The Telastrian Song (14 page)

Dornish was notoriously miserly with his praise. Giura had seen Soren in action first hand, but that could have been luck or the assailants might simply have been less competent than they looked. Dornish confirmed what he had thought, though; Soren would be far too much for him to defeat personally. If he needed killing, Giura would have to find another way. He disliked imposing on Divine Fortune for fear of angering her, but if he was lucky killing Soren wouldn’t be necessary.

‘Does he have any family in the city?’ Giura said.

‘No. To the best of my knowledge he’s an orphan.’

‘Can you tell me anything else about his falling out with the Duke?’ Giura wondered if it was something that could be mended, or if the damage was irrevocable. Every piece of information added to or detracted from the possibility of recruiting Soren. Was this too much to hope for?

Dornish frowned. ‘What exactly is this all about?’

‘It’s as I said. It’s come to my attention that there’s someone in the city looking for him, and they mean to do him violence. I haven’t got much to go on though, so I was hoping if I knew more about the lad, it would get me closer to those looking for him.’

Dornish didn’t look convinced.

‘I’m not trying to get Soren in trouble, and I’m not acting for the Duke in this. I just want to help keep a fellow banneret out of trouble.’

‘Their falling out was none of my business, so I never asked and never looked into it,’ Dornish said. ‘It wasn’t long after he started in the Collegium, as best I can recall. The lad’s character changed completely, and he left the Collegium after only a few weeks. He joined a regiment, saw some action in the barbarian incursions in forty-six and distinguished himself. I lost track of him for a time after that, then he turned up in the old Duke’s bodyguard—the new one that was put together just before he was killed. I had hoped he would find his way back to the Collegium, but as you know things turned out differently.’

‘Indeed,’ Giura said, his morale rallied by the new information. ‘So would it be correct to say that he is not a friend to the Duke?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say that necessarily,’ Dornish said, defensively. ‘I’m not aware of any reconciliation, but I doubt very much if he’s a threat to the Duke if that’s why you’re really here.’

‘No, please don’t mistake me. I’m genuinely here out of a concern for his safety. I have reasons. They aren’t important, but I assure you they are in good faith.’

Dornish looked at him with an expression of disbelief. There was nothing that Giura could say to make Dornish believe him, and now that his suspicions were raised there was no point in continuing their conversation.

‘Thank you for your time, Master.’

Dornish gave him a grudging nodded salute, but did not stand.

‘
K
eep the link open
,’ Byarsham said.

‘How?’

‘The same way you see the glow. Allow that to continue. Let instinct guide you from there.’

He could sense when the child had let her connection to the Fount drop. Byarsham closed his eyes and took a deep breath to quell his growing impatience. ‘Try again.’

‘I can’t,’ the child apprentice said.

‘Yes, you can.’

Byarsham felt a ripple in the Fount, like the invisible vibration in the air caused by a loud noise, as she re-connected to the Fount. Of the children that remained at the nursery, she was the only one who could not yet manipulate the Fount in some way. The best of them could already coalesce a ball of the energy in enough strength for even a layperson to be able to see it. That was impressive, and Byarsham had very high hopes for that one. With this one, however, he was beginning to lose patience.

Training a mage was as much guidance as it was instruction. The apprentices—he no longer thought of them as children—had all been exposed to the Fount for a number of weeks; long enough for it to permeate them and begin those changes within their bodies that were still not understood, even by the Twelve.

The first time an apprentice wilfully manipulated the Fount, it had to be to something of their own imagining. It was an instinctive reaction that came of exposure to it. Each person’s would be different, and often it gave an indication of which area of the science their greatest aptitude lay. On this, Byarsham could give the apprentice no direction. She had to come to it herself. It was not easy, requiring the mind to do two things at once, and whatever shred of human compassion that remained within Byarsham pitied the child her struggle. Far past though it was, he could still clearly remember the afternoon he had faced this challenge. It was a necessary step in her development though, and one which she should now be achieving if she was to continue on the required schedule. There was no room for failure.

The apprentice’s brow furrowed as she tried to marshal her thoughts. Byarsham realised that he was holding his breath, knowing that this was the apprentice’s last chance. To try further would be a waste of time. A flicker of flame appeared in the palm of the child’s hand. Byarsham smiled. Often the best things were those that took the longest to come to be. From weakest to strongest with a single thought. The workings of the world never ceased to amaze him.

He was pleased with what he had seen when he left for the day. They had all now bent the Fount to their will in some form or fashion, and the one he had almost given up on had shown herself capable of converting it into energy that could impact on the physical world; the most powerful expression of magic there was, and one that some never fully mastered. The next time he visited the nursery, the hierarchy would have changed completely.

As encouraging as their progress was, secrecy was still important and he was feeling a growing sense of foreboding; things had gone so smoothly, and Byarsham was accustomed to having to deal with adversity. He had little faith in the Duke’s commitment to keeping Byarsham’s presence a secret and feared that he would try to use the trainee mages too soon. Revealing them might serve the Duke’s purpose, but it would be disastrous for the Twelve’s plans. If any word of what they were doing were to trickle back to the east and reach the ears of the Fount-Bloods, all would be lost.

Pretending to do the contemptible Duke’s bidding allowed Byarsham to move about the city freely and was the only option open to him. However, the Duke was not filling him with confidence that he could continue to be an asset to their plans, even if he was unaware of the bigger picture. Until they were powerful enough to stand against the Fount-Bloods—who would attack as soon as they realised the Twelve had broken the laws—everything they were doing had to remain a secret. If that meant replacing the Duke with someone more amenable to the Twelve’s way of thinking, that option would have to be considered. However, it would represent a failure on Byarsham’s part in the eyes of the other members of the Twelve and that was dangerous.

He would have to work harder at manipulating the Duke, feeding his insecurities and playing up what they could offer so long as he remained patient. Training the Duke’s pet idiots was an irritating distraction, as was any dealing with him, but there was no viable way around it. The Twelve needed his support and concealment until they were ready to become the rulers they truly deserved to be.

T
he University was in Barons
, occupying the quarter’s frontage onto the Westway River. Giura knew it was ancient, and while its origins dated to a similar time as the Academy—the decades following the end of the Mage Wars—it was in a complex of buildings of more recent construction than the Academy. The Bannerets won the Mage Wars, so they had the pick of the city. Their barracks were located at the Academy—or the Library of Mages as it would have been called then, when they still served the mages—so it was a natural choice. Giura always referred to the Bannerets as ‘they’, but as a banneret himself he was a descendant of that legacy.

The men destined for leadership, war or gentlemanly idleness went to the Academy; the men and women who ensured the city continued to run and remain prosperous went to the University. They became the civil servants, burgesses and educators, some of whom would become prosperous enough to see their children take a place at the Academy. It seemed that the goal of every citizen was to win a place at the Academy, either for themselves or their children. Having grown up outside the city, it was something that took Giura quite some time to fully appreciate.

That the University did not enjoy the same lofty social status as the Academy did not mean that it was ignored or neglected. Its function was still important and it enjoyed the beneficence of many wealthy alumni. The exterior was impressive, as was the entrance hallway. Young men and women walked about briskly, carrying notebooks and bundles of papers with the appearance of having somewhere important to be. Their clacking footsteps and voices echoed in the large space of the high ceilinged hall. The only real difference with the Academy was the lack of uniforms, and Giura couldn’t help but feel the presence of women at the Academy would have been a welcome addition.

He spotted someone who looked to be a clerk sitting at a desk, and went over.

‘I’d like to speak to a professor. Languages or something similar would be best,’ Giura said.

The clerk looked at him, and then at his sword. Giura didn’t imagine they had many bannerets calling there.

‘I, uh… The school of linguistics is that way.’ He pointed over his shoulder to a set of double doors that had a regular stream of students passing in and out. ‘Through the quad and on to the next one on the other side. Someone there will be able to point you in the right direction.’

Giura nodded in thanks and headed in the direction indicated. The quad was cloistered, the University’s buildings surrounding a student-filled lawn that was bisected by the path Giura took to the other side. He walked through the arch that led through the far cloister to the next quad over. This one was also filled with students, and the surrounded lawn contained several mature trees, lending the place a shady, contemplative air. In the Academy an open space like that would have been used for drill or physical activity of one sort or another. Here, a number of students sat in the shade of the trees, reading or, Giura suspected, pretending to read while actually sleeping off hangovers.

One of the conscious students directed Giura to a nondescript doorway. Giura went in and spotted a wooden board with a list of names stencilled in gilt lettering in the hallway. It listed each person’s area of study and the number of their office. He scanned the list for something that fit with what he wanted, settled on ‘Ancient Languages’ and set off up a stone stairwell to the office.

He knocked on the door and stepped back to wait. There was no response and he was beginning to regret not bringing along one of the Tower’s thugs to kick it down when he heard a shuffling behind the door. It creaked open and a bespectacled face appeared in the opening. Giura stifled a laugh, as the man was exactly what he had imagined a professor at the University to look like. There had been one or two like him at the Academy, those who had lectured in the more academic subjects taught.

‘Can I help you?’ the man said.

‘You can, Professor. My name is Vallis Giura. Might I come in to speak with you?’

The man nodded and opened the door fully, revealing a messy, cluttered office dominated by a large desk. The professor went back to his seat, clearing another one as he went and gesturing for Giura to sit on it.

‘What can I do for you, Mr. Giura?’

‘Banneret Intelligencier Giura.’ He could see the Professor tense and smiled inwardly.

‘What brings an Intelligencier to the University? To my office?’ His voice wavered.

Giura took the two notebooks from his satchel and placed them on the only clear space on the Professor’s desk. The Professor looked at them, then at Giura and then back to the notebooks.

‘I was hoping you might be able to tell me something about them. Where they come from? What they mean? Anything really.’

The Professor picked up the first notebook and looked at the cover over the top of his spectacles. He looked at Giura again before opening the notebook. Could he have a suspicion of what it was?

He leafed through several pages before repeating the process with the other book. He then put it down and shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve never seen this script before. There’s no way I can decipher it for you.’ He placed it back on the desk with his palms flat on it.

Not what Giura was hoping for, but he knew it was a slim hope. He would find the source another way.

‘I think I may be able to tell you
what
it is, though,’ the Professor said.

Giura raised an eyebrow.

‘I’ll need to confer with a colleague. To be certain, you see.’

Giura nodded. ‘Fine. Confer with him.’

The Professor said nothing for a moment, watching Giura as though he expected him to get up and leave.

‘Now?’ the Professor said.

‘Now,’ Giura confirmed.

‘I might be a few minutes.’

‘Fine. I’ll wait here.’

The Professor picked up the notebooks and made to go.

‘Leave the notebooks,’ Giura said. ‘Bring him to them.’

‘Oh, of course. Sorry,’ the Professor said.

He handed Giura the notebooks and left. When the door closed behind him, Giura stood and went over to the window. There was a good view of the quad two stories below, and it was as pleasant a place for an office as Giura had seen in the city. It was certainly a far cry from his little tomb in the Grey Tower. Perhaps he had chosen the wrong career.

W
hen the Professor returned
, he was alone. Giura had expected he would bring his colleague along with him.

‘Your colleague?’

‘Ah, yes. He was too busy to come along, but we discussed the notebooks.’

Too busy? Giura smiled. Too frightened by the prospect of sitting in a small office with an Intelligencier more likely. ‘And?’

‘And, he feels that my thoughts are correct.’

‘Without seeing them?’

‘I was able to describe the important features. There are one or two tell-tale aspects. Neither of us have ever seen one before, but as best we can tell, they are grimoires. Mages’ notebooks. They were often written in code that was unintelligible to anyone other than a mage. The script is no language that I know of, which makes me think it’s code. From the style of the hand I would also hazard a guess that this one comes from the east.’ He patted the completed notebook. ‘The other, probably not.’

‘How can you be so sure?’ Giura had heard magic was still practised in the east, but also of a royal family there who were immune to its effects and kept its practice strictly regulated.

‘We write from right to left, one line at a time. In the east they write from right to left also, but in vertical lines. Although the symbols aren’t eastern, or at least no eastern script that I have ever seen, they are certainly written in that vertical fashion, and the east is the only place that I am aware of where that is done. The partially filled grimoire is a copy of the first, but with a number of mistakes that would be characteristic of a literate person from here learning to write in the eastern fashion. They are mistakes that I see students of eastern languages here at the University make all the time.’