The Fire Mages (35 page)

“No, not impossible, but in such circumstances it would be hard for Drei – the Dush-Bai-Drashonor – to misread the signals.”

“But if I can persuade the Drashon to listen, will you hear my testimony and vouch for the truth of it?”

“I can vouch for the truth of what you say now. But your belief is not evidence.”

“But he swore to me he was innocent...”

“Nor is hearsay. I’m not a qualified law scribe, Lady, but I don’t think you will be able to get a hearing unless you can find something new to put forward.”

“But if I can, will you hear and assert the truth of what I say?”

“If the Drashon asks me to, of course.”

Her face fell, and then settled into determined lines. She knew that it was no more than a sliver of hope, but she clung to it with the desperation of one drowning clutching at anything that might float. “I will ask the Most Powerful, then.”

I didn’t witness that meeting, but I saw her later being led away by friends, tears pouring down her face.

When the petitions had all been heard and we went through to the rooms beyond for refreshments, I found myself close to the Drashon. He smiled rather wanly at me – he looked tired, I thought – but then he made his way to my side, and asked about my journey. I felt I knew him well enough to ask about the High Commander’s wife.

“Ah, poor woman!” he sighed. “She refuses to accept it. But it is done, and even if he was innocent, he can hardly be brought back to life now.”

“And Drei was quite certain?”

“Oh yes.”

“What was I quite certain about?”

I jumped, spilling my wine. I hadn’t heard Drei approach. But there was no point prevaricating. “That the High Commander was guilty,” I said. “I have had his wife asking me questions about it.”

“You mean his widow,” he said. Was that a flicker of annoyance?

“Yes.
Were
you quite certain? Was it a very obvious lie?” I was deliberately vague, not wanting to mention the blue flashes in such a crowd.

“My dear Kyra, I would hardly condemn a man to death unless I was very sure of what I was doing, would I?”

The Drashon chuckled. “You see, Lady? Nothing to worry about.” He swayed a little, and his drusse appeared at his elbow to steady him.

“Are you quite well, Highness? You look a little pale,” I said.

“Just tired, I think. So many functions lately, so much standing about. But Axandrei is treating me, so I shall soon be my old self. Yes, yes, my dear, no fuss, if you please. You will forgive me, Lady Mage, Axandrei, I am being told to go for my rest now.”

With a wry smile, he allowed his drusse to lead him away.

I wasn’t reassured.

~~~~~

Two suns after that, something terrible happened.

I was in the mages’ house studying some arcane point of law with a couple of the more junior mages, when I heard a commotion outside the room. The door banged open, and Tisha tore in. She was wearing her armoured leathers, and was muddy and sweating, her tabard torn, as if she’d come straight from a battle. I’d never seen any of the guards in such a state of disarray indoors.

“Thank all the Gods!” she cried when she saw me. “I’ve been looking all over!”

I couldn’t say a word, my hands flying to my face in terror. My first thought was Cal. Something dreadful had happened to Cal. I shook with fear.

“Whatever is it, girl?” one of the mages barked. “Out with it!”

“It’s Lakkan!” she gasped. “He’s – he’s dead!”

I couldn’t believe it. How could Lakkan be dead? I’d seen him only the afternoon before in Cal’s room, the three of us practising transferring magical energy into and out of vessels and each other. He’d teased me about the plate of cakes I chewed my way through while we worked, and said it was no wonder I was getting so big. Then he wanted to feel the baby kicking. He was so real and solid and normal, and now he was dead, gone like summer mist.

It was an accident at the guards’ barracks, Tisha said. Lakkan had been training, and then he’d stopped to rest, taking off some of his protective gear, since it was so hot. He’d been standing in the shade with a group of other mage guards, sharing a flask of water, when a stray arrow had caught him in the throat. He dropped like a tree, his blood gushing into the sand. There were healers there in a few heartbeats but no one had been able to save him.

We went to find Cal, and Tisha told her story all over again, her voice catching. Once or twice she paused, taking a heaving breath. Cal listened in frowning silence until she spluttered to a halt.

“This was some kind of training area at the barracks, then? So who uses it? Just mage guards? Any kind of guards?”

“Any,” Tisha said.

“The nobles use it too,” I said. “It’s where Drei goes to train. Anyone can go there.”

“And the arrow? Anything unusual about it?”

Tisha shook her head. “Just a standard issue type.”

Cal swore. “And I suppose no one owned up to the accident?” He swore again. “That is so – annoying.”

Tisha stared at him and I saw that her eyes were bright with tears, although she blinked them away fiercely. None of us had known Lakkan long, but probably Tisha had been closest to him, in the end.

I found I couldn’t cry. I felt I ought to. Lakkan had been a lover, after all, we’d shared nights of magic-powered passion. We’d had a connection, we were both born with magic in us. Shouldn’t I be devastated by his death? Perhaps I was too numb to feel anything.

Yet I could remember clearly how I’d felt when Cal had disappeared, the grief, the tears I’d shed, the feeling that I’d lost my only friend. I’d been devastated, thinking I’d lost him for ever. This was nothing like that. I was shocked and sorry, of course, and perhaps I would cry later, but for now I was composed.

“His family,” I said. “Who will tell his family?”

“The mage guard captain will write,” Cal said, snapping out of deep thought. “Perhaps his commander, too. You can write if you wish – we all can, all of us who knew him. I suppose he had family somewhere?”

“His parents live in Wissonlent,” Tisha said. “There’s a couple of younger sisters there too.”

“And brothers,” I said. “He has two brothers. They’re guards too. He was very close to them, I think.”

“Yes, he talked a lot about them,” Tisha said. Her voice wavered a little before she calmed herself. “He never said where they were. Perhaps he left them back at Dreshmor, although I don’t think they were elites. I hoped we’d meet them, one sun. Now none of us ever will.” She bowed her head.

~~~~~

She was wrong about that. We got to meet Lakkan’s brothers after all, and sooner than anyone could have expected. Not two suns later, as I was entering the mages’ house at the Keep, a man in nondescript brown with a bow and quiver on his back rose from a bench at the side of the entrance hall, and walked over to me, a couple of guards fluttering in his wake.

“Are you Kyra?” he said.

It was a more abrupt greeting than I was used to, but I nodded.

“Sorry, Lady,” one of the guards said. “He asked to see you, and I explained he had to make an appointment, but he insisted on waiting here. We’ll throw him out if you like.”

“I need to talk to you,” the man in brown said, ignoring the guard, his eyes never leaving mine.

I knew who he was. He wasn’t exactly like Lakkan, for his features were bland and unmemorable by comparison, but there was a family resemblance in his face and build. Even the way he walked reminded me of Lakkan.

“Look, you can’t just barge in here...” the guard began, but I cut him off with a wave of my hand.

“It’s all right. I’ll see him. Come on through.”

“But he hasn’t even given his name!” the guard wailed, as we began to walk off. “He has to be signed in!”

I laughed, but then realised the man was just doing his job. He might get into trouble if the rules weren’t followed. I turned back. “Very well. Do you have a name, stranger?”

“Crestmon abre Dissior endor Shandyria,” he said without hesitation, vivid blue flaring round his head. He helpfully spelled it out for them as they wrote it down.

“May we go now?” I asked sweetly.

The guards exchanged glances and nodded, but there was embarrassment in their faces. What did they make of it, I wondered? A man who didn’t know more than my name, and I didn’t even know that much of him. Probably they’d heard about my dalliance with Lakkan, and thought this man was an inn companion, summoned for my pleasure. Well, they could think what they liked, I didn’t care. I’d never cared much what people thought of me.

Although I still lived in Drei’s fancy apartment, I’d been assigned rooms in the mages’ house as well. I rarely used them except when I wanted a quiet place to read or study, so there were no servants living there and I kept nothing of my own in the closets and drawers. I wasn’t sure what mage had lived there before, for no one would talk about her or tell me what had happened to her, so all I knew of her was her excellent taste in decorations and furnishings. Everything was of the best quality, plain and unadorned, in basic colours livened with the odd flash of some more vibrant tone. I liked it very much and looked forward to living there, in time.

That was where I took the man in brown. A pair of guards stumped determinedly along behind us, and when I opened my door and ushered my guest through, one of them said crossly, “Lady, you’re not authorised to...”

“I know what I’m authorised to do. Will you find Lord Mage Cal, if you please? And a servant.” Then I shut the door on them.

“Do they follow you round the whole time?” the man in brown said.

“Only when I have an unknown visitor. Mages are too important to be left unguarded.”

“I’m inclined to agree with them,” he said. “Here you are, alone and defenceless, with a strange man taller and stronger than you, who is armed with a bow, a sword and two daggers. You’re very trusting.”

I was amused at that. “Not quite defenceless. I could grill you to a crisp before you could draw your sword or prime your bow.” I held out my hand and let flames run over my fingertips. To my surprise he smiled, not at all startled. “Besides,” I added, “I don’t believe I have anything to fear. You’re Lakkan’s brother, aren’t you?”

The smile vanished, his face washed with grief. He nodded. “He talked about you so much. Well, the other mage too – Cal, is it? – but mostly you. He was so excited about – the things he could do, what you were going to teach him. He showed us some of it – the fire thing. He was – so happy. I can’t believe...” He bowed his head, hand over his eyes. I led him to a chair, and he set his bow, quiver and sword against the wall before sitting. When the servant arrived, I sent for wine and cakes for him.

It was an age before Cal was found. He looked dishevelled, his clothes crumpled and his hair uncombed, as if he’d just got out of bed, although it was close to noon. He threw me a quizzical look, then he spotted the visitor and his face cleared. He realised as quickly as I had who he must be.

“This is Lord Mage Cal,” I said, “and now you had better tell us your name. Your real name, not the invented one you gave the guards.”

He smiled. “Of course. I’d forgotten you can tell. Sorry about that. I’m Millan. As you’ve guessed, Lakkan i
s—
” A flash of pain across his face. “Lakkan
was
my brother.”

“You got here quickly.” Cal slumped into a chair, legs wide.

“We’ve been here for a while. Daskan – my other brother – and I came here at the same time as Lakkan. We’ve always been together, so when he joined your group, we tagged along.”

“I think I saw you,” I said. “You have a black horse, a striking animal. Or your brother does.”

“That’s Daskan’s, yes. We sometimes stayed at the same inn as your party, if there was nowhere else available.”

“But you kept yourselves apart,” Cal said, his voice becoming hard. “Lakkan never acknowledged you. You look like him, a little, but you don’t sound anything like him. It’s as if you’re pretending to be someone else, and I can’t think of an honest reason for such secrecy. Did you kill him?”

I gasped at the abruptness of the question. The idea had never even entered my head, but when I thought about it, I could see the logic behind it. Lakkan had travelled openly with us, but his two brothers had been on the same journey, had stayed in the same inns, even, yet they’d kept themselves hidden away, had never openly made contact. Such subterfuge was suspicious.

Millan jerked to his feet, his face an angry red. “I would
never
harm my brother!”

“An accident, maybe?”

“No! I had nothing to do with it!” He turned to me. “You
know
that’s true, don’t you? Tell him! Tell him I’m not lying!”

I shrugged. “He’s not lying.” Cal knew that perfectly well, of course, but we still maintained the story that he was just a regular mage.

“Very well,” Cal said. “But why all the sneaking around? Why the phony accent?”

“I don’t have a real accent any more. I’ve always had a good ear for voices and it was convenient for our work for me to blend into the population, wherever we happened to be. I’m in Kingswell, so I talk like a local. Or I can be a Shandyrian, if you wish.” His voice changed seamlessly to the harsher accent of the southern town. “Or I still being a river boy if I needing to.” Now the words rolled off his tongue in the soft river cadence. I shivered. If I closed my eyes, it could be Lakkan standing there in front of me. It was uncanny.

Cal felt it too, staring wordlessly at him, eyes wide.

Millan sat down again abruptly, as if his legs wouldn’t hold him up. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I know it all sounds odd. I can see why you would suspect me, but I swear I had nothing to do with Lakkan’s death. I do know something about it, though. That’s why I need to talk to you.”

“If you know something, you should tell the city guards. Or someone in authority, anyway, so they can investigate.”

“I – Look, let me tell you the whole story and then you can judge what I should do. Lakkan trusted you both, so I will trust you, too.”

Cal and I exchanged glances. I nodded, and Cal said, “Very well. But if it’s a long story, you’d better pass those cakes over to Kyra. She’s liable to expire from starvation if she doesn’t get a regular infusion of them.”

Millan was startled by the sudden burst of humour, but then his lips twitched. Again he was distressingly like Lakkan when he smiled. He moved the platter nearer to me and I reached hungrily for a cake. I was always hungry.

Cal poured more wine into Millan’s glass, although I’m not sure he’d touched it. He gingerly took a sip before setting it down again. I don’t think he was used to wine in the middle of the sunlight hours. While we sat, Cal twirling a wineglass and me working my way through the cakes, Millan told us his tale. He was restless, and sometimes jumped up to pace about the room before forcing himself to settle again.

“We’ve always worked as a team, the three of us,” he began. “Lakkan was the prominent one, the face that people remembered. Well, you knew him, with his winning ways and his looks, people never forgot him. But Daskan and I – no one took any notice of us. Just faces in the crowd. We learned to take advantage of that, to blend in, to copy accents. Lakkan could be distracting people while Daskan and I – we gathered information.”

“Information?” Cal’s face froze again. “Secrets?”

“Sometimes, yes. Information that people wanted and couldn’t get directly.”

“You blackmailed people.” Now he was openly hostile.

“No. Not that. Sometimes a business owner might want to know that a supplier was negotiating with a rival. Some people want to find out if a drusse is faithful, that sort of thing. So Daskan and I became very good at sneaking around, being invisible, getting into places we weren’t supposed to be.”

“I hope there’s a point to this,” Cal said.

“Yes. Sorry, I’m... Look, it’s hard to explain. I never telling anyone what we do before, so perhaps it’s coming out muddled. But you have to know, you need to understand, so I going to tell you everything.” He took a deep breath, getting the accent under control again. “Lakkan was always good with women, in particular. He never chased them, they always came to him, but if he set his mind on a particular woman, he usually got her.”

I said nothing, but that wasn’t quite the way I remembered Lakkan. He’d definitely chased me. Well, not chased exactly, but he was the one who’d started the kissing. Not that I’d fought him off, but I hadn’t initiated anything. Although it occurred to me that I’d taken him into my bedroom, and he might have assumed that was an invitation. Maybe it was, come to that. I’d told myself it was just somewhere private we could talk about our magic, but I daresay I’d wanted him in my bed, since Cal wouldn’t oblige me. I tried to focus on Millan’s words again.