The Storm Witch (14 page)

Carcali sat down in the candidate’s chair, where she’d fully expected to be sitting for her Mage’s examination in two months’ time, if this crisis hadn’t put all classes and all examinations on hold. She’d be the youngest qualified Mage in the history of the Academy—once she was finally examined. She crossed her ankles and laid her hands palm down on her thighs. She nodded to Jenn Shan to show that she was ready to begin.

“Your proposal is interesting.” The Head Artist placed her hand on the sheaf of papers before her. “It shows your great heart, and your youthful enthusiasm. It pains me to tell you that energy and enthusiasm are not enough.”

The blow was so sudden, and so unexpected that Carcali felt as if the Head Artist had borrowed the skills of the Artist of Water and frozen her solid as a lump of ice. She hadn’t really expected her plan to be accepted right away—she’d figured that there would have to be some minor adjustments, and she’d been ready to welcome input and suggestions, especially from the Artists.

But to be rejected out of hand. Rejected completely.

“I don’t understand,” she said, shock giving her the determination to speak. “Is there a flaw in my design?”

“Your design looks feasible, on the surface,” Fion Tan, Artist of Air, said. “But the amount of power required . . .” The older man shook his head.

“But I could do it myself if others were unwilling, or unable, to help me—”

“No,” Fion Tan shook his head. “You couldn’t. That’s where your own inexperience is misleading you. You’re not ready. You’re months away from your examinations, and you would have to pass them, and pass them with the highest distinction, before you could undertake even to help in an action as far-reaching as cooling the sun.”

“I
can
do it,” Carcali said, hoping she didn’t sound merely stubborn. “You know I’m powerful enough.”

“Powerful, yes.” The Head, Jenn Shan, took back the reins of the discussion. “Disciplined, no. You could not sustain your anchors long enough, and without that, you would lose control over all the forces in your hands. Power without discipline is nothing but a danger to us all.”

Fion Tan consulted a notebook he had in front of him. “Discipline has been a problem for you, hasn’t it? Not unexpected in an apprentice, especially one with such a great natural ability. The Art isn’t easy, and the limits, while necessary, can chafe.” He turned a page. “No lesser Academy in your town, I see.” He looked up. “You’ve resisted submitting to discipline all along, haven’t you? And not just ours, but even your own.”

“That’s not true.” Carcali’s hands had formed into fists.

“Really? Then you have learned all your
Shora
? You’re ready to be examined on them now?”

Carcali refused to lower her eyes, even though she felt her cheeks and ears burning.

“Your adviser has spoken to you on this point, has he not?”

Even the calmer, softer voice of the Head Artist couldn’t soothe her.
That’s
what this was about? She hadn’t been practicing her
Shora
like a good little girl? She hadn’t been following their precious stodgy old rules?

“You may not be aware that your adviser has needed to speak for you often, pleading your case, asking for more time to persuade you.” This was Fion Tan again. “But even he admits that you are argumentative, that you go too much your own way in spite of others.” With one hand still holding his notebook open, he tapped his own copy of her plan. “Which this proposal more than amply demonstrates. There are others among your tutors who have been pressing for more severe penalties, perhaps even expulsion from the Academy, since you show little interest in our methods, and our traditions.”

“Enough.” Calm as it was, Jenn Shan’s voice cracked like a whip, and the Artist of Air subsided, closing his notebook. “In the face of the present crisis,” Jenn Shan continued, “we lack the time to look into your candidacy, Carcali. Simply put, we cannot agree to your plan. There is no Artist powerful enough to undertake it. And while
your
power is undeniable, your skills are insufficient. The Council has decided. You may go.”

Carcali had stood up and left them, turning and marching out of the Council Room with her face burning and her teeth clenched. Her skills were insufficient, were they? Sanctimonious pricks. Rather the world came to an end than try something that wasn’t part of their precious traditions. She’d show them.

She’d show them right now.

She had started to run, turning down corridor after familiar corridor until she’d reached her own lab space. There she’d hoisted herself into the Weathersheres Chair and hurriedly strapped herself in, hands trembling. If even one of those stodgy old beasts who called themselves the Artists Council understood her at all, they’d be here stopping her—but no, it would never occur to them that she wouldn’t just go chastened back to her room like a good little Crafter. Just showed how smart they
really
were.

Carcali lay back and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. She felt herself lift, and relaxed into it, let herself spread thin, until she was absorbed, the air her breath, the rain and moisture her blood and fluids. At one with the heat, the cold, and the push of unbelievable pressures. She looked about herself. She was swimming in the swirl of colors that were the currents of the air, like splashes of paint on an ordinary artist’s palette. All shades, all colors, every shade and tint—some without names in the human language—and each carrying its own message, its own piece of information.

And there, the hot, bright streak that was the pathway of the sun.

 

Pain brought Carcali back to the present. She was squeezing her hands so tightly her nails were digging into her palms.

She gradually became aware that the audience was ending, people were stepping back from the throne, and lowering their heads in respect as the Tarxin rose to his feet. At the right moment, Carcali edged forward on the lesser throne and stood up. As the Tarxin turned away, he spoke to one of his attendants.

“Bring the child.”

What does he want?
Carcali made a conscious effort to breathe more slowly as she stepped in front of the servant. What if he said something about her coming when she was summoned? All right, that would give her the opening she needed to explain to him why studying the maps that had finally arrived was more important than sitting through a meaningless public ceremony—no. Better if she said she’d been caught up and distracted by her work.
Don’t antagonize him,
she reminded herself. He was the one keeping the Healers away.

“Daughter.” The man’s voice was dry and cool, the word had no feeling behind it. Carcali hesitated, unsure whether she was meant to respond. “Do you now find yourself recovered from your ordeal?”

“Yes. Yes,
Father,
” she corrected quickly.

“You are feeling well?”

“Yes, I—” The blow came so quickly Carcali did not see it, could not have ducked or moved out of the way. Her cheek felt hot. Stunned, she was raising her hand to her face when another blow landed. This time she found herself on her knees.

“You will come when I send for you. You will not daydream. You will be attentive and alert. You will not embarrass the throne again. You are showing yourself very useful, far more so than could have been expected from a girl child. Your help with the crops, your knowledge of the lodestone and your suggestions about the boat building—all to the good.” Here his dry voice became even colder than before. “But do not forget yourself. Do not forget who you are.”

He didn’t wait to hear an answer. He was gone when she looked up.

That night the winds rose, and the rain fell. Lightning struck the Tarxin’s garden house and very nearly burned it to the ground.

Sweat had caused much of the mud to come off, leaving Dhulyn feeling sticky, and not a little itchy. She had eaten the fish several hours before—it had lasted even less time in this heat than she’d thought. She’d considered keeping at least part of her trousers to use as a sling, but the smell of dead fish convinced her to leave them behind. She was going to die anyway, might as well be as comfortable as possible. It wasn’t until afterward she’d realized that she’d left her rocks behind as well. She’d shrugged. No Mercenary Brother was ever really unarmed. The only luck she’d had so far was to find, first another stream at which she’d drunk her fill and rewet her head covering, and then a road.

She frowned. If you could call this a road. It was flat, somewhat smooth, and showed some signs of metalwork at low points. But the few prints she could make out in the dust were puzzling. Bare feet, yes. Sandaled feet, yes. And at least one print that could have been a boot. Thin wheels about an arm’s length apart, yes. An animal with four two-toed feet leaving a print something like the Berdanan camel. It took her several hours to figure out what was missing, which she blamed on the heat.

There were no hoofprints. Why were there no hoofprints? She was just too tired, and too hot to consider what this meant.

The sun had lowered enough to get in her eyes when a glint of metal down the road in front of her brought Dhulyn to a stop.

People.

Her first instinct was to find cover, buy time to assess the situation. But she thought better of it. This could be her chance to find a way to shelter, to begin gathering the information she would need to find and kill the Storm Witch.

The glint of metal disappeared into a small cloud of dust, which eventually resolved itself into two guards on foot, one armed with a crossbow, the other a sword, and two larger, huskier men carrying a sedan chair between them. The two guards, deeply tanned and wearing only leather harness above their short kilts, stopped on seeing her, and spread out to flank her. She let them. The noble in the chair tapped on the side of the chair’s sunshade and the two carriers lowered their burden to the ground.

Slaves?
Dhulyn thought, taking a careful breath and shaking out her hands.
Mutes?
She stood her ground as the man stepped out of the chair and approached her. He wore sandals with soles thick enough to keep his feet clear of the dirt, but even so, he was only Dhulyn’s own height. His skin color was much darker than her own, but he was paler than his guards. His clothing seemed eminently suitable to the climate, a long piece of vertically creased and folded linen wrapped around his lower body, topped with a short-sleeved tunic cropped at his navel and heavily embroidered in what looked like gold thread that matched the series of tiny rings piercing the edges of his ears. His sword was slung much too low around his hips, the folds of his skirt contrived in such a way as to make the weapon seem more a piece of jewelry than a method of defense.

The noble stopped a half span in front of her, put his fists on his hips and looked her up and down. Dhulyn knew she hardly looked the part of a Mercenary Brother, naked, unarmed, filthy with mud and sweat, scratched by thornbushes, barefoot, and smelling of old fish.

She tilted her head to one side and smiled her wolf’s smile. The noble backed up half a step. The guard on the left, the swordsman, suppressed a smile. The crossbowman on the right and the two chair carriers pretended they hadn’t seen anything. Somehow, they all gave the impression of having had plenty of practice at that.

“You are an escaped slave,” the noble said slowly, as if he expected her to misunderstand him. He spoke the common tongue, but his accent was one Dhulyn had never heard. “Tell me quickly what House you’re from and I promise I won’t punish you too severely.”

“You are a fool,” Dhulyn said, just as slowly and clearly, aware that to him she’d be the one with the accent. “Tell me quickly you won’t jump to conclusions again and I promise to stop laughing at you.”

The man’s face darkened to the point that Dhulyn feared for the condition of his heart. The ghost of a smile on the face of the swordsman standing behind him widened to a real grin, quickly stifled.

The noble lifted his hand and the two guards tensed. “Don’t lie again,” the noble said, still with great clarity.

Dhulyn raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t lie,” she said. “You
are
a fool.”

“The scars on your back show you are a slave.”

“Scars don’t make a me slave, just as a sword doesn’t make you a warrior.”

The noble dropped his hand.

Dhulyn didn’t need the signal, having seen from the corner of her eye that the crossbowman was lifting his weapon. As the man’s finger tightened she jumped to the left and caught the bolt in her right hand. With her left hand, she pulled off her head covering and threw it into the face of the swordsman, leaped forward, and drove the crossbow bolt into the noble’s hand, pinning it to his thigh, jerked his sword free herself—
knew it was belted too low
—as she swept the noble’s feet out from under him, and turned to face the two guards.

Only to find them openmouthed, wide-eyed, and staring.