Reader and Raelynx (21 page)

T
HE
next day Senneth and Kirra spoke to even more mystics, all of them suddenly eager to hear about the opportunities in Ghosenhall.

“I’m jealous,” Kirra said. “Perhaps I should challenge a shape-shifter to see who can take the most forms in the shortest amount of time.”

“You’d lose that one,” Senneth observed. “Donnal’s faster than you are. Maybe
he
should run that competition.”

Kirra pretended to be insulted. “Well, then, I’ll see who else can transform another human to animal shape,” she said. “I’ll bet I’m the only mystic who can do
that
.”

“I’ll bet you are. And tolerant of magic though the townspeople seem to be, perhaps that’s not a skill you should put on display, since it’s generally considered an abomination,” Senneth said. “You might have the distinction of being the first mystic stoned to death in Carrebos.”

“I live to earn such distinctions,” Kirra replied.

But Kirra was just as popular as Senneth was with a party that visited Eddie’s right before lunch. The group consisted of an attractive young woman, her squirming toddler, and a fair-haired man with dreamy eyes. Kirra recognized the woman first and jumped up to give her a hug.

“Annie!” she said. “Look at you! The last time I saw you, you were on the threshold of death. Oh, and this must be Kinnon. What a troublesome boy you were the night you were born.”

Annie laughed, introduced her husband, and thanked them as earnestly as Sosie had for saving both her baby and herself. “We were glad to do it,” Kirra said merrily. “Always delighted to show off our magic to a town full of people who hate mystics! And Senneth got to set a bunch of people on fire, so that made her especially happy. So tell me about the little one! He seemed awfully willful as he was coming into the world. Is it too much to hope that he’s gotten easier to handle?”

They only chatted a few minutes before more strangers showed up, looking for an audience with Senneth. It was late before there was a break in the stream of visitors, and by then, Senneth and Kirra were starving. Tayse and Donnal had joined them, so Sosie brought meals to all of them, putting a bowl of stew on the floor for Donnal. They’d just finished eating when Sosie returned, wrapping a towel around her hands and glancing back toward the kitchen door.

“Would you be willing to go to the kitchen a moment?” she asked in a diffident voice. “There’s someone you might want to meet, but she’s shy and she’s strange and I don’t think she’ll come to the front room.”

Senneth and Kirra exchanged glances and quickly rose to their feet. Tayse and Donnal followed them through the door, too curious to stay behind.

A young woman was moving through the small kitchen as if she didn’t really see the layout of table and oven and baker’s rack. Her muddy green eyes were focused on something invisible to the rest of them; her hands were half lifted as if to catch something that might be tossed her way. Her hair was tangled, her face was none too clean, and Senneth noted with astonishment that her feet were bare. Yet a faint fragrance clung to her of roses or lilies or irises. Kirra caught it, too, for Senneth saw her sniff and look around as if trying to locate an unseasonal bouquet.

Sosie touched the woman’s arm to catch her attention. “Lara,” she said, and then repeated the name. “Lara, remember I wanted you to meet Senneth.”

Lara’s strange eyes passed unseeingly over Senneth’s face and went to Kirra. She nodded silently and then turned her gaze toward the window.

“Are you a mystic?” Senneth tried.

Lara said nothing, so Sosie answered for her. “She is, though I don’t really understand her power. She’s a healer of some kind. I’ve seen her bring people back from the brink of death, but it’s not the kind of power that Kirra has. And she can make anything grow—she can touch a tree and ripen fruit two months out of season. It’s as if her power was spring, or maybe life itself.” Sosie smiled, as if that sounded foolish. “Or maybe her power is hope.”

Kirra’s voice sounded behind her, quiet and unalarming. “Surely there must be a goddess of growing things,” Kirra said. “Such a one would claim a woman like this.”

“Can she hear us?” Senneth said.

“I don’t know. Sometimes she participates in conversations, but I’m never sure of what she does and doesn’t hear. She’s only here rarely—I think she just wanders barefoot around Gillengaria most of the year.”

“Well, Lara, I hope you wander to Ghosenhall someday soon,” Senneth said in a friendly way. “I’m sure we will need all the healers we can accumulate if war really does descend on us.”

For a moment, it seemed as though Senneth’s voice penetrated the other woman’s abstraction. Lara’s eyes rested on Senneth’s face. “War,” she repeated.

“Though I hope not,” Senneth added.

Lara’s attention drifted back to Kirra, down to Donnal, and over to Tayse—and then suddenly sharpened. She took in his stance, his weapons, the gold lions embroidered on his sash. “King’s Rider,” she said distinctly.

They all froze, and then Tayse said quietly, “Yes, I’m a Rider. How do you know of such as me?”

“Justin,” Lara said.

Now they were all astonished and having no luck hiding it. “You know Justin?” Tayse repeated.

“Cammon,” the strange woman added.

“Justin and
Cammon
?” Kirra said. “Wait—are you the mystic they rescued last fall when Justin was on his way to Neft?”

Lara turned her attention back to Senneth. “I will help you,” she said, “if war comes.” Before they could recover from their amazement, she turned to Sosie, gave the other girl a quick embrace, and slipped out the back door, making no noise with her bare feet.

They all stared after her, though Sosie was choking on a giggle. “And that’s a fairly typical conversation with Lara,” she said at last. “But I thought you should meet her if you got a chance. She is—I think she’s very good. But she’s not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Can anyone else smell roses?” Kirra demanded.

“Sosie’s right,” Senneth said. “Her power is spring.”

“Well, spring is coming, and war might be coming with it,” Tayse said. “I would be relieved if it came wearing Lara’s face instead of Halchon Gisseltess’s countenance.”

Senneth gave a last glance at the door where Lara had disappeared and offered a sigh. “Maybe it will come wearing both.”

S
HORTLY
afterward, Jase dropped by for lessons. By the time Senneth had spent an hour with him, he was able to manufacture fire from his own body heat and keep a piece of paper from burning even though it was red with flame. “If you come to Ghosenhall, there’s a man who would love to tutor you,” Senneth told him, writing Jerril’s name and address on a piece of paper.

He pocketed it carefully but shook his head. “Probably not anytime soon. My folks brought me here to keep me safe and I don’t think they like the idea of leaving just yet.”

“And we hardly want to strip the place of all its magic,” Kirra added to Senneth after he’d left and they had settled back into the booth. “How strange to have a town of mystics if all the mystics have fled.”

Senneth grinned. “I’d guess only a handful will come to Ghosenhall now—the adventurous ones who are starting to chafe at the safe but dull existence they’re leading,” she said. “Well, think about it! Neither you nor I would have been able to live here more than a month or two without suddenly feeling the urge to wander off and explore the world again.”

“Mystics are restless,” Kirra agreed. “Hard to believe that this many of them could have settled down long enough to actually form a town.”

Senneth was watching two men enter the tavern, a younger one supporting an older one who appeared to be both blind and physically weak. “What I think,” she said slowly, “is that enough of them were in danger enough times that they were willing to trade their love of adventure for a sense of security. They’d had their fill of back-alley beatings and midnight escapes. Life in Carrebos might not be exciting—but excitement can sometimes mean death.”

The two strangers approached the booth and Senneth and Kirra both rose to show their respect for the older man. He looked to be in his mid-eighties, with thin white hair rather wildly styled and huge blue eyes that were cloudy with age. Brown spots dotted the wrinkled skin of his face and his mouth hung open as if he had found that was the most convenient way to breathe.

“Good afternoon, serras,” his companion said. The younger man might have been fifty, a little plump, a little weary, but his round face held a look of peace that Senneth instantly liked. “My uncle wanted to meet you. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” Senneth said. “Is he a mystic? Would he like to offer us help in protecting the kingdom?”

Both men laughed, the younger one looking rueful and the older one delighted. “I’m afraid my uncle Virdon isn’t in good enough shape to travel so far as Ghosenhall,” he said. “But he does have power and you would surely find it useful.”

Senneth slipped around the table to join Kirra and gestured at the other side of the booth. “Sit. Tell us about your uncle.”

It took a certain amount of shuffling and guidance, but eventually Virdon and his nephew were situated. “I’m Chake, by the way,” the nephew said. “My uncle was most impressed with how you flung fire about last night. I’m not sure he would have come to see you otherwise, but the elemental magic appeals to him.”

“Can he call fire?” she asked.

Old man Virdon spoke up for the first time in a gruff and thready voice. “Water,” he said. “It speaks to me.”

“Really?” Senneth said politely.

Chake nodded. “It doesn’t just speak to him, it obeys him. When he was younger, he could call rain down on the sunniest day. I’ve seen him put his palm to dry ground and draw water up from some deep underground source. There was a boy once who almost drowned in a river. And my uncle waded into the water and put his hands down in the current and just
pushed
that water back. It stopped flowing, serra, long enough for the boy’s mother to rush out through the muddy riverbed and snatch up her child. There are other stories that my mother told, but those I saw for myself.”

“Those are quite impressive,” Senneth said. “You make me sorry that he is too weak to travel. Did you inherit any power?”

“None to speak of,” Chake said. He cupped his hand over Senneth’s glass and a drop of water broke free of the greater mass and leapt upward into his palm. He turned his hand over and back, over and back, and the droplet rolled like a pearl across the upturned surface of his skin. Then he wove it between his fingers like a coin that he had pulled out to do tricks for children. “This is about the extent of my skill. But my uncle is truly gifted.”

Virdon leaned forward, his blind eyes turned toward Senneth. “Ocean talks to me,” he wheezed. “Tells me a strange story.”

“And what story might that be?” she asked.

He waved his hands as if to indicate the sea not so far from the tavern door. “Boats,” he said. “Hundreds of boats. Lined up in the waters outside of Forten City.”

Senneth stared at him and felt every vein in her body turn icy. Beside her, Kirra grew rigid. “What else can you tell me about these boats?” she said in a soft voice. “How big are they? What’s their cargo?”

“Big,” he said. “Heavy in the water. Don’t know what they carry, but every day they’re fouling the currents with excrement and piss.”

“Troop ships,” Kirra breathed.

Senneth nodded slightly. “Do you know—can you tell where they’re from?”

Virdon shook his head, and his voice was a little petulant. “Usually the ocean tells me everything, talks about the wood in the hulls and the cargo in the holds. Tells me about the fish in the water, how many there are, where they’re swimming. But it’s keeping secrets from me, the ocean is. It only tells me that those boats are there and they’re waiting.”

“Foreign ships,” Kirra whispered in Senneth’s ear. “That’s why he can’t pick up much detail about them.”

She nodded and whispered back, “So, how can he know anything about them at all?”

The faintest smile crossed Kirra’s lips. “The water tells him. And the water isn’t happy.”

Senneth addressed Virdon again. “Do you know how long they’ve been there?”

“Some started arriving about a month ago. More come every day.”

“Are more on the way?”

“I don’t know. I think so. Too far away—the water won’t let me know.”

“Well, the water has given you plenty of valuable information, and I thank you with the utmost sincerity,” Senneth said. She glanced at Chake, trying to assess his economic status. Would he be pleased or offended if she offered him money for Virdon’s information? “Is there some way I can show appreciation to your uncle for sharing this news with me?”

“No payment required,” Chake said. “But my uncle is never so delighted as when he gets a chance to see someone else’s magic at work.”

Senneth glanced at Kirra, for a shape-shifter’s effects could be far more long-lasting than those of a fire mystic. “Hand me that knife,” Kirra said, and the old man passed over an unused bread knife from their afternoon meal. She balanced it between her palms and concentrated fiercely for a moment. Suddenly it fell to the table with a jangle and revealed itself to be a silver bracelet made of heavy, interconnected links. Kirra picked it up and passed it over to the old man, whose hand was already outstretched.

“Perhaps you might like to wear this as a remembrance of the afternoon you talked magic with Senneth Brassenthwaite and Kirra Danalustrous,” Kirra said grandly. “And it will remind you of how grateful we were to learn your news.”

Chake smiled. “Thank you. We won’t take up any more of your time. Thank you again.”

They left just as Tayse and Donnal were returning. Darryn was a few steps behind and instantly joined them when Kirra waved him over. Senneth slumped on the bench next to Kirra while the men slipped into the booth across from them. Donnal settled under the table at Kirra’s feet.