Mage's Blood (10 page)

Ramon just shrugged disinterestedly. ‘War is overrated, amici.’

‘Huh.’ Alaron got up and stretched. ‘I gueth I better go,’ he said. ‘Thym will be wondering where I am.’

Alaron found Cym in their usual place, a wrecked hovel against the old walls that stank of piss and rot. She was wrapped in a brown blanket, her head cowled in a large shawl. She had lit a fire, small enough to escape the notice of any passing watchman but barely large enough to raise the temperature. She was amusing herself by firing tiny energy-bolts into the city wall, leaving scorch-marks and a strange metallic tang in the air. Such bolts were the mage’s most basic weapon, deadly enough against an ordinary human, but easily countered by any other gnosis-wielder.

‘You lose another fight?’ she asked, eyeing his bloodied lip. ‘Here, let me have a look.’ It was a sad fact that once she got the hang of it, Cym was actually better than both of them at most of the things they taught her. Alaron suspected that her mysterious mother – Cym never discussed her – had been of considerable power, and Cym herself was a natural. Alaron’s frequent scraps with Malevorn meant she got plenty of opportunity to practise her healing.

He closed his eyes, wincing as she poked and prodded, then sent a painful tingle of gnosis-power into his cut that reduced the swelling and sealed the wound.

‘There, that should be gone in a few days. Idiot. Hasn’t he beaten you up enough for a lifetime already?’ It was a rare week that he and Malevorn didn’t come to blows, either on the weapons-practice field or in some hall or back room. He just couldn’t hold his temper around the Pure.

‘Thanks,’ he said, running his tongue over the healed cut. He tried to squeeze her hand, but she avoided him deftly, pretending not to notice.

‘So,’ she said, ‘this is it: my last lesson with you. After tomorrow
you’ll be off doing your exams and I’ll have to find other ways to learn.’

‘We could continue after the exams,’ he offered. ‘We’ll be graduated then; we could do it openly.’

She shook her head. ‘Our caravan leaves on Freyadai – we’ve got to be in Lantris before the snows.’

‘Will you be back in spring?’ He found he wasn’t able to feign nonchalance.

‘Maybe. Who knows.’ She leant forward, her face hungry. ‘What new things can you show me?’

For the next two hours he taught her the drills he’d learnt since last time and reviewed her progress on earlier lessons, where, as usual, she’d already overtaken him, and ended up helping him as much as he did her. He hoped he might be more than just a rotemage one day, but he wasn’t there yet. He tried to demonstrate shaping fire, but the flames sizzled and went out with a dispiriting pop.

‘Let it flow, Alaron,’ she scolded. ‘You’re so tense – you need to relax, let it run through you, like water.’

‘I can’t!’ he groaned. ‘I just
can’t
.’

‘You’re a mage – let it come naturally!’

‘It’s not natural, it’s as unnatural as you can get,’ he complained dispiritedly. He felt tired and clumsy. Outside, the new moon was up, its great arc covering half the sky. It looked almost touchable – more touchable than Cym, anyway. The Rimoni girl followed his glance, shuddered and pulled up her cowl. She was always leery of the massive weight of the moon hanging in the sky above. ‘Off you go. You’re too tired for any more. Go home.’

He knew she was right, but to say good night … that would be to shut the door on so many dreams. He hesitated, but she’d already stood and ducked under the rotting leather sheet that formed a makeshift door. He had to follow, feeling even more wretched.

Cym turned to him. ‘So: after seven years, this is the end, for you and me. I do not know how to thank you for your kindness in teaching me.’

He tried to think of something charming and witty and romantic, but instead he was mute. She put a bony finger to his lips. ‘Shh.’ She pressed something into his hand and he looked down at it: a copper amulet of a rose. The Rimoni Rose. He gripped it tight, and suddenly realised he was crying.

‘Oh, Alaron, you idiot!’ Cym stepped into him, pecked his cheek and then she was two feet away, four, ten and then the shadows of the old wall had swallowed her and she was gone. Maybe for ever.

The headmaster addressed them on the last day of the school year. The rest of the students had already gone home, and the usually bustling old keep felt oddly lifeless. Headmaster Lucien Gavius was a political appointment, personally endorsed by Governor Vult himself, elevated out of the classroom where Alaron had always thought of him as a lifeless slug. Gavius waffled about the coming exams, but they already knew what to expect. There were four weeks left in the month of Noveleve, and each would bring a series of tests. Week one was academic: history, theology, calculus, and Rondian, of course, to prove they could read and write.
Calculus is going to be the worst
, Alaron thought, though the most important part was next Freyadai, when they had to present their theses. Recruiters would be there, and scholars too. The thesis was their chance to contribute to the knowledge of the mage community; it was seen by many as the most important part of the exams.

Week two was all about the skills of the battle-mage. They would have to prove their skill with missile weapons and horsemanship, and fight without using the gnosis against soldiers handpicked from the ranks of the Watch, and though using blunted weapons, these men knew what they were doing. The whole week would be demanding, exhausting and dangerous.

During the third and fourth weeks, they would be tested on their use of gnosis: basic energy manipulation and theory, hermetic and theurgic-gnosis, then in the last week Thaumaturgy and Sorcery. All of the teachers would be involved in the testing, and many people would be watching, including recruiters from the Kirkegarde, the
Volsai, the Legions, the Arcanum and the City Watch, and private individuals who hired magi: merchants looking for bodyguards, schools looking for teachers. This was the shop-window; their futures would be made or broken by their display.

Malevorn, Francis and Seth had their future assured by birthright. Gron Koll and Boron Funt were of strong bloodlines too. Ramon, as a foreigner, would only graduate if he pledged himself to a stint in the legions, though he would return to his Silacian village as an important man, probably the only mage in the locality as there weren’t many Rimoni-magi.

For Alaron, just another urban mage of no great birth or blood, it would be harder. Quarter-bloods were plentiful, often bastard-born, and tended to end up as front-line battle-magi, the target of every enemy crossbowman and archer and not exactly loved by their own rank and file. Many didn’t last long. Vann Mercer wanted his son to eschew the legions altogether; he’d always tried to interest his son in the cut and thrust of trading, but when Alaron dreamed, he dreamed of great deeds and heroism in battle – glory, recognition. He wanted the acclamation of his peers, respect from the Pures … and a particular Rimoni girl on his arm.

Aruna Nagar district, Baranasi, Northern Lakh, on the continent
of Antiopia
Rami 1381 (Septinon 927 in Yuros)
10 months until the Moontide

Ispal Ankesharan could have been blind and deaf, yet he would still have known exactly where he was by smell alone, here in Aruna Nagar Market. Every aroma was familiar, the spices and coffee and tea and piss and sweat of the largest marketplace in Baranasi, the Jewel of Lakh. It was a place of pilgrimage, a bend in the river where once Gann-Elephant had sprayed water from his sacred trunk to fill the river basin, creating a flow that still ran thickly and slowly across
the red-dirt plains to the impassable seas. Here he bought and sold everything that he thought might turn a profit. In this arena he matched wits with buyers and sellers, made friends and enemies, lived and loved. This was the home where he laughed and cried and thanked all of the Thousand Gods of Omali for his beautiful life.

For Ispal Ankesharan had everything: a wonderful community, the love of his gods, a dutiful wife, and many children to carry on his name and pray for him when he was gone. His home was in easy reach of the holy river Imuna. He was not so rich that the mighty were jealous, nor so poor that his family went without. It was a fortunate life, despite having seen war and death at close hand.

He opened his eyes and stared through the hazy light of autumn. The morning’s coolness was dissipating fast under the sun’s bright glare. He had taken his family to the river that morning with Raz Makani, his blood-brother, though Raz was Amteh. Raz and his two children had watched while Ispal’s tribe prayed to Vishnarayan and Sivraman, and of course to Gann-Elephant for good fortune. Luck was Gann’s preserve, a less mighty-seeming gift than those of the greater gods, but one you should never be without.

Afterwards his wife Tanuva shepherded the children home while he and Raz shared a pipe and spoke a little of the old days. To those who did not know him, Raz was a nightmare figure, his burns disfiguring still after twenty-two years. He was a man of bitter silences. They had met in 904, when Ispal had travelled north, having heard that great profits could be had by trading with the whiteskinned ferang in Hebusalim. It had been his first time out of Baranasi, let alone Lakh, and what a journey it had been – deserts, mountains, rivers, what an experience! And what a nightmare: for the ferang had sent soldiers instead of traders, and Ispal had lost all of his goods and nearly his life. He, who was a man of peace.

Still, he had survived, and he had saved the life of the fierce Keshi warrior Raz Makani, who was so badly burned it seemed he would not survive. When the war was over he had brought Raz and his woman south, and now they were brothers, men who had looked death in the eye and survived. Raz’s woman had stayed with him,
though Raz was ravaged by fire, and borne him two children before she died. They had shared much together, Ispal and Raz, and now Raz’s son was pledged to Ispal’s daughter, to seal their bond in a way that would surely please the gods.

That morning, as usual, he left Raz in his favourite place, watching the river from the shade. He left a wad of tobacco, heavily laced with ganja, and a flask of arak. Other friends would look in on Raz, spend time with him. He might be a fearsome sight, but he was familiar, part of the community.

Ispal walked the market, sniffing out the new produce. Carpets from Lokistan were arriving, bearers unloading them under the watchful gaze of Ramesh Sankar. Ramesh saw him, calling out, ‘Ispal, you old rogue, would you like to buy a carpet?’

‘Not today, Ram – maybe tomorrow. Good quality, hmm? Safe this time?’ They laughed together, for Ram’s previous shipment had included a cobra, sleeping inside one of the carpets. A snake charmer had calmed the frightened serpent and kept it, so all was well for everyone.

Together they watched other shipments being unloaded. Neither man had a shop – they dealt in bulk from warehouses nearby – but it was here the deals were cut. More traders gathered, men who knew each other like brothers, to inspect all manner of goods as they arrived, bidding for whatever interested them: spices and tealeaves from the south, their earthy fragrances wafting through the warm air. Sacks of acrid chillies, cardamom and cinnamon, all laid on blankets on the ground by women with sun-blackened skin. Men roasted peanuts on smoking braziers. One did not stride here, one hopped from space to space. More and more people kept pouring in. This was the cradle of life; its cacophony hung in the air, thicker than the smoke of the cooking-fires. Music played, monkeys performed tricks, out-of-towners gawped: easy marks for the unscrupulous, and there were plenty of those.

The market was busy today; tomorrow was the last day of the Amteh Holy Month and Amteh worshippers – about a quarter of the people here in Baranasi – were making their final obeisance to Ahm
on this last day of privation, in which they took neither food not drink whilst the sun was in the sky. But tomorrow night would be insane: drink would flow, food would be consumed by the wagonload, people would sing and dance to celebrate Eyeed, the Feast of Thanksgiving, and the traders would all make small fortunes selling the provender to facilitate this happiness.

‘Ispal – Ispal Ankesharan!’

Ispal turned to see Vikash Nooradin making his way towards him, waving a hand. Vikash was slender, with wavy hair and quite pale skin for a Lakh. He was more rival than friend. Ispal patted Ramesh farewell and greeted Vikash cautiously. ‘Vikash, how may I help?’

Vikash glanced at Ramesh, then drew Ispal close, his narrow features more animated than Ispal could ever remember seeing them. ‘My friend, I have news of a deal that may interest you. An
exclusive
deal.’

Ispal raised his eyebrows in surprise. Vikash Nooradin was not the sort to share knowledge of deals with the likes of him. ‘What sort of deal?’ he asked curiously.

Vikash met his eyes frankly. ‘The deal of a lifetime, Ispal – and only you and I can pull it off.’ Vikash put a finger to his lips, and didn’t speak more until they were well into the alleys, in a shadowy doorway where they could not be overheard. He huddled closer to Ispal. ‘My friend, there is a stranger in town. He is looking for something that only you have.’