Part 18 (1/2)

”Linde, what is it, my lady? Could you not sleep?”

”I slept a little, my lord. But I dreamed so much that it might have been better had I not slept at all.”

She had slept in her own suite, after their long night together. Rianor had not stopped her from leaving his, even though it had not been easy, especially when he escorted her and saw the way she glanced at the curtains and her open windows. She was afraid to be alone, even though she tried to hide it, and he woke her maids to stay with her.

He could have stayed himself, and he could have even succeeded in doing nothing but comfort her. However, Master Keitaro had taught him long ago that testing resolve by temptation was rarely a good idea. It was for those who needed to prove themselves strong, for them who placed more importance on the proving than on the resolution itself. For Rianor, it was the resolution that mattered, and he was self-confident enough to avoid temptation altogether.

”Linde, you are not the reason I am angry.” He steered her to the sofa and sat together with her, with his arm still around her. Blake jumped at her other side, adjusting his head on her lap. ”This is the reason.”

She rotated the shower head in her hands, as if wondering what to do with it. Then her eyes narrowed, and she grabbed a quill and a sheet of paper from the table.

Then, she dropped the quill. ”It should not be dangerous if I only talk about what I see without drawing it, is that right?” The sheet of paper was quivering in her hands. ”Ita”It is too unclear. We need to compare if we see the same thing.”

Rianor did not know the answer to her question. Just like he did not know too many other things. He wondered for a moment, then nodded once.

”Try it.”

She did, her voice faltering only slightly. What she was seeing was almost identical to what he had.

So he was right. He had been almost certain, and now Linden had given him confirmation by independently noticing the same thing. The small holes on the shower head formed a pattern; formed a symbol that was unknown to him, which nonetheless very much resembled those of n.o.ble Houses.

Rianor would not have noticed it, had he not seen the changeling animal on the banner before thata”had his mind, in the last few days, not become prepared to notice unusual things in his own home. Had she not prepared him, with talking to him about her ideas and with simply being here. It was interesting why her symbol was slightly different, possessing an element that his did not possess. Had he missed it? Or was this a misinterpretation on Linden's part? Would she have noticed anything at all, had he not told her that there was a problem? It seemed that they complemented each other.

Of course, Rianor's home was supposed to be unusual. The privileged status came at a price. Yet, somehow, one learned to accept the Aetarx as an independent, confined mystery, as something to battle in the Inner Sanctum, while elsewhere in the House life was mundane and even boring.

The Aetarx at least was an obvious threat.

Linden gripped his hand so tightly that it almost hurt him. ”Wretch the Bers! Why? Why would they do this to you?”

So she had found the time to read the doc.u.ments he had left with her. At least, she had read some of the Introduction to n.o.ble Houses 2 book. It was a book targeted at twelve-year-old n.o.bles, so it would be too basic for her, but still it should provide a starting point for learning the things that n.o.bles knew and commoners did not.

”Every House has its own symbol,” was one of the first things the book said. Then, This symbol is different from the symbols of all other Houses. It appears on the House wrist.w.a.tches of all lords and ladies of the House. It also appears on the walls of the Inner Sanctum, and the walls of the Outer Sanctums of the main House building and all residence buildings.

You should treasure your symbol as you treasure your House itself, for without the symbol the House is inadequate. Everyone, both n.o.bles and servants who live in the House, must pray before the symbol in an Outer Sanctum, under the guidance of the House Mentor, once every thirty days. It is also best to have your own wrist.w.a.tch symbol in view when you praise the Master privately.

Never should the image of another House's symbol enter a House, except when worn on the wrist.w.a.tch of a n.o.ble guest. If another symbol does appear in another way, both Houses will become impaired, their walls more easily breached by their human enemies, their humans' quintessences open for the Lost Ones's taking. If that happens, only a Ber Adept Catechist might cleanse the House and save it, and only a Ber Adept Catechist might help the quintessence of the wrong symbol's bearer.

Otherwise, the House will fade. Otherwise, the bearer will die in madnessa”and his or her House, too, will fade, and all else that he or she loves or honors will be dead or broken.

Commoners, who did not have access to this book, did not know that another House's symbol was supposed to be detrimental to a House, but they would still know that the wrong symbol's bearer would face either madness or Bers. Rianor had read the commoners' version of the Houses book. The existence of the symbols was listed there, without, of course, the actual symbols' depiction, and so was the forbiddance to ever imitate a House's symbol in writing, drawing, weaving, or any other manner that could make others' eyes perceive it.

”Otherwise, the Lost Ones will take your quintessence, eating it until there is nothing left,” the common Houses book said, ”unless Bers, our Blessed Stewards of the Master, find you and cleanse you before it is too late.”

The ”everything you love or honor will be dead or broken” part was there, too. For the sake of those who would otherwise sacrifice their lives in order to harm a House, Rianor thought.

People were afraid of the symbols. Usually people dared not depict even the symbols of their own Houses, inside their own Houses.

”Linde, this is not the symbol of any House that I know,” Rianor said, remembering that she might not know the Houses' symbols. Not that they were secret. Indeed, wrist.w.a.tches and their symbols were the best way to make certain that someone truly belonged to a House. There was even the Symbols ritual, that of gathering members from each House on every n.o.ble child's fifth birthday, specifically for showing the watches to the child.

”I don't know what this symbol is, Lindea”or why it is here.”

She laughed, a certain nervousness in her laughter that had not been there since they had left the Inner Sanctum. ”So, I did not have to be that careful to not draw it, then. I would not have hurt the House.”

”You might have hurt yourself.” That, suddenly, mattered a lot, and Rianor wondered at how surprised he was. Yes, she could hurt herself. He had known that taking an apprentice in order to study her Magic would be unsafe for the apprentice. He had known the risks. But it was one thing, Rianor was beginning to realize, to have an abstract vision of a person to studya”of a tool for unraveling the world's mysteriesa”and it was another thing to have her.

”Leave the symbols alone for now, my lady.” Rianor brought her fingers, still white from squeezing his, to his lips, and that strangely appeased him. He was almost not angrya”or even tireda”any more.

”And don't be afraid, Linde. Whatever the Bers might be trying to do, I am not going to let them succeed.” She trembled, and he reluctantly stood and tried to help her on her feet, Blake biting her sleeve and pulling back immediately. ”We need to be at Council soon, and I'll take a look at your shower before that, even though I wish I had more time to comfort you. And back off, Blake. We won't play a pulling game with Linde. You should learn that she is my lady.”

Linden

Day 79 of the Fourth Quarter, Year of the Master 705 His lady. And just how did he intend to comfort her? Who was it of them both who needed the comforting, if comforting it were, anyway? And what right did he think he had to look at her in the way he had looked at her just now, after his ”basic instincts and random wenches” speech last night? Fears suddenly gone, Linden wanted to throw the shower head at him.

”Perhaps, instead, you should both learn that, lady or not, I am my own. And in the unlikely event that I would ever let a man play games with me, my lord, he would more likely belong to Blake's species rather than yours! Please excuse me for a moment.”

She escaped to her bedroom, away from him, followed by Blake's barking. She was aware that she might be acting childishly and yet she was continuing to act. Just a moment alone, so that she could pull herself together ... She felt weak, much weaker than she had been before he had come to her and kissed her hand. So, was she like those women in stories, who literally swooned before men? She had not thought it physically possible.

Admittedly, it had not been an easy night, and Linden's fears were also returning now. Wretch the Bers, what had they done to Rianor? Since he had come this morning he looked as if he wanted to break something and break it hard, and she wondered if that condition was not even more detrimental to him that whatever the shower effects were. He controlled himself and his moods, but how for how long could he do it? At what price?

On top of that, she was still angry with him. Her hands were trembling, and the wounded hand hurt. Her head, too. She should do something. If she continued to stand here and grip the bed frame, she would go mad.

Well, she could take a look at her shower, herself. She found no strength to walka”rather, found no strength to make many small consistent stepsa”but it was easier to find the strength to dash.

She overturned a chair in the process, ignoring both the sound of its fall and the corresponding bark from the living room, as well as the subsequent sound of a door flinging open. Why was she so weak and disoriented? She did not remember clearly all that happened after that, but she did remember raising herself on her toes to grab the shower head, and then the feel of something shooting through her hand as the world became too bright and then faded.

The Sun was s.h.i.+ning brightly, even though a moment ago, outside the bathroom window, the eastern sky had been darker and hinting of the approaching evening. Now, big trees with wide, warm trunks reached branches to the sky just a few steps away from her, and beneath her bare feet the gra.s.s was green and sewn with flowers. A gentle wind brushed her face. Her lungs tingled with the fragrant blend of Sun-warmed soil, budding leaves and blooming. Her hand did not hurt at all ... Her hand? Why should it hurt? Linden looked at her thin, bare wrist. It looked fine, but something was not right ... And there was something else, a nervousness, a sense of loss that even the Sun and wind could not melt, a feeling that intruded in this world's pervading peacea”and, strangely, she wanted it to.

The wind brushed her face again, this time with more force, as if it wanted her to stop. Stop what? Stop thinking, feeling. Something was wrong. The wind again, this time a blast rather than a caress. Her head hurt, and so did her hand. Something was wrong, but she did not know what. She did not know ... She did not know!

”You don't know what, Linde?” A voice, both angry and concerned, and she knew that voice; it had something to do with the sense of loss that the wind did not want her to feel.

”You.” She clutched at the voice, pulling it to herself, squeezing it so much that it hurt her and yet gave her something that she lacked, something that she needed. ”You,” she said again. It must have been you that I missed. ”And the world.”

Then the gra.s.s and trees and wind were gone, and she was squeezing not a voice but Rianor's arms while he was pulling her out of the bathtub. Blake was barking madly, but stopped when he saw her awake. A moment later he inserted his muzzle into the bathtub and presented her with a broken shower head.

”I will take this.” Rianor extended a hand. ”Good boy. As for you, my lady, you don't know a lot. And I won't let you be 'your own lady' if you will do stupid things.”

”Stupid things, my lord? You did the same stupid thing today. And you can't let me or not let me anything.” There. She was arguing with him again, and that was normal. Her head and body hurt from the fall, but she knew who he was again. And the world was not peaceful any more, but she knew who she was. And where.

”It is not the same stupid thing. I happen to be the High Lord; breaking a shower head is less dangerous for me. As for what I can or cannot do to youa”” He had brought her to her bed and now lowered her on it, leaning over her. ”How do you know? Did you by any chance ask me for the doc.u.ments of your n.o.ble status? Do you know what exactly is written in them?”

”No. I don't know. So stupid of me that I trusted you, is that what you are trying to say? Well, you trusted me, too, with your Inner Sanctum and Aetarx.” She stared at him. ”And you know what? You trust the Bers, too, my High Lord. Breaking a shower head is less dangerous for you only if the Bers are not lying to you. And they did not tell you about the showers.”