The Sleeping Life

Chapter Fourteen

"I suppose you’d need to be a pretty good mage to own a place like this."

Unlike Sebastian, Sukata never acted like there was anything wrong with Kendall seeing magic simply as a way to earn a living. "It would require a great deal of wealth," the Kellian girl said. "Mages are usually well paid, but one would need to be out of the ordinary to receive recompense on the scale this house requires. Do you wish for something like it?"

"I want this room." Kendall bounced lightly on the cushiony bed with its cleverly carved headboard and brand new linens, then glanced around at the desk and the shelves containing books, ornaments and curios. The place was spacious and bright, and she had liked it the moment she’d walked into it the previous night. Especially the windows, which looked down over the street and had seats built into their bases. The tall panels of glass squares were currently lit by a cherry-pink dawn, and Kendall privately enjoyed how even this relatively mild light could give Sukata a shimmering rosy glow.

Sukata never looked quite ordinary, for she was tall and ever so slightly out of proportion and had claws, but dawn always made her delicately unreal, and Kendall could only wish those who hated the Kellian could see more of them at this time of day. Rennyn had once told Kendall that Rennyn’s great-grandmother had called the Kellian stained glass monsters, and that had made Kendall so annoyed, not least because she couldn’t help but admit that it fit.

"It is a rich house, but I think it was a happy one too," Sukata said. "And this branch of the family less insular than the Claires. Daunting to know that all of them died seeking ways to stop Queen Solace."

"Sebastian said that a lot of them were killed trying to do one big joint experiment. By the time he was born there was only one old man living here." Kendall, watching her friend’s face narrowly, tried to puzzle out new shadows. "Are you thinking that maybe there was a baby or two they didn’t know about? That there might be some of this Surreive part of the family still out there?" More people who could control the Kellian, if Rennyn and Sebastian were out of the way.

"That is a possibility. Given the situation with Prince Helecho, it may even be something we could have reason to be glad of, if we fail to protect the Claires."

Only just preferable to be inherited by some unknown person, instead of a nasty demon prince. Better by far to deal with Rennyn and Sebastian, and that was still fingernails on a chalkboard to the Kellian, for all Rennyn was so careful to never accidentally order any of them about. Even if she got better and could have a Kellian baby with Captain Faille, even if it was one of their own people who inherited the ability to control them, the Kellian would always on some level be property because that was how the spell was structured. They hated it so much.

Kendall washed, and let Sukata catch her up on a drama Kendall had slept through. One of the servants, working for thieves based in the house set flush with theirs, had managed to take books from the Tyrlanders' luggage, and only Sukata’s sharp hearing had uncovered them.

"Trying to steal Thought Mage techniques?" Kendall guessed, buttoning her shirt.

"So it seems. This house was linked to Duchess Surclere when she wrote to direct it be prepared for guests, and it seems at least one group moved immediately to search for secrets. Though, interestingly, the mage they work for—Magister Accan—vanished a fortnight ago.

"Bet the ones you caught aren’t the only lot in this house keen to sneak a peek," Kendall muttered, as they headed down to see what the specially hired household had produced for breakfast.

"That is not a bet at all," Sukata replied in her extra-neutral voice as they opened the breakfast room door.

Kendall wasn’t pleased to find Dezart Rhael Samarin serenely stuffing his face. There weren’t many people who could rival Rennyn for being completely full of themselves, but this Samarin was definitely a contender. Probably worse, because he couldn’t be more than a few years older than Kendall. This morning, the smug git had put his mask on the table and piled his plate with what must be a bit of everything from the nearly dozen covered dishes lined up on one side of the room.

These smelled good enough for Kendall to set aside an impulse to turn on her heel. Instead, she ignored the spy altogether, filled her own plate, and sat so that the flowers in the centre of the table made it easier not to have to look at him. Samarin just ate, and it seemed they could hope for a quiet breakfast, but then the Pest showed up, looking like death warmed over, but never able to keep his mouth shut for long.

"May I ask you a question, sir?"

"I don’t see how to stop you," Samarin said, but not nastily. "Get your breakfast first, though."

"The enchantments on your mask," the Pest went on, the second he sat down. "The most obvious is the one that prevents anyone but you from wearing it. But there’s at least one secondary enchantment, and I cannot untangle its purpose. Is it something you can to tell us about?"

Samarin glanced down at the mask. "Can? Yes. Will? No. I’d be interested to hear if you can successfully divine it, though, since it’s not designed to announce itself. Do you find Duchess Surclere’s methods of casting difficult to learn?"

That wiped the Pest’s special keen look from his face. When they left the ship, Rennyn had given him the same exercises Kendall and Sukata had started with, and Kendall knew he practiced them each evening after they’d finished the day’s travel. And that he wasn’t doing too well with it, was still making his test object twitch and jump, rather than being able to pick it up. It was obvious that he’d hoped to quickly pass Kendall and Sukata, or at least catch up to them.

"I have barely taken the first step of learning Thought," the Pest said, in the super-serious voice he used for anything about magic. "My lessons so far are nothing new, since the basics of what standard instruction calls Force Magic were already well known. Achieving any kind of control is difficult, of course, and I can see why Duchess Surclere insists on focusing on the strictly physical and advancing in degrees toward abstract concepts. But the discussions we have had on Symbolic—" The Pest broke into a rapturous smile that made him look moon-struck. "Symbolic is already considered a perilous artistry, where poor choices have monstrous consequences, but the combination of Thought and Symbolic is an enormous step. Words, Sigillics, are so limited. When I first heard of Her Grace’s use of Thought Magic, I focused on the immediacy, but the true marvel is that it allows you to cast what words cannot say."

He really talked like that. Almost as stupidly wordy as some of the books Kendall had tried to read.

The Pest had taken a deep breath to calm himself down a little, adding with a quick shrug. "I’ve only begun to face how difficult it will be."

Samarin had listened attentively, with just the slightest crinkling to the corners of his eyes while the Pest went into his usual raptures. "And you two? Sukata and…Kendall, yes? Do you consider Duchess Surclere’s techniques attainable?"

"The techniques, yes." Sukata was being guardedly polite. "The conceptual leap required for Thought to become more than crude, physical manipulation…that I can only hope for and work toward. But even the short time I have spent learning from Her Grace has shown me that I habitually approach magic in a very fixed and inflexible way, and that the thoughts and feelings of even the most rote of Sigillic casters have a greater impact than we are ever taught. And I begin to wonder if the reason that the Claires cast as well as they do is because they regard the rules as negotiable."

"I’d bet thinking the rules don’t apply to them is half the reason there’s only two of them left," Kendall said bluntly. That or a habit of offering spies bed and breakfast.

"It’s just a better level of understanding," the Pest said, still super-seriously. He’d never made the mistake of being directly insulting to Kendall again, but he kept trying to explain things to her, like she was the poor backwards child everyone had to be nice to. It made Kendall even less inclined to do the Sigillic assignments they were all given.

"What were you doing up in the attic last night anyway?" she asked, in hopes of knocking him off his cleverer-than-thou perch.

But the Pest just shrugged and said: "I fell out of bed and thought, since I was up, that I might as well look for the hidden library. Then everyone turned up with swords and half frightened me out of my skin."

The unbelieving smile Samarin produced at this almost reconciled Kendall to being stuck with him, but the Pest was too busy stuffing his face to even notice. The door opened and Lieutenant Meniar came in, also looking like he hadn’t slept. He gave them a weary smile and headed straight to mound a plate high with food before settling in the chair opposite Kendall.

"Her Duchessness has been ordered to keep to her bed, and we’re not letting her up until after lunch. Hopefully a long rest without travel will let her finally overcome the impact of that light casting." He glanced at Samarin. "Faille would like to review those dossiers, if you have them."

Samarin brushed his fingers against a pile of paper sitting next to his plate. "Your intention was to spend some days in Koletor waiting for the rest of your group?"

"And sorting out the library here," Lieutenant Meniar said, as Lieutenant Faral came in, and took up a plate. "The Duchess says that most of it should be unremarkable—nothing interesting enough to be worth last night’s adventures—and everything of note should be in this hidden room. It’ll only open to family, but she’s not sure where it is, so we can oblige her by locating the door. And there’s the divination to cast, to see if we can pick up any further indication of—"

Screaming started.

A girl first, then others, with some plate smashing for good measure. Sukata and Lieutenant Faral were gone before Kendall even had time to turn her head, the door swinging in their wake. Lieutenant Meniar put down his fork and hurried after them and the Pest leapt up and followed. Kendall listened to some more crashing, with added banging, then tried a forkful of some kind of boiled and spiced grain.

"Not going to help?"

Kendall eyed Samarin sourly. "They’d rather you didn’t go get in the way while they deal with anything really dangerous. Not that whatever that is will be."

"Why not? The creature you’re hunting is capable of breaching circles, after all."

"Because Sukata and Lieutenant Faral would have known before the screaming started." Kendall crunched a piece of flat, toasted bread, and decided there was more chance of him shutting up if she didn’t point out that he hadn’t gone to help either.

"An Eferum-Get threat anywhere in the house would be known to them?" Samarin waited, but Kendall didn’t bother to answer, so he went on: "And are you finding Duchess Surclere’s methods easy to learn?"

"Don’t you have dossiers for us as well?" Kendall snapped, exasperated by the scut’s lazy amusement. "What do you get out of acting like you don’t know anything about us?"

"Dossiers aren’t inexhaustible," Samarin said. "I know that you had no background in magic before Queen Solace’s final return, and that you and Sukata Illuma have been reported moving small objects with Thought Magic. But that does not tell me whether you find it easy."

"Of course it isn’t," Kendall snapped. "Why would it be easy? Why does it matter to…Fel, you’re not another would-be student, are you?"

"My duties do not permit the time," he said, as if that was something highly ironic. "But I need to evaluate the threat this form of magic poses. Both to would-be Thought Mages, and to the rest of Kole. It matters to an extreme degree if this is something that will injure or kill almost everyone who attempts it. And even more if it is something the majority could achieve."

A world full of mages acting like Rennyn Claire. Or, worse, not acting like Rennyn Claire. Acting, instead, like the Elder Mages, who had wrecked everything they were supposed to be looking after, and let the Eferum-Get into the world.

The Pest came back, followed by Sukata, who said: "Something came out of the cellar. An animal, out to steal food, not hostile. Faral and Meniar are attempting to locate it."

"All that screaming for a rat?"

"Something called a varsh," the Pest said. "The staff seem to consider it unclean."

"A reptile the size of a small dog," Samarin told them. "Usually found in the aqueducts and sewers."

Kendall glanced at Sukata, remembering an occasion in the past when Rennyn’s obnoxious great-uncle had taken control of an animal and sent it to do his dirty work. Which was probably why the Lieutenants were chasing around the cellars after a kitchen-scrap thief. Sukata was polishing off her breakfast with efficient speed, obviously with a task to do, and Kendall followed her lead so she could trail Sukata when she took a glass of juice and the dossiers upstairs to Rennyn and Captain Faille’s room.

Sukata briefly explained what the screaming had been about, and Captain Faille went to check it out in person and go do errands, leaving them charge of Rennyn, still asleep and looking damp and limp. They left the juice on the table beside her bed and moved to the far end of the room, which had another seat built into the windows, though looking out over narrow back gardens.

"I think I like my room better, but they’re both really good," Kendall said softly, inspecting a book that had been left face-down on the sill. Stupid Kolan squiggles. "Do you think we could talk her into not selling the place?"

"Perhaps it’s necessary to fund the restoration of Surclere. The Duchy is very poor, and it will be a large task to revive it. There is no need—" Sukata paused.

"No need for a house here—except if maybe the Kellian decide not to stay in Tyrland. You know, that Samarin, I think he’s here as much to find out more about the Kellian as anything else."

"Yes, the Emperor is interested in the possibility of using us. This Dezart Samarin, there is a sense of…not threat, but the possibility of threat from him. He judges us on several levels, and whatever a Dezart is, it seems a position of considerable authority."

"Could you tell what this other enchantment on his mask was?" Kendall hadn’t untangled more than the fact that it was magical.

Sukata shook her head, but then Rennyn, voice croaky, said: "Both of those doors behind the Emperor had recognition wards on them, and that mask felt like it belonged to them. There may be other places in the Empire set so that you can enter only if wearing one of those as a key. Samarin seems to be swimming in a haze of enchantment, however. Let me know if you unravel any more."

Since it was all just magical buzz to Kendall, she shrugged and went to offer Rennyn the juice. "Are you going to try and get rid of him before we go north to the forest?" she asked.

"It would be interesting to try. But I suspect his value as a deterrent is real. Illidian tells me there are at least two more among our hired staff he considers suspect, but are likely spies, not here to thieve, and will lose interest once I’ve addressed that matter." Rennyn looked across at Sukata. "And while Aurai’s Rest is relatively private, it is no secret, and Illidian does not believe it will be harmed by having an agent of the Kolan Emperor visiting it."

"You are intending to deal with the interest in Thought casting?" Sukata asked, not showing any reaction to the mention of the Kellian’s forest home.

Rennyn nodded. "Before we leave Koletor I will have a small manual published. I would have preferred more time to draft something in-depth and considered, but the core of Thought is so very basic, after all, that I can put something relatively clear together, and hopefully get some of these watchers out of the way. Perhaps even save some lives."

"You’re not starting that this morning," Kendall said, firmly, taking the empty glass. "We’ll read to you if you can’t sleep."

Rennyn’s eyelashes lowered ominously, and it was hard for Kendall not to think of Samarin talking of Thought Mages as a threat. Rennyn Claire, thin, tired and drawn, could still kill annoyances with less effort than it took her to get out of bed. Kendall glowered back at her, not budging an inch.

With a sigh, Rennyn gave in. "Lieutenant Meniar and Illidian are being tiresome. But it’s not worth arguing about." Adding a faint grimace of apology, she rearranged her covers and closed her eyes.

It was a sham. Kendall could see from the set of her shoulders, the way one thin hand gripped the sheet, that Lady Once-Powerful was going to lie there and stew in her frustration for a while. There was no help for it, so Kendall soft-footed her way back to the window to practice drawing sigils and wonder what the world would be like when Thought Mages with nastier tempers than Rennyn’s were roaming about being cranky with people. Kendall started to wonder if she’d end up able to kill people as soon as glower at them. And whether she would.

She thought about that all day, while they hunted for the hidden library, and when Rennyn eventually came down and opened the door the Pest finally found concealed in the cellar, and after Lieutenant Meniar cast the focus detection.

And the divination pointed east.

After much excitement, Rennyn settled the question of whether her Wicked Uncle was in the city by travelling to an inn at Koletor’s eastern edge and having Lieutenant Meniar cast the focus detection again. When it continued to point east, they could at least rule out imminent threat, although Illidian accepted Dezart Samarin’s offer of extra guards without even a small hesitation.

"Do you think you have the strength to cast the variation immediately?" Rennyn asked.

Lieutenant Meniar shrugged. "So long as no-one minds me sleeping the rest of the day." He paused. "And needing to be carried back to the house."

No-one objected, so Lieutenant Meniar re-chalked the divination, and added north to their east before sitting down heavily on a chair.

"Will this change your plans?" Dezart Samarin said.

"Until the other Sentene arrive, pursuit is not wise," Illidian said. "After that, the simplest thing to do would be to continue to divine the direction as we travel to Aurai’s Rest, since it is both north and a short way east of here."

"Combined with the last divination that indicated west, we’ve now narrowed the location to this band through Kole, Semarrak, Alisar or Fye," Rennyn said, marking the map Illidian had brought along. "Which is the most progress we’ve made since my Wicked Uncle left Asentyr."

"I’ll request reports on unexplained deaths in that region," Dezart Samarin said. "And arrange for the extra security. I can also arrange for transport north, if you wish it."

He pulled down his mask before leaving, and Rennyn already knew Kole well enough to recognise that this simple adjustment would guarantee that there would be no interference from the more-than-suspicious owner of the inn, who had been most dubious about the use they were making of his best parlour.

"A useful addition," she said, a little amused to have found another person inclined to organise everything around her. "I very much hope our interests continue to run in the same direction."

"His concern regarding the missing mages seems genuine," Illidian said, erasing the few remaining traces of the Sigillic from the floor. "And Prince Helecho too great a potential threat to ignore. The whole of Kole’s strength might be needed."

As they replaced furniture shuffled aside to allow Lieutenant Meniar to mark out his circle, Rennyn wondered if their search would truly lead to an all-out battle. If her Wicked Uncle did intend to lead an Eferum-Get army to conquer this world, would he start with Kole? Perhaps he was in those two northern kingdoms—Alisar or Fye—where… Rennyn knew nothing about them, except the likelihood that the places would be cold. At some point her over-protective escorts would start suggesting the hunt would have to wait until after winter. Her Wicked Uncle had already been allowed far too much time to set his schemes in motion.

"Should we worry about the chance he’s waiting for us at Aurai’s Rest?" Lieutenant Meniar asked, hauling himself reluctantly out of his chair.

"That would be an extremely dangerous place for him," Illidian replied. Then he added reluctantly: "Though a tactically well-chosen one."

For there were few defending mages at the Rest, and the Kellian were weak to magic. While her Wicked Uncle could not command them as Solace had, the Kellian were an extremely dangerous force, and a mage of Helecho Montjuste-Surclere’s skill would have a wide range of bindings and enslavement castings to choose from.

Rennyn could not avoid the memory of a net closing around her, a cage of words, and a wash of pain and gloating violation. She forced herself not to turn her thoughts away. This instinctive flinching could be her undoing if she was unfortunate enough to meet her Wicked Uncle again.

Breathing deeply, Rennyn allowed herself once again to admit that he was likely a better mage than she, and that she was afraid. But she would not turn him into her own personal horror, would not accept this paralysis. If she met him again, she would act.

Illidian’s hand on her shoulder came as silent reminder that, unlike Solace, this was not a battle she had to face alone. Although there were times when she felt that her increasing collection of friends and allies only gave her more people to worry about.

She smiled up at her husband, then asked: "Shall we allow our Imperial representative to wave his mask and conjure up transport?"

"There is no reason not to make use of him," Illidian said, as Keste Faral solved the problem of an exhausted mage companion by lifting him into her arms.

Lieutenant Meniar, brown skin darkening for several different reasons, said: "I’d like him if I dared trust him. But a gift horse that talented has to have a nasty kick. I don’t imagine you get to wear that mask just by smiling all the time."

Keste, who was one of the least talkative Kellian of Rennyn’s acquaintance, spoke then, her voice soft and contemplative.

"And yet he wears it as if he hates it."