House War - The Hidden City Part 62

But the son . . . She had not lied, although she was well past the age where lying seemed an invitation to a lurking, bitter discovery; she had met the woman who was now called The Terafin, and she had been much impressed by her. Amarais Handernesse ATerafin, she had been called then, her dark hair sleek as raven's wing, and drawn above her patrician face in a way that suggested severity without descending to it. She had reeked of elegance and power, as if they were more than mere birthright; she owned them. But she did not use them as weapons; they were hers as much as another man might naturally claim breathing.

They had spoken for some time, for the new Terafin ruler wished to purchase the services of a First Circle mage on retainer, should the need arise. For etiquette's sake, The Terafin had requested Sigurne's aid; Sigurne had, just as politely, refused. What work she did outside of the Order was not done at the convenience of The Ten; nor, if truth be told, at the convenience of the Kings. And Amarais was no fool, no uninformed petty lordling; she was aware of this fact. Her offer had been meant to convey the depth of her respect, no more, and it was taken as such by the woman to whom she had offered it.

Sigurne had taken much time and much thought before she had tendered a reply. "Understand, Terafin," she had said to the much younger woman, "that the Magi-even those of the First Circle, or perhaps, especially those of the First Circle-can be somewhat fractious, somewhat proud, and somewhat unpredictable; they are not beholden to the social niceties that are commonly considered good manners."

"People a.s.sured of their power seldom are," The Terafin had replied calmly.

"And your manners are so perfect, I am to a.s.sume that you are not a.s.sured of yours?" It was a more pointed question than Sigurne was given to asking when matters of rogue magery were not involved.

The Terafin had rewarded her with the blessing of her smile; it was fine and thinly edged, but genuine. "I am as a.s.sured of my position as any who have held it," she said. "But in the end, it is not the position that one is judged by. Some consider the t.i.tle and the name worthy of fear, of respect, of sycophancy. But Terafin is one of The Ten because, in the years of the Blood Barons, when there was little hope of success, Terafin chose to support two who were barely come to manhood: the first Kings.

"And those of us who take the t.i.tle and hold it must add to that legend; we must live up to those who risked all to create an Empire in which fear and power were not the only true measure of a ruler."

Years ago, Sigurne thought. Years. But she could remember the words so clearly, she needed no magical aid, no magical recall; they were cool and calm, and each was weighted. Heavy. It was a weight she valued.

And now she faced the brother, and looked closely for any sign of kinship that went deeper than high cheekbones or the set of eyes. She almost sighed.

"The Houses are not like the Order. When the man who previously held the t.i.tle of The Terafin pa.s.sed on to the Halls of Mandaros, divisions within House Terafin that had not been clear were instantly made manifest. But such things happen in any family; people are oft adverse to change, and squabbles arise out of past history over the remains left in the wake of a death." In so few words she dismissed the whole of a war that had savaged the House, from the Isle itself to the farthest reaches of its merchant runs. And in the same few words she made clear that she would not now-or ever-openly discuss the vulnerabilities that came with power.

Nor had she-in her first interview with the new ruler of House Terafin-discussed the man who now sat before her in his isolated, hard chair. Sigurne continued her study of his face, his graying hair, the length and line of his jaw; she saw in him some similarity of expression that spoke of Handernesse-but little else that spoke of the sister who had risen so high in the ranks of the powerful. He wore the uniform of a trusted messenger as if he had never worn anything else-and as she had seen him dressed very differently in the Placid Sea, she was well aware that this was not the case. Deception came easily to him.

This talent was not one he had learned in Handernesse, but it was often the way with the children of the powerful to learn their most useful talents on grounds other than the ones they called home.

She wondered, now, why he had come. She was not afraid of him, or rather, no more afraid than she was of any stranger who came asking questions about demons. They were few indeed, and usually they were both young and new enough to the Order that they could be cajoled into humiliating themselves in their utter ignorance by their more seasoned seniors; none of those pale, halting men and women were remotely akin to this aging and weathered man who wore his secrecy in so many layers.

And yet, to this man, who hid as much about his life as a man possibly could and still interact with people, she bent slightly. He was not one of hers; he would never be one of hers.

Perhaps because he couldn't be, she could speak. She wasn't entirely certain what she would say, and this was both distasteful and unusual; if Sigurne's age was not entirely feigned-and it was not-her reticence was deep and needful.

"I come," she said quietly, "from the far North of the Empire."

Ararath's expression shifted slightly. His eyes, dark, were going the peculiar blank she a.s.sociated with slow memory. "The North?" he said at last. And then, in a different language, "How far to the North?"

In the same tongue, she replied, "Farther, I think, than you have ever had cause to travel. I do not believe that Handernesse had routes to the North, and even had they, the journey by land is unpleasant for all but a few months, and the journey by water is . . . unfriendly."

"Your land of birth is not commonly known."

"It is known," she said with a shrug, wanting very much to take her seat again. "By those who are curious enough to ask; I make no secret of it."

"How did you make your way to Averalaan-to Averalaan Aramarelas? It is seldom that the Order seeks the mage-born in the North."

"It is seldom they seek the mage-born at all," she replied with some asperity. "But when we are summoned to test those suspected of being mage-born-often at the behest of a local Priest-we travel in haste. And we can."

He nodded; this much, he knew.

"You have, perhaps, heard of the Ice Mage?"

Rath frowned for a long moment. When the moment pa.s.sed, the frown had deepened; his eyes had narrowed. He nodded. "I believe he was called by other names."

"He was called many. In my youth, he was called Lord; we had no other." She felt the cold of the coming Winter less clearly than she now felt the Winters of the past. She would have turned away, but his gaze held her.

"Sigurne," he said quietly, "I am aware of the difference between our respective ranks. I am aware of your power and the threat it poses if you find me wanting. Nothing you could say or do to either emphasize or deny the truth of this knowledge will have any impact on it. Will you not sit?"

Her smile was wan. "My age is no act," she said quietly. "And my pride is misplaced. Yes, Ararath, I will sit if you will promise to remember those differences."

"In this tower, I am unlikely to have difficulty."

She took the seat with some grat.i.tude-and some regret. In spite of herself, she found herself liking this wayward man. "What did you hear, in the South, of the Ice Mage?"

Rath shrugged. "Little. A small army was sent, and with them, the warrior-magi. He was not born to the North, although no history records the place of his birth. He is said to have arrived in one of the outlying villages, where he first killed the village elder, and then began to build a tower using the labor of the villagers he had not been forced to kill."

She nodded. "That much, at least, is true. What else?"

"That he was a rogue mage, of course; that when he was finally discovered-and confronted-he killed many of the Kings' men before the Magi destroyed him."

"Many good men-good mages," she added, "were also killed in that attempt; he had prepared many years for just such an encounter. Had it not been for the presence of Member APhaniel, I am not at all certain that he would have lost his battle."

"Member APhaniel?"

She watched Rath revise his estimate of Meralonne's age; it amused her for a few moments, and the amus.e.m.e.nt quieted her. "They took the tower down, stone by stone, and they destroyed what they found within it." She paused, and shook her head. "Almost all of what they found.

"I was one of the few things they did not choose to destroy."

"You?" His brown eyes rounded; his well-waxed brows-a conceit she despised-cracked slightly as they followed the curve of his eyes. "You were there?"

"In the tower. I was . . . much younger then. I was not without power. And I was not without anger. But as I had played no small part in the summoning of the Kings' men, they could not find it within themselves to dispatch me. Some argument was made for my death," she added, speaking softly and without hesitation or resentment. "Had I been among the surviving Magi, I would have argued in just such a fashion."

"Why? You couldn't have been more than a girl-" He lifted a hand. "You learned," he said quietly.

"Yes. By his side. I learned what he studied. I aided him when I had no choice. Forbidden, all. All of the knowledge. All of the lessons." She could, in this tower, see the ghostly echoes of the other tower she had occupied. Feel the presence of the Lord in her room, her many rooms; she could hear the echoes of his voice. Had she been a different person, she would have let them go, dispersing them over decades, into the stream of murky past, where she would at last slip the tight bonds of memory.

But they steadied her now, in ways her master had never conceived of in the certainty of his power.

"But Meralonne APhaniel spoke for me."

"He holds you in regard," Ararath told her quietly.

"Perhaps. I do not think it was regard that moved him, then. He knew nothing of me, save that I was somehow thought to be responsible for the message that had drawn the Kings to the North. He could not know what I knew, and I did not lie; not then. Now, I lie far more frequently, and with greater ease. I had no desire to die," she added bleakly. "But no expectation at all that I would live beyond the battle. My only regret is that mine was not the hand that killed my master."

His eyes were narrow now, but not with suspicion.

"Do not think to offer pity," she began.

"I would not insult you, Sigurne. I am not unhappy that you did not die in the North. But you did not remain there."

"They chose to heed Member APhaniel's plea on my behalf-"

"I am attempting to imagine Member APhaniel pleading," Ararath said wryly, "but my imagination is not up to the task I set it."

"-and having made that decision, they did not execute me. Nor," she added quietly, "did they feel they could, in good conscience, leave me in the village that had been my home."

"Why?"

"I would not have survived it. I had lived in the tower for several years," she added, the emphasis she placed on the dwelling making, of the structural word, a thing with weight and substance that this distant mockery of history could not give it. "It was known to be my home, by the villagers."

"You were born there?"

"No. I was born some leagues beyond, in a village that was not dissimilar to the one the Ice Mage ruled. He did not dwell in the village of my birth, but he exacted tribute from it, and they paid."

"They sent you?"

"No. I was found and taken."

Rath, silent, watched her; she watched him. At last he said, "You were mage-born."

"I was."

"And the Ice Mage knew it, somehow."

"He did."

"May I ask how?"

Had it not been so cold, she would have abandoned the chair again. But even magical heat did not deny the chill of the wind that broke itself upon the heights of the Magi's towers. "You may ask," she told him. "And I will answer because it has bearing upon your question. But the answer to your question is not a matter of a handful of words, and in other circ.u.mstances, I would apologize in advance and beg your indulgence for the reminiscences of one old woman."

His eyes narrowed as the sentence drew to a close; he was shrewd, and missed little.

"It is not entirely an act, Rath. I am not young, and I am not particularly ferocious; I forget much these days, and such forgetfulness was not mine in youth. As a child, I would have considered myself a wasteful dotard."

"Children are often harsh critics," he replied, again with consummate care. So like, she thought, his sister in that unexpected kindness, that certain wisdom.

"You have encountered creatures that were once commonly known as demons. What impression did they leave upon you?"

He shrugged, the gesture both economical and automatic. "They seemed like men, to me," he said at last. "And were it not for your daggers and your insistence otherwise, I would have said they were mages. Rogue," he added carefully. "They looked neither more, nor less, terrifying than men do. In the stories commonly told to children demons are creatures out of nightmare; they have scales, or horns, or elongated jaws; they have wings, they spit fire, and they-" He paused.

"Yes?"

"It is said they can take a man's soul." He shrugged again, this time more slowly. "I confess I have given such tales little thought since my coming of age."

Sigurne nodded. "Most men-and women-do. They outgrow their bedside stories, conquer their fear of them, and move more freely in a world larger in all ways than they imagined when those tales had the power to frighten them.

"But there is always some seed of truth-no matter how twisted it has grown-in the oldest of tales." She closed her eyes; felt the hard curve of wood press into her shoulder blades. For a moment, she thought better of continuing, but the moment pa.s.sed in the wind's howl. "The demons do not call themselves demons, of course."

Rath's brow rose slightly. "Then where does the word originate?"

It was not entirely the question she had been expecting, but Ararath had professed an interest in Old Weston, and she was not unaccustomed to this type of interruption; had she been one to take offense, she would have either died of frustration years ago, or would have strangled any number of the members of her Order. "We believe it has roots in Old Torra, but we are not entirely certain; it is not-quite-a Weston word. Nor for that matter," she added, "is angel."

"Are there?"

"Angels?" She shrugged. "If there are, they guard their names so well none has ever been summoned. Or perhaps the summoners chose not to write of their experience; history is a matter of both record and story, and of angelae, we have only story."

"And demons?"

"More," she whispered. "They are not men; there are some among their kind who can take on the shape and form of man, and some who can create and sustain the illusion of mortality. The latter are more common; they cannot bend flesh to their will, but they have the power to bend minds to suggestion.

"The former are more dangerous."

"Why?"

"We are not entirely certain. But the more human a demon appears, the more powerful it is." She paused. "Demons do not learn language in the way that we do; they appear to absorb it from their summoner. Nor do they appear to require sustenance; they neither eat nor sleep unless ordered to it by their master. They don't fear drowning because they don't need to breathe. They seldom fear fire or cold; the seasons are an echo of the elemental forces, and they can pa.s.s through the bitterest of Northern Winters untouched."

Rath lifted a hand. It was perfectly steady.

"Yes?"

"I fear to hear more," he said quietly. "I know your edicts, Sigurne. And I am aware-as perhaps few others are-that you have killed greater men than I for exercising their curiosity about this particular subject."

She nodded genially. Felt the smile that drew creases around the corners of her mouth. "You are not a member of the Order," she told him wryly. "There is not one among them who would seek to stop me from speaking at this juncture."

"I have learned, in the past few decades, to temper curiosity with caution; it is why I am now called old." His smile was fuller than hers, but his eyes were darker. "How much about demons must I understand to understand the answer to my question?"

"It is hard to say. Less, perhaps, than I have said. Or more. Judge for yourself, in the end, as you must." She gestured, placing one hand on the surface of the table. Rath was frowning.

It was often said that honest men could not be lied to, and she had often wondered why people believed this. It was men-like Rath-who skirted the edges of truth, mixing just the right amount of falsehood into the blend, who were adept at spotting prevarication; men, like Rath, who were capable of h.o.a.rding expressions, and offering them only where they might have the most effect, as if they were genuine.

"The Ice Mage studied the forbidden arts."

"He did not come to their study in the North."

"No. He was a full member of the Order of Knowledge; he claimed to be of the First Circle, and as that is an internal matter, I will neither confirm nor deny. But he lived some years upon the Isle, in this building, and while he learned to master the arts of the warrior-mage, his researches must have led him, in the end, to information that we have since eradicated.

"He was not discovered while he began to develop mastery of this particular craft within the halls of the Order; he was not discovered while he worked-as many of the more powerful mages do-under the auspices of the Houses. But he must have felt that discovery was inevitable; when he at last chose to abandon the Isle, he left in haste, and took with him only the most d.a.m.ning of the evidence that would have been used as justification for his execution.

"We have no records of how he traveled; we presume, given later investigation, that he chose to cloud-walk. It is a colloquial term," she added. "And for the purposes of this discussion, it means he traveled quickly by aid of magic. It is not an instant form of travel, but to travel instantly from Averalaan to any point, be it in the Empire or no, would be to invite investigation; the power required would leave a signature that could be read for miles by even the least talented of our students.

"He arrived in Brockhelm when I was perhaps eight years old. He had ruled in Dimkirk for two years before Brockhelm was subject to his whim, and we little suspected his existence until that day; in the far North, travel between villages is not common, at least not by those who dwell within the villages themselves. When he came, many died, and those that did not, chose to accept his rule. From us, he demanded little, but we were no longer free to travel. He expected pursuit, and he wished no warning of his whereabouts to escape before he felt himself ready.

"That pursuit was late in coming." She lifted a hand to her brow. "When I was twelve, I met the first demon. I did not know him as demon; I would have said he was a tall man with cold eyes, no more and no less. He wore clothing in the Northern fashion, and seemed little affected by the cold; were it not for the rule of the Ice Mage, we would have thought him a merchant far from home.

"But he came with the men who served the Ice Mage-and by this time, they numbered perhaps a hundred strong-and ordered the villagers to gather in the village center. There was some anxiety," she added, "but no thought of disobedience. We gathered. He came.

"And he left, after giving us each the barest of glances."

"He was looking for the talent-born?"

"Yes, but I did not know it at the time. He came once a year, after that."

"When did you leave the village?"