The Floating Islands (33 page)

The Emperor gazed at him, a curious expression in his dark, powerful eyes. “I don’t find you insolent,” he said after a moment. “Or if I do, then I forgive it. Indeed, I’m pleased to know your father spoke well of me. I’m not displeased to see his son has found a place in the world, Trei enna Shiberren.” He opened one hand. “I release you to that place, and wish you joy of it. If we meet again, Gods grant it will be with amicability between us!”

Trei bowed deeply.

“Can we keep the wings?” asked a quick, light voice. For the first time, Trei saw that Master Patan was one of the men in the room. The artificer met Trei’s surprised look with an ironic glint and came a step away from the wall. He said to the Little Emperor, “If you
must
release the kajuraihi, may we at least keep their wings? Both sets, preferably?”

“No!” snapped Master Anerii.

Dharoann enna Gaourr made a small palm-down gesture, amused. “Quietly. Quietly, if you please. Patan, I am devastated to disappoint you, but we cannot blatantly steal the personal property of a foreign ambassador. It is not done. Master Anerii, your wings are, of course, yours. However, the set used in commission of an act of war against Tolounn … those belong to Tolounn.”

Master Anerii hesitated … then nodded. Grudgingly, but he nodded. “I’ll have to send for another set for my novice.”

“Your kajuraihi will not be molested,” the Little Emperor assured him. “Your novice and others under your authority are free to come and go. You are not a prisoner here, but a recognized ambassador … though I will ask you to permit my soldiers to attend you and yours while you are in Tolounn.” He rose, signaling the end of the interview. “I will anticipate a useful exchange with the Floating Islands. Through your agency, Master Anerii. I will expect to see you again.”

Master Anerii did not comment on any of this. He merely bowed low. To Trei’s surprise—the master clearly remembered
this
piece of high Tolounnese protocol—he held that bow while Tolounn’s Little Emperor exchanged a low-voiced comment with one of the waiting men, murmured an order to another, clapped Master Patan on the shoulder in friendly consolation, and finally went out, drawing most of the men and nearly all the personal energy in the room out with him.

Decouan Patnaon came forward as the room emptied and grinned at Trei. “Good for you, boy. Too bad, though. You’ve got nerve and heart—you might have made a soldier.”

Trei laughed, though shakily. “I don’t think so! Though I thank you.”

The decouan thumped Trei on the shoulder, but he gave Master Anerii a sober, deferential nod. “Thank you, sir. You Islanders may be overconfident, but you’re civilized people. That was a generous gesture, returning our soldiers without ransom.
We
will remember it, I promise you.”

He meant the soldiers of Tolounn, of course. Master Anerii returned the decouan a reserved nod, for all he was undoubtedly praying the Floating Islands would never have to depend on the goodwill of Tolounnese soldiers. Trei prayed for that, too … but if the favor of the Gods failed, then he thought it would be just as well to have the goodwill of the soldiers.

“I’m sure you’d be just as pleased to return to your Islands. We’ll get you on your way, sir, no trouble at all. Only tell me what you need. Wings! Gods, give me a solid ship under my feet, if I can’t have a decent horse and a good road!”

“There’s a spare set of wings waiting at a pebble well over on this side of the second waystation,” Master Anerii said to Trei quietly. “It may take a bell or so to have them brought. But I think we can have you at the waystation by full dark, and back home two days after that.”

Home.
And Master Anerii said it as though it was a foregone conclusion. Trei couldn’t answer. But he nodded.

16

T
he hidden school was strange in the days after the Tolounnese surrender. Not only the school: there was an odd feel to Canpra itself. The city had sustained some damage, of course, but that was not, Araenè thought, the source of the strangeness. The huge Tolounnese siege ladders had shattered buildings and balconies, and the white marble of the First City was streaked with soot from fires. The damage was troubling, a reminder of danger and fear, but Second City was less damaged, and Third City … Third City should by that measure have seemed untouched. The Tolounnese soldiers had not come so far. But the invasion had affected the people of the Third City as it had those of First and Second, even if it had not ruined a single Third City shop or home.

Araenè was not quite able to explain to herself where the difference lay, or whether the change was ill or well, but she knew it was there. She called visions of the city into Master Tnegun’s Dannè sphere, and she went out into the Third City twice, dressed once as a boy and once as a Third City girl.

The change in Canpra had to do, she thought, with the raw red earth of the new cemeteries, where men who had been killed in the invasion lay in long rows beside people who had died from the Yngulin illness. She stood for a long time, once everything was over, gazing down from a Second City balcony across the cemetery where her parents lay. There were so many new graves.… The cemetery had doubled in size after the coughing illness, but it had doubled again since. Araenè was not the only mourner who had gone to stand silently at the edge of the stripped red earth. But the company of other mourners brought her no comfort, and the grief followed her back to the hidden school; it clung to her no matter how she dressed or what name she called herself.

Too much death too quickly, too much fear, and somehow no part of the city seemed really safe any longer. The mood of the city went beyond that, though: there was a bitterness against Tolounn that had not been there before, but it was mixed with an oddly grim good cheer because, after all, the Islands had defeated Tolounn—and everyone knew that Tolounnese soldiers were the best in the world.

“It’s important we be generous and honorable—honorable exactly as Tolounn understands honor,” Ceirfei had explained to Araenè before going away to be a prince. “The Tolounnese put such
passion
into their honor. If we are to be opponents, we must ensure they regard us as
honorable
enemies and not barbarians.”
In case they come again, and we lose,
he did not say. He did not have to say it. Araenè knew that the triumph running through the streets of Canpra was wrong, though maybe … maybe not as dangerous as the bitterness, unchecked, would have been. But she knew Milendri
would
have been taken— the Islands
would
have been conquered—except for Trei. And no one knew that, except her. And Ceirfei, and Master Tnegun. And the kajuraihi, she supposed.

Everyone should know it. She wanted to go out in the streets and proclaim it:
My cousin saved you all!
It seemed utterly wrong that so few knew this, even worse that Canpra did not appreciate her cousin’s continuing danger. Even she did not know what that danger was, precisely. When she tried to find a vision of Trei in a sphere or in water or fire, she saw nothing but darkness. He was not
dead;
she knew this and Master Tnegun confirmed it. Araenè clung to that certainty. But the darkness and cold she saw in the spheres horrified her. She knew a kajurai official had gone after Trei; they would get him back. Master Tnegun would not promise her this, but she believed it, fiercely. Even though she could not imagine how the living wind of the kajuraihi could reach into that cold darkness. She tried not to think about it.

But that left her too much time to think of other things.

She could not go out into Canpra and tell everyone about Trei. Of course she could not. But after that first visit to the cemetery, she found herself even more reluctant to go out into the streets of Canpra for any other reason, either. She did not know how she should dress if she did; she did not know who she should be. In a way, the question was like choosing a role in a play … girl, boy, apprentice mage—she did not know what she should be. It was all roles, and she vacillated between them. She felt, obscurely but strongly, that when she actually chose a role, this time it might be the one she would play for the rest of her life. But she did not know which to choose.

Kajurai or prince … those were roles, too, and more intractably separate than even the roles that waited for Araenè’s choice. Ceirfei, she knew, did not exactly get to choose what role he would play, and who would have thought it might be harder to be a prince than a girl?

For the first time in her life, Araenè cared about politics. Everyone in Canpra had a violent opinion about what the Islands should do about Tolounn. Araenè did not, but she wondered what Ceirfei thought. She was sure he would be right. But would his uncle listen to him? She worried about that. She felt intense sympathy for Ceirfei. She also thought Ceirfei would have an easier time managing his various roles if he didn’t feel obliged to play every one of them with such
intensity.

But the hidden school had changed in a different way than the city, and Araenè could not decide whether the change was in the school or in herself, or in some complicated way had emerged from the relationship between herself and the school.

All the mages had recovered from their overextension—or their simple overexhaustion, in Master Tnegun’s case—except for Master Yamatei, of course, who had died and left poor Kepai and Kebei with no master of their own. Kanii thought Master Kopapei would take them, or maybe Master Akhai. But Araenè had a faint suspicion that Master Tnegun might do it—to encourage amity between the twins and herself. Because these days, the twins were not really talking to her.

Few of the apprentices were. Tichorei, to be sure, wasn’t talking to anybody—he was ill after his exhaustion and overextension during the invasion, and he did not come into the common areas of the school. Araenè was anxious to see him recovered, to tell him how much she admired his committed effort during the invasion. But she was afraid he would be embarrassed and angry, that he would refuse to forgive her deception. And she knew that, Kanii aside, all the younger apprentices would probably follow Tichorei’s lead—once he was around to provide one. She hoped Tichorei would recover; of course she did. But she dreaded the lead he might give the other boys.

Of all the apprentices, only Kanii and little Cesei seemed utterly untroubled by the revelation of Araenè’s secret. Kanii’s manner toward her scarcely changed—though he would not come into her apartment, and did not like for her to visit his. But he did not mind meeting her in the common areas of the school.

“Why should it make any difference? Everyone knows we’re terribly short of mages—and worse now.” He meant not only
Since Master Yamatei died
but also
Since we know now that Sayai won’t ever be a mage.
They did know that now. The masters had known for some time that Sayai was going to be an adjuvant and not a mage, and the invasion had forced them to make it clear to Sayai also. What no one knew, yet, was whether Sayai would refuse to become an adjuvant and instead leave the school entirely. The apprentices didn’t discuss it. Araenè thought that in his place, she would let herself become an adjuvant—but Sayai had choices she did not, and she knew he was bitterly disappointed.

In a way, Kanii’s acceptance was not a surprise. This was because, as Araenè discovered, Master Kopapei had known she was a girl from the first time he’d seen her—and she’d thought herself so perfectly disguised! But he had known, or so Kanii told her.

“He didn’t
tell
me,” Kanii assured her. They were in the common library; Kanii was helping Araenè find appropriate introductory books about mathematics and stone lore. “I guess he didn’t tell
anyone,
since you say not even Master Tnegun knew! But I knew there was something. I thought—I don’t know what I thought! But my master is the best, and if he didn’t care, why should I?”

This attitude seemed common to Master Kopapei’s apprentices, because Cesei also didn’t care. “It’s obvious—now,” he said, disgusted with himself that he hadn’t spotted her secret all by himself. “And it’s obvious now why you don’t know anything about mathematics or anything. Here.” He put a fat little book down on the table in front of Araenè. “This is the best one on geometry. I’ll help you with the hard parts, if you like. I don’t care you’re a girl!”

“You’re a little young to notice such things,” Kanii told him, amused. “You’re the
last
one to have an opinion, brat!” He went on to Araenè, confidently, “Everyone will get used to the idea.”

Araenè wished she had his confidence. She said, “I’m sure you’re right.” But she was not sure, and when she went up to the hall of spheres and mirrors, she went slowly and sadly. Nor could she concentrate on the spheres once she got there. She kept looking into one sphere and then another, hoping for a glimpse of Trei. But she could not find a reflection of her cousin in any sphere, whether of stone or crystal or glass or polished wood.

Master Tnegun found her there, and leaned for a while on the iron railing of the stair, watching her. Araenè was trying to coax the secret of contained magery out of a heavy black-lead sphere the size of her fist. She did not want to speak to her master—she didn’t even want to look at him. She never knew how to speak to anyone now, and as soon as she saw Master Tnegun had come up the spiral stair to find her, she was afraid that the masters had after all decided to send her away from the school and that he had come to tell her this. She pretended not to notice him.

“You have been studying that lead sphere for eight minutes,” Master Tnegun said at last. “And, lead being unsubtle and single-natured, it holds only one quality. I am confident you identified this some time past. What is it?”

Araenè blushed. “It blocks against vision,” she muttered, and put the sphere back on its shelf. She
had
been holding it too long: her wrists, now that she paid attention to them, ached from its weight.

“Indeed. Not a quality I would ordinarily expect you to value.”

Araenè did not look up. “I don’t want clear vision right now,” she admitted in a low tone.

The master did not say,
Your cousin will be well.
He did not say anything at all. But he pushed away from the stair railing and came to kneel down on the floor, facing Araenè across the line of spheres she had been examining. He studied the spheres for a moment. “Tourmaline does not belong in this row,” he commented at last. “All the rest you have selected contain spellwork that has to do with shaping and making. That one is not associated with any such magic.”

Without a word, Araenè picked up the tourmaline sphere and handed it to him. He took it thoughtfully, but then did not put it back on its shelf, but only held it for a time, studying its rich orange-gold depths. “What does it taste of, to you?” he asked Araenè.

“Fenugreek, and something musty I don’t recognize,” she said, still not looking at him. “Something with a trace of lime to it, but much more bitter. I don’t like it—I tried to bury it behind the fenugreek.”

Master Tnegun nodded thoughtfully. “That is the summoning set into it,” he murmured. “You submerged that magic underneath a much more polite magic of calling and naming. The summoning is for the smothering dark, the darkness so heavy it puts out fire and crushes light. One understands very well why you should find your hand drawn to this sphere.”

Araenè did not say anything.

The master still did not say anything reassuring about Trei. He said instead, “The hidden school would be the poorer without you, Araenè.”

Araenè looked up at last. “Does anyone think that, besides you?”

Master Tnegun lifted an eyebrow at her. “Do you value anyone’s opinion, except mine?”

Araenè was too taken aback to respond at once. Then she could not help smiling at the trick in that question, where saying yes would be disrespectful of her master’s authority and saying no would be simply presumptuous.

“You are too wise to answer,” observed the master. He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “You have certainly had an … interesting effect on the hidden school. Your affinity for fire and for doors has been and remains beyond price. You have not, I trust, recently stepped through any door into fire?”

Araenè stared at him.

“You might,” said Master Tnegun. His unexpected smile startled her, teeth gleaming in his dark face. “The heart of the school once again contains fire, were you aware? No? Then allow me to assure you of it. I would not be astonished to find that the young dragon curled there recalls your name.”

Araenè was not at all certain she wanted the baby dragon to remember her name. But she was very glad to know that it was well. She asked hesitantly, “How did it come here? Did you—?”

Master Tnegun tilted his head to the side judiciously:
No.
“We did nothing—indeed, there is nothing we know that we might have done. It merely came there—this morning, we believe. We suspect the great dragon brought it to us: a fire dragon that remembers the sky and wishes, for whatever reason dragons may wish such things, for our Islands to prosper. Master Kopapei assures me the young dragon seems content. If it is not, I suspect you will discover the fact.”

“Oh,” Araenè said faintly.

Master Tnegun considered her for another moment and then added gravely, “I believe you may not be aware that girls sometimes become mages, in Yngul.”

Araenè looked up swiftly.

“It’s said a girl’s strength fades less swiftly than a boy’s. That may be so; I have not tested the question. I believe we will find it does not fade more swiftly, however.”

Araenè made a noncommittal sound, though she was listening intently.

“Here, girls look straight ahead down the path their mothers lay down for them, and if power arises in them, they smother it. But Cassameirin … When Cassameirin was young, from time to time a girl would come into the hidden school. He had a girl apprentice, once. That girl became Kanora Ireinamei, mage and teacher, who spoke to the wind dragons and coaxed them to settle upon Kotipa.”