The Fire Mages' Daughter (17 page)

The centre of the house opened into an ovoid courtyard, with marble benches and a trio of mismatched dry fountains. Nothing in this house was symmetrical. Several stairs curved upwards to the higher floors, two storeys in some cases, and three or perhaps four in others. It was hard to tell from the motley collection of turrets and towers, domes and protrusions visible from below.

But when I explored upstairs, there was a surprise: each stair led to a separate set of rooms, not connected as the lower apartments were. That was interesting. The occupants, then, shared their daily living space on the ground floor, but up above each had his or her own set of rooms.

In one of the upper rooms, I found the only decoration in the building. In a small, domed tower, two facing walls each bore a painting, one a man, one a woman. They wore long flowing clothes, not unlike my azai, although with the addition of a headband decorated with feathers and dangling gems, and a scarf about the shoulders. Their hair was loose to the waist, and each bore a tattoo on their forehead.

Mages. Perhaps from before the Catastrophe, who could tell? Long dead, that much was certain. Yet here they were, a little larger than life, their dark skin glowing with vitality, the colours of their clothes still vivid, smiling at each other down the ages. I stared at them a long time, but there was no magic in them now. Despite the eerie realism, they were just pigments on stone.

The house could tell me nothing more. Any garden or cellar or outbuilding had long gone, and all that remained was the stonework, and the still-unblemished windows. I returned to the terrace.

Ly-haam was already back, building a fire in the square of stones and setting a pot of water to boil. He had quite a haul laid out on one of the stone seats: a couple of a larger type of rodent, some roots, a variety of green stuff, some mushrooms and eggs, and a few things I couldn’t identify.

He sat on the floor, one leg folded under him, the other bent against his chest, skinning and slicing and chopping, then adding the pieces to the pot, totally absorbed in his task.

I watched, fascinated. I had never cooked a meal in my life, and I’d have been hard pressed to manage even something as simple as Ly’s stew. There had always been servants to do such things. I couldn’t imagine enjoying such a task, either, yet Ly seemed quite happy. Once or twice he glanced up at me and smiled, before bending to his work again.

Once he’d finished that, he rummaged in the storage space under the seat and brought out a bag of flour, although a dark, coarse kind, not like the sort the cooks had used at home. He made it into a paste, then rolled it into a ball and flattened it, and put it on a hot stone to cook. A kind of bread, although a primitive type.

Then it was just a matter of tasting the stew, and adding a little of this or that, although how he knew what to add was beyond me. It all seemed very mysterious.

Yet when we came to eat, it was delicious. The stew was light and flavourful, and the bread was sweet, dense and chewy. I ate a great deal. There were a few berries afterwards, very small and with a sharp taste, but so juicy. I thought I’d never eaten anything so good.

Afterwards, Ly went off to clean the spoons and bowls at the lake shore. I offered to help, rather reluctantly, for I didn’t think my cleaning skills were any better developed than my cooking skills, but Ly just laughed. “I can do it. You rest.”

When he had stowed everything away to his satisfaction, he came and sat on the ground at my feet, like a supplicant at the temple.

“May I talk to you? If it please you.”

“What about?” But his face told me all I needed to know, the anguish written on it. “Yes, of course.”

“Drina, I am so, so sorry for what happened.” He ran one hand over his face, closing his eyes. “I know you can never forgive me – you must hate me. I hate myself! It was unforgivable. Ah, I do not have the words to express it.”

I said nothing. I don’t know whether he expected me to say something – no, it’s all right, you couldn’t help yourself, I quite understand – but I couldn’t. It was horrible for both of us, but he was the one who had locked himself in that room with me, knowing what would happen. He’d made that choice. I’d had no choice at all.

“No apology is adequate, I know that,” he went on. “But I am going to make a promise to you. I will not allow that to happen again. It will be two or three sun-crossings before the… the
need
builds up again, and when that happens I will leave. Go far away. You will be safe from me.”

He gave a half-smile. “So I have brought you here for a little while, and you can have some rest. I will take care of you – cook for you, make sure you have whatever you need. And to prove my sincerity, I will tell you everything.”

“Everything?”

“About myself. My people. Our ways. Our customs. I will answer any question you ask me.”

Finally, I was getting somewhere. All I needed to do was find out how to wrest control of the eagle away from him, and I could be free. And I had two or three suns to do it. Surely that would be enough?

I smiled.

“So what do you wish to know?” Ly said.

Everything.
But I had to be careful. My sole objective was to find a way to escape from captivity, but if I asked too directly, this openness could evaporate in a heartbeat.

So. Start with the easy questions.

“Why are you drawn to me so strongly?”

His face clouded. “I wish I had the answer to that. It does not happen with other women. With them I feel… a need, a desire, but it is not so overwhelming. But with you…! It frightens me. I cannot control it. And it has become worse. The first time, when we met at the camp, it was several sun-crossings before I was unable to resist. Then on the road to Kingswell, it flared up at once. And last night… It was horrible. And yet… afterwards, I feel good. Normal. I am myself again, as I was before the blood ceremony.”

He smiled at me, but when I didn’t smile back, he ducked his head down again.

“One thing I don’t understand,” I said, “is why I am only affected when I touch you. Without that, I feel nothing.”

His head shot up again. “Ah, now that I can answer. That is normal.”

“
Normal?
”

“For women. To be drawn to me in that way. It is the power of my blood – my seed – that calls to them. Of course, most women come to me freely. They want a child, or just the power of my seed to enhance their connection, so they offer themselves. If I like one, I take her to the room, the one with the bed. But…”

He frowned, and the head lowered again. “They tell me it is not a pleasant experience for them. Not painful, but… strange. Is it so for you, too?”

Strange. That was an inadequate word for that curious sense of dislocation, of falling from a great height. A mixture of exhilaration and unmitigated terror. I nodded.

“They showed me some tricks,” he added, suddenly eager. “A few of the older women. They said that it was unpleasant for them, so I owed them the same pleasure they’d given me. They taught me what to do. Kissing and so on. Drina, I would love to do the same for you, if you wish it. To give you some enjoyment from this, for you have had none so far.”

Kissing and so on? I’d read about such things but the thought of him doing
that
to me – or touching me at all – was abhorrent to me. I shuddered. “No.”

“Oh.” His face fell.

“I don’t want you anywhere near me. Not in any intimate way.” But the thought of kissing had reminded me of Arran, and for a moment grief washed through me like a tidal wave. His lips on mine – how I missed that, and his strong hands holding me, pulling me to him, holding me tight while he—

Stop it. No use thinking about it now. Arran was gone.

I found myself pacing about the terrace, although I couldn’t remember getting up. Ly-haam had swivelled round to watch me, his expression anxious.

Taking deep breaths to calm myself, I sat down again.

Ly spun round to face me. “Of course. Whatever you wish,” he said, but I couldn’t remember what I’d said.

I had another thought. “Did you find out why I can connect to your eagle? You said you would see what your people could tell you about it.”

“No. They do not believe it.”

“But I flew here on your eagle!”

“They think I trained her to do that. But it is not true. I left her there so that I could see you sometimes. I… I miss you, Drina. There is a kinship between us, I think. I wish we had met in a different way. But the eagle… you could not have ridden her without a connection, I am sure of it. A
strong
connection.”

“But your connection is stronger.”

“Well, yes, of course. I am
byan shar
. My connection overrides even that of my mother.”

“Your mother?” That was confusing. What did she have to do with anything?

“The eagle you flew – she is bonded to my mother. That is the primary bonding. You are a secondary bonding. That happens, sometimes, although usually within kin groups.”

“So your bonding is another secondary bonding?”

“No, no. It is called… I do not know the word, but it means like a god. A greater power. I can connect to every bonded beast, and to all those they are bonded with. They are in my head.”

He smiled at the astonishment on my face.

“You can hear them?” I whispered, appalled. “All of them? All your people?”

He nodded. “When I am stronger and have learned more control, I will be able to shut them out when I wish, as I can with you. But for now, they are there, all the time. It drives me insane. That is why I choose to be alone so much, why I went to Kingswell by myself. I needed to escape from them. But with you…” He raised his hands expansively. “It is good. Quiet. That is why I love being with you, Drina, because however dreadful it is, that terrible thing I do to you, afterwards the noise is all gone. There are no voices in my head, no beasts pulling at my mind. It is so peaceful.”

“That is an awful fate, to be the focus of everything.”

Another nod. “I am like the spider at the centre of the web.”

But I thought he was more like a fly, trapped and helpless, even more than I was.

~~~~~

That evening we ate more of the stew, and a couple of fish Ly had netted on the shore. He made more bread, a sweet kind with honey and dried fruit, which was delicious. He cleaned up again, and then divided the furs into two piles.

“It will be warm enough to sleep outside,” he said. “However, you may go indoors if you wish.”

Then he curled up on the floor, well away from the walls, and went to sleep.

I considered taking my share of the furs to some far corner of the house, but there was no comfort in those endless empty rooms and bizarre curved walls. Ly might be a strange boy, but he was not as alien as this house. So I found a wide seat far from his recumbent form, and made a neat bed with the furs.

Sleep was far from my thoughts, however. The western sky was still painted in desert colours, so I sat on the terrace steps watching the light fading imperceptibly to night. Ly’s energy still fizzed inside me from the night before, warming my belly and filling me with vitality. My body exuded health and my mind was clear. Even as he was drained of all his abnormal power, so I was full of it. It was similar to the surge of magic from the birds in the Imperial City. Something in me drew in magic – from my mother, from the birds, from Ly.

All my senses were enhanced. When we had left the castle that morning, the rattle of noise around me and the threat of Ly’s guards had blotted it out of my consciousness, but even through the turmoil, I’d been aware of something in the people surrounding me. Just as I could detect the mages’ vessels at Kingswell, so here I could detect – something. But what?

I let my consciousness float outwards, beyond Ly, for there was nothing left in him. Nor was there anything nearby, for the neighbouring islands were all deserted. But further afield – there! Something pricked at my mind. As I reached for it, I was deluged with many, many somethings. Too many to tease apart.

Back away. That was too difficult. I tried a different approach, scanning for one familiar presence. My eagle, as I’d come to think of her, was not too far away at all, sitting on a rocky outcrop on a small island. Through her eyes, I could see the castle and the dark shapes of buildings and
clava
along the shore.

The eagle clicked her beak in greeting. She was pleased that I was there. I probed a little further. Ly was not connected to her, since he was asleep, but there was a faint presence – Ly’s mother. I sensed anger in her – was she always angry like this, or was it because of me? Her mind was very different from Ly’s. Soft and weak, with no resistance. I could have marched through her thoughts and memories like trampling a field of wheat, or so it seemed. It was tempting, but if she became aware of me, it would inflame her even more.

But there was something else inside her, the oddness I’d been aware of that morning. Magic. She had a little magic inside her. It was muddy, not bright like the sun, as my mother’s was. Nor was it concentrated into one place, like the mages with their vessels. It was distributed all around her body, pulsing and moving, constantly flowing. Her blood – she had magic in her blood.

Was that what enabled her to bond with the eagle? Probably. But magic was something I understood. It was something I’d learned to reach out and take whenever I wanted. Could I take this woman’s magic from her? As soon as I had the thought, it happened. I felt the little trickle as it made its way to me.

I jumped out of her mind at once, terrified that she would realise what I’d done and make a fuss. But curiosity got the better of me, and I connected again. Her mind was unchanged, quite oblivious of me. I took a little more of her magic, and hopped away from her once more. The next time I went back there was bewilderment in her. Finally she had realised something had happened, but she had not the least idea what it was.

She would be shocked when she worked it out. I hadn’t intended it, but I’d taken all her magic. She’d had so little that it had only taken two bites to deplete her reserves completely. Now she was helpless, and had no bond with the eagle.

I laughed out loud. That was easier than I’d imagined. The eagle was almost mine.

All I had to do now was find a way to break Ly’s bond with the beast as well. That was going to be much trickier.

~~~~~

I woke to find Ly crouched over his campfire, with delicious cooking smells tempting my nose. Eggs and mushrooms, fried up with some kind of yellow fruit, and yet another kind of bread on the hot stones. I was famished, I realised.

“You must have been up with the sun to gather all this food,” I mumbled through a mouthful of crusty bread.

He laughed. “No. It takes me no time. My people have connections to many things, not just beasts.”

It took me a moment to grasp his meaning. “Things like mushrooms? And eggs? And you have the same connections? So you just…
know
where to find things?”

He nodded. “Whatever I need, I can sense it. And animals come to my hands when I summon them. Would you like to see? There are some deer nearby.”

I nodded, and his eyes lost focus for a moment. Almost at once, he was back. “There. They will come.”

He bent to the cooking stones, deftly turning mushrooms, while I ate hot bread and waited patiently for the rest. After a while, he looked up, caught my eye and pointed. There they were, a doe and her kid, only a few paces away. I didn’t dare move, but they seemed quite unafraid.

“That is astonishing.”

He smiled, and shook his head. “To me, it is commonplace. Many of my people can do this. My father, for one. It is very useful.”

I could imagine. It made his hunting and gathering abilities a bit less impressive, but I was developing great admiration for his cooking skills. I could watch him for hours, cleaning and skinning and chopping, tossing this and that into the stewpot, seemingly at random. Or kneading and shaping his bread dough, bent over the flat stone he worked on with intent concentration.

He was so pleasant to be with, when he was like this. He was a serious boy at heart, nothing like the too-smiley, slippery character he’d portrayed when I’d first met him. Here he was not pretending, and he was comfortable with himself. I could get to like him, if only this side of him would last. Not that I would be staying long enough to care.

Late in the morning, we had a visitor. A small rowing boat appeared offshore, bobbing about precariously as a woman stood and yelled across the water to us. From the terrace, she was barely audible, but I recognised the voice anyway. No one else had quite such penetrating tones. His mother. Just what we needed.

I climbed onto the low wall edging the terrace and dangled my legs, ready to enjoy the spectacle.

“Little-Ly!” she shrieked. “Come out where I can see you, this second!”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. He was kneeling, busy gutting a fat fish, but he jumped up and poked his head above the wall.

“Come nearer! Don’t skulk like that, you silly boy.”

He descended the steps to the scrubby grass that fringed the perimeter of the house and took a few paces towards the shore. “What do you want, Mother?”

“Something’s wrong with Sunshine. I can’t feel her at all. Is she dead?” She waved her arms for emphasis, and the boat tilted alarmingly. The two oarsmen shifted to balance the movement.

Sunshine?
The eagle, presumably, but what a trite name for such a magnificent bird.

“Wait… No, she’s fine. A bit faint, that’s all.”

“Well, why can’t I feel her? If
you
can, I certainly should—”

“Look, I’ve no idea, Mother. Is there any word from the—” A long pause. “The enemy? About the prisoner.”

Ah, quick thinking. He doesn’t want to use any words I might understand, like
‘Bennamore’
. I chuckled inwardly. It was very useful, this ability to understand another language. More useful, perhaps, than finding mushrooms.

“Your whore, you mean? They don’t want her back, and who can blame them? They put an arrow into our messenger, that’s how civilised
they
are. We should take her out to the middle of the lake and tip her over the side. That’s all she deserves. Little-Ly! Come back! Don’t you sodomising walk away from me, you wicked boy!”