The Makers of Light (9 page)

Brighid stepped towards her at that, caught her wrist with one hand, the other waving the generalists away. Only one remained, far behind Brighid, where Merley could see him clearly without straining her eyes in multiple directions. Why was Brighid giving her this?

"My child. I know about love. A Humanist knows everything that is human, and love is perhaps the most human thing of all. Together with hate, anger, and treachery, of course."

Her voice was but a whisper, smooth, with a hint of a song, but a song different from Merley's. No one but Merley could hear Brighid's words. At least, this was what Merley was probably intended to think. Brighid had whispered to the Lord of Qynnsent, too, twenty-six days ago, but Merley had heard her well enough. Brighid had been calm, smooth, careful, cruel, deceiving. And most nobles—most of Merley's former peers—had believed her. The Lord of Qynnsent had not, and suddenly Merley wondered why she was thinking so much of him and not of Donald. Donald, her loving brother, the man she had hurt so much that night because of Brighid, the only man who did not deserve to be hurt.

But it was not Donald who had taken the situation under control with his witless sheep of peers that night; it was Rianor of Qynnsent. The handsome enemy lord with the cold eyes full of contempt. Would anyone else have? Would that dirty little wretch Giles of Laurent have done anything like this, had he lived? Of course not. Would she, had she still been on the other side? She did not know. But Rianor of Qynnsent had, and for that she admired him. For a moment, she wondered. What would life have been like if it had been Qynnsent the ally and Laurent the enemy a year ago?

Merley jumped as Brighid's finger stroked her wrist. For a moment, for just a moment, she had imagined that it was him.

"Well, well," Brighid smiled yet again. "My suspicions are proved correct. You are not taking your Potion of Dispassion."

"What are you doing to me!" Merley snapped her hand away. "What are you doing to my mind? You have no right!"

"To your mind? Literally, I am doing nothing. You are doing it all yourself. You are human enough for that, my little fire wielder."

Human enough? What was that supposed to be—an insult? A Ber was smart, gifted, special, superior. More than just a human.

"As for having no right"—Brighid suddenly stared at her, eyes deep, dark, and hot like a firewell, eyes full of emotion that was not, and could not be, faked. "Did
you
have the right to free this animal, without asking first, without understanding the consequences? What does it mean to you, me having no right? That I cannot do to you things that you do not like? While you can do things I do not like to me? Is that
right,
Merlevine? Well, let me tell you something. Right
does not exist.
Every single wretched creature in this world has its own right and wrong, and there are so many creatures, so many rights and wrongs, that in the end no right and wrong matters at all."

"No right and wrong matters? Is this your excuse to use and abuse everyone and everything that comes in your way? Well, I say that all rights and wrongs matter, how about that?"

"How about that, Merley? How about that lordling's right to rape you, against your right to burn him alive so that you would not let him? Ah, I see you have no answer to that. Then how about my right to execute a wolf publicly so that people would know that their villages are protected? That we, Bers, are here for them no matter what? They are just humans, Merley. They fear us, they fear
Bessove,
the forest, their neighbors, their own shadows. They fear Magic, and yet they fear that Magic is going away. Leave them to their own devices and much more than a wolf—or a window-breaking High Lord's pride—will suffer from it. We need to give them security. We need to give them right and wrong, even if that means crushing their own little rights and wrongs to dust."

"In the case of the Laurent lordling, and with my wolf today, it was
my
right that won."

Merley felt sick, she felt dirty. She hated Brighid for it; she wanted to grip Brighid's neck and crush her with her bare hands. Sweet Master, what had happened a year ago was self-defense, an accident! She was not a cold-hearted, deliberate murderer! She had been protecting herself then, and saving Dreadful today. And she did not truly want to kill Brighid now, did she? What was Brighid doing to her mind again? What was Merley doing to herself? If she had the very same choices again, together with time to think them through, would she do the same?

Yes.

"I hate you," Merley whispered.

Brighid smiled. "I know. I hate you, too. And I love you. Some day you will understand."

"Perhaps I will not."

"Oh, you will. You are not human enough to not understand. And don't you think of running away again. Or, rather, think long and think hard. Here, in all of Mierenthia, is the place where right and wrong are forged. Here is the place where you, too, can participate in that and—since you are obviously young and do not know enough—here is the place you can learn."

"Learn from whom? From Henna? Tell me, is there a single person in these towers who has more fire than I do?"

"More fire than you? Perhaps not. But having fire is not the same as knowing how to use fire. Raw fire is a gift, but can you control it? Or does it control you? And what else is controlling you, my little girl with too much power? I did hear you sing. Ronald!"

Merley winced at the woman's sudden shrill voice, but not on time. She was affected by Brighid's words, distracted. Careless. She should have bewared of Generalist Ronald, the man with the darts behind Brighid, who had once imprisoned her for two days in the Novice tower's detention room because she had dared question his teachings. Two days of utmost darkness and coldness on the edge of tolerance; two of days of stale, long-dead air and someone's or something's dirge of a song on the edge of her hearing. Two days of
torture,
at a time when she had still been too afflicted by potions or who-knew-what-else to be able to conjure light and warmth and dry her tears.

The dart stuck just beneath her elbow, a centimeter away from a spot that would have bled too much if penetrated. Had he missed, or was it on purpose? Still, it hurt. Merley blinked, uncomprehending. Last time it had not hurt at all, but her mind had become blurred, thoughts and feelings sloshing together until there were no thoughts and feelings at all, only emptiness and a few ingrained teachings.

This time, the thoughts were clear and sharp. They were suddenly so clear that she saw every distinct moment of her life—
of the world
—all at once, and they were so sharp that, had thoughts been needles, her mind would have gained more holes than a shower head. As for feelings ... Merley screamed, this time without a trace of singing. At that moment, perhaps for the first and last time in her life, she would have been grateful for some Potion of Dispassion.

She got none.

"A steel dart." Brighid's calm, almost loving voice. "Just plain metal, with no potions.
Bessove
fear it, while humans keep it in a special place in their hearts. It does not go well with songs, my child. Or edges. Get up."

She tried. Her hands and feet scraped along the path's dirt, but even if her body had the strength to rise, the screams in her mind would not let it. "Defiled stone," she felt her lips shape and barely recognized her voice. "Desecrated mountain. How dare you, you upstart, you petty conjurer of a worthless race! How dare you!"

Brighid flinched, almost imperceptibly, and suddenly Merley jumped, the screams in her head no longer heeded. In a single motion, she wrenched the dart away from her flesh and held it tightly, even though it burned her fingers with fire different from anything she had ever made or felt.

"A special place in humans' hearts, you say? Let me do you a favor, then, human! Let me insert it in your heart. Let me insert it
right here.
Right—" The word died at her tongue just as her hand would have swung. Right? Or
wrong.
Suddenly, the dart was just a piece of metal, no longer burning, no longer screaming, no longer causing other things to scream in her. Trembling and panting, she let her hand drop. The sharpness and clarity were gone. The thoughts she thought and the world she saw were normal again—and yet, after the sharpness, they seemed naught but a confused blur.

"Ronald." This time the man did not shoot a dart but came closer, and upon a nod from Brighid gripped Merley's shoulder before she would have crumpled to the ground again. "Ronald, our young Sister here is at the end of her first year, isn't she? Good. Let it be known then that the former Novice Merlevine is now Acolyte Merlevine. As one of her teachers, you can take care of the robe and formalities. She won't need a room in the Acolyte tower while she is studying with her first adept master, though. I am sure that he will find space amongst his
metalworks
for her. Right, Merlevine?"

Brighid looked at her, then, and perhaps because of her mind's blur, Merley was not sure if Brighid's look held threat, hate, or some strange interest and deference.

When Merley blinked and looked again, Brighid was no longer there, and amidst everything else in Merley's confused heart, there was a tiny, almost unnoticed sense of a discrepancy—of something missing.

Adept Brighid opposed metal to songs. What she failed to consider was that perhaps, just perhaps, Adept Darius's metalworks had songs of their own.

Chapter 3: Life is What Moves

Ber Adept Humanist Lucius, addressing the Council of the Master, Day 1 of the First Quarter, Year of the Master 328:

Regarding the matter of delegating metalmaking and the forging of tools to Master Crafters, I maintain that it poses too great a risk. Only fire can work with metal, and ordinary humans should not be tempted with power over it. Fire is too perilous, and the fickle human heart is not fit to handle it. Even the sterile, restricted, almost tame fire that we would aim to provide to those Master Crafters would be too much for most.

And even if fire itself were not an issue, molding metal and making tools would be. Humans should not be tempted to make tools of their own choosing. Humans know not what tools would be safe in their hands and in the hands of others, or what tools might destroy the world.

...

I maintain the same stance, for reasons similar to the above, regarding the instantiation of the Craft of Master Cook and allowing humans to work directly with fire to prepare food. I understand that the fire needed for cooking is weaker than the fire needed for metalmaking and toolmaking. However, it is still strong fire. I maintain that all cooking be done by Bers.

Excerpt from the Council of the Master's gathering minutes, Day 1 of the First Quarter, Year of the Master 328:

Instantiation of new Craft(s) for metalworking and toolmaking: 40 votes for, 80 votes against. Rejected.

Instantiation of the Craft of Master Cook: 70 votes for, 50 votes against. Accepted.

Linden

Day 23 of the First Quarter, Year of the Master 706

It snowed today, too, the clouds low and heavy in the sky, grayish whiteness falling so thickly that Linden could not see the garden from her windows. When it was over, the garden was no more. Even the trees looked like naught but shapeless lumps, no longer brown but gray-white amidst the endless gray whiteness that took the world away.

It was better like this. In this way, she could imagine that the world did not exist, that all she had ever known in her life was this suite on the third floor by a garden with white trees, that there had never been anything else and never would be. That there was no need for tears.

She would not cry, anyway. The tears just would not come. They never did these days, even though today she had written a letter to her family and letters to Kat and Cal, which was three new letters that would go in the box by her pillow, never to be sent.

Mom and Dad and Eileen were gone, together with Grandma and Grandpa. Linden did not know where. Ten days after she had arrived in Qynnsent, before she was even healed from the weakness and fever that had come to her right after the Council, new information had arrived for the High Lord. Mentor Maxim had survived the stabbing, for Linden's own dad had healed him, with a Trial. Maxim had awakened and claimed that the stabbing was an accident, that he had stabbed himself while showing a younger Mentor a knife trick.

Maxim was mending well. However, Ellard himself had become unwell with the healing, and when the old Mentor had mended enough to not need his Healer close at hand, he had told him to take a break and go to his daughter in the Sunset Lands. There was more space there, there were fewer people and the air was cleaner, old Maxim had said; the air there would be better for Ellard than Mierber's air these days, for certain.

Kelley wrote to Linden on Day 1 of the First Quarter, right after the Day of the Master—so on the second day of Linden being officially Rianor's apprentice—to tell her that they were leaving and would take Eileen and Grandma and Grandpa from Rockville. They would all travel around the Sunset Lands a bit, Mom said, to visit relatives and friends, to rest.

Dad was unwell, because of Linden. Her family had run away, because of her again. One night of recklessness had changed many lives in addition to her own. She had not known then—but she would have known it if she had thought.

She did think now—and less than forty days had passed, but she felt years older.

The two short letters she had later received from Mom and Dad had brought her both great happiness and great fear. They were alive, the letters told her, but letters could also be traced to their senders. To Cal and Kat, Linden did not dare write at all. She was a lady, safe in her place of whiteness on top of the world, but they were not. Better that no one connected them to her.

And she was lonely, lonelier than she had ever imagined a lady or a Scientist to be.

* * *

There was a knock on the door. Lady Jenne, coming to chatter about ladies' magazines, dresses, and to teach her about etiquette—as if Linden had not already learned all there was to learn. She had time to learn. She could not leave the House but she had no duties in the House at all, so she had time for anything. She had not left the House even on the Day of the Master, for it was not necessary for anyone but the High Ruler to go to the ceremonies, and only he and Desmond had to go to the Council of Sovereigns gathering on the next day.

It would be too dangerous for Linden to leave the House, Rianor had said.

Linden stared at the tree-shaped white lumps outside, then crumpled a not-to-be-sent letter in her hands.

Rianor was so close to her sometimes, closer than anyone had ever been before. He understood her like no one else had. They had managed to discern some repeating Ber symbols on pipes around the House together. The Qynnsent Council last quarter had decided that they would do just that.

Yet, no one else dared to do it—especially when no further threatening news came from Balkaene or from elsewhere, and the others' worries gradually subsided.

It was Linden and Rianor alone who worked with symbols. The two of them alone who wondered about Audric. They had even
drawn
symbols together, thrice succeeding in making the water in a cup produce tiny waves upon them completing a picture of a symbol.

Linden's own water Magic worked on and off. Sometimes she could make water move easily with naught but her mind, but sometimes nothing would happen and she would feel very, very weak. Mostly, she tried to not mix this Magic with the Ber symbols. If she did so, she became even weaker. Indeed, more often than not, her own Magic was barely there; it had faded after her initial days in Qynnsent. She sometimes wondered if the Inner Sanctum would let her in now, with her Magic like this. Rianor thought that her Magic manifested itself best when she was stressed, and he wanted her to leave it alone for now, and to focus on learning about that of the Bers.

Rianor had first noticed something strange about the pipes in the House on the morning he had first brought Linden to Qynnsent, while watching the pipes on the ceiling in the scullery. He had not yet known what the strangeness was. He had realized the truth after Linden had discovered the changeling banners and he had discovered the symbol formed by his shower holes. The pipes themselves formed symbols. Symbols on the ceilings, symbols on the walls—symbols wherever pipes were visible and probably wherever they were not.

What Linden and Rianor had drawn in order to make waves was a part of the shape formed by the visible parts of the waterpipes in several rooms. They thought that it meant "
water,
" for it was an element unique to the waterpipe shape. The rest of the shape—what they thought to be the "
pipes
" part—was also found as an element of the shape formed by firepipes.

Once, just once, they had made a candle glow brighter upon drawing the "
fire
" element of the firepipes' shape. They had been thrilled. They had embraced, laughing—and then she had almost fainted, suddenly very, very weak. It had broken the enthusiasm. He had put her in a chair and given her a glass of water, but then he had pulled away and would not touch her. A barrier had suddenly risen between them that she did not understand and did not have the strength to question.

After that, she would still feel him close sometimes, but often she would feel distance. He was careful to never touch her, and even though they did work together, on symbols as well as some small Science projects, oftentimes she was without him. She filled her time. She was learning what she could about nobility and Science and about the House itself.

She knew where every room was, every staircase, most of the outer buildings, most servants' names, routines, their children and little dreams; she knew many things. She knew Jenne, too, with her quiet kindness and insecurity and her own loneliness and need for a kind word; she knew about Desmond's machinations and Inni's silences. She knew her own Clare and Felice, as well as Brendan, who was a good friend of Clare's and who, since that first night in Qynnsent, seemed to respect Linden very much.

She knew, too, that the project that she had started without Rianor—her own, bold,
big
project—had a chance for success.

And she knew that she was lonely, that perhaps it would not have been so if Rianor and she had never been close, but now his distance left a hole inside her that nothing else could fill.

"Let us get out, Jenne!" Linden could not bear to be inside this suite and to think that the world was swallowed by gray whiteness even a minute longer.

Linden

Day and evening 23 of the First Quarter, Year of the Master 706

Jenne screamed. Linden herself was numb; she watched the gray-white snow turn bright red where the body had fallen as if it were not real, as if she were not seeing it at all.

"My lady. Please—" A woman, her voice loud and yet a voice drowned in Jenne's; drowned, too, by the scream that they had heard a moment earlier, which still hung in the air as if it would never fade. "My ladies, please, give me your hands, let me take you to Nan. This is not something you should have seen. But it will be fine. The Mistress Cleanser is taking the taint away now. It will all be fine ..."

Another woman was chanting softly over the dead animal's body. Her words were blurred, indistinguishable, her hands shaping symbols in the air.
New symbols,
Linden's mind seem to register, numbly.

Jenne was crying, her voice too weak for screams now. "I never knew. I never knew!"

"Well, now you know." Linden's own voice was soft and yet she heard the sudden steel in it, felt steel in herself as she got control of her trembling legs, nodded curtly to the Mistress Butcher and pulled her hand away from hers. "Thank you, Mistress, but we
should
have seen this." She dragged Jenne in the direction of the House Proper.

We should know about the world around us. We should know, we should know, we should know. We should not be ignorant.

Back in her suite Linden grabbed a fat
Science
book from her bookcase and thrust it into Jenne's hands. "Meat comes from animals. Meat
is
animals before it is Butchered and Cleansed—read here about Mierenthia's food chain. Humans eat plants or animals, animals eat plants or animals, and plants eat Mierenthia itself—"

"Oh Master, oh Master, oh Master!"

"Are you telling me that you really, truly, did not know? I thought that you just did not know the details, that you were simply too shocked to have finally seen it all with your own eyes!"

Because this is how it was for me
.

There were only a few places in Qynnsent that Linden had not yet been to, the slaughterhouse being one of them. She had dragged Jenne there two hours earlier, through the snow and coldness, hungry to see something new, to learn yet again about Qynnsent and about the world.

"
Hungry.
" It was ironic that she would use this word, of all words.

"Yes, yes, it is true. Yes, Linde, I knew, I only did not know the details." Jenne's voice was quiet, defeated. "Food comes from animals and plants ... But the only animals I have seen are Blake and Winola's cat Zoe and the horses, and I would not imagine—" She stared at Linden, her eyes wide.

"No, we don't eat
them,
at least."

Jenne sobbed again. "I know that food comes from animals and plants, but—but—Animals are animals, and food is something Nan and the others bring from the kitchen! I never—"

You never made the connection between what you supposedly knew and real life. Not really
.

Jenne was a fool, Linden wanted to think. Jenne did not care to know about the world. But if Jenne was a fool, most people were—for most people were
made
to be fools. People could not simply go into a slaughterhouse and take a peek. Linden and Jenne had been able to go only because they were ladies, and because Houses had personal slaughterhouses and personal Master Cleansers just like they had personal kitchens and Master Cooks.

And no one, before Linden, would have taught Jenne that she should seek to learn and truly know, anything.

"Oh Master, I won't eat meat any longer." Jenne's palms were pressing her temples now, her eyes bright and shiny. "I will simply eat bread and fruit and vegetables."

"These all come from plants. Plants are alive, too, Jenne, just like the animals. If you eat less or nothing of one, you will have to eat more of the other, and in the end other lives will still have perished so that you can live on."

"But plants don't—don't—move. It is not truly alive if it does not move, right? Right? Plants don't ...
scream,
Linde."

"Perhaps because you are too deaf to hear them!"

For a moment Jenne was silent, something like fear flashing in her eyes.