Fire in the Mist Read online

  Rakell quieted. She stood, staring thoughtfully at the lean, dark woman on her floor, and her face clouded with confusion. "Dig deeper. Did she have a reason to suspect him?"

  "It appears that she summoned a faeriefire to guide her to a trustworthy saje. The whole plan of hers seems rather juvenile and poorly thought out, but she apparently felt our decision to annihilate the sajes was unfair (Which it was, Medwind added to herself) and she wanted proof that the sajes—or at least most of the sajes—weren't involved. So she has questioned this young man at length, and is satisfied that he is innocent."

  Rakell sighed. "And does she intend to sleep with all the rest of the sajes to determine their innocence?"

  "I believe that the bedding was unplanned, Motte."

  The Mottemage hit her head with the palm of her hand several times in quick succession. "Of course it was!" she snarled. "How silly of me. Gods save me from idealistic children! So she has proven his innocence to herself, and therefore she must fall in love with him?"

  Medwind stretched and pinched out her candles. "She's a hill girl. They don't equate sex with love," she noted. "And, ethically, I have to admire Faia. She's going about it the wrong way, but she's trying to prevent what she sees as an injustice from happening."

  "Not you, too, Frelle Medwind," the Mottemage growled in warning. "Don't you start with that 'poor innocents and sweet men' theme. I won't have it."

  Medwind opened her mouth to protest, but the Motte cut her off. "And don't think I don't know about your 'secret' activities, either. I know all about the trapdoor in your room and your midnight visitors. Your taste for virile young men hasn't been a problem to this point, Medwind. And I'm very forgiving of your barbarian upbringing, and your heathen distaste for celibacy—but don't let that cloud your thinking on this issue." Rakell paced. "The sajes are guilty—maybe not all of them, but some of them. And the bastards need to be destroyed." She stared past Medwind out the window, eyes narrowed with hatred. "They're going to regret killing my students—my children. They're going to regret it, Med."

  Faia's unbound hair spread across Kirgen's chest like a silk blanket. She nestled against him on his narrow cot, watching the smile play across his face.

  "What are you thinking?" she asked him.

  "Oh... that this would be a very nice place to be a hundred years from now. I could be content never to move again."

  Faia laughed with delight. "So true. But just think. You would miss your classes on the so-important evocation of a cheerful number seven fire-breathing god—"

  "Helpful fifth-level blue-smoke godling."

  "As you wish. And I would miss my wonderful classes on how to renew rotted apples."

  Kirgen chuckled. "That sounds exciting."

  "Especially since my mother taught me how to do that when I was a small child."

  The first gray light of dawn filtered through the fog into the room, and Faia propped herself up on her elbows. Her smile vanished. "You were wonderful, and this has been wonderful, but I must leave now, Kirgen."

  "I suppose you must. When will I see you again?"

  "I do not know that you ever will. We can hope, I suppose, but the situation in Mage-Ariss is very grave."

  Kirgen slipped his jerkin back on, and handed Faia hers. "You're right." He sighed. "What should I tell the sajes? Should I tell them anything?"

  Faia pulled on her own clothes. "You must—mmph!—do what you feel is right. I do not know"—her voice became muffled, then clear again as she worked her face free of the leather jerkin—"a good answer to give you. Maybe there is no good answer."

  "Perhaps not. Faia—"

  His voice broke, and Faia tensed. "What?"

  "Thank you," he finished. "For not believing that all of us could be so evil."

  Faia remembered Rorin and Baward and half a dozen other shepherd boys, and her brothers and her uncles, the dim and distant memory of her long-dead father, and the few men her mother accepted as lovers, and she smiled gently. "I know men. They do not."

  "And now I know women," Kirgen noted. "They are not so frightening as I was led to believe."

  There was a bloody, bone-chilling scream right outside the Mottemage's door, a long, high-pitched howl that froze both Rakell and Medwind in their places.

  It quavered into silence, and Medwind whispered, "Merciful goddess, what now?"

  Rakell ran to the door, summoning her shields around her as she went. "Back me up, Med," she yelled.

  She flung open the door, hoping to catch whatever was out there off guard.

  The steps were empty, except for wet, dirty, bleeding Flynn, who bolted into the room as if pursued by the nine dog-demons of Mejjora and ran under the lowest chair in the room.

  From his hiding place, his blue eyes gleamed out balefully.

  "Flynn?" the Mottemage croaked.

  Medwind and Rakell traded glances, and Rakell stared back down the spiraling steps. As far as the curve, there was nothing, and even beyond, she sensed nothing, although the familiar power signatures of Daane instructors were nearing various doors. They'd been, she reasoned, wakened by the screams.

  "It was apparently Flynn," she finally told Medwind, sounding disappointed that it wasn't one of the killer sajes—or worse.

  She carefully closed and bolted the door, and turned to watch her head instructor.

  Medwind was belly-down beside the chair, trying to coax the big tomcat out of hiding. She'd reached under and pulled back a scratched and bloodied hand, and had decided on the more politically sound approach of "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty."

  "He looks badly hurt, Rakell," the barbarian said. "His left hind leg is mangled and I can't get him out so I can look at it. Here, kitty, kitty, kitty..." she added.

  The cat shuddered and hissed and spat. The Mottemage joined her friend on the floor.

  "I'll take care of this, Medwind. Flynn," Rakell said in a cold, commanding voice. "Come here."

  The hair on the back of Medwind's neck rose, and gooseflesh stood on her arms. Compulsion spell, she thought. The Mottemage's magic is strong enough to compel an army forward. Just the backwash of it draws me.

  But the cat crouched and glared.

  "Flynn," Rakell commanded again, "COME—HERE."

  Medwind, her face pressed into the floor, her hands gripping furniture to keep herself from crawling to her superior, was not in a position to see the cat's response. But she heard him. He spat and hissed.

  And Rakell's magical compulsion lifted. "Damn!" the Mottemage muttered. "Nothing ever makes a cat do what you want it to." She stood and stomped into the kitchen and came back a moment later with another small pitcher of cream and a slab of raw fish, which she placed in the middle of the rug, but where Flynn could see them.

  Then she joined Medwind on the floor, gave her a self-deprecating little smile, and said, "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty..."

  And now I know women....

  Kirgen's words echoed in Faia's memory as she clung to the back of the wingmount. Could the sajes know as little of Ariss' women as the mages know of the men? Is this city nothing but a flock of old, lonely virgins plotting in their towers how best to hurt each other? How strange and how sad. Kirgen was no skilled lover, but I had thought at his age he would have been with a woman before.

  She urged the wingmount downward as she approached the Daane tower.

  Can they not see how much they need each other? How much better their lives would be if only they would let themselves trust each other again.

  That shall be my job in this city, she decided. I will make them all see that men and women should be together, not apart. She smiled, and drove the wingmount down into the billows of fog. The Tide Mother was setting as the sun rose over the horizon. The garish pink faded, replaced by white.

  The wingmount recognized its home pastures and set its wings into a glide. When it whinnied, it was answered by a stable full of its brethren.

  "Hush, beast," Faia said. "You'll get us both caught." But nothing move
d around the wingmount stables, and she grinned. Almost home free.

  "There she comes," Medwind told the Mottemage. "Right over the fog-hills, staying low. She has no idea she's been missed."

  Rakell sat on the floor, her fingers stroking the now nearly healed wounds on Flynn's leg. She seemed totally lost in the concentration of healing, but she looked up briefly from the purring cat and said, "Bring her to me at once.

  "Yes, Mottemage," the barbarian murmured, and left.

  Yaji paced from one side of the dorm to the other, stepping over clothes and projects and musical instruments, twisting her hair, and praying to all the old gods whose names she could remember. From time to time she stopped and studied the primitive little glass mirror trap, with its pentacle scrawled on one surface. Nothing appeared to have changed, and she had not thought to ask Faia what the trap would be like if it were full. She bit her lip each time, twisted harder at her hair, and resumed her pacing.

  Dawn crept through cracks in the shutters and shone off the pale rose glass beneath them.

  And Yaji, tired and frightened, could only think that with sunlight came safety. She opened the windows and unbarred the shutters and shoved them open to admit the light.

  Tattered fog, thinning even as she watched, swirled and blew in ragged wisps across the lawn. A flurry of whinnies came from the direction of the wingmount stables, and her heart leapt. Let it be Faia, back safe, she prayed.

  Silky brown undulations caught her attention, and she stared through the remaining fog at the path that led from the student dorms to the lake. A line of Fendles hurried down it. Their movements seemed furtive, but Yaji decided after quick deliberation that was too much credit to give simple animals. "Probably raiding the trash piles behind the kitchen," she muttered. She continued watching them, but they did nothing more interesting than run single-file out along the long rock that went toward the center of the lake and dive into the water.

  She turned her attention back toward the direction of the wingmount stables. Come on, Faia. Hurry, or you're going to miss first bell, and then I'll have to miss breakfast.

  "Don't move."

  Faia, cleaning the wingmount's tack before she returned it to the rack, froze.

  Medwind Song, breathing hard, eyes dark-circled and angry, stepped in from the far doorway and came to stand beside her.

  Faia's brain scrambled for reasons why she might plausibly be in the tackroom of the wingmount stables before first bell on a class morning, but nothing was forthcoming.

  "Frelle Medwind..." she began anyway, hoping inspiration would strike in midsentence.

  Medwind cut her off. "What the hells kind of a stunt were you trying to pull by flying to Saje-Ariss and bedding a saje-apprentice?"

  Well, I suppose that means I do not need to think of a plausible story, she decided. Just as well. Mama never approved of lies. And Faljon says, "Liars are vipers/who bite their own tails."

  "I was trying to prevent a terrible mistake from happening," she told Medwind. "The sajes are not guilty—at least not all of them. We cannot destroy them all."

  "Even if you are right—and just so you'll know, I think you are—you cannot solve a problem by creating new ones. Even you admit that some of the sajes could still be involved. By going to Saje-Ariss, how can you be sure you have not made things worse? You went to the enemy—don't interrupt, Faia. The saje-ring we found is still compelling evidence, so we must consider at least some of the sajes the enemy. And which sajes? I don't know, and neither do you."

  "So... you went to the enemy, and you told the enemy of our plans."

  "Kirgen is not the enemy."

  "Probably not. But what if his best friend is?"

  Faia clenched her fists. "I had to do something. We cannot slaughter guilty and innocent together!"

  Medwind sighed. "This I know. Faia, you must tell no one, not even the Mottemage, but I find this kill-all approach as abhorrent as you do. I am working on the problem, trying to find the true story of the Old Woman and the Fendles, for this horror we are living through now is rooted, not in the present, but in the past; not with the mages and sajes of now, but with those from hundreds of years before. This two-faced city's past returns to haunt us. Not until we can unravel the mystery of the Fendles' return will we discover that which they hope to protect us from."

  Faia smiled. "Good luck."

  "Thanks. In the meantime, you are in deep muck," Medwind added. "The Mottemage intends to skin you and nail your hide to the wall for her cat, Flynn, to sharpen his claws on, I think."

  Chapter 7: A GASP BEFORE THE ROAR

  THE frightened thoughts of the follower scurried like rat feet across the leader's mind.

  :She returns, Sahedre.:

  Sahedre's angry response lashed out at the hapless follower. :Well for you, Takai. Had she vanished forever while you held the watch, I would have killed you slowly. That she escaped without your notice in the first order—for that, I think you must still die. But not yet. I give you a chance to redeem yourself.:

  :What of my wounds?:

  :You dallied while on watch—they are no honest battle wounds. Learn to live with them.:

  :But—yes, Sahedre.:

  Sahedre calmed, mollified. :You know now which of these children she is. You shall not touch any others for the nonce. I do not need the energy. So. We shall let peace return to the University. But at your first opportunity, bring the mage-girl to me. I grow weary of waiting. I wish to regain my life.:

  :If I bring her to you—will you forgive me?:

  Sahedre's mental chuckle was chilling. :Perhaps. But you had best hurry. I'll not be so sweet for long.:

  In pairs, the students hurried along paths toward the Greathall. Faia could see them clearly from her vantage point beside the window in the Mottemage's tower. With her whole heart, she wished herself with them. But wishes were useless things.

  "—You will not leave the campus again until this issue with the sajes has been settled." The Mottemage stomped back and forth in front of Faia, punching the air for emphasis. "You will not go off campus with Yaji, nor without her. You will not go to the market, nor to the alehouses, nor to the musicrooms."

  Faia bit her lip. "Mottemage—"

  "Listen! I am not through speaking with you yet. How dare you fly off at night?! Fly, by the gods—and on my Makketh, too! How dare you leave your roommate unprotected?! How dare you make such a major decision regarding our policy toward the sajes all alone?! How dare you bed the enemy?!" The Mottemage's face deepened to an unflattering red-purple hue. "Answer me, damn you!"

  Faia shivered and hung her head. "Kirgen isn't the enemy, Motte. He had nothing to do with the murders."

  "You didn't know that before you met with him last night. He could as easily have been, and have killed you. And we'd be scraping pieces of you into our cold-room today, labeled so we didn't bury part of you with part of someone else. That was a stupid stunt, Faia. Stupid!"

  "I only wanted to help."

  The Mottemage rounded on the girl furiously. "Some of the greatest disasters in history have been perpetrated by those who meant well. Delmuirie's Barrier, that cost the life of the idiot who erected it, that traps us from the world outside Arhel, is there because Delmuirie only wanted to help. The Singing Stones of the Fey Desert mesmerize and kill a few poor lost souls every year, but the sajes who built them there didn't mean for this to happen. They just wanted a desert beacon. They just wanted to help.

  "Heavens preserve me from people who just want to help!"

  "I am sorry," Faia whispered.

  The Mottemage softened a little. "Girl, I understand that you aren't one of us yet. Nothing here is like home; you don't know how we do things; you don't agree with all the things we do. No one blames you for being different. But gods, devils, and bugs on the floor, child, don't go bounding off on some damned foolish save-the-world errand without checking with the Mage Council first. I'd like to see if we can get through this without anyone else being killed
."

  Faia jammed her hands in her pockets and stared at the floor. "I will not do it again, Motte."

  The Mottemage brushed graying strands of auburn hair out of her eyes and sighed up at her student. "I know you won't. Your punishment still stands. This—" she clasped a soft, heavy gray bracelet around Faia's wrist, "will stay on until I take it off. It will scream the instant you step foot out of your permitted area. It will get louder with every step you take, and it won't stop until you get back where you belong. I don't like doing this, but I also don't feel that I can trust you.

  "I'm not angry, Faia, but the times are too dangerous to be left in the hands of children. Now get out of my office. Yaji will be stuck in your dorm room pretending you two slept in until you show up. I'm sure she's starving by this time."

  "So how much trouble are you in?" Yaji munched on a crunchy, sweet kafarol and sipped her steaming cup of tea.

  Faia flicked one eyebrow upward. One corner of her mouth curled into a sardonic smile. "How much trouble is it possible to be in?"

  "That much, huh?"

  "Yes. Probably even more. I am confined to the campus. No trips to the market, no trips anywhere."

  Yaji laughed. "She thinks she can keep you on campus?"

  "She thinks rightly." Faia waved her wrist with the bracelet at Yaji, and said, "I cannot remove it. I have tried. And while I wear it, it will make noise and alert everyone nearby if I try to sneak out."

  "That's terrible."

  "I am a prisoner here, now more than ever."

  "I'm really sorry, Faia." Yaji studied her roommate with an expression of sympathy. "You've had a rotten time, haven't you?"

  "Except for last night, yes, I have."

  Yaji caught something in Faia's tone, and her smile became conspiratorial. "So what happened last night?"

  Faia grinned and told her.

  Yaji was wide-eyed. "Does the Mottemage know you slept with him?"

  "We did not actually sleep."