She started turning the horse around and I was struck by the thought that I might never see her again. ‘Wait,’ I said, struggling to find some excuse to make her slow down. ‘The card I saw you painting at the oasis … the dowager magus thought you were here because there was something that you believed could make civilisations rise or fall. Was she right?’
She turned back. ‘Canny old bird, wasn’t she?’ Ferius reached a hand carefully across her chest so as not to disturb Reichis and pulled a card from her waistcoat. ‘Finished this while I was waiting to make sure your sister would be okay.’ She flipped the card through the air at me and I caught it in my hand.
‘You’re giving this to me?’
‘Depends. If all you’re planning on doing with your life is killing Ra’meth, then you might as well tear it up for all I care.’
‘What if …? What if I don’t kill him? What if I come find you?’
She grinned. ‘Then make sure to bring the card with you, kid, cos I’ll need it for my deck.’
‘Why?’
She kicked her horse and started down the path. ‘Because that card might just change the world.’
As Ferius disappeared from view I turned the card over and finally saw what she’d been painting ever since she’d come to town. It was, as Mer’esan had predicted, one of the discordances. The inscription at the bottom said ‘Spellslinger’. It was a painting of a young man standing in front of an open road with a squirrel cat sitting on his shoulder and fire in his hands. The figure looked just like me.
46
The Mage’s Trial
An hour later I was dragging Ra’meth’s unconscious body up the sandy street that led to the court of the lords magi. My horse had developed a limp in his step a quarter-mile back and, figuring enough people and animals had already died for me, I slung Ferius’s pack on my shoulder and walked the rest of the way. Now I had a limp.
One of the guards out front caught sight of me about twenty feet from the steps to the oasis. They were crowded with families each awaiting their child’s turn to face the court and learn the verdict of their mage’s trial. ‘Stop where you are,’ the guard called out. He was a big man, I guessed in his forties. As he ran towards me he kept his hands at his sides, fingers forming the shapes that told me he was probably a chaincaster. I was getting sick of those.
I stopped, still looking past him at the families on the steps. I recognised several of the initiates from my class. They recognised me too, and turned away. The slight didn’t bother me. I was more baffled by the fact that, despite our clan very nearly having been taken over by rebellion and conspiracy, Jan’Tep life still revolved around deciding who would get to be a mage and who would become a servant.
‘Just dropping something off,’ I told the guard, and let go of the collar of Ra’meth’s robes. I rubbed at my shoulder, partly to show I wasn’t about to attempt any spells and partly because, well, my shoulder hurt.
The people on the steps started shuffling towards us, peering down at the unconscious form next to me. It took only a few seconds before they realised who it was, and about two seconds more before they started coming for me.
‘Stay back!’ The cold determination in my mother’s voice surprised me. I turned to see her striding towards us, the long flowing fabric of her dress dancing in the night breeze. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked me, her eyes still on the guards trying to approach.
‘He’s attacked one of the lords magi,’ the guard in front of me said.
I thought that was a little unfair. After all, how did they know I hadn’t just saved Ra’meth from somebody else? It didn’t really matter though, because when my mother turned to face the guards, she looked a good deal scarier than I did. ‘Kellen stopped a murderer from taking over our clan,’ she said, then turned to me, and I guessed from her expression that Ferius must have told her what had happened. ‘He saved my daughter.’
The gratitude in her smile was so pure, so genuine, that I don’t think she could possibly have understood that the other side of that coin was how obvious it was that she saw me not as a son, but as a kind of treasured servant. I had done my duty, which was to protect Shalla.
I decided I could live with that. ‘Is she all right?’
‘She is disoriented, but recovers quickly. She wanted to come but we felt—’
‘It’s better she not be here,’ I said, not wanting to know any more about my parents’ feelings than was necessary.
My mother looked down at Ra’meth. ‘You let him live.’
‘I did,’ I said.
She held my gaze a long time before turning to the court guards. ‘Take Ra’meth prisoner. Bind him with copper and silver. He will be made to answer for his crimes.’
I suppose I’d never really thought about just how powerful a mage my mother was. For all her strength, she’d always deferred to my father. I wondered now, seeing how the others reacted to her, why she let him stand as the head of our family. I guess I really don’t understand my own people all that well.
There was a certain amount of confused shuffling about as the guards did as my mother commanded. She had no formal authority over them, but I doubt they wanted to risk angering a woman whose magic was practically making the air ripple around her.
‘The council will want the boy taken into custody,’ the leader of the guards told her, motioning to me.
I caught just enough of a flash of uncertainty in my mother’s expression that I decided to answer before she could. ‘Tell the lords magi that I’ll be with them momentarily,’ I said. ‘I feel like sitting down for a minute.’
My mother nodded. ‘I will inform the council that you will see them when you’re ready.’ She squeezed my shoulder. ‘I know you’ll do what’s right.’
Her last sentence echoed in my head like one of the fundamental spells we used to practise as children, uttering each syllable a dozen different ways, trying to find its perfect articulation, then how it related to the next syllable, until we could comprehend the full meaning. I know you’ll do what’s right.
I walked over to the steps and sat down heavily, reaching into Ferius’s pack that was still slung on my back and pulling out a small flask. I opened it and drank without checking the contents – possibly a mistake since it burned my tongue at first. A moment later the warmth snaked down my throat and into my belly. After that I started feeling a bit light-headed. I’d just had my first taste of liquor.
Maybe I should get drunk before I go see the council.
A few minutes of drinking brought me to a strange clarity. Why was I still sitting there, on the steps of the court? I should have been finding another horse and getting myself out of town as quickly as possible.
It wasn’t that I was afraid of being taken captive by the council at this point. I knew too much, and though sometimes that can be a dangerous thing, there were many other people who also knew something had happened. They knew there had been a conspiracy to take over the clan. Powerful people would want answers, and if I was suddenly imprisoned, that would just raise more questions.