Forest For The Trees (Book 3) (12 page)

“I don’t care what they say about me, and if Dornory
is the joke of the court, then that’s perfectly fine with me.  It’s only what
he deserves!  Sounds as if all this talk will die down sooner or later,
according to you, so it’s no skin off my nose.”

“Later.  Most definitely later, Marik.  Now, even
after many eventful years from today, they will resurrect your exploits over
the afternoon wine to amuse their newer acquaintances.  And all because before
you allowed the fade to happen, you magnified it tenfold before their
witnessing eyes.  And then,” Torrance tacked on with poisonous sarcasm, “while
that fruitful tale still ripened in the court gardens, you hare off straight
into an enemy army, bent on getting yourself and your shieldmates slaughtered,
by all accounts.”

Here it came.  Marik could feel the heat of shame
rising to his cheeks.  On this, though, he would accept his due from the
commander.  Sloan, as efficiently furious as only Sloan could be, would surely
prove to have been a mere warm-up to Torrance’s anger.

The seething in the commander’s eyes revealed the
truth of that…but Torrance only said, “As for
that
, I intend to speak
with you later.  Suffice to say that you were already at the court’s attention
when Celerity brought Raymond her summary of the Rovasii battle.  Your identity
immediately caught his majesty’s attention, as well as the knight-marshal’s. 
They have chosen to keep your role in that battle a secret, if possible.”

“I see,” Marik announced flatly.  “Last thing they
need is the court fops spreading wild stories about a mercenary while the king
tries to boost the morale of his men through his figurehead, the Arm.”  He
laughed bitterly.

Torrance nodded.  “Exactly so.  You’ve spitted
yourself for roasting.  See to it that you don’t baste your carcass with the
rest of the band.”

“With the king’s council being the only people who
know, I doubt that will be difficult.”

“Do not assume so.  There is no such thing as a secret
in the court.  Word always finds a way out.  It is a hydra, ever springing up
with new heads no matter how many are cut off.”

“I will do my best to be unobtrusive.”  Marik
plastered a lopsided grin to his face that must have looked as false as it
felt.

“In you, the king sees the makings of Arms he has
spent his entire life hearing tales about.  In you, the knight-marshal sees an
insult to his military abilities.  In you, the royal enclave sees a mystery,
and they are a group who despise matters beyond their understanding.”

“I will be quick about it, commander.  I can’t say
that it comforts me to see them grasping at non-existent miracles so, but I
will look at what they want me to, offer whatever ideas come to me, and let
them get on with the real planning once they see I am no legend-come-to-life.”

Torrance gazed at him speculatively for a long moment
before finishing with, “See that you are quick, at the least.”

An oppressive silence hung heavily between the trees. 
It unsettled Marik more deeply than it had the last time he walked this
graveled path.  Fog would feel less substantial, less like a thick blanket
enwrapping him.

Surrounding the palace grounds rose imposing walls
that held the city at bay.  Hilliard Garroway had once mentioned a number
regarding the palace complex, a reference to square acreage or some similar
measurement system.  The numbers were meaningless to Marik.  Only standing
within the sanctuary endowed him with the appropriate awe that such a vast
space could have been secluded from the world.

Behind the palace’s western wings rested the tower
housing the court mages.  It lurked amidst a miniature forest that crowded the
space between the enclosing walls and the palace proper.  Only the loudest
noises from the city could invade the tranquility.  A handful of birds who had
found their way to the trees by winging over the human environment failed
miserably at imitating the natural music of a forest.  They only served to call
his attention to how silent the trees were.

Dietrik must be wondering if he’d been hauled off to
prison since he had failed to return last night.  Torrance had brought him to a
room furnished with a small bed and little else.  Given the late candlemark,
and the clear instructions to rise with the sun, returning to camp would have
meant turning around as soon as he arrived.

Soft light filtered through the branches from the
sun’s renewed voyage across the celestial azure seas.  The air chilled him,
adding to the winter tingle he felt throughout his spine from the knowledge
that he had no business being among these decision makers.  He was a sheep in
the skin of a wolf, pretending to be other than the follower he was.

Marik paused before the last curve that would bring
him to the enclave’s tower.  Deep breaths filled his lungs until he felt them
pressing against his ribs.  He let it out in a long exhalation.

I can’t afford to botch this.  I need to act like a man. 
After all I’ve been through, all I’ve learned, I should be able to handle
this.  All I need to remember is to think clearly and keep my temper under
control.

Yes, he had come far, accomplished much.  He usually
never thought in such terms, but seeing matters through the perspectives
revealed to him last night made him acknowledge it.  The only question that
echoed deep within his soul was whether or not his achievements were merely the
exigencies of random chance.

Hesitation clearly revealed inexperience.  Marik
resumed his march, opening the door to the odd tower in the trees without
bothering to knock.  If he were to be their last resort, then he refused to be
treated like a trembling apprentice.  They would give him what he needed.  He
would make them forgo any quibbling so he could complete this task quickly as
possible.

Marik half-expected to find a person waiting for him,
as the servant waiting outside his door to fetch his breakfast had been.  The
small foyer stood empty, the fragile spoke-chairs clustered beside the
bookcase.  Its shelves were in disarray from hurried searches through the
volumes.

He slowly climbed the stairway winding its way to the
tower’s top along the inside curve of the lower dome.  At each doorway he poked
his head inside, expecting to find no one until he entered the tower higher
up.  The sight of figures in a room arrested him on the second floor.

There were a higher number of women than men, and
his first thought was that this was where Ilona most wanted to be in the world. 
In this room where magic alone determined who played what role.  She would
thrive in this environment.

The woman he loved longed for magical talent.  That
knowledge unsettled him, as it usually did.  He was fully aware that the gift,
or curse, of mage talent was the sole trait that had attracted him to her.  At
times it crossed his mind to wonder if she would care for him in the slightest
were it not for his magic.

His stomach always filled with acid if he dwelled on
the question too long.  He knew what the answer would almost certainly be.  It
was a bitter irony that he spent most of his life in pursuit of questions
without answers, yet the few mysteries he could unravel provided him with
truths he would as soon have left buried deep.

Several people in the room quickly noticed him, or
marked his presence to an extent.  His arrival swayed none from their
activities despite his dress, so markedly different from theirs.  Marik
observed them momentarily before he entered, seeing vests, shirts, pants rather
than breeches, the type of boots the upper classes wore indoors that would be
destroyed at the first touch of dew, woven belts rather than leather, long
sleeves, tight cuffs and broad collars…but no gloves, hosiery, long feathers,
silk handkerchiefs or, thank all the gods, lace.  The lack of gloves could be
attributed to the ink smudges staining many a finger as copious notes were
frantically scribed, except the competent atmosphere in the room suggested
frivolity found little purchase among these people.

It was the first positive sign he had seen in months.

Since everyone concentrated on individual duties, he
abandoned his initial idea of shouting out that he had arrived, and that they
had best be on with the farce.  Women poured through thick tomes, quickly
flicking the pages, searching for information.  At times they would pause to
study a passage, then either continue on or write scratchy notes with frayed
quills on the papers laying beside the books.  Given the apparent age of the
tomes, Marik guessed these were the mages Celerity had set to combing through
the palace library, seeking any mention of the invaders or their monsters.  The
chief mage had mentioned a month earlier, while speaking to Sloan and Kineta
through the hand mirror, that the enclave frantically sought answers through
such means.

Others, a mix of both genders, burrowed through thick
paper stacks, presumably collections of reports from the army elements who had
come into contact with the black soldiers.  They shuffled the documents faster than
a master cardsman who made his living challenging idle well-to-dos in the
cleaner taverns.  Thick bundles were passed from one hand to the next, the
papers making their way to whichever person it bore the most relevance.

It might have been a band of clerks rather than a mage
enclave were it not for displays of magic that received as much attention from
passerbys as the mundane reports.  Three mirrors acted as visual portals to
distant kingdom reaches.  Their operators, two women and a man, stared with fierce
concentration while the view shifted slowly over landscapes barren of human
presence.  Porcelain bowls filled with earth provided the catalyst that
directed the scryes, spells from an alien magical branch since Marik could see
no seeking serpent’s tail connected to the mirror’s frame.  To his magesight,
the mirrors held the same amount of etheric power as a doorknob.

His conclusion that there were three scryes in
progress proved false when he realized a fourth was also underway.  To his
astonishment, this scrying effort utilized no mirror at all.  The magic user
had anchored the spell to a window frame, using the glass pane as the medium by
which images from across the kingdom were shown.  It left Marik disoriented,
looking through the window at what should have been the ancient trees
surrounding the tower, instead seeing grassy stretches with indistinct
buildings on the horizon.

He had never known that scrying could be used like
that.

Marik searched the room for Celerity.  She was
elsewhere this morning.  He disliked the notion of approaching an unfamiliar
face.  It was with a measure of relief that he recognized Tru.

The man with coal-black skin, the only person in the
room who elected to wear the type of robe most people believed mages affected,
hunched over a table on the room’s far side.  His midnight raiment blended with
his natural color, giving him the likeness of a tar doll crudely squeezed into
a man’s shape by clumsy fingers.  No one else shared his table.

Marik wound his way through figures dashing from table
to table and collecting fresh writing supplies.  He peered over Tru’s shoulder
when he drew closer.  What the magician labored over made no sense to Marik’s
mage-based knowledge.  There were no less than twenty plates scattered over the
table’s surface.  On each were fragments of odd materials.  Shreds of cloth
formed a mound on one.  A second held what looked to be fragments of shattered
steel that had been colored black.

On the plate nearest Tru rested a leather square Marik
instantly recognized as coming from the bizarre cure-belly vests the invaders
wore.  This piece had ragged edges left by a hasty excision from the larger
armament.

Tru held a monocle halfway between the plate and his
eye.  From an open pouch on the table he took a pinch of sand, followed by a
shiny pebble from a second bag.  He tipped his hand so both fell into his
palm.  The magician rubbed his fingertips in undulating motions over his hand’s
contents, grinding them together, mixing them…or mixing them as much as sand
and a single pebble could be mixed.

He held his hand over the leather square and muttered
a word so softly Marik missed it in the room’s din.  The sand dissolved to ashy
flakes, and the pebble’s glittering whiteness crumbled to dark remnants.

No change occurred to the plate’s contents that Marik
could see.  Tru studied the square carefully through the monocle before shaking
his head minutely.  He pushed the plate aside to make room for a different one.

Marik gripped the man’s shoulder.  Tru, badly startled,
jerked around, upsetting his sand pouch.  A brown wash rolled briefly across
the tabletop.

“Oh, it’s you.”  Tru frowned at the mess and flicked
his sleeve to cast off the clinging sand.

“That’s right,” Marik affirmed.  “Where’s Celerity
skulking?”

“She’s over in the building.  Another meeting.”

“A council meeting this early?”

“Yeah.  Three times a day.”  He pulled his mouth to
one side wryly.  “No point, if you ask me.  We won’t know anything until we
know something.”

Marik blinked, having forgotten the strange syntax Tru
could employ.  “When is she supposed to get back?  I came to talk with her.”

Tru returned his gaze to Marik from dusting off his
sleeve.  He glanced upward at an angle to met him eye-to-eye.  “I heard you
were chosen special to look at the mountain.  It’s weird, but then when you
were fighting you worked your power different than I’ve ever seen, so you’ve
got the others talking.  What were you doing with your sword, anyway?  I
thought magicians were the only users who could make magical objects.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“No?  Whatever you did, it made Celerity stare at the
mirror.  You hardly ever hear her talking to herself.”

“Believe me, it was nothing special.  And it was a
mistake.”

“I saw that,” Tru mentioned.  He reached his fingers
without warning to prod at Marik’s face.  “When he killed your sword.  Looked
pretty bad.”

Marik pulled his face away from Tru’s fingers with a
start.  “That part was exactly how it looked.  He never would have attacked my
sword if I hadn’t tried to get too clever.”  Which, he reminded himself, would
be a valuable lesson to remember while he searched for ideas here.

Don’t be too clever.

To distract Tru from talking about the abnormal ways
in which Marik had come to use his mage talent, he gestured at the table. 
“What are you looking for in this mess?  Is the sand telling you anything
interesting?”

“No,” the magician replied.  “Tybalt wants to know if
there’s any magic traces on the prisoners the Arm brought yesterday.  I haven’t
found any.”

Marik raised the monocle in silent question.

“That’s a nice trick Belita made.  If I use the right
spell, it works it better.  It lets me see any magic change on an item, not
just magician changes.”

“There’re no spells in this,” Marik stated, lifting
the cure-belly square.  “A friend of mine explained it.  The leather is boiled
in wax or something so it becomes almost as tough as steel even though it’s
still supple enough.”

“That’s one way,” Tru agreed.  “Except Tybalt wants
what he wants.  The eyepiece is good because I can see if it’s still natural,
or if any magic has touched it and it’s unnatural.”

Marik shook the words in his mind before decided he
understood what Tru meant.  “An item doesn’t have to be enchanted into a
permanent magical object.  It could have been altered by magic to change its
state.”

Tru nodded.  “That’s right.  My spell checks for
magician traces.  Belita’s eyepiece makes it so I can see any user’s traces,
because it changes my spell to see if the item is in a natural or unnatural
state.”  He finished pushing away the plate with the leather square.  “This has
been altered normally, but it’s still natural.”

Marik spun the monocle between his fingers.  “So this
thing is enchanted.  Belita must be a court magician if she could make a
lasting magical object.”

“No, she’s a conjuror working for the cityguard.”