Stranger At The Wedding

For George Alec Effinger

Special thanks goes
to Janus Daniels for his workshop on neurolinguistic programming, “Thinking Like a Writer,” for the inception of the seed of this idea, and to Kathleen Woodbury and her Salt Lake City Writer's Workshop.

Although this story takes place in the Empire of Ferryth, neither Antryg Windrose nor Joanna Sheraton is part of it

“It turned to blood. The water turned to blood.”

Kyra the Red's fingers shook as she picked up the bronze candlestick she had knocked over and summoned fire back to the burnt stump of the wick. Wavery light broadened in the darkness of the Summer Hall, picking out the twisted shadows of the monsters, flowers, and birds carved on the ceiling beams. The maple tree growing up through the floor—and out again through the thatch of the roof—had put out clusters of new leaves that the candle's glow turned into tiny, trembling hands.

Kyra's mentor and teacher, the Lady Rosamund Kentacre, leaned forward, frowning not in disbelief but in puzzlement. Her fingers brushed the translucent porcelain bowl on the table's marble top. The water within was as clear as it had been fifteen minutes previously, when, with proper incantations, Kyra had dipped it from the fountain in the court outside.

“Water sometimes turns colors during a scrying or a divination,” the Lady said, angling the bowl a little so that the small, clear reflection of the candle flame danced on the surface, and secondary glints flickered in her jade-green eyes.

At forty-one, after twelve years of teaching novices here in the Citadel of Wizards, Rosamund still retained the breathtaking beauty for which she was famous, though her coal-black hair had begun, last spring, to gray. “In some ways water is the easiest medium in which to see things far away, certainly the easiest to see across time. But water is frequently a liar. What were you seeking to see?”

“It was just practice,” Kyra insisted, and leaned her bony elbows on the table. Her voice was steady and matter-of-fact; it was a curious voice, husky, like cinders and honey, like an old woman's, though she was only twenty-four. Amber splinters of candlelight threaded her coarse hair with copper as she moved her head; her level, dark brows flexed with distress. “I'd heard there was to be a dancing over in the town of Lastower, with the fur traders coming in. I thought I'd practice on that; I have exams next month. And then…”

The helpless gesture of her hands nearly overset the candle again.

“Seeing the color blue in the water during divination can mean that another wizard is seeking you,” the Lady said thoughtfully. “Sometimes when one sees a green aura, it means—”

“This wasn't the color red, Rosamund.” The mended old chair creaked as Kyra leaned forward, her strong fingers catching the older woman's slender wrist, willing her to believe. “This was blood. It looked like it, it… it smelled.” Despite her outer calm, Kyra's mind flinched from the shock of the memory, the sudden flooding of ruby-dark viscosity that had wiped away the drenched indigo darkness, the gay torchlight and bright skirts she'd seen in the scrying-bowl, the horrible sweetish stench that had stabbed her nostrils. Just for an instant she had the hideous sense that if she'd put her finger into the bowl, the liquid would have been warm.

She could barely bring herself to look at the fragile old vessel, its cracked green glaze the color of cabbage against the pitted white of the table's surface. But water was clearly all it now contained.

Rosamund leaned down to sniff it, then dipped her fingers and tasted. “Curious,” she said. “Most odd.”

“Damn it, it's the fourth time!” Kyra paused in her pacing, turning helplessly to face the assembled master-wizards in the Senior Parlor. Along the room's north wall diamond-paned windows looked out over the Citadel battlements to the endless flat wastes of spruce forest and snow-fringed bog: the Sykerst, swallowed in cold spring darkness, utterly without sight of any dwelling's lights as far as human eye could see.

In this, one of the older sections of the Citadel, tiled fireplaces had not been replaced by more efficient stoves. The cheery flicker of burning pine boughs vied with the softer, brighter light of half a dozen glowing balls of witchlight that floated like errant bubbles among the rafters. On the opposite side of the wide hearth from Lady Rosamund, the mage called Daurannon the Handsome stared contemplatively into the blaze; on the floor beside him, gray-haired Issay Bel-Caire, known as the Silent, sat trailing twigs for the edification of three Citadel cats.

From where he stood with his shoulder against the rough brick chimney breast, Nandiharrow the Nine-Fingered said, “That spread you saw in the cards yesterday could have meant anything, Kyra. Cards are even more unreliable than water-scrying.”

“The Death card turning up in ten out of twelve practice spreads?” Kyra's eyebrows levitated, and she shook back the auburn masses of her hair. “And always in the same position? No matter what question I asked? That sounds reliable to me.”

“The Death card doesn't necessarily mean death.” Issay would occasionally go for a year or two, or five, without speaking, with no explanation—but the period since March had been relatively talkative.

“Well…” Bentick, the Steward of the Citadel, looked up from his cribbage game and waved one immaculate hand dismissively. “Cards …”

“It still doesn't explain the Summonings.” Daurannon's hazel eyes went from Rosamund to the others and then returned to the gray-robed, gawky junior on the intricate red and blue rug. He explained, “She's been working on Summonings all week. You know she had trouble with it on the last exam. Two days ago we were out on the hills, summoning clouds. But instead we got winds from all corners under heaven, winds so violent for a few moments that they forced the birds down out of the sky. I was with her. I know she had the words, the runes, the Limitations, absolutely correct.”

Rosamund stirred uneasily in her chair. The Summoning of clouds—in fact all weather working—was such a basic form of magic that there was no possibility of Daurannon mistaking what Kyra had done.

“Last night I was in the gardens, summoning moths,” Kyra added slowly. “I just need practice in the basic Circles and Limitations for my exam. And again, though no one was with me, I'm certain I performed the spells right. I don't make mistakes like that.” She looked from one to the other of her teachers. “You know I don't. I haven't since I was a novice.”

Nobody said anything. In the silence, threads of music could be heard from the Junior Parlor a floor below, where Zake Brighthand was playing the lyre. The sound of Bentick's coffee cup against his green porcelain saucer was like a sword blade falling on a stone floor.

“What came were flies,” said Kyra. “Flies, at night.”

She looked nervously down at her hands, her stomach curling a little in on itself with the memory of the disproportionate horror she had felt at the whining drone of the insects' wings. It seemed to her that they had come from everywhere, crawling on her face, blundering into her ears and hair—it seemed to her, just for an instant, that she had felt hot within her robe and that her nostrils had been filled with the stench of garbage and human sweat. But of that she could not even speak.

All the mages were silent. The True Name of moths, by which such creatures could be summoned, was phasle; for flies, dzim. There was little room there for a mistake.

“It may be that you're simply tired,” Nandiharrow said at length. “It happens, you know. Your examinations are coming up, and I know how hard you've been working. The concentration… warps.”

“I am not tired!” Kyra began indignantly.

“Or it may be,” Issay said in a voice like wind in weeds, “that there is some other… influence… skewing your magic. Something over which you have no control—something about which you may never learn. The conjunction of stars under which you were born—some power of your own that is affected by the migration of certain birds. Such things are not unknown, and in time—and usually not very much time—the effects simply pass off.”

Kyra flung up her hands. “Well, that's gratifying to hear,” she sighed. “I'm supposed to test for the next level in three weeks. Now you're telling me my only recourse is herb tea and bed rest.”

“Well.” Daurannon looked like a rueful cherub when he smiled. “I would have said 'patience,' but I suppose that comes to the same thing.”

Someone scratched at the door. Bentick glanced at the gold watch around his neck and said, “Come,” and one of the sasenna—the soldier-servants of the Citadel—entered, carrying the day's mail, a sheaf of letters, two or three western scientific journals, a newspaper from Angelshand for Otaro the Singer, and a small package that he handed to Phormion Starmistress, who was quietly sorting through her cribbage hand during the discussion. As the others took various missives—wizards as a rule corresponded widely—her ladyship rose from her chair and walked over to Kyra, who, in stepping politely out of the group, had managed to snag her sleeve on a small armillary sphere on the table beside her and barely managed to rescue it from falling.

“The examination can be put off, you know, if there are still… strange effects… connected with your working of certain magics.”

“I appreciate that—and thank you very much.” Kyra set the spiky network of concentric rings back on the table and tried to conceal her dissatisfaction with this solution to the problem. “But I'd feel a great deal better if I knew why this was happening so I can take it into account if I need to work a spell or something in an emergency. It's bad enough having to alter spell-weaving in time to the phases of the moon.”

“Yes,” Rosamund sighed ruefully. “If it's any comfort to you, I am not looking forward to relearning half my own magic in ten years when my own moon cycles cease…”

“Kyra Peldyrin?”

The guard was standing at her elbow, a last letter in his hand. “I looked for you down in the Junior Parlor. Cylin said you might be up here.”

Kyra noted automatically that the letter was written on rose-pink paper, folded in thirds, and sealed. It took her a moment to recognize the handwriting. Graceful as a garland of flowers, it was very similar to her own. The last time she'd seen it, it had not been nearly so well formed.

Excusing herself, she retreated to one of the tall-backed, old-fashioned chairs that surrounded the long parlor table and broke the seal.

Angelshand, March 1

Dearest Kyra,

This is to let you know that Father has finally arranged a marriage for me, a truly splendid match. I am to wed Blore Spenson, the new President of the Guild of Merchant Adventurers and one of the wealthiest men in Angelshand.

We're to be married on the first of May, in the strict form and with great ceremony. I'm writing because I want your good wishes to be with me, and I'm not even sure Father will send you an announcement. You know how he is.

Still, I wanted you to know. On the first of May, look in your magic mirror and you'll be able to see me standing up before the Bishop of Angelshand in all the splendor Father can possibly buy. Please wish me well and know that, in spite of everything, I will always remain,

Your loving sister,

Alix

Kyra smiled ruefully and slipped the folded papers into the pocket of her gray wool robe. Yes, she thought. She knew how her father was. She would get no announcement—much less an invitation—from him. For the first two years of her studies—until her mother had written—she hadn't even been sure he knew where she was.

It was just as well, she supposed with a sigh. Alix had always been the pretty one. It had been a long time, Kyra realized, since she'd even sought the images of her family in her scrying-crystal. At first the pain had been too sharp; later there had seemed to be no point. But she knew that her younger sister had grown from fairylike charm into truly striking beauty. The sight of her coquetting among the sons of the wealthy merchants and bankers of Angelshand—with perhaps the odd scion of Court nobility here and there, the ones whose parents had instructed them to marry heiresses—would probably have been more than Kyra could have taken with a straight face. Even if she, the older and decidedly unmarriageable daughter, hadn't entered the College of Wizards—even if she'd remained at home with a private tutor and become a dog wizard, outside the Council's jurisdiction—her own acid comments wouldn't have improved the situation with her father.

If she knew Gordam Peldyrin, president of the Bakers' Guild and leading corn broker of the city of Angelshand, for the past six years he'd been working like a squirrel in a cold autumn to get the other merchants of the capital to forget that the elder of his daughters had so disgraced herself as to have been born with the powers of wizardry. Possibly to forget that he'd ever had more than one daughter at all.

Kyra shut her eyes, her wide mouth just a little wry. President of the Merchant Adventurers… quite a coup. Better than her dull and fussy cousin Wyrdlees, at any rate. She remembered old man Spenson—desiccated, dyspeptic, iron-willed, and wealthier than most of the nobility. He'd probably be Mayor of Angelshand by now, with her father bowing to him deeper than ever.

But with a double portion for Alix's dowry—her own and Kyra's—the match was hardly a surprise. Garlands of hothouse gardenias and gold-threaded veils and sufficient rose petals to carpet the streets from Baynorth Square to the Old
Bridge and a traditional crimson wedding gown fit to make the daughters of the courtiers look like washerwomen. And Alix, beautiful as she, Kyra, had never been beautiful…