The Seekers of Fire (34 page)

Why did he have to deal with them?

The answer to this question came a few minutes later, after he had told of his Fireheart experiences (leaving what had happened before and after that for later). It was Inni who reacted first, suddenly raising her head from that cloth of hers.

"What you say is impossible, my lord" she declared at Rianor's prompting look, her voice calm and quiet. "A holy temple's windows cannot be broken, for they are crafted with Magic even stronger than that of unbreakable glass. Unbreakable glass will become breakable, in time, but the Master himself has blessed the holy windows. The holy stone walls, too, will never crumble. "

Then she bent over her embroidery again, her eyes yet again unfocused. Her fingers had not stopped working.

"Wretch it," Linden whispered beside her.

Well, yes, things
were
wretched. Especially if Inni—Master-devoted, embroidering Inni who had no interests and questions inside her—would know something so important, and Rianor would not.

But perhaps she knew it
because
she was Master-devoted. She had not had a reason to fight the knowledge. For her it was naught but one of all the ingrained, unquestioned truths, which she did not understand and thus did not
truly
know. Rianor, on the other hand, must have thoughtfully rejected this to be truth long ago—and thus forgotten it.

Right now he wondered which one of them was the greater fool.

Not only a Magic-wielding apprentice, then, but also a Magic-wielding master. Or, alternatively, temple Magic that had failed.

Or, Magic that was
fake.
Rianor already had his doubts about that temple. Had anyone tried to purposely break temple windows before him at all? You could do it with normal unbreakable glass if you tried hard enough.

At least, he could.

"They did not take you, thank the Master. Oh, my boy, they let you go."

Nan had spoken for the first time in many minutes, her voice full of tears, even though her eyes were dry.

"My boy, they don't take nobles, usually—and yet they took that Waltraud girl last year. She is sharp, that one, from the inside, like a knife. I have seen her. I attended lady Eleora during the girl's Symbols, twelve years ago, and I heard the girl's screams even in the servants' hall when she hit little Orlin of Iglika and rendered him unconscious. The boy had hurt her, the girl claimed, but lady Eleora said that he had simply shown his watch, never touched her. Everyone thought the incident arranged by the High Lord of Waltraud, and yet ... I am not surprised that one such as her would commit murder."

Or one such as me,
Rianor thought, but said nothing.

"And there is something I must tell you all." Nan sighed. "This girl has great Magic. Otherwise, she would not have survived."

"Survived ... what?" This from Linden, a tentative question.

After a long pause Nan sighed again, herself staring at a candle. "I will tell you this, too. But first tell me, Lind, do you know where new Bers come from?"

"Yes, I know. It is possible to get the information, even though it is not widely publicized. They raise babies, but not their own, for they are all celibate. They take others' babies but never noble ones and only sometimes those of middle-class commoners. Usually it is poor or unwanted babies they take, those who would not be truly missed. In this, at least, the Bers are considerate."

Linden was silent now. Rianor looked at her and then at Nan.

"They say that this is not doing the babies a favor," he said, "so that fools won't go freely offering their children to be Bers. They say that a Magical life is a hard life, and life committed to serving the Master's world. No one sees the babies again until they have become Bers—and not all of them do become Bers. Of course, the Bers say that the only safe way to grow Magic in a person is for this person to be raised as a Ber, by Bers. That if Magic somehow grows outside of this system, it is wild Magic, aberrant and perilous. Which, exactly, was the Magic I sought."

He saw Linden shift uncomfortably at this, but then she controlled herself.

Nan did not notice, her eyes still on the candle. "Yes, my boy, and this, too, is the Magic they destroy." She was listening, at least. "Unless it is Magic too strong—unless it is Fire Magic and strong enough to make it worthy for them to take it. They burn people. Yes, my lady Jen, they do."

She waited a moment for Jenelly to stifle her gasps. "They do not even cook them like food, but burn them alive and uncleansed, and with open fire. Whatever that is. I have never seen it and never wish to. But even though the Bers would not cleanse their victims before burning, they would heal them if they were too sick or wounded. The Bers prefer burning strong, healthy people; I do not know if the reason is to give those people a better, minuscule as it is, chance for survival, or if it is to make them suffer longer. Some Bers can heal, and some of those can heal even better than Master Healers; only the Commanders of Life and Death have skills that those Bers lack."

Nan sighed. "All this is information that, but for the Bers themselves, only Mentors and Master Healers know. And, but for the Bers themselves, only Commanders of Life and Death ever see the aftermath of a Ber burning.

"Few people are ever burned. It is only those who show signs of wild Magic, as well as some unforgivable criminals. Sometimes, some of them survive. That Waltraud girl must have survived burning. She must be strong—and the Bers must have known it. A noble murderer would usually go to prison, often a comfortable one. Noble crimes are more easily forgiven than the crimes of others—or were. Rianor, my boy, I have already told you all the secrets of Master Healers who are not Commanders, all the secrets I know. Only a few rituals are left, but I will tell them to you, too, later."

She looked haggard as she said it; it must have been a difficult decision for her. Rianor was grateful to her for it, but he was also irritated. It had taken her so long to decide. Her doubts had taken valuable time that could have been focused on solving the problems at hand.

Why was it so hard for humans to concentrate on the task at hand? Humans were so difficult to work with. Despite all that Rianor thought and felt about Bers, at some moments he could understand why Bers and Mentors—or anyone—would want to control humans' thinking.

"I see, Nan. Thank you for telling me this. I remember now that the last time when there were noble Bers was just before the Great Fire in Year 400—when, indeed, the Bers were so weak that they almost let Mierber itself burn. What you have just told us confirms what we already suspected. The Bers need all the power they can get."

"They have never taken High Rulers, my boy. And yet ..."

No, of course they would not take High Rulers. They must be truly desperate to go to such an extent of stupidity. Besides, what reason would they come up with? High Rulers already had Magic of their own. Magic was
thrust
upon a High Ruler's shoulders.

What, after all, were the Aetarx, and why did the Bers, otherwise so jealous of all things Magic, not take care of them themselves? Why did they need High Rulers, and why was the position hereditary? Nothing else in Mierenthia, but for nobility itself, was. A First Counselor's first child would become a noble but not necessarily a First Counselor; a Healer's first child would not necessarily become a Healer.

And why had they not taken Linden? She had been just a commoner at that well.

Because of the Waltraud girl.

Now Rianor knew who the female Ber had been, the one who had filled everyone's bucket with fire with naught but a glance. The male Ber had been a bully; he had abused Linden while she was weak but had not known how to react to his victim's own outburst. The woman, however, had been, as Nan had put it, as sharp as a knife—and she had taken the man away.

Why?

And ... Rianor looked at his apprentice. She was still cradling her hand, a frown splitting her forehead. She was deep in thought, but had she thought of what Rianor just had?

These days, the Bers also took nobles.

Rianor would take her out of the House only if very strictly necessary.

She was what her parents had refused to become. She was a prisoner of Qynnsent.

Rianor

Night 79 of the Fourth Quarter, Year of the Master 705

The danger that the Bers expected must come from Balkaene, the Council decided. It was a strange province, their Balkaene, perhaps because it lay so close to the only Edge that reprobates or fools could reach, perhaps for other reasons. It was a fact that, even though eighty percent of Mierenthia's grain was grown in Balkaene, fifty years after the introduction of the larger, more productive and more efficient Factory Farms, Balkaene only had two of them—and they provided less than half of Balkaene's yield.

The rest of the production came from the lands of individual peasants and the communal lands of villages, all under the jurisdiction of one of the four Houses, all owing their yield to the respective House in exchange for some money and the periodic services of Master Growers, Butchers and other Crafters, as well as Mentors, Militia, infrastructure, and the protection provided by armies. The armies belonged to the Houses themselves. As for the rest, the Houses contracted them from their respective governing bodies, such as Head Mentor, Central Militia Headquarters, or Growers or Butchers Guild. The fees for all services were regulated by the Bers, and sometimes there were no fees at all, when the Bers subsidized the respective governing body directly from taxes.

This system was indeed similar to what was true for other provinces and Houses. Or what had been true. In the last fifty years the direct dependency between a House and its villages had somewhat lessened in other places. The Bers would pay a House for locating a Factory, a Mill, a Mine, or a Factory Farm on the House's land. Officially the products would still be considered to come from that House, but the Bers would employ Master Crafters and regular citizens and villagers directly, by themselves, without relying on the nobles. In addition, most people would be employed in those places and few would be left to work on individual lands.

That was for the better, everyone knew. It
was
dangerous to work the land directly, or even to produce whatever a Master Crafter would physically produce with her or his Craft without the protective environment of the Mill, Farm, Mine, or Factory. Besides, nobles still received income from the Ber Factories and Factory derivatives located on their own lands. The nobles were allowed to trade with a part of the production, and the Bers paid directly for the rest of it.

Fifty years ago the world had been different, but it had worked as it had only because people had not known better. People had not had canned food and had not had so many and so good clothes and shoes, and furniture, and what not fifty years ago—or fire so warm and abundant. Progress and industrialization was a blessing for everyone (except perhaps for wretches, but no one knew for certain what it was that Bers made them do).

And why would anyone
care
about what the system was or had been? Why would people wonder about anything if their lives were clean and comfortable, their duties straightforward, and everything else taken care of? Even Rianor had not much thought of where the food he ate and the fabric for his clothes came from.

Now, he wondered, when the world was suddenly not stable any longer. Now, he asked why Balkaene did not have a single Mill built even though the old mills were long ago destroyed, and Balkaene had to send the grain at least two hundred kilometers away. Or, now he wondered why the Sunset Lands in the Northwest had many Mills but no Metal Factories, even though they grew no grain. The Bers paid House Fredelbert and the others to have Mines on their lands, to get something from the mountains that was supposedly used to make metal.

And why was it that peasants could own animals in Balkaene just like they owned land, and why was it the peasants themselves who were cowherds, pig keepers, shepherds and such, needing naught else for this but periodic Master Crafters' rites and Mentors' blessings. Elsewhere, these days animals for food were only raised in Factory Farms. Or why bother with raising food animals in Balkaene at all, when there were so few of them there compared to those in Mierenthia's central parts and the Northlands.

Why could Balkaene peasants drive donkey carts by themselves?

Why did Balkaeneber City only have two Factories while other cities had many?

Cities were different from the rural parts of the provinces, and it had been the cities that were industrialized first. Even now, it was only the cities that supported running water and fire for commoners; at least, they had supported running fire and water when the pipes had worked.

Rustic places, on the other hand, had never stopped relying exclusively on wells.

Ber influence had been more direct in cities than in rural places even before the industrialization. Even then, the Bers had appointed the City Executives and the higher-ranked Mentors and Militia directly, and they had always had to ratify Crafter Guild leaders, even if those were chosen by their peers.

The Guilds, in turn—with the ritually-prescribed help of Mentors and Bers at certain times of the year—worked with common citizens. They taught them, employed them, promoted them in their professions, and so forth. The nobles did have dwellings in the cities, but they did not have duties in the cities—and the Bers had built their city Factories first, before directly intruding with them and the Farms and Mines and Mills into the nobles' own lands.

Perhaps this intrusion was not about food and production only, Rianor suddenly thought. The existence of Factories and such on nobles' lands did make it more awkward for nobles to attack others' lands with armies. Would nobles truly have abstained from fighting for a whole hundred years if the Factories and Farms and Mines and Mills had not existed for fifty of those?

In any case, Balkaene was not like other provinces. It was more backwards than other places, and wilder. Superstitions, too, grew more freely and were tolerated more easily in Balkaene.