The Seekers of Fire (20 page)

"The air inside is clean from wildfire and poison now. It is purged in the Ber way, as only we Bers know," she said, and some people were already casting longing glances to the glowing lights and supposed warmth beyond the doors.

Only, Rianor thought, for some reason the Bers had postponed inviting people back for some time, and it just might be the time needed by Temple-sized premises to naturally ventilate if the windows were broken.

He could speak and point that out. He could present obvious logic regarding "
the Ber way
" to his fellow lords and ladies. He did not. Even without Desmond's warning fingers digging into his flesh, he would have known to presently keep his thoughts to himself. It was the "
Ber way
" his frightened fellow lords and ladies wanted. They needed someone to supposedly take care of them and think for them. They did not care for obvious logic that required them to think by themselves and be wet and wounded.

How easy was it to believe that they were wet and wounded because they had tried to think—No, how easy was it to believe that they were wet, wounded, frightened, and confused not because they had thought (they had not) but because they had followed Rianor's thinking? And they could not even know what the alternative to following Rianor's thinking would be—because that, too, would require thinking on their part.

Believing was easier, and the Bers were there to be believed. As always.

It is ridiculous,
was all Rianor could think, as the Ber woman walked to him again. The air inside the temple must be better now because he had broken the glass earlier. Couldn't they see that, the damn fools?

No, they could not because they had no idea of Science and how things worked, which suited the Bers perfectly.

And had the Bers really stopped the rain, as the crowd undoubtedly thought? There had been a barrier when they had first appeared, but it had been only for a short time, and the rain had been lessening even before the silent Ber man and girl had started staring at the sky. How much of this was Magic, and how much was watching the clouds and pure timing? Where did one begin and the other one end? Rianor shook his head. Science and Magic. It worked so neatly for the Bers. Magic was hidden, and Science and curiosity ridiculed and discouraged. Was there difference between the two at all?
Hide knowledge from people, and you can do whatever you want with them.

"Here are the nobility inauguration documents and corresponding wristwatch for your new lady, High Lord of Qynnsent." The Ber woman's voice was quiet now, but exactly as quiet as to be heard by those who stood nearby. She handed him a rolled parchment tied with a red ribbon, as well as a wristwatch with a small dial, its bracelet weaved from thin metal strings. "For your Science apprentice. I will understand if you choose to go home now and rest while the rest of us continue this night's eventful ceremony. I do hope, however, that you and members of your House will soon grace another night of expressing gratefulness to the Master with your presence."

Rianor opened and read the document in silence. It seemed genuine. Slowly, he placed it in the inside pocket of his coat together with the wristwatch. He understood, even if the Ber's message was veiled and thus in Desmond's, nor Rianor's, area of expertise. She had dismissed him while still granting him the request he had earlier made to one of her subordinates. She had tried to appease him and his House, at the same time further undermining his position with the perturbed, mindless crowd. They would resent having followed someone whose involvement with the half-flighty, half-suspicious interest of Science went as far as to make a lady out of a commoner.

Rianor resisted closing his eyes, the pain pounding inside his head, muddling his thoughts. He had saved their miserable lives (as well as almost taken a life, but he was not going to think about that now), and here they were, pretending to not see him, or seeing him as an enemy. He stared at the Ber and for a moment felt her slight discomfort. Good. She was not entirely confident.

But what should he do now? She was close enough for him to grab her throat, but she would not have come so close to someone who would grab her throat, would she? Any aggression on his part would only confirm the image of an insane aggressor she had already built for him before the crowd. If he attacked a Ber, most of the crowd would side with the Bers, and even if they did not, Mierber was not ready for this. A revolution would probably be crushed—and even if it were not, what then? He did not know how the firepipes and all other Ber life-sustaining infrastructure worked, himself. What would he replace their systems with?

"Thank you, my lady." It was Desmond, his voice strong, composed. Still gripping Rianor's shoulder, he had moved forward, so he almost stood between the Ber and his High Lord. Even though his coat was torn and he was leaning too much to the right, blood gathering around his left knee, Desmond somehow managed to look dignified and stable.

"We appreciate your prompt attention to a request made by House Qynnsent," Desmond continued. "I would like to assure the Order of the Ber as well as our noble peers"—he nodded to the crowd at that—"that we, on our part, have also been active. We have donated a generous proportion of both our yearly production and our yearly financial income towards the sustainment of peace and order, and the constant betterment of Mierenthia."

Ber ... noble peers ... active ... generous ... production ... income ... sustainment ... order ... Mierenthia. Desmond had somehow arranged his speech around these words, so that if the speech had been a fence, these words would have been the poles, the rest giving the impression of being no more than unimportant filling. Or perhaps Rianor perceived it like this because of the damn, thought-scattering headache. He had to make a conscious effort to retain clarity of thought ...

But then, how many of these people ever had clarity of thought? Desmond used this. Desmond knew how people thought, and dealing with people was his pride and passion. He would know how exactly to twist words and concepts to say something while in the minds of his less smart adversaries a concept formed of something else. As for the manipulators on the other side, who were perhaps not susceptible to this, for they used it themselves, he could still give them a message and enjoy sparring with them.

"I thank you, too, First Counselor of Qynnsent." the Ber woman replied. "We appreciate your contributions."

They understood each other very well. "
Mierenthia and you Bers depend on Houses' money and production,
" Desmond had told her, "
and our House is an important one for that.
" "
Sustainment and order
" might have referred to this and the Houses' Aetarx as well, although Desmond would never mention the Aetarx in public. "
It is you who rule, but you also depend on us nobles,
" Desmond had said, making sure that their fellow nobles, mindless or not, understood and remembered this. He had, of course, also stressed how generous House Qynnsent itself was, or, more accurately, reminded all of Qynnsent's influence, and that a disturbance in Qynnsent would also mean a disturbance in a part of Balkaene, and thus in Mierenthia's food production.

Mathilda, Qynnsent's Lady-in-residence in Balkaene, former First Counselor, and Desmond's mother, had in the past tried to teach Rianor the specific nuances of this "
understanding
" that a lord should exercise in dealing with Bers and fellow nobles. Later, Desmond had tried to teach him himself. Rianor had not learned, not because he could not but because he did not want to. All these hinted, unsaid, and intentionally misinterpreted words—all these lies—were redundant. People should either express themselves clearly, or not talk at all; should either think for themselves, or let someone else do the thinking and obey him. You should not have to twist your mind and chew your thoughts so that you could spit them maimed enough for others to swallow them.

Science, on the other hand, was clean. The most complex mechanism could be split into less complex parts, at least in theory if not in practice, and you could learn the rules of how those worked together because there
were
clean rules. You could sometimes use these rules to make something useful.

Mechanisms were useful—but people were not useful at all. Rianor shifted his eyes away from Desmond and the Ber woman, and suddenly saw a mirror image of his contempt on another face. It was the face of a girl, a young woman. It wore large, dark eyes, a fine nose and a slightly open, delicately curved mouth. It also wore the black hood of a Ber.

She slid the hood down her hair just as she met his eyes, ignoring the whisper of the red-robed Ber man beside her. It was wavy hair, brown but for the reddish tint that spread through it when she tossed it, catching the square's artificial light. Then she was not looking at Rianor any more, but he had the feeling that it was not because she did not dare withstand his gaze.

Then he knew who she was, and so did Donald of Waltraud. The oaf stumbled out from somewhere amidst the crowd, red-faced, and cried out,

"Merley!"

In a moment, the crowd forgot all about Rianor and Qynnsent. Donald of Waltraud was crying, tears running silently down his suddenly not-so-stupid-looking face, and High Lord Emery of Waltraud had appeared on the edge of the crowd, standing silently in half-shadow, a muscle trembling on his cheek. He did not seem to notice that his wife had fainted. Everybody else was silent, as if they all had taken a collective breath and time had stopped before they could exhale again.

The Ber girl stood still, the Ber man's hand on her elbow. Then she snapped her elbow free and rushed towards Donald. Half of the lanterns flickered, before the red-robed man raised a hand. Then, for a moment, all lanterns flared and the square was almost too bright to bear. People blinked and scowled and their eyes watered, the world too blurred for them to see a miniature flying blade.

Perhaps because of his increased sensitivity to thrown blades and to Bers tonight, Rianor saw it. It came from the group of yellow-robed Bers behind the red-robed man, and it pierced the girl's back before she could reach her brother. She did not fall, but stumbled, the wildness in her eyes suddenly extinguished into a bland, unfocused expression.

"Blessed be, lord Donald of Waltraud," she uttered a standard, unemotional Ber acknowledgement of a noble, and Rianor felt almost sorry for the bastard, as she turned her back to him and slowly walked away.

Then the red-robed Ber woman was talking again, and more Bers had inserted themselves amidst the crowd, urging all to the Temple and supposed warmth and light.

She halted talking for a second when she met Rianor's gaze. Suddenly, Rianor realized that she, too, was tired. She bore herself like a woman of iron still, but a deep wrinkle cut her forehead and shadows framed her eyes. She narrowed these eyes as he made a step towards her, and almost backed away from him. It almost did not show, but she was not comfortable with Rianor at all, even though he had let her and Desmond's little theater go on and not said a word.

"We shall see each other again, my lady," he said softly, almost a promise.

She raised a hand, as if to bless or dismiss him ... and they both watched the pretty fire ball in the hand fade away. She spread her fingers, as if it had been intentional, and perhaps no one else noticed, but Rianor was certain that he saw a flash of fear on her face.

"Yes, High Lord, I believe we shall," she whispered. "Blessed be," she added as an afterthought before she turned her back to him and walked regally away.

Was he the sole reason for her fear, or was it mostly because of the scene with the Waltrauds? He would definitely find out and use the knowledge. And damn the Waltrauds. Until now, the situation of a noble turned Ber seemed to have happened only in semi-legends. And now a Waltraud, just in time for a day of conflicts with both Waltrauds and Bers. He had to summon a Qynnsent Council as soon as tomorrow.

Rianor nodded to Desmond, then reached out to support his First Counselor, who had paled and wavered when trying to walk on his left leg. Rianor's own ribs hurt. Then, amidst the commotion, someone suddenly supported him. "M'lord." Parr the stable boy was smiling at him, a cloaked, hooded figure that moments ago had been just a spot in the crowd. Now that Rianor had time to notice such things, he remembered that figure. It was Parr who had given him the dagger earlier, not Desmond.

"Beauty and Star are fine, m'lord, friends are guarding 'em. All them other horses, too. Two bloody thugs tried to steal Nellie—that's another horse—but we beat them, m'lord. We heard shouting from here, too, so I came to see what was happening—to see if you were all right, m'lord." He looked at Rianor admiringly. "I saw how you jumped people through the window, m'lord. You're good."

A minute later, the boy had sped to get the horses, and Rianor and Desmond were walking to the street to wait for the carriage. Desmond was limping and was staring somewhere in the night.

"Tell me, Rianor, do you see a tendency in yourself to aggravate the people who matter, and somehow earn the love of some who may not matter at all?"

Rianor was too tired to endure and decipher Desmond's hints, and he did not want a life discussion with him, of all people.

"I cannot answer you before we have aligned each other's criteria for mattering," he replied with a tone that meant any further attempts for conversation was at the attempter's own risk.

And perhaps, after all, no people matter whatsoever.

He exiled the thought to the small corner of his mind where he kept the old Mentor from yesterday. Still, it kept poking at the corner's wall all the time while he drove the carriage to Qynnsent (Parr did not yet have the right to drive so far, and did not know the way) through a deceptively quiet Mierber.

He did not want that thought. It was just an angry reaction to the events of the day, wasn't it? But it stayed there even as he tried to calm himself by thinking about Science, and eerily, there was a connection in that.