The Magic of Recluce (23 page)

I shivered, seeing for the first time, really, what he had meant. And all that because of not understanding?

For the first time, then, I got angry, really angry, so angry that my jaw clenched, and my eyes burned. So angry that I felt the chill air around me as a relief from my own heat.

To avoid some minor chaos in Recluce, to avoid a little unpleasantness, they shipped off me, and Tamra, and Krystal, and all the others, without even spelling out the temptation problem, knowing that all dangergelders were flawed, seeking answers or power or
something
. And that thirst would leave us all potential victims of the Antonins of the world.

Justen watched, an amused smile upon his face.

“What's so funny?”

“You. You've read a few pages, and you're ready to tear apart all of Recluce.” He kept smiling.

“How do you know?”

“I felt that way once, too.”

“You're from Recluce.”

“I didn't say that. I said that I felt that way,” he corrected me gently.

Wheeee…eeee
…Gairloch jabbed his nose into my shoulder.

I reached for Justen's brush—another item I really needed if I were going to take care of a horse. Then I thought about my dwindling funds and almost groaned. Everything seemed to cost something…and far more than I had thought possible.

A
BSENTLY FINGERING THE
green scarf at her neck before letting her left hand drop, the redhead looks at the hearth where no fire burns.

Her thoughts turn, as they have so often, to the unanswered questions. Why has the white wizard been so willing to share his knowledge, to accept her as an equal, when the Masters of Recluce had so grudged every speck of knowledge?

The staff warms under her palm as she ponders, not really watching the white mage as he sits in the chair that is not quite drawn up to the inlaid table. He frowns with perhaps the first frown she has seen.

“Why frown?” she asks. “These are certainly better quarters than the inn at Hydolar. It appears that the viscount does provide for those who do good.”

“You are still skeptical,” comments Antonin, his mellow voice conversational. “What would it take to convince you? Perhaps another technique you can use to improve your understanding?”

Her lips quirk in an expression that is neither smile nor irritation, but some of each.

“This one is simple enough to show you, just as I showed you how to cloak yourself from the sight of those who do not need to see.” His voice assumed the tone of a patient master. “I promised you that I would teach you how to reach your full abilities. Have I not kept my promise?”

The redhead nods grudgingly.

Antonin sighs softly. “Then, perhaps I should provide another lesson—one that will improve your understanding as well. I assume that you would like to know why the Masters of Recluce hide such simple techniques, and why the Brotherhood forced you out without even bothering to acknowledge your abilities?”

The woman in the green scarf nods again. “Haven't I said so?”

“You have. But you have also said that mere words are not enough, that words conceal as much as they reveal, and that you are more than a little bit tired of being put off.” He sighs, again softly. “You will have to concentrate. Put both hands on your staff, and look down at the mirror here.”

She frowns, for she had not seen the mirror appear on the table, but she looks into the misty swirls that resemble white clouds blocking the images that must exist behind the mists.

“Look deeply into the glass. Look for the answers.” His voice resonates slightly. “The mirror represents the barriers in your thoughts, the barriers to full understanding. Think of nothing at all, of silence, of stillness…”

Now…just think about the answers you deserve…

The words hang in her mind, not in her ears.

What would you not give to understand? Reach toward the glass with your thoughts, just your thoughts, not your hands, and I will show you understanding…

The redhead topples forward before the dark-haired woman catches her shoulders.

“It took you long enough…”

“Sephya.”

The coldness of her name stops the woman's mouth.

“Now…before she can assert her identity. Now…” His forehead is beaded in sweat, and fine lines seem to have instantly aged his face.

The dark-haired woman grasps the hands of the immobile and wide-eyed redhead and begins to turn the redhead's face so that their eyes meet—lined dark eyes and clear blank eyes.

On the table the white mists swirl in the mirror that reflects the struggle.

Shortly, only a pile of dust remains where the dark-haired woman had been seated. As the redhead stands, the fire in her hair flickers, then begins to darken.

“I never did like red hair…”

Antonin passes his hand across the mirror, and the glass reflects the dark-beamed ceiling above. “The viscount will be expecting us shortly. Wake me when the time is right.” He totters toward the expansive bed.

The dark-haired woman gestures at the dust on the chair, which swirls, flares, and vanishes. “And she thought she could trust you…”

The white wizard glares, but says nothing as he stretches out upon the white coverlet.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, which was ushered in by bright sunshine and cold gusty winds, Justen again appeared to be the not-quite-youthful gray wizard, up and saddling Rosefoot while I was still rolling my bedroll and trying to wash and shave in the icy brook water. The fallen leaves from the brush around the brook no longer crunched underfoot, but neither was it warm enough for there to be the moldering smell of spring.

Cleaner was definitely colder than having a dirty face and hands, but I swore that Justen hadn't winced when he washed. Did gray wizards use their powers to heat cold water? Probably, but if it were a chaos-power, I'd forego hot water through magic. The feeling of chaos-isolation was too recent.

I wiped off my trousers and cloak as well as I could, wondering how Justen's light-gray clothes always looked so good, when my own darker garb was beginning to look ratty. Then again, I wasn't certain I really wanted to know.

Wheee…eeee
…Gairloch pawed at the ground, as if to indicate his readiness to take to the road and that he'd had enough of old grass and greaseberry leaves.

So I strapped on my bedroll and pack and climbed into the old saddle. “How far is it to Weevel, or whatever it is?”

“Weevett. We should be there before midday…depending on the road.” Justen rode easily, not really using the reins, nor lurching in the saddle the way I still did.

With the wind coming at us out of the west, I could already smell the faintest hint of wood smoke, and over the low hills before us rose only a single thin plume of twisted white or grayish smoke. The valleys were either cleared for pasture or were natural meadows, with no sign of crop fields or orchards.

Before we had gone much more than a kay, we passed a rude hut set back from the road on the right and surrounded with a split rail fence, behind which milled a few hogs. Someone in shapeless leathers was pouring water into a long trough. Beyond the fence grazed several dozen sheep.

“When did we leave Montgren?”

“Actually, we haven't. The countess holds Frven, but that really doesn't count. Nobody wants that land. The border between Montgren and Certis is on the other side of Weevett.”

“More guards, I suppose?”

“No guard posts, just two stone pillars. The countess is a realist. She just hangs or shoots those who displease her, the ones her few soldiers catch. They don't catch too many, since most of her modest guard is at Vergren.”

Vergren was somewhere generally northwest of us, according to the maps I had studied.

I hadn't traveled all that far, and here I was about to enter the third kingdom or duchy or whatever. “Are they all as small as Montgren?”

Justen shook his head. “Some are, like Freetown. Hydlen and Gallos stretch over three hundred kays north and south. Kyphros is even bigger, and it's the only duchy that actually would qualify as a true kingdom. That has bothered the Prefect of Gallos ever since the previous autarch carved out the realm from the surrounding kingdoms.”

The names of Gallos and Kyphros were familiar, but that was about all. There was something else about Kyphros, but I didn't recall what at the moment.

We rode past a second rough hut, this time on the south side of the road, again with a split-log fence enclosing another wooden trough, and black-faced sheep indistinguishable from those behind the fence on the north side of the road.

The tops of the gentle hills contained ample trees to supply the rails for the fences, as well as logs in numbers far greater than necessary for the few buildings likely to be found in Weevett or those in Howlett. Even Vergren—the smallest capital in Candar, famed only for the diversity of its wool products—would not have made a dent in the lumber that could have been taken from the heights of the hills, especially since a fair number of the trees were red or black oak.

In time, as we rode, the huts appeared more frequently, changing from little more than log hovels into rough-planked houses with thatched roofs.

By now the sun stood high and white in the sky, but the ground remained as frozen as ever. While my breath no longer resembled steam in the chill air, I alternated placing my ungloved hands under my tunic to warm them.

Justen rode with his cloak open, without gloves, and without any sign of discomfort. My buttocks were sore, my hands chapped and chill, and my legs threatened to cramp, even with repeated standing in the stirrups to stretch them.

As we traveled down another of the unending gentle hills, the packed red road-clay merged, over a kay or so, into a packed sand-and-pebbles surface frozen into shallow ruts. Gairloch's hooves clicked on the smooth small rocks, and I worried about his catching a stone in a hoof.

The roadside lands bore the winter-stubble of maize and the turned soil of recovered root crops; the farm houses came closer together. In time we descended toward a small river, the first I had seen larger than a stream since I had landed in Freetown. Though the river was surrounded by some low brush, I could see no trees along the streambed either to the north or the south.

Where the road flattened near the bottom of the hill, it also straightened and ran arrow-like to an ancient stone bridge across the river.

“The bridge marks the edge of Weevett,” observed Justen.

“Is that important?” I was bored with the same-looking huts and houses, with the sullen people who looked away from us, and with the rolling gray and brown of hill and valley after hill and valley, sheep after identical and smelly sheep.

“In a way,” answered the gray wizard, “since the countess's soldiers do not have the right of summary justice within the towns of Montgren.”

Summary justice? Again, I nearly winced. Justen kept reminding me of exactly how little I knew, and how many pitfalls Candar possessed.

Even before we crossed the bridge into Weevett, the rank odor of concentrated sheep and wool wafted from the west to greet us. That, combined with another ill-defined rancidity which I did not ask Justen to explain, turned my travel bread breakfast into a leaden mass squarely in the middle of my guts.

Uuurrrppp
…I winced at the burp, but Justen didn't even smile; he was guiding Rosefoot around a small wagon pulled by a mule. A woman in shapeless herder's gray trudged beside the mule, edging toward the animal as she heard us but not looking up, not even as Rosefoot delicately stepped around her.

Whufffff
…That from the mule as greetings when we resumed the center of the road just before the bridge. Beginning perhaps half a kay beyond the bridge, cottages clustered together on both sides of the way.

“We're expected at the Weavers' Inn.”

“Expected?”

Justen smiled a thin smile and shook his head. “Lerris. Contrary to what you must believe, gray wizards do not roam the landscape and travel aimlessly from point to point. Like everyone else, we have to make a living.”

“In Weevett?”

“Just so.” He reseated himself in the saddle as Gairloch's hooves struck the granite paving-stones of the bridge.

Click, clip…click, clip…

“May I ask what your commission is here?”

“Oh, so delicately put!” Justen laughed. He actually laughed, if only for a moment. “I don't believe in glamor, just in a good job and money. Some years ago I struck a bargain with the Count of Montgren. He wanted his duchy to be prosperous and famed for
something
, and I wanted a more secure income. I made a proposal, and he nearly threw me out.

“Then he thought better of it, but I raised the price. After all, even gray wizards have some dignity. That's why we're here.”

“You haven't told me anything,” I noted.

“The sheep,” Justen added. “The famous sheep and wool of Montgren.”

“I know. They're famous. Even some of the weavers in…some of the weavers I know…praise the wool.” I paused. “Are you saying you have something to do with that?”

“Immodestly, yes. That is why we are here.”

I shook my head.

“Since you are here, you can help.”

I didn't like the sound of that at all, but I owed Justen. “How?”

“Don't worry. It's a menial job, but purely one of order.”

I waited.

“Healthy sheep bear healthy lambs and good wool. Each year, I check the ewes and the breeding rams to ensure only the healthy ones are bred,” he explained. “That means four visits to Montgren, and it takes several days. In the fall, I check the lambs as well.”

It couldn't be that simple, but I knew little enough to question. So I remained silent and let Gairloch follow Rosefoot.

The stone-paved streets of Weevett were narrow, though the cottages were fenced and set far back from the main ways. The town layout was simple. Two main streets—one north-south, one east-west—met at a central square. There were no more than two dozen other streets, half of which ran north-south and half east-west, creating a grid pattern.

On the south side of the town I could see, over the low one-story cottages, what appeared to be warehouses or large workshops.

“Carding houses,” said Justen curtly.

“For wool,” he added even more curtly.

I shrugged. The gray wizard's mind was clearly somewhere else. So I studied the town itself, noting the plain-planked cottages with their painted and opened shutters, colored-gravel walks, trimmed waist-high hedges, and now-empty flower beds and flower boxes. Compared to Hrisbarg or Howlett, Weevett was indeed an ordered place.

In the center of the square was a stone pedestal bearing the statue of a man on a horse; carved into the stone supporting the statue were the recurring shapes of sheep. Around the pedestal was a winter-browned lawn, except on the north side, right under the pedestal, where rested a small pile of dirty snow. A low stone wall and a raised walk outside the wall separated the green from the pavement.

Around the central square were ranged half-a-dozen well-kept stores—dry goods, a wood-crafter, a produce market, a butcher, a leather-goods shop, a bakery—and the Weavers' Inn, which from the outside appeared nearly as ordered as the Travelers' Rest had been.

Across the square from the inn was a two-story stone building, with a flagstaff from which flew a blue-and-gold banner. On the blue triangular lower section was a golden coronet, while the upper gold section bore a black ram.

Although a good score of people walked to and from the shops and stores on the east and west sides of the square, no one neared the stone building on the north side.

A single wagon waited in front of the leather-goods store.

Justen and Rosefoot headed straight for the equally orderly stable behind the Weavers' Inn, going down a narrow paved alley beside the tan-painted plank siding of the two-story inn.

“Ser wizard…” the stableboy greeted him.

Justen nodded, flashed a brief smile, and dismounted.

“Are you a wizard, too?” asked the towhead.

“I am what I am.” I forced a laugh.

Justen ignored us both, uncharacteristically, and unfastened his saddlebags with quick deft motions.

By the time I helped the young ostler settle both ponies in clean, adjacent stalls in the airy stable, Justen had disappeared. Assuming he had gone to the inn, I followed and found him talking to a man—presumably, the innkeeper.

“This is Lerris, my assistant this time.”

The innkeeper nodded politely, the pointed ends of his bushy mustache hardly moving at all. “The room next to yours is his.”

That stopped me. No questions, no problems—just mine.

The innkeeper glanced briefly at me as I stood there holding my saddlebags and pack; then turned back to Justen. “I thought you might bring help.”

Justen nodded in return, his thoughts clearly elsewhere.

“Would you like some dinner?”

“As soon as we…”

“Ah, yes…follow me.”

Up the clean and well-varnished white-oak stairs we went, and down a wide hallway. We had the two corner rooms. Or rather, I had a nice room with a real bed, dresser, mirror, and wash table, and Justen had a suite, or at least a bedroom and sitting room.

Since the gray wizard wanted to be left alone, I went to my own room, washed up, and then headed downstairs to fill my quite-empty stomach.

The only problem with the inn was that although it was clean, somehow it still smelled faintly of sheep and wool. Did all of Weevett echo the animals?

The innkeeper led me to a corner table, warmed by a low fire and set with actual utensils and glass goblets.

By the time Justen arrived, I was drinking redberry and working my way through cheese and a mutton pie, brought by a pleasant-faced if heavyset girl who resembled the innkeeper too much for coincidence.

Justen said nothing of a conversational nature until after he had sipped a golden wine I did not recognize and munched through a slice of black bread and a hard and pungent white cheese. Between bites he gazed into a space I could not see.

“You'll earn that room tomorrow.”

“Is that when we start work?”

He nodded.

I had questions, but the gray wizard wasn't exactly encouraging them and I was still hungry. So I ate, and Justen nibbled at his bread and cheese.

But there was one question that kept nagging me; so I asked. “You said that the magicians built the new town center of Fvren, as if that explained something.”

Justen smiled faintly. “That's not properly a question, but I understand the import.” He took a sip of the golden wine. “The older wizards of Fairhaven understood that chaos cannot build structures which last—”

“What about the roads?”

“The roads are not quite the same thing. Chaos is quite efficient at removing rock and stone. So long as it does not touch what remains, the roadbed is as solid as the stone which is left. And the few black wizards used order-mastery, after the stonemasons built the retaining walls and drains, but that was before…” He shook his head. “Sometimes I wander too much. You asked about building. Stonecutters build better than chaos-masters. The old town center at Fairhaven proves that.”