Feast of Souls (3 page)

“You wish your fortune told?” she asked him.

“That depends,” he said. “Are you really a witch, or simply a performer?”

She smiled. She was young—she looked young—and a small bit of gold had been set in the surface of one of her front teeth. “That depends on what you pay me, sir.”

He drew forth a handful of coins from his pocket as if he neither knew nor cared what they were, and cast them down before her. Gold glittered in the lamplight and caught the banners of afternoon sun that streamed through the tent’s entranceway. She gasped in surprise and he smiled despite himself, certain that such a consummate performer normally prided herself on keeping such emotions to herself.

“Is that enough for the real thing?” he asked her.

She looked up at him, as if seeking understanding in his eyes. Another day he might have indulged her, but today he didn’t, so he made sure that any witchery directed at him would slide off him like water from oilskin.

“What is it you wish to know, sir? And do you care which medium I use?”

Ah, the paraphernalia, the paraphernalia… was it just part of the show for this one, or a genuine focus? Some home-grown witches were ignorant enough that they thought they actually needed tools to draw upon their own soulfire. It never ceased to amaze him.

“You may use what you wish. And my question is…” He glanced out of the tent, to where the gossiping villagers milled and mingled. “The reception that the city has prepared for its foreign guest, is this a welcome in good faith? Or something less benign?”

She had been reaching out for the deck of cards as if she were about to use them, but as his words settled into warm scented air that hand withdrew, and she leaned back and studied him.

“You know I can’t answer that, sir,” she said at last. “If the king is keeping secrets then his Magisters are protecting them, and all the cards and crystals in the world won’t get past their safeguards. And if I did learn such secrets, and passed them on to strangers for a handful of coins… then I wouldn’t last very long in this city, would I?” She pushed the coins back towards him. “I’m sorry. Please take them.”

There was hunger in her eyes, he noted. She wanted the truth but she dared not ask. It was always that way with the witching folk, for they could sense on a visceral level his true nature, yet did not trust their own instincts to name it.

“Loyalty has its own value,” he said quietly. “Keep them.”

He left the tent without further word. He was sure that as soon as he was out of sight she would pick up her cards again and begin asking questions about him. He did nothing to stop her from finding the answers this time. If she was willing to waste precious moments of her life searching out who and what he was, who was he to render that sacrifice meaningless?

Towards the far end of the square was a place where the merchants had not been allowed to set up their booths and tents. Drawing near to it, the stranger could see why. From this place the palace itself was visible—or more to the point, this place was visible from the palace. Gods forbid King Danton should gaze out his window and see dirty peasants going about their daily business! No, this close to the palace there was a promenade where the clean and well-dressed might take the morning air, while the local princelings gazed out of their windows and admired them from afar. Maybe one would even spot some young and tender lass dressed in her Sunday finery and sweep down from the palace to take her away to a life of wealth and leisure. So did the comely maidens hope, no doubt, as they strolled along the promenade on the arms of awkward youths in whom they had no real interest, dreaming of the day they would be noticed by someone better.

Today the press of crowds along the promenade was no less than suffocating, as peasants and tradesmen both strained to catch some sight of the great road beyond that led to the palace gates. That was where the foreign Magister would ride, swathed in black silks, upon a black horse, and accompanied by the gods alone knew how many dignitaries. There had not been a state visit from Anshasa in as long as anyone could remember, and the gossips who thrived on royal trivia chattered as they made ready to receive him, ready to read meaning into every detail of his retinue’s number, attire, and behavior.

It never changes
, the stranger mused.

He watched for a while, but had no lengthy interest in the matter. After all, it was rumor, not royal announcement, that had gathered the crowd. There was the possibility that no grand retinue was coming at all. Hard for the peasants to grasp, with their innate awe of royal pageantry, and of course King Danton was known for putting on a great show at the slightest excuse, but that was not the custom in all places, and for one whose daily business involved the wealth and power of nations, such a procession might well seem a tedious display. Not to mention a hot and sweaty one. A true Magister was unlikely to relish such a show, the stranger thought, though he might send his luggage on ahead with all the trappings of royalty, to amuse the peasants and perhaps give vague offense to the king who was his reluctant host.

He continued his wanderings, across the great road and beyond. A packet of dried venison from one pocket stifled his noonday hunger, and when he reached a place where food was served he bought a flagon of mead to wash it down. He could have made it taste like a king’s feast if he had wanted, but he was rarely so self-indulgent. As for his clothes, black though they were, they had accumulated by this time a patina of dust and sweat and would never be mistaken for a Magister’s attire.

He could have cleaned them, of course. He didn’t.

Around the back of the great estate, beside the great fence that guarded the king’s property, he paused. It was quiet here, for the thickly forested hunting grounds beyond offered no good view of the royal habits. Fine for him. He called a bird to him—a hawk responded, strong of limb and elegantly feathered—and he whispered instructions into its ear, gave it a fine silver ring he had been wearing, and set it free. It soared over tree and stream and quickly was lost in the distance, winging its way toward the palace.

Minutes passed.

Half an hour.

He ate the last of his dried venison and reflected that he should have bought more mead.

At last there came a change in the air that he could sense before he saw it. A shimmering, a shivering, that echoed in his own soul, stirring the fires within. When the air began to ripple before him he was prepared, and when the field of ripples was large enough and steady enough for his purposes he stepped into it—and through.

On the other side was a vast, shadowy chamber, filled with black-robed men. The windows were narrow arrow slits that let in little light, and the vaulted ceiling and dark stone walls drank in the meager offerings of the only lamps in the room, a single pair set along the mantle of a man-sized fireplace.

The Magisters stood about a long table of dark wood, their chairs pushed back behind them. They were all ages, all races, all shapes… and all male. Of course. The nature of women didn’t allow them to join such company.

The stranger looked about him, studying each in turn.

The few whom he knew received a nod of acknowledgment, but there were not many. Those who frequented Danton’s court were unlikely to visit the southlands, and Magisters of the southlands rarely braved these hostile latitudes.

“I am Colivar, Magister Royal of Anshasa, bound in service to his Majesty Hasim Farah the Most Merciful, scourge of the Tathys, ruler of all the lands south of the Sea of Tears.” The northern language felt harsh on his tongue compared to the liquid resonance of his accustomed dialect, but he spoke it well enough to make himself understood. Little wonder the northerners did not revere poetry as his own people did; one could hardly scribe paeans to love in such a guttural and unsatisfying dialect.

“You are welcome, Colivar. If a bit early.” The speaker was a man who had chosen to appear in the guise of a white-haired sage, though of course that did not necessarily have anything to do with his real age. His long beard was impressive, and as snowy white as the fur of a meticulously groomed cat.

“My luggage will be here on time.”

A soft murmur of amusement that did not quite become laughter coursed about the room. Only the sage’s eyes remained cold.

“The king might deem such levity offense.”

Colivar shrugged. “I made no promise of pageantry for his amusement.”

“And we made you no promise save safe passage to and from this place. Be wary of offending the one who rules here.”

The one called Colivar laughed. It was hearty, heartfelt laughter that echoed freely in the vast chamber and set the dust to shivering off the window sills. “Hie king rules here? Truly? Well then you must be cutting the balls off your Magisters, for I don’t know another city where men of power would stand for such a thing.”

“Hush,” one of the locals said, glancing toward the great oaken doors that guarded the room. “He has got ears, you know.”

“And servants.”

“And all of them have minds as malleable as clay,” Colivar responded, “and we are the potters.”

“Maybe so,” the white-bearded Magister allowed, “but here in the north we pride ourselves on discretion.”

“Ah.” Colivar brushed at the dust on one shirt sleeve, then the other. “So do you plan to tell me why you have asked me here, against all the tide of morati politics, or does this mean I have to guess? Mind you,” he said, his eyes growing hard for a moment, “you won’t like my guesses.”

The white-bearded Magister studied him for a moment, then nodded ever so slightly. “Perhaps introductions will make things a bit more clear. I am called Ramirus, Magister Royal of King Danton.” He introduced two more men by his side, both members of the same company. “And this…” he indicated a swarthy man wrapped in a black burnoose and turban, “is Sev-eril of Tarsus.”

The sardonic essence faded from Colivar as quickly as it had possessed him. “Truly? A Tarsan? That is a long and arduous journey, even for one who commands the soulfire. I am honored to meet one who has come so far.”

“And Del of the Crescent Isles.”

Colivar’s brow elevated slightly as he nodded, acknowledging silently the distance and effort involved in that journey as well.

“Suhr-Halim of Hylis. Fadir of Korgstaat. Tirstan of Gansang.”

The list went on. Names and titles in two dozen languages, from as many nations. Some of them were from places whose names Colivar didn’t even recognize, and he had thought himself well schooled in all the known places of the world.

“Quite a collection of visitors,” he said, when the introductions were done at last. There was no longer humor in his voice; it had given way to something colder. “I have never seen so many of us, from so many places, brought together. We do not tend to trust one another, do we, my brothers? So I assume there must be some pressing business that is truly extreme, for our brother Ramirus to have called us all here.”

“If I said a threat to our very existence,” Ramirus said quietly, “would that suffice?”

Colivar digested the words with the somber care they merited, then nodded.

“Very well,” the Magister Royal said. “Then you shall come with me, and see for yourself.”

And without further word he led his wary guest out of the dark chamber and into the heart of the palace.

Ethanus remembers
: Whoever is at the door will not go away. He’s ignored their knocking for some time now, preferring not to be disturbed, but time after time they keep coming back. The knocking is soft but insistent, not harsh enough to anger him outright, and the attempts are spaced far apart, as if their purpose is not to force him to obey so much as to remind him that the visitor has neither left nor forgotten him.

At last with a sigh he rises from his studies, leaving behind the Chantoni hieroglyphics he has been working so hard to decipher, to confront whoever it is that thinks that he has time to waste on visitors.

It’s a spring day,
(he recalls)
and as he opens the door a gust of pollen-laden air sweeps into his sanctum. Fresh, sweet, and brimming with life. He should have built the place with more windows, he notes mentally, and not been constrained, as he was, by concerns over heating it in the winter.

On his doorstep is a girl. Not quite a child, but thin and scrawny enough to be taken for one at first glance. That she’s had a hard life is nothing he needs magic to discover; it is etched in the very outline of her features, in the way she moves, even in the way she breathes. So is the fact that she has defied her environment and thus far come out on top. Her eyes gleam with the cold determination that the poet Belsarius once called “the diamond glare,” meaning that nothing can scratch its surface. Her face and hands are meticulously clean—probably scrubbed not an hour before—but the rest of her has the faintly weathered patina of one who is not truly intimate with cleanliness. Peasant stock, he guesses, city-born, and not raised gently or treated well yet trying nonetheless to present herself politely. Interesting.

Briefly he toys with the notion of binding enough Power to know more. But the habit is long gone and the temptation passes.