Cold Fire (12 page)

“Almost never,” Olennika said. “That is my personal workroom, where I have sent her. No labels. If she is serious, she will know the things I have requested. I do not think the master of the Goldsmiths’ Guild will let his daughter study in Blackfly Bog. We do fine cooking maybe four times a year, when the hospital feeds the rich to get money from them. The rest of the time we cook for the sick and the poor. Quantity, no fancy spices or elaborate creations. She ought to study with Valerian.”

“Ravvikki Jory doesn’t want him,” Serg said gloomily.

Olennika looked Daja over. “What is your interest, Kisubo?” she asked. “How is it a southern mage takes Bancanor’s daughter to see teachers?”

“You know I’m a mage?” Daja asked. Then she winced at the folly of her question. Olennika had already shown that she recognized Jory’s power.

Olennika smiled one-sidedly. “I have a nose, girl,” she replied. “The ravvikki is a spearmint plant, crushed in the hand. You-you are a bed of it, half an acre at least, rolled on by a herd of horses. Why are you here?”

Daja explained. By the time she finished, Jory had returned with a tray full of tiny dishes and plates. Each had something in them. She set the tray down, wiped her hands on her skirts, grimaced, and brushed the places where she’d wiped her hands.

“Don’t fidget,” Olennika ordered, poking a finger through the contents of the dishes. Jory froze.

“Put everything back as you found it.” As Jory left, Olennika faced Daja. “I suppose she is not to be all day with one teacher. I suppose she studies music, and dancing, and books.”

Daja nodded. She was impressed by Olennika’s brisk handling of Jory. It would be good for the girl to study here. The soft-spoken Inagru hadn’t seemed up to Jory’s bouts of enthusiasm. “She can stay as long as you wish for a week,” Daja explained. “But then it’s mornings. As she advances, I think her family can be persuaded to let her stay longer. They’re sensible people.”

“If you say so.” Olennika got to her feet. “Time to start cooking for the morning,” she said. She looked tired. When Jory returned Olennika told her, “We will have a trial. Come tomorrow ready to work.”

Jory squeaked and flung her arms around Olennika’s neck. She gulped, released the woman, then spun giddily for a moment. Taking a deep breath to get herself under control, she ran to fetch their coats.

Olennika watched her. “She will be my student in a week, or she will be happy to study with Inagru or Valerian,” she said with a firm nod. “We shall see.” She turned to Daja and smiled ruefully. “There is one thing,” she began.

Someone dropped several pots on the floor. Everyone flinched at the clatter.

Daja’s heart sank, but she could see the problem. “Meditation?” she asked.

Olennika nodded. “Even in my workroom there is no quiet. People come and go in the cellar, in the attics, from the hospital. Will you-“

It was Daja’s turn to smile ruefully. She knew what she had to say; she just didn’t like it. “Yes, of course.”

“It will be best if she meditates before she comes here,” Olennika said as Jory returned with the coats. “She will be good for nothing but sleep when she gets home. Be here by the second hour of the morning,” she told Jory, then turned to answer an undercook’s question.

At Bancanor House, rather than leave the girls at the front door, Serg drove the sleigh into the courtyard next to the boat basin. A stablehand took charge of it and the horses as Daja, Jory, and Serg trudged into the house. Inside they found that supper had been served and cleared away. Daja and Jory went on to the book room, where Kol, Matazi, and Nia sat and read. Jory told them about Olennika: Matazi and Kol took the news well, though they exchanged a glance when Jory announced where her new lessons would be held.

Daja looked at the yawning Nia, then at the clock. “We need to do meditation,” she said.

“Now?” Jory whined. She glanced at her mother: Matazi raised both elegant eyebrows, a look that dared Jory to continue as she had started. Jory looked down.

“Now,” Daja said. She asked the twins’ parents, “It’s just an hour. Will you be awake?”

“Certainly,” Kol said. “I want to finish this book, and my womenfolk keep interrupting.”

“Papa!” Nia cried. Matazi gently kicked her husband.

Daja grinned and towed the girls out of the room. If she ever married, she hoped she would have as much fun at it as Kol and Matazi seemed to.

They returned to the schoolroom. Finding it dark, Daja went to one of the hall lamps, pinched off its flame, and carried it back to light the lamps. Next she drew her circle with her staff. Once that was done, the twins inside with her, she raised her protections to enclose them once more.

“Could you work magic without your staff ?” Jory wanted to know when Daja finished.

“Mages always have staves in the stories,” added Nia. “Remember the story of Deliellen Stormwalker, raising her staff to part the waters of the Syth?”

“We could make it fashionable, perhaps.” Jory’s voice lacked confidence. “Slender, with a jewel for a knob, or ribbons tied to it.” She brightened. “We could learn to fight with them, like the apprentice boys do!”

“I don’t want to fight anybody,” protested Nia.

Daja leaned on her staff and waited for them to be quiet. Jory sighed. The twins took their seats on the floor. Only when they were ready did Daja take her own place, laying her staff on her crossed legs.

“No, you do not need a staff,” she informed them. “I carry one anyway, so I put it to use. Think, both of you! How many mages today did you see carrying staves?”

The twins hung their heads. “We didn’t realize,” Nia said sheepishly.

“Well, you’re mage-students now. You’d better start realizing. Enough. Close your eyes and breath. One… ” She continued the count until they had the rhythm, then stopped counting aloud. Inside the heart of her own power she saw the ragged silver flares that shot away from each of the twins. They flickered more than they had the day before. Even yesterday’s spotty meditation had strengthened their uncontrolled power.

The moment Jory first shifted and opened her mouth, Daja poked her with her staff. Jory inhaled to speak again, Daja raised her brows. She hoped she said as much with the gesture as Matazi did. Jory looked at the floor with a scowl and took up the breathing again. Nia shook her head once, impatiently, but continued to breathe to the silent count. When Jory inched an ankle out from under the opposite leg, Daja poked her. Jory scowled and bounced one knee impatiently. Daja poked her again.

“Stop it, Jory!” snapped Nia. “I’m trying to do this!”

“So am I!” Jory snapped back. “But it’s hard and it gives my legs cramps and I’m bored!”

“If you quit wanting exciting things to happen for long enough to really pay attention, you wouldn’t get bored!” retorted her twin.

Daja watched with interest. Only around outsiders did Nia huddle down like a mouse. It had taken her a week to get comfortable with Frostpine and Daja, while Jory had been in and out of their rooms not an hour after they’d arrived.

“I suppose you aren’t bored?” demanded Jory of Nia.

“No, I’m not!” replied Nia. “Or I’m almost not, but I thought I felt something, and you ruined it!”

Now Daja poked both of them with her staff. When they turned accusing eyes on her, she said, “I can work a whole day with little sleep. Can you? Because the longer you fight, the longer we sit here.” Grumbling, the twins settled down, Jory sitting with her feet to one side, Nia cross-legged. They closed their eyes and began again. Daja fell into her own meditations, letting herself drift, free of thought. She set about housekeeping, collecting strands of magic that slipped from her central store, tidying up as she would tidy a forge at day’s end. Suddenly a light snore brought her to full attention. Both twins had gone to sleep.

Their day had been hard; Daja thought they all had done as well as they could. She nudged them awake with her staff and rubbed out part of her circle, gathering its magic back into her. “Meet me here, tomorrow morning, half an hour past dawn,” she said. “Before breakfast.”

“But if we did it tonight,” protested Nia, interrupting herself with a yawn.

“No,” Daja said firmly. “Tonight was fiddling and fussing. We didn’t get anything important done, not the way we need to do it. Here, tomorrow.”

“But skating… “Jory protested wearily.

Daja sighed. For a moment just that morning she’d felt as if she flew. “Meditation is more important right now,” she informed the twins. “You need to control your power. Meditation is the only way. Good night.”

She watched them stumble out of the schoolroom, frowning as she rubbed her brass mitt. She had more problems than just the cancellation of skating. This form of meditation wouldn’t serve for Jory. She was too active, too used to movement.

“You have two ways to make the deal,” Daja’s father had taught his children. Lessons in Trader ways were held on deck; they all worked at ship’s chores-mending fish nets, sewing canvas, winding rope, polishing brass-as they listened. “You can make it your way, proving to the customer you are wonderful, wise, powerful, and right. Then the customer either buys once and never again, or he doesn’t buy. Or you can invite the customer, hear his troubles, soothe his fears, show understanding, and he buys. Your way or his way. Your way, you feel superior all the way back to your clan’s house with a begging bowl in your hand. His way, and he brings his children to buy from you next time.”

She could force Jory to meditate in the way that would plainly work for Nia, the way that had worked for Daja and her three friends. If she kept to that, she might lose Jory by turning what should be the most comfortable way to manage her power into a chore. It would be like clipping a bird’s wings before she learned to fly.

She owed Jory better than that. She owed her own teachers better than that.

It suddenly occurred to her to wonder what projects Frostpine had set aside to teach her, when she walked into his forge. What important magics had Lark and Rosethorn put off, to watch over four very different young mages? And Niko, who had worked the most with their meditation, what had he given up? People had constantly mentioned their surprise that the rootless Niklaren Goldeye had spent four whole years in one place, after only staying a year in others. He’d given up four years, to ground Daja and her friends in their command over their power, and to teach Tris. None of them had ever questioned it.

So there was the lesson of mage-teachers, if Daja wanted to learn it. Teaching was more important than personal objectives. Teaching was a serious debt that could only be repaid by correct teaching of new mages.

Deep in thought, Daja blew out the lamps. There were other ways to meditate. Maybe it was time to try one of those.

About to enter her own room, she remembered that Kol and Matazi wanted to talk with her. Still thinking, Daja went downstairs.

“Sit,” Matazi ordered when she joined them. “You look exhausted. Here.” She poured Daja some tea.

Kol put aside his book and leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “How safe is Potcracker’s kitchen?”

“It’s not actually in the slums,” Daja said, sitting back in her chair. “It’s part of the hospital, with a log wall between it and the Bog itself. I saw lawkeepers everywhere, and there are wards and spells laid all over the place for safety, good ones.”

“I know the hospital,” Matazi said. “We contribute to it. Potcracker has a tremendous reputation. I’d just always heard she didn’t take students.”

But she did when faced with one, Daja realized. Just like Frostpine and Niko and Lark and Rosethorn. “I like this Olennika,” she told the Bancanors. “If she agrees to keep Jory, I think it will be very good.” Daja hesitated, then decided to be honest. “Jory surprised me. Olennika didn’t make any bones about it, Jory will work hard, not at wonderful, wizardly things, but at plain cooking. And Jory didn’t flinch. I think better of her for it, though I have to take some of that good feeling off for her dropping Potcracker on me at the last minute after we’d been all over town.”

“What about this Oakborn fellow?” Kol inquired. “Nia’s teacher?”

Again Daja had to think. The answer she came to was the one she owed to these people. “I’m not sure. She’s shy, and he doesn’t like wealthy people. If she was to study directly with him, I would have said no. I doubt he’s patient. But Camoc’s placing her with his senior student, Arnen. He may be all right.”

“Will you keep an eye on Nia?” asked Matazi, putting her hand on Daja’s. “I called her little Shadow, before she became a young lady and too dignified for such things. She’ll hide in the shadows and not say a peep if something bothers her.”

“I’ll keep watch,” Daja promised. “I’m still their meditation teacher, for one thing.” In response to their curious looks she explained, “Both Camoc and Olennika have huge shops-plenty of noise and distractions. I don’t know how they think straight in all that. They asked if I’d keep with the twins on meditation, and I agreed.”

“We can find someone else,” Kol suggested. “You’re our guest, not the girls’ tutor.”

Daja could still get out of it, keep her time all to herself… no. Her teachers had not shirked their duty to new mages, and neither must she. And she owed the twins a personal debt for their skating lessons; she had to repay that to balance the books. She cupped her hand over her mouth to hide a yawn. Tea or no, she was nearly asleep on her feet. “No, I discovered them, they’re my responsibility. Besides, I’m not going anywhere before spring.” She fought another yawn and got to her feet. “Forgive me. I’m tired.”

Kol and Matazi stood when she did, and offered their hands. Daja looked at those outstretched palms, then at the owners, confused. Kol said, “We owe you more than we can say. You found something in our girls everyone else missed, something that could have made them unhappy.”

“We know it’s work for you, and you have your own studies,” Matazi added. “If we can ever thank you properly… “

Daja felt ashamed that she had ever resented her obligation to Nia and Jory. This whole family had taken her in as if she shared their blood. They gave freely; she must do the same. She clasped each offered hand. “See if you feel that way come spring, after a winter together.” She returned the pressure of their fingers and released them, touched by their thanks.