The Sacred Hunt Duology (12 page)

She let the wind across the open water play with stray strands of her hair.
Be calm
, she thought,
and as quiet as possible. He hates noise and bustle.

Holding to that thought, she made her way through the High City streets toward the Order of Knowledge.

Before she entered the grand, four-story building, she took the time to pull her hood up and arrange it so its shadow covered all but the tip of her nose.

“Come,” she said softly, taking the girl by the hand again. “But be as quiet as possible.” The warning wasn't necessary; the girl hadn't seen fit to utter more than an outraged squeak since their arrival.

Together, they walked between the pillars of the entranceway and into the grand foyer. Here, the ceiling was one large arch that stretched from wall to wall. Sun, when the sun was high, streamed in through the slightly slanted windows above, giving the Order a sense of lightplay that otherwise dour mages would never see. There were guards lined up as they walked, one per pillar for a total of six, but they were less a matter of utility than show. As show, they wore the Order's colors quite well; their black shirts, white pants, silver-embroidered sashes, and gold shoulder plates were of a quality made only by the High City seamsters.

The girl seemed to find them quite interesting, and Evayne stopped to let her wander around both pillars and guards. When she returned, she wore a very quizzical expression.

“They're at attention,” Evayne said. “They aren't allowed to move. Now, come.”

The doors were opened by doormen who also wore the colors of the Order but without the dramatic weaponry that the guards bore. Evayne nodded politely, although she knew they couldn't see her face, and walked up to the gleaming, stately desk that barred would-be curiosity seekers from the Order proper.

A rather bookish man looked up from his paperwork. His face was as sour as
the foyer was grand. Evayne wondered what mistake he'd made that had incurred the wrath of the Magi. Very few of the members ever manned this particular desk themselves. “What do you want?”

Obviously, there was a good reason for the lack. Evayne's hood hid her smile. “I've come to see Meralonne APhaniel.”

“You've got an appointment, have you?”

“I don't usually require appointments to see him.”

“You don't usually see him, then. He
always
demands appointments be made. It's a question of being orderly.” The man returned to his notes with something just short of a sniff.

“Excuse me.”

He looked up balefully. “Are you
still
here?”

“Yes. I've come to see Meralonne APhaniel, and I'm afraid I can't leave until I have.”

“Well, we'll see about that,” the man replied.

“GUARDS!”

• • •

Meralonne APhaniel was one of the Magi, the council of twenty, and one that directed the business of the Order of Knowledge. He was not a young man, and Evayne often wondered if he had ever been one. He was tall, but somewhat gaunt, his skin lined and pale, his hair a platinum and gold spill that crept down the middle of his back when exposed. As one of the Magi, he was not only entitled to wear the colors of the Order, he was expected to.

But, as common wisdom held, the Magi were all a little insane—certainly, they were no ordinary men and women—and when Meralonne was forced from his room in the study tower by two of the Order's guards, he came down the stairs in his favorite bathrobe, and very little else.

The man at the desk—Jacova ADarphan—was consigned to desk duty for another three weeks, and there was every sign, from the mutinous expression on his face, that that stay would have cause to be extended. Evayne, however, was removed with extreme pointedness from that list of future causes by a rather irate Meralonne.

“You really shouldn't have been so hard on him,” she said, as she climbed the tower stairs. “No, we want to go
up
.” The girl gave her a look best described by the word
dubious
and then began her four-legged crawl up the carved, stone stairway.

“If I'm to be disturbed,” he replied, his brows still drawn down in one white-gold line, “it had better be with good reason. ADarphan wouldn't recognize a good reason if it spitted him.” He frowned. “And come to think of it, neither would you. What are you doing here, anyway?”

“I've come to ask a favor.”

“What, another one? I've wasted years of precious research time with your
education—for free, at that!—and you've come to ask me for
more?
” A head bobbed out from around the corner of the third-story landing. “This is a private conversation, ALandry—get back to your books!”

“Sir!” The head vanished.

Meralonne had a tendency to have private conversations that the entire High City had no choice but to hear. Evayne's forehead folded into delicate creases. “My Lord APhaniel, might I remind you that in return for your time, I've—”

“‘My Lord,' is it? Don't talk back to your master,” he snapped. “I know perfectly well what we agreed to at the time, but if I weren't an honorable man, I'd demand more.”

They reached the wide sitting area near the window of the fourth floor's gallery. Evening had almost fallen, and the curtains to the window had been drawn. Lamps, with a nimbus of light that seemed a little too strong be natural, gave the paintings and sculptures of the gallery of the Magi a preternatural glow; it was almost as if, at any moment, any one of the images, invoked, would come to life. Meralonne walked past them briskly, taking the time to reknot his bathrobe's belt as he did. Evayne glanced from side to side, wondering if anything the gallery contained was new to her. And the girl trotted—there really seemed no other way to describe her motion—from picture to sculpture to picture again, her eyes wide with wonder or curiosity.

But at last they passed the gallery completely, and entered into the chambers of Meralonne. As one of the governing council, he was permitted to keep a residence within the Order itself, and if it was small and suited only for living in and not for entertaining, no mage yet had been heard to complain.

“You realize,” he said over his shoulder, “that I'm liable to be called upon to explain this public disruption?”

“Yes, Meralonne.”

The door swung open into a chaotic jumble of papers, books, slates, and the occasional scrap of clothing.

“When you were a young girl,” the mage said, “you knew how to be properly respectful. Of all the traits to grow out of, Evayne, that one is least pleasing. Well, don't just stand there gawking. I was in the middle of something important when you barged in.”

“Yes, Meralonne.” Evayne walked into the room, very carefully pulling the hem of her robes well above her feet in order to make sure she didn't step on anything vital. The girl followed with considerably less restraint, something that was not lost on the mage. He did not seem nearly as annoyed at the girl as he did at his student.

“Don't be condescending. It doesn't suit you.” Meralonne found a chair beneath a small pile of clothing. He took it. “Now, what it is this time?”

“The girl,” Evayne replied. But as her master sharpened the steel-gray focus of his eyes, she found herself watching him. It was hard, with Meralonne, to tell
what age he was, he aged so well. His hair was perhaps a touch whiter, and his eyes slightly more creased than the last time she'd seen him; he was clean-shaven and ill-dressed as always.

And yet. And yet. At sixteen, she had found his curmudgeonly ways almost a comfort; at twenty-eight, she was not always certain how much was affectation, and how much genuine. There were times when she could catch a glimpse of something darker, something far more somber, in his words. Then, the lines of his body would alter subtly.

Only once had she seem him called to the private duties that were his, by right, to take on. He set aside his poor clothing for dress that could only be described as magical, pulled back his hair in a long braid, and girded himself as if for battle. She had asked him, then, where he was going, and the expression, distant and cool, frightened her more than his temper, his growling, or his pointed unkindnesses. He hadn't answered. She never asked again.

Meralonne was the teacher that the otherwhen had taken her to when she had started walking the path twelve years ago. For the first eight years, it had brought her to him every other day. He was the only living person that she had seen so regularly, so . . . normally. He aged as she did, and he remembered her almost as she remembered herself.

Not, Evayne mused, as every other person that she met did. They might be old yesterday, and a child tomorrow; they might remember meeting her ten years ago, when she would not meet them again for decades; they might be dead or dying, but live on in the otherwhen, compromised by the vividness of their end in her memory. They might have information for her that she could not use in any future she could see, but that she could not afford, ever, to forget. Evayne did not forget.

And they might gaze at her with awe and fear, and no understanding whatsoever.

“Evayne,” Meralonne said, catching her attention with the flat of his hand against the crowded top of his desk. “I'm speaking to you!”

“I'm sorry. I was thinking.”

Meralonne snorted. “And you do it rarely enough I shouldn't complain. But you can think on your own time. Give me explanations instead. What is this girl, and why did you bring her here?” He reached into his desk and pulled out a leather pouch so worn that it shone from years of accumulated oil and sweat. Evayne grimaced as he pulled a pipe dish from it. Of all his habits, this was the one that she found most odious. And, of course, the one he would take no criticism of.

She lifted her shoulders delicately and let them fall in a graceful shrug. “I don't know who she is. But as to why I brought her—let me show you.” She let her hands tumble in the air in slow free fall, and as she did, she spoke.

The words had all of the rhythm of language, but none of the sense; their cadence deliberate, evocative, and elusive. No man or woman, be they mage or
merely mortal, could repeat what she said, even if they heard it all, and listened with a mind devoted to that purpose. She knew that if she were a better mage, she wouldn't need the words or the gestures to find her focus.

Meralonne knew it as well, but he nodded gruffly as the spell progressed, because it was a difficult spell—a subtle one, and not a spell for the warrior-mage.

Any idiot
, he was prone to say,
can learn how to throw fire and lightning around. Look at nature
—
how much thought and purpose does nature show? But I'm not about to train just any sentient mammal. You'll learn
magery,
not some trumped-up sword-substitute.

Yes, Meralonne.

And she learned as if her life, or more, depended upon it. Because, of course, it did.

As the last of the spell-words echoed against the sturdy stone walls of his chamber, Evayne lifted her hands as if to embrace the empty air. Light the color of her irises showered in sparks from her fingers, dancing across the air and leaving multiple trails. She looked directly ahead, her focus short, her violet eyes wide. Slowly, as she concentrated, an image began to form between her outstretched arms.

He uttered an oath under his breath, in a language that Evayne did not understand. “You're losing your focus, girl.
Concentrate
. Have you learned nothing?” But his heart wasn't in the complaint, and the words had no sting, no real energy.

He stood, lifting his pipe arm, and walked over to Evayne's illusion. Smoke wreathed his face, his hair. Carefully, he began to examine the details. “It ran like this?” He asked in a tone of voice that was almost subdued.

Evayne nodded.

“I see.” He turned to look at the girl, who remained silent. “Well, little one, it seems you've attracted the wrong person's attention.” He studied her more intently, steel-gray eyes meeting near-black ones. “Evayne, how did you see that creature and still escape with your life?” His voice was soft now, even quiet. There was no inflection to the words.

“High Summer rites,” she said. It was hard to speak, think, and hold the image static.

“High Summer rites.” The words were stilted.

“I—I walked the hidden roads.”

“You did. And who taught you this skill?”

“You did! We studied them in the—”

“We studied their theory, Evayne. Trust the master to know when the pupil has been properly tested.”

She swallowed. It was true.

“Still, if you managed to use the
theory
to escape such a creature, I will do my best to be grateful at a quickness of thought that you rarely reveal.” He lifted his finger, and the room flared with an angry orange light. The image of the demon
was torn into beads of spell-light that faded before Evayne could piece them together. “Very well. You've shown me what you had to show me. You will not image that in my presence again. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Good.” He passed his hand over his eyes. “You were the best student I ever had the hardship of teaching. You know what this will mean. Demonology is being practiced again; keep it quiet until we find the source, or we'll have widespread panic.” His gaze narrowed. “Where were you?”

“Breodanir. In the King's hunting preserve.”

“You think that the Breodani—”

“Absolutely not.”

Meralonne raised a pale brow. “You aren't usually this defensive, Evayne. Are you reacting instinctively or because of experience?”

She said nothing, but blushed; both were as he expected.

“Still, Breodanir. There's something about it that seems vaguely familiar. There's certainly an Order there, if small. Let me see.” He walked over to his desk, and began to search—sift, really—methodically through the papers and journals there. It was quite clear that the chaos represented some form of order to the mage, but what exactly it was, Evayne couldn't say. When she had studied more intensively under his tutelage, her desk had always been meticulously tidy and well-organized. “Ah, here it is.”