The Makers of Light (30 page)

No, not glad.
Happy
.

Happy to think with him because he, too, could think. To build with him, to do things that mattered; not alone (or with nice, helpful Mister Podd, whose thought, however, could not run as far or fast as hers), but with this man whose thought was a partner, who could and dared go where she could and dared go—and who could take her to strange places of his own choice.

No one could stop them now. They could do anything.

* * *

They won the game with Science points. The crowd was stunned when Rianor explained their device. The open can with the stone inserted inside—Rianor had used the word "
pipe
" with Linden, but would not use it with the rest—was enormous, more than two meters tall. It was wide, too, a large part of its body having a diameter of more than a meter. At the top, however, the can narrowed abruptly, the diameter becoming half its previous size for the topmost one seventh of can's length. Indeed, the contraption looked more like a giant bottle than a can, but a can they called it.

The can had a lid for its narrow part, but this lid did not stay on top of the narrow part but fit inside it, being placed right where the wide part ended and the narrow part began. The lid fit the narrow part very tightly—nothing, no water or steam, could pass from the wide part of the can into the narrow part while this lid was there.

That mattered because the wide part of the can was filled with water—and because a stone, a very large one, its own diameter almost half a meter, was placed on top of the lid, in the can's narrow part. Everything concerning that can was enormous, and it was good that, inside the game, Mister Flint had removed the real-world restriction of finding tools and materials.

The can would be placed on a tall kitchen stove and made to lean forty-five degrees to the side, so that its narrow part would extend out from a kitchen's window. (The kitchen in the game city, like the kitchen in the real Qynnsent and most other kitchens, was in the basement and its windows were high on the walls, by the ceiling.) Then, a Master Cook would apply the stove's fire to the can and heat it just like he or she would heat a cooking pot, to the same level of heat and steam that could make a cooking pot's lid rise in the air.

This would create steam in the wide part of the can, Rianor told them all. Those who did not believe him were free to try it on their own risk, with metal pots in the kitchens of their own Houses. And just like steam would raise the cover of a cooking pot, seeking a way to escape in the air, it would seek a way to swiftly escape from the can—but it would not be able to, for the lid between the wide and narrow parts of the can would indeed be very tight. It would hold the steam in.

However, on the side surface of the can, just where the wide part ended and the narrow part began, at the level of the lid and thus beneath the level of the stone, there would be a slit. The slit would be just big enough to insert the lid into the can through it—or to grip the lid with the right tools and remove it through the can's side, without trying to force the lid up through the narrow bottleneck. Forcing the lid up through the bottleneck would be impossible, anyway, Linden explained; the tightly-fitting lid would be too wide for that, the can's bottleneck too narrow. Even the steam, despite seeking a way to escape, would not be able to force this lid up.

Humans would then suddenly remove the can's lid through the slit, to the side, at the exact moment when all the water had been turned into hard-pushing steam—and then, all that steam would suddenly push
the stone
up. The steam would shoot the stone in the air, high and far, Rianor and Linden said, straight at Qynnsent's enemies.

The same thing could be done with many cans, and many times.

Mister Gabriel Flint could have said, like with Linden's river before, that the steam might not do that, that water could not be relied on. However, Rianor expected it and explained even before the game master had asked that this was not just water any more. It was water
touched
by fire—and if the Bers trusted Master Cooks to work, predictably, with it in real life, the Stratagem players could trust them to do so in the game.

The game master could have also said that heating such a can and not a pot was not a Master's Cook's typical task, that it lacked the right Ber rituals, protections and such—but he did not. He did not mention that perhaps the in-game Qynnsent did not have a proper kitchen any more, for it had been flooded earlier, either. (Indeed, what would, according to the Bers, happen to a flooded kitchen? Would it be fire or water that was considered stronger in this case, by those who worshiped one and yet feared the other so?)

Mister Flint did not mention the Bers. Neither did he wonder why Linden and Rianor thought that the steam would shoot the stone far and not just shoot it centimeters away, or why they thought that it would shoot at all—he did not say that the whole project was just a guess, that it might not
work.
But it was "
theory
" that the game master had stressed earlier, and now, for the briefest moment, he watched Rianor and then Linden with something Linden could not quite define. It could have been acknowledgement, deference, admiration tinted with fear, or something more than that. Then it was gone, and the game master smiled softly at the two of them, and then at everyone else.

"Eighty Science points for Qynnsent," he said.

Lord Orlin tried to argue that the shots from the steaming can could not exterminate all of their army, and that indeed the can might not shoot far enough—and why was it better than the Kimei and Ironqette stonethrower, anyway?

"Because fire is stronger than anything else," Miss Jade whispered from the Women in Science table. "It will throw stones further, and harder, do not doubt that."

"But our army is big! They might kill many with this thing, all right, but we may still destroy their city after they have shot all they like!"

"True," the game master said, quietly. "Despite the cans, the city's destruction is very likely, indeed—if the game were going on. However, the Qynnsent couple already have one hundred points." He looked at Linden and Rianor. "Unless you, my lady and lord, offered to raise the number of points needed to win and aimed for even a higher achievement?" There might have been challenge in this smile. "This has been a very interesting game. I am sure everyone would agree to continue a little more of it—"

"No." This was lord Everad, his face stiff. "
I
would not."

He was looking at Orlin and Gabriel Flint as if he wanted to hit them. "They won. Period." Everad bowed to Rianor and Linden, then glared at his partner again. "There will be
other
games."

The Guild became noisy then, people shouting congratulations, challenges, and all kinds of unrelated things. There had been tension, but perhaps there was only so much tension people could handle for one evening, for it broke easily. Besides, wine and food were being brought. Last night it had been the servants' turn to celebrate Guilds Day, but tonight it was the nobles' (and the Guild's commoners'), and they felt that they well deserved it.

Now, like last night, Linden did not drink, but she felt drunk nonetheless.

Miss Jade came to tell her how proud she was, as a woman, of Linden. That Qynnsent had won against all odds mostly because of Linden's ingenuity. Lady Miriam came to tell the opposite, how lucky Linden was that the High Lord of Qynnsent was so incredibly smart that he would fix even Linden's game mess. Rianor watched both women with naught but amusement, and Linden cared not for either woman's words. Neither did she care for the words of others, women and men both, who would come to hint the same as either Jade or Miriam—or for the many other words that she did not even remember moments after she heard them.

Linden cared less than she would have expected even when lady Dierdre told her how much she had liked Linden's Science Guild application many days ago; that because of that application and the recommendation of someone who knew Linden well, if Linden had not become Rianor's apprentice, she might have been Dierdre's now.

"Most of these people are so petty and trivial," she told Rianor when, finally, they were back in Qynnsent, alone and in each other's arms. They had not wanted to remain in the Fireheart. "We won
together.
"

Rianor caressed her cheek, gently, his fingers barely brushing her skin—as if she were something that could break very easily. "Yes," he said. "And it is my mixed blessing and curse that you would do this with me."

"Why?" Her voice was barely a whisper, but still he must have sensed the trembling in it.

"You are asking why it is a curse, darling. You know why it is a blessing. It is a curse because every time I have seen your genius and your strength, I have seen them followed by vulnerability and sickness. Because it all takes too great a toll on you, but you still insist on doing it—and I cannot stop you without hurting you. Because throughout my childhood I saw my mother dwindle on some Edge between her own talents and this world, and even my father could not help her, no matter how much she clung to him." He shook his head, as if chasing the memories away. "A woman cannot do it all, Linde. I walked into that hall today and saw you fight, and I was at the same time proud of you and mad that you would do it and thus expose yourself to others' vileness—and I was also mad with myself that I had not been there to protect you, so that you
would not have had to fight.
"

"You were not in that hall because you were protecting me somewhere else."

That he had. He had been suspicious of the paintings in the Fireheart all day; he had sensed danger from some of them. Then, during her introduction as his apprentice, he had suddenly remembered another painting that he had seen a year ago. It had disturbed him last year, too, he told her, but at that time he had not possessed enough knowledge to know why. Today, he had thought the painting to be an entrance to the Healers' Passage, or to another such place.

He had also suspected that someone had been following him and Linden all day, watching them through the walls—and he had thought that the painting might be a convenient place, and the introduction of apprentices a convenient time, for this someone to come out. He had been correct. As for the High Lady of Laurent, he had only met her in the corridor on his way back to Linden. Rianor did not know what Marguerite might have seen of his encounter, but for the half a minute that they had walked together, she had hinted that she knew of the Healers' Passage.

Linden stroked Rianor's face, tracing his narrowed eyes with a finger, trying to take the tension away. "You were protecting me," she said again. "And, yes, a woman cannot do it all alone—but a man cannot do it all, either. Have you looked at yourself lately, Rianor? You are walking on some Edge of yours these days. I am not going to let you walk alone there any longer."

The arm around her waist gripped her more tightly, drew her body to his. "You would walk on an Edge with me? I want that as much as I want to keep you as far from all Edges as could be." He kissed her, very lightly, just a brush of his lips over hers. "Don't you understand that I have rarely feared anything in my life, but these days I always fear that something might happen to you? That before I could have reacted and fought it, something might take you away from me forever?"

"Don't fear that. My love." She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing herself to him. His heart was beating so fast. "Nothing will ever take me away from you. If we fight together, nothing can ever win against us."

Some time passed—she did not know how much—but in the end he smiled, and she smiled, too. Then it was her turn to kiss him, lightly and timidly at first, and his own response was also soft and gentle. And then she did not know who of them first embraced the other one so closely that both could barely breathe, the next kiss—and what came after it—lasting an eternity.

It did not matter who of them it was. They were as one, together. This night, their first night, in some ways felt the same as working on the the steam mechanism or helping the wolf—and yet it was much, much more than that.

Chapter 6: Paths of Darkness

Dominick

Evening 30 of the First Quarter, Year of the Master 706

The path was dark, but Dominick was already used to darkness. In the days since he had found the Order of the Mother, darkness had been his constant companion, his lover, his friend. It was becoming difficult to imagine himself without his black cloak and the dense, black air that seemed to follow him wherever he went.

No. The darkness did not follow him; he chose to walk in it. He must remember that. He should be careful of what he thought, for he might be a Mentor, but he was still a human. He, too, suffered from human fickleness and weakness. Darkness could not follow a person.

"
As long as this person makes a conscious effort to cherish and follow the light of the Master,
" an old thought came, a thought of something he had once been taught and taught others himself.

But no longer. Not before he knew, himself, what the light of the Master
was.

Doubt again. Always that, the path to a Mentor's undoing, a constant shadow of the Mentor he had now become. Yet, doubt could lead him towards those truly lost, Maxim had told him, and he believed in this. He needed something to believe in, and one who doubted could at least believe in doubt.

Dominick walked further. The path was dark, too dark for the man to chase him here, even if it were a man who had once walked this path himself. With her.

Then, it was not so dark any more, for a candle was lit a few steps away from him, its pale, eerie light hinting the contours of another black-clad figure. Katrina, the young healer woman, was waiting for him before the entrance to the inner tunnel where he could not go by himself, even with her trinket. On his hand, her bracelet only worked at Outer Doors, the ones the Healers' Passage had in the Fireheart and—so he had been told—the Firemind. She and her ilk were the only ones who could open Inner Doors and single doors like those in people's houses from the outside.

"You are hurt." It was not a question. "Roll up your sleeve." Then, "the other one, do not try my patience."

He rolled it up. "It is only fair that if you test me, I test you, too, Sister."

"It is only fair that if there are people starving in the streets, you should starve, too, but I am not seeing you doing it. Do not try my patience, I said."

She took a vial from the pocket of her apron, the liquid stinging as she applied it to the scratch on his wrist. Her touch was light, precise, and completely devoid of feeling. Her long black hair almost blended with the darkness, candlelight flickering against the white skin of her face, accentuating the stiffness of her jaw and the lines on her cheeks and forehead. She was young, perhaps only a few years older than him, but she had lines like a woman much older.

He silently rolled the sleeve back down as she pulled away the alcohol-drenched cloth, and she silently took his hand and switched the candle off. A candle that flickered instead of emitting a steady glow—it meant that even here, in the Fireheart, fire was unstable. There must be irony in that, but Dominick did not feel like laughing.

She opened the Inner Door and they walked inside the Healers' Passage proper, where no candles or fireswitches adorned the wall, where darkness had the density of ink, and he had to walk hand-in-hand with her because she knew which way the path lay and he did not.

There was irony in that, too, and foolishly, he realized it only a few moments before she let go of him and quickly stepped away, far enough that he could not reach her without making a few steps by himself. He was not such a fool. There were slopes and loose stones in this place, and worse things.

"I am assuming you want your information, Sister," he said in a voice calmer than he felt. "You could have just asked."

"And I could simply go away now, leaving you here at the mercy of what haunts this cursed abode. There are many "
could
"-s and "
could-have
"-s in this world. Dwelling on them is useless,
Brother.
Speak."

"If it is useless, why do you dwell on the thought that Gabriel Flint could be untrustworthy? And I am sure you do not trust
me;
Master knows what "
could
"-s you are building around that even now."

She was silent for a while. She appeared to actually think over what he had said, unlike most of the Order of the Mother crowd, most of whom had already demonstrated that if they had the capacity to think, it was unused and rusted. But this should not be a problem. Their not thinking must be good both for themselves and for him. If all they knew was how to follow, there must be a way to make them follow
him
and bring them to the right path, where they were supposed to follow. And yet ...

"Dominick, there are some "
could
"-s and "
could-have
"-s that dwelling on only makes worse, and I do hope that, trustworthy or not, you never learn it the hard way." Her voice was strained, almost a whisper, but only for a moment. "Enough of that," she then said, sharply. "Now speak."

"Gabriel Flint is a member of the Science Guild himself," Dominick carefully said. The man had only told them he had a way to check what would transpire at the gathering. "He joined roughly seventy days ago—which, as you know, is about the same time he came to Mierber and joined the Order of the Mother."

"Do those in the Science Guild regard him well?"

"They do. You know of that game that has been popular since last year—Stratagem? The Science Guild seem currently obsessed with it and have been so since about the time our Mister Flint joined, and he is the game master."

"A
game.
" She could have spat the word. "This is what these people would still do when the world is falling apart—play games. But why is he doing this? He certainly did not tell us that he was one of them."

"I do not yet know his reasons." But he had his doubts. Still, she asked nothing of Science, so Dominick told her nothing himself.

"The nobles have started taking their guards with them to the Fireheart," he said, instead. "I have been there only twice before, and that to the Second Temple, but during those times I saw almost no guards. Now most nobles seem to have at least one."

"So, they feel it, after all, games or not—but no puny guards will help them in what there is to come." He could not see her and could not read her mind, but still he felt her tension. "It is their fault that Mierenthia is dying, these leeches who do nothing and care for nothing, abusing the land they are supposed to protect. Their fault, and Bers' and Mentors' ..."

"Protecting and abusing are not opposites. They can exist together."

He should not have said that. He should have let her point and curse and rant until she was either trapped in anger or too tired, both cases meaning that she would have been less able to think, and less difficult to deal with. Why had he interrupted her with a point that might do exactly the opposite and make her think further? In the name of the Master and all the right paths, how many mistakes was he going to make today!?

The darkness, impenetrable as it was, pressed harder at him as he clenched a fist over his dagger; seemed to make it more difficult for him to breathe. Or perhaps it was not the darkness. The dagger felt smooth and cool in his hand, but it was a sense of fake security, for a weapon could not help him here and now. The darkness was dense enough for the woman to just slip away unharmed if threatened; alternatively, if he killed her without warning, he would be trapped.

The dagger could not have truly helped him before that, in the Fireheart, either, for the man had seemed too good a fighter to be overtaken easily and without noise. And had the man been weak and clumsy, Dominick still could not have afforded to kill him. That man alive had his own reasons to keep chance encounters secret, but too many things might be stirred too fast by the murder of a High Lord.

The High Lord of the House of Qynnsent. He had
her,
which was why Dominick was here. And the harsh, silent woman a few steps away from him in the darkness, had once, like Calia, been her friend.

He had met Katrina for the first time and Calia for the second upon his second finding of the Order of the Mother. It was easier, this time; he needed no Gerard or Gabriel Flint to guide him. He simply went to the Steel Factory's vicinity seven days after he had been there before, and walked alone amidst debris and abandonment until he found a stairway leading down. Inside a small enclosed room with bare stone walls, he found people.

There were only about ten of them there, faces turning sharply towards him as he entered, the place of must and dust and sadness. Gerard was quick to unsheathe his knife, but then sat gripping it without making a motion to attack, and Calia watched Dominick with apprehension smudged with what might have been a tiny glint of hope.

These two were sitting on the floor, as were all the others, and some of them shifted, dragging their limbs away, letting him pass to one of the room's ends.

It might be a trap, and perhaps it was, but not in the way he would have expected. He stood staring, not even realizing when exactly he had stopped, at the atrocity propped against the bare, time-smoothed wall. It, too, seemed to be staring at him, its eyes hard and non-living.

It was a statue, crudely shaped out of stone by someone who obviously did not know much about stonework. Its head was small and disproportional, its features twisted and gross, and its body was almost no body at all, but a giant, bloated torso with short feeble limbs with no hint of hands and feet, let alone fingers and toes. There were flowers sprawled over what supposedly were the shoulders and spread arms of the perversion—little wilting flowers that, unlike in Balkaene, were rare in Mierber and were most often either feared or treasured.

"You
fools.
"

He felt their uneasiness, their doubt, without even turning to look at their worthless selves. Once again he had disturbed their space, that tiny place in their tiny minds that held their fake little peace.

They did not know if they should heed the Mentor, who was a familiar authority, or if they should heed their absent leaders—or if they should look up to whatever it was that right now stood before him. Worthless, they were. But if they were worthless, why was he here? Why did he care for bringing them back to the right path? Did the right path
need
reprobates and fools? "
Bring them back,
" Maxim had said, but what if Maxim, unerring Maxim, had this time erred?

So, he had started doubting Maxim as well, and he did not know where this would lead. For, once he had waded in the muck of doubt and nagging fears, how far could he go or how deep could he sink? It was like wading in a marsh, like in Balkaene, where such treacherous places did not always brandish Ber fences and Ber power to protect the innocent and stupid.

"
Never go near a marsh,
" Balkaene peasants knew, but not all heeded this. Besides, marshes sometimes sprung overnight where no marshes had been before, and a human could walk into one without even knowing.
Blatnitsi
—marsh dwellers, those
Bessove
who dwelt in muddy, tricky water and stole quintessences—were to blame, superstition mongers said, and whatever the truth was, some peasants learned the hard way.

Blatnitsi
and marshes could await Dominick in the true Mentor's Dark Forest, too, and the thing before him felt like one. Like something foul.

Doubt. And doubt again. Those fools behind him did not know which way to lean, but was he truly better than them if he wondered, too—if he doubted whether he should lead them at all?

"Did you plant the flowers? Did you water them?" He turned towards them now, angry, and most cringed upon his voice. He had
no right
to doubt that. If he did not lead them, if he let them walk alone, if he let them go where they would choose and do what they would do, Master knew what they would do to the world.

Or perhaps even the Master knew not.

One woman did not cringe, however. She exchanged a glance with the man who was sitting beside her, and they both stood and came closer.

"I did." She met Dominick's eyes without a flinch, hers cold and hard like frozen water. Her face looked rigid, lines crisscrossing the pale skin and the shadows beneath her eyes, and she looked tired, as if she had been sick, but she stood straight and moved with a stern, angry precision. "I planted them, I watered them. What is your point in asking?"

For a moment Dominick was lost for words. This was not the reply he had expected from any of them. He had wanted to shock them and teach them like Maxim had once shocked and taught a little peasant boy, but they were not peasant boys. They had surprised him. Words and deeds that had worked for him once upon a time would not necessarily work for them, and he was at a loss.

He did not know how to lead. He knew how to drive—drive humans like a Balkaene herder would drive sheep or cattle. Humans, like cattle, did not know what was good for them and the world, and a Mentor with a whip made them walk on the right path, whether or not they wanted to. But those had been humans who at least knew that it was good for them to be driven, while these here had strayed too far from the path. These, he had to make follow, and he did not know how.

He stared at the woman; he did not know if she had the right to pick flowers she had raised herself so that she could adorn this monstrosity. He only knew it would have been wrong if she had not made an effort, if she did not produce but just went through the world and took what came in her way and consequences be damned—

Wait, she was wrong, anyway, because she had adorned the monstrosity, no matter the flowers' source. He did not need to think about all these other issues, because this first, most important issue should decide the question before he even got to the other issues; he did not need to try to apply Maxim's thoughts and teachings to these people, or to figure out his own. Adorning this statue, worshiping this statue, was wrong, and a year ago this would have been all that mattered to Mentor Dominick. Apparently not any more, and it confused him and made him even angrier.