The Sleeping Life (Eferum Book 2) (10 page)

Sweet on them, Kendall translated, though Lieutenant Meniar wouldn't admit he cared about Lieutenant Faral that way. Even Captain Faille's partner, Lieutenant Danress, had stopped being a Sentene mage abruptly when Rennyn had married him.

"Now, I like the Duchess," Lieutenant Meniar went on. "Unlike most of us, I'd at least had a glimpse of her quality before she made that announcement. And, no, I didn't say it would be convenient if she died killing the Black Queen, and I never heard anyone say that. I hope no-one put it into words. But I'm sure a few thought it. It's not even how she behaves—she did, after all, get herself badly injured saving everyone—it's how she makes them all feel. She might say that she has no authority over them, that all she inherited was the ability to control them, not their selves. But there's no escaping that the Kellian aren't what they thought they were. They can't help but see themselves as the continuation of a spell rather than a people, and that upsets Keste so much I can barely stand it."

He took a deep breath, and made a flicking motion with his hands. "That sounded dramatic enough for another play. Suffice to say the Sentene mages are upset. We'll adapt. And as Duchess Surclere's assigned mage-physician, let me assure you I have no intention of allowing her to die."

Kendall thought that was true. The Sentene were angry, but at the situation, not Rennyn. They didn't really want to hurt her. How any of them would stop the Black Queen's son from killing her was another question.

CHAPTER EIGHT

"You're sleeping in a net!"

"Hammock." Waking into the Dream felt particularly odd on the ship, not least because of the hammock.

"What's it like?" Auri asked, even as she reached eagerly through the ropes to touch the focus Fallon wore concealed in a special ankle-strap beneath the largest pair of bedrocks he could find.

"Awkward to get in and out of. But a lot more comfortable than I expected, so long as I keep a blanket under me to soften the rope."

Even in a wholly new place, Auri lingered to stroke the hidden focus. Despite its odd deep mahogany colour, the focus was most definitely Auri's: it made her feel warm, and since they'd found it she'd lost that disturbing frayed-about-the-edges appearance. Fallon felt he'd won them both a reprieve, even if he'd come no closer to restoring her.

Travelling was likely to help with her boredom as well, and Fallon suspected that it was this that pushed her past her own desire to stay near Father, ordering Fallon not to give up the chance he'd so unexpectedly won. There was certainly open excitement in her examination of the room, and of Lieutenant Meniar sitting on one of the storage benches that ran along the walls. New people to look at, new places to see.

"Is he a Sentene mage? Is he nice?"

"Lieutenant Meniar. He's the Duchess' personal physician for the trip. Very cheerful sort." He'd even greeted being roomed with Fallon with unimpaired good spirits, which was more than some of the other Sentene mages would have managed. A day of flat stares and puzzled frowns had made it obvious that few were happy with Duchess Surclere's latest choice for student.

"So where's the Duchess?" Auri didn't wait for an answer, plunging through the wall into the next room.

Fallon hurried after her, and narrowly avoided walking through Sukata, standing just beyond the wall. Walking through people was horrible, like a fog made of soup.

"Be careful of the hull—the outside wall of the ship," he said, joining Auri in watching Kendall swinging back and forth in her hammock. "The whole thing's warded."

"These are the other students?"

"Kendall and Sukata. And that's Lieutenant Faral, Lieutenant Meniar's partner."

"Kellian
are
very odd-looking, aren't they?" Auri said, peering into Sukata's face as she and Kendall discussed how much swinging the hammock could take. "Almost just people at first glance, a bit over-tall, but look at how her left hand is so much harder to see out of the light of the mageglow."

"The claws are odder, don't you think?"

"Anyone can file their nails to a point. Does she have a sore throat or does she always sound like that? Is she friendly?"

"Sukata?" Fallon hesitated, distracted by the way he could tell Sukata was laughing without even smiling. Her eyes were very bright and open, despite the grave line of her mouth. "Formally polite. No-one except Duchess Surclere is exactly friendly, but Sukata will answer questions and doesn't seem to hold Uncle against me. Kendall just glares, but I think that's her natural state." This was the first time he'd seen the village girl not wearing some level of black frown, and he was surprised by how pretty she could be.

"And the Duchess?" Auri asked, diverted back to her original course.

"Through here."

Fallon led the way out into the corridor and into the big room at the end, trying to control sudden nerves. His most logical course was to become a better mage so he could tackle their problem himself, but Auri was convinced Duchess Surclere would know she was there—would immediately see, and understand, and be able to fix them. Fallon really wanted the Duchess to be that brilliant as well, but he refused to let hope override common sense.

The room's mageglows had been covered and Duchess Surclere was curled up in one of the seats before the many-paned windows, looking out at a heavy moon striping the horizon. Auri marched straight up to her, leaning in close to peer into her face, her own expression very set and un-Auri-like.

"Help. Me."

Furious words, near to spat into the oblivious woman's face.

"Auri—"

"She doesn't know I'm here."

"No." Duchess Surclere hadn't even blinked.

"She's not going to be any use at all, is she?"

"I'm going to be of use," Fallon said firmly, stifling any hint of his own disappointment. "Duchess Surclere might have lost her strength, but she has the Surclere knowledge, and she's going to teach me. There's not a person in the whole of the world more expert on the Eferum. You just need to be—"

"Patient? What else have I been? She was supposed to see!"

Auri spun and would have run out of the room except that Lord Surclere had just come into it, and the moonlight set him alight, his hair glowing pale mist and eyes silver circles. Auri stopped dead, then stepped hastily out of the way as he reached Duchess Surclere.

"A great deal more comfortable than coaches," Duchess Surclere said, glancing back. "I have to admit it was very helpful."

"The Queen is a practical woman," Lord Surclere said, which didn't quite sound like a compliment. "She may be practical about Sebastian."

"He thought of that, too, but fortunately the girl's rather young and tying him to second-in-line really not a good idea. But he plans to be exasperatingly vague and bookish on the off-chance." She gazed back out the window and added unconvincingly: "He's well able to take care of himself."

Lord Surclere reached out and undid the thin black bow that held back Duchess Surclere's hair. Pulling it free, he wound it around his wrist.

"Are you going to appropriate all my ribbons?" Duchess Surclere asked, smiling up at him.

"Yes."

He slid one finger under a long lock of hair that had fallen over her cheek, letting it wind and slip. Duchess Surclere went pink, the change of colour visible even in the stark moonlight.

"Let's get out of here," Fallon said, alight with mortification. He grabbed Auri's hand, but she pulled free, and then both of them froze because Duchess Surclere had stopped looking pleased and shy, turning her head sharply toward them.

"What?" Lord Surclere pivoted on his heel.

"Some kind of scry," Duchess Surclere said. "Very finely done, but definitely an observation. Tch—it will have to be someone on the ship, given the distance and the wards."

Lord Surclere stood just a little straighter, and what could be made out of his expression in the vivid moon-glow did not change at all. And Fallon had never wanted more to be anywhere but where he was.

"Let's get out of here!" he said, pulling at his sister's arm as Lord Surclere turned and walked out of the room—not hurrying, but not slow either.

"Don't
quail
, Fal," Auri said. "If they find out the truth they're hardly going to be angry."

"All they'd find is that I'm spying on them," Fallon said. "I won't be able to explain more, and—"

"He'll only see that you're asleep," Auri pointed out. "No-one else has been able to tell you're in the Dream. And she can barely tell we're here. Calm down."

"Easy for you to say."

"Do you think we should push something over? Were you feeling well enough this morning?"

"Nothing out of the way," Fallon said. "I suppose she'd stop thinking we were a scry if we did. But—"

"But, but—you only ever think of objections, Fal."

"But what if she thought we were some sort of attack? She might try to dispel us."

"Where's her slate? We could write 'Help' on it."

"That—" Fallon shook his head. "You know what that will do to me." One or two quick actions, like triggering the page-turner or pushing something, would tire Fallon. Anything sustained, even only long enough to write a word, and he'd sleep half the next day.

"This time it might be worth it."

"So that they can question me when I wake up?"

"At least if you pass out they'll start investigating."

"You don't know what it's like, Auri. I can't—"

"I know what this is like!" Auri yelled. "Never touching, never eating, never doing! You don't care! Don't you want her to fix me?"

"I don't want her to kill us," Fallon said.

Duchess Surclere turned her head as if trying to hear them better, then looked to the door as Lieutenant Meniar strode in.

"Scries, eh?" he said, just a little round about the eyes, as if startled. "Probably one of the ship's mages being curious. Captain Faille told me to put an extra ward on the room."

"I suppose that's the simplest solution," Duchess Surclere said. "It's rare they'd find me doing anything but sleeping, but it's still annoying."

Fallon left, knowing Auri would follow rather than be trapped in the room by a ward. They'd encountered wards only occasionally since the Dream started, and they were painful and impossible to cross, no matter whether they were trying to exclude Eferum-Get or magical intrusions. At least the ship's wards formed a bubble over the masts, so Auri would be able to enjoy the view from the deck.

At the steep stair at the end of the passage Fallon concentrated on going up without slipping through, then headed toward the front of the ship. He hadn't quite reached it before experiencing that curious, stretchy sensation that told him he was at the limit of the distance he could go from his body, but almost all of the deck was within range.

"I'll take an afternoon nap tomorrow," he told Auri, when she finally joined him. "You definitely want to see what the sunset is like."

Subdued now, Auri eyed the nearest sailor fretfully. "Do you think Mrs Pardons will look after Father properly?"

"As she said, she's managed him well enough when I've been at school. What worries me is if Uncle decides to get back at him for letting me go off with Duchess Surclere, but Mrs Pardons said she just wouldn't let Uncle in if he gets too bad. She had all these plans for pretending the household had come down with Shaky Fever."

Auri didn't respond, just stood shoulder to shoulder with him and watched the moon inch higher. Her way of apologising. Fallon doubted he would be able to handle the long isolation much better, but the chance of Auri letting her temper ride her to disaster was another worry to add to Uncle and Father and spells gone wrong and a seriously angry Lord Surclere.

He was so tired.

CHAPTER NINE

Rennyn glanced out the window at grey, damp sky, then back to the warm cabin that had been home for the past two weeks. "Can you hear music?"

The range of expressions in return for her question clearly told her 'no', and were also a nice illustration of the different personalities before her. Sukata concentrated, even though Kellian hearing meant she would ordinarily have caught any sound before Rennyn. Fallon was analytical, searching for a double meaning to the question, while Aven Meniar's light smile gave way to a quick, professional survey, on the off-chance that she'd suddenly developed a fever. And Kendall was just suspicious, convinced as ever that half Rennyn's actions were for her own quixotic amusement.

"Guess not. Sorry for interrupting." She gestured for Meniar to continue, though the impression of notes too distant to be truly audible hadn't gone.

"For bone-work, caulding isn't a replacement for a splint," Meniar said, with a shrug. "For all kinds of reasons, you don't want to rely solely on magic to keep fractures in position. With a clean break, once the bone is set you don't truly need caulding at all after the splint is in place, but where the bones have been shattered, where there are many fragments, caulding might be the only thing to save a limb. And to cauld a bone you need to see the bone, which is what this casting is all about."

The Sigillic was straightforward, but Rennyn had found the lecture interesting for the new words that stood for all the different layers of people. She'd only ever learned the most basic of healing magics, because the study of how living creatures worked required many more years than she could devote. This trip had become a good opportunity to explore new avenues, and she and her students had enjoyed a round dozen of these lectures from Meniar and the other Sentene mages, as well as the specialist ship mages.

This Sigillic had been written in a circle around a flat bowl filled with water, and as Meniar began to activate, the liquid took on a silvery sheen while a faint glow appeared around his left hand.

"There are many variations of this casting, depending on just what it is you wish to look at," Meniar said, touching his left hand to the back of his right. "Term substitution is possible, but only useful for issues that can be diagnosed simply by looking."