Part 14 (1/2)
”It should mean something,” said Oryn worriedly.
For a moment they stood, looking at each other, the tall king and his slender concubine in the hot latticework shade of the house's broken rafters. Hazel eyes looked down into blue, sharing speculation and fear.
Outside the city gates, Shaldis joined the jostling line of a.s.ses, camels, farmers bearing yokes, bringing eggplants, tomatoes, onions, sweet bunches of purple-black figs to the city's markets. Sheep and goats bleated, chickens flapped against their wicker crates. Shaldis left off her cloak of inconspicuousness and smiled at pa.s.sersby as she edged among them, wondering whether Summerchild would be back today, and what she herself might find in the Citadel library. She should probably contact Pomegranate.
Then pain hit her.
Pain, and the frantic summons, instantly cut off.
The sense that her magic was bleeding.
Shaldis gasped, staggered into the corner of the gate. Terrible cold, as if her very life were draining away, and the magic bonds of the Circle of Sisterhood twisted and strained.
For an instant she thought she heard music, unknown yet half recognized, veering through her brain.
Then an avalanche of darkness. A fading scream.
Shaldis thought, Summerchild.
Her vision cleared; she was still clinging to the side of the Fishmarket Gate. A friendly-faced man had run to support her, yokes of spinach baskets still on his shoulders. ”Are you all right, miss?”
By his face she must be white as a sheet. She managed to whisper, ”I'm fine.”
And shaking off his helpful grip, she started to run.
”All the gla.s.s is broken,” pointed out Summerchild. ”Goblets and what looks like a bowl as well. I wonder if there's anything in the Citadel records about the teyn fearing it. I know people say they're not to be trusted with it, out of clumsiness, but there are at least a dozen of the palace teyn who carry gla.s.s vessels back and forth to the storerooms daily without problem. I'll be curious,” she went on as she set the mirror down, ”to see what we find in those tombs.”
She spread her hands out and rested them, and her forehead, lightly against the blackened adobe of the wall. Closed her eyes, sinking once more into her listening trance. Probing, seeking within the mud-brick of the walls the echoes of whatever had been in this room. Reaching inward to touch it with her mind. Oryn knelt near the bricks of the hearth, keeping his hands well clear of the colored shards of the bowl but studying them where they lay.
There were certain magics, Soth had told him, that could only be held in gla.s.s, but gla.s.s had to be specially ensorcelled to be used for purposes of magic. Did that still hold, now that magic had changed? But in any case, all the gla.s.s in the village couldn't have been- Summerchild screamed. Oryn swung around, sprang to his feet in horror to see her body arch back, her hands still pressed to the wall, her blue eyes staring for a blank second at the hot morning sky. Then she screamed again, as if flesh and mind were being sliced apart in one excruciating second, and crumpled backward into Oryn's arms.
TWENTY-FOUR.
Shaldis was halfway to her grandfather's house when she knew someone was trying to speak with her. Pebble, Moth, Pomegranate . . . Shaldis was inclined to simply ignore the urging in her mind until she could reach the privacy of her room, sink into a trance, and look for Summerchild herself, but the thought that one of the others might have already done so made her stop and perch on the low plinth beside the Grand Bazaar's bra.s.s-studded doors and fish in her satchel for her crystal.
She had barely drawn two breaths and let her mind relax when Pebble's homely, frightened face appeared in the central facet.
”What is it, what's happened?”
In the background Shaldis could glimpse the vine leaves that shaded the inner court of the house of Pebble's father.
”I don't know. I was walking in the street, I haven't had time to put myself in trance. It's Summerchild, isn't it?”
”I think so,” replied Pebble. ”I-I feel that she's the one in danger or the one who's been hurt. It was just a horrible flash that came and went, as if it were dying away in a long corridor. Now I feel as if she's drawing on my power, my magic, but it's very weak. It comes and it goes. I tried to speak to her through the water bowl at once but nothing happened.” Tears streaked her face. In addition to hero-wors.h.i.+ping Summerchild-as Cattail had so scornfully remarked-she loved the concubine dearly. ”But I'm not that good with it. More than half the time, nothing happens. But you felt it, too?”
You felt it? As if the pain wasn't like being hit over the head with an ax. Shaldis almost laughed. But she said only, ”I felt it.”
”Do you think she's all right?”
Shaldis was hard put not to snap How the h.e.l.l should I know? But Pebble's terrified eyes stopped her. ”I'm going to see what I can learn by going into a trance at home,” she said, keeping her voice steady with an effort. ”But if I don't find anything quickly I'll go to the palace. You meet me there. If you talk with Moth, tell her to meet us both there.” She could already feel the urgency rising and pus.h.i.+ng at her mind again.
”And don't tell anyone what's happened. For one thing, we don't know if the harm came to just Summerchild, or to the king and his party as well-”
”Oh, dear G.o.ds, I didn't ever think of that! Do you think-?”
”I don't think anything,” said Shaldis. ”And the last thing we need right now is rumors flying all over the town. Don't tell anyone anything. Just meet me at the palace.”
”All right.” Her image faded-Shaldis marveled that she'd let go that quickly rather than hang on asking for rea.s.surance-and was immediately replaced by that of Moth. It was the first time Shaldis had seen the young concubine with her long brown hair hanging completely undressed and with no makeup.
”Where you been!?”
Buying candy and having my nails painted, where do you think?
Stop it. She's just scared. People lash out when they're scared.
”Talking to Pebble. Were you able to learn anything? To feel her mind in trance?”
”No, but it's Summerchild, isn't it?”
”I think so, and Pebble thinks so. . . . Neither of us could tell what happened.”
”It was magic,” said Moth. ”I felt . . . awful. Like a spear in my heart. Then it faded away, fast. You don't think Red Silk got her, do you? Her and Foxfire? I hear they left Mohrvine's villa Golden Sky the night before last, sneaked out with a huge train of baggage, n.o.body knows where.”
Oh, good. Just what we need. A wizard war. The rains don't come, the lakes dry out, and what's the best thing we can think to do? Fight among ourselves.
Shaldis took a deep breath. ”I don't know what happened. Can you-?”
”Or what if Cattail's selling her services to somebody like Lord Sarn? And she put a hex on Summerchild, to make sure the king dies, so that stupid brother of his can take over and that new concubine he's got will lead him around by his-”
”We don't know what happened,” Shaldis nearly shouted, and resisted the temptation to add that the idea of Cattail being able to defeat Summerchild in a battle of magic was ludicrous. She already knew that such an observation would only open the door to endless-and pointless-discussion and speculation. ”I've asked Pebble to meet me at the palace. Would you meet us there, too? I was out in the street this morning when it happened, but I'm going to go home and see if I can learn anything by going into a trance.”
”I did that and didn't get nothing. Do you think maybe-?”
”Then I probably won't get anything, either,” said Shaldis. ”But I'm going to try. Then I'll head straight for the palace as well. Please don't speak to anyone of what happened, or of what it could mean. The last thing we need is all kinds of rumors flying around.”
”No, absolutely!” Moth made a peasant sign of averting evil. ”Besides, I never spread no rumors nor gossip.”
”I know you don't,” Shaldis a.s.sured her, hearing as she did so her mother's stricture that her tongue would turn coal black at that magnitude of lie. ”I'm relying on you, Moth. But I must go.” And with that she closed her hand around the crystal and looked away. Breathless, dreamlike thoughts swirled through her mind.
Look in the crystal. Please look in the crystal.
After a moment she looked.
Foxfire, her face running with tears.
Am I NEVER going to get home and have a chance to see what's happened for myself?