bloodyrosemccoy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bloodyrosemccoy) wrote2013-06-08 07:48 pm
bloodyrosemccoy) wrote2013-06-08 07:48 pm
Entry tags:
Scatterstone - Part 9
You want an index? Oh, I'll GIVE you an index!
The Fyan system of pollution avoidance here is loosely based on a number of similar systems you find in real-world cultures: Hawaiian kapu, Romani marime, Hua nu, and of course good old American cooties. Hell, even germ avoidance takes on a less scientific and more ritualistic aspect at times. (And I might argue that we have another one in America--"testosterone" vs. "estrogen." Sure they're real hormones, but quite a bit of the assumptions surrounding their functions get pretty fanciful. They're often useful shorthand for longer concepts.)
I'm always intrigued by the systems' internal consistency. If you know the premise--even if you don't accept it--of one of these systems, then somebody abiding by it may seem perfectly rational. If you don't know the premise, their actions make no sense.
I'm also intrigued by how gosh darn often these systems suggest a weird sort of male anxiety. Whichever men came up with the rules seemed to live in constant terror of somehow getting LADYNESS all over their manhoods. And not in a fun way. No, it's in a way that makes it clear that the most horrible fate these rule-makers could imagine was to BECOME MORE LIKE A GIRL. Darlin, I'm living the horror and it's not really that big a deal.
Any rumors that I spent the entire day wandering around humming "Caravanserai" to the tune of "Qué Será, Será" are completely unfounded.
---
Chadrafun seemed to be a city of many moods.
Until she'd joined the Blue Star Caravan, the most urban environment Nolly had experienced was the Birchdale town center: a large hollow at the foot of the Great Hill where a few little shops--including Blackstone's General Store--and the Celadon Toadstool embraced the open-air market. With trees at the edge of the center's packed dirt, the Toadstool's outdoor tables, and awnings like a riot of colorful flowers, it was not very different from the lanes and front gardens around all the houses of Birchdale.
Here in Chadrafun, though, all streets were not created equal. Narrow, dingy, fetid alleys turned abrupt corners into open plazas with colorfully tiled fountains. Lush townhouse gardens peeked over high red walls to overlook bare, hive-like heaps of human dwellings. She was constantly having to wrench her mind from wonder to revulsion and back again. It was exhausting.
Fortunately, she had a sanctuary. She had not realized how much she'd missed sleeping in one place until they reached the Winterfair Caravanserai on the outskirts of the city.
It was no hobbit hole, of course. The Fyan stronghold--one of their few permanent dwellings--was a large, walled complex with a bisected courtyard where wagons could be parked. Like most of the un-tiled buildings in Chadrafun, bits of colorful glass had been pressed into the red plaster walls, making them glitter in the sunlight.
The buildings in the complex were not the elegant structures Nolly saw in the fancier parts of town; they more strongly reflected the haphazard apartment piles from an older era in the city's history. They looked like a geometric stack of children's blocks: the roofs of the lower floors formed terraces for the upper floors. The interiors were a maze of storage rooms, meeting halls, and dormitories. Many of the Fyan still slept in their tents or wagons in the courtyard--though instead of the concentric rings they made on the road, the courtyard was split by a gated wall between the men's and the women's sides.
Nolly, however, had the good luck to acquire a private little room of her own--though it was not so much a hospitable gesture by the Fyan as their attempt at self-preservation. Nolly still hadn't gotten the hang of the many Fyan social rules, and the solution seemed to be to keep her well-contained so as to limit the danger of her mistakes.
Once Nolly had been granted probationary Fyan status, Zeia had been able to clarify some of the reasons for those rules. Men and women, she explained, had essences: invisible auras that always hovered around their bodies. While men's auras were fiery, women's had the properties of water--including the ability to quench fire. If a man's aura met a woman's, it would be dampened. And, if it was dampened enough, the man could become dull and listless.
So, care had to be taken to keep the auras separate. This held doubly true after sunset, when the female essences became more active and reached farther. At that point, a woman couldn't get too close to a man for fear that she'd douse him.
And it was not just the people who had to stay apart: female auras also tended to remain on things women handled. Men did not eat food prepared by women after sundown, and men's and women's clothes, dishes, and personal effects were washed separately.
Obviously, there were ways to neutralize the effect. Fyan marriage involved a lengthy and irreversible process of weaving a man's and a woman's essence together so that the woman's no longer doused the man's. And the protective circles Vazyo made before Carnival Time included a spell that quieted the auras, allowing the Fyan to interact with Outsiders who had no sense of propriety.
Upon learning that, Nolly had quickly pointed out that keeping that spell going all the time would save everyone a lot of bother. That practical suggestion had earned her a little cuff on the head from Zorna.
"Pay attention, girl," the old woman had snapped. "You smother down your essence too long, you get slow and stupid. Three days is about the limit before you turn into a stupid lump--and you, my girl, have enough trouble fending that off as it is."
Nolly thought the whole thing was a load of rubbish. But, seeing as she had promised to follow the rules, and as they seemed so important to her hosts, she dutifully washed her own laundry and dishes, and stayed in her own room, and didn't cook for men during the time of the month when a woman's essence went out of control. At first, she'd comforted herself knowing that she could use this as story fodder. She could regale Largo with all the strangenesses of the world outside Alricshire, and the ridiculous beliefs of the bigfolk.
Now, though ... that was no comfort.
Having her own room was good in one sense: it was private. Nobody needed to be there in the dark hours before dawn. Nobody needed hear her weeping into her pillow.
But nobody asked her why she was weeping, either. And tonight, the need to explain it became unbearable.
The moon was still high, turning the fragmented cloud cover into its own silver-and-grey mosaic. Nolly pulled her cloak tighter around her as she paced restlessly over the first-level terrace. She desperately wanted to talk to Zeia, but her hobbitish sensibilities overruled her distress: it was inexcusable to knock on someone's door so late.
Fortunately, fate--and Zeia's own restlessness--came to her rescue: the Fyan woman stood on the outer wall. Nolly hesitated for a moment, still reluctant to disturb her. Clutching her cloak like a favorite blanket, she crossed the arch that connected the building to the wall.
A movement below caught her eye. Peering down she saw a hooded figure creeping furtively among the tents and wagons outside the caravanserai proper. He skittered from shadow to shadow, pausing each time to ascertain that nobody was watching. He wasn't doing a very good job of that, Nolly thought.
Zeia evidently agreed. As the figure made it to the gate and vanished into the men's courtyard, she snorted. "Oh, very stealthy, brother mine," she muttered. "Whoever would suspect you were up to something?"
"What is he up to?" Nolly asked, hushed.
"I'm not sure I want to know." She looked down at Nolly. "You shouldn't be outside in your night dress."
Nolly looked down at the nightgown under her cloak. She was completely covered, after all. She folded her arms and tried not to glare.
Zeia grinned. "I won't tell. This time."
Nolly didn't smile back. Her dreams still weighed heavily on her mind.
"What's the matter?" Zeia asked.
"Well--" Nolly faltered. She was still not certain how to broach this subject. The Fyan were careful at the best of times when speaking to their mages. But here, it was not only the cloaked figure of Ivan who had grown more furtive. Ivan's creeping seemed to be a symptom of a larger retreat into secrecy. And not just for the Fyan--the whole city had a pall of paranoia about it. It was the strangest thing about Chadrafun.
Chadrafun!
The name rang a bell--here was a question she could ask. A nice, safe question. "Zeia? Is there a Lord Kraja in Chadrafun?"
Her reasoning was simple. Largo had mentioned that name in the dream; she had never heard it elsewhere. If there was such a person, it would tell her that there was something more going on than just an overactive imagination. There was always the chance that Zeia might nod and say "Oh, of course." Nolly could take it from there.
She had not counted on the chance that Zeia might blanch and reel away from her. She hadn't expected those dark eyes to suddenly go wide. And she certainly hadn't expected Zeia's hand to jolt reflexively toward her disguised daggers.
"Why do you ask?" It was almost a hiss.
Nolly took a half-step back. "I--" Suddenly the memory of Zorna's fiery monsters loomed. "I heard the name in--in Saint Verdaine."
Zeia only relaxed by inches. She pinned Nolly with her gaze--Nolly was surprised at how much she could look like Zorna. She seemed to be searching for something in the hobbit's face.
At last, Zeia said, "Gods all hide me, I think you really don't know what you ask."
The mounting dread of the last few nights doubled. Nolly whispered, "What did I ask?"
Zeia glanced around. "Not here," she said. "You have a room?"
"Yes ..."
"I'll tell you there."
The tiny window in Nolly's room let in only a little light. She found a candle--she did not want to be in the dark tonight. She set it next to her bedroll, then wrapped herself in one of the blankets. Zeia sat down next to her.
"It's a dangerous name you invoke," she said softly. "You will not hear it in Chadrafun like you did in Arcadia. The Arcadians don't know their danger."
The pit of nervousness in Nolly's stomach widened. "Danger?"
"I'm sure you've noticed it," Zeia said. "This city. There's terror here. It's squeezing the life out of. People won't speak. Silence is safe--and while they're straining to hear or see any sign of an attack, at the same time they want to close their eyes and shut their ears. If you don't hear about the danger, maybe it won't notice you."
"But why?" Nolly demanded. "What makes him so terrible? Who is he?"
"He's a sorcerer," Zeia said.
"Like y--like the Blue Star Mage?"
"Perhaps he started out that way," Zeia said. "Perhaps he was only a greatmage. Or even an ordinary mage. For a noble, even magic is nothing special. With enough money, even magic can be bought."
Nolly shook her head, fascinated. "How?"
"Slave-mages," Zeia said flatly.
Nolly let out a little squeak.
"You can't steal the magic itself," Zeia said. "That would kill the mage, and the magic would vanish. But you can take their connection to it. With the right object--a bottle, perhaps, or a crystal, or a diamond--and the right spell, you can link yourself to them, so that you are the only one who can wield their magic."
Unconsciously, Nolly drew her knees to her chest. That sounded--unclean.
"It's common enough," Zeia said, her own voice loaded with revulsion. "But then, nobles who already have magic have no need for that sort of thing. So we thought."
She, too, pulled her cloak tighter. "But Kraja--he was not satisfied with his own power. He wanted more. He found himself a mage-slave, added that one's magic to his own. And then, pleased at the result, he acquired another. And a third."
Nolly shuddered. The idea of one person having that much magic--she suddenly understood a little of the fears Largo's Uncle Sirthaus often voiced.
"It should have stopped there," Zeia went on. "There's a limit to how many mage-slaves one can take. For one thing, one's will must constantly hold the objects creating the link. It tasks the mind. It's impossible to hold more than three or four objects in thrall at once. Fail, and the magic lashes back to its rightful wielder."
"Why not put all their magics in one object?" Nolly asked.
"Because usually, even a diamond isn't strong enough to contain all that power."
Nolly heard the prompt. "Usually," she repeated.
"Usually. There are rumors that he has managed to find a giant diamond--massive and pure. It must have been an amazing spell he constructed. Now that it's set up, he can string each magical link through that great central stone. Then he only has to carry smaller stones to channel the magic, and only worries about holding the larger one in thrall."
"It sounds complicated," Nolly said.
"That may be why nobody has done it before. That and ... getting the mages. He's not satisfied with the slave markets anymore. He's got thugs with spelled chains here in the city. They'll kidnap mages right off the streets, chain them up, and take them away."
"What?" Horrified, Nolly shot a look at the door, as though some of those thugs might lurk just beyond it, ready to snatch Zeia. "Why in heaven's name doesn't anybody stop him?"
"Because he has the magic of a thousand mages at his disposal," Zeia pointed out. "Plus an army and a fortress. And he's ruthless." She stared at the candle. "We know that because ... there's ... one other thing about taking that much magic."
Nolly waited. "Well?"
"The power of even a few mage-slaves should crush him," Zeia said flatly. "He should be dead from it."
"Why isn't he?"
"There's a spell you can do," Zeia said. "It gives you strength enough to withstand all that magic."
"I'm not going to like how this spell is cast, am I?"
"It's a ritual. There's a chant, painted symbols, dancing ..."
Nolly was leaning in, almost against her will. This was the sort of thing the storytellers talked about--not the magic they showed at the fair, but the real, powerful magic. The kind that Uncle Sirthaus was always warning them about. It was real, it was just as strange as she'd heard--
"... and then you tear out the heart of a sapient being and eat it."
Nolly jerked back, stunned. Zeia had said it in a rush, to get it over with--and it hit her like a swift blow. Could this be true? Could Lord Kraja be that sort of monster? And if so, was Largo--
Was he--
She stood up blindly. "I have to go," she said, reaching for her cloak.
Zeia looked away from the candle, startled. "What?"
"It's Largo. He's with Kraja." She was fumbling to put everything back in her pack. "He's the one who said the name to me. In the dream. I'd never heard the name before, and he said he was with Kraja, and now when I go to the dream he's in that awful seal, and there was crying that night and it wasn't here, and I told him to go looking for it and ended the dream--"
Zeia caught her hand. "What are you talking about?"
Nolly stared at Zeia's larger hand, trying to figure out what it was and how to get rid of it and go. "Kraja's in Arcadia now, isn't he?"
"Yes," Zeia said. "That's what worries us--we don't know what he's doing."
"I don't care what he's doing," Nolly declared. She had finally figured out how to pull her hand away from Zeia's grip. "Largo was there with him, and now--and now--"
"You have to slow down," Zeia said. "Where is Largo? Why would he be with Kraja? And what dream?"
She was right. Nolly forced herself to take a few deep breaths. She closed her eyes, trying to put her thoughts in order.
"I've been dreaming about Largo," she said after a moment. "He's coming after me. He thought I was in trouble."
Zeia nodded understandingly. "Dreaming something from home is--"
"No," Nolly snapped. "It's not that. It can't just be that. I'd never heard of Kraja before he told me."
"You might have just forgotten you'd heard it before your dream--"
"This was no dream." Nolly realized her hands were balled into fists.
Surprised at her fierceness, Zeia looked at her for a long moment.
"I've never heard of such a thing," she finally admitted, "but I've never heard of a lot of things. I think you'll need to ask someone more knowledgeable on such matters."
Nolly's heart sank. "Zorna?"
Zeia stood up. "Come on."
#
As an elder, Zorna, too, had a private room--a much more nicely furnished one than Nolly's. It had draperies all over the walls, though during the day they were drawn back from the large open windows so that Zorna's rows of potted plants might best catch the sun. Drying herbs hung from the ceiling, giving off a pleasant smell.
Nolly had expected some sharp words in exchange for the lateness of the hour. Zorna, however, seemed to take their appearance at her door as a sign that something important was afoot. She sat them down on cushions set on rich but worn rugs around a short folded table. She went to her brazier, where one of the little samovars so important to the Fyan bubbled, and filled three cups of fragrant tea. She sat with them and, with a peculiar smile, pulled out a familiar little tin.
For a moment Nolly was distracted from her troubles by simple pride. "Useful, aren't they?"
Zorna struck a match against its strike-end and lit a little branch of candles. "Indeed." Her keen eyes looked over her steaming cup at the two. "You're barely dressed," she said.
Nolly couldn't keep herself from rolling her eyes. She did manage to bite back a sharp retort, though. Fyan were supposed to respect their elders--even when the elders were being ridiculous.
Zorna seemed to notice. To Nolly's surprise, she gave a curt nod of approval and sat back. "Well?"
"Nolly has a problem," Zeia said. "It pertains to our specialty, but I could not answer it. You are wiser than I in these things. Perhaps you can see what to me is only darkness."
"Tell me," Zorna said, clearly interested.
Before Nolly could, though, Zeia held up a hand. "Zorna. It involves Kraja."
Zorna stiffened. A rapid series of emotions--surprise, alarm, anger, fear--flickered over her face. At last, she settled on a look Nolly had seen on the faces of many of her elders--a look of weary resignation. "Of course," she sighed. "Go on."
Nolly swallowed. "I've been having these dreams," she began.
She described her visits with Largo, trying to remember any details that a wizard might find salient. Zorna listened gravely, interrupting with a couple of questions to clarify certain points. Nolly tried to answer them truthfully. Even when Kraja's name appeared, Zorna only said, "And you had never heard the name before."
"Not before or since, till I asked Zeia," Nolly said. "I thought nothing of it at the time, except maybe that he was certainly lucky to escape a dragon."
She tried to go on. But she had reached the night she'd jabbed Largo with a pin so that they could investigate those strange noises in the waking world. And there she faltered.
"I don't remember hearing anyone crying on the ship," Zorna said.
"No," Nolly said. "It must have been on his side." She bit her lip, looking at the candlelight. "So I thought, maybe, he would have a story to tell me the next time, and then I thought no more of it."
She fell silent.
"And is that the last time that you had a dream like that?" Zorna asked after a moment.
"I ..." Nolly twisted a lock of her hair.
Zorna's eyes pierced her. "What happened?"
Nolly hadn't realized it before, but suddenly the reason for her reluctance became clear to her: if she spoke of this, it might become real. She could lie and say nothing had happened afterward, and perhaps that would keep Largo safe.
Load of rubbish, she told herself. You can't change what's happened by pretending it didn't. And what if she's got an answer? You'll want to hear it.
"I went back to the dream," she said. "Largo wasn't there." She finally managed to look up and meet Zorna's gaze. "Something else was."
Zeia drew in a sharp breath. Zorna waited.
"I wasn't sure what it was at first," Nolly struggled on. "It was big, and smooth. It looked like half of Neberr's crystal ball. But it wasn't clear; it was sort of smoky. Like--like trapped smoke."
"Did you look inside?"
"Yes," Nolly said. "There was a shadow in it. So I looked closer." She took a deep breath. "Largo was inside it."
Zorna nodded. She seemed to have expected something like that.
A wild mix of anger and hope rose in Nolly's chest. Could it be something simple? Was it as easy as going to this wizard for answers? Had she spent all those nights screaming, hammering at Largo's smoky prison with her fists--trying first to shatter it, and then just to convince the motionless figure seated inside, with his hands wrapped around a half-pint like a drowning man's around a rope, to look at her, or even move--had she spent those nights in vain when she had merely to inquire of Zorna to set things right? Had she wasted perfectly good time worrying over nothing? She watched Zorna, heart hammering.
Zorna was silent for a long moment.
Then her hand darted out, so quickly that both Nolly and Zeia jumped, and one gnarled finger hooked around the cord that held Nolly's little agate.
"He gave this to you," she said. It was not a question.
Nolly blinked. "He did. One just like his own." And as the connection hit her--"He got them from the Fyan! You people sold him spelled stones!"
Zorna laughed shortly. "Not us. I know of no spell to make stones like this--and especially none that would sell for pennies at a fair." She closed her other hand over it, and her eyes went unfocused for a moment. "Indeed, I have never sensed magic quite like this."
She let it drop. Nolly reached up to catch it in her hand. "But you think--you think it's why I'm dreaming like this?"
"You wear it at night, don't you?"
"Well--I always wear it."
Zorna nodded curtly. "And he always wears his. A symbolic connection. Only he made it real." She let out a sharp little cackle. "I don't know why he's sealed up like that; I've never heard of such a thing before. But don't you fret, little missy: your lad isn't dead. Not by Kraja's hand, at least. His Lordship would never stand to let a wizard like that get away."
It took a moment for the meaning of that to become clear. Then Nolly's mouth dropped open.
"Largo?" she said. "A wizard?" The sheer absurdity of the idea startled a laugh out of her. "Don't be ridiculous."
Zorna raised an eyebrow.
Nolly took another look at the idea.
"He'd have told me," she added, a little less sure of herself.
"If he knew," Zeia pointed out.
Nolly was silent. Suddenly she was seeing Largo vanishing into the shadows under a mountain, swearing that he knew there was a wonderfully big cave just a short walk back, even though he'd never been in that pitch dark tunnel before. She always made him find the stones for her sling, since each one he found struck its target with staggering accuracy--though he never used them himself. And there had been one time, last summer, at Uncle Sirthaus's garden party. Largo had managed to knock about half a tea service to the ground. Sirthaus's resulting tirade had been cut short when the stonework façade he'd had installed on the front of his hobbit-hole--to emulate the houses of the wise humans he'd studied with in Corridaine, of course--had quite suddenly collapsed onto his front porch like an ornamental landslide.
Sirthaus had abandoned Largo in favor of swearing vengeance on the two of Largo's brothers who had done the stonework. Largo had fled--and had barely managed to summon the courage to return the next day and offer all his saved money to pay for the tea service. But while his opinion of Largo had fallen even lower that day, not even Uncle Sirthaus had blamed Largo for the stonework mess.
Perhaps, Nolly thought, feeling like a terrible friend, he could have.
"Nolly?" Zeia asked.
"What are you remembering?" Zorna added shrewdly.
Nolly looked up at them slowly. "Do wizards have specialties?"
Zorna raised an eyebrow.
"He likes stones," Nolly said. She looked down at her own agate. "He's always picking them up or playing with them. And there's this ..."
"Oh, my," Zeia said.
Nolly looked at her.
"An elemental wizard," she explained. "All sorts of affinities have been known to crop up. And if they're powerful, they can tap into the element itself ..."
"That sounds about right," Nolly admitted.
Her mind was reeling. Largo--a mage! Her dreams were real. He had indeed come after her!
And that meant ...
What did that mean?
"Drat it all," she said finally. "Then he's in trouble! Kraja snatches mages! He's after Largo, then!" She bit her lip, trying to keep it from trembling. "What if the seal means he's been snatched?" She couldn't stop the tears from springing to her eyes at the thought. He hadn't even known he had magic, and some great brute had come along to steal it!
"You don't know that," Zorna said sharply. "He may have found a way to shield himself."
"But what if he didn't?" Nolly demanded. "What if he's been made a slave? What if Kraja's got him?" She was pulling at the agate, almost dragging it off her neck. "What's he do with his stolen mages?"
Zorna was silent. But Zeia said, "He keeps them as slaves in his own palace. He's got an unassailable holding across the desert. The closer they are to the big crystal, the easier it is to use their magic."
"Well, then, we've got to go there," Nolly said. "We've got to get that big diamond--free all the slaves--"
"She said 'unassailable," Zorna snapped. "He's got a magic shield--powered by his stolen magics--and a desert between us and his holding. This city has its own army and the patrician is still afraid of Kraja. He knows the mage is making some move--he's in Arcadia for a reason. They're just too terrified to cross him. How do you think you'll do by yourself, girl?"
"Perhaps not by herself," Zeia murmured.
Zorna shot her a look.
"Ivan knows a few people," Zeia said quietly. "They may have a way."
"A way to what?"
"Get into his palace," Zeia said. "They've been talking with someone in Arcadia. They're going to steal his little diamonds. Then we can snatch the big one and--"
"And what?" Zorna demanded. "Destroy it? How?"
"We had hoped you'd help us with that," Zeia whispered.
"Oh, you did, did you?"
The hope that had grown in Nolly died at Zorna's tone. "Can you help?" she asked.
"No," Zorna said flatly. "You need strong magic to break it. And you'll find no strong magic in Chadrafun--not as long as Kraja has stolen it all."
Nolly sucked in her breath. Suddenly she understood. She had wondered why Vazyo, the Blue Star Caravan's supposed official mage, had stayed behind when they'd sailed from St. Verdaine. Now she knew. Mages were afraid to come here, lest they get stolen away to Kraja's tower. As the official Blue Star mage, he could stay away openly.
And yet the only way to keep the other caravan mages from drawing attention was to have them return, as though the city held no threat to them.
Zeia and Zorna had chosen secrecy over distance to keep them safe.
Looking from one to the other, she felt despair rising inside her. "So that's it, then," she said. "His hold keeps growing, and we just hunker down and watch while he snatches other folk."
"I'm sorry," Zorna said softly. She even meant it.
And that was what infuriated Nolly all the more. She stood, clenching her fists to keep them from shaking. "Is that how the Fyan work?"
"It's for our own protection," Zorna said.
Zeia, however, remained expressionless.
"Then you just protect yourselves down into some pit and stay there," Nolly snarled. "But I'll not be joining you."
She stormed out of the room. Once she was out of sight, she ran through the halls and staircases of the complex, stopping only when she could fling herself onto her bedroll.
"I'm so sorry, Largo," she said, clutching the agate and wondering if he could hear her. "I'm so, so sorry."
#
She spent the next day away from the caravanserai. At first she wandered the city aimlessly. But after a few too many bigfolk nearly tripped over her, she decided to find somewhere out of the way to sit and think.
Not long after she reached that conclusion, she rounded another corner in the labyrinthine side streets--and found a fountain. It was lovingly crafted. The mosaic sparkled with a thousand colors. The clay pots around it, hosts for lush greenery, had the same colors painted on them. The water itself was bright and clean, and the patterns of the sunlight on the white tiles held her eyes .
Largo should see this, she thought.
That one simple realization crystallized her will. Largo was in trouble. And he'd come after her when he'd thought she was in trouble.
She was going to rescue him.
With that she spun away from the secret fountain. She had no idea how, but she would convince Zorna to aid her. Every step, she fed her anger and indignation. All this talk of We Must Protect Each Other and Oh, What A Hostile World This Can Be, and yet they took no steps to make it a less hostile world. Just sat around feeling sorry for themselves. Well, she'd tell Zorna what she thought of that philosophy. Hiding fixed nothing. It only added--
She stopped mid-thought. At the gate of the caravanserai she saw a familiar figure appear from within to begin desperately scanning the street.
"Ivan?" she said. The anger began to flee--sliding through her grasp like the string of a wayward kite.
He looked at her, and the look made the ground fall away.
"What is it?" she asked.
He didn't answer.
A glint caught her eye. Something was dangling limply in his hand.
Ivan noticed her gaze. As though suddenly remembering it was there, he jerked as if to hide it. But Nolly was too fast for him. She caught his wrist and pulled it toward her, surprising him enough that he didn't think to resist.
She knew what she would see. He had picked them up with a handkerchief--not because of the blood on them, but because he risked his essence holding them even this way, for there was no more feminine an item in all of Fyan culture.
Zeia's daggers.
Nolly let go of his hand. But now that she had seen them, Ivan seemed to think the damage was already done. "Take them," he said. "You can clean them up-- give them to the women to dispose of ..."
She gathered the naked blades and their disguising sheaths. Her heart was pounding. "Dispose of?" She didn't want to ask. But-- "Zeia?"
"She went to visit friends in another caravan this morning--they're camped outside the wall. She never arrived."
And all he'd found were the daggers. And he couldn't say it, because the daggers were secret and even if Zeia had vanished they would not be mentioned. Nolly wasn't supposed to see them.
But she had. And she knew his dilemma. Ivan knew Zeia was gone, and he officially had no evidence, and he couldn't very well say what he suspected without suggesting that Zeia was a wizard, and breaking another taboo.
A tiny part of her suddenly thought, Is this how they felt when I left? This empty, helpless panic? Raolo and Arven and Dad and Mum and Largo, I'm sorry--
But that was only a small part of her. The rest of her had other ideas.
The rest of her got angry.
"Come on," she said, storming forward. Forgetting the Fyan rules, she grabbed his hand and just about dragged him after her.
He fell into step behind her, throwing out a few half-formed protests. Finally he managed one coherent comment: "Where are we going?"
"To see Zorna," Nolly said grimly. "If what we're imagining really has happened to Zeia, then we'll need that old wi--that old crab's help."
Ivan forgot his discomfort in his surprise. "You know?"
"Yes, I do. And I'm trying to convince Zorna to do something!"
He stopped. Nolly finally remembered herself dropped his hand. She turned to look at him, uncertain what she was going to do or say--
--to find that he was kneeling so he could see eye-to-eye with her.
His voice was full of amazement. "You want to help?"
Nolly stared at him. Suddenly it occurred to her that Zorna's was not the only opinion among the Fyan about how to deal with such crises.
"Yes," she said. "I want to help. For Zeia--and for Largo." She drew herself up to her full height and wished there were more of it. "What can I do?"
He gave her an anxiety-tinged grin. "Come on. If you can get Zorna to help, I don't know about the elders, but I'll consider you a full Fyan."
"She'd better help," Nolly grumbled. "If the sight of these"--she rattled the daggers--"won't do it, maybe I ought to just stab her with them a few times. If nothing else, it'll make me feel better."
#
Tune in for Part 10!
The Fyan system of pollution avoidance here is loosely based on a number of similar systems you find in real-world cultures: Hawaiian kapu, Romani marime, Hua nu, and of course good old American cooties. Hell, even germ avoidance takes on a less scientific and more ritualistic aspect at times. (And I might argue that we have another one in America--"testosterone" vs. "estrogen." Sure they're real hormones, but quite a bit of the assumptions surrounding their functions get pretty fanciful. They're often useful shorthand for longer concepts.)
I'm always intrigued by the systems' internal consistency. If you know the premise--even if you don't accept it--of one of these systems, then somebody abiding by it may seem perfectly rational. If you don't know the premise, their actions make no sense.
I'm also intrigued by how gosh darn often these systems suggest a weird sort of male anxiety. Whichever men came up with the rules seemed to live in constant terror of somehow getting LADYNESS all over their manhoods. And not in a fun way. No, it's in a way that makes it clear that the most horrible fate these rule-makers could imagine was to BECOME MORE LIKE A GIRL. Darlin, I'm living the horror and it's not really that big a deal.
Any rumors that I spent the entire day wandering around humming "Caravanserai" to the tune of "Qué Será, Será" are completely unfounded.
---
Chadrafun seemed to be a city of many moods.
Until she'd joined the Blue Star Caravan, the most urban environment Nolly had experienced was the Birchdale town center: a large hollow at the foot of the Great Hill where a few little shops--including Blackstone's General Store--and the Celadon Toadstool embraced the open-air market. With trees at the edge of the center's packed dirt, the Toadstool's outdoor tables, and awnings like a riot of colorful flowers, it was not very different from the lanes and front gardens around all the houses of Birchdale.
Here in Chadrafun, though, all streets were not created equal. Narrow, dingy, fetid alleys turned abrupt corners into open plazas with colorfully tiled fountains. Lush townhouse gardens peeked over high red walls to overlook bare, hive-like heaps of human dwellings. She was constantly having to wrench her mind from wonder to revulsion and back again. It was exhausting.
Fortunately, she had a sanctuary. She had not realized how much she'd missed sleeping in one place until they reached the Winterfair Caravanserai on the outskirts of the city.
It was no hobbit hole, of course. The Fyan stronghold--one of their few permanent dwellings--was a large, walled complex with a bisected courtyard where wagons could be parked. Like most of the un-tiled buildings in Chadrafun, bits of colorful glass had been pressed into the red plaster walls, making them glitter in the sunlight.
The buildings in the complex were not the elegant structures Nolly saw in the fancier parts of town; they more strongly reflected the haphazard apartment piles from an older era in the city's history. They looked like a geometric stack of children's blocks: the roofs of the lower floors formed terraces for the upper floors. The interiors were a maze of storage rooms, meeting halls, and dormitories. Many of the Fyan still slept in their tents or wagons in the courtyard--though instead of the concentric rings they made on the road, the courtyard was split by a gated wall between the men's and the women's sides.
Nolly, however, had the good luck to acquire a private little room of her own--though it was not so much a hospitable gesture by the Fyan as their attempt at self-preservation. Nolly still hadn't gotten the hang of the many Fyan social rules, and the solution seemed to be to keep her well-contained so as to limit the danger of her mistakes.
Once Nolly had been granted probationary Fyan status, Zeia had been able to clarify some of the reasons for those rules. Men and women, she explained, had essences: invisible auras that always hovered around their bodies. While men's auras were fiery, women's had the properties of water--including the ability to quench fire. If a man's aura met a woman's, it would be dampened. And, if it was dampened enough, the man could become dull and listless.
So, care had to be taken to keep the auras separate. This held doubly true after sunset, when the female essences became more active and reached farther. At that point, a woman couldn't get too close to a man for fear that she'd douse him.
And it was not just the people who had to stay apart: female auras also tended to remain on things women handled. Men did not eat food prepared by women after sundown, and men's and women's clothes, dishes, and personal effects were washed separately.
Obviously, there were ways to neutralize the effect. Fyan marriage involved a lengthy and irreversible process of weaving a man's and a woman's essence together so that the woman's no longer doused the man's. And the protective circles Vazyo made before Carnival Time included a spell that quieted the auras, allowing the Fyan to interact with Outsiders who had no sense of propriety.
Upon learning that, Nolly had quickly pointed out that keeping that spell going all the time would save everyone a lot of bother. That practical suggestion had earned her a little cuff on the head from Zorna.
"Pay attention, girl," the old woman had snapped. "You smother down your essence too long, you get slow and stupid. Three days is about the limit before you turn into a stupid lump--and you, my girl, have enough trouble fending that off as it is."
Nolly thought the whole thing was a load of rubbish. But, seeing as she had promised to follow the rules, and as they seemed so important to her hosts, she dutifully washed her own laundry and dishes, and stayed in her own room, and didn't cook for men during the time of the month when a woman's essence went out of control. At first, she'd comforted herself knowing that she could use this as story fodder. She could regale Largo with all the strangenesses of the world outside Alricshire, and the ridiculous beliefs of the bigfolk.
Now, though ... that was no comfort.
Having her own room was good in one sense: it was private. Nobody needed to be there in the dark hours before dawn. Nobody needed hear her weeping into her pillow.
But nobody asked her why she was weeping, either. And tonight, the need to explain it became unbearable.
The moon was still high, turning the fragmented cloud cover into its own silver-and-grey mosaic. Nolly pulled her cloak tighter around her as she paced restlessly over the first-level terrace. She desperately wanted to talk to Zeia, but her hobbitish sensibilities overruled her distress: it was inexcusable to knock on someone's door so late.
Fortunately, fate--and Zeia's own restlessness--came to her rescue: the Fyan woman stood on the outer wall. Nolly hesitated for a moment, still reluctant to disturb her. Clutching her cloak like a favorite blanket, she crossed the arch that connected the building to the wall.
A movement below caught her eye. Peering down she saw a hooded figure creeping furtively among the tents and wagons outside the caravanserai proper. He skittered from shadow to shadow, pausing each time to ascertain that nobody was watching. He wasn't doing a very good job of that, Nolly thought.
Zeia evidently agreed. As the figure made it to the gate and vanished into the men's courtyard, she snorted. "Oh, very stealthy, brother mine," she muttered. "Whoever would suspect you were up to something?"
"What is he up to?" Nolly asked, hushed.
"I'm not sure I want to know." She looked down at Nolly. "You shouldn't be outside in your night dress."
Nolly looked down at the nightgown under her cloak. She was completely covered, after all. She folded her arms and tried not to glare.
Zeia grinned. "I won't tell. This time."
Nolly didn't smile back. Her dreams still weighed heavily on her mind.
"What's the matter?" Zeia asked.
"Well--" Nolly faltered. She was still not certain how to broach this subject. The Fyan were careful at the best of times when speaking to their mages. But here, it was not only the cloaked figure of Ivan who had grown more furtive. Ivan's creeping seemed to be a symptom of a larger retreat into secrecy. And not just for the Fyan--the whole city had a pall of paranoia about it. It was the strangest thing about Chadrafun.
Chadrafun!
The name rang a bell--here was a question she could ask. A nice, safe question. "Zeia? Is there a Lord Kraja in Chadrafun?"
Her reasoning was simple. Largo had mentioned that name in the dream; she had never heard it elsewhere. If there was such a person, it would tell her that there was something more going on than just an overactive imagination. There was always the chance that Zeia might nod and say "Oh, of course." Nolly could take it from there.
She had not counted on the chance that Zeia might blanch and reel away from her. She hadn't expected those dark eyes to suddenly go wide. And she certainly hadn't expected Zeia's hand to jolt reflexively toward her disguised daggers.
"Why do you ask?" It was almost a hiss.
Nolly took a half-step back. "I--" Suddenly the memory of Zorna's fiery monsters loomed. "I heard the name in--in Saint Verdaine."
Zeia only relaxed by inches. She pinned Nolly with her gaze--Nolly was surprised at how much she could look like Zorna. She seemed to be searching for something in the hobbit's face.
At last, Zeia said, "Gods all hide me, I think you really don't know what you ask."
The mounting dread of the last few nights doubled. Nolly whispered, "What did I ask?"
Zeia glanced around. "Not here," she said. "You have a room?"
"Yes ..."
"I'll tell you there."
The tiny window in Nolly's room let in only a little light. She found a candle--she did not want to be in the dark tonight. She set it next to her bedroll, then wrapped herself in one of the blankets. Zeia sat down next to her.
"It's a dangerous name you invoke," she said softly. "You will not hear it in Chadrafun like you did in Arcadia. The Arcadians don't know their danger."
The pit of nervousness in Nolly's stomach widened. "Danger?"
"I'm sure you've noticed it," Zeia said. "This city. There's terror here. It's squeezing the life out of. People won't speak. Silence is safe--and while they're straining to hear or see any sign of an attack, at the same time they want to close their eyes and shut their ears. If you don't hear about the danger, maybe it won't notice you."
"But why?" Nolly demanded. "What makes him so terrible? Who is he?"
"He's a sorcerer," Zeia said.
"Like y--like the Blue Star Mage?"
"Perhaps he started out that way," Zeia said. "Perhaps he was only a greatmage. Or even an ordinary mage. For a noble, even magic is nothing special. With enough money, even magic can be bought."
Nolly shook her head, fascinated. "How?"
"Slave-mages," Zeia said flatly.
Nolly let out a little squeak.
"You can't steal the magic itself," Zeia said. "That would kill the mage, and the magic would vanish. But you can take their connection to it. With the right object--a bottle, perhaps, or a crystal, or a diamond--and the right spell, you can link yourself to them, so that you are the only one who can wield their magic."
Unconsciously, Nolly drew her knees to her chest. That sounded--unclean.
"It's common enough," Zeia said, her own voice loaded with revulsion. "But then, nobles who already have magic have no need for that sort of thing. So we thought."
She, too, pulled her cloak tighter. "But Kraja--he was not satisfied with his own power. He wanted more. He found himself a mage-slave, added that one's magic to his own. And then, pleased at the result, he acquired another. And a third."
Nolly shuddered. The idea of one person having that much magic--she suddenly understood a little of the fears Largo's Uncle Sirthaus often voiced.
"It should have stopped there," Zeia went on. "There's a limit to how many mage-slaves one can take. For one thing, one's will must constantly hold the objects creating the link. It tasks the mind. It's impossible to hold more than three or four objects in thrall at once. Fail, and the magic lashes back to its rightful wielder."
"Why not put all their magics in one object?" Nolly asked.
"Because usually, even a diamond isn't strong enough to contain all that power."
Nolly heard the prompt. "Usually," she repeated.
"Usually. There are rumors that he has managed to find a giant diamond--massive and pure. It must have been an amazing spell he constructed. Now that it's set up, he can string each magical link through that great central stone. Then he only has to carry smaller stones to channel the magic, and only worries about holding the larger one in thrall."
"It sounds complicated," Nolly said.
"That may be why nobody has done it before. That and ... getting the mages. He's not satisfied with the slave markets anymore. He's got thugs with spelled chains here in the city. They'll kidnap mages right off the streets, chain them up, and take them away."
"What?" Horrified, Nolly shot a look at the door, as though some of those thugs might lurk just beyond it, ready to snatch Zeia. "Why in heaven's name doesn't anybody stop him?"
"Because he has the magic of a thousand mages at his disposal," Zeia pointed out. "Plus an army and a fortress. And he's ruthless." She stared at the candle. "We know that because ... there's ... one other thing about taking that much magic."
Nolly waited. "Well?"
"The power of even a few mage-slaves should crush him," Zeia said flatly. "He should be dead from it."
"Why isn't he?"
"There's a spell you can do," Zeia said. "It gives you strength enough to withstand all that magic."
"I'm not going to like how this spell is cast, am I?"
"It's a ritual. There's a chant, painted symbols, dancing ..."
Nolly was leaning in, almost against her will. This was the sort of thing the storytellers talked about--not the magic they showed at the fair, but the real, powerful magic. The kind that Uncle Sirthaus was always warning them about. It was real, it was just as strange as she'd heard--
"... and then you tear out the heart of a sapient being and eat it."
Nolly jerked back, stunned. Zeia had said it in a rush, to get it over with--and it hit her like a swift blow. Could this be true? Could Lord Kraja be that sort of monster? And if so, was Largo--
Was he--
She stood up blindly. "I have to go," she said, reaching for her cloak.
Zeia looked away from the candle, startled. "What?"
"It's Largo. He's with Kraja." She was fumbling to put everything back in her pack. "He's the one who said the name to me. In the dream. I'd never heard the name before, and he said he was with Kraja, and now when I go to the dream he's in that awful seal, and there was crying that night and it wasn't here, and I told him to go looking for it and ended the dream--"
Zeia caught her hand. "What are you talking about?"
Nolly stared at Zeia's larger hand, trying to figure out what it was and how to get rid of it and go. "Kraja's in Arcadia now, isn't he?"
"Yes," Zeia said. "That's what worries us--we don't know what he's doing."
"I don't care what he's doing," Nolly declared. She had finally figured out how to pull her hand away from Zeia's grip. "Largo was there with him, and now--and now--"
"You have to slow down," Zeia said. "Where is Largo? Why would he be with Kraja? And what dream?"
She was right. Nolly forced herself to take a few deep breaths. She closed her eyes, trying to put her thoughts in order.
"I've been dreaming about Largo," she said after a moment. "He's coming after me. He thought I was in trouble."
Zeia nodded understandingly. "Dreaming something from home is--"
"No," Nolly snapped. "It's not that. It can't just be that. I'd never heard of Kraja before he told me."
"You might have just forgotten you'd heard it before your dream--"
"This was no dream." Nolly realized her hands were balled into fists.
Surprised at her fierceness, Zeia looked at her for a long moment.
"I've never heard of such a thing," she finally admitted, "but I've never heard of a lot of things. I think you'll need to ask someone more knowledgeable on such matters."
Nolly's heart sank. "Zorna?"
Zeia stood up. "Come on."
#
As an elder, Zorna, too, had a private room--a much more nicely furnished one than Nolly's. It had draperies all over the walls, though during the day they were drawn back from the large open windows so that Zorna's rows of potted plants might best catch the sun. Drying herbs hung from the ceiling, giving off a pleasant smell.
Nolly had expected some sharp words in exchange for the lateness of the hour. Zorna, however, seemed to take their appearance at her door as a sign that something important was afoot. She sat them down on cushions set on rich but worn rugs around a short folded table. She went to her brazier, where one of the little samovars so important to the Fyan bubbled, and filled three cups of fragrant tea. She sat with them and, with a peculiar smile, pulled out a familiar little tin.
For a moment Nolly was distracted from her troubles by simple pride. "Useful, aren't they?"
Zorna struck a match against its strike-end and lit a little branch of candles. "Indeed." Her keen eyes looked over her steaming cup at the two. "You're barely dressed," she said.
Nolly couldn't keep herself from rolling her eyes. She did manage to bite back a sharp retort, though. Fyan were supposed to respect their elders--even when the elders were being ridiculous.
Zorna seemed to notice. To Nolly's surprise, she gave a curt nod of approval and sat back. "Well?"
"Nolly has a problem," Zeia said. "It pertains to our specialty, but I could not answer it. You are wiser than I in these things. Perhaps you can see what to me is only darkness."
"Tell me," Zorna said, clearly interested.
Before Nolly could, though, Zeia held up a hand. "Zorna. It involves Kraja."
Zorna stiffened. A rapid series of emotions--surprise, alarm, anger, fear--flickered over her face. At last, she settled on a look Nolly had seen on the faces of many of her elders--a look of weary resignation. "Of course," she sighed. "Go on."
Nolly swallowed. "I've been having these dreams," she began.
She described her visits with Largo, trying to remember any details that a wizard might find salient. Zorna listened gravely, interrupting with a couple of questions to clarify certain points. Nolly tried to answer them truthfully. Even when Kraja's name appeared, Zorna only said, "And you had never heard the name before."
"Not before or since, till I asked Zeia," Nolly said. "I thought nothing of it at the time, except maybe that he was certainly lucky to escape a dragon."
She tried to go on. But she had reached the night she'd jabbed Largo with a pin so that they could investigate those strange noises in the waking world. And there she faltered.
"I don't remember hearing anyone crying on the ship," Zorna said.
"No," Nolly said. "It must have been on his side." She bit her lip, looking at the candlelight. "So I thought, maybe, he would have a story to tell me the next time, and then I thought no more of it."
She fell silent.
"And is that the last time that you had a dream like that?" Zorna asked after a moment.
"I ..." Nolly twisted a lock of her hair.
Zorna's eyes pierced her. "What happened?"
Nolly hadn't realized it before, but suddenly the reason for her reluctance became clear to her: if she spoke of this, it might become real. She could lie and say nothing had happened afterward, and perhaps that would keep Largo safe.
Load of rubbish, she told herself. You can't change what's happened by pretending it didn't. And what if she's got an answer? You'll want to hear it.
"I went back to the dream," she said. "Largo wasn't there." She finally managed to look up and meet Zorna's gaze. "Something else was."
Zeia drew in a sharp breath. Zorna waited.
"I wasn't sure what it was at first," Nolly struggled on. "It was big, and smooth. It looked like half of Neberr's crystal ball. But it wasn't clear; it was sort of smoky. Like--like trapped smoke."
"Did you look inside?"
"Yes," Nolly said. "There was a shadow in it. So I looked closer." She took a deep breath. "Largo was inside it."
Zorna nodded. She seemed to have expected something like that.
A wild mix of anger and hope rose in Nolly's chest. Could it be something simple? Was it as easy as going to this wizard for answers? Had she spent all those nights screaming, hammering at Largo's smoky prison with her fists--trying first to shatter it, and then just to convince the motionless figure seated inside, with his hands wrapped around a half-pint like a drowning man's around a rope, to look at her, or even move--had she spent those nights in vain when she had merely to inquire of Zorna to set things right? Had she wasted perfectly good time worrying over nothing? She watched Zorna, heart hammering.
Zorna was silent for a long moment.
Then her hand darted out, so quickly that both Nolly and Zeia jumped, and one gnarled finger hooked around the cord that held Nolly's little agate.
"He gave this to you," she said. It was not a question.
Nolly blinked. "He did. One just like his own." And as the connection hit her--"He got them from the Fyan! You people sold him spelled stones!"
Zorna laughed shortly. "Not us. I know of no spell to make stones like this--and especially none that would sell for pennies at a fair." She closed her other hand over it, and her eyes went unfocused for a moment. "Indeed, I have never sensed magic quite like this."
She let it drop. Nolly reached up to catch it in her hand. "But you think--you think it's why I'm dreaming like this?"
"You wear it at night, don't you?"
"Well--I always wear it."
Zorna nodded curtly. "And he always wears his. A symbolic connection. Only he made it real." She let out a sharp little cackle. "I don't know why he's sealed up like that; I've never heard of such a thing before. But don't you fret, little missy: your lad isn't dead. Not by Kraja's hand, at least. His Lordship would never stand to let a wizard like that get away."
It took a moment for the meaning of that to become clear. Then Nolly's mouth dropped open.
"Largo?" she said. "A wizard?" The sheer absurdity of the idea startled a laugh out of her. "Don't be ridiculous."
Zorna raised an eyebrow.
Nolly took another look at the idea.
"He'd have told me," she added, a little less sure of herself.
"If he knew," Zeia pointed out.
Nolly was silent. Suddenly she was seeing Largo vanishing into the shadows under a mountain, swearing that he knew there was a wonderfully big cave just a short walk back, even though he'd never been in that pitch dark tunnel before. She always made him find the stones for her sling, since each one he found struck its target with staggering accuracy--though he never used them himself. And there had been one time, last summer, at Uncle Sirthaus's garden party. Largo had managed to knock about half a tea service to the ground. Sirthaus's resulting tirade had been cut short when the stonework façade he'd had installed on the front of his hobbit-hole--to emulate the houses of the wise humans he'd studied with in Corridaine, of course--had quite suddenly collapsed onto his front porch like an ornamental landslide.
Sirthaus had abandoned Largo in favor of swearing vengeance on the two of Largo's brothers who had done the stonework. Largo had fled--and had barely managed to summon the courage to return the next day and offer all his saved money to pay for the tea service. But while his opinion of Largo had fallen even lower that day, not even Uncle Sirthaus had blamed Largo for the stonework mess.
Perhaps, Nolly thought, feeling like a terrible friend, he could have.
"Nolly?" Zeia asked.
"What are you remembering?" Zorna added shrewdly.
Nolly looked up at them slowly. "Do wizards have specialties?"
Zorna raised an eyebrow.
"He likes stones," Nolly said. She looked down at her own agate. "He's always picking them up or playing with them. And there's this ..."
"Oh, my," Zeia said.
Nolly looked at her.
"An elemental wizard," she explained. "All sorts of affinities have been known to crop up. And if they're powerful, they can tap into the element itself ..."
"That sounds about right," Nolly admitted.
Her mind was reeling. Largo--a mage! Her dreams were real. He had indeed come after her!
And that meant ...
What did that mean?
"Drat it all," she said finally. "Then he's in trouble! Kraja snatches mages! He's after Largo, then!" She bit her lip, trying to keep it from trembling. "What if the seal means he's been snatched?" She couldn't stop the tears from springing to her eyes at the thought. He hadn't even known he had magic, and some great brute had come along to steal it!
"You don't know that," Zorna said sharply. "He may have found a way to shield himself."
"But what if he didn't?" Nolly demanded. "What if he's been made a slave? What if Kraja's got him?" She was pulling at the agate, almost dragging it off her neck. "What's he do with his stolen mages?"
Zorna was silent. But Zeia said, "He keeps them as slaves in his own palace. He's got an unassailable holding across the desert. The closer they are to the big crystal, the easier it is to use their magic."
"Well, then, we've got to go there," Nolly said. "We've got to get that big diamond--free all the slaves--"
"She said 'unassailable," Zorna snapped. "He's got a magic shield--powered by his stolen magics--and a desert between us and his holding. This city has its own army and the patrician is still afraid of Kraja. He knows the mage is making some move--he's in Arcadia for a reason. They're just too terrified to cross him. How do you think you'll do by yourself, girl?"
"Perhaps not by herself," Zeia murmured.
Zorna shot her a look.
"Ivan knows a few people," Zeia said quietly. "They may have a way."
"A way to what?"
"Get into his palace," Zeia said. "They've been talking with someone in Arcadia. They're going to steal his little diamonds. Then we can snatch the big one and--"
"And what?" Zorna demanded. "Destroy it? How?"
"We had hoped you'd help us with that," Zeia whispered.
"Oh, you did, did you?"
The hope that had grown in Nolly died at Zorna's tone. "Can you help?" she asked.
"No," Zorna said flatly. "You need strong magic to break it. And you'll find no strong magic in Chadrafun--not as long as Kraja has stolen it all."
Nolly sucked in her breath. Suddenly she understood. She had wondered why Vazyo, the Blue Star Caravan's supposed official mage, had stayed behind when they'd sailed from St. Verdaine. Now she knew. Mages were afraid to come here, lest they get stolen away to Kraja's tower. As the official Blue Star mage, he could stay away openly.
And yet the only way to keep the other caravan mages from drawing attention was to have them return, as though the city held no threat to them.
Zeia and Zorna had chosen secrecy over distance to keep them safe.
Looking from one to the other, she felt despair rising inside her. "So that's it, then," she said. "His hold keeps growing, and we just hunker down and watch while he snatches other folk."
"I'm sorry," Zorna said softly. She even meant it.
And that was what infuriated Nolly all the more. She stood, clenching her fists to keep them from shaking. "Is that how the Fyan work?"
"It's for our own protection," Zorna said.
Zeia, however, remained expressionless.
"Then you just protect yourselves down into some pit and stay there," Nolly snarled. "But I'll not be joining you."
She stormed out of the room. Once she was out of sight, she ran through the halls and staircases of the complex, stopping only when she could fling herself onto her bedroll.
"I'm so sorry, Largo," she said, clutching the agate and wondering if he could hear her. "I'm so, so sorry."
#
She spent the next day away from the caravanserai. At first she wandered the city aimlessly. But after a few too many bigfolk nearly tripped over her, she decided to find somewhere out of the way to sit and think.
Not long after she reached that conclusion, she rounded another corner in the labyrinthine side streets--and found a fountain. It was lovingly crafted. The mosaic sparkled with a thousand colors. The clay pots around it, hosts for lush greenery, had the same colors painted on them. The water itself was bright and clean, and the patterns of the sunlight on the white tiles held her eyes .
Largo should see this, she thought.
That one simple realization crystallized her will. Largo was in trouble. And he'd come after her when he'd thought she was in trouble.
She was going to rescue him.
With that she spun away from the secret fountain. She had no idea how, but she would convince Zorna to aid her. Every step, she fed her anger and indignation. All this talk of We Must Protect Each Other and Oh, What A Hostile World This Can Be, and yet they took no steps to make it a less hostile world. Just sat around feeling sorry for themselves. Well, she'd tell Zorna what she thought of that philosophy. Hiding fixed nothing. It only added--
She stopped mid-thought. At the gate of the caravanserai she saw a familiar figure appear from within to begin desperately scanning the street.
"Ivan?" she said. The anger began to flee--sliding through her grasp like the string of a wayward kite.
He looked at her, and the look made the ground fall away.
"What is it?" she asked.
He didn't answer.
A glint caught her eye. Something was dangling limply in his hand.
Ivan noticed her gaze. As though suddenly remembering it was there, he jerked as if to hide it. But Nolly was too fast for him. She caught his wrist and pulled it toward her, surprising him enough that he didn't think to resist.
She knew what she would see. He had picked them up with a handkerchief--not because of the blood on them, but because he risked his essence holding them even this way, for there was no more feminine an item in all of Fyan culture.
Zeia's daggers.
Nolly let go of his hand. But now that she had seen them, Ivan seemed to think the damage was already done. "Take them," he said. "You can clean them up-- give them to the women to dispose of ..."
She gathered the naked blades and their disguising sheaths. Her heart was pounding. "Dispose of?" She didn't want to ask. But-- "Zeia?"
"She went to visit friends in another caravan this morning--they're camped outside the wall. She never arrived."
And all he'd found were the daggers. And he couldn't say it, because the daggers were secret and even if Zeia had vanished they would not be mentioned. Nolly wasn't supposed to see them.
But she had. And she knew his dilemma. Ivan knew Zeia was gone, and he officially had no evidence, and he couldn't very well say what he suspected without suggesting that Zeia was a wizard, and breaking another taboo.
A tiny part of her suddenly thought, Is this how they felt when I left? This empty, helpless panic? Raolo and Arven and Dad and Mum and Largo, I'm sorry--
But that was only a small part of her. The rest of her had other ideas.
The rest of her got angry.
"Come on," she said, storming forward. Forgetting the Fyan rules, she grabbed his hand and just about dragged him after her.
He fell into step behind her, throwing out a few half-formed protests. Finally he managed one coherent comment: "Where are we going?"
"To see Zorna," Nolly said grimly. "If what we're imagining really has happened to Zeia, then we'll need that old wi--that old crab's help."
Ivan forgot his discomfort in his surprise. "You know?"
"Yes, I do. And I'm trying to convince Zorna to do something!"
He stopped. Nolly finally remembered herself dropped his hand. She turned to look at him, uncertain what she was going to do or say--
--to find that he was kneeling so he could see eye-to-eye with her.
His voice was full of amazement. "You want to help?"
Nolly stared at him. Suddenly it occurred to her that Zorna's was not the only opinion among the Fyan about how to deal with such crises.
"Yes," she said. "I want to help. For Zeia--and for Largo." She drew herself up to her full height and wished there were more of it. "What can I do?"
He gave her an anxiety-tinged grin. "Come on. If you can get Zorna to help, I don't know about the elders, but I'll consider you a full Fyan."
"She'd better help," Nolly grumbled. "If the sight of these"--she rattled the daggers--"won't do it, maybe I ought to just stab her with them a few times. If nothing else, it'll make me feel better."
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Tune in for Part 10!