Firewalk (17 page)

“But for your absence, little has changed,” Brisi told her. “But all will be glad to hear your tidings.”

Kayli hardly knew where to begin, so much had happened since she left home, but High Priestess Brisi listened patiently until she had finished. When she was done, however, she was surprised when Brisi laughed gently.

“And you worried because you were unable to make your first firewalk here,” the High Priestess said, smiling. “Kayli, you have completed a firewalk the likes of which few of our novices ever dream. If the Flame were to find you unworthy after such trials, no living soul could be deemed fit. Continue to study as you are able, and have no fear on that account”

“My greatest concern is another matter,” Kayli said hesitantly. “As you know, it is urgent that I bear Randon’s heir. Yet despite the potion you gave me, I have not yet conceived, and—”

Brisi chuckled.

“Kayli, you are hardly a month out of the temple,” she said. “Only a miracle could make you conceive so quickly. The people of Agrond must simply be patient for a little longer. Continue to take the potion I gave you; I have sent a further supply to your parents, who will send it on with their caravan. And practice your meditations more often. I have heard it said that excessive worry can prevent conception.”

“Yes, High Priestess.” Kayli was no more satisfied than she had been by Stevann’s and Endra reassurances, but there was nothing to do but obey. Brisi seemed pleased with her progress in her studies, which cheered her somewhat; she’d expected to advance far more quickly after her Awakening. She was reluctant to say good-bye to her teacher, and when Randon knocked on the door, she was only just putting the crystal back into its pouch.

Randon glanced around puzzledly when he entered the room. “I thought I heard voices,” he said. “I thought perhaps one of the maids was in the room.”

“No, I was speaking with High Priestess Brisi of the Order of Inner Flame,” Kayli said, showing him the crystal. “She gave me this speaking crystal before I left, trusting that I could use it later. With it I can speak to any mage in Bregond who holds such a crystal. I hope to reach my sister Kairi in the same manner soon.”

She was surprised by Randon’s frown as she spoke, but his reply left her stunned.

“Kayli, you mustn’t use that thing again,” he said slowly. “Promise me you won’t.”

A surge of irrational anger—what right did have to make such a demand of her?—nearly blinded her for a moment. With difficulty, she calmed herself, although she clutched the crystal in its pouch possessively.

“How could you ask such a thing?” Kayli said, forcing her voice to evenness. “Why would you ask it?”

“Kayli, you have no idea how precarious our situation is,” Randon said earnestly. “The treaty with Bregond won’t be final until you and I are confirmed and crowned. In the meantime I need every bit of support and help I can get, and there are already those who mutter simply because they’ve learned you’re a mage. Do you know what Terralt would make of you having magical communication with Bregond, secret communications anytime you liked? He’d make you a spy sent here under guise of the treaty to learn state secrets, the strength of our military—who knows what the ministers would believe? Even the best of them would have some suspicion. Worse yet, what if word got out to the people? The supporters I have would turn against me, and Terralt would seem justified. No, Kayli. I’ve supported your magical studies up to now, but this is too much.”

Kayli once more repeated a calming ritual to herself, forcing herself to consider Randon’s words carefully, but shook her head at last.

“No, Randon,” she said slowly. “I cannot agree. What you say is reasonable, and if you say I must, then I will not mention the speaking crystal to anyone and will use it only in the privacy of the forge when it is locked. But there is no harm in my communications with my mentor or my sister, and if needed, I would swear it under truth spell. But this is a part of my training, something that lies at my very heart. Terralt and the ministers may not trust me, but I must know that you do.” She met Randon’s eyes squarely as she spoke.

This time it was Randon’s turn to stop and consider. At last he sighed.

“I don’t like it, and I wish you’d change your mind,” he said. “But if you won’t, you won’t. Just please, as you said, make sure no one else learns of it!”

His words and his expression made Kayli realize with a sinking heart that in some way, at least, she had not yet earned his trust. A moment later she pushed aside her dismay. She could hardly expect more from him than she was willing to give.

“I understand your worry,” she said, laying her hand on Randon’s. “But it is without cause. And the speaking crystal may serve to your benefit in time—why, from the High Priestess I learned that my parents are sending a second caravan to Agrond—and I know that Brother Santee, who resides at the castle, must surely carry a speaking crystal. So when he returns home, should great need ever arise, I could send a message for you to be delivered to my father and mother.”

“You’re right, that could be useful.” Randon smiled, but the smile seemed forced. “The men finished cleaning the forge yesterday, did you know?”

“Yes.” Kayli did not tell him that she had had to clean the forge herself all over again after the men had gone; apparently the men had a different notion of “clean” than the one Kayli had learned at the Order. “I will consecrate it tomorrow at dawn. You may watch if you wish,” she added, seeing his wistful expression, “but it is only a simple consecration. Most fire magics are much more impressive.”

“All the same,” Randon said with a cheerful grin, “it’s an excuse to see something I’ve never seen before. Besides, if there are any more mutterings about your magic, it might be helpful for me to be able to say I know what you’re doing.” The twinkle in his eyes made his statement a sort of joke between them, and Kayli appreciated that, although it stung her that there was an element of truth to what he said. She quietly put away her speaking crystal, privately resolving to call Kairi as soon as possible, and let Randon believe what he would.

Her conscience, as always, was her own.

Chapter Seven

Kayli rose well before dawn the next day in order to ready the forge for consecration. Randon, sleepy-eyed but eager, lurked in the doorway watching her every movement, and Kayli told him to inform her when the sun was beginning to rise. Randon ran back up the stairs frequently to check the sky so that Kayli could work unhindered until he reported that the sky was beginning to lighten in the east.

A little thrill shot through Kayli’s heart. This consecration would be her first important ritual as an Initiate. She composed herself—somehow it was simple here in the forge—and gestured to Randon, indicating a corner where he might sit and watch more comfortably. She stepped to the torch she’d placed in its sconce on the east wall.

“As the fire of the sun lights the sky,” she said in Agrondish, for Randon’s benefit, “as the Flame lights the center of the world, so I bring the Flame to this holy place and welcome it inside.” She touched the end of the torch with her
thari,
suppressing her pride as the torch flared alight. She’d worked hard to perfect the technique for this ritual.

She repeated the summoning at the torches mounted on the north, south, and west walls, then walked to the forge itself, dropping her robe behind her. Randon was forgotten now, her concentration focused on the task before her. She knelt at the edge of the forge.

“I summon the Flame from the heart of the world, from the center of the sun, from the depths of my soul,” she said. “As an Initiate of the Order of Inner Flame, I summon the Flame to bless and consecrate this holy place and dwell therein, to light the forge and serve my will.” She raised her head and extended her
thari
out over the forge.

Kayli felt the heat building in the hard black coal in the firepit and knew her success long before the first orange-amber flame flickered upward. The fire spread slowly, but at last the whole firepit was alight.

One by one, Kayli consecrated her tools, extending them into the flames; after she poured a little oil on the anvil and carried a coal from the firepit to light it, she carried the coal to the corners of the room, touching it to the stone of the walls and floor. Impulsively, and to Randon’s amazement, she took his hand and passed the burning coal over it, so quickly that he had neither time to pull away nor to be burned.

“I summon the Flame to dwell in this holy place,” she said. “Live in each stone, in the air, in our flesh. Dwell in memory, burn unseen in darkness until I summon you forth.”

She focused on the coal in her hands. This was the difficult part, for she must quell the fire in the forge, yet leave the torches burning. She felt the Flame all around her in its smallest manifestations. Each torch on the forge walls was a sort of pleasant itch at the back of her consciousness; the firepit itself was a more powerful sensation, drawing her forward as if luring her to immerse herself in the flames. Kayli dismissed the fire almost hastily, gratified that although the torches guttered slightly when the flames in the firepit subsided, they quickly recovered.

Kayli replaced the now cool coal in the firepit, then sighed and let herself collapse to her knees on the stone, suddenly aware how tired and drained she was by the ritual.

“Fire feeds on wood or coal,” Brisi had told her. “But the Flame feeds on you. In time only the greatest rituals will tire you severely, but it is important not to overreach your skill. One who summons more of the Flame than she can feed or control will surely be utterly consumed.”

Kayli rested where she was, amused to find her loins hungry despite her weariness. Well, she’d been warned of that, too, as the fires of magic and the flesh mingled so closely together. When Randon hesitantly approached with her robe in his hand, she gestured to him to sit beside her.

“Are you finished?” he asked. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, and yes,” Kayli said, leaning back against him. “Only a little weary. But that is to be expected.”

“You surprised me with that coal,” Randon said, rubbing her shoulders. “I thought I was just watching.”

Kayli frowned. Once or twice observers had attended consecrations in the temple, but only novices were usually included in the ritual as she had impulsively included Randon. Now she wondered whether her action had been unwise. Randon had at least a trace of the fire magic, after all, and she technically
had
invoked the Flame in him. Well, it was only a simple consecration; surely there was no harm.

“Well, you have been consecrated with the forge,” she said lightly. “Now you may observe my rituals sometimes. You must, after all, keep track of my possibly seditious magic.”

“Kayli—” Randon protested.

“Oh, hush.” Kayli turned in his arms to face him, her lips too hungry for his to wait another moment. Randon seemed a little taken aback as she pulled impatiently at the lacing of his shirt, then gave up and concentrated on ridding him of his trousers instead, but he quickly matched her eagerness and they coupled there on the hard stone floor of the forge.

When passion finally cooled, however, Randon laughed at the coal dust smudging the tunic he had never managed to remove, and liberally dusting his own and Kayli’s hair and skin.

“The servants will never understand if they see us,” he said, grinning ruefully. “But if Terralt himself catches us on the stairs, it was worth it. But wasn’t that a little—well, sacrilegious? I mean, if this is a consecrated place—”

Kayli laughed.

“All the Awakenings in our temple take place in the forge,” she said. “Of course, a pallet is placed on the stone to make it more comfortable.” She did not add that like the singed hearth fur of her wedding night, those pallets often withstood only a single use. “Sexual and magical energies mingle closely, and one most often feeds the other.”

“Then Stevann must be more circumspect than I thought,” Randon said, chuckling. “Whenever I saw him casting spells, he seemed far more exhausted than—well, otherwise.”

Kayli flushed as she remembered what Randon had said of Stevann’s inclinations.

“Perhaps Stevann’s magic is of a different sort,” she said. “What I was taught may only be applicable to the elemental magics. Well, at least this forge has certainly been properly prepared for fire magic,” Kayli added, chuckling. “But if we sit in audience today, it is water I must seek.”

“No audience.” Randon reached for his trousers, clucked amusedly over the broken lacing, and handed Kayli her robe. “I didn’t know how long this ceremony might take, so I canceled everything for the day, thinking that if you liked, we might pack a lunch and go rid—hey!” Randon protested, but he laughed as Kayli dragged him to his feet and pushed him toward the door, barely pulling the robe around her own shoulders.

“Well, at least if anyone sees us, your people will know that I, as well as you, am doing my best to provide this country with an heir,” Kayli said amusedly as they crept up the backstairs. Then she sighed. “It is a great pity that in our own home we must forever worry what others are thinking of us.”

“I know,” Randon said, nodding a little sadly. “It annoys me, too. I’m so accustomed to doing what I please that it’s an effort to remember that my life’s not my own anymore.”

Kayli made a hasty toilet and donned her riding clothes, taking her bow and quiver with her; by the time she was ready, Randon had already ordered their lunch basket and had the horses saddled. The guards were waiting, too, and at the sight of them, Kayli’s enthusiasm ebbed a bit, but Maja was no more frisky and restless than Kayli herself, and she fidgeted impatiently in the saddle until the guards led them out through the castle gates.

This time Kayli fancied she saw less hostility in the stares directed at her, although an increased number of peasants muttered excitedly to each other as the group rode by. Kayli urged Maja a little closer to Carada and asked Randon about it.