Cold Fire (3 page)

For now, she saw no point in telling Jory that as an accredited mage, she knew more about magic than Anyussa. Instead Daja told the girl, “There’s another kind of mage, not as common as the ones who train with the Mages’ Society or at Lightsbridge. We see a lot of them at Winding Circle. They use magic that’s already in things, rather than adding magic to something. It’s called ambient magic. You can make it stronger, or bigger, or more accurate, with book studies, but you still draw on magic that’s already there. Everything has some magic in it.” She looked at Nia. “I suppose you like cooking too? Though I hardly ever see you in the kitchens.”

Nia shook her head.

Jory replied, “She won’t go near a hearth. She’s afraid of fire.”

Nia glared at Jory. “You would be, too, if you had any sense,” she informed her twin.

The house clock chimed the hour.

Jory and Nia looked at each other. “Music lessons!” they yelped, and tumbled out the door.

Daja uncovered her necklace and went back to work.

After a couple of hours’ labor, Daja realized she was stiff. A walk might clear the cobwebs from her skull. Down the servants’ stair she went, bypassing the kitchen and its enticing smells, following the corridors that connected the buildings until she reached the slush room. Properly clothed, she wandered out into the waning afternoon and the alley. The rear gate to Moykep House was still open, the trampled and sooty ground around it frozen into ruts and holes. Daja looked in. A tall, rumpled figure in a heavy sheepskin coat wandered through the remains of the stable, kicking apart any large clumps of charred matter. Bennat Ladradun was checking for hidden blazes that might find something to burn if the wind picked up.

Entering the courtyard, Daja threw her power out ahead of her, feeling for heat. “There’s nothing warm left,” she told him. “I just checked.”

The big man smiled. “Another useful skill, Viymese Daja,” he said, using the Namornese word for a female mage. He walked carefully across the burned-out mess until he reached her. Places where the firefighters had used water were frozen, making the footing treacherous. As he spread his arms for balance, Daja saw a neatly wrapped bandage on his left hand.

“You got scorched,” she said, pointing to it.

He made a face. “Not too badly. There was a piece of wood in the way when I went to get those boys. I knocked it aside, but the blanket slipped and I hit it with my bare hand. The healer says when I take this off, day after tomorrow, I won’t even have a scar.” Changing the subject, he remarked, “I’m surprised you’re not studying with Godsforge. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him-” He slipped on the edge of the building.

Daja instantly steadied him. “I have,” she said, releasing him as he got his footing. “I’m a smith, really-fire for its own sake doesn’t much interest me. All I know about fire comes from my magic. I know you studied with him.”

Bennat shook his head. “We think we’re such a worldly city, but really, we’re just a collection of villages. Gossip flows quicker than air here. Did they tell you about my birthmarks?”

Daja grinned up at him. “I don’t know how they missed that,” she replied. She had already discovered that most Kadasep Island residents knew her name and Frostpine’s, why they had come to Kugisko, and where they lived. “If you don’t mind my asking, why study with a fire-mage if you’ve no magic yourself?”

“Because he knew how fires burn with different materials, and how to fight them,” the man replied. “Things even someone like me could learn. Things like when you’re in a burning building, touch a closed door first. If it’s hot, you won’t like what happens if you open it.”

Daja raised her eyebrows in a silent question.

He answered: “Opening the door, you give the fire inside a burst of air. It blasts out and cooks the person in the doorway.”

Daja whistled softly. “I’ll remember that. And it makes sense. We use a bellows in the forge to pump air into the fire to make it burn hotter. What else did you learn?”

“How to know if a fire was deliberately set,” he explained. “And wind patterns, the use of sand in winter… ” He stared at the ruins, hands stuffed in his coat pockets. “One time there was a barn that had to be destroyed, so he set fire to it. Then he threw a shield over us, so we could stand in the middle of the barn and watch how the fire burned, along the floor, up the walls, into the loft. It was like a carpet of fire blossoms rippling over our heads.” He glanced at Daja. “I’m sorry. People tell me that I just rattle on.”

“No, no, I’m interested!” Daja protested. “The only time I ever saw anything like that was during this forest fire. Even then, what I saw didn’t ripple or anything. I pulled it through me. All I saw was streaks.” She realized what she must sound like, and hung her head. “I’m not boasting. It really did happen.”

“Oh, I believe you,” said Bennat, his eyes blazing with excitement. “What I would give to see that!”

Daja grinned at him. “At the time I wished I hadn’t, but it wasn’t like I had a choice. I would have died if my foster-brother and -sisters and Frostpine hadn’t helped with their magic. And I didn’t exactly come away unscathed.” She rubbed her thumb against the metal under her left glove. Yes, it was useful. Yes, she now made living metal creations that rich people bought at high prices. She had also seen revulsion on the faces of those who touched her hand and found warm metal, or those who saw her peeling the excess from her flesh. She’d also suffered infections when the metal caught on something and pulled away part of her skin. She shook off those memories. “Did you learn about forest fires from Godsforge?” she asked her companion.

“Enough that I prefer city fires,” Bennat said with a grimace. “Or at least, I prefer city fires if I have trained people to fight them. Godsforge had us out in the woods digging firebreaks one time, and the fire jumped the break. Without him to protect us… ” He shrugged. “He said that once a really big forest fire gets going, it can’t be stopped until it rains or it consumes all the forest it can get.”

They were moving out through the Moykep gate, into the alley. “It’s true,” Daja said. “At least, Niko-Niklaren Goldeye, he was one of our teachers-he said that about lots of things, storms, forest fires, tidal waves. They reach a point of strength, and even the most powerful mages can’t stop them. The best you can do is shift them.”

He’d come to a halt, and was staring at her. “You studied with Niklaren Goldeye?”

It was Daja’s turn to shrug. “He’s the one who saw my magic, and taught us to control what we had. Mostly he was my sister Tris’s teacher, though.” She made a face. “They were well suited-always with their noses in books.”

Bennat laughed and offered his hand. “I enjoyed talking with you, Daja Kisubo. I hope we can do it again.”

Daja took his hand. “Thank you, Ravvot Ladradun. It’s nice to talk to someone who doesn’t just think a fire’s for use or putting out.”

“Call me Ben,” he told her. “And I know what you mean. To most people fire’s a means to an end, or it’s a monster. They don’t realize it has moods just like the Syth, or the skies.”

“No, they don’t,” agreed Daja.

They stood in the frozen alley for a moment, smiling at each other, sharing that understanding of fire and its shapes. Then Ben sighed. “I really should go home,” he said. “Mother will have fits when she sees my clothes. What can you do?” He wandered down the alley toward Ladradun House, hands thrust once more in his coat pockets.

Daja watched him go. She had thought that once children were grown, they didn’t have to worry about a parent’s wrath. Maybe it was different when the grown child came to live under a parent’s roof once again.

The wind threw a fistful of sleet into her face. She turned and hurried back to Bancanor House.

On her return to Bancanor House, Daja went to Frostpine’s room and knocked on the door. Invited in, she found her teacher beside his fire, seated so close to it that the snow-damp hem of his red wool habit steamed gently. He was a tall black man in his late forties, lean and ropy with muscle, full-lipped and eagle-nosed. His bald crown gleamed in the firelight. Daja often thought that it was sheer defiance of his baldness that made Frostpine grow long, wild, bushy hair on the sides of his head: today he had pulled it back and tied it with a thong. The discipline he’d forced onto this hair emphasized his equally wild and bushy beard.

Frostpine had gold coins in each hand when she came in. He walked them through his long fingers, turning them over as they traveled. “Close the door, you’re letting in a draft,” he ordered, tossing a coin to Daja. “I just got back from riding and I’m cold.”

“You’ll set yourself on fire if you move any closer to the hearth,” she informed him as she took the chair beside his.

“Then I’ll die warm,” Frostpine said, glum-faced. “What do you think of that?” He pointed to the coin Daja held.

“What must I think?” she asked, holding it in her palm. “It’s an argib.” She named the standard coin of the empire. “A gold argib, with that awful portrait of the empress on the front.”

“It’s a fake,” he said.

Daja was indignant. “And wouldn’t I tell-” she began to say.

Frostpine leaned over and traced a sign on the coin she held. Daja immediately knew she held a brass counterfeit. “You never taught me how to do that,” she accused him. “How could I not know it was false?”

“Because you weren’t thinking about the possibility of a counterfeit, and because it’s the best such spell I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Thank Hakkoi of the Fire and the Forge that the chief of the magistrate’s mages guessed something was wrong and asked me to take a closer look. It took me two hours to sort through the illusions on it.”

Daja whistled, impressed. “Faking gold so even I couldn’t tell it wasn’t real? That’s serious.”

“The governor wants me to work on this along with Heluda-Heluda Salt, the magistrate’s mage who called me in.” Frostpine sighed. “We have to see not only who’s doing this, but how many fakes are in circulation. And we have to do it quietly.”

“I should think so!” Daja was born a Trader, a people whose many clans bought, transported, and sold goods over a large part of the world. Trader babies got wooden teething toys carved like the main coins for the countries where their families traded. For ten years Daja’s life had been about trade and money. She knew what happened when people found that the coins on which they depended were false. Currency would plummet. No one would buy or sell anything in gold, perhaps not even in copper or silver, until it was proved that no more fakes remained. Such a crisis could result in a government’s fall, or even in war, as well as instant poverty for entire populations. “What about the silver argib?” Daja asked.

“Safe,” Frostpine said. “Whoever did this concentrated on gold-this method would never work on silver. We may have caught the counterfeit early enough to make a difference. I went through half of what’s in the governor’s treasury, and only found ten fakes so far. We need to catch who’s doing it, of course. And any friends he may have. You might not see much of me for a while.”

“You’re sure you can catch him?” Daja asked.

Frostpine smiled. “I handle enough of his fakes and I’ll sniff him out like a hound.”

“You said that when someone was filching your tools back home,” she said ruthlessly. “It took you all winter to find him.”

Frostpine’s dark eyes flashed. “I didn’t know I was looking for a child,” he said tartly. “I suspected dark plots by-oh, you have no respect for me.”

Daja grinned. “I have plenty of respect for you. Truly. I swear it.”

Frostpine slouched in his chair. “Time was when students didn’t mock their teachers. They did as they were told and said, ‘Yes sir,’ and ‘No, sir.’”

“That nobleman in Olart who wanted you as his teacher-he was respectful,” Daja said innocently. “He ‘sir-ed’ you across the realm and back. You called him a, a ‘cake-mouthed ninny dressed as a peahen.’ And you told him memorizing runes and chants did not make him a smith-mage. We had to sleep in someone’s barn that night.”

“Is it my fault he disliked criticism?” Frostpine wanted to know. He put another log on the fire.

As he returned to his chair Daja said, “About students and teachers… I think Jory has cook magic.”

Frostpine raised heavy brows. “You think?”

Daja shrugged. “I was in the kitchen while she was making a sauce. Anyussa said it was lumpy. When she got distracted, Jory did some”-Daja twiddled her fingers to indicate magic-“on it, and the next time Anyussa checked, no lumps. I saw the magic pass from Jory into the pot. And she sees the spells in that kitchen, though she just thinks it’s flashes of light at the corner of her eyes.”

“She’s an ambient mage?” Frostpine asked.

“Has to be,” Daja replied. “She and Nia told me they were tested by magic-sniffers twice, and they didn’t find a thing.”

“Well, if one twin has magic, both do.” Frostpine stretched his booted feet toward the fire. “That’s always the case with twins. The power takes different paths-it seems to be shaped by their personalities and what happens in their lives. Have you a sense for what Nia’s magic might be?”

Daja shook her head. “I have no idea.”

Frostpine smoothed his beard. “Then you need a testing device. Something to help you find out the kind and the strength of magic a person might have,” he said. “There are all varieties-mirrors, globes, crystals. I knew a paint-mage who spelled a clear oil so that when the one she tested put his hand to canvas, a picture of his power, or her power, grew out of it. Beautiful work,” he remarked, and sighed. “I was consumed with envy.”

“So let Kol and Matazi just take Nia to a magic-sniffer and tell him to look harder,” Daja replied. “I have projects of my own to do.” Living metal gloves for a hero, one who didn’t have magic to shield him, she thought but didn’t say.

Frostpine inspected his nails. “I suppose we could get a magic-finder and explain things.” His voice was suspiciously mild. “Things like the Bancanors heard Nia has power, but the discovering-mage couldn’t tell them what it is.”

Daja glared at him. “You’re needling me,” she accused.