Spiritwalker 3: Cold Steel (80 page)

“Can we talk to him?”

The lad was brought, white and trembling. He had a tendency to jump every time a door
closed elsewhere in the inn, but Bee hastened forward to take hold of his hand as
if he were a long-lost kinsman. No lad his age could resist her radiant glamour.

“You are the only one who can help us!” she exclaimed. “What was your name again?”

“They call me Rufus, Maestra, for my red hair.”

“Tell us everything you saw, Rufus!”

“It was all fire, Maestra,” the lad whispered in a hoarse voice. “But the man gave
me a message.” His gaze flashed toward me. “He said there would be a woman with black
hair and golden eyes come after him. I was to speak to her when I saw her.”

Had Vai managed to get a message to me? Hope surged.

“Go on,” said Bee in her most encouraging tone.

The lad handled the words as cautiously as a knife. “He said, ‘Nothing you can do
will save him.’ ”

I recoiled as if struck.

Bee smiled. “Very good! Thank you for remembering. What did he look like, the man
who spoke those words? Had he red hair and white skin, like yours?”

He nodded, gulping down a sob. “He did burn the whole compound, Maestra.”

“Had they prisoners?” asked the mansa. “Any they treat differently from the rest?”

Concentration furrowed his brow. “Hard to count, I was that scared. But there was
one they did hold away from all the others. Maybe he was sick, for he could barely
walk. He was whistling a song, that one, and they did kick him to shut him up.”

“What song?” I asked.

Like any Celt, he could remember a tune after hearing it once. He hummed the melody
the djeli had sung when he had led Andevai to the meeting with the Romans, the one
I had first heard in the spirit world on the fiddle of Lucia Kante.

The mansa handed the boy a coin. “You have done well.”

We rose at dawn. At breakfast the mansa asked for coffee with a bowl of whipped and
sweetened cream but I could not bear to touch it for it made me think of Vai so weak
he could barely walk. Was he wounded? Beaten? Assaulted? Or was he simply exhausted
to the edge of collapse? It would be just like Vai to believe he had to carry all
the burden himself.

A headache throbbed behind my eyes as we set out. I was so sick of being in the coach.

As if catching my mood, the gremlin latch winked to life with a flickering sneer.
“I have been very patient,” the latch said in a thin whine that put the lie to the
statement, “but all your cousin and that unpleasantly large and frowning cold mage
do to pass the time is argue about this thing called politics and law which means
nothing to me! Could you not tell me stories instead? Or at the least, let the cold
mage draw some of those pictures in the air like the other one used to do. I’ll tell
you a secret if you do.”

“Everyone claims to have a secret!” I said.

“Cat?” Bee bent to look at me. “You’re very worn down, dearest, and now you’re babbling.
Perhaps you should try to sleep some more.”

“I can’t rest,” I said, “but perhaps the mansa could explain to us how young magisters
are taught the basic skill of illusion. It would make the time pass, would it not?”

To my surprise the gaze I fixed on the mansa, meant to be venturesome and coaxing
and more likely appearing fractious and sour, softened his bearing. He had begun to
treat Bee and me with the grave amusement shown by an exalted and wealthy uncle toward
his impoverished but marginally respectable nieces, the ones who with better clothes
and improved elocution might hope to make modest marriages to humble clerks. He drew
the basic illusions every young magister was expected to master: a candle flame, a
glinting gold ring, and a veil of mist that could be shaped into the shadows of living
creatures. The slow play of shadow and light eased my mind and let me doze.

The next day we moved into a dense lowland scrub forest as the great valley of the
lower Rhenus River opened before us. Now and again we caught glimpses of the wide
river glittering to the west. We passed a toll station, which had been burned. Threads
of smoke ghosting up from its embers told us that Drake’s troop was not many hours
ahead.

As night fell the mansa lit globes of cold fire to light our way. Scraps of cloud
lightened the moon-scarred sky. Very late we halted in a lonely meadow amid the creak
of insects and a night breeze winnowing the grass. The coachman preferred to water
and care for the horses at night, and I was grateful for the chance to lie down on
a blanket on the ground. An owl’s white wings fluttered through the trees, and for
an instant the weight of ice pressed down on me as if malevolent claws had reached
across the worlds to throttle me. Then Bee put an arm around me and, comforted by
her presence, I slept.

At dawn I woke to see a big furry flank draped alongside me. The big cat snored softly,
until I punched him in the shoulder to wake him up.

“Rory! Where are your clothes? What are you doing?”

After he dressed and as we ate our provisions, he told his story. “I decided to scout.
Drake’s party is not even half a day ahead of us.”

“I should have gone with you! I could have rescued Vai.”

“No, you should not have gone. They have little mirrors hung up all about the camp,
so they would have caught you.”

“Like a troll maze! I wonder how Drake knew.”

“Mirrors are no danger to me!” Rory smiled with the preening confidence of a male
who accepts that he is lovely. “I scared their horses, so they lost more time because
they had to round them up. Wasn’t that clever?”

“Indeed.” The mansa’s puzzled frown would have amused me another time. Rory’s shape
change had taken him aback in a way the confession of my parentage had not.

“What about Vai?” I demanded.

“He was tied up and staked to a post. The other cold mages were tied up, but they
looked like sheep to me, so fearful of the wolf they hadn’t a bleat among them. I
wasn’t sure if Vai had seen me but then he began to talk. I must say, I wouldn’t have
used that tone of voice if I had been the one in captivity.”

“What did he say?” asked Bee.

“He said, ‘I’m surprised you can stand all these mirrors, Drake. They keep showing
you how poorly you look in my clothes.’ And Drake replied, ‘I’ll see how poorly you
look as you beg me not to destroy your mage House.’ ”

“Gracious Melqart!” murmured Bee.

“Then I had to run, for their riflemen started shooting. I fear I gave us away.”

The mansa said, “He already guesses we’re following. Best we move quickly.”

In another hour we reached a major curve in the road that opened onto a vista. The
wide, flat valley at the confluence of the Rhenus River and the Temes shone in the
sunlight. Horribly, all four ferry landings and the ferries were burning.

I shrieked out loud, out of sheer frustration. “How far is it to the next ferry? We’ll
have to go days out of our way!”

The mansa tapped my arm. “Enough, Catherine! Drake’s people can’t have had time to
hunt down and burn every farmstead along the river. We can cross by rowboat. Four
Moons land begins on the other side of the river, so we do not need the coach anymore.
Many a path runs through backcountry to the main house. We may still reach the estate
in time to assemble enough magisters on the main road to crush James Drake’s flames.”

Shaking with rage, I settled back into the seat as the mansa told the coachman his
plan. Then the eru latched the shutters and closed the door, leaving us in darkness.

The mansa shaped a globe of cold fire. “Are we to be shut up like prisoners?”

A mouth glimmered on the latch. “I like it when he does that. Can he make more pictures?”

“Obviously we are promised secrets and then denied them!” I snapped, giving the latch
a dark stare, although both Bee and the mansa did stare at me, for they could not
hear the latch. Rory yawned, looking amused.

Two eyes like silvery stitches winked. “The other cold mage drew illusions of your
face while you were sleeping, when he thought you weren’t looking.”

Oblivious to the latch’s voice, the mansa went on. “Certainly these creatures have
held their secrets close against themselves all this time. Servants ought not to act
as if they are the masters. Such disrespect sows discord and disorder in the world.”

“It’s starting to get very stuffy in here,” remarked Bee to the air.

“Is that what you call a secret?” I said, to the latch. “I already knew that!”

The mansa frowned. “I have indulged the two of you for many days now. But this is
truly more than I can be expected to endure.” He reached for the latch.

The gremlin’s mouth stretched until its line ran the length of the latch, ready to
bite.

For an instant I was tempted to let events play out on the unsuspecting mansa, but
instead I set my hand on the latch so he could not. “Do not forget, Your Excellency,
that the coach and eru serve another master.”

“And you trust them?”

The latch licked my palm with its scratchy tongue, then said, muffled by my hand,
“Can I help it if all I ever know about is what I see in here? I thought you were
asleep and didn’t know he had done that.”

“I do trust them,” I said, removing my hand and giving the latch a stern side-eye
glance.

The mansa studied me with a thoughtful frown. “Very well. In this, you have the advantage
of me.”

Pressing my hands to my forehead, I breathed a soundless prayer to the blessed Tanit.
“Blessed lady, let the righteous triumph and the wicked despair. Most of all, holy
one, let me save his life and the lives of all those who do not deserve to suffer
death at the hands of a man like James Drake. Not that any person deserves to suffer
death in that wise, but you know what I mean.”

I sat with face buried in hands for a long time, in a daze of such weary anxiety that
I felt rocked as in a boat crossing a rushing river. When my sire had stolen Andevai
on Hallows’ Night, I had been more angry than fearful. My sire was not a creature
of emotion. He was cruel in the way storms were cruel: They cared nothing for your
vulnerability as they crashed through your life. If he wanted something, he had a
reason for it that could be addressed.

But Drake’s reasons had melted in the fire of his resentment, the sense that what
he had lost could be regained only through the pain and humiliation of others. He
had turned in on himself until he had become a mirror that did nothing but reflect
his grievances back into his own face. That made him dangerous, but it also made him
vulnerable.

The coach slowed to a halt. The door was opened from the outside, and the eru set
down the steps so we could get out. Gritty ash burned in my eyes. Sobs and screams
billowed with the smoke. We had come to a stop in a hamlet of inns, stables, shelters,
and outbuildings. Every building in the village as well as two flat-bottomed ferries
were on fire, a roaring blaze whose heat blasted our faces.

“Get down,” said the mansa.

Bee had her head out of the coach, staring at local men who were beating at a fire
as they tried to reach someone inside a house. They were so frantic they did not notice
us.

“Sit down, Bee!” I dropped to my knees on the road.

The hammer of cold magic snuffed out every fire within sight, the flames sucked right
out. The furnace heat turned in an eyeblink to the crackling of timbers buckling and
the groan and smash of a wall toppling over. Every person in sight now lay on the
ground. All except the eru. The mansa stared disbelievingly at the tall footman in
his impeccable dress who appeared untouched by the impressive display. The eru offered
a mocking servant’s bow that made the mansa frown.

“Dearest,” said Bee, clambering down, “are my eyes deceiving me, or have we crossed
both rivers?”

Amazingly, we had reached the western bank.

Bee glanced up at the coachman, who sat upright and unruffled on the driver’s bench.
“And yet why not? For it seems your goblin makers have their own secret magic.”

He removed his cap and slapped it against a hand to shake off ash. “Shall we go on?
I am built for a steady, enduring pace rather than for speed. But we are not far behind
them now.”

The eru turned to me. “Cousin, is it your plan to come upon them on the road? For
if we continue in this direction, I think it likely we shall do so.”

“The fire mage has become quite powerful,” I said. “Can you aid us
with your magic, Cousin? For I must believe that you and the mansa, together, ought
to be able to kill his fire.”

“If Drake sees us coming up from behind, what is to stop him from simply killing Andevai?”
Bee asked.

“Drake needs Vai. And Vai knows Drake needs him.”

The mansa surveyed the village. The locals scrambled into the cold ruins, seeking
survivors. “I do not like to think of what a company of fire mages led by a man with
no conscience can do to Four Moons House if he chooses to practice his revenge there
before he reaches his homeland.”

A woman with a baby in her arms and a raw burn mark on her pale cheek shuffled forward
to kneel before the mansa. “My lord mansa. What know you of this wicked spirit whose
anger lashed out at us? You are come just in time. Otherwise we would have lost everything.”

He pressed several sesterces into her hand. “No. I am come too late. I should have
understood matters differently, and much sooner. Someone from the House will come
to see what can be done with cleaning up and rebuilding. For now, you must do what
you can.”

Other supplicants began to approach, for it was obvious they knew who he was and did
not fear to approach him in a respectful way. In their eyes he was a just master.
He passed out coins to the survivors, emptying his purse in a rash manner that made
Bee and me look at each other in disbelief. What if we needed that money later? To
him it was trivial, something he expected to easily replace. He considered this generosity
to be his duty. It was in this way, I supposed, that mages had built the edifice of
their power over the generations.