The smoke turned blue. The coins and the staff began to circle through the air. Then, ominously, the brazier sputtered and the airborne objects crashed to the floor. Thick black clouds poured from the little brass pot, and the unlucky saje, wheezing and coughing, grabbed a ceremonial broom from the wall and began beating at the source of the smoke.
Faia saw him bump his work table. Several jars smashed to the floor, their powdered contents scattered everywhere—including into the blaze in the brazier.
There was a loud WHUMP.
The wingmount shied. The faeriefire flickered and vanished.
Faia tumbled to the ground and landed like a rock.
She lay in silent agony, unable to pull in enough air to breathe, much less make noise.
The windows above Faia flew open and acrid smoke poured into the pink-fogged night. The young saje leaned out the window and gagged and coughed.
Faia, temporarily helpless, stared up at him.
He noted first the winged horse, then the fallen girl on the ground beneath him. His eyes grew round.
"My gods—" he wheezed between fits of coughing. "What—are you?"
The Revered and Most Noble Mottemage, Frelle Rakell Ingasdotte, holder of the Lifetitle of Geste-Motte, Chair of the Mage-Ariss Committee for Life-Experiment, Head of Daane University, and fourth in line of succession to lead Mage-Ariss, couldn't sleep worth a damn.
Flynn had bounced on her face earlier, teasing her out of bed by landing on her and then darting for the tower window, until she finally walked over and looked out. The view had been spectacular—her tower surrounded by an ocean of pink fog waves; the massive architecture of the central hub of Ariss lurching like a behemoth from the storm-tossed sea silhouetted against the lurid red-purple of the planet Tide Mother; one of her prize wingmounts soaring off towards Saje-Ariss with Daane's most promising new student aboard....
It had taken second and third looks before she could believe that last.
She mixed a healthy dollop of cream with the fifth of the steins of deep-burgundy Zheltariss, sloshed the contents around until the drink was marbled-burgundy with wide white stripes, then took a long, slow pull of the concoction.
"There is always a reason, Flynn," she intoned. "This shit doesn't happen but for a reason." She took another drink. "I just want to
know the gods' bedamned reason!"
Flynn leapt onto the windowsill next to where she stood and looked longingly at the small pitcher of cream.
"Here," she snarled, and pushed the pitcher to him. "Drink it. You would anyway when I wasn't looking." She turned her face back to the window.
"I can't believe Faia is a traitor—but that was her on Makketh, flying straight for Saje-Ariss. Even if she hadn't conjured a faeriefire, I'd have recognized her power signature." Rakell buried her head in her hands, and sighed deeply. "None of this makes sense. The killings started just before she got here... but after she destroyed Bright. She claims the killer, whatever is was, attacked her and Yaji, but miraculously they survived when no others have. I felt the shielding, but not the attack. Now she sneaks out in the night to the other side of the city. Why? She knows enough of our plans to destroy us if she is a traitor. How can she not be a traitor?
"Flynn, what kind of a monster is she?"
Flynn, head buried to the shoulders in the cream-pot, made no reply.
"You're just a cat anyway, hey, Flynn? You wouldn't know the good guys from the bad guys if they wore signs. Just as long as you get fed, you like 'em."
Flynn lifted his cream-coated face from the emptied pitcher and blinked at her owlishly. With great care, he began his bath.
The Mottemage managed a slight twist of a smile, then returned her attention to the window, scanning the sky for her prodigal student.
The redheaded saje shed his blue velvet robe with a quick shrug, and tossed a little rope ladder over the window. An instant later, he'd climbed down to kneel on the wet grass next to Faia, where he studied her with an expression of mixed curiosity and concern.
"Are you hurt?" he finally asked.
"I fell off a wingmount for the second time in one night. I am sure I have felt better before."
The redheaded saje grinned. "I'll bet you have. Who are you, anyway? What are you doing here? Women aren't allowed on the campus."
"So I have been told. I believe I would be even less permitted than most women. My name is Faia Rissedote. I am a mage-student from Daane University. I came here to talk to a trustworthy saje, and the faeriefire led me to you."
"Whoosh!" The man sat back on his haunches and glanced from Faia to the wingmount and back. "I guess that explains the fancy horse—mage-student, huh? I'm Kirgen Marsonne—I guess I'm trustworthy, depending on what you want. But we need to get you inside. Even in the fog, someone might notice you."
She nodded. "What about the wingmount?"
"Tie it to one of the trees in the center of the quad and hope no one pays any attention, don't you think?"
Faia propped herself up on one elbow and winced. "A moment or two and I will be able to do that."
Kirgen shook his head. "We may not have a moment or two. Someone could come along any time—we students keep odd hours. Look, you climb up the ladder into the room, I'll tie up the horse and be right back."
"Lead him; do not ride him," Faia warned.
"But I'm a good rider."
Faia looked up from her position on the grass and grinned ruefully. "So am I."
With Kirgen gone, she pulled herself to her feet, and started up the few rungs of the ladder. Her ribs ached dully until she inhaled, when they blazed with stabbing, white-hot pain; she suspected she would be living with that for a few days. Her back and left shoulder and left hip still screamed in agony from the second fall. She wondered how long it would take before she could breathe without regretting it.
Hand up. Leg up. Breathe. Groan. Hand up. Leg up. Breathe. Groan.
She would have rested partway, but she heard the muffled sound of people talking, that grew louder with each passing instant, as if they were coming closer. She forced herself to hurry.
Finally at the top, she threw her least sore leg over the ledge and pushed herself into the room—but her left foot snagged on the corner of the window as her torso cleared the ledge. Her momentum carried her forward, and she clawed for a handhold that wasn't there. She couldn't stop herself. She went feet over head and thudded ignominiously back-first onto the pile of velvet on the floor, where she lay staring up at the last eddies of smoke that swirled around the ceiling.
"All-damn," she whispered.
Kirgen poked his head over the ledge. His bright blue eyes were looking down at her again. He was trying without much success to keep from laughing. "You didn't."
"I did."
"I'm surprised they let you out without a keeper."
"They do not, truth to tell. I stole out without their knowledge. But I am not like this at other times. I am merely having a bad night."
"If you say so," Kirgen said with a doubtful expression. He vaulted gracefully into the room and pulled the rope ladder in behind him. "Here, let me help you up."
He reached out his hand—his hand which wore a heavy gold ring with a deep blue stone. She noted the ring, but took his hand anyway, shivering a little, and got up, and suddenly she was looking down at him.
His eyes grew round. "Whoosh," he murmured again.
"You are surprised I am so tall, yes?"
"Oh, yah. Seeing you in the dark, I didn't realize you were so pretty, either." He winked, and Faia felt her cheeks redden. "But let me take your cloak, and you sit down and catch your breath." He indicated one of two rickety wooden chairs shoved against the wall to make room for the magic work. "You wanted to talk."
Faia took the offered chair carefully. The pain was not so bad, she found out, once she sat still. She studied the open, earnest face that seemed so much like her own, and wondered how she could tell Kirgen about the murders, the return of the Fendles, and the mages' plan for revenge. Words that had seemed so reasonable on back a wingmount flying through the air in the middle of the night seemed considerably less so in the man's warm, bright, messy room. She faltered, and changed from her intended approach.
"What were you working on?" she asked.
"Homework," he said, and sighed. "Fifth-level evocation of a helpful blue-smoke godling—a controller of fire and air. I haven't managed one yet. If I don't get it right by the end of the quarter, I'm going to be back in sixth year again next fall, messing around with pots full of powdered salepsis and vertinyger sal and doing the same damn thing."
"Ah." Faia closed her eyes and rubbed her temples with her fingertips. "I wish I had not asked." Evocation of godlings, odd concoctions of powdered plants and resins, symbols and drawings and muttered incantations—and all she knew was the drawing down of faeriefires, a couple of tricks with fruit and meat, and the tending of her sheep. It would be so wonderful to run away and hide in the hills and never return to strange, terrible Ariss. She shifted in the hard seat and adjusted her tunic.
So the indirect approach will not help me.
She squared her shoulders and took a deep, rather painful breath. "Kirgen, to ask you about your homework—that is not why I came to speak to you, in any case."
"No. Of course not." Kirgen leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his knees. "You're here for something important. What?"
Lady, I wish I could read his feelings just by sitting next to him. If I could control him the way I did my sheep, I could
know
whether or not the sajes had some great plan to take over Mage-Ariss. But the reading of minds, as some of the mages do, as even Yaji does sometimes—that is beyond me. I only came close to that during—well—
She remembered a private moment with Baward, once, looking into his eyes at the moment of their greatest passion, when she knew—really knew—all that he felt. She had, for those few instants, heard his thoughts. And she had discovered, much to her surprise, that Baward loved her.
Well—
She bit her lip and looked speculatively at Kirgen Mar. He was attractive, and attracted, and it wouldn't require much of a push to shift him to a moment of amorous dalliance.
Actually, that might work. But it wouldn't be right. That would be using a gift the Lady created for personal pleasure to get information. No—I cannot do that.
She stared into the saje apprentice's wonderfully freckled face.
I shall have to do the best I can without resorting to
that
.
Attack head-on
, she thought.
"You must tell me which sajes tortured and murdered the mage students and hedge-wizards in Mage-Ariss."
Kirgen's mouth gaped, and his eyes went blank with bewilderment. "What—the... whuh... What!?" he sputtered. "Sajes—murdered...
students
? Tortured and murdered mage-students—and hedge-wizards?.
Huh!
" He stared away into space for a long time, shook his head slowly, and finally took a deep breath and looked directly into her eyes. "Are you
sure
?" he asked.
She kept her eyes fixed on his, and didn't blink or flinch. "No," she said bluntly, "but a saje's ring, very much like the one you wear, was found under one of the flayed and dismembered bodies."
His already fair skin went gray. "Flayed—and dismembered? And a saje-ring.... I can see where the mages would be upset. They sent you to find out, then?"
"You do not realize just how upset they are," Faia noted dryly. "I came without their knowledge, to find out the truth, and maybe offer the sajes a chance at survival. They might kill me if they find out I was here. They intend to destroy you."
"
Me!?
" Kirgen squeaked. "Destroy
me
! I didn't do anything!"
"No. Not just you. They intend the instant and total destruction of all Saje-Ariss."
There was a long silence.
"Oh. Oh. Oh... farkling gods," Kirgen whispered.
"Yes." Faia smiled grimly. "Exactly."
Medwind Song walked up the last turn of the tower steps in the Mottemage's private stairway, rubbing her eyes and swearing in barbarian tongues. Her head hurt from lack of sleep and even more from the angry, abrupt mindcall she'd gotten minutes before. She pulled Rakell's door open without knocking and stomped in. Flynn, ever the opportunist, rubbed against her ankles and darted down the tower steps toward his cat-door and the freedom of the cold, foggy night.
Medwind made no attempt to retrieve him. She kicked the door shut behind her and mumbled, "What did you want, Rak—Mottemage?"
Rakell went right to the point. "Your prize student, your hedge-wizard prote[aage[aa, stole one of my wingmounts and defected to Saje-Ariss."
Medwind blinked and shook her head. She mouthed her Motte's words silently, eyes narrowing in disbelief. "Yeah? In this fog? That's crazy." She looked out the window, at the surreal view from the Mottemage's tower window and her hands knotted into fists. When she turned back to face her superior, her mouth twisted into a grim, lopsided smile. "She probably wanted to find some boy for a tumble on the grass and didn't realize she could do that locally."
"I'm not making light of this."
"Oh, hell, Rakell—I'm not either! I know this is bad—or at least it looks bad. One, if she's trying to help somehow, she's likely to end up getting herself killed, and if she's on our side, we need her. Two, things not always being what they seem, she may be a saje-sympathizer and a traitor instead of a nice country bumpkin kid—though how that could be, I don't know. Three, it may all be a clever act, and she may be the
killer
."
"I've thought of all those things."
"I know you have, Rakell."
"
Mottemage
."
"
Rakell...
we've been friends for years. Tonight, I don't want to stand on formality; I don't want to be your second in command. I want to be your friend. I know Faia a little better than you do—"
"—Neither one of us knows her much at all. No one does."