The Fire Mages (7 page)

She licked her lips. Even without looking at her, I could see her trembling. She began two or three times, stammering and tripping over the words. Then in a rush she burst out, “I’m related to all the nobility, and I’ll warm your bed.”

It was two reasons, not one, but he didn’t comment on that. Instead, he simply laughed in her face. She turned her head away from him, and I thought I saw a tear trickling down her cheek. I had no time to feel any pity for her, though, for my turn was next, and I wasn’t terrified any longer. Anger bubbled up inside me. How dare this arrogant man treat us so rudely? Mages were the pinnacle of scribing, supposed to be examples of ability and wisdom, advisors to the rulers, no less. Yet this man behaved appallingly. He expected us to grovel and plead for his favour, yet he couldn’t manage a shred of courtesy. How could he teach us anything worth knowing when he displayed so little respect? And how could we respect him? I would rather go back to my village than make deals with such a person. I determined to offer him nothing except my own talents.

So when the mage leered at me and signed for me to begin, I straightened my back, breathed deeply and willed myself to calmness.

“I am the best in my year,” I said. I looked him straight in the eye as I spoke, and saw surprise there. For the first time, he stopped moving, staring right back at me, and he seemed less crazy. His eyes were a vivid blue, seeming to drill right into my head. I refused to look away.

“That’s it? You’re the best? Who says so?”

“My test results say so. All the Masters say so. The rest of my year say so.”

“And you think this is enough of a reason?”

“It’s the only reason that matters.”

He laughed then. “But what other inducements will you offer? Will you shine my boots? Cook my food? Warm my bed?”

“I will study diligently. I will learn from your experience. My talents will reflect well on your teaching.”

“No other reward for me?”

“Teaching an apt and eager pupil is reward enough.”

He paced a little, and then circled back to stand in front of me again, peering at me intently, all the craziness dropping away. “Well, Kyra abra Dayna endor Durmaston, you are certainly more promising than these abject insects. At least you don’t crawl in the dirt. If I take you on, however, I will require your participation in the renewal ceremony next year. That means you will have to become my drusse. Think you could manage that?”

My breath caught in my throat. The renewal ceremony! Everything the mages did was shrouded in secrecy, but everyone had heard of the renewal ceremony. It was some kind of communion with the magical energy infusing the world which the mages drew on for their powers, but the process was a mystery, fuelling any number of rumours – of sacrifices, blood-letting, animal wildness and exorcism of demon spirits. And sex. There was supposed to be a great deal of uninhibited sex. For that reason, all mages were required to be married or have a drusse.

Yet to be taught by a mage! What a prize that would be! The mages were the very best, the stars of the scribery – well, the best of noble birth, anyway. I could never be a mage. But to have a mage patron would open doors to me, assure me the best opportunities when I was fully qualified. In my most optimistic dreams, I had never thought of such a possibility, for mages rarely took on pupils. Yet it was fitting. I had spoken proudly, perhaps arrogantly, when I described myself as the best, but it was not an exaggeration. And if I was the best trainee of my year, shouldn’t I have the best teacher?

“Well?” he said, leaning closer. “I have other possibilities, you know.”

“Terms?” I croaked.

He straightened again. “Training – up to three years, as you please,” he barked. “If you’re capable of it, of course. I’ll be the judge of that. Drusse – one year only. I’ll be tired of you by then.”

“Children?”

He shuddered. “Absolutely not.”

I didn’t have to think about it. I couldn’t miss such an opportunity, and being his drusse wouldn’t be so terrible. I disliked him intensely, but he was young and not so bad looking. It was only a year, after all.

“I accept.”

“Good. Follow me.”

He swept through the door, coat flapping, and I marched out behind him without a backward glance.

I thought with triumph that my future was assured.

My life was now changed beyond all recognition. After two years at the scribery, and just three suns after I’d added the second chain to my scribe’s necklace making me officially a transaction scribe, I became the mage’s drusse. I acquired a line of rings around one ear, and a surprising number of status marks tattooed on my upper arm.

The mage was very off-handed about my drusse contract. He led me through town at a brisk pace, so that I almost had to run to keep up, to a well-appointed Scribing House I’d never seen before.

“Drusse – one year – the usual,” was all he said to the scribe who served us. The scribe asked a couple of questions and then wrote industriously for some time, while the mage paced about the room. It was more like a private house than a place of business, so there were tables and shelves laden with ornaments, many of which he picked up, examined in a cursory fashion and then banged down again. Meanwhile, a minion fluttered along behind him, wringing her hands and retrieving abandoned objects from precarious positions, replacing each one carefully in its correct position.

At length, the scribe was finished and handed over the contract without a word. The mage glanced over it, then handed it to me. I read it scrupulously but could find no fault with it. I hadn’t yet studied contract law officially, since it was third year work, but the standard types were available in the scribery library, and I had read them all. There was nothing out of the ordinary in this one.

So we signed, and the scribe signed and added his seal, and then we went to the Contracts’ Hall to have the document witnessed and made official. I collected my few belongings and took them to the mages’ house, and thus began my life as a drusse.

I could hardly believe my luck. Not only was I guaranteed to complete the full five years’ tuition at the scribery – subject to convincing the mage of my capability, which I was confident I could – but I would learn from the best. That summer, for the first time, I didn’t go home at all, spending the break getting ahead on my third year studies and following the mage about on his duties.

Cal was a thought mage, one who could cast a spell by saying the words of the spell or even thinking them in his mind, rather than writing them on paper. As a result, his duties were very variable. Sometimes he was at the library, and I was allowed to loiter nearby watching while he read and took notes, so long as I didn’t disturb him. At other times he was involved in secret mage activities from which I was excluded.

Sometimes he visited clients requiring his services, and that was more interesting. He was accompanied by a couple of guards whenever he left the scribery compound, so we made rather an impressive procession walking through the town. He was quite different on these occasions, gentle and soft-spoken with the sick, briskly businesslike with merchants, respectful with nobles. I loved watching him work, his slender fingers held in elegant poses while he concentrated, eyes closed. Thought magic was awe-inspiring, and I never tired of it.

There were seven mages at Ardamurkan. Two were only paper mages, that is, they could use their power to infuse the paper, ink and quills used to create spellpages but nothing more. The rest were thought mages. They all had a vessel to power their magic – an object of some kind where magical energy was stored during the renewal. Cal’s was a teardrop-shaped stone of some sort, another mage had a crystal, a third a carved piece of wood, and one carried a gemstone in the handle of her walking stick. Cal was ranked third of the seven, although I wasn’t sure why, for he was the youngest by some years. Usually only the first two would be called upon to offer advice or perform spells for the nobles at the Hall, but Cal was some kind of distant cousin to the Kellon, so he was often summoned as well.

~~~~~

I was no longer required to wear a uniform, and one sun I wore a particularly shabby and patched tunic I’d brought from home when I first travelled to Ardamurkan.

Cal looked me up and down disdainfully. “You know, you look more bedraggled than a sheep ready for the shearer. I half expect to see feathers or bits of straw dripping from you. Don’t you have any less disreputable clothes?”

“Not really, no.”

“And it hasn’t crossed your mind to get some? Surely even a village girl would be ashamed to wear such rags.”

“I’d love to, but I have no money until I can earn some.”

“You have your drusse allowance.”

“It’s paid quarterly in arrears.”

“Well, if you want to come with me when I go to the Hall, you’ll need something decent. You’d better go to my fellow; he’ll sort you out. Tell him to send me the bills, and I’ll take it out of your allowance later.”

“Are you going to put me in skirts?”

“I don’t give a monkey’s pip what you wear as long as you don’t look like a goose girl.”

“Then thank you, Lord Mage.”

“And don’t fucking call me that.”

Yet he abused me just as much when I called him Cal. His proper name was much longer, for he came from a branch of the Drashon’s family originally, but mages are allowed to choose a new name for themselves when they attain their powers. He called himself Cal, from a very famous mage in history known as Calmander, although his birth title still appeared on official documents.

He was an odd creature, mercurial and unpredictable. One moment he would be a writhing mass of energy, filled with enthusiasm, the next he would snarl at everyone or be sunk in despair. He was consistently unpleasant to me, from brusque to outright rude. I didn’t mind; nothing could puncture my joy in life.

There were odd outbreaks of kindness from him. When he first showed me my bedroom, a space somewhat larger than my parents’ entire house, filled with beautiful polished wood furniture and silk wallpaper, he said rather awkwardly, “Look, Kyra, I hope you won’t be too unhappy here. If you want anything, just ask.” Then he swept out. And to my surprise, he had not returned. Each night I slept in the vast, softly enfolding bed, quite alone.

The mages’ house was a great rambling place with wings bursting out in all directions, meandering in an unstructured way up the hill, surrounded by a wilderness of a garden and a high wall. The seven mages all lived and worked there, together with spouses, drusse, children, pupils and an astonishing number of servants, with guards who came and went with silent efficiency. Although two of the mages, a brother and sister, mostly kept to their own apartments with their families, the rest shared many communal rooms, eating together and wandering through the overlapping spaces haphazardly the rest of the time. If there was any systematic routine to their habits, I never discovered it.

It was a delight to me to live amongst such people. I’d never realised before just how different I’d felt when I was only a village girl struggling to pay her way. Now I lived in a fine house, with enough wood to burn all year round, wearing better clothes than my mother. I loved the food, too: rich game meats, delicate fish, light sauces, bizarre things in shells, exotic fruits and vegetables grown in hothouses for the tables of the nobility. I ate everything, relishing the change from the pies and pasties of the village, and the dumpling-heavy stews at the scribery. There was wine, which I learned to drink, and spirits, which I avoided after one ghastly experiment.

The boards had another attraction, too, for I was able to learn from the mages’ discussions. In my innocence, I had imagined myself sitting at Cal’s feet while he gently imparted his wisdom and knowledge to me, but in fact he taught me nothing. His only concession to his patronage was to allow me to follow him on his duties, which he was contractually obliged to do. But the evening board discussion was always lively, and although it revolved around domestic trivia more often than not, occasionally I gleaned nuggets of interest.

Two of the other mages had pupils, although they were both fifth year and their debates were sometimes very abstruse. Cal also had a fourth year pupil, Raylan, but he was a morose man who said very little to anyone and nothing at all to me. He was useful, though, for each morning board he would interrogate Cal on his plans for that sun, down to hours and exact meeting places, so it was easy for me to decide when to attach myself to the mage and when I could follow my own schemes.

~~~~~

A moon after I became a drusse, my formal training began again. The third year at the scribery was very different from the first two. The drudgery of learning scripts and endless practice was now behind me, and I no longer had to work to pay for my keep. I spent two mornings each ten-sun in contract law lectures, and one adding the new range of spells to my repertoire, but the rest of my time was my own, to study or to follow Cal about, as I wished.

I needed to earn some money of my own, though, as my drusse allowance was already spent on finery. Since I was now a fully qualified transaction scribe, I passed a few afternoons in the public Scribing Hall, where anyone could come for scribing services. Most of my cohort, richer than I, had already spent time there, becoming known to the other scribes and working their way into partnerships, but I had been tied to the laundry or the mirror room, so this was my first experience of professional scribing.

It was a big building, divided up into a series of smaller rooms for different functions, each of them crowded and noisy, with jostling queues and outbreaks of shouting or squalling babies. I was assigned to one for simple transactions, no spells, and very dull it was, especially as I soon discovered that the senior scribes did most of the work and therefore took most of the money. I made a few pieces here and there, but it was not very profitable to me.

One sun, however, while taking a shortcut between market squares in town, I came across a discreet little Scribing House in a narrow alley with a sign in the window:
“Transaction or contract scribe required to help out occasionally”
. I went in. A tiny middle-aged woman, thin as a quill, bustled forward to greet me. She took me in at a glance – the new expensive and fashionable clothes, the drusse earrings. She bowed.

“How may I help, Lady?”

My heart sank. She thought I was just a customer. “I wondered – I mean, the sign in the window...”

“Oh.” Her face changed from politeness to interest, and her glance fell to my scribe’s necklace. “You’re – a transaction scribe? You want to work here? But perhaps it’s just a bit of practice you’re after – to keep your hand in?”

“No, I need the money,” I blurted. “Money of my own, I mean. My allowance—” I waved a hand over my stylish woollen trousers, made for me at vast expense by Cal’s own tailor. The two outfits and coat I’d ordered would consume almost my entire first quarter’s allowance. I loved wearing them, but it was expensive to look like a lady.

“And your drusse-holder has no objection?”

“He doesn’t care what I do.”

She laughed, a melodic trilling like a bird. “Come through to the back. I have a pot steeping.”

Ardamurkan folk always had a pot steeping, I’d found. The contents varied wildly according to taste and the herbs available, but there was always something hot to drink. So we sat and drank and the deal was done. Marisa was a transaction scribe, and her daughter, Elissana, was a contract scribe who had recently had a baby, so they needed extra help. They didn’t mind when I went there – two or three afternoons every ten-sun was fine, whatever I could manage. Best of all, they dealt with every kind of business appropriate to their status, and although one or other of them loitered close-by at first whenever I dealt with a client, they soon came to trust me.

How wonderful it was to write my first true spellpages and be rewarded with silver pressed into my hand. I felt very grown up. The Scribing House was part of the neighbourhood, and everyone who came in seemed to know Marisa and Elissana, and they soon came to know me, too. For the first time since I’d arrived at Ardamurkan, I felt as if I belonged.

It was not all easy, though. One couple came in for a spell for their daughter’s baby, who had been born ill. It was weak, and had trouble breathing and a blue tinge about the lips. There were no spells specific to such a condition, except for one long marked as being unlikely to be effective. It was an odd thing that no one was able to rationalise, but quite a few spells which once worked perfectly well had lost their efficacy over time. I explained this to the couple, but they wanted me to try it anyway.

“If it helps even a little bit, it will be worth it,” the woman said fiercely.

I discussed it with Marisa. “It’s a legal spell,” she shrugged. “We’re allowed to sell it, so long as we warn people. And it might work, you never know.”

So I scribed the spellpage, watching the letters jump in their sparkling dance, accepted the silver, and helped the couple burn it in the crucible. It flamed exactly as every other spellpage. Three suns later, I arrived at Marisa’s house to find a large box waiting for me containing a gift, a selection of exotic sweetmeats. The spell had worked.

“It could be coincidence, I suppose,” I said. “Maybe the baby would have got better anyway.”

Marisa shook her head. “Unlikely, with those symptoms. Don’t agonise over it. Spellpages are always uncertain. The most reliable may fail, the most unpromising may be effective. It’s magic, who knows how it works? Besides – it all enhances our reputation, you know?” And it was true, business was brisker after that and a few customers asked specifically for me.

Marisa began to hint that perhaps, once I’d qualified as a contract scribe, I might want to join them permanently. Elissana’s drusse had been with them for a while, working half his time with them and half with another, larger, Scribing House. That hadn’t worked out and since then they’d coped with just the two of them, and my occasional help.