Feast of Souls (10 page)

Her eyes blaze with fire but she says nothing. He sighs heavily, knowing the look. For all of her discipline and obedience in matters of apprenticeship, she remains at her core what she was the first day she arrived on his doorstep: an angry, abused child, determined to take the world by the short hairs and force it to give her what she wants. And now she has the power to do so.

Gods help you when you start demanding what the world does not wish to give. And gods help any Magister that tries to get in your way.

“For now,” he says quietly. “Promise me that.”

There is a long, long silence. Before her Transition he would have known how it would end. Now… now there is no way to predict her.

“For now,” she says at last. Her voice is solemn, but the fire in her eyes makes it clear just how short a time
now
might be.

She turns from him and starts her way down the rocky hillside, into the shadows of the forest.

He lets her go, in silence.

The Wind picked up just as the market was shutting down; its touch set the talismans about the witch’s tent to tinkling, an odd and random music to herald the coming of night.

The witch called Rakhel counted the few coins in her purse and sighed. She hadn’t earned much today, but that was to be expected. People didn’t come to consult an oracle when their lives were going well, and the recent rains and seasonable weather had made the locals more than content. Crops were rising high and spirits with them—what need had such people of a witch’s prognostications? Even the usual diseases of harvest season seemed to be avoiding the city this year, as if all of nature were determined that the city’s witches should go without work.

And so it was doubly fortunate for her that the foreign Magister had visited her a short while ago. His generosity would see her through a dry season and she was grateful for that, even if she did shudder each time she handled his coins. Dark omens clung to them in a faint patina that morati eyes would never see, but she had been gifted since her birth with the ability to see what others did not, and she could not mistake it. Was that something of the man’s own unique resonance, a personal darkness, or some quality that attended him as Magister? She had never been close enough to any other Magister to know. After feeling his coin, she hoped she never was close to one again. The sense of it was not right, not… not
human
.

The cloth hanging over the doorway of the tent stirred suddenly, as if something other than wind had stroked it. Startled, she looked up, and hurriedly put the handful of coins deep into her pocket. “Yes?”

The voice was male, and as smooth and fine as a deep-hued ale. “Is it beyond the hours of service?”

“Not at all,” she said. “Please come in.”

She stood, that she might greet her visitor properly, and smoothed her embroidered skirts down about her.

A man drew the flap aside and ducked slightly to clear the low entrance. He was a tall man, handsome in an indefinable way that had as much to do with the quality of his spirit as any trick of the flesh, and he moved with the easy grace of young adulthood. His clothes were plain but the quality of their cut was noteworthy, and though he wore no golden ornaments to proclaim his wealth, her Sight could pick out the shadows of past treasures that had once adorned him.

He piqued her curiosity, enough that she dared a whisper of true magic to know who and what he was… and her breath caught in her throat when the answer came.

Her knees folded beneath her, and before she spoke a word she lowered her head to the floor. “Your Highness.”

“No need, no need,” he told her. “Please, get up.”

She did so, and was reassured by the half-smile on his face. It was comforting, even if her Sight could make out unnamed shadows that lay behind it.

“You know who I am?” he asked.

“A prince of the Royal House.”

“Andovan. The name is Andovan.”

Her heart beating wildly, she nodded. “Prince Andovan. You do me great honor, my lord. How may a humble witch serve Your Highness?”

He looked about the tent’s shadowy interior, taking in its trappings. No doubt the brightly embroidered silks and talismanic ornaments which so impressed the usual customers of the marketplace were less impressive in his sight, as he had been raised to silken garments and probably played with precious gemstones like they were a child’s marbles. But he did not seem displeased, and when his eyes fixed on her again she felt a shiver that had more to with his maleness than any thought for the difference in her station.

“Rakhel—that’s your name, isn’t it?” He gestured toward the cushions she had set up for guests. “May I sit?”

“I… yes, my lord, of course.” She hated herself for being flustered.
Imagine he is nothing more than a customer
. As he lowered himself to the thick cushions she hooded her eyes and tried to shut him out for a moment, to reclaim her professional demeanor. But inside her chest her heart was pounding. First a Magister, now a prince. What were the gods planning for her these days, that they sent her such distinguished visitors?

She could have unraveled that secret, of course, had she truly wanted to. She had the power. But it would be a complex undertaking, and the price would be high. It was easy to part with a second of your life to learn a man’s name; it was another thing to offer up years of your existence for a single fragment of knowledge.

Perhaps the Magister would tell me
, she thought.
Per-haps if 1 found him and asked him, he would be willing to use his power to help me
.

But that would make her indebted to him, and if there was anything that witches were taught from the cradle, it was never to owe anything to a Magister.

“You don’t mind if I call you by your name, do you?”

She blushed slightly as she lowered herself to a cushioned seat opposite him, with the silk-draped table between them. “No, my lord. Though I’m surprised you know it.”

His smile, faint though it was, brought sunshine into the tent. “Your skill is renowned among the city folk. They say your talent is genuine, which few can claim.”

His words mirrored those of the Magister but a few days before. “I have the Sight, my lord. Sometimes more than that, if more is required.”

“Then you may indeed be able to serve me,” he said. The smile faded and an odd, guarded quality entered his tone. “Will you See for me, Rakhel? As witches See?”

“Of course, my lord, but—” Startled, she stumbled over her words. “Do not… I mean… the Magisters…”

“You mean, I have the Magister Royal at my beck and call, and gods know how many black-robed visitors right now so why don’t I go to them for help? Is that what you meant to say?”

She bit her lip and nodded slightly.

He looked down for a moment, no doubt musing over what knowledge might be shared with a commoner, witch or no. Finally he said, “The Magister Royal serves my father first and foremost, and tells him what he wants to hear. As for the rest, they are strangers to me, and their masters are rivals to my father.” His eyes were blue, misty blue, like the sky just before a rainstorm. “Which of those should I trust, Rakhel? Which of those will give me an honest answer?”

“I see,” she whispered.

“You…” His blue eyes were fixed on her with mesmeric intensity; she could not have looked away had she tried. “You’ll tell me the truth, won’t you? Even if it’s not what you think I want to hear? I’ll pay whatever such service costs, Rakhel. I’ll see you never want for anything in your life, if you are true to me in this.”

It took her long seconds before she could respond. That long to still the wild beating of her heart, and to be sure she could speak without fear resonating in her voice. “Of course, my lord.” Her voice was a whisper. “It is an honor to serve you.”

What truth could there be, that such men would hide it from him? What would they do to her if she got involved in Magister business? Her hands trembled in her lap; she hid them quickly in a deep fold of her skirt, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

“What is it you want of me?” she whispered.

The blue eyes, misty as a morning sky, studied her for a moment. A woman could lose herself in such eyes, she thought… if the woman were not a witch, and the man not a royal prince, and the business between them not likely to be a dark business, rife with razor-edged secrets.

“I have been ill of late,” he said quietly. “The Magis-ters pronounce it a disease beyond their healing, but I know what healing feels like, and none of them have even tried. Ask them why and they scatter like deer before the hunter’s horn. I’ve seen the look in their eyes, Rakhel. They know more than they’re telling me. A prince learns to recognize such things.”

He leaned forward over the table. “Tell me what afflicts me. Give it a name that I might call it, and I swear to you, though it be that of the Devil’s Sleep itself, I will reward you for your honesty.”

For a moment she could not answer. Her heart was pounding too loudly. There were too many traps here, too many potential pitfalls; which one would swallow a witch whole?

Then she forced herself to draw a deep breath—to remember to breathe—and told herself,
This is not Dan-ton
. The High King was infamous for taking out his rage upon those who brought him bad news. But this one? She had never heard anything like that about Andovan, or any implication that he was cruel or unjust. Women who talked about him tended to whisper and giggle in the shadows, and men just scowled and pretended not to notice his existence.

She bound a bit of power to read his intentions… and yes, he was telling her the truth, he wished only honesty. And hungered for answers so fiercely that she could taste it.

“I am no Magister,” she said quietly, “but I will do my best for you.”

He nodded.

She reached out her hands. He understood, and placed his own in them. She turned them palm upward and for a moment simply studied the patterns etched across his palms—a callus here, a slender scar there, the marks of an archer and woodsman and hunter who cared little for the perfumed niceties of court.

Then she looked deeper.

As soon as she entered his flesh she could sense the weakness in him. It was an odd kind of weakness, one that seemed to have no source, yet anywhere she looked the signs of it could be found. The flow of his blood was like a stream in midsummer, narrow and hesitant, its course clearly marked for a more powerful current. Yet there was nothing choking off its flow that she could find. The drumbeat of his heart was odd, strangely muted, yet she sensed no malfunction within it. The very muscles themselves seemed to lack in youthful resiliency, but there was no cause for that either: not disease, not parasite, not inborn flaw that she could find, not anywhere.

Then she looked at his soulfire… and gasped.

Low, so low! Like a bonfire dying, its last feeble embers shrouded in dust. As soon as she touched it she could feel its terrible
wrongness
, and she knew that here was the heart of his illness, its name if not its cause.

It was said among witches that one should never gaze too closely at the soulfire of a stranger, lest it sear one’s soul to ashes. Yet it was impossible not to look. She had heard of conditions where the soulfire would expire before its time, but had never had the chance to study such a thing herself. Could the athra be healed like the body was healed, by correcting the cause of its weakness? If she could probe deeply enough to find out what had caused this, could she make him whole? It was said that witches were better at healing than Magisters, that their nature was better suited to that art; might it be that she could succeed where all the king’s ministers had failed?

Trembling, she wrapped her special senses around the dying flame, tasting its essence. Deep inside it she could sense a spark of true heat that might perhaps ignite the whole anew if she prodded it, but the outer boundary was a wispy, shadowy realm that already tasted of Death. It was as if he was already an old man, dying, but without any cause of the flesh to show for it. Yet there must be a cause somewhere, she thought. Men did not die for no reason.

Gathering her will together, drawing on the strength of her own soul for power, she gazed even deeper into the heart of the dying prince. Beyond the outer boundaries of the soulfire where strangers should hesitate, into that central core of the soul’s strength, where all living energies were born—

And she sensed something then. Something rooted within the prince’s weakened soul, that led… elsewhere. In all her years of witchery she had never felt anything quite like it, nor even heard rumors of such a thing. The soulfire was by definition self-contained, and among the morati never extended beyond the bounds of flesh; yet here was something that undeniably led
elsewhere
, outward from his flesh, to… what? Where did it go, this tenuous connection, that had no solid conduit to lead it? Fascinated, she drew upon the full strength of her power to taste its true essence, to learn its name—

And the breath was sucked out of her lungs by a crushing force that seemed to come from all directions at once. Instantly she tried to draw back from the prince’s soul, but could not; it was as if some invisible power had grabbed hold of her and would not allow her to leave. Even if he had been a master of the athra the prince could not have done it himself; no, there was something else connected to him, someone else connected to him, and the witch could feel that alien will wrapping itself about her own essence, tendrils of power like hungry snakes piercing deep into her flesh, seeking the tender soul within.