Salamander (7 page)

Her sudden smile was brilliant, lighting up the face he had at first thought plain. She took the sheet, dropped a brief curtsey—it felt more like the bow before a duel—and left the room.

* * *

She returned the next morning, papers in hand. He looked up from his desk. “You look tired.”

She nodded. “The first three were easy. The fourth … I found an answer, but it’s hack work, clumsy. I gave up on trying to find a better one when I got too sleepy.”

“So you didn’t do the last two?”

“I did them, then went back and tried to do the fourth better. Then I gave up and went to sleep.”

She handed him the sheets, covered with her precise script. He started reading, stopped and looked up.

“This will take a while. Sit down before you fall down.” He went back to the papers.

He handed her back the stack when he was done. “Your solution to the fifth problem requires a mage who spans fire and weaving and another who spans air and fusing. Where do you plan to find them?”

“It also requires most of a gallon each of elemental earth and water. You put no limits on the materials I could use.”

He nodded. “True enough.”

“I did find a more elegant solution to the fourth problem, but it required the assistance of two of the elementals. Since nobody knows if elementals are more than a convenient mathematical device, I decided it did not qualify.”

Coelus smiled. “Not to mention that nobody has found even one, and the last mages
who went looking disappeared forty odd years ago.”

"I also found a way of doing what you want that involves no compulsion at all, at least I don't think so. Unfortunately …"

For a moment he thought she was serious, then he looked at her face.

"It also requires all four elementals, one at each point of the star. Unlimited power, so no need to drag in anyone else. And however much you use, there is as much and more left for the rest of us."

His smile answered hers. "An excellent solution in theory but I am afraid there may be some small difficulties putting it into practice."

* * *

"How old do you think Magister Coelus really is?"

Ellen responded to Alys with a puzzled expression; Mari put it into words. "What do you mean? He's older than we are, but younger than the other magisters. Thirty, maybe, or a little under?"

Alys shook her head. "That's how he looks. But everybody knows mages can make themselves younger. That's one point of being a mage. For all we know, he could be a hundred and thirty and been teaching the same course for the past hundred years."

Mari looked at Ellen helplessly. Ellen took a bite of cheese before answering. "He can't have been teaching here for the past hundred years, because the college isn't a hundred years old. Most of what he is teaching wasn’t known a hundred years ago. The library has records of faculty and curriculum going back almost to the founding; if you are curious you could check them. I would be surprised if he has been here as long as a dozen years.

"And he can't be a hundred and thirty because no mage is strong enough to hold his physical age down by a hundred years for more than few minutes."

Alys looked unconvinced. "Records can always be changed, especially by mages. The Mage King was still fighting battles when he was past a hundred, wasn't he?"

Mari nodded. "Theodrick fought his last battle at a hundred and twenty-three. I don't know what his apparent age was then, but I doubt it was thirty. Don't you know how Theodrick died?"

"Didn't he die in his last war with Forstmark? The one we won."

"But do you know how?"

Alys shook her head and waited for Mari to continue.

"Ellen probably knows the story better than I do, but as I understand it he was using a team of mages to keep him young enough to rule the kingdom as well as command the army in the field. By the final war it was taking a lot of the best mages to do it. The Forsting were winning. At a hundred and twenty-three, Theodrick named the ablest of his grandsons heir, had him crowned, then sent the mages supporting him to help the army instead. He was buried in a closed coffin with a handsome statue on it representing him when he took the crown."

"Why couldn't he just spell himself younger, or have his mages do it, then send them off to fight the war?"

Mari looked at Ellen, who took the hint. "It doesn't work that way. A mage with suitable training can make himself younger, but it isn't a spell you just do and it stays done. You have to keep maintaining it. The older you are, the more power it takes. I expect Coelus could push his age down by a year or two without much trouble, but more than that wouldn't leave him with a lot of power to do anything else with. If he tried to hold to thirty, in a few years it would be taking all his power to do it, and at some point his age would have to start going up again."

"So even if I study hard, pass the second year exams and learn all they teach me, I still won't be able to be nineteen forever? That's terrible! What if I get a powerful mage to fall in love with me? Could he do it?"

"If he were close enough to the same kind of mage that you are, and sufficiently skilled, he could combine his power with yours and the two of you could hold the age of one of you for a few more years. But, again, you would have less power for anything else. Theodrick was holding a difference of about forty years at the end, and it took a team of mages to do it."

"I knew you knew more about it than I did, if I could just get you to talk." Mari turned back to Alys. "If you came here in the hope of perpetual youth, I am afraid you are in the wrong place."

Alys pouted, but her eyes were merry. "Neither of you are any help at all. If I can't stay young forever, I suppose I'll just have to enjoy myself while it lasts. Speaking of which … ."

She nodded in the direction of the next table, where Edwin and Jon were sitting, and winked at her friends. "I'm thirsty,” she said, raising her voice. “If I fetch another pitcher, will you boys help me drink it?"

The two girls were in the cookshop starting dinner when Joshua came in and walked over to the table where they sat. “May I join you, ladies?”

Neither spoke; he took their silence for assent.

“Do either of you care for anything to drink?” he said, looking at Mari. “The wine they got in last week is better than you might expect.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

Ellen said nothing. In a few minutes he returned with a bowl of mutton stew in one hand, two clay cups and a small pitcher. He poured wine into the cups, handed Mari one, spoke over the background of voices and clattering dishes.

“How have you been enjoying the lectures? Is Bertram as dull as he was my year? I got more sleep in that class than in my own bed.”

Mari took the cup, and looked up at Joshua. “He is rarely entertaining, but at least I can understand most of what he is saying. Sentence by sentence Magister Coelus sounds very interesting, but when he finishes I feel that I know a little less than when he started. I have no doubt that he is as brilliant as Ellen says, but unfortunately I am not.” She drank a sip of wine, then put the cup down again.

“Coelus? I don’t know about brilliance, but he is not teaching anything useful. I don’t want to know about basis stars, I want to know how to do magery. All the lectures are mostly a waste of time anyway; it’s not until you get to the tutorials that you learn anything you can actually use.” He watched Mari as he spoke.

“I … I suppose so.”

Ellen looked at her friend in surprise, then back at Joshua. Mari’s face was faintly flushed.

“And a boring waste of time. There are so many more interesting things to do.” He was speaking to Mari; Ellen might as well not have been there.

“Yes, yes, I suppose there are.”

“Down by the river bank it is very pleasant this time of the evening.”

Mari rose from the table, her wine cup still half full. “It was pleasant speaking with you,” Joshua said to Ellen. “I will see the lady Mariel safe back to college.”

Ellen hesitated a moment, stood up, and spoke to Mari. “You look unwell. Do you have a fever?”

“A fever? No. I don’t think so. Not exactly.” Her eyes never left Joshua’s.

“Let me feel your forehead.” Ellen put her hand against her friend’s forehead, closed her eyes.

“Shall we be off?” Joshua started around the table, tripped, and came down heavily. In a moment he was up again, stepped forward, and stumbled again. He looked down.

“Damn, the laces have tangled.” He leaned over, carefully undid and redid his bootlaces, then stood up again. Mari gave him a look. “Shall we go now?” he said, a bit impatiently.

“Go where? I haven’t finished my dinner yet.”

“We were going to take a walk down by the river.”

Mari shook her head. “I think not. Perhaps some other day.” She sat down again.

Joshua glanced down at the table, up again at Mari.
“We still have some wine left. Before I go, a toast to fewer boring lectures, to successful spells, and your graduation as a wi… as a mage of the college.” He lifted his wine cup, drained it, still staring at Mari.

Ellen picked up Mari’s cup. “Since the toast is to Mari’s success, we two should drink it, not she." She sipped from the cup, put it down, and looked up intently at Joshua.

“Of course. Well, back to prepare for my next tutorial.” He fled. Ellen sat back down again. Mari looked at her curiously. “That was very strange. What are you laughing at?”

Ellen took a bite of her stew and, still smiling, chewed it thoughtfully. “It wasn’t supposed to show.” She swallowed and said, “I was laughing at Joshua trying to get out of the room before I fell in love with him.”

“Before you what?”

“Before I fell in love with him.”

Mari inspected her friend’s face. This was not her sort of joke. “There was something in the wine?”

Ellen nodded. “A love potion, I think. I’m not properly trained as a healer, but mother taught me some useful tricks. Dealing with potions was one of them."

“So that was why I felt so odd. I don’t think love is quite the right word. I wasn’t in love with Joshua. I just … .”

“Wanted to walk down by the river among the willows, pull him down and tear his clothes off?”

Mari nodded. “Two years ago I had a crush on one of my tutors. It was a little like that, but with parts missing. I wonder what he wanted.”

This time it was Ellen’s turn to look surprised. “I thought that was obvious.”

Mari shook her head. “There are two whores in the village that I know of, one of them quite pretty. With easily a hundred single men in the college, they must get a lot of business. Joshua might enjoy seducing me, but in the long run there would be consequences … . He can’t be that stupid.” Her face had gone pale, but her voice remained calm.

She thought a moment. “Perhaps he thought if he could get me pregnant my father would let him marry me. He doesn’t know Father! Lucky for him it didn’t work; he should be more grateful to you than I am. I can’t think what might have happened if you hadn’t been here. I didn’t think potions like that were included in what students here got taught. Didn’t Magister Hal say something about them?”

“They certainly are not included in what we are taught; love potions are a compulsion, in violation of the bounds of magery. Magister Hal discussed them in one of his first lectures. And if they were taught here, I wouldn’t trust Joshua with making one; he’d be as likely to poison as seduce you.”

“He must have bought it. Lots of money and no morals—the perfect customer. It probably isn’t the first time; he seemed so expectant.”

Ellen nodded. “I expect they’re also against royal law, at least for what he was trying to do. Should we speak to Hal or one of the other magisters?”

Mari shook her head. “Better not to have my name in a scandal. I will just have to be careful about drinking anything he offers me in the future.”

“That may not be enough. Potions are not all he can buy. You said you wanted to show me some trinkets you were thinking of purchasing from Master Dur’s in the village. Will he still be open?”

“I expect so. It’s still light, and I don’t think he closes until dark. But what … .”

“Show me whatever you like, but I want you to buy an amulet case. And let me look at it first so I can see if it will do.”

When they got to the jeweler’s shop it was indeed still open. Inside they found Alys, pondering several necklaces and bracelets. The jeweler was in the back room of the shop tidying up after his dinner, having left a mug of beer behind him on the counter. Ellen and Mari looked over his wares; Mari commented in a low voice. "Mostly silver, and none of the stones are very valuable, but it's lovely work."

"There can’t be much of a market here in the village for expensive pieces."

Mari nodded agreement. "He keeps a few in the back, for customers who look as though they can afford them. But I don’t see why he is here working in silver and garnet when he could make far more in the capital doing the same work in gold and rubies instead. He's at least as good as mother’s jeweler, maybe better. I must bring her here—perhaps she can commission something."