14 Coloine

Did I really write that? That we could handle anything tomorrow brings? My hands are shaking so hard I can barely

Trying to stay calm. This book does no one any good if it’s illegible. I’m going to write it all as it happened, and then I’ll let myself think about what has to come next.

This morning I woke when Cederic kissed my forehead and said something about going to the circle chamber. I never used to sleep this soundly. You’d think sharing a bed with someone would make me more likely to be roused at unfamiliar movement, but no, he can rise and dress and be out the door while I snore peacefully away. (That was a figure of speech—I don’t snore. I know, everyone says that, but trust me, if I were a snorer, I’d be dead several times over by now.)

I didn’t remember what had happened between Vorantor and Cederic until I reached the dining hall; I was in a good mood thanks to a wonderful night with a wonderful man, but when Audryn said, “What is Sai Aleynten going to do?” it brought me out of my peaceful contentment like a gallon of ice water to the face.

“You probably know more about it than I do,” I said. “I barely understand the oaths they swore. What judgment was Vorantor talking about?”

Audryn and Sovrin exchanged glances. “Only the God-Empress can determine if they’ve broken their vows,” Audryn said. “Sai Vorantor will try to show her that Sai Aleynten failed to follow his leadership. What we want to know is if Sai Aleynten decided to counter-challenge.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Can he?”

“Sai Vorantor hasn’t been listening to Sai Aleynten for days now,” Sovrin said, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Sai Aleynten can claim Sai Vorantor wasted the Kilios’s abilities after accepting what he offered. If he counter-challenges and wins, he can request that Sai Vorantor be removed.”

“That sounds like a good idea. Why wouldn’t he do that?” I said.

“Because the God-Empress is…not consistent,” Audryn said, after nearly three seconds of groping for a word that didn’t sound like a criticism. “She might see being asked for a judgment at all as an affront to God. Sai Aleynten might be better off staying quiet. It’s not as if Sai Vorantor can prove his case.”

“So why is he bothering?” Sovrin said. “This is a waste of time. We should be preparing that kathana. I swear I’ve felt tremors this morning.”

“We don’t even know what the signs of the convergence are,” Audryn said. “It’s your imagination. Sesskia, hurry up and eat, and let’s go to the circle chamber. Whatever happens, we should be there.”

I gobbled my food, and I wasn’t the only one; if Vorantor did bring some kind of challenge against Cederic, it would affect all of us. When we arrived, though, Vorantor and Cederic weren’t there. We found places with the rest of the Darssan mages and resumed our work on the complicated th’an.

I wish I could write that it became instantly obvious that it was a pouvra and that I could use it with ease, but all I can say is that it does feel like it has the same shape as a pouvra, just with missing parts. I was debating with Kaurin whether it made more sense for me to figure out those missing pieces first, or just try to make it work, when Vorantor came in. He was dressed in one of his most ornate robes (not the red one, so he wasn’t insane) and there was a smug gleam in his eye I didn’t like.

He started ordering people around immediately, both his mages and the Darssan mages, but he ignored me entirely. I stood and watched and wondered, first, where Cederic was, and second, whether I should try to annoy Vorantor by asking for instructions when he clearly didn’t believe I was necessary. I decided to watch for the moment, and see how much of the kathana I could understand.

It was another twenty minutes before Cederic appeared, and all movement stopped when he entered, because he was wearing the Kilios’s robe and looked every inch the leader Vorantor wished he could be. He came to Vorantor’s side—Vorantor was supervising a pair of Sais crouched on the floor who were having trouble scribing an inert th’an, it kept activating and disappearing—and said, “I believe if the two of you switch places, you will overcome your difficulty.”

“You have no authority here, Cederic,” Vorantor said. The two Sais looked up at him, then at each other, nervously.

“You made that clear, Denril,” Cederic said. “I think you will find that the Kilios still has a right to participate. And there is nothing wrong with the Kilios making a suggestion.” The two Sais quietly began to switch places with as little movement as possible.

“Stay where you are,” Vorantor said to the Sais. “Full of yourself today, aren’t you, Kilios? Feeling the need to impress your lowly inferiors with the red robe?”

“Just a reminder,” Cederic said, though he didn’t say who needed to be reminded.

Vorantor turned on him, grabbed his shoulder and got right up into his face. “As if you haven’t gone out of your way to remind me of it every day for the last four years,” he snarled. The two Sais looked like they were thinking about crawling away. “You couldn’t let it go, could you,” Vorantor said.

“You are the one who craved glory, Denril, not I,” Cederic said. He was the only one unmoved by Vorantor’s aggression; everyone else went tense, waiting for a fight to start. I began making plans in my head, ways to defend Cederic, ways to attack Vorantor and anyone who might want to side with him.

“I only wanted what was mine,” Vorantor said, his fingers tightening on Cederic’s arm. “And you always got there first. Well, that’s not going to happen again. I’m going to ask the God-Empress to strip you of that robe.”

“She lacks the authority to do so,” Cederic said. “Release me, Denril. If the God-Empress comes, I will submit to her judgment, but until then, I will exercise my right to be present. Unless you believe you should usurp her authority in that as well.”

Vorantor cursed (I think. It was a word that didn’t translate) and shoved Cederic away; Cederic rocked, but otherwise stood firm, then stepped away from the circle and went to stand by himself at one side of the room. I nodded once at him in acknowledgment, then looked away toward where Sovrin was having a discussion with one of Vorantor’s mages that had an edge to it that promised violence, even if only verbal.

Vorantor was pretending he still had control, but everyone kept glancing at Cederic, who looked bored. The only time I’d seen him look bored before this was when he created that shield kathana, and since I now knew he’d been ready to attack the God-Empress’s soldiers if they raised their swords, I was really worried about what might happen next.

to be continued…

13 Coloine

This was a really bad day. I’m starting to feel afraid, about so many things.

Cederic forced Vorantor to reveal his kathana. He was clever about it, put it in terms of “we’ll all have to understand it” and “don’t know how soon we will need it” so he sounded too reasonable for Vorantor to refuse. So Vorantor did—still smug, still completely affable, which made me suspect him more.

And it almost did what it was supposed to do.

Like Cederic said, it had no room for my kind of magic at all. Vorantor explained that, how my magic only exists because the original disaster created it, and therefore would just make the kathana unstable—he made it sound logical, but Cederic immediately countered it by pointing out that my magic was actually half of what had originally existed, and therefore his argument was invalid.

That’s when Vorantor became furious. He accused Cederic of undermining him at every turn, of insisting on pursuing research that was irrelevant, in short, of breaking his oath. And Cederic became completely expressionless and rose to new heights of sarcasm, claiming that Vorantor had abused his responsibility and misused the Kilios’s abilities.

The fight went on for half an hour while everyone stood and watched, terrified to intervene or leave. It ended with Vorantor challenging Cederic’s loyalty and insisting on a judgment, and Cederic saying he could take it up with the God-Empress if he wanted, and then Vorantor stormed off.

Except I was watching him the whole time—I already know how Cederic looks when he’s furious—and I’m certain Vorantor planned it all. He wants the God-Empress to make a ruling on whether the oath was broken, and who did it, and I know he’s got some plan to make it so Cederic is the one the God-Empress blames. Cederic is still angry enough that he won’t talk about it, though I think part of that anger is that he agrees with me and despises himself for being goaded.

The other frightening thing is that there was a message for me, in my room, my locked room, when I came back after dinner, sitting on my bed where I couldn’t help but notice it. It was in the same hand as the messages Vorantor received from Aselfos. It frightened me enough that, after I thoroughly checked my room to see if there were any secret entrances I didn’t know about, I went to the Sais’ common room and made up some reason for Cederic to come with me. It was dangerous, I know, but I can’t read and I didn’t want to wait for Cederic to eventually come to bed.

We went back to my room, and Cederic read the message silently, then set it aside and stared off in the direction of my wardrobe. “Tell me,” I insisted after it became clear that he might sit there like that all night.

“It says, ‘Three days from now the palace will not be safe,’” Cederic said. “It seems Aselfos is repaying his debt to you.”

“Three days,” I repeated. “No wonder Vorantor was transferring the war wagons. Aselfos is planning his coup.”

“The convergence could happen any day,” Cederic said. “In three days nowhere might be safe.”

“And tomorrow Vorantor will have prepared his challenge,” I said. “Anything might happen, when the God-Empress is involved.”

Cederic put his arms around me, and I held onto him and closed my eyes, wishing I could shut out the world that easily. “Why isn’t everything simple?” I said. “Why does Vorantor have to be jealous and the God-Empress have to be insane and Aselfos want to take over Castavir? I would like just one night where none of those things exist.”

“I think I can give you that,” Cederic said. “Go to my room and get into bed. I will return to the Sais’ room and join the discussion so no one remarks on my absence, and then I will come to you. I only wish I could find you wearing that dress.”

“Did you like it, then?” I said.

“I found the sight of your bare shoulders intoxicating. It was with great difficulty that I refrained from carrying you off to my bed and ravishing you,” Cederic said. “But then I have the same trouble when you wear nothing at all.”

“When I wear nothing at all,” I said, “I don’t mind being ravished.”

So now I’m waiting here in Cederic’s room, naked and writing all this down, and I feel less frightened. Whatever tomorrow brings, we’ll be able to handle it.

12 Coloine

Vorantor agreed to begin setting up the kathana, doing the same preparatory work they did for summoning the Codex. He was so agreeable about it that I know he’s planning something. Cederic was very polite about it, but when Vorantor left the room, he quietly wandered in our group’s direction and whispered a few things to Sovrin, who’s become the Darssan mages’ leader in Terrael’s absence—personally I think she’s better at it than Terrael, who’s easily distracted.

Then Sovrin gathered the rest of us and drew a complicated set of linked th’an that I didn’t recognize at all. She says it’s part of the kathana and we need to see if I can learn to manifest it as a pouvra. It’s daunting, but I had the mages deconstruct it and we’ll see what we can do. At least we know it will be useful, if we succeed.

Cederic had me look at the maps a few minutes ago and asked if I saw anything strange, other than how the large cities don’t overlap. It just looks like a map to me. There’s not even a pattern to the ruins, even if you assume that we haven’t discovered all of them. Cederic nodded, but he stared at the maps himself for several minutes while I waited for him to speak. Finally he said something about it not mattering and walked away. I tried not to feel offended. He’s been working harder than anyone.

11 Coloine

Kathana almost done, according to Vorantor, not that anyone else would know because he’s keeping it all to himself. Some argument today between Vorantor and Cederic over whether we should perform the kathana now (Cederic) or wait until the convergence is upon us (Vorantor). Vorantor’s reasoning is that we’ll have a better chance of success the closer the worlds are, and he has a good point.

Cederic, on the other hand, wants us to minimize the damage the convergence will cause by doing the kathana before the worlds are close enough to start disrupting each other. What he didn’t say was that he wants to have time to perform the correct kathana after Vorantor’s fails. It wasn’t so much an argument as a difference of opinion, carried out in reasonable and polite voices, which tells me that Vorantor is definitely planning something. He’s certainly not letting Cederic near any of the plans for the kathana now, telling him that he (Cederic) needs to work on his part of the research and not try to do everyone’s jobs for them, in a supercilious tone of voice that to me sounds as if he has a nasty secret he’s just waiting for the right time to reveal.

This is the closest I’ve seen Cederic come to really losing his temper—other than when he shouted at me, but that’s best left forgotten. It would be easier if we knew when the convergence will occur, because it will take time to set the kathana up, and that’s the best argument against Vorantor’s position—we need to be better prepared.

We’ve identified two th’an that fit the pattern of the pouvra, but although I’m fairly sure it only needs one more to complete it, we don’t have any idea which one that is. And it’s only just occurred to me to wonder what this th’an will do when we’ve made it match the mind-moving pouvra—will it exactly duplicate what I do, or will it still have to be scribed on a surface?

I asked Alessa and Jaemis to give that some thought. It would be so much easier if we had a piece of the merging kathana to work on! Because right now we’re starting to feel discouraged again; even if we make this work, there’s nothing it can do in the kathana.

8 Coloine, evening

I had nodded off when Cederic returned and prodded me awake, telling me I shouldn’t sleep in my clothes. The note was crumpled in my hand—I had to smooth it as best I could before returning it—and I told him what I’d seen and what I’d found, leaving out the part where Vorantor nearly caught me.

Cederic was very interested in the kathana I’d witnessed and asked me a lot of questions about it. I was surprised at how much of it I remembered, and I was able to draw the th’an Vorantor had used at the end.

“It was a transference kathana,” Cederic finally said, “to move things from one location to another. The spit…it is a way to allow one person to perform a kathana that would normally take two or three mages. It is easy, but we try to train ourselves out of using it, not only because it is disgusting but because it often prevents a mage from moving further in his or her training. Denril was likely moving those war wagons. It might explain why there was no other exit from that chamber.”

“But he couldn’t have been doing it officially,” I said, “or he would have used the circle chamber, and asked for help. So he was doing it for Aselfos.”

“That is far too much speculation,” Cederic said.

I thrust the note at him. “Maybe this will confirm it,” I said.

Cederic read it quickly. “It is a list of items, most of them martial in nature,” he said, “and a few that are unfamiliar to me.”

“I bet one of those is whatever the war wagons are actually called,” I said.

“Possible,” Cederic said. He gave the note back to me. “But not proof, unfortunately. It is unsigned and Denril’s name is not on it.”

“I could bring all the notes here,” I said, and Cederic shook his head.

“That is unnecessary,” he said, “and I don’t say that because I dislike you risking yourself, because you could certainly do it tomorrow—later today, I suppose—when Denril is gone. This may not be proof good enough to accuse Denril of collusion in whatever plot Aselfos is behind, but it is enough to convince me of his involvement. But, as I believe I told you before, we still don’t know enough to do anything but confuse things. And an attempted coup by Aselfos is not necessarily a bad thing.”

“What I’m worried about is that Vorantor is planning something to hurt you,” I said, “and I don’t like not knowing what it is.”

“This does not seem related,” Cederic said, “and if you were not able to find anything indicating what Denril might have in mind, it is likely there isn’t anything to be found. I believe it is nothing more sinister than trying to take all the credit for the melding kathana, and it doesn’t matter to me who gets the credit for that.”

“You said you thought he would try to make it fail and look like your fault,” I said.

“Which cannot hurt me, since those whose opinions I care for will know the truth,” he said, and brushed my hair gently away from my face. “What matters is that the kathana works, and we will deal with whatever else happens afterward.”

“All right,” I said, “but I’m going to keep an eye on him anyway.”

“You and Master Peressten can protect me,” he said with a smile, “and I will do my best to allow myself to be protected. Now, let’s sleep, and make what we can of what’s left of this night.” And that’s what we did. We probably won’t be making love tonight either. Damn Vorantor anyway.

The day was just like yesterday. More Vorantor planning his kathana and keeping Cederic out, more of us (meaning the Darssan mages and me) failing to get our magics to combine. I didn’t tell anyone what Cederic said about our efforts possibly being useless, which would have been cruel.

I went back after lunch to put the message back in its niche, then went to the observatory to see if Aselfos had left a new note. He had. I wish I could read. Terrael would teach me if any of us had time. If the world doesn’t end, that’s the next thing I’m doing.

8 Coloine, very early

I was right to be suspicious of Vorantor, though I still don’t know exactly what he’s up to. I’ve decided to write all this down before taking it to Cederic, since there’s nothing he can do about it now, but there were things that happened before I found Vorantor in what I’m sure are illicit activities, so I have to make a quick list before I forget the details:

1. snake, arch, fork
2. pictures (he’s a good artist, maybe that’s something all mages in this world learn)
3. why did he spit?
4. rhythm tap tap taptaptap thump

Before that: last night Cederic finally came to bed before I fell asleep, and though we were both too tired for sex, we cuddled together and I poured out my fears to him. I love how he listens like what you’re saying is the most important thing in the world.

When I was finished, he wiped away the few stupid, self-indulgent tears I’d cried and said, “It doesn’t matter if our mages succeed. The kathana Denril has invented has no room for your magic, and it is bound to fail.”

“So why aren’t you doing something about it?” I said, sitting up in outrage.

He pulled me back down to lie close beside him. “Because he is not listening to me,” he said, “and there is a smugness about him that I do not understand. I may have the allegiance of the mages, but Denril still has control of the kathana, and he is relying far too heavily on the th’an Master Peressten extrapolated. He is clearly building the kathana to his glory without regard for whether or not it will work.”

“I don’t understand how he can do that!” I said. “He’ll suffer as much as anyone if we can’t bring the worlds together safely.”

“I think he intends to make the failure look like my fault, to make me look like a fool, and then he will reveal another kathana, this one effective. This is my fault. I should not have humiliated him so thoroughly,” Cederic said.

“If you hadn’t, he would have found another way to strike at you,” I said.

“Probably true,” he said. “At any rate, I have asked Master Peressten to observe him; he can get closer to Denril than I. And I am studying the false kathana when Denril is not present, to see if there is any way to salvage it. If we make corrections…and don’t worry that your efforts don’t seem to be successful. Just keep working at what you’ve been doing. If it doesn’t affect the kathana, it will almost certainly matter after the worlds come back together.”

He kissed me, then said, “I apologize, but I have to leave you now. I have very little opportunity to study the kathana without Denril hovering behind me.”

“But—” I began, then realized I was being selfish. “I understand,” I said. “Just as you will understand that I intend to go exploring now.”

His face went impassive in the way it does when he’s trying to control a strong emotion, then he said, “Where do you intend to go?”

“Somewhere you’re happier not knowing about,” I said, then, when he began to protest, I said, “I’m going to snoop around in Vorantor’s room. If he’s trying to get you out of the way somehow, I want to know about it.”

“You are correct, I was happier not knowing that,” Cederic said. “Though I was afraid you were going back to examine those war wagons again. I admit to being curious about them myself, though I think it is less safe for you to pass those guards than any of the other places you have gone wandering.”

“I agree, and I’m not going there tonight,” I said.

“Which implies that you will do so some other night,” Cederic said.

“I knew you were brilliant,” I said, and he laughed and held me tight for a moment, then released me to rise and dress. I did the same, then concealed myself and watched him move silently down the hall to the stairs before going, equally silently, to Vorantor’s door. No light came from beneath it, so I sneaked to the end of the hall and checked the observatory.

Sure enough, Vorantor was there, sitting where he always did. It was too dark for me to make out any details, so I don’t know if he had a note or not, but that wasn’t important. I crept back to his room and passed through the wall, then used the see-in-dark pouvra and took a look around.

Vorantor—this wasn’t new, I’d learned it the last time I’d been in his room—is very neat and has almost no personal belongings aside from his clothing. I went through his wardrobe and found several ceremonial robes of different levels of splendor, though I’m sure I’d have been more impressed with them if I could have seen colors.

He also had a lot of shoes; I think he could wear a different pair of shoes every day for a week. He uses only one drawer of his dresser, for underclothing, and I poked through that in case he was a fool and kept important things there. Nothing.

There were no rugs on his floor, which is one of the places I look first when I’m searching for hidden documents. The lack of rugs almost got me caught, later, and I still wonder why Vorantor doesn’t have such basic amenities. Though I suppose, based on what I witnessed in his room, he might have had them removed on purpose.

I checked under his pillows (he has more than I do), between his mattresses and in the frame of the bed, felt along the top of the canopy frame, and found nothing. Since I didn’t know what I was looking for, I wasn’t terribly disappointed. I slipped behind his bed, which had been shoved nearly all the way against the wall (that made no sense at the time, but I get it now), and checked underneath it and along the wall.

There was a niche very like the one in my room, the one that’s practically an invitation to hide things, and I was about to feel around inside it, just to be thorough, when the door opened and Vorantor came in. I closed my eyes in time to avoid being blinded by his lamp. I was crouched behind the bed, so between that and the concealment pouvra I wasn’t worried about him seeing me, but I went very still anyway until the effects of the see-in-dark pouvra wore off.

When I opened my eyes again, he was removing his gold and brown “working” robe; fortunately for my peace of mind, he wore a sleeveless tunic under it, because what I do not need to see again is Vorantor’s very pale, slightly flabby skin. Just one more reason for him to be jealous of Cederic, who is wonderfully handsome and has not a bit of flab anywhere.

I closed my eyes again, in case he was undressing for the night, but I heard him taking things out of his wardrobe, so I opened my eyes again and saw him pulling a richly embroidered red robe around himself, and despite my well-trained self-control I nearly made an indignant noise, because he is not entitled to the robe of a Kilios! I don’t even know how he got one!

I managed to stay quiet despite my outrage. Vorantor dressed himself with great care, unfastened his hair and brushed it and secured it again with a wide gold band. Then he knelt on the floor, took out a piece of black chalk, and began drawing. I couldn’t see a thing with the bed in the way, so I carefully slid out from that narrow space and went to stand behind him. It was insane, I know, but I had to know what he was doing.

This is what it looked like: He drew a circle—the mages are all very good at drawing nearly perfect circles—and then a much smaller circle inside it, centered on it. (I’m having to check my list from the beginning of this entry, because I’m already forgetting things. I feel very smart for having made it.)

In the space between the circles, he began drawing th’an, some of which I recognized from the Codex Tiurindi summoning, others which were unfamiliar to me. Inside the small circle, he drew a tiny picture, and he is a very good artist, because it was obviously a war wagon.

Then he sat back on his heels, breathing hard as if he’d been running, then with his left hand began tapping out a rhythm, tap tap taptaptap THUMP, over and over again. He did it for long enough that I almost started tapping myself. Then, at the top of the pattern, he leaned over and with his right hand began making new th’an, following the beat.

I didn’t know these th’an, but they looked so much like real things that it was easy to remember them: one like a snake, or an S with two extra curves, one like an arch that curled outward at the ends, and one like a Castaviran fork, with four tines. He drew these in several places around the outside of the circle, and then totally surprised me by spitting a great gob of saliva at the war wagon at the center of it all.

All the chalk lines went from matte black to shining gold, as if inlaid with metal, and the spaces inside the circle that didn’t have lines drawn on them glowed with white light, not bright or painful, just a soft white glow.

And then I did something stupid. I inadvertently took a step back because the glow caught me off-guard, and I wasn’t as balanced as I thought. My boot scraped across the bare floor (no rug!) and made a small but distinct sound. Vorantor’s head whipped up and around, and he stood up and scanned the room, his eyes slowly passing over the walls and the floors.

I closed my eyes, which was terrifying, but I had a feeling if our eyes met, the concealment pouvra wouldn’t protect me. So I had to stand there, motionless, blind, waiting for him to grab me and unable to do anything about it.

Nothing happened. Finally Vorantor took a few steps in the direction of the window, and I opened my eyes and tried not to breathe loudly. The chalk marks on the floor, and the light, were gone as if they’d never been. Vorantor had the curtains open and was looking out at Colosse (my room is on the other side and looks over the palace roofs).

I dared take a silent step backward; he didn’t react. Slowly, one cautious step at a time, I moved toward the door—and then I stopped. I should have left, but I really wanted to know if he kept anything in that niche behind the bed. So I leaned against the wall next to the door and waited. Eventually he got undressed (I kept my eyes closed for this too) and I waited for him to finish reading, then he turned off the light and settled in for the night.

I waited a little longer until his breathing slowed. I hoped he’d start snoring, but unfortunately that’s one annoying trait he doesn’t have. So I did the see-in-dark pouvra again, crept up to his bed, slid between it and the wall, then crouched low and felt along the base of the wall, wishing there were enough room for me to wiggle under the bed. Instead I knelt there with my face pressed against the cold wall, telling myself I was being stupid and there was nothing to find, and then my fingers reached the crack and I reached inside.

Something moved beneath my hand and made a rustling sound that in the dark seemed louder than an explosion. Vorantor shifted his weight, and I held my breath, but he didn’t wake. The wall niche seemed full of dry leaves, or small papers—I teased one out and brought it to where I could look at it. Meaningless writing, but I was certain it was one of the notes Aselfos had sent Vorantor.

And now I had a dilemma. I really wanted to know what was in those notes, but I was equally desirous that Vorantor not know someone had been snooping in his room. There was a chance he’d notice if one of them were missing. I crouched there with the note in my hand, weighing the possibilities.

Then I tucked the note inside the waistband of my trousers and began to retrace my slow, silent steps. Vorantor hadn’t checked the niche when he came in, which meant he likely only looked inside when he put a new note there. I could show the note to Cederic, then return it during the day tomorrow when Vorantor was at the circle chamber, before evening when he might receive a new one.

That’s my plan, anyway. I’ve been waiting for Cederic for nearly an hour now and I have no idea when he’ll return. He can’t go forever without sleep, though he doesn’t seem to need as much of it as normal, sane people do, so eventually he’ll have to come back, and then he can read the note and we can decide what, if anything, we should do about it.