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Fantasy Stories

The Gossamer Mage: Intended Words

Written by Julie Czerneda

Illustrated by Jared Blando

The body was beechwood, smooth and bronzed with age, of perfect balance. Silver girdled it, worn plain and tarnished, quickly warm to Maleonarial’s fingertips. The pen had been an extravagant gift, from a father with neither coin to spare nor generous nature until a son proved of marketable talent. He remembered how the silver had glittered in his hand, that long-ago day, like some cheap gaud on a whore. He’d done his utmost not to use the thing in front of classmates or masters. Such a garish object demeaned the lofty position of mage scribe-to-be.

Had he ever been so young?

The new nib was old. Bone, weathered wood-bronze, carved silver-smooth. Simple, like the now-plain band, but with remembered complexity and purpose. He’d found the piece on his wanderings, tucked among reeds by a busy, impervious stream. A deer once.

Or a man.

A good choice. Now for the next.

Three small inkpots remained. Each was stoppered with thick yellow wax, a tiny russet curl embedded as surety. Baby curls. Inkmaster Jowen Hammerson had courage to mock his aging guest. And a remarkable abundance of russet-haired great-grandchildren.

The contents of one inkpot, sold at Alden’s Hold, where mage scribes clung like leeches to their famous school, would feed those children for a year. Maleonarial had left Tankerton with five wrapped in linen and bound against his waist, bought with the only coin he possessed: words.

Not any words. Names. He’d written the names of the Hammerson family in his clearest script; no more official rendering could have been asked by any hold lord or the Deathless Lady Herself. It had taken the best of a night, but he begrudged not a moment. As each callused hand received its precious strip of parchment, as eyes wondered at the letters that bloomed in ebon permanence under the warmth of living breath, toil-bent backs had straightened. The raucous babble of dogs, children, and clanging spoons had fallen to a solemn hush. The parchments would be treasured and kept close; more importantly, the letters’ shape would be practiced with care. None of them would again use a rude thumbprint to sign a document of importance, or be forced to wait on the uncertain—and expensive—arrival of a scribe. To write their own names was to gain respect and fair treatment from merchants and lawgivers alike.

The inkmaster counted himself well paid. His kin whispered of marvels. But it hadn’t been magic, other than that of skill.

Magic must be intended.

The night’s breeze snapped and billowed the canvas overhead, a token against the pending rain. He slept in the open by preference. The fresh air and privacy of wilder places were a boon to his spirit; a shame they couldn’t feed or clothe him. Not that he needed more than a stew or porridge under his ribs. Maleonarial plucked at his threadbare, much-mended cloak. It would do another season.

His fellow mage scribes, having discovered his lifestyle—an unfortunate coincidence of storm and crowded inn, followed by a collision in a narrow hallway with a round bulk of rich velvet and gilt that had exploded in ire until he’d lifted his face to the torchlight, and the other had stammered something aghast and apologetic—his fellows had sent along a beautifully penned and rolled parchment, levying a fine for inappropriate attire, unbecoming his high station.

Kind of them to overlook the dirty hair and sweat as well, not to mention bad breath.

Folded, the parchment made a fine lining for his right boot. They’d be aghast if they knew. Not that he’d apologize. As if he’d scrape it clean to reuse even if those were only words, however mean-spirited.

Magic required purity.

Though soaked, then left in heated sand to harden, the bone nib remained brittle and unforgiving. His gentlest touch would coax a smattering of words at best from it. Words and how many months from his life?

Maleonarial shrugged, shaking the tiny bells knotted in his hair. Mage scribes marked their lives by them, the quiet tinkling a constant reminder of magic’s toll, collected by the Deathless Lady. A bell for each intention. The first twenty or so accumulated quickly; schooling spent half—or more, for those prone to mistakes. The next thirty or so were reasoned, deliberate, considered. They earned what a mage judged of greater worth than time. Wealth. Security. The touch of a woman.

The moment came for every mage when that balance shifted, when the bells whispered: “Life’s short enough, fool.” A hundred-bell mage could write anything and make it live—for a fee to make even a heartland hold lord reconsider.

Having tied his three hundredth bell this season, Maleonarial counted himself fortunate still to have teeth.

He ran his tongue along their tips.

Most of them.

Enough for chewing.

To write with intent was, for those with Her Gift, an expenditure of life. A mage scribe used ink and pen, needed a surface on which to write, would study years to master stroke and technique, would above all else learn as many words of the Goddess’s unspoken language as possible, since those words were the means by which magic could be summoned.

To bring life.

At life’s cost.

What matter the price? said those new to Her Gift. To the young, life was the deepest well, always full. When students gathered in hallways to gossip, it was of how their masters were timid, grown inept with age . . . that this was why mage scribes worked so little magic after the first wrinkle and ache . . . it couldn’t be because those masters had been young once too and squandered the time they’d had . . . that they’d strutted from holding to holding to work magic, sustained by their confidence that the bells sang praise, not warning. Until too late.

The young believed their elders were indeed old.

They learned better. Come twenty years, each would find himself like a man of thirty. At thirty, more like forty-five. They would finally understand that no mage scribe escaped magic’s toll. That they too aged not as nature but as each set of words intended, paying Her price for power. Until they too became masters, to hoard days, begrudge minutes, and scorn the young.

Until they refused to write magic again.

Rain on canvas echoed Maleonarial’s bells as he bent to his task. Young once. Master once.

Fool, he hoped, no longer.

****

Cil was his name.

“Silly-Cil.” Thick lips, bent teeth, twisted the whisper. They thought he didn’t understand, thought him slow and stupid, but he knew what they meant. “Silly-Cil. Think me dumb. Think me meat.”

With practiced ease, he stabbed the hollow tube into the calf’s pulse, sucking warm rich life into his mouth as the creature bawled its torment. He was supposed to knock it dead with the hammer before bleeding it. The knacker would cuff his malformed ears, make his head ring. But the knacker was glad enough to have an apprentice, let alone one eager for the work.

Work no one else wanted to see.

Replete, he took another mouthful. Held it. Turned, his knee on the calf’s neck, holding it down.

Spat at the plastered wall.

The blood flew through the air, a spume of death and anger.

Cil considered the result on the wall. The calf struggled, a distraction. He silenced it with a hammerblow. Wiped his lips on his sleeve. Admired the artwork of red on the wall’s lime-plaster and rough-hewn wood.

It was something. But what?

There . . . an eye.

Lower down, where blood rilled along a crack . . . a foot.

The closer Cil looked, the clearer the image became. The eye blinked. The foot’s clawed toes flexed. A sow bug popped free of the wood, bounced as it hit the floor, curled into a tight ball that rolled. Afraid.

He gave his laugh, the heavy snort and wheeze made others look as if they wanted him gone, and squashed the tiny thing flat with his bare foot.

Lanternlight caught on a razor edge. A tooth. There were more. Cil couldn’t count, but he knew more.

He laughed again and move aside to give it room. “Silly-Cil think them meat now.”

****

Domozuk fussed with an uncooperative belt tassel, muttering under his breath. Saeleonarial stood still on the pedestal and waited, though he curled his toes within their ornate slippers. No hurrying his servant of these many years. His mouth quirked. A tassel askew or absent made no difference to him. It made every difference to the company surrounding this hold lord. He might as well wade with an open wound and expect leeches to ignore his blood, as that lot miss sloppy dress.

“I should write them something with spines. Something to climb inside their smalls,” he murmured, fingers hovering over the generous beard Domozuk despaired of keeping silken smooth. Saeleonarial couldn’t help him with that—he’d been born Sael Fisherson and men of that name sprouted wiry growths of red from chin and cheek to rival sea moss for twist and toughness.

And went bald.

The wig was bulky, overscented, and essential. How else to carry a mage scribe’s weight of bells? Saeleonarial was in no hurry to don the hot, itchy thing. Domozuk humored him, letting it drape from its stand like a hide on display till the last possible moment.

“You won’t,” the servant said primly. He bent to snip an errant thread from a slipper.

“What—use magic on them?” Saeleonarial didn’t risk the delicate pleats at each shoulder with a shrug, not before his audience. Instead, he scowled fiercely. “Think I wouldn’t dare?”

“I think I’ve enough grey to dye in your beard,” Domozuk, ever practical, replied as he straightened. His eyes sparkled with mischief. “Unless you’ll let me commission something more modern.” “Modern” being the contraptions younger nobles had begun attaching to their beardless chins: ridiculous conflagrations of precious metal, exotic feathers, and whatever else was too costly for commons; some hung to the knees and required bracing at the table. Equally witless mage scribes spent months of their magic penning tiny birds and gem-eyed lizards to live within the curls of wire. Saeleonarial pitied the servants assigned to clean that mess.

He crooked his finger for the damnable wig, quaint and sedate by comparison. “Point taken.”

Scribemaster Saeleonarial knew his own worth. His rise through the ranks of his peers had more to do with honesty, a good head for names, and modest ambition than brilliance. Oh, he’d written one intention of memorable originality. The result still swam in the temple fountain of Xcel, all grave eyes and mischievous whiskers, trilling its song by moonlight to bewitch even dry old men with lust. Gossamer.

Not an accomplishment to share. He’d hastily destroyed that pen and done his utmost to forget those words and its shape. Though he dreamed it. When the world grew drab by day, predictability more deadly than age, he’d wake in the dark, blood pounding. At such a moment, Saeleonarial would swear he’d heard a faint splash, smelled musk on a warm summer’s night. Been young and unafraid of the future again.

The Deathless Lady wasn’t above irony.

Just as well such moments didn’t last. Someone had to keep his head. Magic wasn’t to be squandered on useless marvels. The world might be drab for their lack, but it was calmer, more reliable. Like him. Another reason he’d been voted scribemaster.

No more need to write magic. He had wealth. Prestige. Some hair left behind his ears and still-reasonable bowels. What more could he want?

Surely by now he was safe.

Saeleonarial fidgeted.

Surely safe from that maddening, bone-deep, skin-crawling itch to create only magic’s use could salve.

Surely now, he need no longer test his mastery of word and intention, waiting for the remembered and longed-for and never-ever-enough climax of having those words take form and breathe.

He’d no need for magic. Knowing hands and a winsome smile would do him. The dimpled barmaid at . . . “Have done. It’s fine,” the scribemaster muttered peevishly as Domozuk fluffed the damned wig yet again. He was weary of standing. Weary of his own thoughts.

“It’s not. It’s flat on the side. You’re the one who let the stable cat sleep—”

A head thrust between the draperies that ringed the dressing stage; by the abundance of tousled brown ringlets, it belonged to Harn Guardson. If the sincere young student could learn to hold at least two words in his mind, he’d write his first intention and be renamed Harneonarial, “Harn, Debtor to the Lady,” so all would know his life was now forfeit to Her, and his masters could take a breath between lessons. If. To give everyone a welcome respite, the boy had come on this visit to Tiler’s Hold to carry loads for Domozuk. Not to intrude in the dressing room. “My L-lord S-cribemaster—”

“Be off!” Bustling forward like an offended goose—an image his girth and abused nose made regrettably apt—Domozuk waved his free hand in fury. “Be off, boy! You know bet—”

Face red, Harn stood his ground, his hands clutching the curtains for anchor, doubtless leaving ink and sweat prints. He threw Saeleonarial a desperate look. “The hold l-lord’s entered the hall, Master. He’s called your n-name. He’s angry. He wants answers about the hermit mage. About Maleon—”

Domozuk’s fierce “Hush!” overlapped Saeleonarial’s no-less-forceful warning, “Have a care!”

Red cheeks paled before the tousled head dropped down. “M-my l-lord . . .”

Master and servant’s eyes met. Though blood fled his cheeks, Domozuk gave the slightest nod. He knew what to do. This wouldn’t be the first hold a mage scribe had had to vacate at speed, though Saeleonarial would regret becoming the first head of that venerable order to run for his life.

Hopefully he wouldn’t have to. “Well done,” he told the boy. “Stay with Domozuk. Help him. But in future, Harn, by the Goddess, keep your tongue.”

Stepping down, Saeleonarial grabbed the wig from his servant and stuffed it on his head. At Domozuk’s mute protest, he tugged it straight. Straighter. But didn’t pause. No time to waste. The others got out of his way. They’d be on their own.

“Hermit mage,” was it? Maleonarial had a new, unfortunate nickname. Old mage scribes tended to harmless eccentricity. They also stayed at Alden’s Hold, within the safety of the school, where no one else could notice and be alarmed.

Maleonarial might never be harmless, but he’d managed to fade from view well enough. What had he done to attract attention? Who had carried the tale? A spy in their midst? Or had one of aging masters discovered that secrets had a value loyalty did not?

Forget who.

Saeleonarial puffed as he hurried down the wide, too-empty hall. No one came late without consequence to an audience with a hold lord, not even the head of Tananen’s only magic casters. There was malice in the delayed summons. Well done, Harn.

In this part of the new wing, the floor was polished marble, so smooth he had to be wary of a slip. The walls were of the same material, midnight-dark and shot through with copper gleams, arched in ever-lit openings that awaited treasure. Tiler Holding bred wily, watchful lords, a consequence of owning Tananen’s only deepwater port. The Lady’s Mouth, they called it, through which poured what couldn’t be grown, made, or mined within the lands under Her influence. Ships plied the waters between the Mouth and the strange countries across the Snarlen Sea, ships owned by those without magic.

The merchants and seamen who came on the ships were polite but curious, their heads stuffed with rumor and wild tales. It made matters worse that such had to linger here, waiting as much on the feet of made-oxen as the mercy of tides. All freight had to move by wagon past the rapids and falls of Her Veil, to where the mighty Helthrom widened and calmed, welcoming the barges that serviced the heartland. For this reason, Tiler’s Hold boasted streets of brick warehouses, always full, and always expensive. Warehouses and inns.

For freight was welcome up the Helthrom, but not foreigners. The Deathless Lady admitted no strangers past Her Veil. Only the cobbles of Tiler’s Hold rang to their deep voices and booted feet. Only here did Tananen touch the wider world.

Tiler’s hold lords kept it that way.

The latest, Insom the Second, was more than watchful. Unable to abide empty space on his charts, he insisted newcomers provide him with detailed journals. His ever-bright halls had nothing to do with vanity; he distrusted shadows and abhorred the dark. Little wonder word of a mage scribe outside the normal scheme of things would disturb him.

He would indeed demand answers.

Saeleonarial’s hasty steps and puffing filled the space. His long sleeves lifted like wings, but his feet might have been stuck in mud for all the speed he could manage. Belt tassels and a wig doubtless askew were nothing compared to affronting a hold lord.

He was too old for this.

The bells around his ears laughed at him.

****

Words, once written, are free. They fly from their creator, bound only by limits set in syllable and phrase. A mage scribe can no more write magic for himself than magic write itself. The very act of writing sets him apart from his words’ intent.

As well try, Maleonarial thought, to be both sun and shade.

Too much time to think, this morning. But he couldn’t pass the abundance of galls in this meadow, full and ripe, their insects still inside. Crushed fresh, cooked in rainwater, filtered and let rest. Add a few of the beautiful green crystals from his dwindling supply to that infusion, plus a careful shave from his final small lump of desert-tree gum, and he’d have a fine black ink.

Though the morning was chill and the meadow dew-drenched, he’d stripped to his clout. Easier to dry skin than clothing. His body reminded him how little time he had left. A dozen years ago—a hundred and thirty bells less—there’d been taut, smooth skin over bands of strong muscle. Now, each shivering rib had its pale loose flap, and what muscle laced his limbs was more wire than flesh. His knees and elbows were the only parts left of generous proportion, and they were knobbed and indignant, inclined to complain of the damp.

Time. He shouldn’t need much more. What he’d glimpsed as the merest possibility so long ago could become real with his next stroke of pen on parchment. He was that close.

Or that far. No telling what weakness corrupted him from within.

He would make his ink and find out.

If his ink- and age-stained hands trembled as they harvested the small, nut-hard galls, only the Deathless Lady could judge it fear or cold.

****

Audience halls informed; a mage scribe learned to a nicety what a hold lord would want and what he could pay for that service with the first step inside. Those at the fringe of commerce were no-nonsense affairs, as often used to keep grain dry before shipment as to host grand suppers. Demands in such halls were usually practical as well. Livestock with special attributes: an ox that wouldn’t tire; a messenger’s horse able to see in the dark. Trees to replenish a damaged orchard. Grain sprouts to counter a too-late planting season. Hold lords knew well enough what a mage scribe could—and, more importantly, could not—conjure with his words. Healing the sick wasn’t possible. A living plant from which a worthwhile potion could be made was. Payment in such a hall would be gold or silver strips, hammered flat and thin to fit a money belt.

That plus supper and a tumble with the hold daughter’s selection, presumably willing, doubtless fertile. There was no proof Her Gift could be thrown like the color of a beard, and fertility was very much a presumption in a mage of accomplishment, however willing. But men freely gambled on worse odds.

Including those mage scribes who clung to a belief that their hastened deaths were a sign of affection by the Goddess, that Her true intention was to summon those most worthy to Her assuredly ample and luxurious Bosom, there to dwell in whatever version of paradise suited the mage in every particular.

Saeleonarial snorted to himself as he paused in the doorway to Tiler’s audience hall. The notion didn’t help him sleep nights. Believers were wont to spent their lives with reckless haste, an abundance of magic that inspired dangerous expectations in hold lords.

The Deathless Lady, being oblivious to belief or expectation, did nothing to make his life easier.

The holdings nestled in Her rich heartland offered more in payment—but expected more in exchange. Their halls were constructed of magic and architecture, with an emphasis on magic. How many years of life were paid to the Deathless Lady to reproduce the glowing snakes illuminating Aote’s hall of welcome—how many more to create the silent deadly guardians that protected its treasury? Glorious Xcel itself required the constant attention of a dozen mage scribes to fill its hold lord’s penchant for fresh flowers and frog-filled fountains regardless of season. Mage scribes there grew wealthy almost as fast as they grew old.

The audience hall of Tiler’s Hold spoke of wealth accumulated rather than spent. Little magic, other than what populated the beards of its court. Insom the Second preferred to display trade goods, the more precious and rare the better; his hall often hosted galas for foreigners. Birth wasted him on a throne. The man would have made an excellent merchant. There were, of course, a few graceful made-servants, waiting with their mute patience. Waiting with full trays.

Suspended service wasn’t a good sign, not good at all, Saeleonarial fussed to himself.

His delay in the wide doorway drew the scrutiny of the made-guards to either side. Mauls, they were called. Each student was required to write a set before graduating as a scribe. Dogs, really, written taller than a man, of greater bulk. Written to stand like a man, too, but most remained bent, as if unsure written arms and hands shouldn’t be legs and paws. Written to learn and obey one command: protect their hold lord.

Those hold lords who could afford to buy and replace their mauls, that is. The things did wear out. Another of their magical intentions, if unadvertised. A straightforward project that promoted peace in audience halls and reliable funding for the school, if not reliable results. Hard to convince students that novelty of itself rarely meant improvement. Saeleonarial cast a critical eye over Insom’s current pair. Dappled and drooling, with as much ability to intimidate as a leaky window.

Though there’d be teeth behind those loose jowls. Large, sharp teeth. Students always liked writing those.

Before his inspection seemed other than ordinary to those waiting, Saeleonarial entered the hall. The deep, heavy carpet—a new acquisition from over the sea, woven as a desertscape of yellow and bronze—resisted his slippers and made it necessary to step with the exaggerated care of being in his cups or risk lurching from side to side.

The nobles and their attendants parted at once, a bowing wave of sequins, feathers, and smirks that granted the scribemaster an aisle straight to the hold lord’s impatient boots and themselves a good view. Another lesson to be read in an audience hall, he thought as he walked that gauntlet at a considered pace, trading dignified if meaningless nods. These placed more worth in bloodline than accomplishment.

No holding could support a crop of fools for long. Tiler’s might be due for the attention of the Deathless Lady.

Saeleonarial devoutly hoped to be anywhere else if so. The Goddess wasn’t known for discrimination when She chose to clean house.

Almost there. The bows were stiffer, waists constrained by thicker tabards and girdles, though, small mercies, fewer of the dratted face confections Domozuk tormented him about. These were the cream of any hold lord’s court: sycophants of use, rivals too powerful to ignore, heirs in waiting.

No smiles here, only frowns and pursed lips, as if he’d interrupted an argument. His stomach, contrary organ, clamored for sweets. Saeleonarial ignored it and came to stand before Tiler’s hold lord.

In the fashion of more southerly holdings, Insom the Second sat on a plain chair, raised a single step above the floor. Behind him rose the latticework of the Daughter’s Portion, in Tiler carved from honey-colored wood. Mirrors filled a third of its square openings, their surfaces reflecting the bright-garbed nobles, like so many caged exotic birds.

Hands folded over his heart, the scribemaster bowed low, not to the hold lord, but the latticework. “Hold Daughter.”

No matter how poor the holdings, the latticework granting privacy to the Daughter’s Portion was a thing of beauty—be it a treasure of lacework created over generations or weavings of the freshest flowering vines. For any act of a hold lord to be legal and binding, she must be present to bear witness and record it. As the living voice of the Deathless Lady and, not coincidentally, the sole person allowed title to a holding’s land and life, she could also put an end to any hold lord’s act or existence with a word.

Silks moved behind the latticework; shadow court or the true one? For mage scribes, the distinction was insignificant. In addition to the script of the land, every hold daughter could read and write the sacred words of the Goddess, a teaching passed from generation to generation. No mortal woman could write with magical intent or result, but these kept the key to that power. History was replete with proof that the school of mage scribes was above all a target. It didn’t matter if this or that assembly of disgruntled hold lords attacked it in some vain effort to control what was never theirs to own, or a student rediscovered how to write living fire. It didn’t matter if destruction came at the whim of the Deathless Lady—who, truth be told, liked living fire but not disgruntled lords. The school burned to its foundation stones with deplorable frequency.

Five times, by common count, though some scholars claimed twice that. Saeleonarial doubted even the Goddess bothered to remember.

The magic remained, safe in the minds and hands of hold daughters, charged by their Goddess to return it to those with Her Gift. A decimated school would be rebuilt on its scorched foundation by the obliging residents of Alden’s Holding, bright-eyed students would arrive, and any master wary enough to be out of the way at the right time but not enough to run beyond reach would be summoned back and put in charge of the new crop of mage scribes.

Not in his lifetime, Saeleonarial hoped uneasily. The holdings were at peace. Students well supervised. The Deathless Lady?

Mages gave their futures for Her Gift, hoping She’d leave what remained of their lives alone.

Unfortunately, disgruntled was a mild word to use for the turmoil knotting the rank tattoos across the brow of Tiler’s hold lord. Insom the Second was young for the post, Insom the First having had the poor judgment to dismiss his horse master’s concerns about a certain stallion and the cobbled streets of Tiler’s Hold. The new lord was young, but not too young. The thick brown hair might be free of grey, but years at the helm of a barge had drawn reasonably distinguished lines on his broad face. Real muscle, not padding, stretched the velvet at shoulder, chest, and thigh. No hint of weakness or dissipation appeared in the keen, pale eyes that now pinned the scribemaster. Temper, yes. And a worrisome glint of fear.

“Scribemaster!” Though toned to a civil note, a voice used to bellowing across a loaded deck easily filled a hall. “What do you know of this?” A gloved hand beckoned.

“This” stepped from behind the nobles. A tanned young man, sturdily built, with an upstanding shock of thick black hair. Country-bred, Saeleonarial judged with sympathy, clearly uncomfortable in his new, rich clothing. Those balloon sleeves suited a servant to one of the useless courtiers, not someone used to plowing a field or butchering pigs. Exhausted, from what Saeleonarial could see of his face past the homespun bandages encasing the left side. Exhausted and in pain.

“Saeleonarial,” he offered with a slight bow. The unbandaged eye widened, and the lad did his best to bow in turn.

“Nim Millerson—” The hesitation and worried glance at the impatient hold lord were clear. Young Millerson had no idea which honorific applied—to either of them.

“I’m a teacher and scribe, Nim,” Saeleonarial said kindly. “‘Sir’ will do me—as you’d give any grizzled old man of your village.”

“Yes . . . sir.” Doubt remained in the tone. Not surprising. The niceties of court in the eastern holdings. Lost, poor lad, in a detestable maze of manners and mockery.

The glove made a hurry-up gesture.

“Tell me what the hold lord wishes me to know.”

“I’m from Riverhill, sir. O’er by Tankerton. My uncles sent me past the Veil, here, to the Hold. For help.” From the look on his face, Nim didn’t think much of that help so far. “The rest—they stayed, sir. To guard what stock’s left us. In case o’ attack again.”

“Attack?” Saeleonarial frowned. “By what?”

“A great beast, sir. Yesterday morn. Came a’ nowhere. Tore—tore five of us t’ shreds before run’n’ off.” Nim’s eye pleaded. “We can’t lose more o’ own. Not ’n’ ’arvest.”

“A bear?” The guess drew impatient murmurs from the nobles behind him, and Saeleonarial frowned. They must already know what he was learning from these painful gasps. He’d ask for a private audience, but delay now would only add to the distress of the honest young farmer.

“No, sir. I saw it. I swear it war’n no natural beast, sir. The hermit must a’ made it. The wild mage o’ the hills. ’E set it o’ us—t’ push us from ’r’ lands.” Words tumbled like rocks downhill, faster and faster. “’E’ll write anothern and anothern. You must help us, sir.”

“Magic used for harm!” the hold lord thundered. “What do you know of this, Master of all Mages? Which of your kind has gone mad?”

In the profound hush, the whisper and soft click of mirrors being turned caught everyone’s attention. Insom stiffened, but didn’t look around. When the mirrors stopped, Saeleonarial could see himself and the injured country boy reflected over and over.

Unanimity of purpose. A terror shared. He could see it writ on his own face, and schooled his expression. Mouth dry, he bowed low, very low, toward the latticework and those behind it. There were no rules or customs forbidding magic as a weapon. There didn’t need to be. Informed by a daughter of such transgression, the Deathless Lady simply claimed all life left to that mage. At once.

“I accuse no one without proof,” Saeleonarial told the hold lord as he straightened.

The bandage-free portion of Nim’s face flushed. “Sir! I’m na liar!” Out of turn, impassioned . . . such was the fear in the hall, no one appeared to notice.

“I believe what you say,” the scribemaster assured him gravely. “But did you see the mage write this ill creation? Were there witnesses to its first breath?”

“The dead.” Flat and sure, shoulders squared. “Sir.”

No wonder a distraught village trusted this wounded boy to plead their case. Saeleonarial was blunt in return. “Since they cannot testify—no, lad”—this to forestall what was surely a protest—“despite the tales, magic has no power after death. I must go myself. At once.”

The hold lord pursed his lips, then nodded as if the scribemaster had asked his permission. “You’ll take suitable company—”

“Here he is.” Saeleonarial nodded at the farm lad. “If magic’s been ill-used, best if only those already touched by it or those with Her Gift approach. My thanks, Hold Lord”—this with a half bow—“but we go alone.”

Insom scowled but didn’t press. “I expect a full reporting, Scribemaster, on your return.”

Return? He hadn’t left yet. At the mere thought of the journey, Saeleonarial felt every ache in his once-young bones. Riverhill was not in the lovely lowlands, where civilized canals linked city to village, and inns could be relied upon to have soft clean sheets. Once past Her Veil, it would be rutted mountain roads, and lucky to find a bed even if there was time for one.

But the hold lord was partly right.

Saeleonarial met a multiplicity of his own troubled gaze in the hold daughter’s mirrors.

There would be a report, but not to Insom the Second. Not to anyone so predictable and powerless. The Deathless Lady had daintier ears at her disposal.

Maleonarial, he fussed to himself. Old Fool. What have you done?

****

Magic begins with intention. Intention is expressed as words in Her sacred language. Unspoken words. Words of only this purpose. The symbols of Her lettering are written in precise order, not from top to bottom, but over one another so ink blends all into the rest. What is written thus can never be read, as everyday writing could be, nor checked for error. Only in the mind and hand of the mage scribe will the intention of his words remain. There, and in the living result.

Ink and pen and parchment are the physical means. Students who struggle to master lettering soon learn they’ll set fewer regrettable mistakes loose on the world if they use whole parchment, lump-free ink, and sharpen their quills. Masters, busy struggling to preserve what remains of their own lives, can afford no mistakes at all. They hoard fine parchment and carry their favorite pens on their persons. They buy only the best and rarest inks.

For materials have their own impact on intention and magic. Some dampen it, stealing more life than needful from the mage. Some enhance it, allowing a certain extravagance. Those inks and pens and parchments most worth using are those made by the scribe himself, an effort ultimately beyond aging bones.

The Deathless Lady has a sense of humor.

Drizzle slanted beneath the canvas, found mends and gaps in his clothes, fingered the bones of his neck. Maleonarial shrugged his cloak tighter. His huddled body protected the tiny flame and the battered pot of ink bubbling merrily atop. Almost ready. His fingers twitched, practicing the words they would write this time.

Fewer than yesterday. Almost random. Almost. The words rattled around in his head while he did other tasks. They’d find their order when he wrote and not before. Though soundless, Her words were as if spoken. Once said, once heard, forever gone.

Once he would have been flustered, unwilling to part with an instant of future without certainty. In the first years, at the beginning of all this, he prepared meticulous, thoughtful accounts of every potentiality, worked months on exact lists, planned for a flawless result. And failed, spending life for nothing.

He’d refused to let it be for nothing. The time since had taught him an important lesson. The language of the Deathless Lady was itself perfect; he had only to trust and let Her words flow as they would from his intent. Remarkably liberating, though he sometimes dreamed of being left with one word and no strength to write it.

Tucking his hands beneath his arms, Maleonarial stared into the pot. Fresh-made ink. Effort. The nib of bone. Chance. The tiny, almost clear parchment he’d scraped and stretched from the delicate hide of a thrush. Skill. Would these be enough, this time?

Canvas snapped overhead, strained at the lashings. “Temper, temper,” he murmured.

He dared not have expectation. Expectation was for those with a future.

Hope. That he permitted himself.

****

“Drive through the night?” If Harn’s eyes went wider, Saeleonarial decided, they’d pop from his head.

Domozuk growled something rude from behind the wagon, busy repacking what he and Harn had hastily removed from their master’s quarters. Most would stay behind—including court dress and the damnable wig, the scribemaster thought with some relief—to make room for the gear needed for the trip cross-country. Extra wheels and grain, tents . . . with luck, they’d use none of it. Nim, despite his injuries, was quick to help. The anxious student, however, stood beside the wagon, wringing his hands.

No question he had to go, however unused to rough living. Left alone, the curious hold lord would have him for questions Saeleonarial did not want answered. “The horses,” he commented dryly, “do the work, Harn. You can nod in the back.”

“Yes, Scribemaster.” As if he’d sentenced the lad to lashes.

“Quick now. Make yourself useful.” Trusting Domozuk to keep the glum student occupied, Saeleonarial walked alongside his team of six matched whites. He patted a pretty curved neck, admired the gilt-crusted harness and the red plumes crowning each head, and wished there was time to trade the lot of them for sturdy draft mules. As well wish for his youth back. A dozen bells ago, and he’d have eschewed the big comfortable wagon to ride like a border raider. Now he’d count himself fortunate to hold his bladder more than an hour, let alone endure bouncing the long hours. The young didn’t appreciate what they had.

Rid Smithyson, driver, groom, and pamperer of the expensive beauties, stood at their head, letting the lead right, a favorite, lip his fingers. He greeted the scribemaster with a scowl that joined his bushy grey eyebrows. “Ey’ll na manage a rough road, boy. Na with yorn bloody ’ouse on wheels.”

The “boy” from a man twice his years, if not age made Saeleonarial snort. “This wagon’s what we have. The team will get us to the foothills at Meadton, and we’ll buy whatever tougher stock we can there. The Hold Lord sent a courier ahead on our behalf.”

A long, thoughtful chew, then spit to the side. “Nowrn ey’ll be wait’n’ for a dandy ’n’ ’is purse. Stick us wit’ ’ard-mout glueys a’ best. Like to spook at yorn dingdangles ’n’ run us inna ditch, if’n ’ey sound ’t all.”

Saeleonarial worked through that. Rid’s hinterland tongue thickened when he wasn’t happy with those in authority. It was almost incomprehensible now. “Dingdangles” were the tiny, almost mute bells stitched in rows around his travel cap. Better than the heavy and intolerably hot wig, however more impressive the latter. The tally was what mattered; Domozuk attached a new bell to both cap and wig with each intention Saeleonarial wrote. The Deathless Lady hadn’t protested. At least, he hadn’t aged twice as fast. Not that he’d mentioned that particular nightmare to his faithful servant.

The rest? Not hard to guess. “Pick the best you can and keep us on the road.”

“Aie.” A gnarled hand rubbed the hollow behind an ear. Saeleonarial could have sworn the horse leaned into the caress. “Be rare trouble, ’is’un.”

“It may not be a scribe matter,” he countered, pitching his voice not to carry back to the wagon.

“An’ I kin pull yorn bloody ’ouse misself.” Another spit, accompanied by a too-wise look. “No one else fi’ ta go?”

Trust the stables to have as much news as the full court, though the emptiness of the cobbled yard and curtain-drawn windows above were telling of themselves, it being a fair afternoon when the area should have bustled with those on their own business, let alone those curious about his. “No one else I’d trust,” the scribemaster admitted. “The sooner we get to Riverhill, the better.”

“Ey’ll be fast’r ’n wind o’ flats—” Rid promised, only to toss his head abruptly like one of his charges. “Whossat, now?”

Saeleonarial turned and felt his blood congeal in his veins. “Stay with the horses,” he thought he said. Hoped he’d said.

Slippers coated in pearls seemed not to care if they were stepped on cobble or into fresh droppings. Silks weighing less than air ignored the autumn crisp, though rouged cheeks took a brighter hue. An attacking army would appear—would be—less formidable than the five women who walked from the shadowed wall toward them. Saeleonarial bowed low and stayed that way, despite his back’s protest.

“Rise, Scribemaster.”

He knew the voice, very well, if not the face. “Hold Daughter.” She was stout, round of face, hair peppered grey. Her lips were pale and thin beneath a regrettable nose; paler eyes gazed from the faint blue tattoos of her office. Without the voice, he’d have guessed someone’s mother or aunt in the wrong clothes. The silks and jewel-laden ropes lay easier over the long, lithe bodies of her attendants. Their eyes, within curled black tattoos, stared at him with an unnerving intensity. The hold daughter was not at risk, in any sense, while these were with her, even though three were burdened with dark, polished boxes.

Saeleonarial gave a second, deeper obeisance. As he straightened, “What is asked of me?”

“Her Gift, Mage.” The hold daughter reached within one sleeve to produce a pen.

His blood began to flow again. A request from the shadow court wasn’t unheard of, merely rare and more discreet. Perhaps the speed with which he’d prepared to leave the hold had caught her by surprise. The boxes? If payment, all he wanted at the moment was a more travelworthy wagon. “It is always at your service, Hold Daughter.”

“Good. Leorealyon?”

The leftmost of the women flanking the hold daughter, the one without a case, stepped forward and bowed her head to the scribemaster. “I’m ready.”

“Scribemaster. You will write eyes for this, Her Designate. She will accompany you to Riverhill and see this mad mage.”

The Deathless Lady was sending Her witness with him? Saeleonarial was horrified. No, appalled. That was closer to the mark. The Goddess’s personal attention was nothing a sane mage sought. Damn Maleonarial.

Which might be true by the end of this.

The pen tilted toward him, slightly. “Scribemaster?”

What could he do but take the thing? Too fine for his big, fisher-bred hands. Perfect balance. Gold, the body; for the nib, a gem had been cut and set into the end. A topaz. “Here?” his voice cracked on the word. “Now?”

“There’s no time to waste. We’re alone, save for those who should be with us.”

No wonder the yard had a hollow feel. It hadn’t been emptied by rumor.

He traded glances with Domozuk, who’d slipped out at the unfamiliar voices to stand by the wagon. The servant tipped his head at the rear gate. He’d keep Harn and their farm lad safely out of sight. One worry of thousands dealt with.

Another bell.

So soon.

Dread faded as his bones felt that itch. His heart pounded with excitement.

Not so safe. Not safe at all.

Saeleonarial braced himself. As if it were possible to prepare for the body’s abrupt decay . . . as if he had a choice. “This isn’t a magic I’ve done before,” he cautioned.

Leorealyon’s eyes lifted to his. They were the honey-flecked green of warm summer afternoons. A man could find his youth in those eyes, remember the sweetness of berry wine on his tongue. The suffix to her name meant “Promised to the Lady.”

The pen dragged at his hand.

“Need you be reminded of the words?”

Not an insult—fear. It laced the air, threw a chill the now-restive horses seemed to sense. Magic as a weapon. Was he not being asked to use it thus, in Her name? “I know what to write, Hold Daughter,” he told her, his voice flat.

She gave a regal nod. At that signal, two of her attendants stepped forward, opening their cases. Within the first, lined with purple velvet, nestled ranks of tiny crystal vials, the dark liquid of any one worth his weight in gold. Within the second lay parchments of varied lengths, each immaculate roll secured with a jeweled clasp. The true wealth of Tiler’s Hold, on display in its empty, breeze-swept horse yard.

Any of such quality would do. “You choose,” Saeleonarial told Leorealyon. Maybe having a hand in her own fate would ease what was to come.

Wordlessly, she plucked the closest vial and handed it to him. When it came to the parchments, her long fingers hovered over the selection, and she gave him a questioning look.

Saeleonarial held up the pen. “That length.”

She gave him one of the smallest rolls.

The lids closed, and the bearers took a step back. The third came forward, offering the flat of her case as a table.

Saeleonarial tested it with one hand. Leaned. Steady as stone. He slipped the parchment from the clasp. It lay flat, uninterested in the breeze. A twist broke the seal on the vial of ink. A moment to clear his mind, to concentrate on the intention. Nothing but that. No words but what made it clear. The itch built inside him; his blood took fire.

Everything faded but the pen. He lowered it till the topaz nib penetrated the black surface. Ink climbed and held, dulling the gem. He lifted the pen and wrote what he must.

With the lift of the pen after the final stroke, a faint gasp broke from his lips. Even expected, remembered, and longed for, nothing muted the shocking exaltation that raced through his body as his words blurred into a thick line, then two, then four, then eight—lines that grew out from the parchment, that enlarged and swayed like rooted, hungry worms. Each had a head, of sorts. A closed eye. A closed mouth.

He’d done it.

Saeleonarial put aside the pen and curled the parchment in a loose roll. As he gathered it in his hands, felt the new life within squirm, his heart stuttered in his chest. He didn’t dare move—couldn’t move. Cold sweat dripped into his eyes. His legs threatened to fold under him. Not yet, he begged inwardly. Surely that wasn’t the last of my life . . .

“Scribemaster?”

He didn’t spare the breath to explain, merely . . . waited. His heart hammered once. Again. Then resumed an almost normal beat.

So. The Deathless Lady wasn’t done with him.

“Kneel, Leorealyon,” Saeleonarial gasped. The girl obeyed, every motion of grace. When none of her companions came forward to brace her head, the scribemaster took hold of her jaw with his free hand and readied the thin, squirming curl of parchment in the other. “You must not move.”

“I will not,” she promised. Brave words. This would be the hold daughter’s favorite, the best of those who attended her and so the Deathless Lady, the one who couldn’t be spared but must be spent.

He bent close. Silk from her sleeves whispered across his wrist, caught his doubtless greyer beard.

Saeleonarial wasn’t sure if he pitied her or himself more as he tipped the roll into the first lovely eye, and the worms opened their mouths.

****

Cil rubbed the rain from his face, blending it with tears. Cold and hot. Fresh and salt. Waste and frustration. “Dumb meat,” he said through his bent teeth.

He wriggled farther into his hidey-hole, his place, but squatted where he could watch the goings-on. Shapeless forms in the dusk gathered, guttering lanterns in hand. They carried weapons for a war against dirt, against weeds: staves and pitchforks, axes and picks.

They prepared for battle, but not against him. Silly-Cil was unimportant. Silly-Cil was useless. Silly-Cil was to squat in his hole, out of the way of his betters. “Mine. Mine!” he wailed. But none of them believed him capable of anything, not the creation of something magnificent, not even of being able to fight for himself.

They would wage war against a stranger, before noticing him.

It had been for nothing.

Cil hunched over the ache in his heart. “Not. Not. Not.” His hand flashed down—they didn’t think him quick, but he was, very quick, quickest—and scooped a bug fleeing the damp. He crunched it in his bent teeth, then spat his frustration and fury into the storm.

He didn’t need to see the wings or razor teeth. Methodically, his hands worked the cold mud, finding anything alive to bring to his mouth.

Anything he could chew and spit and turn to spite.

****

Six holdings divided Tananen’s lush heartland with its bustling canals and fertile soil. Their ancient holds were surrounded by sprawling cities of brick and cobblestone, though no other building could be taller and all roads, and newcomers, must go straight to the hold. Nine holdings carved an existence from the startling valleys and iron-rich hills of the north. Though together their sparse populations would be lost within a single heartland city, the nine sent a disproportionate number of students to the mage school in Alden. Regardless of wealth, numbers, or gifts, rule of each holding passed smoothly from hold daughter to her successor-designate; less smoothly, and at times with bloody argument, from hold lord to his heir.

Elsewhere? To Tananen’s south spread the inhospitable fen called the Lady’s Tears; to the west, the jagged dry rock of Her Fist.

To the east, beyond Her Veil, the Snarlen Sea.

Yet Tananen was bounded by nothing so common as sea, fen, or rock. Magic edged it, held it, defined it. Tananen was where the Deathless Lady’s gift answered a mage scribe’s intended words, and only there could life born of that magic survive. Traders from across the Snarlen Sea, astonished by living wonders, would scoff at warnings and steal or barter for such treasure, only to watch it turn to white ash and blow from their decks the instant their ships crossed that unseen line.

Those of Tananen stayed there. For who would leave a land of magic?

And who could be sure they themselves were not creations of the Goddess, to turn to ash beyond Her reach?

Maleonarial had stood at the sea’s edge once, his worn boots lapped by bitter water, his heart worn and bitter too, wondering if it were true, wondering if he’d turn to ash if he swam too far toward the rising sun. Would She notice?

Or was every mage the same in Her eyes, and death Her intention?

He stirred the pot. Wisps of acrid steam danced over the surface of the cooling ink, teased at patterns, pretended secrets. Would it could be that easy . . . that his answer could be found by looking instead of dying a little more.

Maleonarial snorted to himself. The Deathless Lady made the rules. As mage scribe, he made the choice. He closed his eyes to half slits and shivered inside his cloak. This old man would see another dawn. By that light, he’d write again.

If one more dawn was all She’d give him, maybe that was all he’d need.

****

Hooves splashed through puddles; wheels flung dollops of mud. Any section of wagon or clothing not soaked or muddied was soaked by wind-driven rain. With luck, he’d die soon.

The Deathless Lady was being difficult. Saeleonarial’s beard was now fully grey and the last of his hair had been left in the stableyard; but his heart, that contrary organ, cheerfully pumped icy blood from his hands and feet through the rest of his body. Merchants and traders claimed those over the sea prayed to their gods, sought their attention and favor. In Tananen, no one in their right minds tried for Hers.

Cushions made no appreciable difference to the hard seat; sitting shoulder to shoulder only made the bouncing worse. The Designate of the Deathless Lady, it turned out, would see where they were going. Accommodating that requirement brought Saeleonarial out on the wagon box since he wouldn’t abandon poor Rid to such company alone.

For at the sight of Leorealyon’s ruined face, Nim had shuddered and closed his good eye. Domozuk had cursed in his own tongue. Harn, after flinging himself to the back of the wagon to spew into the rush of dark road, had clung to the gate and refused to turn around.

Rid had given that visage a thoughtful look, then spat to one side. His hands on the reins eventually stopped shaking, but he never glanced around, even when their shoulders touched.

Saeleonarial shivered inside his heaviest cloak, this time not from the chill. It wasn’t the empty, dark sockets or living horrors that could peer from them that filled him with dread. He knew who’d be looking back. Her. As well take pilgrimage to Her Soul and abase himself before the great, watchful tower.

Should have worn the wig, he fussed to himself.

The broad road that drank goods from the Mouth took the shortest path inland. Straight and paved with massive stone, it occasionally lured foreigners and local fools. They, and their unfortunate horses, were soon gasping as the road heaved itself up the steep slope without regard for such frail beings. If they persisted, they’d be drenched and blinded by spray as the road passed through Her Veil, deafened by the hammering of the great waterfall itself as it drained most of Tananen to the sea. If they passed that challenge?

The Deathless Lady knew who belonged. Those who didn’t never left Her Veil.

Rid Smithyson had guided his matched whites through the gate of Tiler Hold onto the second road that left it. This, though paved and wide, twisted its way up the sloping pass like a demented snake, sometimes almost touching itself again. A longer route, but safer. There were places to pull to the side and wait, for downward traffic had right of passage even over couriers. The team knew the road well and had made good speed between the tight turns. They’d passed Her Veil at some distance, hardly noticing the lick of spray.

Sunset had caught them on a civilized road, with civilized traffic, lit by lantern, moving by rules. Heading to yet more civilization and comfort. Even the horses had hesitated when Rid asked them to turn off onto the narrow dirt excuse that led to Meadton. But the land was level here and the rains, however uncomfortable for passengers, hardly slowed them.

They’d be there by dawn . . .

The lead horse cried out and stumbled. The wagon jolted, and Saeleonarial grasped in vain for a handhold, fingers slipping on the wet wood. Aged bones and the hard road beneath would be a disaster. But the Designate had him, hands like metal hooks. The driver hauled on the reins and worked the brake, alternately cursing and pleading until his team staggered to a safe halt.

The rain and wind chose that moment to ease as well. Rid snugged the reins and hopped down, splashing forward to find the trouble. Pointless to join him, the scribemaster knew, fretting. If the lead was lame, they couldn’t slow to its pace. Favorite or not, the animal would have to be abandoned.

“A canal dancer blocks the road.” Though flat and lacking intonation, the soft voice was Leorealyon’s.

Saeleonarial blinked. He hadn’t expected conversation from the Designate. Though this made no sense. “Impossible.”

Canal dancers cleared the waterways that connected the three mightiest rivers of Tananen: the Helthrom, Pactrom, and red-tinged Nathrom. More traffic moved through the heartlands by barge than by any road. The immense dancers—a ridiculous name, since the beasts were long, flat, and shelled—crept along a canal’s bottom and ate whatever silt and mud or worse had accumulated, deepening and widening the channels as they went. Their wastes appeared on shore each morning: tidy, serpentine mounds, odorless when dry. Superb fertilizer. Though, like most nonfarmers, Saeleonarial did his utmost not to make any connection between his supper and the filthy beasts.

“Dancers stay in water,” he pointed out.

“She takes the road tonight.”

Of course. In nights of heavy rain, he remembered with dismay, the dancers availed themselves of darkness and mud-slick roads to