Red Madrassa: Algardis #1 (2 page)

The Palace of Sandrin, Third Floor, Inner Walls:

Allornadara bint Gardis crept along the tiny servant’s corridor between the walls of the palace apartments. A ball of blue core-fire preceded her, floating above the palm of her right hand.

Silently, she cursed her decision not to change out of the golden taffeta dress. In a passageway just wide enough for a single person to walk, the cascading fabric was bunched against the stone walls, surely sweeping up a lovely patina of dust. Dirt clung to the trailing fabric, and she could hear the scratches of mice‌—‌she
hoped
they were mice‌—‌ on the floorboards around her.

She knew her father would kill her, if Marget didn’t get to her first. The Head of Housekeeping had a very strict sense of propriety and schedule. Creeping along the servant’s corridor late at night wouldn’t be included in either. But she couldn’t let the boy die, and she certainly hadn’t had the time to retire to her rooms for more convenient attire. What
did
one wear to a tower breakout, anyway?

Her destination lay just ahead. Even though the corridor was pitch dark except for the lone blue flame, she knew that she was just below the Royal Quarters, in a corner of the castle with five terraces stacked along a huge stone tower facing the open bay.

Allorna shook her head, sighing quietly. Here she was, hiding in the walls, sneaking to Sidimo’s at midnight‌—‌straight from the arms of a rather gallant lord who was singularly good at the traditional waltz, and didn’t mind stepping below his station for a little fun. He also happened to be the target of a palace guard investigation into bribery and land hand-offs. It was just her luck that on the one night when her investigation didn’t lead to a drunken sot with no legs, something else came up to take her away from it.

It had been her job to record the lord’s confession on a small voice-gem, which was currently lodged in the gilded bracelet on her left wrist. But as any good gardis knew, there were small fish, and there were big ones. Murder trumped bribery any day. She just hoped her father felt the same way when he learned why she’d left her target’s side.

Coming to Sidimo’s apartments, she doused the light and placed her hand to the wall, hoping he hadn’t changed his combination recently. Gathering her will, she whispered, “A friendship brings heart,” and grimaced, thinking,
We really need to update our passwords. I sound like a five-year-old.

With a final spark of power, she commanded the passage to open. She couldn’t do much with her gifts, but at least this was one of them. It was useful when (equipped with a warrant, of course) she needed to break into a street hideout protected by magic.

The wall panel beneath her hand slid silently to the left, and she slipped into the darkness beyond. Standing near the east corner of the smaller room, which served as Sidimo’s bedchamber and water meditation den, she waited.

A shuffle from the direction of the bed broke the silence. “Allorna?”

“Who else could it be?” she whispered, walking toward his voice and waiting for him to light his morning oil. A green flicker of flame, characteristic of his magic, answered her expectation; and soon the bedchamber was filled with light emanating from a wide-rimmed chalice standing off to the side.

Sidimo was sitting on the four-poster bed in silken pants and a very loose linen tunic. He was only a year older than she, but had the presence of someone who had seen much more. “What do you think you’re doing?” he said slowly, directing his piercing blue eyes at her. “You’re supposed to be at the ball.” When she didn’t answer, he said with an exasperated sigh, “Never mind. Why are you here?”

Ignoring his query for the moment, she slid into the space between Sidimo and the pillows leaning on the headboard. After a quick five-minute interrogation‌—‌consisting mostly of variations on “When was the last time you ate?” and “How is your petition for a city apprenticeship going?” and the resulting replies‌—‌she got down to business.

“We can’t let him die,” she said in a fiery tone. “He belongs with
us
.” This declaration was accompanied by an adamant gesture. Sidimo didn’t even have to ask who she was talking about. They’d gone over this business of the mage boy Allorna was determined to save countless times before.

He sighed and looked at her expectantly.

Across the Sahelian Sea:

Vedaris sat up and looked at himself, wincing at the blood and the rips‌—‌well, the
new
rips‌—‌in one of the only two shirts he owned. He’d been caught counting cards at the tavern in the merchants’ arena again. It wasn’t
illegal
, but that just meant the moneygrubbers had to sic their personal guards on him rather than the City Watch. How he’d ended up still alive in this alley, with only bruises on his face, a split lip, and torn clothes to show for it, was a mystery to him. Frankly, he would have preferred death.

He’d sunken so low already. As one of the few among the Sahelian race who could neither shapeshift nor control the elements, he was an outcast, a pariah. This rankled Vedaris as nothing else did. In a society that prided itself on power and magework, he was a freak‌—‌considered by some to rank lower in caste than a
Human
. The caste system was a fickle master, based on power, race and wealth…‌in that order, and often in combination.

Usually, being born a dragon meant an inheritance of primacy in all three. But he was one of the lucky few Sahelians to be born with no power and no wealth, shunned from childhood by all those who knew the truth.

He’d been orphaned at an early age by the death of his father, a Steel Magecaster. His father had been
normal.
He had possessed extraordinary talent, and the ability to cast steel weapons, dragon armor, and magical objects alike. Indeed, he had been known throughout the medina as the best dragon armorer in centuries, sought out by both the nobility and the merchants.

Vedaris, on other hand, was sorely lacking in both his father’s ability and his race’s natural talent to transform and fly…‌although he did
look
like his father, with skin the color of ivory and hair so black it shone with hints of blue. Yet if his father had survived past Vedaris’ fifth birthday, he himself would most likely have killed Vedaris within the next year. By then, all his natural abilities should have manifested, had he possessed any, which he did not. The shame of a nobleman having produced one of the Powerless would have been too much to bear otherwise.

He guessed that being without family had been a blessing, in some ways. His father had never known of his failure. Otherwise, it was a curse, especially as he had no one to watch his back on the streets.

It was midmorning now, and he had two choices.
I could go to the whore’s dock and beg the madams to take me on as some rich nobleman’s amusement
, he thought sourly,
or
‌—‌and here he took a deep breath‌—‌
I could steal aboard a merchant ship as a Human runner.
The latter was a risk; he’d have to avoid all the merchantmen he’d tried to shaft last night, and make sure no Sahelian caught so much as a glimpse of him. Sahelians could sense each other easily, not merely when an individual used the magic unique to his race, but also by eyesight.

Any Sahelian who could transform‌—‌which meant all of them except him‌—‌had golden eyes with flecks of green in them. Their eyes were a warm brown when born, gradually lightening as they grew. The green flecks, a sign of power, appeared during the first tests of childhood.

His eyes had never made the transition, though he remembered his father saying that it would come. He remembered a particularly frustrating instance at age four and a half when he had been trying to
lift
a freshly baked meat pie off his mother’s kitchen countertop without her noticing. His sister, Noor, had been able to do that trick at age three. His father, coming in from the steam baths in the garden after a long day’s work, had‌—‌with a wry glance at him‌—‌mage-pushed the meat pie over, along with a cold breeze to cool it down.

He got the feeling his mother knew what his father had done. She probably would have stayed had Vedaris been the one to actually do it.

Well, that chapter of his life was closed, never to be reopened. His father was dead and his mother, as much as the Human term could be applied, was gone. She had chosen her duties and taken Noor with her, abandoning Vedaris to his fate.

Since being orphaned, his lack of magecraft had allowed him to masquerade as a Human, first in the cloister and now in his hardscrabble life on the streets. The appearance of Humanity was often the only thing that saved him; that and the fact that the gangs and feral packs always underestimated the strength in his wiry frame.

With a wry smile, he decided to toss fate to the winds. He scrambled up and limped down the trash-strewn alley toward the shipyard.

Sandrin Portalhouse entrance:

In years past, the Portalhouse had been magnificent; and as Sitara glanced around at the ruins, she sensed the latent magic still throbbing in the broken shards of glass and wood strewn everywhere. She shifted her seagel-coated feet in an effort to push off debris gathered at the door, and thus clear a path. As she stepped forward, she was reminded, unhappily, of what the Portalhouse had once been: a bright symbol of the ingenuity of her people.
Literally
bright.

Once upon a time, the portalways had glowed with incandescence. It was a beautiful sight, the old people said: visible for miles on a clear night, casting shimmering bands of rainbow light on a sunny day. The Octupani were the only race with skill enough to create the portals, a blend of water alomancy and air travel. Sitara knew that when the negotiations between Octupani and Humans had begun, the Humans would have done anything to possess the portalway technology.

Humanity was the only race in which magic wasn’t latent, but rather taught. Caught short of mages at the time, and fighting two wars in the North, they desperately needed some form of transportation that outpaced dragonflight. Needless to say, the ramifications of instantaneous travel on commerce, communication, and border security hadn’t escaped their notice either.

Musing on this, she glided forward, past the ruined double gates of the foyer and into a dim corridor flanked by portals extending as far back as she could see. She knew that a total of twenty-eight cracked portalways, still glimmering with intermittent sparks, graced the walls. These panels‌—‌a rather expensive display of opulence‌—‌had been made from famed Severin glass, infused with magic rippling with water and light.

Before the first cracks had appeared, representatives of the Merchant’s Guild of the Seven Cities had zealously guarded each of the portalways. Given the high fees and strict documentation they required, not just anyone could go gallivanting across 1,000 miles in the blink of an eye. They had relished the power they wielded, that was a certainty; and yet now the portalhouse lay in ruins, a testament to the power of fear and retribution.

As Sitara wandered down the main walkway envisioning what had been, her resentment towards her cowardly elders grew. Her eyes closed and frown lines appeared, marring her sun-kissed skin as she pursed her lips. She thought long and hard about what she had come here to do. It was true that the portalhouse was in ruins, but the portalways weren’t closed. They never closed.

The Octupani clans had always had their underwater portalways. But when they had extended the technology to landwalkers, they had seen no reason to share the knowledge of those portalways themselves. After all, how were the Humans and Sahelians ever going to reach them? The pathetic activity Humans called “swimming” only got them a few meters below the ocean’s surface at best, and the dragons detested water‌—‌which was why they bathed in steam, air, and sand. The more fools they.

Nodding sharply, she decided to set things into motion.

Chapter 2

The Palace of Sandrin, Sidimo’s Apartment:

Allorna and Sidimo packed quietly. She stood in a corner, shining core-fire into a cabinet and tossing what she thought would work into a knapsack. Light travel clothes with a few coins would be enough for a quick trip outside the city. They weren’t planning to be gone long from the palace; just the night, and back before afternoon exercises.

It would be just enough time to get Maride to the
Genur
portalway, the only one near the city that wasn’t guarded by the royal gardis as well as by the Merchant’s Guild.

This way they’d only have to handle the merchant guards‌—‌formidable in battle, certainly, but willing to take a coin or two for something if the opportunity was right. The royal gardis didn’t share that predilection.
Genur
was also an outer portalway, one of the many located in the countryside that allowed you to jump long distances and were strategically placed at nexus points between villages.

It was two hours’ ride in fair weather. But first, they had to convince Maride to come with them.