13 Nevrine, after curfew (hah!)

I’ve decided to keep these books hidden now we’re among the mages. Not that we’ve met any of them yet; it was very late when they brought us here. So they might all be friendly and intelligent and committed to learning—in short, like the Darssan mages. But I’m not counting on that. No telling what someone might make of these records…all right, that’s a lie, I have a very good idea of what someone might make of these records, which is that I’m a traitor to my country on any number of grounds, not least of which is being married to a high-ranking mage from the “invading” world. The fact that I’ve done all of this to save both worlds would be lost on anyone who was stupid or fearful or had some kind of grudge against me, though I hope there isn’t anyone here who falls into the latter category. Making enemies is the worst kind of being noticed, and I’ve spent my life trying to avoid that.

It had stopped snowing early this morning, but it was still gray and depressing and Jeddan and I were impatient to get to our goal, so we didn’t stop except once to relieve ourselves, ate on the way, and spoke little. When we approached Venetry sometime late this afternoon, there was a crowd milling about on the road outside the gate, not aimlessly, but with the erratic movements of a lot of people in one place, all wanting to be somewhere else.

We hung back, observing, and realized that rather than being an incipient mob, which has a much tenser, higher note to it, these were all people waiting their turn to get into the city, which was strange. I’ve been to Venetry often, and yes, I did use the gate, and nobody stops travelers unless they’re carrying trade goods. But we could see a lot of armed soldiers stopping people and having long conversations with them before letting them inside. It made me nervous, and I suggested we enter the city by another way.

“We’re mages. The King wants us here. It’s not like we’ll be turned away,” Jeddan said.

“They’re making people put their names on lists,” I said. “I don’t like that.”

“But we have to get the King’s attention somehow,” Jeddan said. “Being on an official list will help with that. And these soldiers will send us to wherever the mages are supposed to go, and that’s got to give us better access to King and Chamber than going through the wall will.”

I scowled, and said, “All right, but if this goes wrong I’m blaming you.”

“If this goes wrong, neither of us might be around to do any blaming,” he said cheerfully.

We fitted ourselves into the loose line of travelers and inched forward with everyone else. It was boring, and cold, and I really wished we’d gone through the wall. Jeddan had the glazed-eyed expression that said he was working on the mind-moving pouvra. I’m not sure he’d thought about what might happen if he succeeded in the middle of this crowd and knocked someone over. At least it would be exciting. The whole thing made me realize I haven’t stood in line for anything in at least five years. I vowed it would be another fifteen before it happened again.

“Name?” said a soldier, and I realized we’d reached the front of the line while I was daydreaming.

“Thalessi Scales and Rokyar Axe,” I said.

The soldier wrote our names in a little book, along with the date and time (there are about fifty big clocks in Venetry, none of them in agreement with each other, and one of them is just above the main city gate where we were. No one knows why some long dead ruler, or Chamber, thought people entering the city ought to know what the time was. At least that one doesn’t toll the hour) and had us initial the entry. “Purpose?” he said.

“We’re mages,” I said.

“What’s that?” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “Magickers? People touched by magic? With the eyes?” I pointed at my eyes in emphasis.

He peered closely at me, then at Jeddan, and I realized he was very nearsighted. “Papers?” he said.

“We don’t have papers,” I said. “We heard about the summons in Hasskian, but no one said anything about papers.”

“Then you’ll have to prove yourselves,” he said, and pointed at another soldier, standing just inside the gate. “Talk to Nessan there about that. Curfew is nine p.m., no carrying weapons in the streets, no loitering, watch for the off limits signs, and if a soldier tells you to do something, you do it without question.”

“Curfew?” I said. “I’ve never known Venetry to have a curfew.”

“Martial law,” he said. “City nearly tore itself apart after the calamity, what with magic happening and the earth shifting. Things still aren’t back to normal. Move along.”

There wasn’t anything to say to that, so Jeddan and I went to where the soldier Nessan was standing. He was older than the first, his hair graying and his eyes deeply lined at the corners as if he’d spent thirty years staring at the sun. He also wore a different uniform I didn’t recognize as either regular army or city guard. “Magickers?” he said when we approached.

“We’re called mages,” I said, which was pointless, but I was feeling edgy and annoyed and wanted to get the whole thing over with.

“You can call yourself nasturtiums for all I care,” he said. “Over here, and let’s see what you can do.”

We stepped out of the way of traffic into a little guard room that was empty of everything except a couple of chairs, a chest with a couple of warped drawers, and some smoked-glass lanterns, lit against the dimness of the windowless room. Jeddan put his hand through the wall and didn’t seem afraid or upset or anything but calm, so I hope that means he’s coming to terms with what happened in the camp. I settled on the fire pouvra, the ropy version. Nessan wasn’t impressed by either of us. “You’re to go to Fianna Manor for instructions,” he said. “You know where that is?”

“I’ve been to Venetry before,” I said, which was kind of a non-answer, but he understood the way I meant it.

“But we have to deliver a message first,” Jeddan said. “An urgent message from the army at Calassmir.”

“Go ahead,” Nessan said.

“It’s for the King and Chamber,” Jeddan said. We’d worked out that he should bring the message, in case anyone wondered why a woman had been entrusted with military intelligence.

“Of course it is,” Nessan said sarcastically. “And I’m supposed to take you to the King on no more proof than the say-so of some backwoods lumberjack.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but Jeddan cut across me with, “What exactly do you think I’m going to do? You think I’ve traveled all the way from Calassmir just because I feel like wasting the King’s time? I’m tired and I’m hungry and if I could deliver this message to just anyone, I’d tell you and my work would be done. But this message is for the King himself, because he’s the only one who can decide how to act on it. So find someone to take us to him, or we’ll just wait here until you change your mind or carry us off to jail.”

to be continued…

11 Nevrine

I’d completely forgotten that Jeddan took the mage bandit’s pendant and ring. We found someone this morning willing to take the ring in exchange for five days’ worth of food, more than enough to get us to Venetry, which is only two more days away. It was worth a good deal more than what we got for it, and part of me wishes we’d waited until I could sell it in Venetry, but the rest of me, the part that doesn’t like going hungry, shouted that little part down.

Our learning technique works, and it doesn’t. That is—and I shouldn’t have done this—I had this unreasonable expectation I’d be able to pour the structure into Jeddan’s head, so to speak, and he’d get it immediately and then it would be just a matter of his flexibility of will. And that didn’t happen. But we’re making a lot more progress, more quickly, than I did, so in that sense, it works. Jeddan’s enthusiastic about it. Still won’t talk about what happened to that guard, and I’m starting to worry that maybe I need to bring it up, and I just don’t know how to do that. I don’t want to make things worse. So I’m going to leave it alone, and hope, if he needs someone to talk to, he’ll feel comfortable turning to me.

We came across the strongest evidence of the convergence’s destruction this afternoon. There was a place on the Royal Road where a Castaviran highway intersected with it, or would have if the convergence didn’t destroy every structure that overlapped with another. So the Royal Road comes to a crumbling halt, and then there’s a big roundish space where everything’s been obliterated, and then it starts up again. It was eerie, and we detoured around it even though we assured each other it was harmless. Castavir’s roads aren’t as well-kept as ours, and they don’t have the new procedure that keeps ruts from forming, but then we don’t have self-cleaning chamber pots, so I think they win.

12 Nevrine

Nothing important happened today. Jeddan’s still working on the pouvra, but we’re both distracted wondering what’s going to happen in Venetry tomorrow. Some of our food turned out to be rotten. Wish I could steal that ring back.

10 Nevrine

We’ve decided I should try to teach Jeddan the mind-moving pouvra. I actually suggested teaching him the other walk-through-walls pouvrin, but he went very stiff and very silent, so I didn’t say anything else. I hope he doesn’t give up on using the pouvra entirely. It was his first, the one that made him a mage, and…maybe it’s not the same for him, but even though I don’t use fire very often in comparison with some of the others, I know I’d feel like part of me was missing if I stopped using it. But it’s not my right to tell him how to use his magic, so we’re concentrating on the other pouvra, and it’s true that the mind-moving pouvra is the most generally useful, at least to people who don’t have to sneak around on a regular basis.

It’s been not quite three months since I learned that pouvra, but it took me more than twice that long to understand it. I’ve written before about how I learn a pouvra, how it’s about learning the figurative language the mage who created it used to describe it, then understanding the shape that arises from that language, and finally bending your will to meet the pouvra so it manifests through you.

Since I’ve already done all that work of interpretation, Jeddan and I will use our new vocabulary to give him the shape of the pouvra, and the rest is up to him. That’s the idea, anyway. We’ve never done this before; it’s possible no one’s ever done this before, given how solitary mages have to be thanks to society. So I hope it will take less time, but we both know there’s no use making assumptions where magic is concerned. I would have sworn the mind-moving pouvra was for small, finicky movements, and then I saw Cederic knock half a dozen soldiers across the room with it. I wonder if he uses it often, or if he’s so used to th’an it never occurs to him. I wonder if he’s figured out any more pouvrin.

Anyway, today we mostly just refined our vocabulary, made sure we meant the same thing when we used a word or image, and I practiced making things insubstantial. I have no idea what use that might be. Hah. I felt the same way about being able to turn the concealment pouvra on another person, but using it on the God-Empress saved the lives of my friends. So maybe there will be a crucial moment that depends on someone dropping their weapon, or something like that. It’s fun to speculate about.

We’re going to need food soon, and we’ve almost used the last of the bandits’ money. There aren’t any large cities between here and Venetry, and I really, really don’t want to steal from people whose lives depend on the food they have stored for the winter. But I also don’t want to starve. We’ll have to think of a better way.

9 Nevrine

It worked this time. It feels really strange. I’ve been thinking of this pouvra as a single thing, but with this new…technique, maybe? I’ve realized it’s three separate pouvrin: turning myself insubstantial, turning that on someone else I’m touching, and extending that to work on something I’m not connected to. And they look…I’ve been thinking about it all day, and all I can say is it’s like they’re made of the same fabric, but assembled differently. Like a pile of twigs used to make a bird’s nest and then a woven mat. I don’t know what it means yet, but it feels important. If I could find more related pouvrin, or find another way to

It took me about twenty minutes, and I don’t know if that’s fast or if I’m slow, but I’ve confirmed that the fire pouvra as a mass of fire and as a rope of fire are different, and concealing myself and turning it out on someone else are different. Not as different as the walk-through-walls pouvrin, so I’m not surprised I didn’t see it, but I’m still shocked.

So I’ve created four new pouvrin without the help of books—or maybe they exist somewhere and I just discovered them independently. No way to tell. I still don’t know what it means, though! And it’s hard to analyze the pouvrin while we’re walking, so the only time I have is in the evening, and then I’m usually so tired I have trouble bending my will to the pouvrin.

I feel even more urgency, now, to get to Venetry, deliver my message, and then…would I really want to stay there for a few days just to study? I would. I’d apologize to Cederic, but I know he’d do the same. We’re both infected with that disease that drives us to learn. He might even be annoyed I let my desire to rejoin him interfere with my becoming a better mage. He’s going to laugh when I tell him about this.

8 Nevrine

Jeddan was back to normal today, or at least he was able to talk about normal things as we walked. We discussed pouvrin, mostly our mutual unexpected discoveries. Jeddan showed enthusiasm when he told me, in more detail, how he’d mastered the concealment pouvra. “You’re right,” he said, “it’s not the same as the others. It felt sharp, somehow, like a dull knife blade pressing against my skin.”

“Yes, to me it feels more angular than the Balaenic ones,” I said. “I wish I could talk to the mage who invented it. I wonder what he thought he’d discovered. He put everything in terms of th’an, even though Cederic said there was no way it would have done anything if someone tried to write it. But he knew something about pouvrin. Not the way we both do, but even so, maybe his knowledge would help us.”

“You said he was insane,” Jeddan said. “I’m not sure how useful that would be.”

“True,” I said, and sighed. “What I’d like to know is how I managed to do that with the walk-through-walls pouvra. It happened so quickly I’m not sure I can do it again.”

“I think you should practice as we go,” Jeddan said. He took a few steps off the road and wrenched a thick branch from a tree; it was dry, and snapped off easily. “I’ll hold it, and you make it fall.”

“I guess it’s something to do,” I said. So we did that for a couple of hours, with no success. I feel like I’m groping for something I’ve only heard about, even though I can remember a little of how it felt. It was I don’t want to lie. After hearing what Jeddan did to that guard, I was feeling uncertain about using the walk-through-walls pouvra in any way. We haven’t discussed it, but neither of us has any idea why, after all the times Jeddan has dived through people, this one died of it. So my heart wasn’t in my efforts. I’ll try again tomorrow.

7 Nevrine, continued (continued)

I went to find Jeddan, who’d managed to subdue four of the guards. I told him I was impressed and he rolled his eyes. “Somebody really did believe these Castavirans were too weak and afraid to fight back,” he said. “I hardly needed the concealment pouvra to get close enough to choke them unconscious. Are you ready for your part?”

“Are you sure it’s safe, with three guards still out there?” I said.

“There’s nothing more I can do,” he said. “The last one made some noise, and when the next sentry went past, he looked a lot more alert. They’ll have to take their chances.”

I nodded and went to find Liskesstis. She was waiting at the door of her tent, peering out into the snow. “This is not the best weather,” she said, “but it’s not snowing heavily anymore and I think in a few hours it will be clear.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I said. “If you can’t find that town, you’ll wander until you freeze to death.”

“Better than die in captivity,” she said, “and we’ll have a guide.” She moved her fingers, stiffly, and did it again, and then a globe of red light about an inch across hovered level with her nose. “It should lead us to our destination,” she said, “if those who know this area are capable of using it. I’m not entirely certain it will work, but it’s a better chance than we had before.”

“Did you teach Cederic that?” I asked on a whim. “The writing on air?”

She laughed. “He taught me,” she said, “some eight years ago, in exchange for some knowledge I gave him. The key to certain kathanas he needed to master to become Kilios. Why are you not with him?”

“We were separated during the convergence,” I said, “but I’ll find him, or he’ll find me. I’m certain of it.”

“I wish I could tell you where he is,” she said, “but the location kathanas no longer work, no doubt because of how the convergence brought the physical worlds together; the magic…you could say a location kathana recognizes the world around it and identifies a person within that landscape, and of course much has changed now. But don’t worry about it. Cederic Aleynten is stubborn and has never given up on a problem before he’s solved it.”

“I know,” I said, and saluted her the Castaviran way. “You’ll know when to move. Good luck.”

I went back to join my “soldiers” and said, “Take your places around the tent. They probably won’t think to grab their weapons. And remember, don’t shoot. Unless it’s your life or theirs.” Then I took a deep breath and summoned fire in a great swoop, spiraling around the tent from the ground to its many peaks.

Shouts and screams spilled out of the door, followed by guards who came up short when they discovered how many rifles were pointed at them. “Drop to the ground,” I shouted, “or we shoot.”

A couple hit the ground immediately. One looked like he was thinking about going back into the tent, but men were still spilling out of it and tangling themselves with the ones on the ground. “On the ground!” I shouted, and poured more fire into the conflagration.

Then one of the guards, who was either less drunk or had more presence of mind than his comrades, raised his rifle, and without thinking I bent my will to the shape of the walk-through-walls pouvra and saw it fall through his hands, making him scream and fall backwards into the fire. I took a few steps forward in shock, grabbed his feet and dragged him to relative safety, then told the Castavirans, “Tie them up, securely, and let’s put them inside that tent over there.”

By the time we were finished with that, Jeddan arrived and said, “They’re moving. Your men need to come now.”

A steady trail of Castavirans was exiting by way of a new hole in the fence that had Jeddan’s work stamped on it, literally, because I could see the shape of his boot where he’d kicked the so-called wall down. I saw two soldiers wriggling in their bonds just inside the wall. “Where’s the third?” I said.

Jeddan looked grim. “He got away,” he said.

“Then they need to move more quickly,” I said, taking a few steps toward the line. Jeddan put a hand on my arm.

“He didn’t get far,” he said. “I…killed him. Accidentally. Went through him, and he just spasmed and fell down. I didn’t know it could do that.”

“Time to think about it later,” I said. “Where’s the body?”

“I hid it where no one will find it until the spring thaw,” he said. “Are we done here?”

He sounded weary, and sad, and I wished I knew what to tell him that would comfort him. I remembered what he’d said to me the night I killed the bandit, and said, “You’re not a killer. You couldn’t bear the thought of these people being left here to die and you made me see the truth of that. If you didn’t care about people, it wouldn’t matter to you what happened to that guard. Right now, that doesn’t feel like comfort, but eventually it will. You showed me that too.”

He glanced down at me in the darkness, and said, “I think we should go,” so we trudged back around the camp, leaving that line of Castaviran refugees behind. Liskesstis was right, the weather was starting to clear, but only Jeddan’s ability to find his way outdoors kept us on the track leading back to the road, and the city, and then Debressken and the Royal Road. Then we kept on walking until we found a place to camp that was well off the highway, and fell unconscious for maybe ten hours. We ate, and walked, and made camp again, and after writing all that I feel as wrung out as if I’d experienced it a second time.

I keep seeing that line of travelers, stretched out like ants following a sugar trail, their heads bent against the snow. I don’t know if we sent them off to their deaths or not. I realize it was their decision, and it was a risk they wanted to take. I know we couldn’t have just left them there without finding out if there was something we could do to help. If they don’t make it…I shouldn’t feel responsible, but I do. I guess it’s because I feel their fates are tangled up with mine now, and I wish I could go with them, to help along that journey. I think that’s what I feel guilty about—that Jeddan and I started them on that path, then couldn’t follow it to the end.

I need to sleep again. We’re about six days’ journey from Venetry now, unless something else happens to slow us down. I just want to get this over with. Talking about Cederic with Liskesstis has just made me miss him more. Venetry, report to the king—oh, damn it, he’s summoning mages, he won’t want to let us go. Report to the king, sneak away, and go east to Colosse, which Cederic’s probably already left, looking for me. We might go across this new world and back fifty times and never find each other.

I’m going to sleep now, and pray the true God everything looks better in the morning. Jeddan hasn’t said anything since we left the Castavirans but what’s necessary to set up camp. I hope he’s coming to terms with that death. I hope I’m doing the right thing by not making him talk about it. I’m so glad I’m not alone on this journey.

7 Nevrine, continued (continued)

She looked skeptical. Worse than skeptical—she looked disdainful. I said, grasping at anything, “Master Liskesstis, I promise you in the Kilios’s name that we can free you, if that’s something you think will help. I know you can’t go back to your village, and I don’t know where else you can find shelter, but you will certainly start dying if you stay here. I bet some of you, the sickest and the smallest, have already succumbed. Please let us help you.”

She sneered. “I know the Kilios. Who are you to make promises in his name?”

“I’m his wife,” I said.

That changed her expression completely. She said, “Cederic Aleynten has no wife.”

“We were married two weeks before the convergence,” I said. “You know him? How?”

Her eyes narrowed. “What hand does he cut his meat with?”

“His left,” I said, “even though he’s right-handed, and before you ask, he cuts all his meat, even chicken legs, and it’s an impressive feat of agility.”

“Which of his ears is pierced?” she asked.

“Neither, though his right ear was pierced a long time ago. You can still see the mark,” I said, trying not to think about what we’d been doing when I made this observation.

“That only proves you’ve been close to him, not that you’re married,” she said.

I wished at that moment I could raise one eyebrow like Cederic does. “I could give you any number of corroborating details,” I said, “but then we’d have to have a very…intense…discussion about why you happen to know what he looks like naked.”

To my surprise, she laughed. “No need,” she said. “You’re exactly the sort of young woman Cederic would marry, if he had any sense, which he does.” I don’t know why I blushed at that. I’m putting it away somewhere to consider later.

Just then we heard footsteps outside, and hands grabbed me and Jeddan and pulled us into the crowd. Someone pounded on the tent pole in the door opening with what sounded like a big stick. “Shut up in there, damned traitors!” growled the guard, and everyone held very still until he went away. After a long, long time, Jeddan and I were released, and Liskesstis came to stand before me again. “We will not survive this,” she said in a low voice. “They have already begun rounding up victims to be raped. Some of them do not return. And our children…we will risk anything for a chance at survival.”

“We can’t free you unless you have somewhere safe to go,” I said.

“There’s a town about ten miles east of here, or was. No reason to believe it’s not still there,” Liskesstis said. “We can walk that far, or die trying, but at least we’d die on our own terms. And I don’t think we’ll die.”

“How many mages do you have?” I asked.

“Only one, in addition to me, and she is barely more than a child,” she said. “I am the only Darssan mage here. I thought my retirement would be peaceful,” she laughed.

“I think you should gather anyone the people will listen to, and begin planning your journey,” I said, “and Jeddan and I will work on helping you leave this place.”

“We can’t just walk into the snow! We’ll wander until the storm kills us!” a woman said.

“Have faith,” Liskesstis said. “We’ve kept you warm so far, haven’t we? Hidden the most vulnerable? These two have offered their help, and I think they can deliver on their promise. They will open the way, and we will walk out of here. Or would you rather wait here for that pretty daughter of yours to be snatched up? Twelve, isn’t she?”

The muttering subsided. I said, “Will you have any trouble bringing everyone together?”

“We’ve been moving secretly between the tents ever since arriving here,” she said. “You worry about your own problem. I imagine it’s more difficult than ours.”

I shrugged, then repeated the conversation to Jeddan, quickly. “I had an idea, but I was wondering what you’d thought of,” I said.

“Let’s see how many guards we’re dealing with, then plan,” he said. “I’ll go outside the camp, where the snow will help conceal me, and you can look around in here.”

It took us about half an hour to feel confident we knew what we were facing. There was a tent, well-lit and comfortably warm, where ten or twelve guards sat, clearly uninterested in going out into the cold, though one of them made a desultory loop between several of the prison tents while I watched.

Seven other men patrolled the outside of the camp, though none of them were very alert. It was clear they all were counting on their rifles and the weather and the barrenness of their surroundings to keep the prisoners penned in, because anyone could have knocked the “fence” over and walked away. We met back up in a corner between the prisoners’ tents to confer. Jeddan was grinning far too broadly for someone facing an impossible challenge.

“I was nearly caught,” he said, “and look what happened.” He wavered, flickered, and I suddenly had to look away, my eyes watering from trying to see past the concealment pouvra. “It’s the strangest experience.”

“Do you think you can use it on someone else?” I said.

“I don’t think so. I’ll try. But at least I can sneak up on those guards and overpower them. If we can clear them away, can the Castavirans walk out of here?” he said.

“There are far too many of them not to attract attention,” I said. “They’ll make too much noise. And we can’t get rid of all the guards I saw in that tent at once. But…I have an idea.”

“Can you set the tent on fire?” Jeddan said.

“I could, but that wouldn’t be a long-term solution,” I said. “I was thinking of doing it the old-fashioned way.”

Which is how I ended up sneaking into the storage tents and stealing about forty rifles, five at a time (I could carry three and use the mind-moving pouvra on two at a time, which means I’m getting stronger), and passing them out to some Castaviran volunteers who knew a little bit about shooting. It was extremely dangerous because the storage tents were adjacent to the guards’ main tent, so they could watch them, and the more trips I made, the more often I had a chance of being caught.

But the guards were all making a lot of noise playing some card game that involved penalty drinking—take a drink every time you lose a round, or play the wrong card—and were well on the road to inebriation. My Castaviran warriors were getting really impatient by the time I brought the last armful, but I told them, “There’s one more thing I need to do, or some of you might get hurt or killed. So be patient. Half of you need to go back to Master Liskesstis—quietly—and the other half wait here for your part of the plan.”

It was going so perfectly I should have known something was about to go wrong. Just as I’d sneaked inside the main tent, intending to start gathering the guards’ rifles (there were six or seven of them, all propped against the tent wall or lying next to camp stools) one of the men stood up, stretched, and said, “I’m gonna go take a piss,” and headed unstably for the door. I was on the wrong side of the tent and there was nothing I could do except watch in horror, because he was going to step outside and find himself facing two dozen armed Castavirans, and they would shoot him, and then everything really would go to hell.

But nothing happened. I had one gun clutched to my chest and my other hand resting on another rifle, preparing to turn the concealment pouvra on it, and felt as if the pouvra had turned me to stone. No shots, no screams, not even the thud of an unconscious body hitting the ground. I slowly concealed the rifle and picked it up—might as well finish the job, since I was there—and eased my way out of the tent. There was no way I was going back for the rest. It would have to be enough.

I went around the tent to where I’d left the prisoners, and found them huddled up, I thought against the cold. But no, they’d surrounded the guard and completely immobilized him, gagged him with somebody’s scarf. He looked furious and terrified all at once. “Take him somewhere, and bind him. Use the tent rope if you have to. You won’t be coming back here.”

Three of them dragged him away, and I told the rest, “Just a few more minutes. And remember, you can’t kill any of them.”

“We’ll do what we like to the bastards,” said one of the men. I recognized him as the one I’d spoken to first.

“I don’t care what you do to them, myself,” I said, though I quailed inside at the thought of them murdering even such vicious brutes as these guards no doubt were. “But if you kill them, Endolessar will have to hunt you down or risk looking weak. Then all of this will be pointless. Please. Leave your vengeance behind, at least for now.”

None of them looked very convinced, but they did as I asked. I don’t care that it’s skipping ahead in the story to say that. I was so worried, at the time, that their anger would get the better of them, and I honestly couldn’t blame them for wanting revenge. I have no idea what it’s like to have your homes destroyed and your families brutalized in that way and I couldn’t tell them they shouldn’t be angry. But I was risking my life for them, and if they were all killed because some of them let that anger overcome them, it would’ve been a pointless risk. So I was so relieved when everything else went as planned. More or less.

to be continued…

7 Nevrine, continued (continued)

We retraced our steps and circled back along the walls toward the northeastern gate. The guard in Debressken had said the camp was to the northeast, and it seemed logical that anyone going to or from it would leave by that gate.

We had to conceal ourselves for longer than I liked, staying hidden from the guards at the gate, but eventually we were far enough along the road that we could walk openly. There weren’t a lot of travelers there, and if we’d been sane people, we wouldn’t have been on the road either, because the snow had started falling again, and now it was big wet clumps that stuck to everything and dampened the shoulders of my coat.

“I think this is it,” Jeddan said. He’d been watching the road carefully, and now he stood next to a smaller road, more of a large track, that branched away more northerly than the main road. “The snow is packed down the way you’d expect if a lot of people had used it, but there are only a few faint footprints. They set up the camp and then had just a couple of men traveling between it and the city, or several men but only a few at a time.”

“All right,” I said, and we took that side road and trudged on. It was getting dark, and I tried not to be resentful of the Castavirans, reminded myself we’d still be out in the wet and cold even if we weren’t heading into who knew what kind of trouble, shook like a dog to get the snow off me, kept trudging and watching the road ahead so we didn’t run into a patrol, or something.

Specks of light ahead grew into lanterns, barely visible in the snow, and I grabbed Jeddan’s arm to slow him down. We went more slowly now, watching dark shapes emerge—walls thrown together from boards and rope, poles where the lanterns were attached—and then one of the shapes moved, and I worked the concealment pouvra on both of us as a guard bearing a rifle walked past, circling the camp. The moment he was gone, I dismissed the pouvra, said “Wait here” in Jeddan’s ear, and ran to the wall, concealed myself again, and ducked through it.

It was pretty bare beyond. There were lots of tents, heavy dark army tents, and more lights, lots of lanterns with their tiny flames trying to hold back the dark. There were so many of them that if it hadn’t been snowing, everything would have been bright as midday. I saw no guards. I ran back to Jeddan and the two of us went back inside, then quickly ducked under the nearest tent flap.

It was as dark inside the tent as it was bright outside. A woman screamed, and then there was a lot of movement. “No, no, we’re friends!” I said, “stop or they’ll want to know what’s going on!” The scream was suddenly cut off, as if someone had muffled the woman. “Sorry to startle you,” I said, “but we saw your village, and heard you’d been taken away, and we came to see….” My voice trailed off because I wasn’t sure how to end that sentence without sounding like their suffering was nothing but entertainment for us along the road.

My eyes were becoming adjusted to the dark—I’d thought about using the see-in-dark pouvra, but I wasn’t sure if we’d need to pass quickly through the brightly-lit space between tents—and I could see people huddled together, most of them wrapped in blankets. A baby coughed, then wailed, and its mother started to shush it. “Who are you?” said someone in the darkness.

“My name is Sesskia,” I said. I felt so sorry for them it felt like an affront to distance myself by using my placename. “Is there anyone who speaks for all of you?”

More shuffling. “Carlen Liskesstis, I suppose,” said the same man.

“Is he here? Can you get him?”

Silence. “Carlen’s a girl’s name,” the person said. “You ought to know that.”

I cursed myself. “I didn’t know, because I’m Balaenic. One of the, um, foreigners. But I speak your language, and I want to help,” I said.

Nobody said anything for a long, long moment, in which I wondered if a week’s captivity was enough to weaken them all so they couldn’t attack us. “I’ll get her,” the man said. He came forward, glancing at me briefly—he had dark hair, and dark eyes, which was all I could see of him—then left the tent, keeping low to the ground.

Jeddan and I waited. I felt awkward. I don’t know what Jeddan was thinking. I couldn’t come up with anything to talk to these people about; polite small talk would have been ridiculous, and I started worrying we’d been really stupid to come here at all. There was nothing we could do for them but raise their hopes and then smash them.

The man came back through the door, making me step out of the way. He was followed by the shortest woman I’d ever seen, her hair silvery in the dim light. She, too, was wrapped in a blanket, and I realized I hadn’t seen a single coat on any of these people, and suddenly I was so furious I wanted to kill every guard in the place and burn my way through Hasskian until they learned to behave like human beings.

“Who are you?” the woman said. Her voice sounded like a flute, not at all creaky the way I’d expected, given her hair.

“Sesskia. This is Jeddan. We—” I didn’t know what else to say. I couldn’t make these people any promises. I couldn’t do anything useful except be angry, and that wasn’t useful at all.

“We saw what happened,” Jeddan said. “You’re in danger here. If we could get you out, is there somewhere you could go?”

“Jeddan, they don’t know what you’re saying,” I said.

“Then tell them,” he said.

I sighed inwardly, but repeated his words. Liskesstis’s expression didn’t change. Slowly, she raised a hand, twitched her fingers, and amber light outlined a th’an just before the same amber light coursed down the poles of the tent, filling it with a warm light. “You don’t look like a fool,” she said.

“We can get you out,” Jeddan said, and I started to protest, then shut my mouth because even as I’d been about to say “We can’t promise that” an idea had blossomed into life inside my head. I didn’t know what Jeddan had in mind, but I knew him well enough to believe he wouldn’t make that promise if he didn’t have some idea of how to do it. “Tell them, Sesskia.”

“You’re the enemy,” Liskesstis said. “He can’t even speak our language. You will only bring us death.”

“We’re mages, Balaenic mages,” I said, “and even though we do magic differently, it’s still magic.” I grabbed Jeddan’s scarf from around his neck, making him squawk, wadded it into a ball and tossed it in the air, and set it on fire. That got a lot more noise, and then shushing, and the burning scarf fell to the earth (bare earth, no rugs for the evil foreigners), where I stomped on it to put it out.

“No th’an,” Liskesstis said, staring at the remnants of the scarf.

“It’s how Balaenic mages work their magic,” I said. “I swear we mean you no harm. And I think we can get you out.”

to be continued…

BOOK EIGHT

7 Nevrine, continued

This new book feels strange, probably because the cover is thick, stiff paper made of many layers pressed together and not beautiful blue leather. All that matters is that it’s a book, I know, but it’s hard to look at it and not think how much better a job I’d have done making it.

We ran, for a while, without paying attention to where we were going, just getting as far away from the Citadel as we could. Eventually, we were breathless and hot even in that weather, and I had a stitch in my side I kept trying to bend into, hoping that would make it go away, so we stopped and went to walking at a normal pace. “I don’t think they’ll find us,” said Jeddan.

“Two anonymous strangers who don’t look different from anyone else, in a city this size?” I said. “You’re right.”

“We do look a little different,” Jeddan said, pointing at our shadowy reflections in a shop window (dozens of little glass panes, very modern). Our images were crisscrossed with the black leading of the windows, but I could see his point: we looked very travel-worn, and our coats and hats looked incredibly provincial, and I was still wearing my Castaviran uniform boots, because they were warm and waterproof. In the window, I saw someone passing behind us give us a skeptical look.

“We can either get new clothes, or find somewhere to hide,” I said.

“We could do both,” Jeddan said. “My shirt is getting ripe.”

“We don’t have a lot of money,” I said, “and we should buy food. And we really ought to do it quickly, just in case somebody here has a locate-person pouvra.”

“We’d have to kidnap that person, if that’s true,” Jeddan said, making me laugh. I wish there were such a pouvra. I have so many friends I wish I could find. Even a prove-someone’s-alive pouvra would be nice.

“All right,” I said, “let’s walk,” and I linked my arm with his so we looked like a couple of sweethearts out for a stroll. I didn’t really know where to go; the only places I was ever familiar with in Hasskian were the noble manors (probably not a good idea to go back there), the slums (dangerous unless you were very familiar with them, which I wasn’t after seven years’ absence), and the industrial district (because nobody wants to pursue a thief through an abattoir). And none of those were exactly what I wanted. But the place we were in now was too upscale for our business. So I took us in the direction of the slums, and hoped we’d find something in between.

To sum up, because it was boring by comparison to what came next, we found a neighborhood in which we could not only purchase cheap, clean clothing, but they let us change in the back of the shop and gave us a discount in exchange for our old clothes. Then Jeddan bought food, and I stole this book—true, we had money enough for it, but I was feeling reckless and felt like giving myself a challenge. Then I felt guilty and left some money on the counter when the store owner wasn’t looking. I don’t think I’ve ever stolen anything except out of need, because I know what it’s like to have almost nothing and then have that snatched away from you. Anyway. I have it now, and it’s a nice fat one that should last me for a while, unless we keep having adventures like yesterday’s.

We were watching over our shoulders the whole time we were in Hasskian, but never saw a single guard. I’m a little worried that Endolessar didn’t take our warning seriously, given that we “betrayed” him and ran away. I hate to think of these people being crushed by the God-Empress’s army. But we’ve done what we can, and now it’s up to them.

Despite not being pursued by the guards, we decided to go through the northeast wall, between two of the gates where the industrial district is. It was every bit as smelly as I remembered, what with the tannery and the butchers and all the other unpleasant things no one wants to think about that civilization needs to move smoothly. We passed through—this was about mid-afternoon—and hugged the wall, circling the city until we could strike out toward the road.

We stayed concealed until we were about a mile from the city, then trudged on through the snow toward the Royal Road. The storm had passed, or rather the snow had stopped falling for the moment, but I could still smell the storm in the air, waiting for the right time to start dumping on us again. I felt pretty good in my fresh new clothes (used clothes, but cleanly laundered) and almost cheerful about getting on the road again.

Then Jeddan said, “It’s not right. We have to do something, Sesskia.”

“What’s not right?” I said.

“The villagers,” he said, “the ones they took from their homes. We can’t just leave them there.”

I stopped and turned to face him. “What do you propose we do?” I said. “Even if we could sneak them all away, they can’t go back to their homes. And we can’t go to Venetry trailing who knows how many Castaviran refugees.”

“You think those people give a damn about the comfort and safety of foreign invaders?” he said, hotly, which surprised me. “They’ve been penned up in some camp somewhere, probably without enough food and inadequate shelter, and that camp is going to be their home for months, and with winter coming on they’re going to start dying. That’s assuming someone in Hasskian doesn’t decide they’re too much trouble and orders them all killed.”

“They wouldn’t do that,” I said.

“They already think of them as dangerous outsiders,” Jeddan said. “Leave them there long enough, they’re going to start thinking of them as not human. And nobody thinks twice about squashing a spider that might be poisonous.”

I thought about it for a minute while he watched me, silent. We were both right, unfortunately. The Castavirans were in danger no matter how you looked at it. But there were too many of them—one, or two, or a dozen we might have been able to help escape, but a whole village? I cursed myself, but I could see we only had one choice.

“Let’s find the camp, and investigate,” I said, “and make a plan from there. We won’t abandon them unless there really is nothing we can do, all right?”

“Agreed,” Jeddan said.

to be continued…