Lightborn. Part 25

Vladimer was not pleased with the mention of the last, but he mustered his manners and confirmed to the waiter that he was indeed expecting another lady and possible company. Phoebe Broome in person was taller than most men, dressed for practicality rather than fashion in a long, plain coat worn open over a divided skirt, and jacket, the attire of a modern city woman. On her small, dainty head, she wore a cloche hat, not unbecomingly. And on her hands, gloves. Her companion this time was an equally tall old man in a similar coat over a suit that was at least four decades out of fashion. He had the shriveled, puckish face of some forest sprite depicted in the legends as ancient, crazed, and full of mischief. He poked his head over Phoebe's shoulder, sonned Telmaine, and tsked like a tutor over a miscreant pupil. "My dear, you must have been quite wicked, though maybe not entirely so; either that or someone was careless, leaving that big hole."

"Father-," said Phoebe Broome, though Telmaine was aware of her fascinated and perhaps appalled attention to herself and presumably the binding.

Vladimer recalled their attention to himself. "Magistra Broome. This, I deduce, is Magister Farquhar Broome himself."

"I'm sorry to intrude upon you this way, Lord Vladimer," Phoebe said, a little diffidently, "but you did indicate it was urgent, and-it was easiest to follow my sense of your vitality than start asking. It's-becoming quite busy out there. A lot of people trying to get out of the city, before things get worse."

Worse than-Telmaine wished she could ask. Farquhar Broome had slipped into place beside her, and like an idiot child entranced by a soft fur jacket was moving his hand up and down her arm, lingering over her wrist.

"Father-"

At that moment Broome made a small motion with his hand and Telmaine felt the binding unravel. Her mage sense bloomed with shocking, revelatory suddenness. She sensed the serene, quixotic personality of the odd old man beside her, a personality that overlaid a power like a vast lake. She sensed the narrower river of power, swift and disciplined, running through the woman, and Vladimer's familiar vitality, shot through with pain and stimulants. A little farther away she jolted up against a cl.u.s.ter of mages, twenty- five or thirty of them, including a vitality with an oddly familiar sense to it: Balthasar's sister-her sister in marriage-Olivede.

Telmaine s.n.a.t.c.hed back her awareness with dizzying force, and sat trembling slightly, waiting for repercussions. But Olivede was not a woman given to flying into rooms and ready confrontations. And Tammorn was silent. Dead?

"Now that's much better," Farquhar Broome approved. "Now, about that nasty thing-"

"Father, what have you done?" Phoebe said. Vladimer brought his cane up and over, not violently, but decisively, setting the deadly tip on Farquhar Broome's wrist. "This woman's magic is uncontrolled and dangerous," he said, in a harsh voice.

Farquhar Broome reached over and gently set aside the cane. "My dear lady, my n.o.ble lord, I do apologize. It is so rare that I have a chance to examine novel magic, and it was a fascinating binding. I would-"

"No, Father, whatever it is," Phoebe said.

"But there is no need to worry. She is untrained, of course, and she has a nasty and rather powerful magical impression in her, but I am well able to manage that." He sounded now like one of Balthasar's older colleagues, briskly rea.s.suring an anxious and difficult family member. "And you, young man, ought not to be stressing your system the way you are; you shall be ill if you go on like this-" He waved his hand. "Yes, yes, I know, the young; they are all immortal and invulnerable. . . . But we shall be traveling together, won't we, so we will have leisure to get to know each other." He smiled benignly over them all. "Let me go and rea.s.sure the rest of our party-hot chocolate seems an excellent idea-and let you have a chance to talk."

He sallied blithely forth, moving lightly for a man of his apparent age. Phoebe Broome's mouth opened, closed. "Please have . . . a seat, Magistra Broome," said Vladimer, at his most bland.

Self-consciously, she took the seat beside Telmaine her father had just vacated, facing Vladimer. Let out her breath, waiting for his reaction. "Well," she said at last. "You've now met my father. At his worst."

"Being myself widely considered my family's difficult member, I would not presume to comment."

"That is . . . gentlemanly of you," Magistra Broome murmured, and straightened, seeming at last to believe him. "You did ask me to bring the strongest mages amongst us, and he is the very strongest."

Telmaine, remembering her impression of vastness, nodded involuntarily, the motion catching both Vladimer's and Phoebe Broome's attention. Phoebe left anything she would have said unsaid for the moment. Bracing herself, she said, "Lord Vladimer, my brother . . ."

"Is, as far as I know, still at the palace. He took care to rea.s.sure me that you knew nothing of his activities."

She shook her head, denying the importance of that, but said, "I didn't. Until he left me a decidedly peculiar note. What . . . has he done?"

"I believe," Vladimer said, "he chose to warn Duke Mycene that I was consorting with a dangerous mage."

Phoebe's head twitched toward Telmaine, though she did not sonn. "Is he under arrest?"

"Not yet, at least not by my agents. I exchanged my silence for his silence on a matter essential to the state. Unfortunately, he has placed himself in the position where he may be implicated, amongst Darkborn at least, in last night's murder of the Lightborn mages. There was, apparently, a mage involved in the planning of it."

"If he enabled that slaughter in any way, he deserves to die," Phoebe said harshly. Vladimer's silence was rea.s.sessing.

"Lord Vladimer, you could only imagine what happened the night before last; we lived through it. We sensed the deaths, and we sensed the magic that slaughtered them."

She turned her head to Telmaine, her neat features hardening. "Please tell me," she said, "why you have the taint of Shadowborn on you."

A billowing surge of magic rippled from her to the group outside, not a simple communion, but a mustering of force.

"The binding that my father released was imposed by one of the Lightborn, was it not? For what reason?"

"Answer her, Lady Telmaine," Vladimer said, dispa.s.sionately. "It seems I have somewhat mistaken their purpose in coming here."

Her sonn showed his intense, poised expression, his hand on the hilt of his cane. She realized then what he meant-that Phoebe Broome, like her brother, like Tam, thought she was one with the Shadowborn. That Magistra Broome had come, with her fellows, to protect Vladimer, and to sit in judgment on her.

"If you knew," Telmaine burst out, "what I and my family have suffered at the-hands-of these creatures." She caught herself then, terrified that she would smell smoke, or sense the sudden heat of flame.

Vladimer, by his very stillness, by the rapid pulse in his throat, feared the same. Phoebe Broome seemed very calm.

"Ishmael told you," Telmaine said, struggling for composure, "about Tercelle Amberley's children, and what happened to my husband."

"Your . . . husband is Balthasar Hearne? But Olivede-"

"Didn't know," Telmaine said. "Balthasar didn't know. n.o.body knew. Ishmael was the first, ever . . ." Except, maybe, her mother. "I helped him save Balthasar's life. I walked through fire to rescue my daughter from her kidnappers, and Ishmael-Ishmael saved me from the flames when my magic failed."

"Oh, sweet Imogene, that was what happened. No wonder he . . ."

She did not want to think about Ishmael's sacrifice for her sake, any more than Phoebe wanted to name his loss. But the woman's obvious regret, for Ishmael at least, steadied her further. "When we reached Lord Vladimer's bedside, we fought the Shadowborn, only I was losing, and he-put his magic into my mind-before Ishmael killed him." She told how the taint had drawn Magister Tammorn's attention, and how, distraught by the attempt on the life of his prince, he had tried to bind her. How in throwing off the binding, she had critically injured the archduke. She did not notice, until Phoebe Broome laid her hand on its tip, how Vladimer's cane lay. He did not resist when she eased it off-line. Telmaine told of her return to save the archduke, its means, and its mortal consequences-Phoebe Broome made an inarticulate sound of protest at the sentence of execution, and breathed again only when she sketched her escape, without details as to how she and Vladimer had reached the station.

The mage was quiet for several breaths after she had done. "I am relieved that this is the way it is. You at least . . ." She stopped, certainly thinking of her brother.

Vladimer, unexpectedly, said, "It is more than likely that the mage involved in the planning of the destruction was one of our Shadowborn, rather than your brother. It is far more of a piece with their behavior than his." But as Phoebe turned a grateful expression on him, he continued. "It is, unfortunately, also more than likely that amongst the Darkborn, there is no one to appreciate the distinction. I did warn your brother; it is for him to save himself now."

She swallowed, and rubbed her trembling lips with a gloved hand. "I'm sorry-in many ways-that your magic has caused you, and others, such difficulty, Lady Telmaine. Father-will be able to help. When it comes to high-level magic, he really is quite sensible. Ishmael wasn't really-" Fortunately, she did not repeat Tammorn's opinion that Ishmael was no adequate tutor for Telmaine, if that was what she was thinking.

Phoebe turned to Vladimer. "I have a confession to make, Lord Vladimer. We have Tercelle Amberley's children. After Ishmael told me about them, I made it my business to find them."

Vladimer shook his head slightly. "It might have made a difference two days ago. Not now."

"For you, maybe," Phoebe Broome reminded him. "It still matters to them." Her shoulders shifted. "Aside from the fact that they do seem to be sighted, there is nothing about them that indicates they were not born to a Darkborn mother and father. But then Lightborn and Darkborn are of common stock. Why not Shadowborn, or at least some among them?"

The waiter arrived then, with a cup of coffee for the mage, and she smiled and thanked him, and sipped carefully at the pungent beverage. Vladimer shifted on the bench, drawing his hand away from his cane to brace his right arm un.o.btrusively against his body.

Phoebe Broome said, "Your message said that you wanted mages to accompany you to the Borders to investigate Shadowborn activities."

"Yes," Vladimer said. "Three nights ago Ishmael di Studier and Balthasar Hearne took the coastal train into the Borders. I have not heard from either of them since. The last information I had suggested that both were bound for Stranhorne, and that the weather around Stranhorne had been extremely abnormal-a snowstorm, to be precise." The mage straightened: it took a very strong mage to influence the weather. "The last message out of Stranhorne conveyed the impression it had been overrun by an unknown force. Have you had any sense of something amiss?"

"Father . . . may have, but none of the rest of us could have any sense of anything amiss. We decided to get out of the city tonight. It did not seem a safe place for mages, anymore." She hesitated, as though waiting for a question, but none came. "The adults who did not want to join us have taken the children and dependents to a place we hope will be safe, in the northwest."

"In many respects, it is a wise decision. In others, a problematic one. If, as I have come to suspect, the Lightborn either cannot or will not contend with Shadowborn magic, it leaves the city uncovered."

And the archduke . . . Did Phoebe Broome hear the effort to achieve that indifferent tone?

She paused, seemed about to say one thing, said instead, "What did you think twenty-five mages-less if some of us stay-and yourselves could accomplish in the Borders?"

"I admit," Vladimer said, "I am not certain." His voice was bleak. "My concern was with invasion, and if it is that, and the Borders defenses have been overrun, then conventional forces are unlikely to fare better. You represent as unconventional a force as I could conceive of."

"You mean us to fight," Phoebe Broome said, somberly.

"I am aware, from what Ishmael has said of you, and from what you have said of yourself, that the idea is distasteful to you." She shook her head a little, as though at an oversimplification, but did not argue with him. "But magic is at the core of this, and magic is your province, Magistra Broome. Your province, and your calling, I believe."

"Yes."

"I do not know that you will receive any tangible reward for your service."

She sighed. "It does not matter. From what Ishmael said, from what you have said, and what we know, we have to help. Some of us will come. Some of us will stay. Will you trust us to divide our party as we think fit?"

"Yes," Vladimer said quietly. "We shall have to wait for our train, but I might as well begin by telling you what I know."

He did not sonn after Phoebe Broome's departing figure, but sat for a moment bracing his aching right arm with his left, before lifting his head. "So, another journey, Lady Telmaine?"

One to redemption or death, she thought, for both of them. She matched her tone to his. "I am ready, Lord Vladimer."

About the Author.

ALISON SINCLAIR is the author of the science fiction novels Legacies, Blueheart, and Cavalcade (which was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke award), and the fantasy Darkborn, the first in the Darkborn trilogy. Darkborn began with a meditation on the light-dark motif as it is used in fantasy, met up with years of eclectic reading and cities remembered and imagined, and took flight in directions almost as unexpected to the writer as to the characters. Alison Sinclair presently lives in Montreal, where she is working on the final novel in the trilogy, Shadowborn.

Also by Alison Sinclair.

Darkborn.