The Fire Mages (40 page)

I raced over to Cal, tears rushing down my face. “S’all right,” he whispered. “Healing... Go... Stop him.”

It was the last thing I wanted to do, but he was right. If Drei reached the pillar, he would replenish his magic and all our work would be wasted.

I rushed after him, a glow ball bobbing erratically above my head. He was well ahead of me, half way up the long flight of stairs, but he had no light to guide him, and I heard his slow shuffling steps as he felt his way upwards. I climbed laboriously, out of breath long before I reached the top. Loud clatterings came from the cellar above, as he stumbled in the dark. As I emerged from the stairway, he was only just vanishing up the opposite stairs.

I crossed the cellar slowly, breathing heavily, and had to pause before the next ascent. Late pregnancy made me unfit for chasing round underground, and I couldn’t help wondering how sensible it was for me to pursue him alone. What could I do to stop him? Unless I burnt him to a crisp, I had no means to attack him. There were no vines down here to wind round his legs, nothing that I could transform into a weapon. He was strong enough to strangle me with his bare hands, and ruthless enough to do it the instant he saw an opportunity. I’d never thought I’d need to prepare spells for fighting crazed noblemen, and I certainly didn’t have time to chant a spell.

Yet still I followed, slowly, reluctantly, shaking with fear.

This flight of stairs was shorter than I remembered, and at the top I paused, disoriented. This was not the kitchen of the house beside the scribery. I was in a long corridor dimly lit by lamps, probably still a floor below the scribery house. At the far end, Drei was just disappearing round a corner. Perhaps there were two staircases leading up from the cellar, and he’d led me up the wrong one, in which case he was now further from the pillar tower. He must have realised his mistake himself, for he reappeared, saw me, hesitated, then disappeared in the opposite direction. I gave chase again, reached the corner, turned after him. This was easier going, a smooth flat surface, cool under my feet, and enough light that I no longer needed the glow ball.

There he was, pelting along some distance in front. It was easier going for him, too. I stopped, knowing I could never catch him now.

Then the air shimmered around him and he was gone. Vanished.

Cal hadn’t moved since I’d left, lying exactly as he’d fallen. He looked better, though, with some colour in his cheeks, and he managed a slight smile when he saw me, followed by a wince.

“How are you feeling? Do you want me to help?”

A slight nod. I took his hand and closed my eyes. There was damage to one side of his jaw, but it was only cracked and not fully broken, so it was easy enough to heal. He sighed as he felt my magic seeping into him, washing away the pain. I saw that his stomach had its little brown patch again, the one I’d healed before, so I tidied that up too. He laughed, knowing what I was doing. Then he sat up and hugged me tight, as best he could with my huge belly.

“So where is he?”

“Gone. The same thing that happened to you. He just – vanished.”

“Shit! Now we’re really in trouble!”

As if we weren’t in trouble before. “No, we’re safe now, surely. He’s been turned into a servant.”

“Yes but for how long? Sooner or later he’ll emerge from that fastness underground, and touch something infused with magic or maybe the sun will do it...”

I saw his point. Drei was a natural mage, with the ability to draw magical energy from around him – the sun, the earth, who knows where it comes from? The city itself was full of magic, too; it was in the very air we breathed. As soon as he drew in some magic, he would stop being a servant and would be free again. When that happened, we had to be ready.

“Let’s get back to the Keep and get the mages together,” Cal said, leaping up and heading off to the stairs.

“Wait!”

He stopped and half turned. “What? We haven’t any time to waste.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m still in my nightgown. I’ve had a trying night, and I’d like a bath, some clean clothes and something more nourishing to eat than poisoned cake.”

He smiled, his thin face softening. “Of course you would. And you can get them all at the mages’ house.”

“I don’t want to walk all the way back through the streets like this.” I lifted one bare, muddy foot. “I’ll go back to my house here, and you can go and rouse the mages.”

A frown. “I don’t like leaving you here alone. What if he escapes from – well, wherever he is?”

“He won’t know where I am. Go. You’ll be back in no time. But don’t forget the cake.”

“You want me to bring you cakes?”

“I want you to make sure no one eats any more poisoned cakes from the box I was sent, which is still sitting in my bedroom.”

He paled. “Moonshit, I’d forgotten that!”

~~~~~

Cal summoned all the mages to a meeting in the library. They fussed about it, of course; mages fuss about everything out of the ordinary. It was unheard of, they protested, they only ever met in the mages’ house and besides, many of them couldn’t manage the trip through the sewers. And who was he anyway to order them about? But Cal told me gleefully that he’d raged and shouted and stamped his foot until they gave in, and then organised a wagon for the most infirm, for he insisted they were to enter through the principal city gates and make their way up the main street to the library.

“This is no time for sneaking about in the dark,” he told them firmly. “We have to act against Drei because we are the only ones who
can
act, and we have to do it publicly for once. The time for secrecy is past.”

So they came, most of them terrified, holding their vessels in front of them and muttering protective incantations every step of the way. We opened the front door to the library for them, and they scuttled in like crabs to the safety of the great room. A few of them lingered over the book set on its plinth in the entrance lobby, which they’d never seen before, but sighed when they realised it was empty, every page blank.

“It must be important,” Krayfon said. “Why else would it be placed here, so prominently?” No one had an answer.

We’d banished the scholars and set out a large ring of chairs in the open central space of the library, with a supply of decent wine from the house. There were no cakes available – how I wished we could ask the servants for what we wanted! – but we had bread and cheese and also a different kind of bread, hard, but sweet and crumbly. The mages sipped and nibbled, but they were not overawed by their surroundings, having seen them many times before. Even the great stone sphere, resting majestically in its pool, was uninteresting to them; they couldn’t feel the power humming inside it as I could.

Cal paced about inside the ring, explaining everything that had happened. The poisoning shocked them deeply. Even with what was already known of Drei, this was an unexpected twist. “His own child, too!” one of them said, appalled. A few of the mages knew about Cal’s disappearance, for I’d told Krayfon and the Drashon about it, but it was new to most of them and there were many questions, most of which we couldn’t answer.

The questions tailed off into a long, musing silence. I’d said very little, except when asked directly, but I could see how their minds worked and how reluctant they were to break their long traditions of inaction. Mages were there to advise the Drashon’s court on magical matters, and to use their powers for the good of the realm, but they were always subservient to the nobles and the law. Now we were asking them to intervene against a member of the Drashon’s family. But they surprised me.

“We should kill him,” someone said, to a murmur of agreement around the ring. “He’s a rogue mage, using his powers for ill.” At once dissenting voices spoke out, but Cal waved them to silence.

“There is another way,” he said into the stillness. They listened, every eye on him. “We can take him alive, I believe. Then he can be confined in the warded cell underground, where he cannot retrieve his magic, and we can put him on trial under the law, as is proper. This is how we can do it...”

Cal had always been a good speaker, but now he was magnificent, forceful but eloquent, and very, very convincing. I half wondered whether he had developed some power in his voice, like Drei, until I remembered that the mages were immune to such magic. The mages nodded and murmured approval and the talk turned to practical details.

Since Drei could emerge at any time, there were to be mages patrolling the Imperial City at all hours, light or dark, in pairs and each with a horn to raise the alarm if Drei was spotted. They would prepare sleep spells and immobility spells; once unconscious, Drei could be carried off to the warded cell to be safely confined. It was a large, comfortable room, fitted with all the usual furnishings and a solid metal door with a complex and entirely unmagical lock.

Only two mages would take the night watch, since we were fairly sure all the servants would be underground from shortly after evening board until morning. More would patrol during the hours of sun. Most of the mages would return to the Keep between patrols, but guards would be stationed just beyond the Shining Walls to listen for any alarm and alert them.

I insisted in living in the city. Despite Drei being somewhere about and liable to pop up at any time, I felt safer there. Drei’s mother, with her knowledge of poisons, was still in the Keep and might feel obliged to have another attempt at finishing me off.

Cal wasn’t happy about it. “I don’t like you being here at night, it’s far too dangerous. In fact, I’m not sure you need to be here at all. You could go to Ardamurkan – anywhere.”

“I’m better here where there’s only Drei to worry about, and I know the food hasn’t been tampered with. Out there...” I shivered.

“Even so, there’s no knowing what he might do. Why was he dragging you underground anyway?”

“I think he wanted to put me in that cell, so I couldn’t use my magic. He said he wanted to kill me, but I’m not sure. He could have done that without dragging me through cellars.”

“It’s hard to kill a mage in full power, he must know that. Maybe he wanted to shut you in there and then feed you more poisoned cake.”

I went cold. Why hadn’t I thought of that? He’d tried to poison me, but my magic had healed me. What better way to kill me than to remove my magic and then try again? All at once my legs wouldn’t hold me, and I sat down precipitously.

Cal’s face softened, and he knelt in front of my chair, taking both my hands in his. “Poor Kyra! You’ve had a miserable time, haven’t you? Very well then, we’ll stay here for now.”

“We?” I said, my voice weak with relief. I hadn’t dared to ask.

“Of course! You don’t imagine for one moment I would leave you here alone, do you, with nothing but a couple of scared mages and wishful thinking to protect you? I’d like a company of guards as well, but I suppose that’s out of the question. I’ll protect you from Drei.” He ran his long fingers through my hair, smiling, and I was reassured, trying not to remember that his protection hadn’t been very effective so far. He was a skilful mage, but his training was not in battle spells or armed combat.

Evening board was rather an awkward affair. It was the first time we’d shared rooms since I’d first emerged from the city after our midnight chat to the Drashon many moons ago, and the question of where Cal would sleep was occupying all my thoughts. We’d reached some kind of accommodation in our relationship, but it hadn’t moved beyond kisses and handholding, and I was desperate for the comfort of something more. Yet I wasn’t sure if he wanted that.

So we ate and drank and talked determinedly about anything other than ourselves.

“Do you think the other mages should have jade belts too?” I said.

He set his wine glass down carefully. “I don’t think it’s necessary. The extra energy doesn’t help if Drei has power himself, and if he has none, then even a mage with a single vessel can deal with him.”

“Haven’t they asked for them? Now that they’ve tried them out, I mean.”

“Surprisingly, no. They all had a go with mine, but although they like the extra power, they’re not sure what to do with it. They’re comfortable with their vessels, I think. They’ve always been taught that being a mage is a difficult business, they think it would be hard to learn to use the increased power.”

“It’s not hard, exactly, it just takes time to get used to it,” I said. “And there’s so much more you can do with a decent amount of magic.”

“I’m not preventing them from having belts, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said quietly. “If Krayfon thought they could be useful, I would do it instantly. I don’t see how it could help, that’s all. It would distract them from the purpose.”

We made the meal last as long as possible, but we couldn’t put off the moment indefinitely. We went upstairs, the lamps dimming themselves behind us, and stopped on the landing. To one side was the bedroom we’d shared before. On the other side, a smaller bedroom. I glanced at him but I couldn’t read his face; I’d never been good at that. It wasn’t the time for prevarication, I was sure of that.

I took his hand. “Will you share my bed tonight? I’d like it if you would.” I tried to keep my voice calm, but it shook just a little.

A definite hesitation, not a good sign. “Are you sure? I mean... the thing is, I don’t know what you want of me. Or what you’re offering.”

“Sex, if you want it. Just company, if you don’t. But I... I can’t face spending another night alone.”

Another long pause. Then, with sudden passion, “Are you in love with him? Because if you are—”

“Who, Drei? You’re joking, aren’t you? The man who tried to kill me? Gods, what kind of idiot do you think I am?”

He smiled then. “Sorry. Stupid question, but I had to be sure there wasn’t some lingering affection.”

“Lingering—! Look, I thought he was a friend, once, that was all. I was mistaken. I’ve never
loved
him, never.”

“Sorry, sorry.” He pulled his hand out of mine and ran it through his hair. “It’s just... I don’t know what the future is... for us, I mean.”

I couldn’t make sense of that. “Future? Look, I’m scared and I’m lonely and I
need
you, right now, and anyway, we might all be dead tomorrow! I can’t think beyond that!”

He gave an uneasy little laugh, and took my hand again, letting me lead him into the bedroom. It wasn’t quite the delight we’d shared in the carefree suns when he was first at Kingswell, since my ungainly shape got in the way, but it was a tremendous comfort. Afterwards I fell asleep almost instantly, wrapped in his reassuring arms. When I woke later to visit the bucket room, he was sitting, head on knees, on the window seat, but when I returned he was curled up in bed again pretending to be asleep.

~~~~~

We waited almost a ten-sun for Drei. The mages became more agitated as time slipped by, jumping at shadows and sniping at each other. Outside the city, the Drashon’s court was in uproar, and Krayfon and Cal had to repeat the details of events over and over; to Yannassia, to the Drashon, to the law scribes, to the Council of Nobles, to the guards’ commanders. Several times I was summoned to give my story, but I refused, even to the Drashon. It was safe, I was told, Drei’s mother had fled before she could be arrested, but I wasn’t convinced. The town was crawling with Icthari and I didn’t trust them. The nobles were still in Drei’s thrall, too, and I didn’t trust them, either. And still Drei remained underground, and I refused to leave the city.

In the end, the Drashon and Yannassia came to me. A carriage brought them to the city’s main gates, accompanied by Krayfon, Cal and their personal guards. I waited on the other side of the wall. The Drashon was too frail to walk up to the library or to risk the birds, so we whisked him into a building right beside the gate, presumably a guard room at one time, judging by the lockable store room with its lines of holders for swords, spears and bows.