Mage's Blood (55 page)

‘Ramon, you look like you’re – well, rich,’ said Alaron, puzzled. He was struggling to cope with his friend dressed in anything but worn-out hand-me-downs.

Ramon smirked. ‘Of course I’m rich! I’m the only Rimoni mage for fifty miles in any direction from my town, so I can charge what I like. The local familioso are eating out of my hand. Life is good, if you don’t mind a little paranoia.’ He looked a bit fuller about the face and had a rakish confidence he’d never had at college. He remembered Cym telling him Ramon had asked her to marry him; at the time he’d not credited it, but now he understood how Ramon’d got up the nerve.

‘I’ve got to join a damned legion for the Crusade, of course,’ Ramon noted with resigned annoyance, ‘but apart from that, all is well. So what about you, Al? Cym says you’ve been keeping a low profile after what those pricks did.’

Alaron sighed. His own life was so dull compared with his friends. ‘Well, I can’t use the gnosis in public, so I stayed at the manor for a while – Cym and I built a skiff together,’ he added, emphasising the ‘Cym and I’ part.

Ramon laughed. ‘I heard you flew it through a window and half-flattened the house.’

‘Only the first time,’ Alaron said quickly.

‘And what’s this about an old man?’ he asked. ‘I heard there’s a thousand-krone reward.’

That much? Good grief!
Alaron looked at him seriously. ‘It’s a secret – he just showed up at the manor.’ He told Ramon the details, and ended, ‘And he’s upstairs.’

‘Do you know who he is yet?’ Cym asked.

‘Come upstairs and I’ll tell you,’ he said.

As the three of them stood around the old man, he woke abruptly and peered at them all. His lips moved a little, and then he fell back asleep again.

Ramon looked at the others. ‘Did you feel that?’ He rubbed his temples. ‘He rummaged through my mind – he used Mysticism or Mesmerism – and then left me alone again, but he could have done
anything
he wanted; it’s like my shields weren’t even there.’ He stared at Alaron. ‘Who is he?’

Alaron closed the door and whispered, ‘Da says he’s General Jarius Langstrit.’

‘Isn’t Langstrit supposed to be dead,’ Ramon said with a frown, ‘or mad or senile or something?’

‘Da says it’s him – and he would know; he fought with the general in the Revolt. He doesn’t speak, and he uses gnosis without even knowing he’s doing it. Da wants to go to the Watch, but I’ve talked him out of that, for now at least.’

‘Why?’ Ramon asked.

Alaron motioned for them both all to sit. ‘I’ve been thinking about that. Remember my thesis? I said I thought Langstrit might have something to do with the missing Scytale—’

‘The dreaded thesis again!’ Ramon rolled his eyes.

‘But if I’m right—’

‘That’s a big if, Al!’

‘Yes, but let’s say I’m right – Captain Muhren said – did I tell you about that? Well, later; anyway, if my thesis was right, it would explain everything: Langstrit is the only one of the rebel generals still alive. But he’s got amnesia or something. So if you thought he was hiding the Scytale, wouldn’t you hide him away until he becomes lucid enough to tell you where to find it?’

‘But why would they keep him here? Why wouldn’t they pick his brain apart in Pallas?’

‘Maybe they tried that and failed? Maybe they brought him back here hoping the local sights would bring his memories
back? Or maybe the locals kept him here and Pallas doesn’t even know?’

‘But – and this is all assuming your far-fetched explanation is correct – how did he get away if his memory is gone? And why would he come to you?’

‘I don’t know – perhaps someone rescued him, then lost him? Or his powers came back and he simply walked out without realising he was hiding himself? Maybe it’s an experiment, to see what he does under his own volition, and they’re tracking him …’ His voice trailed off.
That
was an ugly thought.

‘If they were tracking on him, there’d be a general identifier rune on him.’ Ramon brandished a glittering ebony gem on a silver chain. ‘Do you like my periapt? The previous owner lost it, can you believe that?’ He winked, then turned back to the old man. He held up the periapt and concentrated. ‘Nope, I think he’s clean, unless it’s been hidden by someone better at illusion than I am.’

‘So most of the population then,’ put in Cym, but she checked the old man too and shook her head. ‘I agree with the Sneak; he’s clean.’

The door opened and they all whirled into combat positions. Vann Mercer chuckled at the circle of determined faces and cried, ‘I surrender – have mercy.’ He looked at Alaron. ‘Been discussing our guest, have you? I hope everyone is staying for dinner?’

‘Actually Da, they’re staying for a while, if that’s okay?’

Vann Mercer smiled tolerantly. ‘Of course.’

The company of his friends was balm to Alaron’s lonely soul. Even his mother was happy as they sang seasonal songs and drank far too much mulled wine. He was envious of his friends’ freedom, but he obtained promises of more frequent visits, and even made tentative plans to visit Ramon in Silacia.

‘Alaron, you mustn’t,’ Cym laughed. ‘They’ll rob you blind.’

‘Hey, I’m a mage,’ Alaron protested. ‘I can look after myself—’

‘You’re the most naïve greenbud on Urte,’ Cym scoffed. ‘Silacians eat fools like you.’

‘Not all Silacians are thieves,’ replied Ramon defensively, ‘unlike all Rimoni!’

‘Ha! ’pon my honour, that’s it: a duel it is,’ Cym announced, her eyes flashing.

Alaron called encouragement as Ramon and Cym defended their respective pieces of cake from the other’s fork, manipulating them by gnosis. The cutlery clashed and darted and feinted, until Cym won and danced, crowing, around the room. In the corner beside the window, Vann and Tesla recited from memory rhymes by the poet Colliani to the dozing general, while the three young magi showed off gnosis balancing tricks, getting more ambitious and less accomplished with each glass of wine. It was the happiest evening Alaron could remember for years.

Finally they all helped get Langstrit and Tesla to bed, then found their own rooms. The boys took the stable at the back, leaving Alaron’s room for Cym. They talked until they couldn’t keep their eyes open, about everything – college, the Crusade, Langstrit – and about nothing at all. Ramon admitted to having a maid who warmed his bed back at home, which made Alaron feel like the last virgin on Urte. They wondered about Cym, and speculated whether she was about to be married off. ‘I’d have thought she’d be wedded by now, not free to wander around doing what she likes,’ observed Ramon. ‘Usually Rimoni are worse than Silacians for marrying off girls as soon as they bleed.’ He poked Alaron in the ribs. ‘She’s probably told her father she’s waiting for you to propose, amici.’

It was a cheery thought to finish a wonderful night upon. But not one he could quite believe.

Everything changed on Freyadai evening, two weeks after Sacrifice Day. Ramon was making noises about returning home before he had to reconquer his own village. No one had heard anything about the hunt for the general for ages, and Alaron had begun to hope it was over. His parents were arguing downstairs about the arrangements for when Vann left on his trading run to Pontus, and the three young people were upstairs, reading to Langstrit, even after the old man
fell asleep. Cym found a book of Rimoni poetry and read aloud, performing in her native tongue – only she and Ramon spoke Rimoni, but they all enjoyed her passionate rendition of the lyrical words. She was in the middle of Mecronius’

‘Et il Lune Sequire’ – ‘And the Moon Follows’, a lament for a lost love – when a throaty voice suddenly joined in the chorus.

They all turned and stared.

Jarius Langstrit was looking at them, his mouth repeating the phrase, over and over again.

‘Get Da!’ hissed Alaron, not taking his eyes off the old man, but before anyone could react the general fell forward to his knees and stared at his hands as they began to glow with gnosis-light. Fire scorched the air before him, coiling in patterns that etched themselves on the air. They gasped and took a step back, then Cym seized a quill from the desk, jabbed it in an inkwell and started scrawling, her eyes never leaving the burning pattern.

Every breath the General took was pained, as if he were labouring towards some profound utterance, and his eyes jerked from face to face as if he almost recognised them, then swung back to the blazing pattern hanging before him – then, just as suddenly, the energy inside him faded and his eyes rolled back in his head. He was unconscious before he hit the floor. They leapt to his side as the luminous pattern faded from sight.

Alaron put his ear to his chest. ‘He’s still breathing – get Da—’ but Ramon was already gone, shouting for Vann as he ran.

It was an anxious hour before the old man woke again. They put him to bed and crowded around as Cym fed him spoonfuls of water. Suddenly he spluttered and his eyes flew upon. He looked like a trapped animal.

Vann stepped forward and held his hand. ‘Sir, are you well? Are you in pain? Who did this to you?’

The general groaned and buried his head. No more words could be coaxed from him, no matter what they tried, but Ramon promptly cancelled his trip home. ‘I’m not going anywhere with all this going on,’ he told Alaron.

When they were finally alone, Cym showed them the shapes that had appeared during Langstrit’s fit. They made a complex pattern, far more intricate than the runes they had learned at college. Runes were symbols from the primitive Yothic alphabet. The magi had assigned them to specific gnosis-effects as a form of shorthand, but they were just memory triggers, not intrinsically magical themselves. As Ramon said, ‘Only babies and Seth Korion use runes while casting – but I’ve never seen one that complex.’

Alaron peered at the shape. ‘Ma has a book on runes somewhere – it’s got a lot more in it than they taught us at college. I’ll see if I can find it.’ He returned a few minutes later with a small volume. They couldn’t find the pattern Langstrit had burned into the air, but they were filled with a new resolve and purpose. Something was happening, and it was happening to them.

Outside, the bell tolled midnight, ushering in the last day of Aprafor. It was two months until the Moontide.

Javon, on the continent of Antiopia
Martrois 928
4 months to the Moontide

Vultures circled high above, ever hopeful: the desert was no place for the ill-prepared at any time of the year and the scavengers knew it. But Gurvon Gyle never went anywhere unprepared. He sat cross-legged on a low rise in the foothills east of Lybis, watching the sun go down. His wards were blocking a bombardment of attempted communication, most from Tomas Betillon demanding explanations: why had the Gorgio taken fright and fled north? What of the tales coming out of Javon that Cera Nesti had returned in triumph to Brochena?
What was going on?

These were damn good questions, and there would have been others had he not been able to control some of the information going to Hebusalim. Not all of it, though: Betillon would know soon enough about the corpses of Gyle’s agents hanging in Brochena Plaza.
Damn you, Elena!

The late sunlight glinted off the carapace of a black scarab crawling up his sleeve. How appropriate that the remnants of Rutt Sordell should have manifested as a dung beetle. He needed to find the necromancer a new body, but it needed to be a mage’s body, otherwise Sordell would be incapable of using the gnosis. A living mage body wasn’t easy to find. He was half-tempted to stamp on the filthy thing and have done with him:
I left you in charge, Rutt, and now look
…

He gritted his teeth in frustration and tried to think through his next step. Twice now Elena had destroyed his plans. He had talked his way down from the gallows after the first, but this latest setback would mean his head if he didn’t set it right before the Crusaders arrived.

Damn you, Constant Sacrecour, for dragging me away, opening the door to Elena – you forced me to contact her, effectively telling her I’d left the continent … damned
idiot.

But even he, who knew her better than anyone, hadn’t really believed Elena would take them all on. To slay his whole team, each and every one of them of higher Blood-Rank than her: that was almost miraculous … but it was very much the Elena Anborn he knew. He would have had nothing but admiration for her astonishing feat, had it not endangered him.

Most galling was that he couldn’t decipher her motives. Was this a personal vendetta because he’d taken Vedya to his bed? Or was she in love with one of the Nesti? Was it politics, religion, altruism or just opportunism?

I know you, Elena: love, honour – these things are nothing to you. Or they never used be
. Her motivations had always been material or intellectual: head and coin, that was Elena, not heart and body. She was an old dog, like him – she
couldn’t
have changed. He didn’t
want
her to have changed. He missed her, strangely. Though Vedya had been far more beautiful, and
glorious
in bed, there’d been something about the relaxed informality of him and Elena that he needed. Vedya was nothing but ash now and already he could barely remember her face. That said everything.

Elena must have had aid. One against five wasn’t possible – so had the Ordo Costruo helped her? Or some rogue Ordo Costruo from the half-Keshi faction? Now there was a thought – were some of the Builders abandoning their neutrality, taking sides at last? It opened up myriad lines of enquiry.