The Universal Mirror (29 page)

“Then stand with them and the executioner shall deal with you.” 

“I wasn’t saying that I deserved punishment.”  A sharp gasp came from the crowd.  The guards moved forward, their eyes on what Asahel held.  A magician who admitted to casting magic against humans was dangerous indeed—no one but Quentin knew what Asahel was capable of.  And Quentin admitted to himself that he hadn’t thought Asahel capable of this.

Asahel continued to speak, his voice steadier than Quentin had ever heard it.  “The first Heresy is to cast magic on a human body.  What it was that we were trying to do is heal.  There is no wrong in that, none at all.”  How quickly the crowd turns, Quentin thought as he saw a sudden wave of assent roll through the people, heads nodding and words muttered quietly.

“Silence!”  The largest of the magicians roared.  Quentin knew him for Tycho then by the way that the Geographer shouldered through the rest, using his bulk to knock the others aside.  Asahel remained firm as Catharine slipped back, awed by the man barreling towards them.  He lifted a hand, as if to strike Asahel, but stopped himself.  “It is not yours to question the rules of the Council, nor of magic.”

“It is, when you’ve deliberately caused people harm.”  His fingers slipped around the papers, handing two of them to Catharine as he unfurled the last, holding it up for the crowd. 

It was a map, but one such as Quentin had never seen.  The lines of streets were static, easily recognizable as places that he knew, but there were dark clouds swirling at certain doors.  Asahel tapped the map and he saw, as did the others, that the clouds were not clouds at all but the dark crosses used to mark the pox on the doors of its victims. 

What is he doing?  Quentin thought, confused.

“You’ve got the ability to spread the Plague, haven’t you?”  Asahel asked and the Geographer drew back.  “You’ve done it—you’ve caused it.  And all because you’ve a need to keep us from growing as a people.  You’re afraid we’ll leave Cercia and take the magic with us.” 

“Prove it,” Tycho said, speaking as a master would to a student.  He gestured at Felix who had remained still.  “Show them the proof.”  Asahel hesitated and the Geographer threw back his head, laughing so hard that the raven’s beak on his mask bobbed.  “And you see?  No truth to his lies or his maps.”

Quentin watched as his friend looked at them both, swallowing hard.

“Do it,” Quentin whispered, noticing that Asahel’s face paled.  He had understood Quentin.  The question was, whether he would believe that the other man had conquered illness.

The Geographer’s laughter continued as Asahel stepped up to Felix.  The swordsman trembled openly now as Asahel took his hands and placed the map in them.  A drop of sweat beaded on Felix’s forehead but he made no objection as Asahel pulled him forward to the front of the crowd and the laughter stopped.

“Watch,” Asahel said, the words cracking in his throat.

He touched the map and Felix’s skin suddenly broke, a weeping sore cracking on his cheek.  The crowd hissed as Asahel stroked the map again and the first sore was followed by another, then another.  Water welled up in Asahel’s eyes as Felix let the map fall to the floor, his knees buckling as the sickness raced through his body, swifter than it should have been.  The younger man caught him as the guards rushed to them.

“Step back.”  Catharine reached down for the map and her fingers touched it.  Quentin knew that she had no power over the paper, but her gesture halted the others.  The crowd had drawn back, leaving a generous space around the stage, but many of the men had murder in their eyes as they stared at Tycho.  The Geographer himself was moving backwards, falling into line with the rest of the Council.

Quentin knew now that nothing would stop him from healing the fallen man but himself.

“Help me,” Asahel whispered, helpless as Felix choked in his arms.  “I don’t know how to save him.”

That look was enough to send him across the platform in a few strides despite the fact that the guards were beginning to close in.  Quentin pressed his hands against Felix’s skin just as the hilt of a sword slammed into Asahel’s back, trying to force him apart from the sick man.  Asahel clung to him as Quentin began to pull the energy out of Felix’s body, this time not calling it into the earth but sending it upwards.

The sky itself took fire, the magic flowing from the three of them and into the brilliant sun.  Screams erupted from the crowd as the color changed, turning from scarlet to a paler glow.  Pressure erupted from Quentin’s back, turning to pain as a blow from the executioner’s fist tried to knock him away.  He was too far to move and he closed his eyes, willing Felix alive, listening as the other man gurgled through the sickness that threatened to consume him with its power. 

Help me…  He heard Asahel’s voice again, whispering in the back of his mind.  There was nothing else he had given the other man—and Quentin drew as much of the sickness as he could hold from Felix, longing to give Asahel this, even if he died in the attempt.  He felt Felix kick and then leave his grasp, pulled away by three men as Asahel fought them. 

Quentin opened his eyes and stared at Felix, limp in their arms but still breathing.  His skin was as clear as it had ever been, unstained by illness.

“He lives!”  He screamed.  “The Plague is gone!  It is the Council who wants your families dead—what madness is this?  Why will you execute those who can heal them?”  Quentin wrenched his arm free from the guard who held him, turning to the crowd.  He heard motion behind him but remained steady, staring into the eyes of angry men and daring them with his own to come forward.

“The Council!”  The crowd screamed, their bloodlust and their anger uniting them as it had at the execution’s beginning.  Now, it was something more for which they longed, and that longing drove them up the platform steps.  Men shoved past Quentin towards the guards, fingers jabbing and yanking in a blur.  He turned to see the black cloaks of the Council fleeing, their steps too swift to be anything but magic.

A raven’s head mask flew up above the throng of people and he saw with sickening clarity that the glass eyes had been gouged out.

Catharine, he thought, and ran for her.  Quentin pushed against the tide, trusting only in his instincts to find the woman that he himself needed.  Asahel and Felix were lost in the sea of men and women, but he trusted that they were as safe as he—after all, if they lived through this, they would be heroes.

Alive was all he asked for.

He struggled against the bodies of a hundred men, looking for a lock of brown hair and a brown cloak.  His fingers snagged against one, before realizing it belonged to another, and he fought his way to the edge of the stage without seeing her.  All that he could smell was blood and fire, the energy crackling through the air enough to make him sick even without his fear for Catharine.

“Quentin,” he heard her say behind him as the rush quieted.  He didn’t hesitate, turning as swiftly as he could to gather her in his arms, not caring whether or not she flinched.  All that he wanted was to know that she was safe.  He didn’t hear the others’ footsteps behind him, nor the triumphant howls of the crowd as they tore the Geographer’s maps into a thousand pieces.  All that he heard was the soft sigh of her as her arms wrapped around him in return, breathing into his ear.  “It’s over, Quent.  It’s over.”

“How did you know you could trust me?”  Quentin asked.

“I didn’t,” Asahel answered.  He was sitting on the edge of the dock, swinging his legs slightly as the tides came in.  Quentin had settled himself further back, within arm’s reach of the piling.  Asahel smiled at that.  He works a miracle in front of hundreds and he still thinks he’ll drown in shallow water. 

“That was quite a risk you took with Felix then.”  His mouth twitched.  “I’m not sure I’d appreciate it, if I was in his position.”  Asahel sighed at the redhead, staring down at his feet.

“I’m not sure that he does.  I don’t right know… I’ve not talked to him since.”  His boots swung up again, then fell back harder against the pier, rattling the boards as they hit.  Quentin’s fingers reached for the piling.  “And I didn’t know for sure that you could do it, aye, but I felt that you could.  If not, what was it all for?”

“Hope, maybe.  If we hadn’t figured it out—”

“You, you mean.”

“No, we.  It took all that work to know.  Any road…” Asahel smiled as he heard Quentin use the phrase, never one heard in the manor houses.  “It would’ve been worth it.  The Council, when they form again, will have to be more accountable.  Certainly, healing’s no heresy now.”

“How will they form a Council again?  We’re lucky they’ve not rioted in the streets.” 

“It doesn’t hurt that some of the leaders, at least, weren’t present.”  He sighed.  “The Geographer took the worst of it.”  Both men fell silent.  Asahel recalled only the broken beak of a raven mask, feathers scattered across wood, bloody at the tip.  There had been little left beyond that, he had heard.

“Will you try for a place?”  Asahel asked.  Quentin shook his head.

“No.  I have enough to focus on at home.”  He smiled.  “Our door has lines at it every morning.  That’s what your miracles will do for a man.  Catharine refuses to think that we should line it with guards.”

“You wouldn’t.”  Asahel shrugged.  “I know you.  You’ve a liking for that sort of adoration.”  The smile turned into a grin, followed by a nod.

“Oh, I do,” Quent agreed.  “Are you sure that you don’t want to make a go of it with me?  It was us at the beginning.  We ought to see it through.  You liked the idea of saving the world once, or at least the country.”

“I still do.”  It was hard to admit with Quentin’s hopeful face upon him.  Asahel knew that he was only going to disappoint him as he added quickly, “But not now.  After all that’s happened, I need… I’d like to start over.  While that’s possible.”  His face turned, studying the sea.  He’d spent years of his childhood learning the waves, every turn and trick of the ocean, without a place to spend that knowledge beyond the confines of the docks.  The world was filled with possibility now that the Heresies had been lifted, yet as he stared into the water, he felt as if it had closed.

“I’ll miss you.”  It wasn’t a plea but a simple statement of fact.  Asahel gave him a slight, shy smile in return.

“I know.”

“And Catharine too.”

“That, I didn’t know.”  Asahel laughed.  “But I’m glad.”  He leaned back, careful not to brush his friend, placing his hands flat on the pier.  The day was still warm despite the glow of autumn and he felt the heat radiate through the wood. 

“So this is it,” Quentin mused.  He leaned forward, kicking his own legs out to Asahel’s surprise.  “Did you plan to tell Felix about leaving the island?  I do like being one up on him, but you do owe him.”

“Owe him?  Sure, and he’ll have no want to see me after I called that sickness down upon him.  He knows that I’d no idea you could heal.  Not for sure, any road.”  His face flamed as he himself sat up, sick with his guilt.  There was so much that Quentin didn’t know about his role in the imprisonment.  He’d managed to forgive Felix for a part the other man hadn’t played, but Asahel knew that Quentin could never forgive him in the same way.  It was too much to ask.  Just another reason to go, he thought to himself.

“You can’t assume how another man feels because you think you bear them some responsibility.”  Quentin said, his voice level.  He reached out, resting his hand over Asahel’s for a moment.  It disappeared before Asahel had a chance to respond.  Quentin stood, his foot scuffing the pier as he looked down.  “Talk to him when he comes, at least.”

“What do you mean, when he comes?”  Asahel jumped to his feet so quickly that he shook the piling he was standing next to.  Quentin grabbed it, then relaxed as he realized that they were going nowhere.

“I thought that the two of you ought to talk, so I suggested that he be here around… midday.”  His eyes squinted up at the sun.  “Which ought to be about now.”  The squint turned into another grin.  “Fortunate since I’ve got to be back home.  It’s been much more pleasant since my wife came to the rescue—I think she rather liked being in the spotlight.”  His smile softened but Asahel took no notice.

“You’d no right to meddle.”  Asahel scowled.

“Funny.  I could say the same of you.”  The comment was pointed despite the smile.  Asahel hesitated, wondering what Quentin knew of the events that had transpired.  It was clear now that he’d spoken more to Felix than Asahel had realized.  Unaware of what the other man was thinking, Quentin lightly punched him in the shoulder.  “Come and see us before you go.”

“Of course,” Asahel managed, watching the redhead walk away.  There was a bounce to his step that had never existed before—surprising, given that he’d never expected Quentin and Catharine to come to a peace. 

He walked back up to the shore as the sun continued to rise in the sky overhead, beating down through the clouds.  The beaches were empty, although he could hear the sound of hammering in the distance as shipwrights continued at their trade and the calls of workers rang back and forth across the docks.  Asahel kept walking, his feet leaving deep grooves in the wet sand as he followed the waterline, moving in and out of the tides that lapped his boots.  He had no intention of meeting Felix.  It seemed as the sun began its descent and the sky started to darken faintly overhead that Felix felt the same.