The Seekers of Fire (10 page)

"Did the Militia officer say you were under arrest?"

The boy could go free if she had not, although he probably did not know it. Civil rights education did not have priority in Balkaene villages. The education needed for toiling in the land did.

The boy looked into Dominick's eyes now, and the young Mentor was surprised at how sharp the gaze meeting his had suddenly become. Perhaps the boy did know his rights. Perhaps he would try to lie to Dominick now, although no one, ever, had succeeded, even before Dominick had become a Mentor. Oh, just let the brat try it.

"She did say so, m'lord. I am under arrest."

"I am not a lord."
I am currently not a Mentor, either.

The boy stared harder. "She did say so,
sir.
" He had almost no accent and used perfect grammar, although Dominick could tell he still needed a little time to think about the right words. A smart one with the potential to learn—if the Bers let him, if what he had was just a regular stone. The boy had said nothing more, but Dominick could hear the unsaid words. "
I saved your life, and I didn't lie to you, so why aren't you letting me go?
" Even though he was wounded, Dominick was still stronger than a little boy. The boy could not leave without his permission. Dominick gripped the whip's handle a little more tightly than necessary, fighting a tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with wounds.

"Because if I did, I would be no different from the torturing reprobate over there who trampled rules, honor, and integrity in the name of perceived personal benefit. If I broke the rules meant to preserve Mierenthia's order and let you go because you saved my life, or because you reminded me of myself, how could Mierenthia rely on me to maintain and protect order later? How could I rely on myself? No. I can't do it. And I am not letting myself go, either."

He had not meant to say the words aloud, but they had slipped off his mouth as if of their own accord. Now a tear was rolling down the little boy's cheek, and somehow Dominick knew that it was not a childish tear, that there was something deeper, far behind. It showed in the boy's eyes, too, when the boy just kept on watching Dominick, not motioning to fight or run. It was eerie, a child's tears with an adult's tormented look.

"I will follow the rules," the boy said in a quiet voice. "But"—his eyes flashed with a sudden defiance—"do you really think Mierenthia's rules are right, sir Mentor?"

Dominick did not reply. He did not have to. Someone else would make an inquest with the boy; others would judge his aberrant words if he uttered any before them. For the first time in his life Dominick was glad that a decision was not his to make. If it were, he would have to make the right choice, and right now the right choice was not one he would enjoy making.

"Be quiet," he said, waiving the boy to the overturned chair, he himself leaning on the wall, waiting. Damn the boy. It was the rules that kept the
samodivi
and other
Bessove
away; it was the rules that made their unreal world stay far beyond the Edges that the Master had built to protect Mierenthia.

One should never question the rules, every Mentor knew. Such questions were keys to what should always stay locked.

Chapter 4: Entrance

Linden

Morning 78 of the Fourth Quarter, Year of the Master 705

It was a door made of steel, indistinguishable from the one they had used to enter the Healers' Passage, or the dozen or so other doors they had passed. Two steps ago its grayness had blended with that of the walls in a perfect illusion of continuity. Now, its polished surface glittered with what looked like a thousand lights between the dark stones.

Linden snatched the candle back from where she had extended it to illuminate the door better. It bruised her, as she thrust it under her cloak to make the lights fade. Reflected lights. Lights that had not existed in the real world a moment earlier, lights born out of steel contorting a single candle's beam. Mirrors were often covered at night in Mierenthia, for Bers said that reflected fire could sometimes be almost as treacherous as wildfire. Linden had never believed it. To her, this had been one more thing of the many things Bers did to encroach people's homes and minds and take away their freedom.

She believed it now. Reflected light was not real, it had no warmth in it. She had seen many lights on many doors tonight, and they were all explosions of magnificence that would hint of limitless power and yet fade as soon as she took the candle away. They were all tricks of polished surfaces, which would scream of fake heat long after she and Rianor had died of the chill in their bones.

Not that the tunnel was chilly; it was bearable, and Linden's body itself was mostly warm. Yet, there was a certain chill inside, as if in her very mind, creeping, scraping, hollowing her out.

She and Rianor were never going to find their way out. The
samodiva
had tricked them; she had not exactly lied to them, but she had tricked them nonetheless. She had let them out of where they had fallen, but not out of the Passage itself.

Perhaps chill was how despair felt when one finally succumbed to it.

Linden halted. She could not make a step further. Trembling, she pressed her back to the rough surface of one of the walls beside the door, transferring all possible weight away from her wounded leg. At least the leg hurting meant that she could still feel it.

Persevere. Keep control.
There must be a way, and despair could only conceal it. Despair could veil their eyes so that even though there was a way, it would not matter, and they would always wander in this place. Like the
samodiva,
always trapped. Like Katrina, while the Mentors were doing who knew what to Linden's parents at that very moment.

Linden shook her head again. The tunnel was invading her again, dark and stale, mixing her own fears with someone else's memories. She should keep the tunnel out. And she should not be thinking about her parents when she knew nothing and could do nothing, for it would only lead deeper into despair.
Keep control.

"I am all right," she whispered as Rianor came beside her. "Don't help me. Think."

But he had already extended an arm to support her, so that she would stop sliding down along the wall. Linden had not even known she was sliding. She took the light out again. A small teasing smile was twitching on Rianor's lips, as he fought to control his own breathing.

"Is this an order, my lady? I thought I were the master and you the apprentice, but if it be the other way around, do remind me."

Linden smiled weakly in reply.

"You cannot command me, either, my lord. We live in a free—" Her smile faded as she swallowed the word "
city.
" She pulled herself away from him and closer to the door, and the steel gleamed with light again, but Linden paid no attention to it.

"Don't support me, Rianor," she whispered through tears. "You have broken bones, I do not. Please, just find the way to your House."

He regarded her for another moment, then leaned on the wall and fixed his eyes to the door, cold and distant in his concentration.
He is all right,
Linden told herself as her eyes lingered over his body's stillness,
this is how he becomes when he thinks about something important.
At least, this was how concentration affected him after he had fought Mentors, falling stones, and a hysterical apprentice, all in the same night.

Linden glanced at the door again and bit her lip. She could not help him this time. The
samodiva's
moving stairs had taken them to a different place in the upper Passage, not where they had been when they had fallen, so Linden could not much participate in determining where in the Passage—and in the city above—they were. She had ideas of the general direction they had taken, but she did not at all know the corresponding parts of Mierber above. If their guesses were right, it was not a part of the city much familiar to commoners. And, in the Passage or above ground, Linden did not know the way to Qynnsent.

We live in a free city.
The thought became stuck in her mind even as she tried to relax and wait. This had been the third universal truth she had learned in school, right after the one about the greatness of the Master and that about the justice and benignity of the Bers. Oppressed by the other two, she had somehow failed to give the "
free city
" its due consideration. But if it had ever been true, why had she never seen Qynnsent on a map?

Linden sighed. She had gone through all the maps Mister Podd or her librarian mother could offer, and she was certain she could not get lost in the Mierber her social class could access. She knew where the slums were, too, and she was aware of the black spots with "
Do not enter
" written beside them that meant those were Factories or perhaps Mills (even though some normal people, such as Master Millers, did enter the insides of Mills). But the only thing related to nobility the maps listed was entertainment and shopping areas that were far too exquisite and far too expensive. Although she had never been there, she knew it was not where the nobles lived.

Why the secrecy?

"
It is forbidden to anyone but the members of a House to know its location,
" Mister Podd had said, reluctant to discuss nobility further. Like many other things he had claimed, this one was at least partly untrue. It might be forbidden to her, but certainly not to a patient of Dad's who had broken his hand while laying bricks for the new wing of the House of Tremayne. The man had said that he had not been blindfolded; that actually he and his colleagues very well knew the House's location, but had given an oath to not tell. There were many who worked for the Houses. Although for reasons either moral or related to Mentors and whips many of those would obey their oaths, others would share what they knew after a few glasses in the pub.

Linden rubbed her eyes, a new vague thought in her mind. Only some of these people were revealed and punished, and indeed, she had broken an oath herself. Throughout her life her questions and doubts had been breaking the only oath she had so far made in her life—the oath everyone made upon their Initiation to Mierenthia in the year of her or his fourth birthday.

I vow to revere fire, for it gives light and life to us all. I vow to be loyal to the Bers, our blessed Mothers and Fathers who create fire. I vow to love the Master, dear Father to us all, and to heed the kind guidance of Mentors. I vow to always be a good citizen and to do my best for our world's prosperity. With all my quintessence and mind, I give myself to Mierenthia.

Of course, the oath was too difficult for a four-year old to understand. Even one such as Linden who, unlike her peers, had at least been able to learn it and say it before the Mentor and the Initiation crowd without stumbling, biting her tongue, or relying on the whispered prompts of parents.

"
But, Mom, the Bers are not mothers or fathers to me. You are my mom, and Dad is my dad,
" she had however quietly added, and her mom had hushed her before anyone else could hear.

Mom had been right; four was the age when you started being whipped for aberrant thoughts, even if you did not know which thoughts were aberrant yet.
This
was one of the things Initiation brought to you. So Linden had waited until they got home to wonder aloud how, on top of the impossibility of Bers being her mothers and fathers, the Master was also her father and everyone else's. She also waited until then to say that she should not have said the oath's words. "
If you say something, does it become true, Dad? Can you take the words back?
" Little Linden had not wanted to give herself—was
not
giving herself—to Mierenthia or to anything else. She was Mom and Dad's, and Grandma and Grandpa's and her own, and that was how it should be. She wanted no changes.

Many times had Linden broken her Initiation oath, but she had never been caught, and until four days ago she had never even found herself in danger.

She looked away from Rianor and towards the door, once again trying to relax, seeking lighter thoughts. She could wish for a mirror (and sunlight) to see if her own eyes would look like steel. Yes, vanity was exactly what she needed. It could help keep thoughts about oathbreaking, the Master, and danger at bay. If Calia was an example, it could keep any thoughts processes at bay ... Linden let her mind roam. She wanted to pursue the vague idea from before, but focusing on it would make her lose it rather than help.

The noble Houses could not be secret. In addition to the workers' knowledge, there were rumors of the lavish balls nobles hosted for their peers—so the nobles knew how to reach someone else's House. And then there was the Healers' Passage and the doors for the Commanders of Life and Death—and Linden fought the urge to start crying again. She had never known. The parents she loved with all her heart had been keeping secrets from her.

Rianor was leaning on the wall in the very same way as before. His eyes were closed. Sweat was glistening on his temples and forehead, and his chest rose and fell in a ragged rhythm.
Please persevere.
Linden hesitated only briefly before she reached into his coat's pocket for the small Qynnsent-crested vial.

Rianor shivered and opened his eyes as she touched the cold wet handkerchief to his temple.

"I see that you are already wasting precious Science samples," he whispered hoarsely, but the twinkle in his eyes was grateful and teasing rather than annoyed.

"I won't use all of it if I can help it," she murmured, gently wiping blood from his cheek, then smiled for a second before she locked his eyes with hers. "But only if I can help it. As much as I want to keep some Water of Life for us to experiment with, other things have higher priority."

"I can see that." Rianor closed his eyes and inhaled, and when he opened them, his face was less stiff, and his hand did not tremble when he raised it and stroked her wrist.

"Thank you, Linde. I will survive, though. Let us leave some for later."

Leave some of what for later? For a moment she was confused, the awareness of his fingers on her skin suddenly too strong, the thoughts about Water of Life and tunnels suddenly too weak.

Fool, Linden. Was now the time to be distracted in this manner? And was now the time for him to watch her in this way? The tunnel. The
samodiva.
Who knew what she might be trying to do to them even now—or what her water might.

"I ..." Linden shook her head, trying to fix the thoughts inside. "I certainly won't use more water if I can help it. It is hers, and she lied to us."

"Did she, now? But have you not learned to always listen to the exact words being said, my apprentice? The agreement, Linde, was for her to let us go, not for her to help us. It is our own responsibility to find our way."

Rianor's expression was unreadable, and suddenly, yet again, Linden remembered that he was a stranger, and one raised in what was almost a different world. The noble world. There were stories in the library books about Noble Houses waging wars with honey-coated words long after the times of the real wars were over. Those were "
romantic
" stories, of perfumed ladies and vain, handsome lords finding "
love
" amidst all the glitter and poison. They were stupid stories, stories for Cal to sigh over. Linden had ignored them, more interested in learning about the real nobles, the smart ones, those of the Science and Art Guilds, whom the commoners' entertainment books always blatantly ignored.

She had not learned about them. They had always been too unreachable. Even the Science Guild apprentice applications were only handled by the Science Guild's few commoners.

And here Rianor was, the first noble she had met, speaking about lies and almost-lies, about exact words to listen for amongst the many words a person got showered by. It was a valid point. It was certainly also valid amongst commoners, and yet it reminded Linden that she did not know him. That she did not know his—and, if she survived tonight, hers—world.

If
he
survived, too. She wondered if his even breathing was controlled and intentional. She would not share with him the perturbing thought that his head injury might defeat him any time now. The bleeding had barely stopped and could start again at any moment. She marveled at his endurance. He had carried her until she had awakened, and even then he had only let her down when she had threatened to fight him.

"We still don't know what effects this water might have on us," she said, making herself meet the lord's eyes, her words as calm as possible.

"Yes. There are too many things that we do not know in this world." His own voice was angry, and she did not know the man enough to decide if the anger was directed at her.

"I think that I have retraced the way successfully," he continued before she could think of a reply. "The disposition of the tunnels is very different from that of the streets above, and I must rely on a non-exact estimation of where the stairs took us, but
most probably
this here is our door."