Fire in the Mist (25 page)

:She waits at the rock, Sahedre.:

:I did not ask reports of you—only results. Can you lure her closer?:
 

:I think so, Great One. But if this works, the rock will be a good enough place. And if we succeed, she will surely follow.:
 

:Then we shall go to her.:

The Mottemage's bracelet weighed around Faia's wrist like a millstone, tying her to a place and a way of life she became daily more sure she didn't want. With Yaji gone back to the dorm, the silence of the lake surrounded and enveloped her, and increased her loneliness and despair. She dipped her fingers in and out of the water and listened to the soft "plink, plink" of the droplets she scattered, and basked in the hard afternoon sunlight that beat down on her back. Her eyes were half-lidded against the glare; her breath went slow and lazy; her belly soaked up the heat of the sandstone through her thin leather jerkin.

I wish I had stayed in Saje-Ariss,
she thought.
Or that I had taken the damned wingmount and started flying and just kept on going until I got someplace I liked.
She slapped the water, splashing a wave across the glass-smooth surface that sent ripples racing away in all directions.
I would have been fine if I'd done that.

The soft "ploosh" of something heavy going into the water sounded from around the tree-covered point off to Faia's left. The splash was followed by six more.

Faia looked up. At first there was nothing, and then she could make out the smooth "V" of something swimming toward her. It became a line of somethings, one after the other—and she recognized the Fendles.

They haven't abandoned us,
she thought, first delighted—then frightened as she realized,
If they haven't abandoned us, neither has the killer.
She sat up and watched them racing across the lake toward her.

The Fendles swam up to the rock, and jumped on it one by one, chittering with anxious, high-pitched squeals. She caught the terror in their eyes and in their movements, and flashes and fragments of their thoughts. Slowly she began to understand, and cold fear settled into her belly, heavy as lead. Something—something terrible—was coming.

THE colt fluttered his new wings and craned his neck around to look at them. They were nearly transparent, without the smooth downy furring they would develop as the colt grew to adulthood, but already they showed faint promises of the smoke-edged coloring that was Rakell's trademark on the wingmounts.

Rakell grinned and chased the finished colt out of the altering room to pasture. Months of preliminary work had paid off. All the subtle changes in metabolism and all the delicate rearrangement of bone and ligament, muscle and nerve that had gone before—tedious, careful changes that lacked the visible results her students so loved—were behind her. Now the dramatic changes—the unfolding of the wing-buds and the opening of the extra chambers of the heart—were being completed right on schedule, and with magnificent results.

This fiddling with the wingmounts has become the best part of the day for me,
she mused.
Teaching grows tiresome, and the administrative work is a nightmare—if I didn't get to do my experiments in the stables, I think I'd lose my mind.
For what seemed like the hundredth time, she considered stepping down and leaving Daane in the hands of Medwind Song—and for what seemed like the hundredth time, she had to face the prejudices of Mage-Ariss against the barbarian Hoos—and, for that matter, against any outsiders. The time still wasn't right; she began to wonder whether it ever would be.

Maybe I ought to tell Medwind that I don't think the Magerie will accept her as head of Daane.
She shook her head in sudden disgust.
And then again, maybe I ought to get off my ass and fight for her place in the Magerie. Gods know she's capable, and bookish enough to suit any of the scholars. After this war business is behind us—

Enough of politics.
She turned her attention to the last two beasts—the two delicate fillies who waited in the holding corral. "Now, little ones," she asked with companionable cheer, "who's next?"

Flynn, lurking among the rafters on the top of the stone wall that divided the stalls, peered down at the Mottemage and yowled.

Rakell glanced up. "Hush, cat. I'm working."

Flynn yowled again, louder, hackles rising. He glared out the door and crouched and spit at something beyond Rakell's line of sight.

She sighed and got up from her comfortable straw bale, muttering, "Fine, beast. I'll look. But I won't chase off that raggedy-ass tom who's been poaching in your territory. You can fight your own battles, slug."

Or most of them, anyway,
she thought, remembering Flynn's wounds of the fivedays before.
Wish I had an idea what did that to you. I'd fry it, whatever it was....

She looked out the door and across the pasture, straining to see what Flynn glared was glaring at. She noted the heavy traffic of the throughway, then the rolling greensward near the dorms, and the far edge of the lake. The near edge was hidden by the traffic.

Probably visible to you, up there near the rafters. But damned if
I'll
climb up there to see what bogey's offended you. I haven't the time... or the knees.

"Go catch mice, Flynn," she snapped. "I'd tell you to play with matches, but I'm sure you would."

Flynn's blue eyes scowled at her. He hissed out the door one more time.

"If it bothers you that much, go eat it. But leave me out of your cat fights. I have wingmounts to finish."

Flynn, instead of stalking off with wounded feelings as he usually did when he didn't get his way, hunkered down in an alert crouch, eyes fixed on the mysterious point outside the barn.

The Mottemage forced her attention away from her eccentric cat and back to the fillies. "Lump of sugar for the next baby," she said and held out a hand. Both fillies hurried forward, and she clipped the halter around the quicker of the two and led it from the holding corral into the altering pen.

She secured the harness, then settled on her straw bale and rested her fingers on either side of the young horse's nose. Eyes closed, she pressed her forehead against the velvet skin of the muzzle. Her mind projected slow tendrils of energy that poked and twined along pathways of the filly's cells, teasing new shapes out of tissues and bones, shifting masses to make some things lighter, some things sturdier, creating better pathways for oxygen, more efficient handling of fuel—finishing, as a sculptor would, the final buffs and polishes of a masterpiece.

Rakell was, in truth, a very long way away from her own body at that moment.

And above her, Flynn sat guard.

Kirgen chased along in a lopsided sprint, dragged by one arm behind the galloping middle-aged saje, who had introduced himself on the run as Paf, First Clerk of Faulea University.

"Where are we going?" Kirgen yelled as he ran.

"To Saje Blayknell 's quarters."

"Who is he and why are we going there?"

"Can you transport?" the saje yelled back.

"No," Kirgen panted.

"Well, Bendle's been to the classrooms by now, so most of the Sajerie is already on its way to the Basin—and
I
can't transport either. But Blayknell can. He'll get us to the Basin. Besides, he's the one and only Bellmaster. Only he has authority to call a Conclave."

Kirgen mulled that over, his mind racing faster than his feet. There had been two Conclaves called in his lifetime. The first, when he was very small, had been when a malignant fire-demon escaped the pentacle that held it and started destroying the Sajerie, one saje at a time. Not even rumors of the cause of the second escaped the secrecy of the Conclave—students often asked about the Road-Five-Rat-Three Bell Night, but their questions were invariably met with such ferocious stares that they changed the subject. And now there was to be a third Conclave.

Paf and Kirgen hauled up, puffing and gasping, in front of the Bellmaster's tower. Paf eschewed the stairway, preferring the students own time-honored method of slinging rocks against one of the third-story windows for getting the man's attention. "Blayknell," he bellowed between gasps, "we have a situation down here! Hurry, man!"

A grizzled head popped out the window, mere fingers' breadths away from the last rock that went sailing upward. "Paf, that was too close," he yelled back as it whizzed past his ear. "I'll set firesprites after your balls if you ever do that again."

"No time for jokes. We need you to call a Conclave—and we need transport to the Basin."

The man paled and vanished from the window without another word, and re-materialized beside the saje and the apprentice the same instant in a tiny puff of blue smoke, startling them both. "Conclave?" he whispered. He shoved his face close enough that Kirgen could smell the potato-leek soup he'd had for lunch, and count the pores in his skin. "Why a Conclave?"

Paf gave a whispered, rapid-fire version of the Faia-on-a-wingmount story, and added the bits of information the Faulea sajes had gleaned from spies, the Council, and alterations in trade patterns. "They've been bloody close-mouthed over there in Mage-Ariss—but we have enough to go on in spite of that, I think. It all adds up to treachery, maybe war," he finished.

"Then you believe that girl's wild tale of murder and mage-revenge was true?"

Blayknell and Paf turned to Kirgen. Kirgen nodded, feeling flutters like crazed bats racing about in his gut. Somehow, he had not expected to be this involved once he told his story. He'd expected authorities to take over, to settle things, to let him go back to his classes and his life. In fact, he'd expected to be ignored—as he had been after talking with the Fourth Sub-Dean. That had been fine. This was terrifying. "Yes, sir," he answered, and tried not to choke on the words. "I don't think the murders had anything to do with us—but I believe the story."

"Truth be known, I do too," the old man agreed. "But, gods, man—a Conclave?" He rubbed his hands together nervously. "Must it be a Conclave?"

Paf said, "We agree the threat is real, and that it threatens us all. The likely solution will be to strike first, or if not that, to get our defenses up and cut off trade immediately. Therefore, all the sajes must be compelled to gather as soon as possible, from wherever they are. We've already lost a fivedays. We don't know how much time we have left."

Kirgen paled when he heard Paf's assessment of the situation. A first strike? A first strike would put Faia in danger—Faia who'd risked her life to help the sajes, and Faia with whom he'd made love (
for the first time,
he admitted to himself,
and the second
)....

Protect all the sajes, or protect Faia. We can't do both, damn-all. And I'm a saje.
He whispered a hasty prayer to the God of Justice for the hill girl's protection, and turned his attention back to Paf and the Bellmaster.

The Bellmaster looked grave. "Very well," he said. "You will come with me, while I carry out my duties. No Bellmaster ever rings the Conclave bell alone." Blayknell grabbed Paf and Kirgen by a shoulder each, and the next instant, time and space lurched and twisted, and all three stood in the Belltower at the top of the Hub.

The delicate bone-white tower, one of the greatest marvels of the marvelous city of Ariss, had no stairs. It soared like a needle toward the heavens, gazing down at all of Ariss, higher than the highest saje-tower, a delicate spire of magic and illusion. Its whitestone surface was glassy smooth and gleamed with the fine blue haze of barrier spells.

Inside, three ranks of bells lined the center of the tower, with seven bells to a rank—and each bell was different. There were small bells and large bells, bells of bronze and copper, blue-metal and brass, silver-clad and gilt, carved, painted, etched, runed, and inscribed. They were lovely enchanted bells—intent, waiting gracefully and with purpose... all save one. That one lurked apart in the ranks, bulky and misshapen, misbegotten, the demon spawn of the bellmaker's art. It was ominous, colorless, dark, and massive, as huge and cold and ugly as doom.

Kirgen felt hunger and anger emanating from the grotesque bell—and his skin crawled.

"That bell," the Bellmaster said, "is the Conclave bell." He pointed to the bell that warped Kirgen's stomach into knots. "When it was poured, three powerful saje criminals under a geas were impelled to throw themselves into the mold. They died—but their souls remain locked into the Conclave bell for as long as it survives. They gave the bell its power to demand compliance."

Blayknell shuddered. "Nevertheless, it's a nasty piece of work. Its name is Soul-Stealer. It killed a Bellmaster once. Likely as not, it will try to kill me."

He took a long ebonwood mallet out of a box full of mallets of different colors. Then he stood in front of the nightmare bell, and took a single deep breath, and swung.

The first peal went straight through Kirgen's bones. It grew; it stretched; it took on a life of its own. It resonated through the tower, becoming wilder and fiercer—and Blayknell sounded the bell again and then again, first slowly, then faster. Paf and Kirgen covered their ears and stared, while the Bellmaster picked up speed, beginning to beat the bell like a madman, like one possessed. The banshee wail—the riveting, howling, ghoul-born, ghastly voice of the bell—drove on and on, and Blayknell kept swinging, face white, sweat flying, breath coming in gasps. In the city below, other bells sounded back, answering in voices that were frail, pitiful imitations of the great demon bell that led the saje through his hellish dance.

The whites of Blayknell's eyes showed, and froth lined his lips—and still he rang the bell. Paf screamed in Kirgen's ear, "It's got him. Grab him, or he'll die, and we'll be stuck up here."

Kirgen and Paf lunged at the saje. Kirgen dived for the Bellmaster's knees and bowled him over; Paf sat on his mallet-arm. The devil-bell shrieked a final protest, and shivered slowly down to silence.

Below, the streets of Saje-Ariss were empty and hushed.

But the silence was not a welcome silence after the damned-soul screeching of the bell. It was the nervous, expectant silence of the prisoner who has seen the first head fall to the axeman, and who waits, praying he won't be noticed, and dreading the next head to fall may be his own.