02 - The Barbed Rose (18 page)

He shrugged. “North. No one else would have me. Said I curdled the milk, or disturbed the ether, or something.”

“Those East folks can be delicate like that. Are you learning anything?”

“No.” His face turned from Kallista to Torchay, Kallista to Obed, as if he watched something. “There’s a new one. Someone I don’t recognize in your dance.”

“What dance?”

“Of magic. I forgot how brilliant it is. But there’s a new one. Isn’t there?”

“I apologize for not introducing you before. We have a new ilias, another of the godmarked. Joh Suteny, this is Gweric vo’Tsekrish.”

Joh clasped Gweric’s hand without hesitation. “A pleasure to meet you, son.”

“You mean that, don’t you?” Gweric sounded surprised.

“I do. Are you truthsayer?”

“No. At least, I don’t think so. I just—your magic…sparkles. I can see it dancing between all of you and things show in the magic. The truth. Someone without magic…”

“I am honored to meet you as well, Naitan,” Viyelle spoke up.

Gweric startled at the sound of her voice, jerking around to face her. “Who is that?”

“My manners have left me completely.” Kallista was glad the boy could not see her blush, though everyone else could. “My only excuse is that I was so glad to see you I forgot everything else. This is Viyelle Torvyll, a courier attached to my command.”

Viyelle took Gweric’s hand in both of hers, bowing over it. “It is my honor and my pleasure to meet you. I look forward to furthering our acquaintance, Naitan.”

Gweric shut his mouth with a snap. “I cannot read your truth. I cannot see you at all.”

Viyelle’s smile twisted. “I have always known I have no magic whatsoever. Less than none.”

Now Gweric blushed. “I did not mean to insult you, Aila.”

She patted his hand. “None taken, dearest.” Now, finally, she released him with another subtle squeeze, giving a bland smile in answer to Kallista’s raised eyebrow.

Kallista took back the conversation, trying to decide what, if anything, all that hand-patting and squeezing meant. “You said you are not learning at the academy?”

“I am learning some things. History, philosophy, magic theory—but I cannot do the other things. My—my magic—” He still sounded uncomfortable saying the word even after almost a year away from Tibre. “My magic doesn’t
do
anything. It just…watches.”

“What does it watch?”

“Everyone else’s magic. I told you. I am a witch hound. I see magic.”

Kallista leaned back until she found Joh behind her, turning the boy’s words and the things the Reinine had told her over in her mind. “Perhaps that is your magic after all,” she said. “That you see things. Things others do not see.”

“And I do not see things that others do,” he muttered, sounding all sullen youth.

Thinking hard, Kallista slid her gaze toward Viyelle. It came down to a matter of trust. Could Viyelle come smack up against West magic without flinching? Kallista had to decide, and did. “I have a teacher for you, Gweric.”

“I thought
you
would teach me.” More sullenness.

“I don’t know enough to teach you. I need to learn myself, especially about West magic.” Kallista spoke as matter-of-factly as she could, watching Viyelle without appearing to. “Let me call her.”

Since she was sitting against Joh, Kallista touched her bare arm to his and pried up the merest whisper of magic. Slapping it awake, she sent it questing through the palace and waited for response. It was not long in coming.

“Back again, are you?”

“Hello, Grandmother.” Kallista watched both Viyelle and Gweric now. The boy stared openmouthed, obviously
at
something. Viyelle peered around the room trying to see who Kallista spoke to.

“I have a pupil for you, Grandmother. Gweric is a West naitan we brought back from Tibre with us. Gweric, I make known to you Domnia Varyl, founder of my bloodline and dead these—what? Two hundred years?”

“You expect me to keep up with those things?” Domnia retorted. She bustled closer. “Well, boy? Do you want to learn?” She didn’t wait for him to respond, speaking to Kallista. “Is he lack-witted? What’s wrong with him?”

“Gweric?” Kallista laid her hand on his shoulder.

“I can see her, Kallista,” he whispered. “Not just the magic floating about her, or dancing like yours between your ilian, but
her
. Eyes, nose, mouth, fingers—
everything
.”

“I suppose, dear heart, that is because my many-times great-grandmother is a ghost. Her whole being is of the magical realms. Still, she does know West magic. What little I know of it I learned from her. Are you willing to learn from a ghost?” Kallista squeezed Gweric’s shoulder, then risked a glance at Viyelle. She looked more fascinated than horrified. “Gweric, what say you?”

“But my magic doesn’t
do
anything,” he protested. “Except see other magic.”

“Then I will teach you to understand what you see,” Domnia said. “If you are not afraid to learn.”

Kallista held her breath. The pride had been beaten out of him in Tibre. Had enough of it come back for that sort of challenge to work?

“I am not afraid.” Sullen, not defiant. But he was taking up the challenge. If only to prove her wrong. “Whatever you teach me, it won’t change anything.”

“We will see.” Domnia looked around her in disgust. “Oh, bloody Khralsh. You’re going to want me to pay attention to those infernal clocks. Well, I won’t. I’ll be here at dawn tomorrow. Be ready.” And Domnia faded out of view.

“Excellent.” Kallista clapped her hands together and stood. That task was done. “Viyelle, choose a room and get settled in. Help Gweric get settled.”

She looked at the furniture movers, now finished with their task. “Are we ready to visit the bankers? If we’re going to stay at court a while, we ought to do some shopping as well. We all need clothes, but especially Joh.”

“For ribbons,” Torchay said. “You need insignia for your new rank.”

Oh, yes. She had to replace the two white ribbons on each shoulder for her captain’s rank with three ribbons in gold. “You have my gloves? Are we ready?”

Torchay drew her brown regulation gloves from his belt and handed them to her, then bowed, gesturing them toward the door.

“Leaving already?” Viyelle said from her place near Gweric. Very near Gweric. “Will you be gone long?”

“Long enough.” Kallista walked backward across the open space, trying to decide how she felt about any dalliance between them. “Be gentle.”

“I am always gentle, Naitan. No worries.”

With a last niggling qualm—Gweric did not need his heart broken, too, after all he’d been through—Kallista turned her back on them and Obed opened the door to the suite.

Gweric called out. “Be careful, Naitan. Watch the heights.”

All four of them stopped at the doorway to look back at the youth. “What did you say, Gweric?” Kallista asked gently.

“W-watch the heights. The high places in the city.” He stammered as he repeated himself. “I do not know why—I just—”

“We’ll watch,” Torchay said. “We watch everything, always, to guard our naitan.”

“But I will watch more carefully,” Obed said as they left the room.

“We all will.” Torchay fell back to his place in the rear.

Kallista took Joh’s hand against separation in the crowds, and they ventured forth into the palace and on into the city.

CHAPTER TEN

T
he crowds only grew thicker the farther Kallista and her ilian walked from the palace. The bank they patronized was one of the closer ones, but they still had several sections of the city to cross.

“Maybe we should have had the bank come to us.” Kallista clung to Obed’s belt with one hand and Joh’s with the other while people jostled them on all sides.

“You should have thought of that before we got into this mess.” Torchay came near to shouting to be heard from his position behind them. Kallista knew he had hold of Joh’s belt because their human chain had been Torchay’s suggestion at the beginning.

“I wanted to shop.” She rose onto her toes, trying to see past the people surrounding them to the businesses edging the square they currently threaded their way through. “Aren’t we in Tailor’s Square?”

“I think so, yes.”

“The shop I want is that way. Left.” Kallista pushed Obed’s shoulder, steering him into an abrupt left turn.

“’Ware!” Joh shouted as he jumped forward into Kallista, knocking her aside, to the ground.

A woman screamed. An arrow quivered in her thigh where she stood a few paces ahead, along the path they had been taking. She screamed again when she saw it and collapsed to the street.

Another arrow sprouted from the chest of a graybeard on Kallista’s other side. He fell without making a sound save the escaping of his breath. There was a moment of eerie silence, punctured only by the cries of the injured woman and the angry hum of yet another arrow.

“Assassin!” Torchay leaped forward and the arrow pierced him rather than Kallista.

The plaza erupted in shouts and screams as the crowds of people fled. A man lifted the woman in his arms; the arrow bobbed with every step as he ran from the square with her.

“Get her out of here,” Torchay wheezed. Kallista stared in horror at the arrow point coming out the front of his tunic while Joh held him upright. “
Now
, before he gets the rest of us and she has no one to shield her.”

Obed lifted Kallista to her feet, shielding her with his body. She threw her gloves to the ground, scooped up magic and packed it around the arrow piercing Torchay through, her desperation making the magic’s reluctance irrelevant. They didn’t have time to remove the arrow now, but she would not let him bleed to death before they did.

“Joh, bring him,” she ordered. “You!” She pointed at a dun-clad soldier who appeared as the crowd vanished, like a rock emerging from receding tide.

Two more arrows buzzed into the crowd, drawing more screams. Obed picked her up and carried her bodily into the dubious shelter of the fountain at the square’s center. Fortunately, the soldier followed, along with Joh half-carrying Torchay. Kallista called more magic to ease his pain, then a bit more to find that damned assassin. As she sent it winging out, she noticed more soldiers gathering in the shelter of the fountain and read the ranks on their sleeves.

“Sergeant,” she addressed the burly lifer first. “Take half these men and circle round to the right. Corporal, you take the rest to the left. See if you can flush this demon-lover out. He is—” The magic found what it sought and Kallista jerked it, as if hooking a fish, marking him.

“He is there. My magic has marked him, though I don’t know exactly how. You will know which man he is though. I am sure of that. I’ll see what I can do to get us some help.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Kallista didn’t bother to correct him. She hadn’t got her new insignia yet and the sergeant was already counting off men and readying his rush across the square.

It was empty now, save for the people huddled behind the fountain and in the shelter of the buildings. Save for the two bodies lying motionless in their own spilled blood gleaming brightest red in the sunlight: the old man who was the second to fall and a child struck when the killer fired wildly into the crowd, a boy of ten or twelve.

The assassin fired at the oncoming soldiers, striking one. Kallista threw sluggish magic at the injured man, hoping it would stop the bleeding from this distance. The others all made their destinations safely. They needed more help. Could she—?

“I’m calling magic.” Kallista caught Joh’s bare wrist.

“You haven’t been already?” Torchay’s breath was shallow, wheezy, but he seemed to rest comfortably on his side.

“I need more. I’m going to try farspeaking. We need help, more than those few searching for our would-be killer.”

“He is not ‘would-be’” Obed said. “He has shed innocent blood.”

“But he has not killed
us
. And we are the ones he wants.”

The boy in the plaza stirred, moaned. He was alive. Kallista reshaped the braid of magic she held, wrapped it around him, hoping to keep him that way. If she could touch him, she could do more. The sniper hadn’t fired in some time. She rose to peer over the fountain’s edge. Obed pushed her back down as an arrow whizzed past to shatter on the cobblestones.

“Do
not
put yourself at risk,” he hissed. “
I
will get the boy.
You
get help.”

“Obed, wait—”

But he did not, of course, flying across the square in a flutter of black Southron robes through a hail of arrows. Only five, but it seemed a veritable hailstorm to Kallista who held her breath till Obed returned.

“Call for help,” Torchay said, grunting as he sat up with the arrow protruding front-and-back from his chest. “I’ll check the boy.”

“You have an arrow running clear through you,” Kallista protested.

“But I’m not bleeding.” He gestured at his near-spotless tunic. “Nor do I hurt.”

The sooner she tried calling, the sooner she could stop Torchay’s demented behavior. Arguing would only prolong it. Quickly she yanked up more stubborn, reluctant magic, wound it together and sent out her call, using both words and the images in her mind, hoping she would reach someone. Anyone.

“Who…
is
this?” A faint and tentative voice sounded in Kallista’s ears. No one who was physically present. A woman’s voice.

“Never mind that. Just send help. Lots of it. Tailor’s Square.” Kallista released the magic and turned to her injured mate. “Lie back down,” she ordered. “Carefully.” She helped Joh ease him back onto his side.

“The boy’s lost a lot of blood,” Torchay said. “But you’ve stopped that. His lung’s perforated. It should be collapsed, whistling. But somehow you stopped that as well. He’ll make it till we can get the arrow out of him.”

He looked down at the arrow sticking out of his own middle. “As will I. I’ll be glad to be rid of the thing. It’s a bit awkward, you know. A bit disconcerting. Especially since it doesn’t—exactly—hurt. Not that I mind not hurting, mind you. I’m not particularly fond of pain. But it is a bit disconcerting.”