The Fire Mages (3 page)

It took me a year longer than I expected to get to the scribery. I worked and saved and worked even more, spending nothing, but it still wasn’t enough. In the end, my father insisted on making up the difference. I heard Mother arguing with him about it. Well, it was not really arguing, Mother never stooped to such a level. Merely, she laid out a whole series of reasons why I should stay until I had earned the money myself: it was indulging me, I would never learn to be independent, there were the other children to consider, the whole idea was nonsensical anyway.

Father’s replies sounded amused rather than angry. “She has wanted nothing else for years. You don’t need her in the teaching room now you’ve got Deckas to help you, and there’s nothing else for her here.”

I could imagine the sour expression on Mother’s face. “You spoil her, you know. You shouldn’t encourage her in these fantasies. Law scribe, indeed! She should stay here where she belongs. But no, she has to aim for the moon. And if she fails, all that money will be wasted.”

“Maybe so, but she won’t know what she can do until she tries. So let’s see how she gets on, eh?” Mother was silent, not convinced, I was sure, but she had run out of arguments. “Besides,” Father added in a cheerful tone, “if she can manage the first two years of the five, she’ll be a transaction scribe and make silvers by the handful and keep us in comfort in our old age.”

So, at the advanced age of seventeen, I went to Ardamurkan town to learn to be a scribe. Father made the journey with me. He wanted to buy some tools, he told me, even though he usually got what he needed from the tinker who came through the village several times a year. So I left Durmaston on a turnip wagon, too happy to feel the ignominy of it as we lurched through the forest. The sun sang to me, the birds hopped about the branches solely to entertain me, the leaves rustled above my head in sympathetic pleasure, the trees energised me and even the rain, when it came, was gentle and encouraging. Nothing dismayed me, for I was going to the scribery, as I had longed for ever since I was a child.

The travelling scribe came through the village two or three times a year, and usually he set up his shop in the back room at the inn. But the year I was eight, there had been a fire, so he stayed with us instead and conducted his business in the teaching room. I was fascinated by the little piles of paper he set out on the desk – creamy white for personal messages, pale blue for business contracts, yellow for agreements between individuals. I would sit, mesmerised, as he inscribed each page with its flowing script.

The spellpages were the best. For these, the paper was always the same, a pale muddy brown colour, like ordinary paper left too long in the sun, but it glowed with a pulsing energy. The scribe used blue ink for spells for wind or weather, green to encourage the crops to grow, red for a healing spell, whether human or animal. I stared, breathless with enchantment, as he drew the script on the page, watching the letters shimmer and dance, gradually settling into a pale silver sheen. The magic drew me to itself. I could almost taste it on my tongue and feel it crackle in the air.

From that sun I wanted to be a scribe. I knew where my future lay, and even being a simple transaction scribe wasn’t enough. I was determined to aim as high as I could, and become a law scribe.

Now, at last, I was on my way. I would learn the secrets of scribing and I would have the power of magic in my hands. With the special paper, quill and ink, under my careful fingers the dancing letters would glow with energy and I would be able to heal people or ensure good crops or fertile marriages or safe journeys. What could be more wonderful? I’d make silvers by the basketful and be somebody important. Perhaps even my mother would respect me.

~~~~~

After three suns of travel, we arrived at Ardamurkan an hour or two before sunset. The town was not at all what I’d imagined. The noise and multitudes of people were as expected, but the walls which enclosed the town were low, not imposing at all. The first streets we saw, although wider than those in the village, were still too narrow for the press of people and wagons trying to pass through. Many buildings were only of wood or clay or brick, and few were above two storeys, every one a different style from its neighbours.

The turnip wagon deposited us at a square near the gates, and we paid a couple of pieces for a man to carry our bags on a hand cart, while we walked alongside, boots clonking on the cobbles. The town sloped gently up the base of a range of low hills, so our way was all uphill. Gradually, as we ascended, the roads widened and the buildings became higher and grander and more solid. At last we could see the highest building of all, the many stone turrets and towers of the Kellon’s hall, flags hanging limply in the still air. Even the hall was of no interest to me; I pressed ahead eagerly for my first glimpse of the scribery.

It sat in the very heart of the town, and here another surprise awaited us, for it was not a single building but a conglomeration of assorted sizes and shapes, no two alike. There was a wall surrounding the whole mismatched collection, the gates wide open at this hour. Several bored guards protected the entrance, with no hint of the magical power within. I walked proudly through the gates, hiding my nervousness, for surely I had every right to be there. This was where I belonged, at the heart of magic.

The buildings around the gates were open to the public: the scribing hall, the teaching hall, the guest hall. Away at the far side of the compound, enclosed by its own wall and a tiny garden, was the scribes’ tower. This was the centre of spell-scribing, where I would train. Next to it, the grander walled garden around the mages’ house.

We stayed a couple of nights at the guest hall while I waited for my assessment, but I was too excited to notice anything around me. I was finally here! I could hardly believe it. I ate and slept and walked around the town with my father while he bought his tools, and remembered none of it.

My first task was to take a basic writing test which would admit me to the scribes’ training scheme. At Mother’s insistence, I was also to take a more advanced test. The certificate for that would allow me to have my own teaching room, if I wished it. Mother had no confidence in my ability to become a scribe, so I was to have a second career option. She had even given me the silver for it, a great concession, for whenever she had money to spare, she sent for new books.

The tests took place in the teaching hall, a vast, echoing room filled with individual writing desks. Mine was scratched and worn, engraved with the names of bored students and stained with blotches of ink. The other candidates looked like town residents with their flounced shirts and long coats. In my patched trousers and tunic, handed down to me from Ginzia and Alita, I felt like a rustic interloper. What was I thinking, trying to be a scribe? I didn’t belong here. It was stupid to try. I would fail the test, and have to crawl humiliatingly home to the village.

As soon as I saw the test papers, I sighed in relief. Not too difficult at all. I answered everything, although I saw others struggling, chewing the end of the pen in frustrated thought, or dipping the nib repeatedly in the ink.

I emerged waving the two certificates triumphantly at Father. “There! Mother should be pleased with me, anyway.”

“Perhaps,” he said. He leaned towards me, lowering his voice. “But don’t gloat too much about it. You’ve already gone further than she ever did.”

It took me a moment to work out what he meant. “Are you saying – she doesn’t have one of these?”

He shook his head. “She never had the money to come here and take the test. She doesn’t need it, of course, so long as she only teaches in Durmaston. But you could go anywhere with that.”

“If I had any desire to teach.”

“Yes. If that.” He winked at me and laughed.

The following sun, I handed over all my accumulated coins, showed my certificate, and became a trainee scribe.

Father’s voice wavered a little as he said all the things that fathers say to daughters when they release them into the world. Work hard. Do your best. Don’t be led astray. Save some money to get you home next summer. “Don’t forget us,” he said, gazing into my eyes. “Don’t ever get so grand that you forget the people who love you best.”

“As if I would!” I said, but already I was anxious for him to go so that I could begin my new life.

I was to share a room with two other girls. Lissa was quiet and tearful, and after a ten-sun she took her belongings and left without a word. Hestanora was friendly for the brief time it took her to discover my name.

“Oh, a
village
girl! Well! They let anyone in, I suppose.”

After that she didn’t talk to me at all if she could help it, which suited me just fine.

~~~~~

All through the autumn rains and the frosts of early winter, I diligently practised my scribing. We learned contract script first, the basic style used for personal and business messages. It was not unlike the usual style of writing non-scribes used, although more formalised and precise. We were told that this was the way everyone had written once, but in general use, the letter shapes had become sloppy and deformed, so now contract script was almost unintelligible for those not trained in it. Then we learned dot script, a quick way of writing used for taking dictation.

Every morning was spent copying and repeating endlessly, until each letter was identical to every other instance. Our script had to be perfect. We sat in orderly rows at our desks in the teaching room, heads bent, while a master walked up and down with a pointer, inspecting our efforts, tapping the paper to emphasise every mistake. “Longer. A wider down-stroke. No flourish there. You have blotted it – start again.” I hated that pointer, and worked hard to avoid it. Before long, my efforts earned me an occasional grunt of approval.

In the afternoons, I worked in the laundry to earn my keep, boiling great cauldrons of water to soak sheets and gowns and shirts, then rotating them to drain away the water, refilling, rinsing, rotating. Then every item had to be squeezed through rollers and hung to dry. Another group folded and pressed the dried garments, among them Hestanora. For all she considered herself too grand to associate with me, she was just as poor as I was.

When the first shoots of spring appeared through the snow in the little garden, we were allowed into the scribes’ tower, to begin learning spell script. The spellarium was a circular room high up in the tower, with desks around the outside in five groups, one for each year, and a large hearth in the middle which burned constantly.

The excitement in the room was tangible, but the master was unsmiling. “All your efforts, whether good or bad, must be destroyed in the fire here. No spellpage leaves this room, ever. Once you begin practising with magically imbued paper, quill and ink, burning will release the magic to the air, without harm.”

Hestanora coughed, her way of attracting attention. “If you please, master, surely burning activates the magic?”

Some of the others tittered at her ignorance. I wondered why she hadn’t read even the very basic books we’d been set, which explained the principles of magic quite clearly.

The master smiled benignly at her. “Ah, yes! That confuses many people, Hestanora. Just remember that you need three things to activate a spellpage: the proper scribing materials, a crucible to focus the magic and an invocation to the Gods. Without all three the spellpage cannot possibly be effective. And naturally the spell must be perfectly scribed. So let us focus on our scribing, eh? Open your books, everyone, to page seven, a spellpage for general well-being.”

We weren’t yet allowed the proper paper, quill or ink, but the words were those of actual spells, copied from one of the spell books. To my delight, the letters shimmered and danced exactly as I remembered, even under my unskilled hands. Spellpages were written in contract script, but with extra flourishes and symbols attached to almost every letter. It was even more important to be accurate, since any mistake in a spell could have unintended consequences. Not everyone was able to achieve the required accuracy, and the more than forty pupils who had started the year alongside me were reduced to barely half that after only a few moons.

I surprised myself by finding it easy. Even with simple contract script, once I knew the correct shapes I always copied them accurately. A couple of times I thought I’d gone wrong, and once I was sure my hand had slipped and made a letter far too long, but when I looked again everything was correct. With spell script, though, it was even easier because the symbols stood out so clearly.

“You’ve made a mistake in that line,” I whispered one sun to the boy sitting next to me.

“What? I don’t think so. It looks fine to me.”

“No, those two letters aren’t right.”

He leaned closer to the page, staring long and hard at it. “Moon Gods, I think you’re right. I’ve got them the wrong way round. Your eyes must be good, to spot that.”

“It’s easy, they’re not dancing.”

“What?”

“It’s obvious because they’re not moving around. And they’re not silvery. They’re dark, so they must be wrong, see?”

He stared at me as if he thought me insane. “What moonshit are you on about?”

I kept quiet about the dancing letters after that. I supposed his eyes were defective, if he couldn’t see them, and I pitied him.

~~~~~