Scar Felice (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 3) (20 page)

Sabra stopped talking, and there was silence for a moment. Felice wished that she could read the woman’s face, but it was too dark.

“So what is your judgement now?”

Sabra laughed. “You ambush me at every turn,” she said, “and always it is straight lines. You want the truth?”

“That is a strange question. Would I ask if I wanted to hear a lie?”

“Many do.”

“I want the truth.”

“You are one of them.”

“Them?”

“Like Serhan, like General Grand, like the builder Delf Killore. You are clever. You have secrets, and do things that I do not understand for reasons that I cannot grasp. The steward, Alder, is the same. You were afraid of him, and then you were allied in some way, then afraid again, and then not.”

“You put me in exalted company, and I am afraid that I do not deserve it. I am a trader, and the daughter of a trader.”

“These are not the old days, Felice,” Sabra said. “There is no blood rule now. The whole world swirls about us in a storm, and a person may tomorrow become the thing they feared or hated today. It is filled with danger and opportunity in equal measure. You cannot expect to know what may become of you.”

“It is a frightening picture that you paint. Surely there is order, and law, and justice?”

“Only as far as the powers wish it. I have seen how order comes about. It is one man killing two thousand others, and it is fear in the hearts of ambitious men. If Serhan were not in White Rock the whole world would be seething in bloody war. It is fear of his anger that permits justice and law to exist. I shudder when I think of the world without his hand to steer it.”

“You have no faith, then, in ordinary men?”

“I have faith a plenty, but ordinary men do not command swords and bows, they do not obey orders, they cannot hold a line against cavalry.”

“And what am I to all this gloom and peril?”

“I do not know, but I think that one day I may be glad to count you as a friend.” She swung her legs off the back of the wagon and stood again. “I will teach you with a better grace tomorrow, Felice, and you should know, though it may not serve others for me to reveal it, that it was Serhan, the mage lord himself, that gave the order. It is his hand that protects you.”

With that she was gone, walking back to the guards’ fire, back to orders and certainties. Whatever she said, Lieutenant Ennis Sabra was no fool. She was someone who had seen much, learned much and understood more than most. What she had said about Serhan, that justice and order flowed downwards from his will, and his will alone, rang true, and if it was indeed so, then how terrible the weight of that burden must be on the shoulders of a good man.

In spite of all his good intentions Herrick had been less restrained than he ought. The third and fourth ale were beyond his usual indulgence, and now he regretted them. His steps were wayward and the road swam about before him in a mildly amusing fashion.

But why not?

It was not often that life changed for the better, and today had been such a day for Herrick. Even if he had been disappointed in the outcome it would have been a day to remember to his grand children. Just hours ago, mere hours, short hours, he had sat in a room with four great and powerful people, and with one who was not a man. The scene would live with him forever, and he no more than the son of a common sailor, seated there among the great. To his left sat the do-Regana, the crown princess Calaine of Samara, beautiful as she was wise, dressed in blue with a white cloak, and she had look into his eyes, and she had smiled. The princess had smiled at him. Of course he had fallen in love with her at once. All the young men and boys here were fools in her presence, and he no different from the rest, nor would he want to be.

On the far right had been the Faer Karani Borbonil, who stood and watched everything with those frightening white eyes, eyes with no pupils so that you could not know exactly where he looked. Borbonil spoke little, but replied when the others spoke with direct and gracious words. The creature was dressed in shapeless black. He could not see if it was one garment or several, but that the cuff of the sleeve was ringed with a broad gold band.

Beside the Faer Karani sat the general, Darius Grand, formerly the right hand of the Mage Lord, and now general of the armies of Samara. General Grand wore black breeches, black boots and a white shirt beneath a coat of light mail. His belt held a sword and a dagger which pointed behind his chair as his long legs pointed before it. There was no uniform to speak his rank, but it was he, nevertheless.

Beside the princess sat the Law Master, the builder of this place. Delf Killore sat forwards, feet tucked beneath him, elbows resting on the table. There was never any doubt where
he
was looking. Delf Killore asked practical questions about practical things, things that had nothing whatsoever to do with magic. Herrick liked those questions. They suited his nature and the way he had been raised and he knew that he had answered well.

In the centre, presiding over the council was the Mage Lord himself. He seemed apart from the others. He was shorter than Grand, less attentive than Killore, not as exotic at Borbonil, and certainly not as pleasing to the eye as Calaine, but the whole proceeding revolved around his silent centre. The others glanced at him before they spoke, and often again when Herrick answered. He was dressed in green and black, his jacket being exquisitely embroidered with golden thread and worn open at the neck in a casual manner. He, too, wore a sword and a dagger, pretty things that stood up well in the company of his rich clothing.

Just being in the room was enough. He had passed many tests to get here, had suffered pain greater than he had ever known, but it all seemed distant and trivial as soon as he entered this chamber.

The questions had been many, from all sides, and he answered them as best he could, taking his time, trying to be wise as well as clever. Haste, his stepfather had told him, was the fool’s road to the bottom of the ocean. When he did not know something he confessed it. When he did not understand the question he asked them to make it clearer. Slowly the flow of words had dried up, and when it had grown quiet in the room the Mage Lord stirred himself, leaned forward, and spoke.

“You have done well, Herrick,” he said. “So answer me this: what duty do I owe to my enemies?”

A quick answer sprang to his lips, but he stopped it: none at all. That would not do. The question was deeper than that. It was asked by the Mage Lord, conqueror of the Faer Karan, destroyer of the armies of Sarata, the most powerful man in all the world, and unchallenged in that power. What duty, then, did omnipotence owe?

“It is a complicated question, my lord,” he replied. “To understand them, perhaps, and know their reasons, to allow them an opportunity to reconsider their position? But most of all to deal justly with them. Much would depend on who the enemy was.”

“A good answer. And what duty to my allies?”

“The same, my lord, with some consideration for their good intent.”

“Good intent may be on both sides, Herrick, but your answer shows that you have grasped the essential point. In life one may favour one’s friends and family, but once in a position of power it becomes unjust to do so. It becomes important to hear the words that are spoken, and not the voice that speaks them. Power is responsibility, not licence.”

“I will remember, my lord,” he replied.

“As you must,” he glanced briefly around the group. “I will not play games, Herrick. You have ability and intelligence. I have no doubt that we will be speaking again, and that you will be accepted for training here.”

And with those words the world changed. His future was assured. He was to be a Mage, one who wielded power, moved among the great. He felt both excited and afraid. What lay ahead of him would be difficult, and he feared the greatest challenge would be to the goodness of his heart. Even at the age of sixteen he knew that he was like other men. He loved his friends. He was loyal to them and to his family, but there were those that he despised and looked down on, and for no better reason than they thought differently on matters of quite trivial importance, or that they were employed in some line of work that he considered beneath him. He had always known that such feelings were unworthy. Some men had abilities that others did not and there was no blame in that. A man who swept the floor in a tavern was no less a man than a captain of the guard or a wealthy merchant, and he had as much right to justice, as much need for friendship and respect.

Herrick’s childhood had been hard, and he had grown up quickly. His real father had been a sailor, and drowned when he was six. That had been a hard time. He had begged on the streets of Blaye for copper coins, and his mother had struggled with grief, tried to get work in one of the many taverns in the town. Work was scarce, though, and it was only three years later, when his mother met Ashnak that poverty was eased. Ashnak was a sailor, ten years older than his mother, a grizzled man with black eyes and scarred hands. He was a watch leader who ruled those under him with his fists. He was as hard and brown as old teak, a man of few words.

And yet he had been gentle with his mother, had courted her in a way that was rare in such rough society. Herrick had not been helpful. In three years he had become hardened himself. He was a thief, a cheat and a beggar. He took advantage of everyone and nearly every shopkeeper in the city knew his face and would chase him away if they saw it. He despised them, and they hated him. He had adopted a childish bravado that earned him a grudging respect among the worst elements in the city and a lot of bruises from the beatings he received at the hands of his intended victims.

Though all this he had stayed true to his mother. It was all for her, and he had grown used to being strong and having his way about the house, and now there was another. He hated Ashnak like he hated the shopkeepers, but Ashnak was different, he was clever, and he cared. What started as a running battle between them had ended in mutual respect, and even friendship. Mostly it was because Ashnak seemed to genuinely love his mother, and provided a house with a small garden, and a life that was in most ways better than the one they had forgotten, the one before his father died.

Herrick was put to his lessons, and discovered that he, too, was clever. He learned quickly, and was given a job in a warehouse by a man that Ashnak knew. It was hard work, and did not pay as well as stealing, but Herrick had now aligned himself with his stepfather, adopted his simple and direct morality, and quickly became a favoured and trusted worker. A year ago he had been given responsibility for handling the money, and he now earned almost as much as Ashnak, and although the man never said anything he was confident that the old sailor was proud of his stepson. Every now and again he would catch a glint in the old man’s eye, or see him nod, and he knew.

He did not know what Ashnak would think of this. It was all very well him becoming a warehouse manager, or even a merchant, but he could not imagine how the old man would react to the Mage Lord Herrick, the castle dwelling, horse riding, sword carrying lord. He looked forward to seeing his mother’s face when he told her, when he said: pack your things, we will be moving to Skycliff.

He had set his heart on Skycliff ever since one of his fellow candidates had described it to him. He imagined living in a place caught between the sea and the sky. He knew that it was a circular outlier to the great western cliffs that defined the coast for a hundred miles west of Sarata. He knew that the cliffs were riddled with tunnels, rooms and shafts, and he knew that the road from Sarata ran past the fortress, so there was a constantly changing flow of guests and news at its doorstep.

Skycliff was a dream, though, and now that reality had caught up with the fantasy he began to worry. It was a long way from Blaye, a long way from the port that Ashnak loved so much, and from his mother’s friends and neighbours. Perhaps she would not wish to move to Skycliff. Perhaps she would not wish to move at all. He would be on his own. Not completely, of course. There would be servants and guardsmen to do his bidding, and there would be his fellows, his equals.

There would be five of them, chosen out of the hundred who had come. Serhan had said that five would be chosen each year, and that for one year the five would live here in Woodside and learn the craft of magic, taught by the Mage Lord himself. There would be books to read, ideas to grasp, and he hoped friends to be made.

He paused on the street, leaned against a building. This was the edge of the village, and there was an area of open ground between here and the great school that Delf had built. Two of the dormitories blocked his view of the central building, but he could see enough of it in the gap between them to be impressed yet again. Torches burned in the circular space around it, making the whitened walls glow with warmth. It looked different. It looked exciting.

Herrick savoured the moment. It was not yet late, and the sky still held the magical dark blue of a late summer twilight, his favourite time of day. Here in the North the twilight was longer and cooler. The colours in the sky were richer. The stars were dim, only the brightest able to stand against the last of the daylight, but their time was coming, and in less than an hour the whole sky would be thronged by their lesser cousins. There would be no moon tonight, and the sky would be all the richer for its absence.

Time to sleep. An early night and an early morning. He would take a better look around the school tomorrow, spend time in the library, perhaps volunteer to help with the transcription of books for the library. There were so few copies of any books that it was a necessary part of a student’s work, and even candidates helped. He took a deep breath of the cool air and shook his head to clear away the ale’s shadow from his eyes.

“Master Herrick?”

He turned. A man had come up behind him. He had not heard a step.

“Yes,” he said. “How may I serve you?” He could not see all of the man’s face, just a mouth, the rest being in shadow, but he saw the mouth smile. He did not recognise the voice, or the smile.

The man stepped forwards and struck him in the chest. It was a powerful blow, and knocked Herrick back a step. There was pain, suddenly, that seemed apart from the blow, and seized his chest, making it difficult to draw breath. He looked down and was shocked to see a knife embedded just to the left of his breastbone. He looked up at the man again.

“Why?”

But the man turned and walked away without speaking a word. It was so unfair. He’d done nothing wrong. For years he’d worked to set his life right, he’d taken this chance and finally he was going to become wealthy, powerful, important, able to help his mother and Ashnak in their old age, to pass on the hard lessons that he’d learned, and it was all wiped out by… by who? He did not know. He did not know the reason.

Darkness closed in, and he felt his knees give way, felt the grass against his face. The last thing he would ever feel.

As the starless night swept in, the last spark of life in him seized upon a random thought and held it for a moment.

Serhan is going to be really angry.