10th Yunara, 999 NE
Knock, knock.
Orstrum took one look at her knackered face and the old man knew it was his turn without being told. He creaked to his feet and hobbled over to the door.
“Who is it?” he queried in his slightly-dulled voice.
“Emrelet Reyd,” the strong, cold voice replied.
Xan shuddered to hear its tone.
All this… it’s changed her.
Even still, Xan struggled into an upright position, putting her back against the arm of the seat and swinging her legs around. It was in her interests (and the interests of her extended family) for her to stay on good terms with these friends in high places she’d stumbled-upon.
Grandpa had such difficulty with the third lock that Xan let loose an explosive sigh and bounded up to her feet.
“Shove over,” she muttered, batting away his gnarled old hand and grabbing at the latch herself.
Orstrum mumbled something to himself and sighed as he sat back down on his mattress.
When she finally got the damned thing open, Xan saw that Em had her back turned and hood cast off over her shoulders, revealing her long, braided ponytail. She was leaning on the rail overlooking Mud Lane as she waited. Snow was drifting down around her, almost invisible in the evening darkness.
The wizard turned, the white, fur-lined magister’s robe swishing.
“Xantaire,” she said.
“Em?” She made it a question. “You want to come in? Looks chilly out there – we’ve had the fire going, and I’ve got extra blankets if you –“
“I do not need ze blankets,” the archmage said, but stepped inside anyway.
When she’d closed the door behind the wizard, Xan turned and saw that she’d headed straight for the fortify set.
“Zey left you zese?” she asked curiously, taking one of the glass figurines – the Swamp Hag, it looked like – and inspecting it. “I thought zey vould have taken everything.”
“Almost,” Xan said. “They did their best, believe me.” She’d promised herself she wouldn’t mention the nice young magister who’d just winked at her when she’d questioned him leaving it in the cupboard. She didn’t want to get him in trouble. There were even a few of the kids’ toys that got conveniently ‘missed’. Birthday presents and Yearsend gifts. Things the Magisterium wouldn’t give a damn about.
Xan reclaimed her seat, groaning a little.
“You’re okay?” Em asked, setting down the miniature and turning to look at her now.
It was a strange question, Xan thought, coming under such circumstances. It was only a week-and-a-half ago that Kas was taken in to Zyger.
No, was the truthful answer. Give me some money. Go on, Em. Give me the plat you get in five minutes’ work, save me months of effort…
“Yeah,” her well-habituated tongue supplied the typical lie. “Just shattered. I started work again on the eighth – need to keep that cash coming in. Xassy’s a bit older now, and Grandpa can normally manage fine with him…”
Orstrum was nodding along, distracted by his wane-haze –
“… but, well, things’ve been better.”
Em was nodding too, looking around the room as though she were in her own drugged state.
“Of course…” the magister said. “Of course…”
She came to sit down on the opposite bench, and suddenly she was looking directly at Xan again.
It was uncomfortable.
“Is there… do you want to see the twins? The kids are playing.” Xan gestured at Kas’s – at the twins’ – bedroom. “Or – do you want a game yourself? I’m still learning, and I’m sure you’d kick my ass –“
“It’s okay.”
The wizard looked away again, peering down at the table.
“Then… a drink? We’ve only got water…”
Xan let her voice drift away and die. Emrelet wasn’t even listening.
“Em?”
The archmage drew a sharp breath, then met her eyes.
“Em, what is it?”
“I… I vould appreciate, if you vould not call me zat. It – it is vot he called me.”
“I… I get it. I’ll… I’ll tell Jaid…”
“Thank you.”
A silence descended, painful, itching.
Does she want to talk about Kas?
After a minute she got up, moved around the table, and sat herself down next to the foreign girl.
She’s just a girl, she reminded herself, not much older than Kas is… was…
But when she put her arm out to embrace the magister, Emrelet just shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.
Xan slowly lowered her arm, staring at the wizard.
“Have you had any visitors, Xantaire?”
The archmage was staring back, deep into her own eyes, silver-blue irises gleaming like the morning sky seen through clear glass.
She drew in a sudden breath. “You – you don’t mean – he escaped?”
Emrelet’s eyes narrowed in scorn. “No!” she barked. “I mean – anyone? Anyone of interest?”
It was Xantaire’s turn to narrow her eyes. “Well, Garet’s been round a couple of times – he’s actually a really nice fella, you know? Peltos is going to give us a break on our rent, for a week or two – but that wasn’t what you meant, was it?”
Emrelet slowly shook her head.
“Well, then I can’t help you.”
The wizard got to her feet immediately. “I am seconded to Special Investigations now, you know zis? Vould you mind very much if my supervisor vere to take a look around?”
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“Take a look…?” Xan was fully intending on glaring, but then she looked away, seeing something – something –
The shutters had only been open a crack, but suddenly they were looming wide into the room, and another person was in here, standing beside the mattress, right over Grandpa.
An older man, in his fifties or sixties. He wore a fine blue magister’s robe, trimmed in gold. His thick moustache seemed to pre-empt the movements of his head, quivering this way and that way as his keen eyes flitted around the apartment.
“You would have said yes in the end,” the man said, not even glancing in her direction.
Grandpa sat forwards, alarm on his face as he turned to appraise the newcomer – thankfully he remembered to keep his mouth shut, locking away the wane-breath and slurred voice.
She copied him, studying the well-dressed stranger, her concern growing. What’s with the facial acrobatics? she thought. Am I going to get in trouble for the fortify set?
Seriously, who do they think’s going to ‘visit’ me that’s of interest?
“I know you,” she blurted, realising. “You’re Zaki-“
What was it? Zakimol?
“Quite.” He folded his arms across his chest, long sleeves flapping, and finally turned that old crystal gaze on her. “Ms. Tarent. I am Tervos Zakimel, Deputy-Head of the Special Investigative Branch of the Magisterium. You have not been approached by the renegade, Killstop?”
Her mouth went dry.
“Killstop… no. So that’s what you’re calling her, is it? She’s a – a renegade?”
“She is telling ze truth, Zakimel.”
“I can see that much, thank you, Ms. Reyd.” He turned smartly on his heel, appraising the exposed fortify set for a moment, then turned back. “Your glyphstone has touched Ms. Reyd’s. We would be… extremely appreciative… of any information you could provide with regard to Killstop’s whereabouts and intentions.”
Xan folded her own arms. “Would we, now? Well by the sound of things Killstop might appreciate being left the hell alone.”
Orstrum’s creased eyes widened, and he shrank down in his chair.
She knew what he was expecting: more archmage violence, right here in their home. She didn’t think it would go that far, though.
Her guess paid off. Zakimel just smiled.
“Oh, doubtless she would appreciate it. But not as much, Ms. Tarent. Not as much.“
The implications were clear. The coffers of the Magisterium far outstripped the funds available to a traitor, a lone wolf.
She lowered her eyes, and in the second it took her to look up in surprise he’d closed the shutters then moved to the door, unlocked it, and swung it open to reveal the snowy darkness.
“An exquisite collector’s piece,” he murmured, his back turned to her. “I hope you enjoy it, young lady. You will improve, with practice. You really needn’t have buried the other thing, though.”
He disappeared, leaving a bluish blur on the air in his wake.
It took Xan a moment to realise he’d just been talking about the fortify set and the robe.
She looked over at Emrelet but the wizard had her back turned too, stalking after Zakimel without a word, a backwards glance.
She remembered that day they’d met – by the bank in Blackbranch Square, walking home together, preparing the food… Xastur making her a picture of her fortify game with Kas…
“Is that it?” Xan asked to the swishing platinum ponytail, not bothering to mask her anger.
“Goodbye, Xantaire,” the accented voice drifted back to her.
“You’ve changed, you know.”
“So people keep telling me.”
“Maybe you should listen!”
She was already flying, the reply almost a sigh, the wind bearing her answer:
“Maybe zey should shut zeir fragile little faces.”
Xan kicked the door shut after her, slammed the bolts, wrung the key in the lock… She pressed her forehead against the oak door, closed her eyes –
And heard the bedroom door on the far wall open.
“Who was that?” Jaid asked – then, before Xan could so much as begin to open her eyes or turn her head – “Ooh! You’re back! I was just telling Jar the other day, how, I don’t care what they say about you, you’re still my favourite champion… After Kas, obviously… Though I don’t necessarily think Lovebright really being a dragon in disguise makes her any less cool… So, are you going incognito?”
Xan sighed.
You just had to go and complicate things, didn’t you, girl?
The kid diviner was sitting in Xan’s seat, head hanging, shoulders hunched. The multi-coloured robe had been traded in for one that was plain grey but she still wore the same old mask. The expression on the fake face had never seemed more apt, from her body language.
Yet appearances were deceptive. Killstop might’ve looked broken, defeated, but, when she turned her head to face the ten-year-old, the seeress’s voice rang out through the frowning lips with as much levity as always:
“After Kas? You’ve got to be kidding me, right? You’ve seen how fast I can go? He’s like a snail next to me! You’re just biased because you don’t like diviners, that’s your brother’s thing, isn’t it? Don’t you pull that face at me! Oh, hi Jaroan! Though, yeah, Jaid, I totally get the whole dragon thing. Way cool. Shame I didn’t get to fight her. That would’ve been quite the tale to tell!”
Orstrum, who’d started chuckling, reached out to grab his cup. “My girl!” he blurted. “You’re going to be quite the… quite the storyteller in your own time, I am certain of it.”
Killstop shrugged. “And ‘incognito’? That’s an awesome word.” Her head pivoted, looking the other way, right at Xan. “You taught her that?”
Jaid crowed in delight, entering the room with her brother and Xastur on her heels.
Xan shrugged back, moving to sit down opposite her. “It’s, erm, I suppose you’d say it’s a tradition of ours. We’ve got all these books to pick from…” She waved at the shelves as she sprawled out, relaxing her aching back again. “I haven’t got through half of them yet, in three whole years… Belonged to the Mortenns – you know… Big… big readers.”
She felt ill, all of a sudden, considering this situation she’d been plunged into.
There was no way she was going to betray this poor, hunted girl to the authorities. No way. It’d be night in the Twelve Heavens first.
Please, don’t talk about anything important. Please. They’ll just take it from my head anyway.
“Nothing like a good book.” Killstop inclined her head gravely. “What is it the priests of Locus say? ‘The tale is the mortal’s gateway to the infinite, the path to the eternal. Inside one evening the mind might span the course of ten thousand years, or contend with the fate of the universe. Upon the diaphanous wings of such flights of fancy alone might man attain wisdom beyond his years, and return from the dark place without the scars his forebears earned in the tale’s telling. When he goes then into the true darkness he will be prepared beyond his father, and insofar as he speaks and is not silent likewise shall his son outstrip him. And so at last it is that we find Progress, that tenderest, most-elusive of all ideals, forever embedded in the very fictions the men of seriousness seek in public to revile. Heed them none, and in so doing surpass them all.’”
What was she trying to say? If there was a hidden meaning to the seeress’s cryptic choice of quote, it was beyond her. She had trouble just telling what it was about, and even that was mostly because Killstop had opened by summarising the passage in layman’s terms.
But Xantaire noted the way the twins seemed to comprehend what the archmage was getting at, staring up in renewed awe at their parents’ collection of cheap books, at each other – and in that moment she hated them a little bit for their advanced minds.
“They’re after you, you know,” she said. “That’s why they were just here – they wanted you.”
“Don’t worry – Zakimel won’t be back.”
“And if you run into him out there –“
“I run faster than him, don’t worry. I fight better than him, too. Don’t fret, please. I get enough of that off my mother.”
“You – you have a mum? And she’s safe, in Sticktown?”
Killstop shook her head. “Not anymore. She’s a long way from Mund, living a life of wealth and luxury and, above all, boredom. No darkmages staying at the beach-hotel in southern Myri where I left her, believe me. And yes, that was a lie.” Then, without missing a beat, she plunged her hand into one of the robe’s pockets. “Speaking of wealth – here. I broke it for you. Thought platinum would be too obvious. Take it, damn it!”
The pouch had to contain at least fifty coins, and a quick peek told her they were an almost equal mixture of gold and silver.
“K-Killstop – I can’t – can’t thank you –“
“And I can’t apologise, either. It was at least partially my fault Kas ended up where he is…” She looked over at Jaid and Jaroan. “You know that, right? Kas didn’t want to tell anyone, and I confirmed he was right not to. Maybe I was wrong… I don’t know anymore. But it doesn’t matter. It’s done, and I’m sorry.”
“I know, Killstop,” Jaid said, coming forward and taking the ex-champion’s hand briefly.
So he did know…
Killstop seemed to return the gentle grip, then looked over at Jaroan – but the awed look the boy had been wearing when she’d quoted the priest of Locus had slipped by now, replaced with something sullen, his cold eyes flashing. He just nodded, his arms crossed.
Killstop seemed to slump down a bit. “I said I’d keep you safe.” She directed her words at Jaroan. “I promised him, you understand? I intend to keep my promise.”
“When’s he coming back?” Jaroan’s lower lip was trembling. “That’s all I need to know. When’s he coming back, Killstop?”
The seeress slowly shook her head, spreading her hands despondently.
“Then what dropping use is divination anyway!” he screamed, whirling on his heel and fleeing into his room, thrusting the door shut behind him with all his strength.
Xan looked at Orstrum, but he wasn’t going to be any help – he was blinking slowly, entering the dazed state that would precede wane’s deep slumber. When she turned her head back she saw that Jaid was heading towards the bedroom – but Killstop’s cry stopped her in her tracks.
“What use is it? I’ll tell you one thing for certain, young Master Mortenn. One thing I know. I learned it the hard way, more times than a human is supposed to have to.
“One day, you’ll get past it. One day!”
The last, muttered quietly, to herself:
“And me too…”
* * *