The Makers of Light (15 page)

Nan would not like
that;
the study must have taken a beating itself. But Nan was not here, and those who were would deal with the situation as they could.

Linden banished the thought of how Nan was, or whether the fire had also failed in the cottages, at least twice this night. All the while, she and Clare and Brendan and the other man kept opening rooms, giving those inside a few seconds to get used to the small light in the corridor before jostling them onto the elevator's platform. Then the same, on other floors. She could not afford to think of other things before the job was done.

Many more times she banished thoughts of Rianor. He would come.

He would
come
.

The elevator man was very helpful. He said nothing at all, but he was calm and operated the lever many times without tiring. He was transporting people down and then transporting only himself and Brendan up again, Brendan standing beside him to protect him from those who would attack him in their mindlessness. Fortunately, there was almost no need for protection, for most were frightened into immobility once on an elevator that was of Science and had no walls.

Linden and her people transported all servants down—except those already on the stairs, but most of those found their own way, anyway. Lastly, down came the now unplugged bucket, to replace the one plugged into the ground-floor hallway when it became exhausted.

Only one bucket would be used at a time now. Linden must save all the fire she could, now that most people were gathered. She did not know how long a bucket could maintain the stove and two candles in the hallway, and a stove and two sleep candles were the needed minimum for so many servants there. A bucket could maintain her mom and dad's apartment for ten days, but this was not her mom and dad's apartment.

Having only one stove and two sleep candles on was the reason Linden had brought all servants in one place—why she had risked having fearful, unstable people on the elevator. She would have even risked having them on the stairs if there had not been an elevator—but fortunately, there was. Servants would fall down the stairs, but a mechanical elevator was something she could control.

Linden prayed to the Master and to anything else that would listen that two buckets would be enough, that there would not be darkness again before the morning had come.

She prayed for Rianor, too, and she prayed that those at the cottages would somehow manage without fire. She had thought of bringing one of the buckets to them through the moonlit garden, and she could have done it. She could have forced her body to manage the walk even now.

But what was better—or what was less bad—two buckets in the House Proper and no buckets in the cottages, or one insufficient bucket in each place? Two buckets here to perhaps ensure light and warmth until morning while the others had no light at all, or light in both places now, with a good chance that in both places the light would not last long enough?

Light here, until morning. Some people saved, at least. That was Linden's choice.

She would have still crossed the garden, without a bucket, to try to bring
the people
where the light was. However, someone was still crying somewhere on the staircase—and she had to bring this person here first.

She could not save everyone
at once
.

Linden ordered Clare and the two men to mind the others and the buckets, and would have climbed in the darkness by herself.

Then, the light was back.

Rianor

Morning 29 of the First Quarter, Year of the Master 706

Rianor must have fallen asleep with his eyes open, for he suddenly saw the picture on his desk as if for the first time, even though he had just sketched it himself. He glanced at the clock on the wall. Fifteen minutes. Fifteen since Desmond had left and another fifteen until he was back. Half an hour for himself was all the High Lord got these days—all that he occasionally allowed himself after the fire outage.

He stared at the sketch. He had drawn the crossbow, after all—perhaps because the House was almost back on its feet again. After days of dealing with sickness, madness, Commanders, deaths, fear, punishment, Bers, fire, and the damn holiday with its grain preparation and the obligatory Fireheart visit tomorrow, everything was finally clicking into place and getting back into a familiar rhythm.

Rianor could finally afford to start thinking his own thoughts again.

There was a knock on the door, and Rianor told Desmond to enter. Why was the First Counselor bothering with knocking at all. Rianor had known he might fall asleep and had told him to come straight inside. However, this time it was not Desmond but Linden who stepped gingerly through the doorway.

"A good day to you, High Lord," she said. Rianor had already stridden through most of the distance that separated them but now halted at the formal greeting.

"Please sit, my lady" he said, instead of physically helping her to the sofa as he had initially intended. "You should not be walking."

She looked at him as if accusing him for the very words.

He had last seen her walking on that fateful night, after he had dashed into the Qynnsent hallway. She had staggered in from another direction a moment after him, her face bloodied, an arm hanging limp beside her, the other arm around a toddler. The toddler's legs were wrapped around her waist and she swayed as she walked, the child too big, too heavy for her.

"Here is Nancy. Comfort her. She has had a hard time." She reached out with the child to a wild-eyed serving woman—and then, as the woman wailed and grappled towards the child, Linden suddenly shoved the woman away. "I said comfort her, not stress her further! If you can't take care of your child, I won't let you
have
a child! Why did you leave her up there alone in the first place!"

The woman cringed and then wept. "Oh, Master, there she is, the
samodiva.
Even fire can't banish them now! She's stolen my daughter, oh sweet Master, my only child!"

"Shut you up, Johanna, how dare you talk like this to our lady! You'd be in darkness and cold still, you wench, if it weren't for her!"

This was Brendan, his own face bloodied, his eyes angry. He had come after Linden, hauling three other, older, children. "Move aside now, lest I—My lady,
please,
let Nancy down. I could have carried her as well, you shouldn't have taken her at all. Give her to Anne here now, Anne has a right mind—Oh! My lord! Thank the Master!"

Brendan noticed Rianor at the same moment Linden did, which was a moment after everyone else had. Linden and Brendan only looked too relieved to see him, but he suddenly noticed that the others were also afraid. Rianor had stridden to Linden and the guard, and only now did he realize that no one would know what the steel rods in his hands were for—that he had returned to his House on that perilous night as if wielding two long, shiny, outworldly weapons.

Indeed, it was good that the servants did not know the rods' purpose, for weapons they might as well be, but not the weapons they would think. As soon as Rianor could afford the time, he would prepare a contained environment and start making tests.

On the night of the fire outage, he had felt the fire stop even though he had been far from his House. He had needed to be away. For two days and nights before that, he had closed himself inside his suite, building and testing mechanisms, thinking of Science, and making himself not think of anything else. He might have had fever at some point but ignored it, and he remembered to eat only when his anxious manservant had begged him for at least one whole day and had finally brought Nan to beg him herself.

Linden had come on the third day only to, as she assured him, check if he was sick. Then she left, fled almost, when he put his current project aside and focused entirely on her.

He decided that he needed a breath of fresh air only when he had to fight himself hard to not chase after her. He needed a cool mind to deal with her, and a cool mind was exactly what he lacked. She knew about the pigs, no doubt. And others must know, too. Nan had hinted that the High Lord needed to soon show himself before the House's retainers, lest they became convinced that some curse or madness or what not had come onto him.

He would—but he would do other things first.

Rianor left the House alone this evening and headed towards the commoners' Mierber, for the first time since he had met Linden. This time, however, he did not amble about Ber firewells. He headed towards the Steel Factory Warehouse District. It was becoming more and more dilapidated, he had heard—and that, to the High Lord of Qynnsent, meant that the Bers' grip on it had become weaker. It meant that perhaps he had a chance to get closer, to possibly find metal materials or even tools that he could not have found before. To possibly learn something of what the Bers knew. He had grown tired of building mechanisms with his dagger.

Night had almost fallen when he got there, the Factory itself a dark shadow before the sky. The wind blew, and the walls of the old buildings around seemed to whisper. Rianor repressed the urge to shudder. Would he meet something here, like in the Healers' Passage? It was not impossible. Could he learn here something about Magic that he had not learned at the wells or in his own House? He shook his head. He would not fall into this again; he would not make the same old mistake. It was materials for mechanisms and tools—known, working
Science
—that he sought here, and nothing else.

There was not a little side street in the corner, even though a moment ago Rianor had been convinced that there were. He shook his head again and walked forward, towards the Factory itself.

Good that there
was
a small opening between two walls several corners later. He crouched there when he suddenly heard the sounds of chasing from one of the big streets crossing his way. A moment later a small figure in full-bottomed breeches sped past him, followed by the thud of two pairs of heavy boots.

"Thief, stop, in the name of the Master, or I'll fire!" one of the pursuers shouted, then halted an arm's reach away from Rianor and raised his small crossbow.

Militia. Only the secular law enforcement officers had the right and capability to wield that weapon. Rianor had never seen one close. A weapon such as this had special Magic in it, everyone knew, and even the crossbow's action of throwing a metal bolt with great speed was called "
fire.
"

Rianor cursed mentally. There probably
was
Magic in a crossbow. There might even be fire in it, like there must be fire in a Commander's mobile candle. But he could see the weapon clearly now, hidden as he was in his alcove, and like an elevator, the weapon also had
a mechanism
.

The man fired. Rianor thought it was stupid of him, for the thief must have already run into a side street or, like Rianor himself, lain quietly in an alcove. A crossbow bolt would never reach him.

It indeed did not. It reached a metal rod, instead—a piece of debris exactly of the kind that Rianor was seeking in this place. There was a clang, and for a moment, where the bolt had hit the rod, there was a tiny piece of
light
.

The Militioner screamed. His colleague screamed as well, and both ran in the opposite direction. There was no sign of the thief. As for the High Lord of Qynnsent, he stared at the scene, himself in a momentary shock. He had found tools and materials, and more.

Wildfire. It could not be controlled. It was the greatest peril.

Or so the Bers said. But if
Ber
fire was dwindling these days—if the Bers could not control their own fire enough to make it exist—was there truly a difference?

Or was there a new
chance?
Wildfire, just like Science, was a part of Mierenthia itself.

Now, days later in Rianor's suite in Qynnsent, Linden glanced at the steel rods leaning on the wall, and then at the drawing on his desk. Rianor did not mind her looking at the rods, but suddenly, for the second time today, he saw the drawing of the crossbow as if he had never seen it before: a drawing of a murderous weapon, come from his own hands. He wanted to snatch it away from her sad, beautiful eyes.

"So, what is it, my lady? You need not have come all the way here. I would have come to see you myself."

She had been in fever after the night of the outage, and he had seen her for a few minutes each day, but he had not had more time to give her. There was tension between the two of them, too, and there was no time to resolve that, either; the House had priority before the Fireheart visit had passed.

She met his eyes. "The cook. I only learned today. And that woman, Johanna. I would ask that you do not send them to the Bers."

"He attacked you. Hurt you." It took Rianor effort to keep the emotions away from his voice. "He could have killed you if you had let him. No, my lady, I cannot grant your request."

"He only did it because he was frightened. He did not truly hate me. I do not even think that he wanted to kill me—or that he knew what he wanted at all, except for light and warmth."

"Hate? What does hate have to do with anything? Or his confused knowing or not knowing of his own mind. He tried to kill you.
This
is what matters. And he will learn what he doesn't know—or at least others will learn from his example."

"Why the Bers?" There were tears in her voice now. "Why not Militia for him and Mentors for Johanna? She was babbling nonsense. Have you even asked her if she truly thought me a
samodiva?
I doubt she saw any
samodivi
—or anything else—that night.
I
didn't. Don't be cruel, Rianor."

"He is not cruel." The voice that replied to her was Desmond's. The First Counselor had entered without Rianor or Linden noticing. "He never was cruel, and he is not enjoying this at all. And what you see or don't see, lady, had better be kept to yourself, even in a High Lord's suite. Even here it is not impossible for someone to hear you, and people are frightened and the days uncertain."