Dead Letter (8 page)

“
Whatever you need,” assured the Herder.

“
That would be more than wonderful. I’ll have you a summary
before noon tomorrow.” Elrin gave Herder Kleith a formal bow fit to
his senior rank and gave his mother a goodnight kiss. Taking a
candle to flame, he retired to his room. It was the larder from the
original home, which had been split into four small apartments.
Elrin’s bed was a hammock, hooked between two beams. It made space
to write and read and he loved the gentle sway of the sling easing
him to sleep. He imagined that living on a riverboat would be a
wonderful life. His mother’s cot in the living room was shifted
near the hearth for winter and beside a window to catch the breeze
in the hot summer. She would sleep odd hours and the larger space
in the common room helped her imagine she had a decent sized
bedchamber. Though it was far from the luxury they once lived in
when she was with the Bards Guild, it was clean enough and safe
enough, and the rent was not as terrible as it was in some
quarters.

Their
landlord was a good friend of Herder Kleith and sympathetic to his
family’s fall from grace. As such, he had also been accommodating
of Elrin’s occasional late payments. Things were easier when his
mother gave music lessons, but she cancelled them more often than
not when sadness gripped her.

Elrin lit the lantern, strung out his hammock and climbed in,
grateful to be off his tired feet. With a sigh, he picked up
Market Distemper: Its Cause and Cure
and began reading where he had left off. This
didn’t take him long to finish. It was an important work. Quite
progressive, Elrin thought, though he hadn’t any reason to
second-guess the politics of Calimska. It wasn’t his place to
challenge the wise advisors of the city state, let alone vote for a
guild representative, or who should be the Guildmaster.

Elrin
read into the night, buoyed by the tea his mother brought him. He
fell asleep only when done, holding the book with the satisfied
embrace of a scholar prince who had conquered a formidable
exposition.

CHAPTER FIVE

Break
and Enter

In
her small private room on the upper floor of the Cog and Wheel,
Kettna fell into bed, cradelling her book of pressed flowers. Out
of a small window, the moon was rising behind the Great Dividing
Range, its peaks forging a silhouette of daggers in the East. The
darkness did not usually bothere her, but she felt exposed in the
big city, like a lone chick in a strange nest.

The hot
Calimskan night simmered at her thoughts, bubbling up her failures
in love and magic. She tried to make reach with Rix again,
focussing on her goal rather than cataloguing her inadequacies.
Kettna’s attention was pure and the telepathic divination was
executed precisely, yet irony slapped her in the face. For no
matter the quality of her spell, there was no answer to her call.
He felt closer, or was it just her desire for it to be so? Whether
he was close or not, he refused to offer any response, so she
terminated the spell.

It
frustrated her that Rix would treat her so. Were all the sweet
words spoken before he left arranged only to appeal to her heart,
as a bouquet would light up her eyes? Kettna checked herself. The
doubt she dwelled in diminished her. How could she be strong enough
to protect the citizens of Calimska if she couldn’t defend her own
heart? She needed to fortify her resolve to find Rix and curb this
girlish neediness. There must be an explanation for his silence.
Was he truly dead or was he so far from Calimska that Kettna was as
good as dead to him? Did he sever their connection because her love
was inadequate or had she lost contact because her magic was now so
weak? The pendulum swung in her mind, wrapping her in a restless
sleep rocked by its grim oscillations.

Kettna woke to the sound of creaking timber. It was past
midnight, for the slip of the moon had travelled far over the
Calimskan rooftops and filled her room with silver light. Footsteps
padded with slow deliberation up the staircase toward her door.
Each tread groaned a warning. Who was up at this hour? Kettna
fumbled through a few protective spells, none of which gave her
comfort should things turn sour. Her best defence was a surprise
attack. She decided on
Grempinin’s
Shocker
, a favourite of apprentices for
practical jokes. Kettna could manage a decent jolt if anyone
stormed the room to lay hands on her. But then what? Would she
wrestle them in her nightdress? The novice reached to the bottom of
her bag and removed the last mummified mana frog. A dose of mana
from this, and her spell repertoire expanded ten fold. She’d have
to be careful not to burn the building down, so flame spells were
out. Ice would be fine, acid perhaps, binding would be better. Best
not to kill when you could question. With the minor shock spell on
her lips, she listened intently. The creaking timbers progressed
toward her door and stopped.

Kettna snuck to the door, treading only where she saw nails,
so the boards would keep quiet. She gripped the iron doorknob and
cast
Grempinin’s Shocker.
Her hand charged with energy and the iron drank
it up. Kettna waited for a yelp of pain from the other side, but
none came. Lanuille’s door across the hall opened and gave an
awkward squeak.

Kettna
put her eye to the keyhole, and caught a glimpse of sky blue robes
before Lanuille’s door clicked shut again. What was her guardian up
to? Kettna listened. There was no other movement or strange voices
coming from outside. Lanuille was alone, but why was she up at such
odd hours? There was so much she didn’t know about the sorceress.
If only her father had introduced them before she boarded the
ferry. Her parents knew her too well. Kettna would have refused
such aid and caused a fuss if he had done so. It was also possible
that her father had no idea of Kettna’s guardian either. Lanuille’s
assignment might be all her mother’s doing. Kettna would have liked
to think it was because her mother was overprotective of her only
child. Though the real justification would be far from maternal
care. The Archmagus was protecting the Order, not her
daughter.

Kettna
stuffed the mummified frog to the bottom of her satchel again and
climbed back into bed, musing on how high a ransom would go if
Kettna fell foul of a calculating kidnapper. The Order had plenty
of shine. What was she worth?

Kettna’s
sleep was disturbed by dreams of dark dragons attacking Calimska.
Daniakesh struggled in chains. Her once magnificent silver wings
were crippled and bound. The serpentine eyes of Calimska’s
benevolent host bore into Kettna, imploring her aid. Kettna tried
to move and found that she too was shackled. They both screamed in
desperation and watched the magical shield of gold that protected
the city fall away like a receding wave. The Guildmaster lay in a
pool of his own blood. The kitchen hand stood over him with a
dripping knife in hand and tears in his eyes. A monstrous red wyrm
dove from the sky and engulfed them all in flames.

The
morning sun bore a blazing hole through Kettna’s eyelids, waking
her in tangled sheets, damp with sweat. The Novice rolled out of
bed to wash her face and freshen up for the daunting day ahead. As
she prepared, the dream lingered. She’d never had a dragon dream so
powerful. Dreaming of Daniakesh was not unusual; this had been part
of her life since the great silver dragon came to her as a child,
but she’d never seen her so frail and in such distress. The fierce
magnificence of the red dragon both scared her and compelled her.
She’d never seen such a massive red so close. The writings and
sketches of scholars gave a rational approximation of length,
wingspan, habits and habitats of all known dragons, but there was
no preparation for the palpable ferocious intent of the red in this
dream.

And what
was she to make of the magic shield falling or the kitchen hand and
the Guildmaster? Shadows of great dragons passed safely overhead
when the Guildmaster’s magic shield enveloped the city in dragon
season. The Order had a similar shield to protect the Isle of
Solitude. It was tiny compared to the one that protected Calimska.
The Guildmaster was the only one with the power to raise such a
spell over the whole city.

When he
was the Archmagus, before Kettna’s mother, the Guildmaster had done
the same for the island with the help of the elders. They would
take shifts in the Tower of Arcana to maintain the enchanted
protection. How the Guildmaster had the power to protect the whole
city was beyond Kettna. All of the mages, including Kettna, admired
his power, and feared it. Kettna’s father was adamant that the
Guildmaster had discovered a secret to amplify his natural power,
some ancient device or ritual. Some said Calim’s spirit blessed
them and worked through the Guildmaster each season because he was
ashamed that Daniakesh had left.

Folktales and rumour had a way of romantically stretching the
truth, leaving the facts difficult to recognise. Her dreams did the
same. What did the kitchen hand have to do with dragons and magic?
He had demonstrated immunity to the illusion of the twins last
night, but he didn’t seem the type to have the fortitude for
killing, let alone the murder of the Guildmaster. She had pinned
her hopes on the kitchen hand finding Rix, so he must have appeared
in her dream as a symbol, perhaps of her fears that Rix had
betrayed his duty to Calimska, or her.

Dreams
were often fragments of desire and mental confusion. However, this
dream was more vivid than ever before, and the fear penetrated far
deeper. Kettna had tasted dragon fear with Daniakesh’s first
visitation, even when she came to her in dreams. In the past what
she had felt was always closer to extreme awe than fear. It was a
realisation of her limited power beside Daniakesh’s indomitable
majesty. With the red dragon, she was reduced to a core quaking
fear of certain obliteration.

The
racket of the city agitated Kettna’s nerves after the nightmare.
She missed the early morning sounds on the Isle of Solitude. After
dragon dreams back home, she had found peace listening to the
cockerels crowing and the chatter of foraging hens on a fox free
island. Such things would ground her in the corporeal world. The
Isle of Solitude was a temple to the magical arts, a place where
you fused with the magical weave that permeated everything.
Calimska was a frustration of bustle and distraction. How did a
city mage connect to the weave in such a place? They must block the
noise somehow. She would have to find comfort in the good of the
city. Kettna leaned out the window, marvelling at the bustle of so
many men and women heading for their guildhalls or places of work.
Others hung washing from their windows on lines that bridged
between the side streets.

There
was a polite rapping at the door.

“
Who is it?” called Kettna from the window.

“
Sorry to disturb you, Mistress,” came the voice of the
innkeep. “Breakfast is ready in the common room, should you require
it.”

What did
he mean by that? Did the innkeep think mages lived on mystic
berries? She was famished. “I shall be down shortly.”

“
At your leisure, Mistress.” Rimple knocked on the doors of
the other rooms, repeating his call to breakfast, before the creaky
stairs groaned his retreat.

Kettna
removed her slip and donned her novice robes, keen to get her
meeting with the Constable done. Before that she had to discover
Mertin’s whereabouts. The innkeep had promised to make some
enquiries on her behalf. In preparation for a day of walking,
Kettna lightened her load, removing her clothes to the drawer and
shelving her books. With her component belt, purse and satchel, she
was ready to confront her future in the city.

Opening
her door, she was greeted by the quiet conversation of the twins as
they left their own rooms in unison. “Sleep well,
guildermen?”

They
nodded and followed her to the common room. Adept Lanuille was
already downstairs at their table, drinking bitter black and
arranging a deck of cards upon the table.

“
Do you read cards?” jested Kettna. “Isn’t that a bit quaint
for an adept?”

“
No, I’m not reading them. If I could, I’d figure out why I’m
losing the game.”

“
I’ve not seen it before. What’s it called?”

“
Smite and Bluff. You can run the hands alone, if you can’t
find any players.”

“
I think I saw some old folk playing that when I took the
twins for a run into the Cauldron yesterday afternoon.”

Lanuille
gave her a half smile. “Are you calling me old, Novice?”

“
Not at all. It looks like fun. You should teach me
tonight.”

“
I’d like that. It would be nice to have a game against
someone other than myself.”

Lanuille
was so changeable. She could be warm and welcoming when she spoke
with Kettna, yet so cold when another entered the conversation.
Last night she had been so hard on the staff and derisive of the
kitchen hand. The sorceress was suspicious of all comers. Kettna
guessed that was a good trait to have as a guardian, if Lanuille
was only looking out for her. The Adept’s late night