Salamander (18 page)

"I suppose not." He hesitated a moment. "My mother died when I was nine. My father was one of the first plague victims that year. She nursed him and died a week after he did."

"I'm sorry. I had a much easier time of it." Her hand on the work bench moved and, almost without her willing it, touched his. For a while neither spoke. Coelus closed his eyes, remembering how he had first seen her, in woven fire. Fire and weaving. Durilil and Melia. If Durilil had not vanished, it would make perfect sense—if a man past ninety could father a child. Finally he broke the silence.
"If you were thirty years older, I wouldn't have to ask. You would be the answer."

Magister Bertram looked up as the porter entered. "Visitors at the front gate, Sir. They asked to see someone in charge here. Magister Gatekeeper sent me for you."

Bertram stood up, pulled out the wrinkles in his robe, brushed off a bit of dust and followed the porter out. A few minutes brought him to the gatehouse into which the magister gatekeeper and half a dozen visitors had crowded. One stepped forward, tall and elegantly attired: "I am Lord Iolen, nephew to His Highness Prince Kieron, who, as you may know, has been working with one of your colleagues on a project of importance. He was called away on a matter of some urgency, so I have come on his behalf. This is Captain Geffron, whom I believe you know."

The captain stepped forward, nodded. Bertram bowed to both men. "It remains only for you to say what I, and the College, can do to serve you gentlemen."

An hour later, Bertram and Lord Iolen met with Coelus in the senior common room. Bertram introduced the other two to each other.

"Lord Iolen is here from His Highness; I expect you know better than I the work he has come to assist you with."

Coelus looked a moment puzzled. "I did assure His Highness of my cooperation in one of the projects we discussed, and Ellen and I have made substantial progress, though not as much as I would have wished. I do not think any assistance is needed. When His Highness comes back, I will be glad to explain our work to him so far."

Iolen paused a moment before replying. "I have a number of skilled mages with me, whom I was given to understand might be needed for your work. His Highness is concerned about the secrecy of the project. I am prepared to take precautions to prevent word from getting out."

"Wouldn’t making a fuss be more likely to draw attention than avoid it? I confess that I know little about such matters. I welcome your cooperation, as long as you do not interfere with our work."

* * *

Jon looked up from the scroll. The hand tugging at his sleeve was Ellen’s. "What is it?"

"I need your help," she whispered.

"What for?"

"You remember what Mari told us about Lord Iolen, the Prince's nephew?"

"Son of the prince lost out when King Thoma died?
H
ates Prince Kieron with a passion?"

Ellen nodded. "He's here, with a bunch of mages and soldiers. He claims he has come from the Prince to help with work Magister Coelus is doing for His Highness. He's obviously lying. I think I know why, and someone must get a message to the Prince. The easiest way is through Mari. She's either at her father's town house in the capital or in Northpass Keep. I can give you money to rent a horse and pay for food and lodging. If you can get out of the college without raising any suspicion and ride as fast as you can to the capital, you can get my message to Mari and she can pass it on. You must be careful; Iolen may have guards watching the entrance."

Jon nodded. "Yes. Do you have the message?"

Ellen passed him a folded piece of paper, sealed.

"It's for the Prince. Mari can look at it if she wants. And you'll need this."

She handed him a small, heavy leather bag. He glanced in it.

"That's gold. It's more than I'll need."

"Better too much than too little. I have more. If I were you I would stop dressing as a student once out of sight of the gate. I don't know what precautions Iolen is taking. Good luck." She squeezed his hand, turned, left the library.

Another few minutes brought her to her room. She had the trunk open, both layers of her usual clothing off, and the tunic her mother had woven for her part of the way on when there was a knock on the door. She finished drawing it on before speaking.

"Yes?"

"You are wanted by Magister Coelus. I'll take you to him." The voice was a strange one.

"Just a minute. I was changing."

She pulled on her over tunic, checked that the amulet with its cord was around her neck and quietly closed the chest. Standing on her bed she unlatched the window shutters, pulled herself up to sit on the sill and slid feet first through the window.

"Very fetching. Stand still."

The speaker was a mage, standing by the wall ten or fifteen feet from the window. He gestured towards a soldier at his side, who lifted the bent crossbow he was holding.

"You probably know a little magic, but if you try anything tricky, you will very much regret it. Take the amulet and cord off and toss them in this direction." Ellen obeyed.

"Very good; glad to see that you are a sensible girl."

The mage raised both hands, moved them in a complicated gesture, said a Word. For a moment Ellen felt a flush of warmth, from neck to upper thigh, where the protective garment lay against her skin.

The mage stopped moving, hands still raised. There was a loud snapping sound. The soldier looked down at his bow, now unbent, the string broken, the quarrel still sitting in its channel. He dropped the weapon, reached for his short sword and snatched his hand away with a curse.

Ellen spoke calmly. "I am a fire mage. I burned your bowstring and the handle of your sword. If necessary I will burn out your eyes. You are going to escort me to the front gate and out. If anyone asks, Lord Iolen commanded you to take me to the inn. If you do anything to raise suspicion, you will never see again. Do you understand me?"

The archer looked at her, nodded.

She turned back to the mage. "On my command you will lie down, close your eyes and fall asleep. When you wake you will remember nothing that has happened in the past ten minutes. Do you understand?"

"I understand." The voice was flat, toneless.

"Make it so."

* * *

"His Highness made it clear that I was not to discuss my work with anyone. I think that includes you. It certainly includes them." Coelus gestured to the two mages standing behind Iolen.

"An admirable precaution. These, however, are two of the mages who are to assist you with the Cascade."

Coelus gave
Iolen
a puzzled look. "The Cascade? I have told His Highness that I would not work on that. I thought you were here about my work on precautions to protect His Majesty."

"That is important too. But our first priority is developing the Cascade itself. You cast the spell once already. By now you surely should have contrived a second and better version. It is that which I have come to help you with.”

"Then you can go again; I made the situation clear enough to His Highness." Coelus turned back to the papers on his desk.

"And I am making it clear to you. Your orders are to provide a detailed description of how best to implement the Cascade. My men will act on that description and I expect the spell to work. If it does not, you will find what is wrong and fix it. Do you understand?"

"I understand your commands
,” Coelus said
.
“
What I do not understand is why I should obey them."

"Because if you do not, both you and your leman will suffer for it."

It took Coelus a moment to understand. "The lady in question is my student and nothing more. The last mage who tried to force her to do something ended up convicted of violation of the bounds and banned from the use of magery. You are not a mage, but your servants are. If they intend to impose compulsions upon either of us, they might consider the consequences."

For a moment there was silence; Iolen broke it. He stepped to the door; in a moment two men came in, armed with crossbows.

"I suggest that you not move,” Iolen said. “Unless your spells can disable all five of us, it would be wiser not to cast them."

Coelus said nothing. In a few moments he found himself gagged, his feet tied to the legs of the chair he was sitting in, his hands free. Iolen spoke again. "I am leaving you with a pen and a stack of paper; you are to use them to write the information I require of you."

He turned to the two guards. "In a little while he should start writing. Let him do so; if he tries to destroy what he has written, prevent him.
Is that clear?"

The guards nodded assent; Iolen and his accompanying mages left the room.

* * *

Ellen burst through the door of Master Dur's shop, which was fortunately empty of customers. "Lord Iolen, the King’s nephew, is here with men, soldiers and mages. They have the College, they have Magister Coelus. They must know about the Cascade; it's the only reason they would be doing this. What can we do?"

Dur nodded. "Coelus is in his office, guarded; I've been watching. Iolen's people are probably setting up the Cascade; we had better get there to stop them. I'll tell you the rest as we go."

The two hurried out of the shop and down the path to the College. "Your friend Fieras is with them. The Prince must have let something slip to him. Fieras has four mages with him, one for each element, which probably means he's going to be the focus. I spent the past half hour pumping fire into the containment sphere, in case I need it.
If nothing better occurs to me I will wait till the last moment and burn him to a crisp; we should be able to get your young man out of the place in the confusion. And since Fieras is under ban, killing him when he is using magic is not only well deserved but entirely legal. With luck, Iolen will assume that Fieras went the way of Maridon. Cut left here; there may be men at the gate."

They angled off the grass towards the edge of the containment sphere. In a few minutes, Ellen stopped. "Father, look."

She was pointing at a group of men, three of them in armor, clustered around a tree a little distance outside the dome. Dur stopped, stood still a moment with his eyes closed before speaking. "Lord Iolen is being careful; sensible man."

Ellen gave him a puzzled look. "What do you mean?"

"The Cascade is being created in the same location that Coelus created it, the magisters' lawn. Iolen has crossbow men stationed on the other side of the barrier. I'll give you high odds their instructions are to watch the barrier and, if a hole appears, put a crossbow bolt through it into any mage in sight. That doesn't protect the people inside the sphere, but it means that if whoever is the focus wants to imitate Maridon and try to expand across the countryside, the odds are good that he will fail. If they don't get the mage responsible—and he's the one who would be closest to the barrier—I expect that killing one of the others would still break the pool and stop the Cascade."

Ellen nodded. "The focus could still take control over everyone inside, then work from there. What's to keep Fieras from putting a compulsion on Iolen himself?"

"I don’t know, but I expect the problem has occurred to Iolen. Whatever else he is, he isn't a fool."

Ellen touched his arm, pointed. "They've seen us; one of them is coming this way."

Durilil again closed his eyes for a moment, turned towards the barrier. "Get us through." He turned back towards the approaching soldier, gestured. Ellen lifted her hand, spoke a Word; the barrier rippled, dilated. The two mages passed through it, stepped over a low wall onto a path through the college herb garden.

Dur stood still a moment, eyes closed, as the hole in the barrier shrank to a point and vanished. "We are in time; the mages are arranged at the points but he hasn't started the schema yet. It is indeed Fieras at focus; surely Iolen has more sense than to trust him."

Ellen nodded agreement. “I don’t know what Iolen has planned, but I have an idea. If it doesn’t work, use yours.”

* * *

On the magisters' lawn the four mages had arrayed themselves on the marks Fieras had drawn. Fieras stepped to the center but was stopped by Lord Iolen's voice.

"One moment, please." He motioned to the mage beside him. Two men with crossbows at the edge of the lawn, their backs to the wall of the magister’s wing, raised their weapons.

"Before you start, there is one small precaution to be taken. Rikard is about to cast a spell on you. You will not resist it." He glanced at the archers to make his meaning clear.

Fieras stood frozen, his face a mask of surprise. "What sort of spell, My Lord?" he asked.

"A loyalty spell. Such spells do not last long on mages, but it should suffice. Rikard has written out a scroll with a second loyalty spell. As soon as the Cascade is active and you have the necessary power, cast it on Magister Coelus. You will tell us if it is necessary to fetch him or if it can be done from here.
When you have cast both spells, release the pool and the Cascade. If you cannot see how to do so, you will use the athame on the table next to you to cut one of the lines."