Sourcethief (Book 3) (21 page)

* * * * * * *
*

The shores of Dragon Lake were clothed in black as
the assembled Imperial Circle gathered to either witness or partake in a Great
Draw to determine the succession of the Inner Circle. The dark garb did no one
any favors. The sun caused sorcerers who had grown soft and flabby from indoor
occupations to sweat and stink. For all that they were the finest and most
prestigious assemblage in the Kadrin Empire, the odor that arose was reminiscent
of the commoners' seats at a joust.

From the buildings of the Academy campus, there was
a stretch of green grass that ran down to the waterfront before it gave way to
rocks and mud. With all of the crowds, there was little of it left to be seen.
Nobles and peasants alike had heard word of the great event and pressed in
against the sorcerers knotted at the middle.

"I find myself surprised to stand next to you,
Brannis," Fenris called above the murmur of the crowd. "I had assumed
you would be gathered with the aspiring throng, ready to lay ruin to any who
drew against you. I was looking forward to the show, I must say." A chill
emanated from the elder sorcerer, a spell protecting him from the swelter.

"Rashan would have none of it. He feared I
might injure someone," Kyrus said. Fenris scoffed, but nodded in agreement
with the sentiment. "He told me he would have allowed me to lay claim to
the top position without contest. I think he just worried that I would
challenge him at the end."

"Now that contest I would pay quite a lot to
witness," Fenris said.

"You know, you've grown quite the pair of
gourds since you figured out your Source, little brother," Aloisha said
from his other side. "You used to be quite the slick talker before you
could bully to get your way."

"Is that why you never learned to make friends?
Because you could always get your way by force?" Kyrus asked before he
thought better of it. He was surprised by the vitriol his sister—Brannis's
sister—could conjure in him.

"Brannis! Have a care how you talk to a member
of the Inner Circle," Celia chided from the far side of Aloisha. Kyrus
knew she was doing so to earn her way into Aloisha's graces. Rumor of Celia's
own appointment to the Inner Circle had spread in advance of the draw and Kyrus
had heard on his way down to the lake.

"You might have a care, Brannis," Aloisha
warned. "I have Rashan's full support. Say what you will, but he'll never
see me as a rival."

"He would if you became empress, like Sommick
seems to want," Kyrus muttered close to her ear. Some perverse instinct in
him just wanted to dangle that bit before her.

"What?" Aloisha exclaimed before lowering
her voice to more private levels. "I would never stoop to spending three
seasons abstaining from my own draw to carry some drool-witted imperial larva
in my womb. If I was ever to get with child by that buffoon I'd suck its Source
dry the first glimmer I saw, and be out with it at my next moonflow."

"Good to know we are of an accord on that point
at least. Rashan has charged me with dissuading him from pursuing the matter,
but it comforts me to hear he would get nowhere with it," Kyrus whispered
to her. It had been more information than he had wished to hear from his own
sister, but he knew he had deserved it. As much as Aloisha and Celia were
opposites in demeanor, Aloisha and Juliana shared that trait: both knew how to
shame a man by the careful use of indiscreet language on female subjects.

Kyrus waited restlessly for the draws to begin. He
had places he wished to be, tasks that needed his attention. There was no
avoiding the spectacle of the draw. He was too prominent and was expected to
attend.
Rashan will leave tonight. I shall as well, once he has gone.
Kyrus had made up his mind. There were pieces of the puzzle of Rashan that were
lost to him and he needed to find them. Dolvaen had predicted that Kyrus and
Rashan would not be able to coexist indefinitely.
I could outdraw him,
perhaps even handily.

At first it appeared as if the contest would
continue for days. Scores of sorcerers lined up to sign their names to the list
of entrants. By their Sources, Kyrus knew that many of them were doing it as a
lark; draws were infrequent because of the sanctioning required, and no doubt
some simply sought to settle old grudges. Rashan must have suspected the same,
for he issued a proclamation to reduce the number.

"I view the frivolous use of my time as an
affront. Any sorcerer who does not claim at least one of the top ten positions
in this afternoon's event, I will slay. Any who have written their names upon
this list who wish to reconsider their entry, may do so now."

After a polite, orderly stampede to remove
"mistaken" entries, the field was left at just eight contestants.
Guardsmen from the Tower of Contemplation herded the crowd back to a safe
distance so that the draws might begin. Rashan stood in sole judgment of the
contests. Despite his earlier suggestion of a wager with Kyrus, he made no
attempt to arrange any.
It would have been poor form, anyway
, Kyrus
conceded to himself.

The first of the draws was between two sorcerers
Kyrus did not know well. Anthee Gardarus was a Third Circle who looked as if he
was bent at the shoulder like a fish hook. His opponent, Dommel Wenstatch, was
also Third Circle. He was Megrenn-born but had remained loyal and fought for
Kadrin in the Megrenn Rebellion.

All eyes that could were turned to the aether at the
command of "Draw!" Kyrus watched the first real draw he had ever
attended as a spectator with childish anticipation. At first he thought the two
competitors were feeling one another out, just drawing a trickle of aether. He
grew suspicious when they tried no harder, thinking they might both be trying
to advance by some prearrangement, putting up a show of effort while one of
them took an easy victory and a fresh Source into future contests. Eventually
the truth dawned:
this is their best
. It was a sinking realization.
I
am thrice the distance from them and could steal all the aether they tug at.

"Is this all?" Kyrus whispered to Fenris,
hopeful of some reassurance from an elder perspective.

"You are a different creature than these,"
Fenris's wheezy whisper answered back.

Kyrus watched with waning interest as the hold was
called and the two weakling sorcerers stood holding a teacup's fill of aether
at bay with the mightiest of efforts. There was little promise of much better.
Kyrus had seen the Sources of those sorcerers whose names still graced the
lists. Some were stronger, some weaker, but only by degree. There was none who
would give a show, unless by chance some sorcerer had a draw out of all
proportion to their Source. Since he was stuck watching regardless, Kyrus hoped
that was the case.

A burst of steaming water broke the surface of
Dragon Lake signaling the victory of Dommel Wenstatch. There were far more
bouts to be had, but the Kadrin Empire was treading the first steps along the
path to a foreign-blooded Inner Circle sorcerer.
Unless we count Iridan,
being demon-blooded.

"I could suck the aether dry from his Source,
and hold it all season," Kyrus muttered to no one in particular. In fact,
he had not intended to put voice to it at all. Nonetheless, it was heard.

"Yes, you're a freakish monster who's probably
blocking the view of everyone behind you with that Source of yours. Now shut up
about it," Aloisha chided him in a harsh whisper.

Kyrus did remain quiet. As he watched, his feet grew
sore and his back began to ache. He resisted the temptation to use magic since
everyone around him was abstaining. He wondered how many would have followed if
he had given in but never tested it.

In the end, there were three new Inner Circle
sorcerers chosen. Dommel Wenstatch had taken the third spot, the one that only
existed because of Kyrus's refusal to take the spot he was offered. Second
place went to Arielle Sarmon, who was a younger cousin of Faolen. The top
ranking had gone to Pollack Grahl, a sorcerer who the Circle had stationed in
Haffen until the need of an airship crew had dragged him away. It was only by
fortune that his ship was docked in Kadris when the call came for the great
tournament of draws.

Kyrus made his perfunctory introductions as the
winners were marched around to meet the surviving Inner Circle members who were
now their colleagues. Kyrus was included alongside the Circle's elite, even
though he had not joined them. He was someone who important folk needed to
know.

I am also possibly the last one truly working
against Rashan.

* * * * * * *
*

Once Rashan had departed, back for whatever
misfortune-rife region of Safschan had gained his attention, Kyrus hastened
back to his familial home. It was not a long walk from the Academy as both lay
on the shores of Dragon Lake in the city’s northern outskirts, but evening was
falling by the time he arrived.

Solaran Estate was in disarray from Caladris's death
but it was quieter than the palace and Kyrus no longer had his offices at the
army headquarters for a refuge. He delved down into the cellars and found a
nice, barren space in one of the less used larders.

He sat down on a pile of emptied grain sacks and quieted
his mind. Thoughts of the day swirled within, yammering for attention with
details small and large, things that needed his mind to grind and worry over.

In the windowless depths below ground level, Kyrus
lost track of how long it was before he gave in. He told his mind to shut up.
There was difficult magic to manage ahead, the sort that could kill him or at
least get him lost once more should he enact it in error. He took deep breaths
... deep, thought-clearing breaths.

"What are you doing down here, boy?"
Axterion's crotchety voice startled him alert. His grandfather came across the
larder with a steaming bowl of soup in his hands, the contents washing back and
forth dangerously as the old man shuffled across the uneven floor. The smell of
tomatoes and spices wafted in with him.

"I was preparing for a trip," Kyrus
answered. He saw no reason to lie to the old man.

"Ah, I've got you," Axterion said with a
wink. He handed Kyrus the bowl, the thick crockery keeping the piping hot
contents from burning his hands. "Well, if you mean to see that demon,
best of luck to you."

"I do, and thank you."

"Oh, and if you do not return by morning, I'll
make up the most fiendishly embarrassing lies about where you've gone. You
shall find no stauncher guardian of your secret, nor a more lax defender of
your honor, my boy." The two shared a laugh before Axterion departed.

Kyrus ate the soup, the only real meal he had eaten
all day. He set the empty bowl aside in a corner, well away from where his
spell would work. He took his time drawing in the aether he would need for his
trip, lest he cause alarm. When he had enough, he lifted gently off the ground
and disappeared in a ball of opaque aether.

The twilight sky was free of clouds as the sunset
faded over the
Starlit Marauder's
left railing. Stars brightened into
view against the deepening contrast of the lightless heavens behind them. As
the sprawling countryside of Safschan sped by beneath them, the Aliana Sea was
to their backs. Trees threw shadows that ran the length of city streets before
the shadow of the horizon reached up to swallow all others.

Juliana looked at the viewscreen, adjusting it
several times. The
Starlit Marauder
slowed to a gentle stop high above a
pond. The water was a placid mirror. It was the only thing clearly visible
below.

"Something wrong?" Tiiba called out from
the top of the steps. "We stopped."

"I know we stopped; I stopped us. There's
nothing to navigate by down there, we'll have to stop for the night," Juliana
explained, unbuckling herself from the captain's harness.

"I had very much hoped to sleep on land
tonight," Tiiba said. He took a step onto the deck, keeping one foot on
the top step and a firm hold on the railing.

"I'd feel better about sleeping in the air than
landing who-knows-where in the middle of Safschan," Juliana responded.

"We are hardly near the middle—this is barely
on shore. I think I know where we are," Tiiba said, "but there is a
poor view from below. If you promise no tricks with the ship's level, I would
like a look over the edge."

Juliana held her arms out and away from both her
body and the ship's wheel. She walked over toward the steps as Tiiba edged past
her in a crouch. Thoughts of throwing him over the edge were just silly
fancies—there was only so long she could remain angry with him.

"I think I know where we are," Tiiba
announced after a moment. He had his arm wrapped about the railing and was
craning his head over the side to look straight down.

"Where?"

"Do you know where Visasi Lake is?" Tiiba
asked.

"No."

"Well that is it, just below us. I have fished
in it before," Tiiba said. "If you bring us low, I can guide us the
rest of the way and we can have proper beds tonight."

"Not a bad heading you picked for us. I had
thought we might spend days wandering to find our way there," Juliana
said. "You think you can find your way at night?"

"I have before from the ground. I think I can
from on high. If you can just tilt that screen so that I might view it from the
stair, I will tell you where to go," Tiiba told her. He slunk back from
the railing to the safety of the top step.

"How far is it?" Juliana asked. She had
made no move to strap herself back into the harness. It had been a long day's
flying and her legs were cramped and stiff.

"By horse, a half day through woodlands and
shallow creeks. By airship, some fraction of that, I would assume," Tiiba
replied.

"There had better he a hot meal and a soft bed
waiting when we get there. Are you sure you're worth that much trouble, waking
some poor woman in the middle of the night?" Juliana stepped back before
the ship's wheel. She kept her gaze on Tiiba as she reached down slowly to
retrieve the captain's harness. She raised an eyebrow, waiting for Tiiba’s
reply before she buckled the first strap.

"We will be welcomed. You have my promise of
that," Tiiba said. He stifled a yawn.

"What have you got to be tired for? I'm the one
who's been up here all day flying us about."

"I am a creature of action. Small spaces and
long waits weary me more than you can know. Now turn that glass so I can guide
us."

Juliana finished securing herself to the helm and
did as Tiiba requested.

* * * * * * *
*

The nightscape of Safschan was a wasteland of
shadowed forests and undulating hills. Here and there darkened buildings lay in
clusters. Dogs howled in the airship’s wake, disturbed by the lowness of its
passing. Tiiba had insisted that he would steer them best from low—the lower
the better, just missing the treetops by his preference. The land was known to
him. It was an hour and no more before the blade-priest signaled that they
should land.

"Light it in the pasture there." Tiiba
pointed, gesturing at the viewing screen. "Slowly, so you do not wake the
cows."

Juliana blinked back the sleep from her eyes and
rubbed at them with a free hand while using the other to guide them down.
"No cows. Got it," she muttered to herself, fatigue slurring her
words.

With a thump and a creak of settling metalwork, the
Starlit
Marauder
pressed its keel into the soft soil of the pasture. It rocked
slightly as Juliana released the magic that steadied it and allowed it to
balance on its own. She lowered the side hatches and once more extracted
herself from the captain's harness—for the last time that night, she dearly
hoped.

"You go on ahead,” Juliana said through a yawn,
“and clear the way." Tiiba nodded and went below, emerging a moment later
on the ramp. She watched as he hopped a post-and-rail fence that kept the herd
animals away from the little farmhouse. Dogs barked as he reached the door, but
it was too far away for Juliana to tell if he had knocked first. A light
appeared inside, spilling out through the shutters of the windows and through
the door as it opened, silhouetting Tiiba and whoever had opened the door.
Juliana could only presume it was his woman when he took her in his arms.

Juliana leaned her weight on the stair rail as she
went below, distrusting her balance after an interminable day on deck. Her legs
had grown so accustomed to the fixed position she kept them in for most of her
time at the wheel that they protested any other.
I shouldn't feel this old.

Tiiba's three companions were waiting below when
Juliana got there, hanging back at the top of the ramp. It seemed they were
wary of offending their prospective hosts as well. The four of them watched as
a pair of large dogs jumped and bounded about, frantic for Tiiba's attention.
The blade-priest with his rune-blade still strapped to his back, crouched low
and put an arm around each, plying them with rough affection as he craned his
neck to carry on talking with the figure in the door.

Tiiba stood and hollered back toward the ship.
Juliana understood nothing of Safschani but followed along when the three
Safschan soldiers headed for the house, gear in hand. Once inside the gates,
the dogs turned their attentions to the new visitors, growling and sniffing,
poking their noses indelicately at the unfamiliar humans. Juliana had no fear
of dogs. They were simple creatures that had no hope against her shielding
spell. A lingering impression from Soria made her wary of them though, noisy
things that they were. A good guard dog was hard to fool, and both more
vigilant and quicker to raise an alarm than a human guardsman. No dog feared to
look the fool if the alarm was a false one.

Tiiba made introductions in Safschani. Juliana
understood her own name and little else. The woman was introduced as Ushiqa. If
Tiiba had been lying about his disinterest in Juliana's womanly virtues, Ushiqa
gave no evidence. She was thin nowhere, but was certainly narrower about the
waist than about either her hips or bust; she weighed easily twice what Juliana
did.

The five of them followed Ushiqa into the house.
Juliana was the last to enter, noticing the curious eyes looking down from the
lit window on the second floor.
I wonder if those children up there are
Tiiba's
. The house opened up directly into a common kitchen and a dining
room dominated by a long trestle table and an open hearth with a kettle on.
Juliana did not recognize the smell but some sort of stew was kept warm within.

There was much chattering in Safschani while Ushiqa
ladled bowls for the three soldiers. Their dinners in hand, they exited through
a back door. Ushiqa poured three more bowls, handing one each to Juliana and
Tiiba, and keeping one for herself. She sat at the table and invited them to
join her.

"Ushiqa, you may speak in front of Juliana. She
is the twin of the companion I told you of," Tiiba said, speaking Kheshi.

"Of course. I should have known the name,"
Ushiqa said, her voice seeming more real when it spoke words Juliana
understood.

"You are twinborn?" Juliana blurted. Her
voice had recovered from the shock faster than her wits.

"Yes, it is one of the many secrets the
blade-priests know," Tiiba said. "Not all of our number are twinborn,
but we often pass it down in our blood. Taking a twinborn mistress is a great
boon in two senses. They are more likely to mother twinborn children of course,
and—"

"And I can put up with his blabbering about
other worlds without thinking him a madman," Ushiqa joked.

"She could, but she chooses to think me one
anyway," Tiiba replied, sharing a smile with his mistress.

"So, you must know all sorts of scandalous
things about me then," Juliana ventured. She felt suddenly self-conscious
in front of the woman Tiiba had so dismissively compared her to the previous
day.

"Oh, I think he cleans the stories with soap
and brushes before I get to hear them. You would think that I was a princess or
a delicate maiden by the way he dances around some subjects. But I'm mother to
three boys who bleed dirt and hunt anything that will hold still long enough to
get hit with a rock, not to mention two flowering daughters, the eldest of whom
seems determined to get herself with child before she's wed and has a new boy in
mind for the job twice a season," Ushiqa said. The Safschan woman gave
Tiiba a playful, sidelong glare.

"All are yours, Tiiba?" Juliana asked. The
shock on her host’s face made Juliana blush, but rather than take offense,
Ushiqa leaned back in her chair and laughed.

"She's every bit the girl you told me of,"
Ushiqa said to Tiiba. "No highborn lass would ask such a question in any
company, and no lowborn lass would risk her skin saying such a thing at all in
front of a woman who might take offense."

Tiiba smiled, nodding his agreement. "I told
you as much. But yes, the children are all mine. Nihan will begin his training
at the temple next season. It took me some time before I purged all the girl
children from my loins and began fathering boys," Tiiba said. They all
chuckled at that. Juliana could not recall ever seeing Rakashi so at ease.
Tiiba was new to her, but had seemed like his twin in all other ways until now.

"You can sleep with my girls tonight, Juliana.
They share a room upstairs, in the back of the house. They can share a bed so
you can have one to yourself," Ushiqa told her.

"Thank you, but I wouldn't want to impose on
your daughters," Juliana said. "I can bunk on the ship."

"Oh, nonsense. You might do some good with
those daggers you hide if some boy sneaks up to see Mushina in the night. It
would not be the first time," Ushiqa said, waggling a finger.

At once, all three perked up. A shudder had passed
them by, some great rippling wave in the aether.

"Did you feel that?" Ushiqa asked. Tiiba
nodded.

"Yes," Juliana confirmed.

"I don't like that. The war has gotten so close
of late. I've been thinking I might have to pack the children and head up to
the temple," Ushiqa said.

"No," Tiiba told her. "Keep away from
cities and strongholds if you must flee. Farms and villages are best ... the
wilderness if those prove unsafe."

Juliana spooned soup into her mouth and kept quiet.
She felt the guilt of being part of the side responsible for the slaughter that
took place within their lands. The fact that she hated her former oathfather,
the fact that it was Tiiba who had shorn clean that bond, the fact that she had
sacrificed her crew and risked her safety to bring Tiiba home ... none of it
made up for the fact that the Kadrin army was ransacking the whole of Safschan
as she sat eating her soup.

Another sensation caught her attention, weaker than
the first. A second stirring in the aether was not far away.

"Did you feel that one?" Juliana asked,
seeing no reaction by her hosts.

"No," both said in unison. They looked at
one another and shared a simpering smile.
Not now, Tiiba. Hold it together!

"Something shook in the aether again,"
Juliana said. She looked to the windows at the far side of the house. The
leaded glass showed nothing but glare from the light within. She shook her
head, her soup beginning to feel restless in her stomach. "I don't like
this."

Tiiba pushed back his chair with a grating scrape of
wood. Without a word he went to the back door of the house and opened it. It
was, once again, the Rakashi she remembered, not the love-struck fool he had
seemed a moment ago. She slid from her chair and joined him, some prideful part
of her mind taking note that she had done so in relative silence.

"Can you see anything?" she asked. She
could see over his shoulder, but he blocked the doorway. The hilt of his
rune-blade obstructed her view as well.

"Can you not?" Tiiba replied.

"Smoke," Ushiqa said from inside. Juliana
turned to see her looking out the window, hands cupped about the sides of her
eyes to shield the indoor light. Juliana turned to look skyward. It took her a
moment, but she saw a star appear and disappear again, and she realized that
there was a swath of stars that seemed to be missing.