Shade and Sorceress (13 page)

“Yes, of course, of course! As I said. Please go ahead.”

Nell adopted a look of intense concentration. Charlie kicked his feet against the leg of the table impatiently and was silenced by a bright glare from Foss.

“You do not need to work any Magic, Eliza Tok. I will open the channels between you myself. All you need to do is
Listen.
Do not look at Millie; that will only distract you. Look anywhere you like, or close your eyes if that helps. Be aware that Millie
is
thinking, and aware only of that. It is a message for you and you must simply
reach
for it, the way you would reach for a book or a saltshaker. But you will not reach with your hand, of course – you will reach with your Deep Senses. Do you understand me, Eliza Tok?”

“Nay, hardly,” said Eliza.

In fact the whole exercise was much simpler than she had expected. The Spellmaster’s voice was a hypnotic thrum. Eliza concentrated on her desire to know what Nell was thinking, which was easy enough. As Foss chanted, she felt something rolling out behind her eyes, and then it was as if she didn’t have eyes at all but just this rolling-out sensation. This must be what it’s like to have whiskers or antenna, she thought – to sense everything around you with little feelers in the dark. She felt her mind guided firmly by something outside herself until she wrapped the rolling-out feeling around Nell’s thoughts. The thoughts were unmistakably Nell’s, even though there was no voice by which to recognize them. The thoughts belonged to Nell more absolutely and uniquely even than her voice:
Eliza, can you hear me? Think of what we could do if we could read each other’s minds! We’d nary need to pass notes in class again.

Eliza giggled and opened her eyes. Nell was grinning at her and even Foss had the faintest trace of a smile on his face.

“Well done. Now, Miss...Miss, let your mind wander. Do not
try
to make words this time or communicate with Eliza directly, but leave your mind open to her.”

Nell looked confused by these instructions, but she nodded.

“Once more,” said Foss to Eliza, and she squeezed her eyes shut. Foss began his low chant again and the rolling out and seeking was even easier this time, like rediscovering a muscle she hadn’t known she had. What came to her was a strange sort of babble, a tangle of words and images and feelings, ideas fully formed but not articulated, a great rush of excitement and frantic curiosity, and she knew that this was Nell’s mind at work. It was like stumbling into somebody else’s dream, and it made her uncomfortable. She withdrew immediately.

“So you see,” said Foss, “that hearing is not at all the same as understanding.”

Nell gave Eliza a puzzled look and Eliza smiled feebly at her. She felt rather treacherous, like she’d just been spying or had stolen her best friend’s diary.

“Now, Nina, I want you to shut Eliza out. Think of something you do not wish her to know and hold it tightly to yourself, as you would a secret. Eliza, once more.”

“It’s
Nell,”
said Nell.

Foss gave her a bewildered look.

“Never mind,” she muttered.

After a few false starts Eliza felt a push from elsewhere, presumably from Foss, and found herself reaching towards Nell again with the rolling-out feeling. But there was nothing at all to find. It was like feelers coming up against a blank wall. She opened her eyes, unwilling to push farther. Nell looked sheepish this time and Eliza began to dislike the whole exercise. Surely Nell had no secrets from her! She had just been pretending, doing what Foss told her to.

“To pry into a
closed
mind is very difficult,” said Foss. “It generally can only be worked on humans or other weak beings. While finding your way into a mind that is open to you is easy enough, it can still be dangerous. That is what I would like to demonstrate next. Eliza, reach into my thoughts. I will draw you in and release you the moment you wish it.”

This Eliza found extremely difficult. Communicating with Nell in such an intimate way felt quite natural, but trying to reach into Foss’s mind was altogether different. Even with Foss pulling her onwards, it was difficult to quell her instinctive resistance and let herself be drawn in. When it happened, it was like putting her ear to a door behind which there was a roaring fire. There was the terrible cracking and groaning of flame devouring air, and a blazing heat filled her head. She reeled away in shock and pain. Nell put a hand out to steady her, frightened. Foss smiled apologetically.

“Lesson learned,” he said. “I apologize if I’ve hurt you, Eliza, but it is important you understand this well. You must never try to Listen to a being’s thoughts unless you are prepared for the way they think and know how to decipher it. Where is the boy?”

Charlie had slipped off his chair and gone skulking among the stacks, but he reappeared immediately when Foss spoke.

“Can we go now?” he asked. Nell looked at him as if he were insane.

“Let us try once more with him,” said Foss shortly. “Open your mind to her, child.”

Eliza’s stomach did a little somersault and she closed her eyes. She had been wondering for some time what went on in Charlie’s mind, but she didn’t want him to
know
she was Listening to his thoughts. Would he be thinking about Nell? Foss chanted and she rolled out and around Charlie’s thoughts. She caught images of the tree fort, the stacks of books oppressive and musty. He was bored and wanted to go outside. But she realized immediately that there was something not quite right about it all. These were cardboard cut-out versions of thoughts, nowhere near as alive and buzzing as Nell’s. There was something else behind them, a sound she couldn’t quite make out. She ignored all the flimsy thoughts in her way and made instead for that faint sound. It washed over her, almost like the music of whales she remembered from Holburg in the wintertime when they passed through the archipelago, or like waves echoing in deep underwater caves. Perhaps there were words too, but no words she could understand. It was such a lonely sound and so strangely familiar that it brought tears to her eyes. She saw undulating images now, figures made of shadow and light moving towards her. Suddenly afraid, she struggled to free herself from the peculiar Magic of it. She said, “Charlie?” and it all yanked away from her, hard. She was in the Library. Nell and Charlie and Foss were staring at her.

“What were you thinking just then?” she asked Charlie.

“Nothing,” he said. “I couldnay think of anything to think of.”

Foss was watching him carefully.

“That is enough from the two of you,” he said to Charlie and Nell. “Eliza and I have more work to do.”

Charlie dashed out with Nell following more reluctantly, disappointed that she had not learned to cast any spells. Eliza was puzzled. Were the minds of different people so very different? Foss had heard it too, of course, but he said nothing.

“You and I will continue our lesson in the Treasury, Eliza Tok,” said Foss.

Eliza was more than a little alarmed at this. Her last visit to the Treasury had resulted in her nearly being eaten, but she followed Foss to the west wing. This time, to her relief, they went to one of the upper floors. Foss made a door in the marble wall and they entered a room lit by torches. Eliza knew better by now than to ask who had lit them. The room was empty but for a low, circular, stone table, at the centre of which sat a glass sphere on a cushion.

“Is that for seeing the future?” asked Eliza in a whisper, for there were many stories told by village gossips about crystal balls and such.

“You cannot
see
that which does not exist,” said Foss dismissively. “The future has not yet come to pass, and so it does not
exist,
and so there is nothing to
see,
Eliza Tok! There are prophecies, of course, certain ways of knowing certain things, of interpreting the Deep Secrets of Cause and Effect, but nothing absolute. No, this is the Vindensphere, for finding an object or being that you seek. It is one of the most valuable tools of the Shang Sorceress, used to discover beings that have crossed over. We tried to use it to find you for many years, but your mother’s spell prevented that. Today I want you simply to go into a trance. The Vindensphere will create the trance for you. You may see things, and we will discuss what you saw and what it might mean. Perhaps the Vindensphere will lead you to that which is lost within you. Perhaps it will show you your Guide. We will come later to
seeking;
this is just a beginning.”

Eliza looked at the Vindensphere apprehensively.

“What do I do?” she asked.

“Look into it, Eliza Tok. Seek the centre of it. The Magic is all in the Vindensphere. Let it do the work for you.”

Eliza made an impatient gesture. She wanted him to stop talking now, for she saw something in the centre, a strange white flicker like a little flame. There was something inside the flame, something that was important to
her.
Foss was still talking but she didn’t know what he was saying. She could not take her eyes from the small moving shape within the sphere. It was not a flame but more like a tiny rip in the air, something she could crawl through. She had no body anymore and so it was easy. She dove down through the emptiness towards that opening and into it. Snow crunched underfoot and the sky was white and reeling overhead. She gasped for breath, and the cold entered her lungs like daggers. Something was moving nearby, white on white. On heavy paws it moved, sleek fur and muscle rippling. It was a white tiger, black-eyed, lethal and beautiful. She followed it through the snow towards a dark shape in the distance. She could hear voices now, somewhere at the edge of her consciousness, trying to push their way in, but she would not let them. She had to know where the tiger was leading her. It glanced over its shoulder now and then to ensure she was following, and as the outside voices crowded tight around her the tiger broke into a run. She kept up with it easily. The dark shape it made for was getting larger now, and soon she could see it was a man in the snow. He was lying down, bound hand and foot. The voices burst in, “Eliza, come back! Eliza!” but she ran on. Another kind of speech broke over her. It held an ancient and terrible command that would tear her away from this white world, but she resisted it, she fought it with all her might. She dropped to her knees by the figure in the snow and turned him over.

“Eliza!” gasped her father. His face was bleeding. “Help me!”

And then she was sucked away fast. There was an awful jolt and she found herself on her knees by the stone table. Foss and Kyreth and Ka were crowded around her, their eyes blazing. Her bound arm was throbbing painfully.

“My da is in trouble!” she told them.

Kyreth looked at her for a long moment and then at Foss. “No more trances,” he said.

~

Eliza sipped at her hot chocolate in Kyreth’s study, holding the mug in her good hand. He stared across at her impassively, hands folded on his marble desk. Foss stood behind him, head bowed.

“It was real,” she said for the tenth or eleventh time.

Kyreth sighed.

“I assure you that your father is safe, Eliza. He is with the Sorma. We will try to contact him and arrange a visit. In the meantime, you must trust us.”

“But I
dinnay
trust you,” said Eliza bluntly. She repeated, “It was real.”

Her heart felt like a great chip of ice in her chest. She knew her father was in awful danger, but she also knew that somebody else had been showing this to her. The tiger, whoever that was. She felt certain that this was the message the creature in the tunnels had wanted to give her. For all she knew, the Mancers had already found the messenger and done away with it.

“The white tiger,” she said. “You told me to pay attention to...animals, a guide...” she didn’t finish. Kyreth cut her off with an angry wave of his hand.

“That was not
your
guide,” he said in a grating voice. Then he seemed to calm himself and said, “No more of this, Eliza. It was too early to allow a trance. Your mind simply followed your own worst fears. It was like a nightmare, a distorted, fearful fantasy. It means nothing.”

“I want to see my da,” said Eliza.

“And so you shall,” Kyreth promised her. “That is enough. Go. We will do no more today.”

Eliza rose and left the room, leaving Kyreth and Foss alone. The Supreme Mancer looked long and hard at the Spellmaster. Foss met his gaze steadily.

“Why did you take her to the Vindensphere?” demanded Kyreth. “You must have known what would happen, that it would give that pythoness an opportunity to make contact with her!”

“It was thoughtless of me,” said Foss.

“You are not usually thoughtless, Spellmaster.” Kyreth’s eyes blazed hotter. “Alone, a Mancer is nothing at all. You know we cannot tolerate dissent.”

“I am as always your obedient servant, Your Eminence,” said Foss calmly.

“I hope so, my old friend,” said Kyreth. “That is all.”

“If you will pardon me, there is something else, your Eminence.”

“Speak.”