The Seekers of Fire (12 page)

She watched him carefully for a long time, wondering just how far she could afford to go, and he watched her back, measuring something of his own.

"I will like that," she finally said. "Sharing will certainly be a new experience." Then her lips trembled as she added, " But, Rianor, I would also like to believe that things like fairness, freedom and justice exist somewhere besides inside all stupid minds. If they do not, what is the sense of living at all?"

"One of the reasons that we are Scientists is to find out, isn't it?"

She could only nod.

Then the evasive thought from before returned to Linden's mind, somehow enhanced by Rianor's ideas.

He stepped closer to her. "High time for us to go inside, Linde. I already consider you to be a lady of Qynnsent, but you don't yet have a watch. I don't want you to get hurt. I need to touch your face in order to, for now, officially make you a guest."

"Guest, you are welcome inside the Great House Qynnsent of Mierenthia," he murmured a moment later, his voice as impersonal as his touch. He had just traced a circle on her forehead with the index finger of his watch hand. It was, in a way, disappointing. He seemed to not even be seeing her, even though his hand was on her skin. He must have said these same words and repeated these same motions so many times and with so many people that he did not notice them any longer—but they were new to
her.

"Was there truly a need for that?" Linden said, realizing that her voice sounded sharper than she had intended. "The door did nothing to me, did not hurt me at all before."

Rianor's eyes focused on her; he was seeing her again now. "You are right; I wondered about that myself. I would have thought that the door should physically react to someone trying to open it, even if not in a particularly painful manner. Yet, it did not."

Linden's earlier vague thought returned stronger, albeit not yet fully formed, and she followed it, the disappointment momentarily forgotten.

"Rianor, you performed a rite to make me a guest. You do not know what exactly it does, do you? You did not even seem to notice what you were doing."

He said nothing, but she knew by the look he cast her that she had guessed correctly. Well, at least rites, unlike dangerous doors with opinions of their own, were familiar to Linden. They were common enough in commoners' Mierber. Small, insignificant rites such as greeting a person by simultaneously taking his or her right hand with your own right hand and his or her left hand with your own left, or big ones like Initiation or Judgement: people did them not because they understood why, but because they knew that they must. Often, people were forbidden to even
try
understanding.

"Well, my lord, I have always been taught that you cannot communicate with something nonliving, and the door seems to be just that, even though I might of course be wrong. A nonliving thing, we are told, is—well—
nonliving,
something without vitality and without a mind or a quintessence. Of course, water, too, is nonliving, but we are taught that it is treacherous—and wondering about how something without a mind and a quintessence can be treacherous is already an aberrant thought ... Yet, as you already know, I can communicate with water. At least, I can sometimes make it do what I want. Your rite, too, is about communicating with something non-living, about telling a door that a stranger is now a guest. I have never seen such a rite before. So, what if the same communication is possible
without
the rite? What if we did it with the door, without realizing, earlier, which is why the door did not react to me at all? Or what if it had some other way to know? We might have established a connection with this door, like we established one between you and the
samodiva.
Or, perhaps a connection has always been there, but you have to know that it is possible for it to exist, so that it
does
exist. '
Nothing is as it appears but I'll kick you and you shall see all!
' "

She was almost jumping with excitement now.

"Rianor, what you earlier said about fairness being only in your mind, it is a part of something bigger. You know that objects always interact in the world, and that things affect other things. I have watched the effects in my Science, I am sure you have, too. But now I have a feeling that it is not about things only, or that things are not just things."

Linden watched the door and the interplay of light on it. Light was not just a thing, either. What was it, then? She almost knew, the knowledge darting past her mind and fleeing not too far away, fluttering at a distance where she could feel the wind it caused and sense its teasing and caress. Knowledge was the province of thought, but strange as it were, she could sometimes
feel
knowledge. She turned to Rianor again.

"We have already communicated with nonliving things. We know that it is possible. Tonight we even know that
Bessove
or fairytale creatures exist, even though all my life I have been vehemently taught that they were unreal. We have been '
kicked
' tonight and thus we have '
seen.
' So perhaps, as a result, we can now see—and walk—further than others can, but we do not yet know the way. But a way there must be, and perhaps we can find it; perhaps we can deduce the rules of walking it if we don't dismiss what we are so often taught to dismiss."

"This is interesting." The words did Rianor's expression no justice. For some time, he had been watching her like a starving man feeding on her words—as if her words were something he must have been seeking all his life and had suddenly found—as if
she
were. "Very interesting, indeed." He moved closer to her. " '
And thou shalt hail wise Stone and River, and thou shalt praise kind Sun and Wind, for else inside thy heart shall quiver, for else the path shall break and bleed.
' Do you know what you have just said?"

He had suddenly come so close that she could feel his breath on her face, his eyes piercing hers in a way no other person's eyes, even Mentor Maxim's, had. There was a subtle change in him. He emitted a feeling of both danger and thrill, and Linden found herself thrilled but not frightened at all.

"Oh, I very well know what I said, my lord," she whispered. "I admit this night has been a bit taxing, but I am still capable of remembering what I said a minute ago. I am currently more interested in
your
words."

"Witch." His fingers captured a lock of her hair that had fallen between her eyes. He slowly brushed her nose with it, then, almost imperceptibly, her cheek and jaw. So much for the indifferent touching. "My headstrong, Science-minded witch."

"Witch?" Linden leaned slightly back, and her shoulders suddenly felt the cold metal of the door, chill spreading through her until she was shivering, even though her face was hot under his caress. "What do you mean, witch? Do you consider me a Magical reprobate who deserves Ber punishment?"

He smiled, but still the chill spread, making her limbs numb and her breathing ragged. It was cold. Cold like the extinguished firewell had been, four days earlier. Cold like ...
like the dust of a burned Mierenthian forest and its dried creeks, after the gleaming fire monsters had spread their wings and flown away. Cold like a stake just before the flames would spur into frenzy, claiming her body but never her quintessence, never conquering fully, never finding the way to the other world, which her murderers wanted but could never burn. Cold like it could only be after fire had burned and smoked and raged and killed, until there was nothing left to feed it, until everything, even fire, had faded into a vague memory.

As if in a dream, Linden felt her body sob and Rianor's arms tighten around her, heard his voice but could not distinguish the words. There had been another world. A world where the leaves were both green and sprinkled with snow, where seasons, light, and darkness flowed and pulsed together, blending with magnificence and peace to form something new. Something living. It was a world which was but an arm's reach away, and yet no paths could lead there. It was a world she longed for, but which the stone and steel of the tunnel sealed away.

Or was it her who longed for this world? Linden shook her head. For a moment the coldness of the door had done something to her. She had, for lack of a better word,
read
in the stone and steel the imprint of what she thought Dimna's sorrow, as well as perhaps some other woman's—some witch's—life.

Flames. Linden now knew what
flames
were, and she knew burning and the bitter taste of smoke.

But the moment was gone now. She took a deep breath of air that was chilly only with the tolerable chill of an underground tunnel, even though the chill inside her refused to go away. Then she turned to Rianor and told him.

With an arm around her shoulders, Rianor extended the other hand towards the door, and without thinking about it, she extended hers as well. Together, they grabbed the handle and the door silently opened, and even though somewhere far away the imprints of
samodivi,
witches, and others still echoed, Rianor's reassuring hand kept them from coming too close.

Rianor

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

Rianor squinted his eyes, trying to dissipate the blurriness brought by the sudden change of brightness outside the Healers' Passage. Something was not right here, but he could not tell what it was. All seemed normal.

His body was not all right, either. He forced himself to be steady as he felt his spent lady apprentice go limp in his arms, then lifted her and carried her to the stove.

"Get warm first, Linde, then I will take you somewhere more comfortable." He helped her to a bare metal chair, but she did not seem to notice the lack of upholstery. She stared at the stove, instead, her teeth clattering, then gingerly reached towards it but recoiled immediately. Her hands felt even colder than before.

"This is just the scullery, Linde, not the kitchen. You can touch." He put one of his own hands on the stove, the other one remaining on hers. "They don't cook here. The room is connected to the kitchen, so no fabrics and other combustibles are allowed unless a Master Cook is around, but the stoves are normal. Nothing has caught fire here in my lifetime. I myself have never seen a flame."

She seemed to not understand at first, then cringed, her body shaking, her gaze darting towards where they had come from as if she would try to scramble back to the Healers' door. Then, suddenly, she leaned forward and gripped the stove with both hands, clinging until her knuckles were white.

"Linde, calm down." Rianor put an arm around her shoulders, both for comfort and for holding her if she did decide to run. "We are safe now."

Safe in Qynnsent's residence, which, like all seats of Noble Houses, was protected by Ber trickery and encased away from the rest of the world. Rianor did not know how that was done. He had asked questions as a child, but the answers he invariably received were in the style of "
the Master's ways are unfathomable.
" When he had noted that the Master's ways had to least to be fathomable to the Bers, since it was them who had worked on the House, his parents told him that he would learn when he grew up and gave him more Science books to distract him.

The Lord and Lady of Qynnsent had obviously not anticipated that Science would provide some answers but even more questions for their son; had not intended the direction he would choose to go with it. Or maybe they had. He could not ask them.

Linden's head was bent now, her face huddled against his shoulder.

"I will calm down in a moment," she whispered, "I am sorry. It would make sense, of course, that there is a kitchen in a Noble House. Of course, there was only one in our neighborhood and, of course, you hear many things about it and you can never go inside—and the thought of a kitchen was too much for me a moment ago. You know that
I
have seen flames now."

She shook her head. "Yet, I need fire, everyone does. I wanted to run away just now, and yet I am not even certain that it was
me
who would have run. I don't want to ever again go inside this Passage, how can Dad walk it at all—Oh, Master ..." Her shoulders shook in what most probably was an invisible sob. "Rianor, I left Mom and Dad, and I don't even know the outside way home. Oh, Master, what did I do? I just left them like that, and they have done nothing, and now I don't know ..."

So he was not the only one thinking about parents. Her next whisper sounded beaten, almost inaudible. "These people cannot just kill them. They cannot just die."

"I will try to help them, I promise." The words were heavy in his throat, since there was little help he could now give. He had analyzed the situation while being bandaged by her father and had offered to shelter the whole family, but her parents, Kelley and Ellard, had flatly refused. They had decided to at least temporarily remain in their home and hinder anyone who would try to pursue their daughter, instead of becoming what they had called prisoners of Qynnsent.

Perhaps they were right. Acquiring the documents to offer a House's protection to a commoner who also happened to be a Commander of Life and Death would draw too much attention, while without them Ellard would only be safe on the House's land. Ellard had made his choice, and so had Kelley, who had not even considered fleeing or seeking protection without him.

Rianor was not at all prepared to explain their choices to their daughter. In her current condition, she would probably not understand, as Rianor himself had not understood years ago.

"I will send someone there," he said gently, omitting that this someone would probably only observe the result of the night's events. "Please, try to not think about this now, Linde. Rest a minute or two, and then let us go. And"—he paused—"your home is here now."

She raised her head to look at him then, the light of the wall lanterns illuminating her face, her bright eyes deep and full of so many things that one could watch them for a long time without losing interest—or understanding them.