Court Wizard (Spellmonger Series: Book 8) (64 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ishi Incarnate

Everything was a blur in Pentandra’s mind after she left the House of Flowers, until she found herself back in her coach, on the way back to the palace, glaring at her apprentice.

“So, you
knew
,” she said, accusingly, to the girl.  Alurra sighed. 

“Yes, I suppose I did.  But I wasn’t supposed to
tell
you.”

“Antimei said so?” Pentandra ventured, her emotions reeling.

“That’s right,” Alurra said, simply.  “She said that if you knew
before
you went there, it would . . .
change
things.”

“Damn right, it would have!” Pentandra agreed.  “Maybe if I had been forewarned I wouldn’t have gone blindly stumbling into the
lair of an incarnate goddes
s when I suspected mere sorcery.”

“That’s what Antimei feared,” Alurra said, swallowing.  “But you had to meet . . .
her
that way.  You couldn’t know ahead of time.”

“Why?”
demanded Pentandra.

“I don’t know!”
the girl said, biting her lip anxiously.   “Antimei told me some stories, and she gave me some instructions, but I don’t really
know
why or how or . . .
anything,
really.  I’m just doing what I was
told
to do,” she said, a little defiantly.  “You
had
to meet her that way.  Or the rest of it . . .”

“What happens with the . . .
rest of it?
” Pentandra asked, insistently.

“I can’t tell!”
Alurra said, her tone desperate.  “
Please
don’t ask me to!  Because I
won’t!
  I
can’t!
Everything
will go in the chamberpot if I do, you
have
to trust me!”

“I’ve known you for less than a week,” Pentandra pronounced.  “There are people I’ve known for
years
I don’t trust.”

“Then you need to make an exception, about this, at least!” insisted Alurra.  “I don’t like this any more than you do – worse, ‘cause I already
know
some of what happens, and it isn’t all fairy tales and feasts,” she said, uneasily.  “There is dark magic ahead.  But a way through it, if you can just trust Antimei’s vision.  And
me
,” she added.

“Alurra, I just came face to face . . . with a
goddess
,” Pentandra said, the effect of the realization just dawning on her.  “A real, live goddess.  And not just
any
goddess, but one who I am
very
familiar with.  By reputation.  And apparently she is familiar with
me
,” she added, more to herself than to Alurra.  “Now I find out that not only does my mysterious new apprentice
know
this, but she has been
specifically forbidden
to tell me.  Apparently for the amusement of the aforementioned deities.”

“She’s kinda
mad
at you,” Alurra ventured, after a few moments of silence became unbearable.  “
She
is, I mean.”

“I got that impression,” Pentandra agreed, dryly.  “I’m guessing you are forbidden from telling me
why?
  Because that might be helpful, to know why one of the most
powerful goddesses on Callidore
is angry with me.”

“I . . . I wasn’t told I couldn’t talk about that,” Alurra decided.  “But it’s simple, really.  She’s upset because you got married and
rejected
her.  She could have . . . inhabited . . . you, instead of that other woman.  You were her
first
choice,” she added.

“
Me?
  I’m not even one of her priestesses!” Pentandra dismissed.

“That wasn’t her concern. 
You
were the one most like her in spirit, according to Antimei.”

That made Pentandra feel sick to her stomach. 

Lady Pleasure –
the goddess
Ishi
– was absolutely beautiful and possessed a rare and decisive confidence, but she also had an overbearing, superior manner about her that put Pentandra on guard.  She reminded Pentandra of every woman who thought herself worthy of being the Queen Bee in a social circle, only orders of magnitude more annoying.  The idea that
she
was at all akin to the chaotic divinity even in spirit was not welcome, she discovered . . . despite having for years considered such praise as desirable.  

“So she’s angry I wouldn’t be her vehicle towards becoming a whoremaster,” Pentandra sighed.  “I suppose I owe Arborn for that, now, as well.  So, you know the story well enough to know her mind . . . can you try to explain to me what her plan
is?
” Pentandra asked, patiently.   “It’s not often that goddesses set up shop in town.”

Alurra bit her lip, clearly trying to decide how much to tell Pentandra.  Finally she broke.

“She’s trying to
help
,” blurted the blind girl.  “She really is, in her own way.  Just like she said.  She promised . . . she promised the Spellmonger she would,” she added in a softer voice, as if the admission cost her.

“Minalan?”
Pentandra asked, sharply.  “She mentioned him, as if she
did
know him.  What does
he
have to do with all of this?”

“I . . . I just know that they are . . .
acquainted
,” she said, hesitantly.  “I don’t know how.  I don’t know much more than that.  Only that she feels beholden to him, for something he did.”

“That little . . . all right, all right, let me
think
. . .” she said, her mind whirling at the possibilities. 

It wasn’t unthinkable that Minalan would have attracted the attention of the capricious gods – he’d been a sudden and important player in human politics for a couple of years, now.  Not to mention the power he commanded, both arcanely and temporally.  That sort of thing traditionally attracted the attention of the human divinities, from what the legends told.  Pentandra didn’t know a lot about theurgy, but she knew that religious history was sprinkled with divine revelations and even divine visitations for people at the center of such power. 

What was unthinkable was that Minalan would indulge in such relationships
without telling her.
  That seemed a shocking betrayal, and it made her mad at her friend and colleague. 
After all they had been through . . .

And from the back of her mind, her mother’s voice rang in her head:
You know you can’t trust men!

Yet the more rational part of her mind pointed out that when the gods were involved, ascribing free will to
any
situation became fraught with error. 

The gods of man had a long history of popping up, interfering in human affairs, and then disappearing back to whence they came after crafting chaos in the name of religion.  Assuming Minalan had been acting with independent agency could be dangerous, or at least mistaken.  She resolved to postpone indulging in being really angry at him until she got the truth of the matter.  That was only fair.

And it
profoundly
disappointed the voice of her mother in her head.

“Well, it seems as if I need to have a chat with Minalan,” Pentandra sighed, as the coach pulled up to the front of the palace. 

“The Spellmonger?” asked Alurra, impressed. 

“Yes, ‘the spellmonger’,” Pentandra said, rolling her eyes.  “He’s been a naughty boy, talking to strange goddesses without me.  But more importantly, I need to figure out what to do about Lady Pleasure before things get out of control.”

Alurra didn’t look impressed anymore, she looked scornful.  “She’s
not
a very nice woman,” she pronounced with all of the solemnity and judgment an adolescent girl could conjure. 

“She’s the goddess of love and beauty,” Pentandra reminded her.  “Being ‘nice’ isn’t exactly an important part of her aspect.  On the contrary.  But if I were you, I’d be more concerned about how she felt about you, than the other way around.”

Alurra started.  “Why?”

“Because you just called the goddess of love and beauty a ‘cunt’ to her face,” Pentandra reminded her.  “Something that, in all of my years of studying the lore of Ishi, has
never
happened before.”

“Did she . . . look mad?” asked Alurra guiltily.  “Ordinarily I’d never use that kind of language, but—”

“I’m not saying that you were
inaccurate,
dear,” Pentandra soothed.  “Just
unwise.
  I wouldn’t plan on having any boyfriends any time soon,” Pentandra suggested, half-joking.  “Or at least no good ones.”

“Boys aren’t often interested in blind girls,” Alurra said, discouraged.  “That’s fine.  I’m not that interested in them, either.”

“That’s a very thoughtful and wise perspective . . . and one doomed to be short-lived, I’m afraid,” Pentandra said, sympathetically.  “You are very pretty, under all of that hair, even if you’ve never been told.  You aren’t even done growing yet.  Eventually Ishi wins over us all.  Save for the very pious.  Or the very ugly.”

“It all seems an awful lot of fuss over nothing,” Alurra said, doubtfully.

“Sex always does . . . until it isn’t.  Then it becomes the most important thing in the world.  And a fine excuse to make really,
really
terrible decisions about your life.”

“You make it sound so
appealing,
” Alurra said, sarcastically.

“It has its benefits,” Pentandra said, thinking for a moment about the way Arborn’s huge arms seemed to lovingly crush her within them.  “It’s not all bitter disappointment and anxiety.”

“Well, I hope it will be
years
before I get involved in all of that nonsense,” Alurra declared.  “I can’t think of
anything
more useless.”

“No doubt,” smiled Pentandra.  She’d said similar things as a child, she recalled.  Before she saw the maid and the groomsman together. 

“And she really
was
kind of a cunt,” muttered Alurra.

*

*

*

Pentandra waited until the next evening before she got around to contacting Minalan.  There was a problem with procedure at the Mirror array they were establishing, so she had to straighten it out, and then she had to interview new potential Spellwardens for the town.  It wasn’t until the office was closed and she’d retired to her chamber before she composed herself enough to approach Minalan, mind-to-mind.

By that time the damage had already started to be done.  Not only were the halls and corridors of the palace filled with pretty young prostitutes working on the Wildflower Festival, but they had quickly moved their attentions beyond the young-and-handsome and toward more affluent and powerful courtiers. 

Before the day was out she happened across a pair of Lady Pleasure’s agents giving Ishi’s Blessing to Sir Antinon, the Ducal Chamberlain, in an alcove, and inspiring him to call the lustful goddesses name several times during the event.  After that she walked into a privy on the second floor to discover Sir Bestus with one maiden bent over a table in secluded lounge, her skirts raised and his pants down, while another murmured encouragement and watched for interlopers.

By the time Alurra came to her at supper with a half-dozen rumors of similar encounters breaking out all over the palace, Pentandra had had
enough
.  She didn’t know how, but the sudden wave of determined lust
had
to involve Minalan, somehow.  It was time to hold him to account about it.

Are you at liberty?
she began.  She didn’t want to interrupt him if he was, for instance, in the middle of a moment of passion.  Or at least not much.  But apparently Minalan was focused on his domestic affairs, not his erotic ones.

From a really good maid, apparently,
he sighed into her mind. 
How goes the restoration?

Well,
she admitted, to her own surprise.  She hadn’t stopped to think about it in those terms in a few weeks, but Minalan’s perspective gave her an excuse to think about it and venture an opinion.  Particularly about the investment of trust and potential Minalan had made in the Orphan Duke. 
Anguin is more of a Duke than I thought he would be.  He has acted with utter confidence.  It’s almost scary, how determined he is to be a good ruler.  What the hells did you give the boy?

A challenge,
he answered, a cocky note in his mental voice. 
He couldn’t have done it without seeing it so.  He was primed to mope his way through his reign, and I convinced him it was more challenging to rule, and rebuild what his fathers left him.