Bound (11 page)

Eliar frowned. "There has been bad blood between your father and I, but I shouldn't have been so harsh with you. Calder isn't your fault. I know enough of you to be sure that you aren't like him."

"You don't know me at all."

He smiled faintly. "But I do. Samell and I kept up a correspondence over the years since I was his mentor, as best we could at least. He has written of you in his letters to me several times since you went to Voleno." Eliar sighed. "He thought quite highly of you, and I imagine he would be... well, more than disappointed with the reception I gave you."

Fay suddenly remembered the bundle of letters she had been given. She slipped out of the bed and dug them out of her bag, handing them to Eliar before getting back under the covers. He looked at her, frowning again. "He left me a caeldar, that was how I knew to come to you. He said you could help me, but he also left these for me, he said 'in case age and bitterness overcome his good sense.' I- I'm not trying to make you feel bad," she said quickly as his face fell while he looked down at the stack of folded parchment. "But I'm guessing they're your letters to him, and I think you should have them. In any case, I guess I thought that if I just got here- I didn't expect that creature- None of this is how I thought my life would go after I graduated."

She heard the frustration in her own voice and pulled her knees tighter to her chest, pressing her face into them. His voice, more gentle than she had heard him yet, said, "I will help if I can. If you'll let me. I am truly sorry, Faylanna, to have ignored everything Ganson said about your relationship with your father. If I had listened to him more carefully... Ah well, regrets are part of living to this great an age."

Lifting her head, she stared into his eyes. There was very little light in the room with only a single candle burning, and his face was shadowed, light gracing only the edges, but she could still see real remorse there. She told him about the blond man being there, about the vision of him with the dead woman, but not what he had said to her both before and after the vision. A part of her thought she should explain that as well, but those parts, like the other dreams, had seemed private, somehow just between herself and the blond man, so she kept them to herself. She also didn't mention the image of Tavis, too confused by that to know how to explain it or the feelings it had caused. She wasn't sure that his own great-grandfather was the right person to talk to about him either.

When she was done, Eliar sat down on the floor near her, his back leaning against a nearby chair from the table. By this time, she was sitting on the edge of the bed with one leg folded under her and the other trailing over the edge. He was quiet for several minutes. "Let me tell you a story in return, because this nightmare of yours sounds very much like it. A long time ago, when Ganson was a young man just graduated and I was still working on my first century, a terrible crime happened in Rianza. A young woman was killed, and her partner was accused of the murder, and something worse. The facts of the case were uncertain, as there were no witnesses and the accused was pronounced unfit after her death, but he was found alone with her body, in a scene described almost exactly as you saw it in your dream." He paused. "I find it odd that you could describe it so accurately. I saw only the aftermath, what was left after they took him away, though they did not imprison him in one of the Mirrors of Bershan immediately as your dream suggests."

"What's a Mirror of Bershan?"

"It's a special type of prison, really, or at least that's what we've been using them for. I'm not surprised you haven't heard of them. It's a very esoteric subject, especially now that all of them are in use. And I guess that your question answers mine as to whether you had ever studied the case. If you had, you'd already know about the Mirrors. There are nine of them, and they were found, as you might surmise, very near Bershan. You can lock a person in them and they aren't able to free themselves. Magic doesn't seem to work in them, though I never discovered why that is. I studied the last empty one for a time in my youth, before they used it to imprison Marcius."

"The man my dream reminded you of?"

Eliar fixed her with a steady gaze for a moment before nodding. "They did hold a trial, but I thought it was mostly for show. There was no one else to accuse and they couldn't let such things go unpunished. Landra, his partner, was loved by many. She was a delightful girl."

Fay stared at him for a while. "You weren't convinced he did it."

It wasn't a question and he didn't bother to treat it as one. "It didn't matter. He was definitely damaged by her death, and maybe that accounts for what he did afterward. He was dangerous, needed to be restrained. But no, I thought her death was far too conveniently timed to be an act of passion as they tried to present it at the trial."

"I don't understand."

"Landra was an Investigator, just as Dal Brinds was. She was a friend of my own partner, and told Evala that she was on the verge of something important, vital to the safety of the Empire. It was in a letter that came to Evala just days after Landra's death, but she didn't tell us what she was investigating, and none of it was mentioned at Marcius' trial. We couldn't mention it, because we had nothing concrete to point to. She never even suggested what she suspected."

Fay was thinking aloud more than speaking as she said, "So Marcius might be innocent..."

"Of the murder of his partner? Possibly, but Faylanna, he was not sane afterward, and a Magicia of questionable sanity cannot be allowed to roam free. Beyond that. what he did afterward, just before they found him, well, that only made him more dangerous."

"I don't understand," she repeated.

"Don't ask. I won't tell you. Some things should be allowed to lie buried." His tone was too final for her to argue. Neither of them said anything for a while, until Eliar asked, "Faylanna, tell me, why have you never chosen a partner? You must have had offers. Samell was certain that there had been, though he said you never talked about it. He said that you were refusing to choose. He never wanted to press you about it, but I have to ask. Why?"

She played with the sleeve of her tunic for a little while before answering, still not looking up at him. She thought about how much she wanted to share with him of her final conversation with her mentor and settled on only part of it. "He was right. There were offers. More than a few, actually, both in Rianza and Voleno. I- I turned them down, kindly I think, but I couldn't accept. I guess I'm not surprised that Professor Ganson knew about it long before I ever mentioned it to him."

"Why turn it down though? Almost every student I ever knew at any academy jumped at a chance to bond with a partner. I can think of very few who refused an offer and not one single person who did so more than once. I think the fear of being left behind dogged those who had done it once. So why have you, by your own admission, refused to accept any offer, courting that very fate?"

Again, she took a while to answer, trying to find words to express the thoughts she wanted to share without exposing those she didn't yet trust this man with. "You can't stand my father, I understand that and I'm sure you have your own reasons, but you don’t know what it's like being his daughter. You've never heard him rail about needing a partner. I am and I have. And I hated every minute of it. From almost the beginning of my schooling in magic, he would tell me to find the strongest partner I could, not to settle for anyone weak, but that I needed a partner. I got so sick of hearing it. It was a relief, really, when the Council chose to transfer me to Voleno. I didn't have to see him so often and even his letters were less frequent." She paused to get her rising anger under control. "I'm not sure if he'd be furious or thrilled at my refusal of the offers I've had. He always says I have to have a partner , but that they must be as strong as I am, and all of the offers were from others whose talents were not- well, not as strong." She found her eyes drawn to Tavis' sleeping shadow in the near-darkness. "I guess I want to prove my father wrong. I want to prove them all wrong, show them that I'm strong enough on my own. Because they all feel like my father does, everyone. No one talks about it as bluntly as he does, but they all think that a Magicia needs a partner to be capable. Even you."

Fay looked up at him as she said this, and he turned away from her calm, steady gaze. She felt a small thrill of victory when he did. "I'll admit, it would probably be easier to take a partner. It would certainly make everyone else more comfortable around me, but if I do that without accomplishing something myself, I think I'll always wonder if I could have. I might always regret not proving myself." She paused for a minute and found her eyes again strangely drawn to Tavis as she added, "Besides, I can't say that I've ever found anyone I would seriously consider as a partner until now."

Eliar had also been looking at Tavis when she said that, but then he turned back to her, an eyebrow raised. "Until now?" She blushed but didn't know how to reply regarding something she hadn't really been aware of herself. She wondered if she could really be contemplating that with Tavis, who she barely knew. After a moment, Eliar nodded thoughtfully and patted her arm. "Go back to sleep. I'll be doing the same."

He stood slowly, joints creaking and went to the door. She saw him seal it and then cast a ward that wove into the very walls of the house. She lay down on the bed, thinking sleep would never come but then he started to hum again and she did sleep, dreamlessly this time.

When her eyes opened again, early morning light was streaming through the windows of the cottage. As she climbed out of the bed and stretched, she realized that she was alone in the house. A quick check showed Tavis' bags still in the corner with hers. She ran her fingers through her hair, working out the night's tangles as she considered where the two men might have gone. Before she could think of anything though, the door opened and Eliar came in with a bucket of water in one hand.

"Oh good, you're awake finally. Want a cup of tea?"

"Sure. Is Tavis out there?"

"No, I sent him off to Harkol when we got up. He's got a note for the innkeeper, and I told him not to take no for an answer." Seeing her confusion, he said, "I'm going to borrow the cart that some idiot left behind when he couldn't pay his bill at the inn, and a horse too. I'm getting a bit old for riding all the way to Rianza."

She smiled at this and watched him make tea for both of them, then put out a loaf of bread and a jar of preserves. As she helped herself to both, Eliar asked her, "When you told me yesterday what happened in Voleno, you mentioned that Brinds was yelling something but you didn't say what. I didn't get a chance to ask you about that. Do you remember any of what he said?"

She chewed on her breakfast as she considered this. "It didn't make any sense." She closed her eyes and concentrated. The words came back to her and her eyes popped open. "He started out talking about some man making a move and said he knew my father would make trouble. He asked Professor Ganson about a plan to get 'her' away if they needed to. He was talking about me, I think."

Eliar's face was a little pale as he listened to her. After a short silence he said, "Yes, he was. I think I mentioned to you that Brinds was an Investigator. His purpose in Voleno, aside from the necessity of being near his partner, was to keep an eye out for anyone or anything that might be trying to get to you. Your father has had plans for you that are possibly dangerous, if what little we know is true, and I don't think that anything has ever dissuaded him from them. To be honest, I believe it's a risk just taking you back into Rianza, but I can't see any better option, and there's someone I think you need to meet."

"Is my father really that dangerous?" she asked, surprised.

"I'm not sure," Eliar said with a sigh. "But you shouldn't trust him at all until we know what's going on. There's too much that I'm uncertain about right now for me to say anything more."

As they were clearing up from breakfast, Fay asked, "Last night, you mentioned your own partner. I-" She stood at the table with her back to him, hesitating. She knew that she was about to breach etiquette badly, but needed to ask her question of someone. "I guess that she's passed now, but I was hoping you could tell me what it's like, being bound to another Magicia."

He was silent for so long that she started berating herself for opening up what was very likely a painful subject for him. When she turned to face him though, his expression was a mix of sadness and surprise. "Has no one ever told you about it before? Your father, or mother? Samell?"

She looked down, surprised at the awkwardness of his question for her. "My mother died when I was very young, and my father has refused to speak of her since in any way. At the Voleno Academy, they didn't teach me about bound magic, since I didn't have a partner to learn it with. And I didn't think- I had never really thought about Professor Ganson having a partner until that last night. He never talked about Brinds at all, and I certainly hadn't seen them together before then, so it seemed like he didn't have one sometimes, even though I guess I knew better, given the professor's age."

By the time she finished, her voice was very faint. Eliar came over and put an arm around her shoulders, but she remained very still, struggling not to cry anymore. She was tired of crying. Finally, he started speaking. "The moment the bond forms is a very emotionally charged experience. I don't think you're ever closer to your partner than during that moment, perhaps because it's when you have chosen them over all others. The bond links you in such a deep way that you're totally open to each other. When I bonded with Evala, I could hear her thoughts, feel her feelings as if they were my own for the first few minutes. It was a bit disconcerting, to tell you the truth. I learned that men and women think a little differently." He chuckled. "After that, it fades a little, but you're always aware of them, where they are mostly. A bit like having an extra limb. You know without needing to look or see. You're also aware of their emotions, though the degree varies with the strength of the bond you form, something that I will warn you has nothing to do with magical ability.