Reader and Raelynx (20 page)

The door to the tavern opened and a lone man stepped inside. “Oh, no, looks like you’re going to have to wait on customers,” Kirra said. “Well, get him settled right away and then come back and talk to us.”

Sosie glanced over and her blush suddenly returned. “No, that’s Darryn. He’ll wait for me. I saw him last night.”

Senneth’s eyes flew to Kirra, whose face was alight with divine mischief. Obviously, they had solved the mystery of Darryn’s peasant lover. “Darryn? Darryn Rappengrass?” Senneth said faintly. The visitor had his back to them, for he had paused to say a word to a man who had stepped out from the kitchen.

Sosie’s face was even brighter. “Do you know him? He’s a great noble.”

“Why, yes, we’ve met ser Darryn a few times,” Kirra said in an affable voice. “You wouldn’t think it to look at us, but Senneth and I are fine nobles, too, and many’s the ball we’ve attended where we took a turn dancing a waltz with the serramar.”

Sosie looked uncertainly from one to the other. “Are you joking?” she asked.

“She’s not, but don’t be nervous,” Senneth said, laying her hand on Sosie’s arm. “We’re about as disreputable as nobles can be, and both of our families have practically disowned us.”

“And you know Darryn?” Sosie repeated, clearly trying to decide how alarmed she should be.

“Know him! We traveled with him here from Ghosenhall!” Kirra said. She was utterly gleeful; this was a situation that irresistibly appealed to her sense of devilry. “And while he had mentioned that he’d fallen in love with a girl, not until we were almost at the city limits did he tell us her name or the fact that she lived in Carrebos.”

“Though he didn’t call you Sosie,” Senneth said. “What was it? Something else.”

“Sosinetta? Sosabelle?” the girl said faintly. “He is always making up new names for me.”

“Well, I think you can believe that he truly loves you, if that’s something you were worried about,” Kirra said. “For he tried not to talk of you too often, but it was clear you were constantly on his mind—and, oh, perhaps this might convince you,” she said, as if just now struck by the thought. “He’s turned down a chance to wed Princess Amalie, who’s a pretty girl with lovely manners and a kingdom to inherit. But ser Darryn says he’s in love with
you
.”

Sosie gasped and then clapped her hands to her hot cheeks. “The
princess
! No! But he—I mean, he—I love him so much, but I know he—”

Kirra put her elbows on the table and leaned forward in a confiding manner. “Senneth and I rather like it when two people make an unequal match,” she said. “Our own romances have been so unconventional.”

Senneth patted Sosie on the shoulder. “Don’t let her tease you. We’re really quite pleased to see you again—and we really do know Darryn—and he really did tell us how much he loves you. There, that’s a present better than magic any day, isn’t it? Proof of love?”

“You should let him know we’re here,” Kirra said. “Just bring him right over.”

“I—I think I will,” Sosie said, and scrambled away from the table.

Kirra looked over at Senneth and laughed outright. “I think this must be the best trip we’ve ever had.”

Senneth was watching Sosie run up to Darryn, saw him kiss her quickly, listen intently, and then glance over at the booth in something like dismay. She waved, and Kirra blew him a kiss. “Well,” Senneth said, “today has certainly been fun.”

T
HE
rest of the day was a little less fun but definitely more productive. The owner of the tavern where Sosie worked—a thin, fretful man named Eddie—was much more amenable to the notion of army recruiters than Ward had been, and he agreed to let Senneth and Kirra stay in his place all day, presenting their case to residents. His wife turned out to be a reader as well, and she sat beside them most of the day, giving them quick biographies of the mystics who approached them and her assessment of their reliability.

Before day’s end, Senneth guessed that they’d talked to thirty or forty mystics with a range of powers and varying degrees of amiability. A few she liked instantly and hoped to bring back to Ghosenhall right away. A few others seemed only mildly interested in her proposition but agreed to join up with the royal army if war really did sweep across Gillengaria.

One or two struck her as being too furtive or too damaged to be of much use, no matter how desperate the battle became. These were mystics who had been beaten or threatened or abused so often that they had little strength and no trust left in them, and their power, if any remained, was buried and hard to summon.

These were the mystics, in some sense, who most deserved to have a war fought in their defense.

Ward came by late in the day, sneering a little. He was accompanied by a boy who might have been twelve years old, slight and reedy and freckle-faced. He had badly combed hair, impish eyes, and an air of guileless excitement.

“Lot of people seem to be interested in this story you’re telling about the king needing an army of mystics,” Ward said. He was so big he seemed to be crowding them back into the booth, though he didn’t actually try to sit.

“It’s the truth, as—with your ability—you surely know,” Senneth replied.

“Might be true, but people need a reason to follow someone like you. A total stranger,” Ward said. “Maybe you don’t have any power of your own, or not much, anyway. People want to know how strong
you
are.”

“Other people want to know, or just you?” Kirra inquired sweetly.

Senneth ignored her. “I’m a fire mystic. I’d be pleased to demonstrate my ability. Would you like me to burn Carrebos to the ground? I can do that, but I doubt it would make anybody truly happy.”

Ward put his hand on his companion’s shoulder. “Jase here’s a fire mystic, too,” Ward says. “We’ve all seen him call up flame—and settle it down, too, when a house was about to burn. Maybe you could have a sort of competition with Jase—show us what you can do that he can’t. People might be impressed by that. If you were better.”

“Oh, a duel!” Kirra said, clapping her hands together. “What fun!”

Senneth didn’t even look at her. “It’s not remotely fair,” she said quietly. “I’m twenty years older than he is and far stronger than you realize. He has no chance of besting me.”

Ward shrugged. “Well, if you’re afraid to try—”

Kirra strangled a laugh. Senneth dropped her eyes to Jase’s face. “How old are you?” she asked him.

“Thirteen a week ago.”

“You’re pretty good with fire.”

He shrugged, but his eyes were blazing with excitement, so she guessed he had a nice combustible power. “Well, Jase, I tell you this just so you know what to expect. I’ve never met a mystic who’s stronger than I am, no matter what his skill. And I can see I’m going to have to show off a little to prove a point to your friend here. So don’t be upset if I don’t hold back. Don’t let it discourage you.”

He grinned. “All right.”

“When shall we have our little contest?” she asked Ward. “Do you need time to alert the town?”

“How about right after dinner?” he said. “Sky’ll be dark. Fire’ll show up real pretty then.”

“Agreed,” she said. “Let’s meet out on the main street in about two hours.”

Tayse was back about an hour later, Donnal at his heels, so they ate a surprisingly delicious meal in Eddie’s tavern. Darryn joined them and endured their teasing until talk turned to the upcoming competition.

“How do I play this?” Senneth asked Tayse, the consummate tactician. “Start small and build, or just open with conflagration?”

He considered. “Open big, but save something for a final showdown. Awe them, and then terrify them.”

“Any chance the boy could really be better than Senneth?” Darryn asked.

“No,” Senneth, Kirra, and Tayse all answered in unison.

Senneth laughed. “And if he is, then I’m certainly bringing him back to Ghosenhall, whether or not he wants to come! Anyone with more power than me should definitely be in service to the king.”

When it was full dark, Senneth and her party emerged from Eddie’s tavern to find a sizable portion of Carrebos’s population already lining the main street. An iron brazier had been set in the middle of the road. Ward and Jase stood right in front of it, tending a small fire, while the townspeople waited a respectful distance back. Senneth made her way through the crowd with quite a contingent following her—Tayse, Kirra, Donnal-the-dog, Darryn, Sosie, Eddie, and Eddie’s wife. None of the spectators appeared worried, Senneth thought. They all looked like they had come out for an evening of rare entertainment.

She couldn’t imagine another city in Gillengaria that would be so complacent at the notion of witnessing a duel between mystics.

She stepped up to the brazier and smiled at Jase. “Do you require a little fire to begin with? To get your own fires going?”

He eyed her uncertainly. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried to start one on my own. But I can put
out
any fire that’s set.”

“Let’s see, then,” Senneth said. She held up her hand, closed her fingers, and tamped out the blaze.

There was a small ripple of response from the crowd, but she wasn’t done yet. She raised her arm and offered a quick twist of her wrist, and every window of every building in town went dark. Candles blown out, hearth fires extinguished, light and heat smothered at every source. The murmuring of the crowd grew louder.

“Ah, but we need a bit of fire, don’t we, just to see what we’re doing,” she said. Pivoting slowly on one foot, she pointed at building after building—the taverns, the shops, the cottages—and reignited each separate flame inside each one. Then she made the circle one more time, spinning a little faster, setting fire to objects that had never been meant to be torches. A short pole holding a merchant’s sign. The tall chimney of a two-story boardinghouse. A bare, scrubby tree lurking on one side of the road. A cart. A wine barrel. The coals in the brazier sprang back to life.

Undaunted, Jase whirled around just a second or two behind her, dousing each unnatural blaze, leaving the hearth fires unmolested and the candles primly flickering.

She had to laugh. “Very good,” she approved. “Now, can you put this one out?”

She set herself on fire.

“Mercy!” someone shouted, and she felt the whole crowd shift back. She viewed the world through a wall of violent colors, orange and red and yellow and black. Her clothes writhed with flame, her short hair was a crackling wick. She felt the tickling heat on her skin, breathed the scorched air—she knew she was burning—but she felt relaxed, familiar, ordinary. She was always a degree or two away from combustion anyway; she harbored fire in her heart, felt it running always through her veins. Sometimes it surprised her to think she didn’t always exist surrounded by a prismatic inferno.

She felt Jase’s magic tugging at the flames, dampening them to short little licks of fire. She let him succeed for a few minutes, enough for the crowd to notice, enough for Jase himself to feel a little thrill of accomplishment. Then she flung her arms upward and a column of flame shot above her head, reaching so high no one on the ground could see the end of it. She pivoted again, more quickly this time, and gestured.
Here. Here. This place. Here
. And each time she pointed her fingers, something else erupted into fire. Eddie’s tavern. Ward’s inn. The house of some poor onlooker, who instantly started wailing. The whole street was hemmed in with heat; every intent face was illuminated by the erratic, dramatic light.

Jase gamely stabbed his own hands toward a few burning buildings, and the fires went cold. But for every one he put out, Senneth started two more. He waved his arms and scrambled around her, but he could not keep up. Another house consumed by fire—another. She made one broad sweeping gesture, and every structure in the town suddenly burst into flame.

This audience knew magic, but even they were beginning to grow fearful. And she wasn’t done yet. Make it spectacular, Tayse had said. So Senneth reached out—not laying her hand on a soul—and one by one set spectators on fire. Jase. Ward. Eddie. Sosie. Anyone who stepped too close.

Then she raised her voice over the excited consternation of the crowd. “You must realize by now that anything I touch with sorcerous flame will only burn if I want it to,” she said. Indeed, Sosie and a young man at the front of the crowd both appeared utterly delighted, lifting up their incendiary hands and turning them this way and that. “Yet I hope you will believe me when I say I could bring this whole town down in a matter of minutes and no one—not even this talented boy—could stop me.”

Abruptly she lowered her arms and all the fires vanished, except the small one twinkling in the brazier and an uneven halo glittering around her own fair head. “I truly possess a great deal of power, and I have the absolute confidence of the king. Anyone who wants to travel to Ghosenhall would be welcome to leave with us when we return. We would be glad to have you in our army. We know just how formidable a weapon magic can be.”

Of course, that unleashed a maelstrom of conversation as everyone in the crowd began speaking at once—though most of them were talking to their neighbors about the extraordinary sights they had just seen. A few pressed closer to speak with Senneth herself, but she turned first to Jase, who had darted to her side the minute fire fell away from his body.

“I hope you aren’t too disappointed,” she began, but he was skipping in place.

“I want to learn that!” he exclaimed. “Can you show me? How do you make it burn without burning? Without hurting?”

She laughed but had no time to explain before others pushed between them. “Come see me tomorrow,” she called to Jase. “I’ll show you some basic exercises.”

Then she was swallowed by the people of Carrebos, who seemed, for the most part, to be thrilled by her exhibition and suddenly willing to share with her their own tricks and abilities. Even the hostile Ward came up to clap her on the back and express his admiration.
It doesn’t make sense to me,
she thought as she smiled and nodded.
When I want to be convinced a person is worthwhile, I want to listen to his arguments and understand his mind. I don’t suddenly trust him because he’s put on a gaudy display of power and might
. But Tayse had counseled her correctly, and it was just such a gaudy display that had won her friends throughout the town of Carrebos.