The Awakened Mage (27 page)

Talineth vo sussura. Sussura. Sussura.

He parted his lips and let them escape.

Melting heat. A javelin of fire. A flaring of crimson and gold. The bowl vibrated. Even as he gasped in pain, felt something warm and wet trickle from his nostrils and over his lips, the moist dirt shivered. Shimmered. Erupted like a waterspout. Something slender and green unfolded from the dark earth, leapt to life in a riot of yellow and blue. He cried out. His fingers lost their tenuous hold of the bowl, let it slip and fall. It shattered on the crypt’s stone floor, spilling dirt, spitting shards of clay.

The flower he’d given birth to kept growing. Breathless and disbelieving he watched as its stem broadened, budded, as the buds opened, as the blue and yellow petals uncurled and doused the air with perfume, as its tangle of roots tangled further. At long last it stopped growing and instead lay like a miracle at his feet.

“Barl save me,” breathed Gar. “Germinate the seed, I said, not turn the crypt into a greenhouse.” He shook his head in wonder, and envy. “Who are you, Asher?
What
are you?”

Asher stared at the flower, feeling such a brangle of things—fear, elation, horror, joy—that for a moment he forgot how to speak. “You’re the history student,” he said when his tongue at last obeyed him. “You tell me.”

Gar’s face tightened. “I wish I could.”

He busied himself collecting the Orb and the book and stowing them safely back in the satchel. Turned then to picking up the shards of broken pottery and putting them in there too. His movements were savagely self-controlled.

Asher bent to help him. Gar struck his hand away. “I’m not helpless.”

He stepped back. “I never said you were.”

“But you thought it!”

“I never did. Gar—”

“Helpless! Useless! Defective!” On the last word Gar’s voice cracked, his face twisted and he turned away.

Knotted with unwanted sympathy, all Asher could do was wait. Gone was the proud and powerful king who’d walked amongst his people in the market square, comforting and being comforted, wearing his magical birthright like a mantle of crimson and gold. In that man’s place this born-again cripple, brought low by grief and fate and a bewildered anger that his life could take such an unkind turn. That against every belief and expectation an Olken could possess the magic he’d longed for so passionately all his life. That had manifested without warning then deserted him without rhyme or reason, leaving him emptied, hollowed, not even a shadow of his other, grander self.

At long last Gar regained his self-control. “I’m sorry.”

Asher patted Gar’s shoulder, feeling awkward. “Don’t be.”

“It’s late. We should go. But first…” Painfully, Gar looked at his father’s mutilated marble face. “The effigy. If I gave you the incantation would you … I don’t want anyone to see… it’s dangerous. For both of us. And disrespectful to him.”

Asher sighed. He didn’t want to. The less magic he used, the happier he’d be. But—

He let Gar give him the words he needed and remolded Borne’s disfigured features as though they were made of butter, not marble. Then he banished the spilled dirt and the riotous plant he’d created into the woods that ringed the crypt.

“Thank you,” said Gar. Subdued. Withdrawn. “I’m grateful.”

“Prove it,” he said. “Find me a way out of this.” Gar nodded. Touched his fingertips to his father’s perfect effigy. “I’ll try.”

Deaf to all of Darran’s entreaties, Gar had decided upon a private interment for his family. Six sober City guards removed the bodies from the palace’s east wing, watched by Conroyd Jarralt, members of the General Council, Pellen Orrick and a host of palace and Tower staff who’d gathered in silent respect on the lawn bordering the gravel driveway.

Asher, standing with Dathne and Darran and Willer, chewed on his hp and bullied his face into some semblance of stern discipline. Bloody funerals. He hated them. He and Dathne had attended Coachman Matcher’s four days after the accident as official representatives of the king, and what a weeping and a wailing that had been. The dreams he’d had that night. His mother’s funeral. His father’s death and the funeral he’d been denied. Poor addled Jed, as good as dead.

Now this.

Holze walked behind the sad procession of coffins, weighted down with his most ornate robes of office, offering his prayers for the dead royals in a clear, carrying voice. Beside him walked Gar, silent, swathed head to toe in deepest black. For the first time since his ascension to the throne his clothes were embroidered with the sword-and-thunderbolt symbol of House Torvig. On his collar points, his shirt cuffs and over his heart. Another battle with Darran, that had been, one Gar had wisely lost The reigning monarch always wore his or her house insignia

Even if it did make him feel like a fraud.

As the lowering sun threw shadows across the surrounding gardens, Pellen’s boys slid the three coffins neatly into the back of the glossy black hearse, closed its rear doors, then fell into place well behind Gar and Holze. Matt picked up the black horses’ reins and his whip and soberly moved away from the palace, down the tree-lined drive that would lead them, eventually, to the crypt Equally sober, Gar, Holze and the guards followed in its wake. Holze was still praying.

As soon as they were gone from sight, sobs broke out amongst the crowd. Asher glanced around, saw weeping Olken, weeping Doranen. Not Jarralt, of course. Even if he was genuinely grieved he’d never lower himself to show it in public. But the Doranen members of the General Council, they seemed not to have such scruples. They grieved without reservation, as did the Olken guild leaders. There were even tears on Pellen’s cheeks. Of course the royal staff were awash with misery. Beside him, Willer had surrendered to soggy hiccups and Darran was practically howhng into his handkerchief.

Dathne, her eyes bright, touched his sleeve. “They’re sheep in search of a shepherd, Asher. You should say something.”

He didn’t want to. Hated drawing attention to himself, especially with Conroyd Jarralt watching, but she was right. And Darran was in no fit state, blubbing like a baby.

“My lords and ladies, good guild meisters and mistresses, gentlefolk all,” he called, raising a hand to attract their attention. ‘This sad day sees the end of an era in our kingdom. As His Majesty goes to bid his private farewells, let us remove to the palace’s Hall of Meetings to partake of refreshments and shared memories in honor of King Borne, Queen Dana and the Princess Fane.”

A moment of surprised silence, of exchanged looks and lifted eyebrows. Then those nearest the palace began to drift towards it. Darran, damply composed now, plucked at his elbow. “That was well said, Asher. Very well said indeed.”

“You sound surprised.”

Darran’s chin lifted. “I am. Now—”

“Asher,” said Conroyd Jarralt, suddenly at his elbow and icily civil. “A word.”

He bowed. “Of course, my lord.”

“In private.”

“Certainly.” He turned to Dathne. “I’ll see you inside.”

She withdrew, taking Darran and Willer with her and sparing him a swift, sympathetic smile over her shoulder. He didn’t dare acknowledge it. Instead he surrendered to Jarralt’s frigid scrutiny.

Contemptuous of social niceties, Jarralt said, “When does the king intend to appoint his new Master Magician?”

“My lord, he has one already.”

Jarralt’s color heightened. “Durm is nothing but a breathing carcass.” His voice was pitched low, for intimacy. “And Gar’s sentimental attachment to him places all of us in danger. You have his ear, fisherman. Bend it. Advise our king that further delay in the matter of Durm’s replacement will lead to questions I’m sure he’d prefer weren’t asked.”

Asher clasped his hands behind his back, so Jarralt wouldn’t see fists. “Is that a threat?”

“A warning,” said Jarralt, and smiled. “I will not see this kingdom imperiled by a boy whose judgment has already proven … questionable. He gave an undertaking before witnesses that this matter would be resolved.”

“And it will be, my lord. In his time. Not yours.”

The smile widened. “Indeed. But time is not infinite. Time . . . runs out. Listen carefully, Meister Administrator. That sound you hear is the swift approach of a last chance.”

Bastard.
Bastard.
Asher manufactured a smile of his own. “Really? Seems more to me like the sound of a man puttin’ a noose round his own neck.”

Jarralt laughed. “Were I you, Asher, I’d not be so swift to speak of nooses and necks. You have my warning. Do with it what you will… and be prepared to reap the consequences.”

Fighting nausea, he watched Jarralt saunter across the manicured lawn and into the “palace.

It was some time before he could bring himself to follow.

Flickered by candlelight, Gar listened to Holze’s footsteps retreating. To the crypt’s inner door banging closed. To the faint echoes of the heavy brass-bound outer door booming shut. He crossed the small, crowded chamber and pushed its heavy oak door until it thudded home against the jamb. Then he turned and slumped against it.

“So. Here we are then. Alone at last.”

Someone giggled. After a startled moment he realized it was him. He slapped a hand across his mouth to stifle the shocking sound.

The cold stone coffins, full-bellied now with bodies, graced with those beautiful marble effigies, sat silent before him.

“I won’t stay long,” he said after a little while. “I know you want to sleep. It’s just… there’s something I’d like to ask you. Just a little matter I’d like to see cleared up. Now that you’re safely here, in your new home, and we’re sure not to be overheard. You don’t mind, do you? No, I didn’t think you would.”

With an effort he pushed himself away from the door. The chamber shimmered softly in the candlelight. No glimfire now, not unless he asked Asher to conjure it for him. He felt his guts twist.
Like a child, running to its nurse for sweetmeats. Please, Asher, may I have some glimfire? Please, Asher, can you make it rain?

Fane’s stony sweet face mocked him… and all his rage broke free.

“I don’t understand it!” he shouted at them. “Did you
know
this could happen? Asher made it rain, he made it snow, he fixed your face, Father! And you’d have me repay him with
death!”

Unmoved, unmoving, his father’s face slept in the gently flickering light.

“I helped you murder Timon Spake! I forced Asher to watch!
Why!
To make sure we maintain our stranglehold on power in this land? To keep the Olken ignorant of their magic? To continue this shameful legacy of lies and deception? We didn’t
save
Lur, we
stole
it. Conquered it. Somehow managed to bury the truth of the Olken’s own magical birthright. Robbed them of their heritage and history. Do you know what that makes me? The inheritor of a criminal crown, no better than the monster Morg!”

No one answered him.

“And now we are punished. I am punished. What do I do next? How do I proceed? My magic is extinguished. Vanished as though it had never existed. Durm remains unconscious, teetering still on the brink of death, and Conroyd…” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Conroyd is circling and he won’t wait forever. All that stands between your kingdom and disaster, Father, is an uneducated Olken fisherman! How did this happen? Why did it happen? Tell me, please,
what does it mean?”

His anguish echoed in the small stone chamber, bounced from wall to floor to ceiling in concentric circles of grief.

Flinging himself to the floor beside his mother’s coffin, he seized her cold stone shoulders in his hands and willed her spirit to hear him.

“Mama… Mama… I grew to manhood watching you treat everyone you met with grace and courtesy, no matter who they were or how they lived; Baker, butcher, nobleman or nurse, Doranen or Olken, they were all the same to you. Everything I know of living Barl’s legacy, of honoring her teachings and upholding her laws, I learned from you! And now I’ve learned it was likely all a lie. So what do I do now, Mama? Guide me, I beg you! I swore an oath to protect this kingdom and its sacred laws with my life! If I hold true to that oath I have to kill Asher. And in killing him I’ll kill our kingdom with him. So no matter what I do, I’m forsworn! Is that what you want for me?”

Releasing his mother, he turned again to Borne. “You were never ambitious for ambition’s sake. If you’d wanted this kingdom’s future placed in Conroyd’s hands, if you’d trusted he’d do right by
all
the people, not just our own, you
never
would’ve bullied the Councils into giving you Fane. You’d have named him heir, to us if not to the population. But you didn’t. I know you don’t want me to abdicate. I know you don’t want Conroyd as king.” He stared into his father’s marble features, searching for answers. For hope. “I suppose I could be wrong. It could be that Asher is the only Olken who can do magic. And if that’s so, isn’t it some kind of miracle? That he’s with me now, in my darkest hour? Doesn’t it mean he was born special for a reason? Don’t I have to keep him secret, and safe, even if it means breaking Barl’s Law myself?” He glanced over at Fane. “I know what you’d do, sister dear,” he said, derisive. “You’d say the risk was too great. You’d round up every last Olken and put them in prison. Or send them to the axe, just in case he’s not the only one. You’d say it was what Barl wanted but I won’t believe that. How can he be Barl’s enemy, our enemy, and also be the key to the kingdom’s survival?”

Fane stayed silent. She always did, when the questions proved not to her liking. Exhausted, he let his body slump against her coffin. His head was aching badly. “And if Durm does wake, what then? Where will his loyalty lie? With Barl? The kingdom? With the memory of a dead king he loved like a brother… or with the crippled failure his friend left behind as heir?”

He pressed his hands to his face. “I’m so tired, Father,” he whispered. “I’m confused. Afraid. I’ve no one to talk to. Asher’s the only man I can trust now and he’s more frightened than me. Barl save me, I wish you were here. I wish I knew what you wanted me to do … what
you
would do …”