The Fire Mages (33 page)

It was a relief to find that his mood was at least no worse after our little night-time encounter. He was just as morose and sullen towards me as ever, but I could cope with that, mostly by ignoring him. With the rest of the group, he seemed to be opening up a little. He usually ate at board with us now, instead of sulking in his room, and seemed to enjoy the company. I noticed him several times sitting beside Tisha, smiling at her or laughing at some joke. I suppose it was good that he had someone to bring him out of his grey moods.

On our way back to Kingswell, we stopped only two nights at Ardamurkan, and my time was taken up with giving Deyria an exact account of the wedding, down to the last ribbon and flower and cake and blushing kiss. Then we were on the road again.

At the Taysil River, we picked up Lakkan, now our guard, and somehow that made everything seem better. It’s a strange thing how just one extra person can affect everyone in a small group. He had an easy, pleasant way with him which we all responded to, and that tiny increase from six to seven shifted the balance in a palpable way.

The carriage driver, Cal’s servant and Morthan the guard formed a natural threesome, Lakkan attached himself to me, and that threw Cal and Tisha together. I daresay it was the magic that drew Lakkan, for he often wanted to talk about that, and then we had to go somewhere private. Often the only place we could be sure not to be overheard was my bedroom, so there I taught him about his power, just as Drei and later Cal had taught me.

“So what happening to me at Kingswell?” he said one time after evening board, as we watched the moon rise over the trees. “I having to be a mage like you? Being properly trained and so on?”

“I don’t know. Cal hasn’t said. I suppose we’ll have to tell the other mages about you.”

“They just knowing, surely? They telling – by my aura?”

“Regular mages can’t see it. I can, and Drei will be able to, but no one else.”

“So – we keeping it secret? Being more fun, yes?”

“I don’t know.” It made me uneasy. I didn’t like secrets. We already carried enough secrets round with us, about Cal and the baby and the jade belt, and I wasn’t comfortable adding more.

He laughed at me for my cautiousness. “Of course it be fun! Mingling with people, watching whether they lie or not – being much more entertaining if no one knowing what you doing.”

I liked being with Lakkan. He made me feel better, and, I’ll be honest, he made me less upset about Cal’s behaviour. He was a charmer, and it amused me when he paid me little compliments. He started by admiring my scarves or coat, but he soon moved on to comments on my eyes or my skin or my hands. So it didn’t surprise me when he reached out to stroke my cheek one night. I didn’t think of him as a guard because he was a mage like me. We’d been playing about with glows, and giggling a lot, and all of a sudden he smiled and cupped my face in his hand.

“You so pretty, Kyra,” he said. Then he kissed me.

I could have laughed and pushed him away, since I hardly knew the man. I could have remembered that I was a mage who ought to be more dignified than to jump on a guard. I could have got angry with him. I could have – if only I hadn’t had such a surplus of magical energy raging through my body. So the kiss turned into a longer kiss, and then a passionate one, until I was a torrid mass of pulsing urgency. There was some fumbling with my tunic so he could get to my breasts, and then, almost before I’d got into the spirit of the thing, he’d pushed me down onto the bed, whipped my trousers off and was inside me. It felt so good, I could hardly believe it. I was moving with him, urging him on, almost there. Then it was over.

Gods, I was angry. He’d got me all worked up, renewal-type worked up, where the need is desperate beyond all reason, and there he was calmly straightening his clothes and preparing to leave.

“Don’t you dare!” I hissed. “I haven’t finished with you yet.”

I pulled him back down onto the bed and determinedly removed every stitch of clothing from him. He was a fine-looking man, I have to say, with muscles in all the right places and very willing, ready for more before I’d got his boots off. He just laughed and let me do whatever I wanted, which suited me fine, and the second time was much, much better. Long and slow and noisy, but then I’d never learned to be quiet. It was only later, when Lakkan had gone back to his own room with a smile on his face, that I remembered Cal, whose bed was just the other side of the thin wooden wall.

For the first time in an age, I slept like a child and woke feeling almost normal. It wasn’t enough to assuage the fires inside me, not even close to enough, and I spent the sun unable to get my thoughts onto any other path. From time to time Lakkan would manoeuvre his horse alongside the carriage and smirk at me through the window, his thoughts clearly not so far from my own.

As soon as we’d stopped for the night at a tiny roadside inn, I whisked him upstairs for an energetic romp before evening board, the pair of us still dusty and sweating from the road. After eating we went to bed again, but then I threw him out and slept alone. He was fine for sex, but I didn’t like him well enough to spend the whole night with him.

The following night we reached a town, and were obliged to stay with the Kellon at the hall. This meant Cal and I were to enjoy a grand apartment high up in one of the towers, while Lakkan would be stuck in the barracks with the other guards. He pulled a face at me when he realised.

“I suppose this means you get a night off,” I whispered as we crossed the yard to the official reception waiting for us on the steps of the hall.

“I finding your room... if you want,” he said. I gave a little shake of my head. “Oh, well,” he murmured. “There be other nights.”

I liked him the better for not making a fuss, or insisting on creeping about the corridors in the dead of night. I’d read books of my mother’s where half the story was the handsome hero sneaking around in the dark to be with his true love, evading discovery by a fox’s whisker, and it had always seemed stupidly melodramatic to me.

I had time for a leisurely soak in the tub, and then decided to put on skirts in honour of the frighteningly stylish Asha-Kellon, who’d looked up and down at my travel-stained tunic and trousers with a supercilious sneer. Cal looked the same as ever, if less dusty than when we’d arrived, but he smiled at my gown.

“Very nice. Very appropriate.”

“That’s Drei’s influence, teaching me what to wear when.”

Cal’s face closed up at once, and I cursed my unruly tongue. Yet part of me resented the idea of watching what I said in front of Cal. Surely I could speak freely with him, of all people?

As we descended the stairs from our lofty tower, we passed a window overlooking the yard between the stables and the barracks, and there, in full view, was Lakkan wrapped in a rib-crushing embrace with a woman. Only when they eventually surfaced for air did I realise who his paramour was: Tisha.

Beside me, Cal snorted, although whether in amusement or anger I couldn’t tell, and didn’t dare look at his face to find out. Was he upset to see Tisha with someone else? I wasn’t sure how far their relationship had gone, but they were certainly close. As for Lakkan, I wasn’t bothered what he did. I’d been uneasy with the whole business; I felt I was taking advantage of his good nature, and I was pleased that he took it as lightly as I did.

Evening board was long, elaborate and unbearably tedious, and a great trial to me, still bubbling with energy as I was. The Kellon ate and drank and said nothing, his lady talked incessantly about every dish, about the fancy engraved glasses we drank from, about the cost of the wine in it (all the way from the northern coast, apparently, as if we produced nothing drinkable nearer home), the linens on the table, the table itself (some special wood, but since it was all covered up, we couldn’t even see it) and on and on. When these topics flagged, she enlightened us at length about the history of the hall, the Kell and her family. Meanwhile, the Kellon’s older children were conducting a lengthy and vitriolic argument in hissed whispers just a few paces away, which everyone studiedly ignored. I was relieved when we could finally escape.

The only advantage of such a garrulous hostess was that I’d not had to say much all evening, and it had given me a chance to think. Brooding, my mother called it, when I went into one of my unresponsive moods; she always tried to cajole me out of it. She claimed I could shut myself away from almost any situation, but it wasn’t quite true. Some places were just too uncomfortable to allow my thoughts to wander, like the jolting carriage I spent so many hours in, choking with dust or numbed by wind or rain. But the middle of a social gathering – if I could avoid being dragged into a conversation, there I could forget myself altogether.

I realised I couldn’t go on using Lakkan to relieve my high energy levels. It wasn’t fair to use him in that way, although he was good-natured enough not to mind. Later, perhaps, he might be a mage too and it would be all right, but for now I would have to find another way to deal with my problem. I knew Cal didn’t want me in his bed, but he was my mentor, his job was to advise me. Perhaps he could find another way.

So for the second time in a few suns, I scratched at his bedroom door, and he called me in. He wasn’t on the bed this time; instead he was sitting at a dainty little writing desk, with papers and a pen in his hand, fully dressed as always.

“Kyra.” He sounded resigned.

“May I talk to you, please?”

He swivelled round to look at me, something hard in his face. “Not if you’re going to weep and wail about Lakkan.”

I exhaled loudly. “Of
course
not. I’m not
that
stupid.” Deep breath. “It’s a magic problem. I don’t know what to do.”

“Then come in and sit down.”

He gestured to a sofa under the window, but I chose a hard chair against the wall on the opposite side of the room from his. I was nervous, I won’t deny it. Probably I was letting myself in for an earful of abuse. To be fair, he listened attentively while I explained about the effects of withdrawing energy from so many spelled people, and how it was just like a renewal. I tried to keep my voice calm, and his face gradually changed from sour disapproval to something else. Sympathy, maybe? Or chagrin?

“And then poor Bonnor – but I managed not to misuse him, just about...”

“So you came to me and I pushed you away.” He rubbed his face, getting up to stride about the room. “Naturally you turned to Lakkan. I see now.” He took a few more paces about the room, frowning. Then abruptly he pulled the desk chair across to mine and sat down again, leaning forward. “There’s nothing wrong with using Lakkan, you know,” he said, his voice gentle. “If it pleases you, that is. He doesn’t seem to feel mistreated, and he manages to console himself well enough when you’re not available. Does that upset you?”

I laughed, relieved that he was so reasonable. “No, he can do as he likes. It will be awkward at Kingswell, though, while he’s a guard. Really, I don’t much like the arrangement. He’s all right, but I don’t know him very well.” Then, in a small voice, “Don’t
you
want to sleep with me?”

He jumped up again, running his hands through his hair. My stomach fluttered; had I angered him again?

When he turned back to me, anguish was written across his features. “Of
course
I want to. How can you even ask me a question like that? But I can’t just now.”

“Because of Tisha?”

“Tisha?
Tisha?
Gods, Kyra, what do you take me for? Tisha’s no more to me than a guard who caught me in the stables a few suns ago, when my defences were low. Well, I don’t suppose there’s a man alive who could resist a woman when she hurls herself at him like that. But it didn’t mean a thing to me, and obviously not to her either, judging by that touching little scene we witnessed before board. She’s another one who consoles herself rather well.”

“Oh.” Surprising, but my spirits lifted at once. “So why not, then?”

He came and sat down again, his face serious. “Are you fond of Drei?”

Odd change of subject. “Drei? I liked him well enough before he swapped my herbs and then kidnapped me. He’s always been very generous to me.”

“Generous – ha! He gave you all those fancy clothes and jewels you like to wear, and taught you how to bow at court and address important people.”

“He taught me about history, the places we travelled through, that sort of thing. He gave me books to read. And he helped me learn about my magic.” Restlessness was catching up with me. I jumped up and began pacing about, nerves on edge. “Look, I know he’s treated me badly and I don’t like him at all, but he’s been good for me too. Why are you asking me about him? What does he have to do with this?”

“Everything. Look, let’s see if we can find another way to deal with your problem, then I’ll tell you about Drei. It’s a pity there’s no scribery here, or you could have magicked some paper and quills, and got rid of the energy that way. But we should be able to find something else...” He bounced up again and went out to the sitting room we shared. There was a large cabinet stuffed with so many ornaments that the shelves could barely be seen. Opening the glass door, after a few moments’ consideration he selected a dull grey object and brought it back to me. “This will probably do.”

“What is it?”

“Oh – I’m not sure. It looks like one of those ancient stone arrowheads, but a bit larger than the usual type. But it’s a good sort of stone, so it should work. There.” He put it into my hand, which sagged under the weight. “Put your surplus magic into that. If it won’t hold much, we can use another one.”

“Oh, like a vessel, you mean? Why didn’t I think of that?”

He smiled gently. “Vessels aren’t something that would occur to you, since you don’t need one. Try it.”

I closed my eyes and focused on the stone. It was completely inert, no trace of magic in it at all. I had the weirdest sensation, as if my magic was hovering on the edge, pooling in my hand but unwilling to cross over into the stone. I tried every trick I could think of, but it just wouldn’t go. In the end, I pulled more and more magic into my hand until it felt as if it would explode, and then at last it cascaded into the stone. After that, I could move magic backwards and forwards at will.

“That was hard work,” Cal said. “I could see the effort in your face.”

“I suppose that’s why the initiation of a new mage is so uncertain, because of resistance from the vessel.”

“Good point. We should really reuse old ones – like the jade vessels on the belt. Feel better now?”

I did. For the first time in an age I felt completely normal, without the jitteriness I’d been living with. I laughed, and he laughed too.

“So tell me what this is all about,” I said, settling myself on the sofa.

Cal sat beside me, pushing his blonde hair off his face again. “I’m just trying to protect that baby of yours.”

“From what?”

“From Drei.” I’d never seen him so serious. “I don’t suppose you know him very well, but I’ve known him for years. You can’t move in the Kellon’s circles without tripping over him.”

“So?”

“Patience, I’m getting to the point,” he said, patting my hand. Such a small thing, but that gentle touch gave me unexpected pleasure. “He was always well in with everybody – the nobles, the guards, the Kellon’s scribes, even the senior servants. Everybody liked him. ‘What a nice young man’, they all said. ‘So charming. So helpful. So good for the Kell.’ He was made Bai-Kellonor even though there were others – cousins, even the Kellon’s younger brother – who might have been more suitable.”

“I thought there were reservations about him.”

“Because he’s drusse-born, largely, and he’s risen so fast. He was an odd sort of boy, when he was younger, very volatile, and then suddenly he’s everyone’s favourite. But the mages don’t like him. It’s almost universal. What was your impression when you first knew him?”

I had to think back to when I met him. I remembered him at the gathering, when I was fourteen, and then later, at Ardamurkan. In those times, he scared me a little. “There was something odd about him. Unsettling.”

“Exactly!” he said triumphantly. “It was always a puzzle – he was so popular and yet none of us mages quite liked him, without ever really understanding why. But now that we know he has magic, it’s obvious.” I stared at him stupidly. “He uses magic to charm people, of course.”

“Oh.” Understanding dawned. “But the mages were unaffected, of course.”

“Yes, except for a vague feeling of something not quite right. I suspect Lakkan has the same ability. He’s a charmer, too. You could probably do it too, if you set your mind to it.”

I was too startled by the idea to say anything, and he rattled on without a pause.

“Then he wangles himself a reason to go to Kingswell, and all of a sudden he’s everybody’s favourite there, too. He’s betrothed to the Bai-Drashonor, he has the support of the nobles, he’s friendly with all the guard commanders.”

“He can be very pleasant,” I said, although it sounded feeble, even to me.

“Yes, he can, but it’s all too
quick
. The whole betrothal business has taken a few moons, no more than that. Probably they’ll be married by the time we get back.”

“What! Surely not! It takes a year for nobility, doesn’t it?”

“It should. The normal arrangement is that the nobles meet in Council to approve the idea in principle, then a full year passes while everyone who objects gets their chance to speak up, then at the next Council it’s approved properly. Then the marriage itself takes anything up to a year to arrange. After that, there could be as much as five years before Drei would be accepted as his wife’s equal in status and allowed to rule or represent her or whatever. But the nobles approved it when Council met a few suns ago, with no restrictions at all. It was the talk of Ardamurkan. I’ll be surprised if they’re still unwed when we get back.”