Land of the Burning Sands (10 page)

“Yes, well she
will
tell fools they’re fools. I’ve advised her to keep her tongue behind her teeth, but she can’t seem to. She’s not precisely rude—well, she can be, I suppose. My wife says she would have an easier time of it if she were married, though I don’t know…”

Gereint said
hmm
again. He could easily believe that any man a wealthy, well-born woman maker approached would take her unmarried status as an opportunity or a challenge. Especially if she told him he was a fool. Especially if she was pretty. If she followed after her mother, Tehre would be small and pretty and plump—the sort of girl a man might well take too lightly. Until she called him a fool and proved she was more intelligent than he was. Then he would be angry and embarrassed and probably twice a fool. That seemed likely enough.

He had known Amnachudran wanted something from him. This particular suggestion surprised him. The scholar wanted
Gereint
to go meet his
own cherished daughter
in, of all places,
Breidechboden
? He hesitated, trying to find a polite way to express his hesitation. A point-blank refusal would be churlish. He owed Amnachudran a great deal, not only for removing the brand, but also… In a way, he realized, he also owed the scholar for simply reminding Gereint that true, profound kindness existed, when, in Fellesteden’s house, he’d come to doubt it. It was as though… as though Amnachudran’s act had redeemed all his memories of kindness and compassion and generosity, limned all those memories with brilliance that cast years of horror into shadow.

That was what he owed Amnachudran. But… Breidechboden?

“Of course, I know you didn’t intend to go to Breidechboden,” Amnachudran said apologetically. “I’m sure you’d be concerned about meeting someone who might recognize you. But I also have a friend in the capital. A surgeon mage, a true master with the knife.” He made a vague gesture. “There’s—theoretically—a way to remove those, um, rings. They can’t be cut, you know, except by the cold magecraft that made them. But any sufficiently skilled surgeon mage ought to be able to detach the tendon from the bone, do you see? Remove the rings whole, reattach the tendons…” He trailed off, caught by the intensity of Gereint’s stillness.

Gereint did not speak. He couldn’t have spoken to save his life. He only stared at Amnachudran.

The scholar dipped his head apologetically. “The difficult part is reattaching the tendons. If the surgeon isn’t sufficiently skilled, the, um, patient would, well. You see.”

Gereint did, vividly. Fellesteden had driven him to risk death in the desert. But not even to escape Fellesteden had Gereint ever considered crippling himself.

“I wouldn’t dare attempt it,” Amnachudran explained. “But my friend could manage that sort of surgical magecraft.” He hesitated and then added, “I’m fairly certain.”

“Would he?” Gereint asked after a moment. “He would do that for me?” His tone had gone husky. He cleared his throat. It didn’t help.

“Ah, well… I can’t say that my friend has done any such surgery in the past.” Amnachudran’s tone implied that although he couldn’t
say
it, it was true. “But I think it’s possible he might be willing. As a favor to me, and for, ah, other reasons. I’d write a letter for you to take to him, of course. If you were willing to go to Breidechboden.”

Gereint said nothing. Interfering with a
geas
was thoroughly illegal. But Amnachudran had already done it himself, and it seemed clear he knew very well that this friend of his had done the same and would be willing to do it again.

“You’re a strongly gifted maker. Aren’t you? Modesty aside?”

“Well,” Gereint managed, still trying to wrap his mind around the possibility of true freedom, “Yes, but—”

“And if you did go to Breidechboden, you’d need a place to stay and a respectable person to vouch for you. Tehre could provide you with both of those. And,” he gave Gereint a faintly apologetic, faintly defiant look, “Tehre really does seem to require the services of a really good maker, or so I gather from her most recent letter.”

“Your daughter… you…”

Amnachudran tilted his head, regarding Gereint shrewdly. “Should I mistrust you? I don’t assume my judgment is infallible. But as the Arobern’s appointed judge for the district north of Tanshen, I’ve had a good deal of experience assessing men’s characters, and so has my wife, and in this case we’re both fairly confident—”

“You’re a judge?” Gereint was startled, almost shocked. But… at the same time, perhaps that explained why the scholar had felt himself able to interfere with the
geas
. He didn’t exactly have the right; no one had the right to interfere with a legally set
geas
. And in fact the king famously held any of his judges to stricter account for breaking any law than an ordinary man. But still… a judge might feel he
ought
to have that right.

Amnachudran looked at him, puzzled. “Yes, I petitioned for the position some years past. Having to run down to Tashen every time we wanted a judge was so inconvenient. Everyone seems to prefer to simply come to me. Ah—does it make a difference? I can’t see why it should.”

It did make a difference, if not to Amnachudran then to Gereint. In some strange way, Amnachudran’s generosity seemed to negate that other, long-ago judge’s harshness. Gereint didn’t know how to put this feeling into words, however.

After a moment, the scholar shrugged. “Trustworthiness, like soundness of design, can only be proved in the test. If you choose to go to Breidechboden, I think we will both find our best hopes proved out. I’ve a letter of introduction for you.” He took a stiff, leather envelope out of his belt pouch and held it out to Gereint. “The man’s name isn’t on it. I’ll tell you his name. It’s Reichteier Andlauban. Anybody in Breidechboden could direct you to his house.” He hesitated, studying Gereint. “You needn’t decide right away. Or even before leaving this house, whether heading south or west or north.”

Gereint had heard of Andlauban. Everybody had. If there were two better surgeon mages in all of Casmantium, there were not three. He said, a touch drily, “I think I can decide right away. I’ll take your letter and go to Breidechboden. If your daughter will offer me a place to stay in the city, I’ll take that, too, of course. I’m sure I’ll find her work interesting.”

Amnachudran gave Gereint a long, searching stare. “I’m not trying to coerce you,” he said earnestly.

“Save perhaps with generosity.”

Amnachudran gave a faintly surprised nod, perhaps not having quite realized this himself. “Yes, perhaps.” He hesitated another moment, then merely nodded a good night and went out.

Gereint stared down at the envelope in his hand.

Andreikan Warichteier said that the cold magecraft that made the
geas
should break in Feierabiand, where no cold mages practiced their craft. He claimed that the gentle earth mages of the west forbade
geas
bonds to be imposed on any man, and laid down a powerful magic of breaking and loosing at the border to see their proscription was carried out. A contemporary and rival philosopher, Entechsan Terichsekiun, agreed that a
geas
could not be carried into Feierabiand, but argued that the limitation was a natural quality of the other kingdom. Feirlach Fenescheiren, not so widely read in the modern day, but a careful scholar whom Gereint had generally found reliable, disagreed with them both. Instead, he credited the Safiad kings with the proscription of every kind of cold magecraft—and warned that the Safiads would regret that proscription if they ever found themselves opposing the desert of fire and silence, as Casmantium was always required to oppose it.

Of course, Berentser Gereimarn, writing a hundred years later than any of the three, said that was all nonsense and that nothing whatsoever prevented cold magecraft and all its sorcery from working perfectly in Feierabiand or Linularinum or any country, however far west one went. Gereimarn was not the most reliable of natural philosophers, but Pareirechan Lenfarnan said the same thing, and he had been a more careful scholar.

But every single philosopher Gereint had ever read agreed that if the
geas
rings could be removed, the
geas
would come off with them. And Reichteier Andlauban, with his skill in surgery and magecraft, could surely detach and reattach tendon from bone if any man could. Eben Amnachudran had clearly implied the man had done so in the past.

At last, Gereint opened the envelope and slipped out the folded letter within. It seemed to be exactly what it should be: a personal letter, asking—as a personal favor—for an unnamed man to provide an unnamed service to the bearer of the letter. There was a clear indication, reading behind the ink, that both men agreed a favor was owed—and that, in any case, the man asked was not likely to object to the particular service requested. Gereint put the letter back into its envelope. When he finally undressed and lay down on the bed, he kept the envelope under his hand, as though there were some risk it might vanish before dawn if not constantly guarded.

* * *

In the morning, an hour after dawn, Gereint found Lady Emre in the breakfast room before her husband. It was a small room, very feminine, with delicately carved furnishings all in pale colors. Emre Tanshan, at the head of the graceful breakfast table, looked very much at home in it. Gereint said, “Ah—you were aware—that is, your husband
did
tell you—”

Lady Emre smiled with uncomplicated satisfaction. “Oh, yes. My daughter will be so pleased if you can help her make sense of whatever it is she’s trying to work out,” she assured Gereint. She nodded graciously toward the chair across from hers. “Have some eggs. You’re too thin, you know. I suggested, in fact, that Eben should ask you to go meet Tehre.”

Gereint could not quite find an appropriate response to this. But he did fill his plate.

“My daughter will appreciate you, I think,” Lady Emre continued comfortably. “Especially if you quote Entechsan Terichsekiun to her at frequent intervals. Have you read his
On the Strength of Materials
as well as his
Nomenclature
? She
will
quote all this natural philosophy about materials and structures and the compulsion of tension compared with the persuasion of compression, or perhaps it’s the other way around. Have some of this apple cake.”

The apple cake was heavy, moist with the sweet liquor the cook had drizzled over it, and redolent of summer. Gereint let himself be persuaded to have a second slice. He
had
read
Materials
, but he could not at the moment recall what Terichsekiun had had to say about tension and compression.

“Now, my son is, as you know, going south to Dachsichten. He’ll travel with half a dozen men-at-arms. There’s some risk on the road south, you know; not everyone from Melentser departed in good order. You might go with Sicheir as far as Dachsichten, if you chose. He does know all the good inns along the way, though you’re not likely to get anything better than mutton stew or boiled beef until you reach Breidechboden, I suppose.”

Gereint nodded noncommittally. He did not say that buying mutton stew or boiled beef in any inn, and eating it in the common room like any free man, was a luxury he hadn’t dreamed of for nineteen years.

“Good morning,” said the architect of his new freedom from the doorway. Eben Amnachudran gave his lady wife a fond smile and Gereint a searching look.

Gereint got to his feet with a deference ingrained by long habit, then flushed, unable for a confusing moment to tell whether he’d shown a guest’s proper regard for his host or a slave’s shameful obsequiousness to his master.

Amnachudran, with characteristic kindness, showed no sign of noticing Gereint’s uncertainty. He said cheerfully, hefting a large pouch bound up with a leather thong, “I have several books I’m sending to Tehre; you can show them to any patrol officer who asks.” He set the pouch on the table at Gereint’s elbow.

Thus furnishing a legitimate reason for Gereint’s presence in the capital; the city patrol routinely turned indigents away at the gate. Only travelers who could show either some means of support or proof of legitimate business in the city were welcome in Breidechboden.

“A copy of Garaneirdich’s
The Properties of Materials
and Dachsechreier’s
Making with Wood
,” Amnachudran went on. “And a copy of Wareierchen’s
Philosophy of Making
. She has that, but this copy has all the appendices, not just the first. I know you’ll take great care of them. And I’m including a letter for Tehre, covering them. And explaining, ah—”

“Me,” Gereint said, recovering his composure. He sat down again at the table, shifting the platter of apple cake and one of sausages toward Eben Amnachudran’s place.

“Not in great detail,” Amnachudran assured him, sitting down and regarding the cake with enthusiasm. “Emre, my dear—”

“Summer Gold apples, and that’s the last of the berry liquor,” Lady Emre answered. “Have a slice, and be sure to tell the cook how nicely the liquor sets off the apples; you know how he frets.”

Amnachudran cut himself a generous slice, tasted it, and closed his eyes briefly in bliss. “Mmm. I’ll be certain to reassure him. The last of the liquor, do you say? My dear, shouldn’t the brambles be bearing soon? Let’s remember to send the children berrying as soon as possible, yes? Now, Gereint, do you mean to travel with Sicheir as far as Dachsichten, or make your own way south?”

“I’d think travel between Tashen and Dachsichten must be a little hazardous just now, for a man on his own.”