The Fire Mages (42 page)

“Touching the ball at the same time? Oh, yes! Let’s give it a go.”

There was nothing to prevent both of us crossing the bridge at once, but when we touched the ball, after a giggly moment when our hands bumped together, there wasn’t even the usual little fizz of magic.

“No, that’s not right at all,” I said. “But – you’re left handed.”

“You’ve known that for years.”

“Yes, but maybe it makes a difference. Try the other hand. Or try
both
hands, like the pillar.”

“Oh! Brilliant idea. Quick, go! Go!”

I hurried back down the bridge, and as soon as I was clear he slammed both hands against the sphere.

Glowing blue lines lit up all over the surface of it.

Cal was so shocked that he shrieked and dropped his hands. The blue glow dimmed and then winked out.

“Gods! What was that? Did you see?” He tore across the bridge towards me in an excess of nervous energy, then turned and flew back up it. “Shall I try again? Shall I?”

Without waiting for an answer, he touched the sphere again, palms of both hands flat. The lines reappeared, seeming to flow over the whole surface several times, before slowing and then becoming stationary. Then we waited. Nothing at all happened. After a long time, he removed his hands and the blue glow disappeared. Over and over he tried, but to no avail.

“What does it feel like?” I asked, when in frustration he marched off the bridge again.

“Nothing. Or rather, it feels the same as always; that little buzz and then nothing.”

“Do you want me to try?”

“No. Let me try again. I’ll see if I can use magic on it.”

I thought it unlikely but I said nothing. When he was in this kind of mood, logic didn’t help. He was too jittery to listen.

He strode back up the bridge, and hurled his hands against the stone, as if pressure would make a difference. The blue lines appeared, flowed about, settled, stopped. Everything hung in stasis. Cal growled in frustration, a low rumble that turned into a high-pitched wail.

“
Do
something, you
stupid
fucking ball!” he howled.

The stone responded. The blue lights dimmed slightly and it began to blur. That’s the best way I can describe it, because to me it looked as if the stone was spinning, slowly at first and then faster so that the surface became indistinct. However, Cal’s hands were still firmly planted, and he told me later that to him the ball never moved at all, seeming only a little out of focus such that the blue glow was spread over the whole surface.

I held my breath, hands to mouth. With magic there was no knowing what the end result would be. You tried something, and you accepted whatever happened and made a mental note for next time. I knew
something
was happening, but whether it would be positive or negative, whether it might even leave Cal crippled or insane or dead – I could only wait, heart pounding, mouth dry, and hope for the best.

Slowly the blurring settled and the ball became distinct again, the blue glow fading to nothing. Even from where I stood I could hear Cal’s ragged breath and see him shaking. His hands fell limply to his side, and like a man in a dream he stumbled back across the bridge, half falling as he stepped off, so that he had to cling to the rail, every part of him trembling.

“Are you all right?” Stupid question; obviously he wasn’t.

“Wine,” he said, his voice thin and high. “Need wine.”

I scuttled round to find some. There were any number of jugs lying around, but the mages were usually thirsty when they rested between patrols and it took me a while to find a jug that wasn’t empty. I found Cal sitting on the floor with his back to one of the book stacks, as if he’d leaned against it and just slid down to the ground like a dropped doll.

He sipped the wine, then caught my eye and started to laugh. Once he started he couldn’t stop, an odd hysterical laugh like a man not quite sane.

“Are you all right?” I said again, and it was still a stupid question but I couldn’t find the words for anything more coherent. I was close to hysterics myself.

“I’m fine,” he said before another fit of giggles took him. “All this time... stupid thing... just needed to swear at it!”

I saw the funny side myself, then, and we both laughed till tears ran down our cheeks.

“But what did it do?” I said as soon as I could string a sentence together.

Another burst of laughter. “Nothing. Weird experience, so, so weird, but... no effect at all. It hasn’t changed anything.”

“Shall I try it?”

“No!” He was serious all of a sudden. “We don’t know if it might have an effect on the baby.” I saw the sense of that. “Gods, I’m tired. Let’s go to bed, shall we?”

I had no objection to that.

We slept late the next morning, exhausted by the events in the library rather than any bedroom activities. I didn’t mind; it comforted me just to have Cal there, to feel him lying along my back, his breath warm against my neck, one arm casually resting on my hip.

He was calmer when he woke, and we got up and dressed with all the relaxed familiarity of a couple long married, rooting through drawers for undergarments, stepping round each other with practised ease. We were so late for morning board that the servants were cleaning and tidying the other rooms. After that, they would clear away the food whether we’d eaten or not. Then they worked on the upstairs rooms before they disappeared for several hours, returning only for evening board.

As we passed the door to the room where they were working, murmuring away to each other, Cal stopped dead, so that I slapped into his back with a little ‘oof’.

“What—?”

“Ssh!” Silence fell. “Shit, they’ve stopped.” He strode into the room where the servants were, and they turned to him, moon-faced. One held a lamp and a flask of oil, the other a cloth and a jar of polish, frozen in mid-task. For a moment, no one spoke. Then one of the servants said something in his impenetrable language.

Cal gave a strangled cry and then replied, and to my utter astonishment, he spoke in the same language. They had a short conversation, then he turned back to me with a grin. Grabbing my elbow, he dragged me down the hall to the morning board room.

“It
did
do something!” he hissed. “The ball – it gave me the language.” He chortled with delight.

“You can understand them?” It was so incredible to me that I could hardly make sense of it.

“Understand and talk to them. I’ve asked for some cakes for you, those little fruity ones you like so much. D’you want some cheese? I am so hungry.”

We soon found another consequence of Cal’s newly enlightened state; he could see signs everywhere that had been completely invisible to us before, and he could understand them too.

“Oh look, the street of the honest moon,” he’d say, pointing to a blank piece of wall. Or “Malvinordrius the Beetle lives here,” on a modest house. “The street of the sun turning west. Three stones to the house of remembering and forgetting. The hall of dream lights. What bizarre names.”

“Maybe they sounded better in the original,” I said.

In the library, there were many more signs, labels on every section of the book stacks, signs on walls pointing to the exits and bucket rooms, places to leave books that were finished with, a table marked ‘Enquire here’, and the universal library admonishments: ‘No running’, ‘Do not remove books from this room’, ‘Respectful quiet at all times’. Cal ran gleefully up the stairs to the upper stacks to find vast arrays of books he could now read and understand.

“This will be so useful for the scholars,” I said.

He flicked his fingers. “Unimportant. Just now we need to find something that will tell us how to get Drei out.”

“Shall I try the stone? Then I can help you search through the books.”

He hesitated. “We still don’t know all the consequences. I don’t like to expose you and the baby to such strong magic. You’ve had enough to cope with just lately.”

I was disappointed, but I saw the sense of it. I’d seen the effect it had had on Cal, and I was in no hurry to submit myself to such a violent event, just for the ability to learn the ancient language of the city. While he scrambled over the stacks looking for books on the city itself, occasionally shouting down about some find or other, I sat alone at a table down below, my mind empty, enjoying the solitude. I should have felt nervous knowing Drei could reappear at any moment, but Cal’s presence reassured me, as always. After a while, Cal disappeared round the far side of the stacks. The silence began to grate so I fetched the book we’d looked at before, the one with plans of the city, and started riffling idly through the pages, the drawings passing under my unfocused eyes.

My father always said that the mind is a subtle tool, which works best when allowed the freedom to wander wherever it will. Or so he told my mother when he sat outside of a summer evening chewing graylon leaves and she reminded him about unfinished chores. “The mind is like a child,” he would say, “in needing space to roam free and build connections with the world. Leave me be, wife, when I’m building connections.” Then she would sigh and go and do whatever it was herself.

He was right, though. Sometimes ideas just pop into your head when you least expect them, when you’re not even thinking about the problem you need to solve. I wasn’t thinking about anything at all as I turned the pages, letting each picture with its fine detail float before my eyes for a few heartbeats. I wasn’t even looking at them properly. Then I stopped. Turned back a couple of pages. There! The entrance to the library as seen from the square outside, the big double doors wide open, the lobby clearly visible. There was no book. I flipped the pages forward to find the drawing of the room with the stone statue on its plinth. No book there either.

The answer came to me, clear as water.

“Cal! Cal, where are you?” Footsteps clonking along a high walkway. “The book! We have to look at the book!” My voice rose with excitement.

He waved his hands in both directions. “Any particular book?”

“The blank book in the entrance.”

For a moment he just stared at me, then he got it. He disappeared, and all I heard was feet slithering and clattering down the metal stairs. His face with brilliant with elation. Without a word he tore off towards the entrance, with me trotting along behind.

As soon as he reached the book, he squealed and punched the air in delight.

“Can you read it?”

“Yes! Oh yes! Although some words are hard to translate. Here’s the list of chapters.” He flipped through the pages, reading slowly. “ 
‘The Catastrophe.’ ‘The only solution.’ ‘The arrangements for survival.’
Hmm, depressing stuff. It’s all about what they did to protect people.
‘Alternative forms of the gift.’
Oh. That’s about spellpages. They invented spellpages so that the gift – that’s magic, I suppose – could continue. Then it’s about how the city operates.
‘The... procurement of fresh food.’ ‘The management of the... mines.’
Mines! I didn’t know there were mines. Hmm, what’s that word?
‘Power... power sources.’
See, it’s a guidebook for the city.
‘The provision of slaves.’
 ”

“Slaves!”

“Oh. Look at this...” His voice rose. “This is what we want. ‘The retrieval of Non-Blessed. It may on... occasion occur that some Non-Blessed will, by accident or wilful misbehaviour, stray into the... Citadel, and thereby be drawn into slavery, being required to attend the needs of the Blessed in... perpetual service, which state is an honour and should be received with deep gratitude. However, it may be that such may still have value to their former owners or kin. Therefore, in their great... mercy, the Blessed have decreed that such persons may be recalled from slavery and may choose to return to their former less radiant life if they insist.” Well, they have a good opinion of themselves, these Blessed.”

“That’s us, I suppose. The Blessed are those with magic who live in the city – Citadel. But do they tell us how to do it? Because that’s what we need, isn’t it, to get Drei back?”

“It’s all here,” he whispered. “We can do it. We’d better find Krayfon.”

~~~~~

It took some time to round up the mages and explain to them what needed to be done. The stone statue on the plinth was the key to it, so that evening eight of us met there to attempt to summon Drei from the depths of the city.

“I don’t like Kyra being here,” Krayfon said for about the twentieth time.

“Neither do I,” Cal said impatiently, “but it has to be someone who has a claim on Drei.
‘An interest under the law’
is how the book puts it. Kyra’s his drusse and also has magical power, so she’s the best choice.”

“I wish it didn’t have to be at night.”

Cal sighed. “This room has windows, so the sun might give him some power straight away. This will only work if he has no magic. Kyra will summon him, then he has to choose and only then can we use the sleep spell. Is everyone clear? Don’t try anything until he’s chosen. We must wait until he touches the ball of the statue and chooses. Then he will either vanish again – somehow, we don’t quite know how – or he will stay in the room.”

“How will we know that he’s chosen to stay? Is there a sign?”

“It’s not clear.” Cal frowned. “The book just says, ‘Should the slave choose to reunite with the summoner, he or she will be released from all further obligation towards the Blessed and may leave the Citadel.’ So we’ll just have to pick our moment to sleep spell him. Once he’s asleep, we can bundle him up and get him to the warded room. But no one must use magic in here until the choosing is over, that’s very clear. ‘Dire consequences’ are mentioned. Are you ready, Kyra?”

I nodded, not trusting my voice. I was weak from terror. Within a short time, Drei would be here and he’d always been unpredictable. The whole undertaking was fraught with danger, and surely we would be lucky to pull this off. Yet we had to try. At least this way we had some measure of control.

I stepped onto the platform and rested my hand on the rounded top of the statue. There was a slight fizz of magic, but nothing more. Cal had told me exactly what to say and what it meant, and it was very simple.

“I summon Axandrei, en Dush-Bai-Drashonor fen Bennamore, I who have that right.”

The rounded top of the statue lit up with a blue glow under my hand, and there was a noticeable crackle of magic. Then we waited.

“Don’t move your hand,” Cal said. “Otherwise we have to start again.”

“I know, I know.”

For an age we stood, immobile, me on the platform, the mages in a loose circle around the room. They were armed with heavy sticks borrowed from the guards, just in case, and Cal had his knife in his hand. Two of them carried long lengths of chain for tying Drei up once he was asleep. He was a strong, well-muscled man, and we didn’t want to risk him getting free again.

What if he didn’t come? If he had already escaped, there would be no way to summon him. But then presumably the blue glow would disappear if he couldn’t be found.

The stone under my hand flared brighter momentarily, there was a shimmer on the platform beyond the statue and there he was. He looked exactly as I’d expected, with the same brown and gold uniform as all the others, the same blank face, but somehow it was still a shock. His hair was much shorter, but otherwise he was the same Drei.

No one moved or spoke. We waited as he looked around, the faintest of frowns on his forehead, and then slowly raised his arm and reached for the top of the statue. The instant he touched it, there was another flare, then it settled again to a steady glow.

Immediate awareness flooded Drei’s features. The book had told us that at this point he would remember his life before his enslavement as well as his life afterwards, so that he could make an informed choice. How many people would choose slavery? Some who came from nothing at all, I suppose, who would be glad to have regular food and shelter and none too arduous work. Drei would choose freedom, undoubtedly.

He gazed around, a slight smile on his face, then his eye returned to me and he grinned. “Well, isn’t this nice? Greetings, my faithful drusse. How kind of you to release me. And so many mages to welcome me back. They don’t look very friendly, though. I don’t think they plan to feast me in celebration of my return, do you?”

“You’re lucky to be here,” I said. “There were those who wanted you dead, and it was only Cal’s arguments that persuaded them to put you on trial instead. You’ll have the chance to defend your actions, if you can.”

“Oh yes, Cal.” His eyes flicked across and back. “So generous, he is, screwing you as soon as my back is turned. I’m sure I’m very grateful to him.”

Cal shifted restlessly and gripped his knife so hard his knuckles were white, but said nothing.

“So you should be,” I snapped. “He’s the one who got the giant stone working, and was able to read the book and tell us how to get you out. For all I care, you could have rotted down there.”

A flicker of interest in Drei’s eyes, and again he glanced at Cal and back to me. Then his eyes drifted down to my swollen belly and up again. A tiny smile. “So. I truly owe him – something.”

It was Krayfon who stepped forward. “Stop talking! Just choose, and let us get on with this.”

Before the words were out of his mouth, the stone flared a vivid blue and died away. Drei lunged forward and grabbed my wrist. I screamed, but I couldn’t stop my magic from pouring into him.

“
Sleep!
” someone yelled, but it was too late. Drei was smarter than we were.

The mages leapt into panicky action, sticks waving in a blur of arms and bodies. Drei let go of me so roughly that I stumbled off the platform, bumped into someone, crashed into a flailing arm. Someone shrieked, voices shouted, one of the mages slumped to the ground. Someone pulled my arm, then let go with a cry. Then something heavy cracked into my head and I fell into blackness.