernible, but it now felt as light and empty of magical substance as a plant husk. "No,
it seems quite spent," I said, then slumped as a great tiredness swept through me.

The count barked out a command and Raymbaud himself fetched a glass of wine, which I drank gratefully. "You'd better go back to your bed now, Father Melchior."

Count Caloran said. "I am only beginning to understand how much this magic-working can take out of a man."

A huge heaviness seemed to drag at my limbs, and my eyelids kept sinking shut as I answered, "I believe—you are right."

2

2

I awoke in the great guest bed to cold morning light. My body felt as if it had been beaten all over with heavy sticks, a sure indication of having wrought too much magic far too rapidly. The ache
brought recollections of the night flooding back, and I realized immediately what it was that had been nagging at the edge of my attention from the moment I had begun using my second vision
in the hall. I raised myself up to call for the count—and found him already sitting at my bedside. His features were stamped with a bitter weariness and set like stone. I knew even before I looked
past him what I would find. The form lying upon the other bed was now swathed completely in white linen, and tall candles burned at both head and feet.

"He is dead."

"Yes." When Count Caloran turned his eyes toward me his face seemed to be all scar. "My only friend here, my only tie to my old life: my good, hard, simple soldier's life. Loyal as an old dog,
Bruno. He'd have followed me anywhere. He knew I would never be able to make myself come out through that wall of flames, so he went in after me even though he had to know it was hopeless."

"I shall sing the office of the dead for him today, as soon as I feel a little stronger. But we must now speak of something else."

"Indeed we must. But you shall eat first." He helped me from the bed and led me into the adjacent small guest chamber, where a loaf and beer had been set out on a table flanked by two chairs. A
good fire had been laid to warm the chamber, and a log split with a blaze of sparks just as we passed the hearth. I felt Count Galoran's rocklike forearm flinch under mine as his whole body tensed,
but neither of us said anything as he helped me to my seat.

As soon as I saw the food I became ravenous. As I began to eat, trying not to cram down the bread and guzzle the beer, the count continued, "You said this attack upon me was magical, and I
certainly do not doubt you. It missed me, thanks to your quick work, but it killed a man I do not intend to leave unavenged. The learning of a castles capellanus is supposed to be at the disposal of
its lord, and you have the magical learning that shall be needed for the matter at hand. You are going to help me catch the man responsible for this, Father Melchior."

"The man responsible, and the one behind that man: yes." I nodded my head, a rash act that sent a blinding stab of pain through my head. I sat very still until it passed, then took another long
drink and continued more carefully, "I shall of course do everything I can. Even if we set aside my present position in your service, my oath to my Order requires that I do all in my power to check
any misuse of magic. But there is something else we must discuss now. Last night's attack upon you was performed by means of a telesma. Under your shirt—upon your breast—hangs another
type of telesma. I now realize that it can be highly dangerous. It should be sealed away at once, under proper magical locks, until I can take it to the best masters of my Order for examination."

The count looked at me with no expression on his closed face for half a minute, then his hand went to the opening at the throat of his shirt. He took hold of a cord and pulled forth the medallion
with its simple circle, asking, "And why should I agree to this?"

"I did not recognize it before because it is a type of telesma I have heard and read of but never seen for myself. It is called a conviare. An ordinary telesma is as I described, an object that has
previously been charged with a store of magic that can be released all at once or in set portions when the proper incantation or conditions occur. But a conviare is imbued with the capacity to
channel and direct magic forces coming from outside itself, without depleting its own potency. It is a sort of speculum or lens for magic, like the ones for light made by the greatest glass artisans.