Lightborn. Part 9

"Yes, Phineas Broome," Vladimer said, calmly. "And as you have obviously just discovered, one quite capable of making you mind your manners."

"What do you want?" Phineas Broome demanded; he was obviously the kind who would fight if surprised or set back. "Why did you bring us here?"

"As I recall, it was your sister I invited, not you," Vladimer said. "No matter. There is a force at work in the city using magic for a.s.sa.s.sination and mayhem in an effort to-I believe-destabilize both the Darkborn and Lightborn states, set Darkborn and Lightborn against each other, and possibly ready us for invasion."

"Your kind fancies conspiracies everywhere," Phineas sneered. "You know your days are numbered."

"On account of a rabble of posturing intellectuals who cannot even agree on the wording of their own manifestos?" Vladimer retorted. "I get full reports of your meetings, though frequently I mistake them for reviews of theatrical farces."

Telmaine winced, wishing Vladimer could get out of the habit.

"Phineas," Phoebe Broome said-in a tone that suggested kindred feeling, "please. You've often enough said the same." There was a brief silence. "Lord Vladimer, I should say that Baron Strumh.e.l.ler told us you had been ensorcelled when he left us the last time. I am very glad to know you have recovered."

"Am I?" Vladimer said, narrowly.

"Yes," she said, steadily. "I sense no trace of ensorcellment about you. Though I do not think you are entirely well."

"Ensorcellment leaves a trace, then?" Vladimer said, in that same sharp-edged manner.

"Unless the mage releases his or her victim, or dies."

"Dies, then. Courtesy of Ishmael di Studier."

"I am so relieved. I was very worried about Ishmael. His household sent us an urgent summons, and we found him more dead than alive. He had overspent himself badly, doing what, he would not say. I feared he would be permanently impaired."

"He never could accept," Phineas said snidely, "that the n.o.ble Baron Strumh.e.l.ler himself could be only first-rank."

She had not, Telmaine decided, slapped him nearly hard enough. She sensed a ripple of magic pa.s.sing between sister and brother; she trusted it was a sharp rebuke.

"How much did di Studier tell you?"

"Neither my sister nor I," Phineas said, "will be answering any more of your questions until you tell us why you wanted us here. You're no friend to the mageborn, whatever your lackey believes."

Phoebe said, with the air of a woman trying to salvage a hopelessly blighted conversation, "My lord, he set out to catch the day train as soon as we could get him back on his feet. He had time to give us no more than an outline. But he had told us about the sighted babies, earlier, if there is a connection."

"Had he indeed?" Vladimer said, sounding not at all pleased.

"He thought then that these children might be the products of sorcerous interference. We-our community-deal with sorcery wherever we can, rather than rely upon the Lightborn. We had but barely begun to investigate when the Rivermarch fire . . . but just before he left, he told us it was Shadowborn magic."

"To which I say he's finally cracked," Phineas said.

"Do you?" Vladimer said. "Then I submit certain items for your consideration. Item one: the Shadowborn raiding patterns have changed; in fact, there have been no raids into the Borders this summer. Why? For what purpose might they be withholding their forces?

"Two: the children you spoke of were born and were put into foster care, and two days later the physician who had attended their birth was severely beaten in an attempt to make him divulge their whereabouts. Which, to his credit, he did not. To my knowledge they have not been found.

"Three: their mother was murdered, and an attempt was made to entrap and kill Ishmael di Studier at the scene. He is still being hunted in connection with the murder.

"Four: my own ensorcellment, which occurred around the same time, at the ducal summerhouse while it was full of guests.

"Five: the Rivermarch fire, a fire that defies natural explanation.

"Six: di Studier and others broke into the ducal summerhouse in time to prevent my a.s.sa.s.sin from completing his task. I have reliable testimony that, upon death, the a.s.sa.s.sin's face and aspect changed; I have Ishmael's testimony that the a.s.sa.s.sin's aura was that of a Shadowborn; and I have his speculation that the a.s.sa.s.sin was capable of changing his appearance. My prompt awakening established that this was the same mage as had ensorcelled me.

"Seven: on my return to the city, I had a second unpleasantly close encounter with a Shadowborn and his agents. Fortunately my-lackey, as you term him, sent the other off with his tail between his legs." Telmaine, her breath held, waited for a challenge from either of the mages to that "he." It did not come.

"Eight: the Lightborn prince was a.s.sa.s.sinated last night by what has been suggested was talismanic magic used to annul the lights in his room."

Phoebe Broome drew in her breath sharply. Even Phineas was silenced.

"In short, a series of events that cannot be explained without considering magic." He paused. Waiting, Telmaine thought, for protest that he would summarily dispatch.

There was none. He continued. "The archduke sent a ducal order to the Borders yesterday, permitting the raising of troops from reserves beyond those allowed by the order of six twenty-nine. With the death of the Lightborn prince, the archduke has extended his ducal order to the north, giving Mycene and Kalamay, among others, leave to activate reserves and move armaments into the city."

"That's-not good," Phoebe said, faintly.

"No, Magistra, it is not."

Phineas broke in. "It would be like you to try and entrap us into something you could call sorcery before the courts."

"I sincerely hope," Vladimer returned, "you have had nothing to do with any of this, or I would have to kill you, here and now."

"You could try," Broome growled.

"I would succeed," Vladimer said, "in the same manner that Ishmael di Studier and his ally killed my would-be a.s.sa.s.sin. Ishmael's strength as a mage was, in this case, irrelevant, and I a.s.sure you I am every bit as good a shot."

Telmaine pressed her hand to her mouth, tasting bile. He had given her no intimation that this was in his mind. He had summoned them to accuse them, to provoke an attack, knowing she must protect him. And then, as Ishmael had the Shadowborn, he would have executed them.

She hardly heard his next words for the blood surging in her ears. He would entirely deserve it if she fainted and made herself useless to him, but fainting would leave her vulnerable to Phineas Broome's intrusions. She braced her elbow on the small table and propped her head on her hand. She heard Vladimer say, "The individual-we are presuming a Shadowborn-who attempted to a.s.sa.s.sinate me was powerful enough to take the shape of either man or woman. What does that tell you, about its power and that of my ally?"

"Shape changing is-not a form of magic we know, Lord Vladimer," Phoebe said, sounding dazed at his frank ruthlessness. "I-expect it is an extension of healing, the reshaping of tissues, but it does not seem to have any beneficent purpose. After Ishmael told us about the infants, we started to investigate the possibility that there was a mage working in-tissue shaping."

"And have you found those infants, or any other evidence of that mage?"

"I thought you had a dead Shadowborn," Phineas said. "You've not left it out in the sun, have you?"

"The body was destroyed in the attack at the train station."

"How vexing," Phineas said, with heavy sarcasm.

"Exceedingly," said Vladimer, in an identical tone. "But entirely in keeping with the general turn of events."

"Lord Vladimer," Phoebe said, forcefully, "we-our community-had nothing to do with any of the events you described. Our activities are entirely within the law, if not within custom."

"I am pleased to hear that."

"What do you want?" Phineas demanded.

"Information, first of all. The city is under threat, I am sure of that. If the Darkborn mages are not the source of that threat, then the source is either the Lightborn or some other party. Magistra Broome, by just how much do the Lightborn exceed yourselves in numbers and magical capacity?"

"Considerably," said Phoebe Broome. "But the Lightborn hardly concern themselves with our doings, as long as we avoid what they-and we-would consider sorcery."

"We'll return to that point in a moment. Please quantify *considerably. ' Take, for instance, the sixth rank-how many Lightborn and how many Darkborn?"

"Nine to one," Phineas said. "We're not telling you numbers."

"I have a fair sense of yours already. What is the overall ratio of all Lightborn to all Darkborn mages?"

"Three or four to one," Phineas said, through set teeth.

"So they are succeeding in concentrating power at the higher levels."

"Lord Vladimer," Phoebe said, "the Lightborn mages have no interest in doing us harm."

"Magistra Broome, please do not come the naive schoolgirl with me. It is common knowledge in the Lightborn court that the Lightborn mages aim to rediscover or re-create forms of magic lost since Imogene's time. The Temple's exploitation has beggared the Lightborn state, no matter how pretty the facade that remains. The Darkborn state has been protected largely by the distrust of its leadership, because sunset is no barrier to magic. But as mages you are outnumbered and, to borrow Ishmael's phrase, outgunned."

"And what are we supposed to do about that?" Phineas Broome demanded. By the sound of movement and the shift in his voice he had come vehemently to his feet. "It's persecution by people like you that have cost us our numbers and our learning, so don't come weeping to the door at sunrise. Phoebe, let's go; we've heard enough. And you-mage-I hope you've been listening."

Phoebe Broome said, slowly, "Lord Vladimer, our faith and philosophy is that magic is a gift, from the Mother of All Things Born, a largesse that has been sorely abused, but not rescinded. Magic should not be used as the Lightborn use it, or as Imogene and her fellows used it, to twist nature and control the lives of others."

"In any contest concerning power, the one willing to use it to dominate always wins."

"There are many kinds of power."

"But few that matter," Vladimer said. "Do not weary me by preaching *moral power.'"

There was a silence. "There are certain types of power one has to experience to know," she said, with quiet conviction.

Vladimer said sourly, "Sit down, Magister Broome, if you are staying. Leave if you are going." He sounded stung. Perhaps even he was susceptible to virtue, Telmaine thought. Which was an odd opinion for a respectable lady to form about a woman who was both a mage and a loose woman, but there was an undeniable uprightness about Phoebe Broome.

"As you pointed out, unless something has substantively changed, for the Lightborn mages to mount such an elaborate and oblique attack on us makes no sense-and the Lightborn head of state appears also to have fallen victim. Which, finally, leaves the Shadowborn. Ishmael di Studier describes their magic as having a particular quality-repugnant and chilling. That description has been confirmed by a second mage, who has never visited the Shadowlands. So I return to my original question as to whether you might have sensed something similar recently."

"Yes," she said, slowly. "Maybe."

"Around the Rivermarch?"

She swallowed. "Lord Vladimer, you must understand what else we sensed-sense-around the Rivermarch. A hundred and sixty people died there, their vitality riven from their flesh in the most excruciating manner. Eight Lightborn mages summoned a storm; the sense of that lingers. So yes, perhaps there was a-taint-there, but-I cannot say for certain."

"Anywhere else?"

She faltered. "Not-for certain. No, not for certain."

He waited, but she offered no more.

"Well, then, I bid you good evening and thank you for coming. I hope you will be prepared to inform me should you learn more, and I may ask for your help again. And I trust that events simply do not overtake us both."

She heard him ring the bell for the footman, and give instructions as to how his guests were to be shown out. She lifted her head from her hand and slumped backward in the chair, the many unbreakable rules of a lady's deportment remote now.

The club of Phineas's magic through the wall took her by surprise, like a crude hand thrust into her face to tear away her veils. She lashed at him, hard, with her magic, and through the contact between them heard him cry out. She thrust him away, forcefully, but without the revulsion that she had felt for the Shadowborn; indeed, the sense of his magic was not unpleasant, almost reminiscent of Ishmael's. But his hostility was palpable. How dared he? he cried.

Then she smelled smoke, sonned before her, and found the blurred roil of flame that was several sheets of paper. Frantically, she snuffed it out.

"Telmaine," Vladimer said from outside, "if you would be so good as to join me."

He must not smell the smoke, he must not. She crumbled the charred, chilled paper into her reticule. A sweep of her hand found the latch; she released it, half fell into the room, and slammed it closed behind her. Vladimer's sonn caught her as she stumbled against an armchair and braced herself upright on shaking arms.

"You didn't tell me that you didn't trust the Broomes," she accused before he got out his first word. "You didn't tell me that you would have had me hold them while you shot them. How dare you!" A lady's carefully groomed vocabulary had no words to express his offense and her outrage. Had she been near enough, she would have slapped him. Had any object been in reach, she would have thrown it. The impulse quivered in her muscles, tingled in her gloved palm, but she was deeply grateful it was afforded no outlet. Vladimer's response might not be tempered by gentlemanly courtesy, but she was even more afraid of something inchoate and inadmissible, something embodied in the heat and turbulence of flame. If she let herself be as angry with him as he deserved, she did not know what might happen.

Vladimer sighed. His energy was once again palpably on the ebb, his voice hollow. "I had to be certain that they had no part in it. The woman may protest their unworldly intent, but I do not disregard their power."

"You baited them," she rasped. "You used me as a stalking gun."

"Should they consider aligning themselves with the enemy, I intend them to know that their treachery will be known and rewarded-the brother is my concern, there. You did put him in his place, I trust." He sounded satisfied and she again wanted to slap him. Men could struggle for mastery with impunity; for a woman it was dangerous.

"If those two have any wisdom, they will apply their powers to the information I-and Ishmael, it seems-have given them, and confirm and extend it. I will be interested to hear my informants' reports." He paused. "Thank you, once more, Telmaine."

Five.

Telmaine Vladimer's third summons of the night interrupted Telmaine's bath, though at least his timing had allowed her a little time to savor it. She sent his messenger back with a firm promise that she would be along when she was ready, and settled to let her maid dress her hair. That maid was a source of perplexity to Telmaine's sisters, since she lacked the refinements they expected in a lady's maid, and Telmaine had driven their mother's housekeeper to distraction with her fussiness-for reasons she could never explain. But this maid had a gift for mathematics, and it occupied her to the exclusion of all merely human interests or intrigues. Her touch, with its flow of mental shapes and symbols, its warm absorption in the abstract, was as un.o.btrusive as any Telmaine had experienced.

With her maid's help, she donned a new and lushly fashionable visiting dress that she had ordered before going to the coast. Every season, she outfitted herself to remind society that, whomever she had married, she was still the daughter of a duke. Tonight, she needed to remind herself of that, that Lady Telmaine in full feather had nothing to do with the woman whom Vladimer had co-opted to his intrigues. She tucked her embroidered gloves into the cuffs of the inner sleeves with relief; autumn meant covered arms, no more conspicuous long gloves.

Vladimer was waiting in his private rooms. His lips compressed with irritation, though whether at her tardiness or her plumage, he did not indicate. Spreading her abundant skirts carefully, she sat where he directed.

"I've had a telegraph from Baronette Strumh.e.l.ler to say that Ferdenzil Mycene came through Strumh.e.l.ler and insisted on taking your husband on with him. They left on horseback, bound for Stranhorne."

Telmaine caught her breath. She had traveled in the Borders only twice in her life-while visiting her best friend Sylvide's family-and her recollection was of exhausting carriage rides on bone-jarring roads. "What are you going to do about that? Balthasar is not strong enough-"

"It is but five or six hours' ride, by roads that are reasonable in the main." He paused, sonning her face, which was unimpressed, since she very much doubted Vladimer had entrusted his precious bones to Border roads at any time in his life. "He will simply have to find the strength. I shall ask Maxim Stranhorne to advise his father that no formal charges have been laid against your husband."

"I would be most pleased," Telmaine said, stiffly, "if you would remind everyone of that."

She resolved that she would not ask after Ishmael and allow Vladimer to torment her. Though he did not seem to be in the mood for torment. He sat gripping the head of his cane, hunched around his sling, his expression grim. Her sense of his vitality betrayed what his pride would not: he was feverish and in pain. She would not feel sorry for him. She eased back slightly so that her back was just touching the back of the chair, and waited.

"There is something I need you to do," he said, at last.

Courtesy would demand she acknowledge his statement. She decided that she did not feel in the least polite toward him, either.

He twisted the tip of the cane into the carpet, head lowered. "If I had thought that Seja.n.u.s would broaden the ducal order, I would never have urged him to issue it to the Borders. But I was so fixated on the new threat that I overlooked the old." He lifted his head. "Mycene would take back the archducal seat if he could. Kalamay would be another Odon if he could. I have to know what they mean to do with the forces released to them under the order."

She could understand that, she thought, but what had it to do with her?

"They have requested an interview with my brother. I will arrange that they wait together. Though I doubt they will talk about their plans here, they will surely think on them."