The Fire Mages' Daughter (4 page)

She took us back to her private apartment, with only her bodyguard as witness, and offered me sweetmeats which I was too choked with misery to eat. For herself and Cal, she poured wine.

“Now, Axandrina, I want you to answer me one question, and you must tell the truth, do you understand?”

I nodded mutely.

“Good. The truth, then, and I shall know if you lie. Did you leave the water to run deliberately, or was it an accident?”

“Deliberately, Highness. But I am very sorry. I never meant to cause so much harm.”

“But why? What did you hope to achieve?”

I chewed my lip, but there was no point in prevarication. If nothing else, I wanted her to know how determined I was about this.

“I thought if I did something bad, you wouldn’t want me as your heir. And then I could go home to Mother.”

“Oh, Drina,” Cal said sorrowfully.

But the Drashona smiled. “Do you know what qualities I am looking for in my children, Axandrina? What makes one or another of you interesting to me as a potential heir?”

I shook my head.

“Well, it is not
good
behaviour, that much is certain. It is not docility. I have no interest in a child who is meek and always does exactly as she is told.” Did she mean Zandara? I wasn’t sure she was quite as meek as she appeared, but she was certainly well-behaved.

“Nor am I interested in foolishness,” she went on. Well, that was Axandor out, as well. Bother. That left me, of the three eldest. “If you had simply forgotten the water – that would have been foolish. No, I look for intelligence. Not just book-cleverness, but the sort of mind that looks for alternative ways to solve problems. Diplomatic ways. Most of all, I am looking for someone with spirit, someone who makes things happen. Even if that might be quite unconventional. Can you see why you interest me, Drina?”

So she was choosing to interpret my bad behaviour as creativity, the work of an original mind. I sighed.

“But Highness, I don’t
want
to be your heir.”

It was Cal who answered. “But what is it you object to? Don’t you like it here, Drina? You sound very settled from your letters. You have a friend, you like the book-work, you’ve always enjoyed the formal aspects. And you’re so well here.”

“Yes, that is most encouraging,” the Drashona said. “I do not understand it, but it is a good sign, I think. Drina’s health was always my greatest concern.”

“Kyra thinks it may be the magic here,” he said. “The whole town is steeped in it, emanating from the Imperial City, but the Keep has some magical properties too. It may be that Drina is benefiting from that.”

“Whatever the cause, she is well here, and for that reason alone she should stay. But I cannot have the Keep half destroyed because you miss your mother, Drina. You like challenges, so here is another one for you. You can exclude yourself from consideration as my heir by making yourself indispensable to the realm in some other way.”

I sat up straighter. “I could be a mage!”

“That would certainly be one way. Mages renounce their inheritance rights when they achieve that status, so you could not possibly be my heir.”

“And I could go home to Zendronia?”

“That would be one option. But it will be hard work. Kingswell has no scribery with organised training, so you would have to study with tutors and books. Five years of such study.”

“I don’t mind that. Will you let me try?”

“Of course, if you wish it. You will have to wait a year until you reach thirteen, but then you may try.”

Finally, something I could work towards that would, in time, get me away from the Drashona’s clutches. I didn’t notice at the time how cleverly she’d manoeuvred me into staying quite happily in Kingswell.

And in all the excitement, I forgot to mention my unexpected ability to understand Icthari.

FIVE YEARS LATER

The Master’s eyes were wide with fear. “It is quite true, Most Powerful. I am so sorry, but… but I
had
to tell you.”

“It is a
lie
!” I hissed. “How can such a thing even be possible? It
cannot
be true!”

Yannassia raised one hand to placate me. “Drina, calm yourself. No one would invent such a tale. Please, sit down. You too, Master. Let us discuss this rationally.”

She threw me a worried glance, as if doubting my ability to be rational just then. Perhaps she was right. How could I be calm at such a moment? My entire future was at stake.

The Master perched on the edge of her chair, quivering with distress. Poor
Luciana
! She had taken me under her wing in my very first moon of study, had encouraged my zeal and glowed with pride at my successes.

I’d enjoyed it, too. The legal side was all book-learning and I had no trouble with that at all. It was a delight to spend so much time in the library, books heaped up around me, my fingers inky from taking copious notes. And the spellpages were easier than I’d expected, just a matter of careful attention to detail to be sure the variances and additional symbols were correctly scribed.

In my four years of learning, I’d never failed the Master before. Now she insisted that I had failed so spectacularly that there was no place there for me any longer.

For what was the purpose of a scribe whose spellpages lost their magic?

I took a deep breath. There was no point in anger, and it was not Luciana’s fault, after all. She was the bearer of bad tidings, not the cause of them. It was the two mages sitting quietly across the room who had identified the problem.

“Good,” Yannassia said, watching me master my emotions. “Now, Lady Mage Jayna, would you be so good as to explain it to me, from the beginning?”

“Of course, Most Powerful. It was the Scribing House where Highness Axandrina practised which first alerted us to the problem. They found customers for spellpages started to avoid her. Sometimes, they even went away and came back when she was not there, to be sure of getting a different scribe. When asked, they said that her spellpages did not work.”

“Is that common? To have a favourite scribe, or to avoid a particular one?”

“Oh yes. People are very superstitious. If one spellpage fails, they will choose a different scribe next time, or sometimes a different Scribing House. And it is not uncommon for spells to fail, or work less well than expected. With magic, nothing is guaranteed.”

“But this was more than that?”

Jayna nodded, throwing me a sympathetic glance. I had noticed it myself, to be honest. When I’d first started working at the Scribing House in my free time, customers had flocked to buy spellpages scribed by the Drashona’s daughter. But lately, the stream of silver had slowed to a trickle. I hadn’t taken much notice at first, since I hardly needed the money and only went there to practise my skills. But lately I’d passed hours at a time without a customer, even when the other scribes were busy.

“So we checked Highness Axandrina’s spellpages, and that was when we discovered that they had no magic in them.”

“That is the part that makes no sense,” I said, forcing myself to speak in reasonable tones. “I always used the spelled paper, ink and quill. I scribed each spell correctly, I am certain. How can there be no magic in them?”

“We do not understand it ourselves,” Jayna said. “Our archivists are looking for precedents, but no one can ever recall hearing of such a thing before.”

“And you are quite certain?” Yannassia said. “The spellpages have been thoroughly examined?”

“Quite certain. There are several of us who can detect the magic directly. We can give Drina… Highness Axandrina the spelled materials and watch her scribe the spellpage, and when we take it from her, there is no magic.”

“Then where does the magic go to?”

But the mages had no answer.

~~~~~

That was the end of my scribing studies. There was no longer any purpose to it. I was still officially a contract scribe, no one could take that away from me, and in theory I could complete the full five years to become a law scribe, but what would be the point? My sole objective had been to make myself a mage and so put myself beyond Yannassia’s reach, and that was now impossible.

It was Vhar-zhin who bore the brunt of my bewilderment and frustration. Vhar-zhin, my friend and confidante, my supporter in all things. I stormed back to the apartment we shared, and she held me while I wept and raged and wept again.

“We will find something else for you to do,” she whispered into my hair. “There must be something we can think of.”

But I could not. For five years I had worked tirelessly towards this one end, and now I found I had wasted my time. I might as well have sat with Vhar-zhin and her waiting women, embroidering and weaving and painting and practising complicated music.

I missed the mages’ house, where I’d had my own little study room, full of books. I missed the mages, bustling in and out to discuss a difficult set of variances, or the tricky sub-clauses of a trading agreement. Mostly, I missed having my hours full, each with its appointed task, and none of it to do with ruling Bennamore.

What was I to do now? The need to go home, to be back where I belonged, burned in me brighter than ever. When I could absorb myself in my studies, and work towards my release, I could push the longing to the back of my mind. But now I was reminded of the great void in my life. It was not Zendronia I yearned for, I knew that; it was the very heart of my life, my mother. I was like a plant uprooted and tossed aside. Without that basic connection to her – to her
magic
– I would fade away and die.

Yannassia left me alone for a few suns to cool my temper before summoning me. She saw me in one of her private chambers between formal engagements, wearing her ruler’s attire, a gown so layered in lace and gold trimming, it was a wonder she could move. Yet she was alone, apart from her bodyguard, and from her manner you would have thought she had all the time in the world. It was an art, the way she did that, her focus so intent that you felt you were the only person she cared about. And perhaps that was her secret: for that small fraction of time, you were indeed all she cared about, everything else set aside.

She made no attempt to console me. “It is very disconcerting, to be sure, since no one seems to know the cause of this difficulty. However, the mages are investigating and if there is a solution, they will find it, you may be sure. Or if not, then you will in time find some other occupation which suits you. In the meantime, we must find a way for you to fill the hours. You are very welcome to attend me whenever I have business that appeals to you. Your advice is always refreshing.”

That sounded too close to training for heirdom to me, and therefore something to be avoided.

“Or you might find the mirror room interesting,” she went on, ignoring my silence. “All the important messages pass through there.”

The mirrors were a means of communicating between the scriberies in different towns. Pairs of mirrors were magically linked, so that a message from Ardamurkan or Yannitore would appear on a mirror in Kingswell, to be copied by a scribe. Then a reply could be written onto another mirror to be read at once many marks away.

Kingswell’s mirrors had come from the Imperial City’s scribery, now empty and unused. The Imperial City was full of such curiosities, lingering from an age lost in history. The whole place was steeped in magic far beyond our present skills. Mother and Cal talked of its many wonders – the fountains which played just for them, the flowers that bloomed and released their perfume as they passed by, and lamps that brightened and darkened all by themselves. But it was full of traps for the unwary. Only mages were safe there, and even they had to be careful.

So the mirrors had been brought to the safety of the Keep. There were still a few mirrors left behind in the Imperial City, though. Broken, the mages said, but Cal thought they communicated with scriberies now lost to us. I liked to think of them hidden deep in the southern forests, known only to deer and foxes.

The mirror room was of interest to me, and I brightened at the thought. It was so full of magic, the air practically crackled with it.

But there were other sources of magic. “Might I take a trip away? It is two years since I have been to Zendronia to see my mother.”

She hesitated. “Perhaps, but without some reason to return, you might linger on and be caught by the snows.”

“We are several moons away from the worst weather,” I said.

“It is a long journey for you, Drina. You were exhausted after your last visit home.”

That was true. I fell silent, chewing my lip, struggling to find a reason to go home.

She went on, “Some time away from Kingswell might do you good, but what is needed, I believe, is something more constructive. I have had an approach from the Blood Clans. Their boy god is making friendly overtures to us, and there is a hint that he would consider a Bennamorian wife.”

“Not me!”

She heard the horror in my voice, for she smiled. “No, not you. Unless you take a fancy to him, of course. He is said to be a handsome boy, and very charming. But then, he has his own people crawling at his feet, so I suppose a certain magnetism is to be expected.”

I tried to reconcile this pleasant image with the bloodthirsty ways of the Clans, and failed.

“No, I was thinking of Vhar-zhin,” she went on. “She is seventeen now, and has no interests beyond the refined arts. To be truthful, I cannot imagine what we are to do with her. What do you think? Would such a husband suit her, do you suppose?”

“These people are savages, Highness. I cannot see Vhar-zhin stitching away at her tapestry or playing the
querolo
in such a setting.”

“The reports we get are mixed, on the matter of savagery. They are not quite running around the hills in blue paint and feathers.”

“But illiterate, and they live amongst half-wild animals. Their customs are… bizarre.”

“I daresay they think the same of us.” But she raised her hands to concede the point. “I should like you to go anyway, you and Vhar-zhin. They have asked for an official delegation to meet them at the northwestern border fortress. They have a permanent camp there, for trading purposes and formal celebrations. Discuss the matter of a wife for the boy god, but without making any commitment. See what type of people they are, what they want from us, what we might want from them. Their inner lake is surrounded by mineral-rich hills which would be most useful. They have the black-bark tree, which grows nowhere else. Or fishing, furs – you know the sort of thing.”

I did. It was depressing how much of Yannassia’s teaching I had absorbed over the years, when I’d had no idea that there was any teaching going on. Sitting on my chair at the foot of the dais, listening and watching, and discussing it afterwards with her, I’d become the diplomat I’d been determined never to be.

Even now, when I was fully aware that I was being quietly manoeuvred into a more active political role, I was still energised by the prospect of the trip. The Blood Clans, like all our more primitive neighbours, were fascinating. And it would only be a matter of suns, and then I could get back to plotting my escape.

“Do you think he will like me?” Vhar-zhin said, as we prepared for bed that evening.

“How could he not?” I said, and laughed as she blushed prettily. I couldn’t imagine any man not liking her, sweet and dainty and shy as she was. And pretty, too, much prettier than me, with her glossy black hair that fell like a waterfall to her waist, without a wayward curl anywhere. I loved brushing her hair, letting it run through my fingers like silk.

“He might like you more,” she said.

“He had better not!”

“But
you
might like
him
. He is a god, so he must surely be handsome beyond the mortal range, and tall, with lots of manly muscles and a twinkle in his eye when he looks at you. Like a certain bodyguard.”

She giggled, and I tapped her with the hairbrush. “Stop it, you wicked girl. You know he never meant anything to me.”

But only because he’d never had the chance. He was a fine-bodied man, with a smile to melt my heart, and he’d been my bodyguard for one all-too-brief period until we were caught kissing in the poetry translations section of the Keep library. To my sorrow, I’d had a female bodyguard since then, but I still had certain dreams of him.

Whatever this boy god was like, I was sure he couldn’t compare to my lovely bodyguard.

~~~~~

Our journey to the northwest was on horseback, since the paved roads petered out into rutted tracks a few suns’ ride beyond Kingswell. We passed two substantial towns, then a succession of ever-smaller settlements before reaching the remains of the High Citadel, the home of the Three Princes who had first settled Bennamore so many generations ago. They had come from the far north for reasons lost in history, and driven out the nomads and wild men of the hills, building their towers and keeps on fertile land along the river. Both river and princes were long gone now, their great town empty and silent.