The Seekers of Fire (35 page)

Perhaps there was a reason.

"Balkaene must be a weak spot for the Bers," Rianor told his Council. "Besides, I have wondered before and now I am wondering even more: why have the Bers never claimed Balkaene's Edge? It, too, could be a fertile piece of land, for all we know. Why have they not pushed '
the land of the Lost Ones,
' as they call it, further away?

"Because they cannot, I think. And Balkaene itself, so close to this place and separated from the rest of Mierenthia by mountains and a narrow pass, is difficult for them to manage. I am starting to think that Balkaene itself is not an Edge only because it is needed for food.

" '
Edges are creeping closer,
' the red-robed Ber woman told me yesterday. Yesterday, I thought it was all empty Ber words, words without substance but that of molding human minds into a shape of Bers' choosing."

"But you do not think so today," someone said.

He did not.

* * *

Qynnsent would fortify their lands in Balkaene and increase the size and the training of their armies. Noble House armies had been token armies in the last hundred years; the Bers had wanted it so, had even made laws about it. Rianor knew how woefully unprepared his people would be for an actual fight.

But how did a House fight against
Bessove?
Or against Bers.

They would fight with what the High Lord had been planning to gain even before planning to fight—with knowledge.

They would seek Master Millers, for a start. These were all employed in the Mills now and their old, pre-Factory mills were destroyed, but perhaps in the times to come access to such people would still be useful. Besides, Qynnsent's people in Balkaene would try to learn about
Bessove
as much as possible, and Qynnsent should also learn what they could about the Bers; this was not just a High Lord's whim any more. And they should learn about the symbols in their own House. What did the symbols mean? Could they perhaps be used by non-Bers? Besides, Rianor had found Linden ...

Rianor started explaining about the symbols first, and then he would tell the others about Linden and about Dimna. Unfortunately, Nan did not know much more about Dimna and Commanders than he himself knew or could figure out. She had earlier told him that the terrible price Commanders paid was that sometimes when the Trial was invoked their patients would not heal but die, and that Commanders, like High Rulers, slowly succumbed to madness.

Rianor sighed and ran his hands along his temples. The headache was coming back. He could not feel the Aetarx at all now, and yet the weight of being the High Lord had suddenly become greater than before.

* * *

Linden was still standing close to him as he was showing one of the shower heads and its writing, and now she leaned to look at it closer. Then, she shifted her eyes to Rianor's face and he caught her hand without truly intending to.

His tiredness melted. She wavered.

Rianor jerked his hand back, pushing her almost roughly away. She sat, fell rather, into a chair, her hands trembling, her breaths short and ragged.

"Eat again," Rianor snapped at her. "Now."

She looked as if she wanted to defy him but could not find the strength. He risked approaching her close enough to force a mouthful of bread between her lips and the rest of the loaf into her hand. Then he pulled back, his own hands feeling like trembling.

What had she done, the fool? Or, what had
he
done to her?

Rianor realized it now. Earlier, she had gone through the Dedication rite and he had truly felt better, whereas she had almost fainted.

He had never believed in the rite; it had been just another stupidity to go through every quarter, one that both of his First Counselors had particularly insisted upon. But what if he
should
have believed in it?

He had never known of a High Ruler truly taking another lord or lady's strength like that. Why now?

Because of her. It had happened in her suite, too. Rianor's own tiredness had faded after he had touched her and kissed her hand, shortly before she had run away from him and lost consciousness in the bathtub. He had blamed the supposed Ber writing on the shower then, together with her own recklessness—but he could not really blame a "
DUMBASS
" writing.

"Keep eating, Linde."

He should not touch her at all—and not only because he wanted her. Could it be the sexual wanting that made him leech her so? He had never affected other women so, before. At least he did not know to have had.

"Keep eating, I tell you." Eating should help a person with diminished strength. Linden was enough of a Scientist to know that, but if she would not ... "Nan, feed her like a child if she refuses."

Linden ate now, looking as forlorn as Blake did when wrongly accused of a misdeed. Rianor turned away from her. If he did not, he risked taking her in his arms—which, of course, would have an effect opposite to the intended one.

Besides, midnight might have well passed by now, and the Council was not yet over. Gatherings of people, supposedly to make decisions, took so long. They never worked as they should. When
Science
worked, it was both simpler and more effective.

Rianor resisted a sigh. A few times this evening he had even thought to dispense with the Council altogether, but Houses where the High Ruler made the decisions alone rarely prospered. Mathilda was right; a variety of skills was needed in a House in order to survive in the world.

Besides, insight could come from unlikely places. It had been Jenelly of all people, in her elevator conversation with Linden, to say that an elevator and a watch were Artificery devices. All Rianor had known himself was that they were Ber devices, and all he knew about the inner divisions of Bers was that they had a hierarchy. A Ber's importance was denoted by the color of his or her robe. He also knew that those who could help a commoner who had drawn a noble symbol were called Adept Catechists, but he had not heard the word "
Artificery
" before.

Rianor's people were needed, but he wished they would work like Science did, and not in their own meandering, timewasteful ways. He had thought those ways to be the nature of life, until yesterday.

But, were they?

The High Lord pushed the thought away. There would be a time for that thought, but it was not now.

He continued talking.

Linden

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

By now, night must have wrapped the outside world fully, its dark fingers cradling the silent streets. It must be blurring the silhouettes of buildings and those few who dared wander: Mentor and Militia patrols, reprobates, criminals, and fools.

Commoners slept at night, old lady Mathilda had said. Commoners feared. Linden did not fear now, perhaps because tonight she was a lady.

Or, perhaps because she had crumpled the fear, squeezed it tightly, kneaded it until it was naught but a small pang inside her.

The fear, and everything else. Her stomach was heavy with food, but beyond that she felt little. She even listened to the High Lord Rianor's story as if it did not concern her at all.

He had been out in Mierber, searching for Magic since the beginning of winter, he said. Magic had been too secret before, too hidden, but then the city firepipes had failed and the Bers had been forced out of their towers.

Perhaps if a person watched carefully, the lord said, he might learn something at the wells. The wells, as well as of course the city and Noble House pipes, had never been cold before. Never before had the Bers performed Magic where others could see them. What the lord had not expected—but what, now that it had happened, made a lot of sense—was that he would find something else at the wells, something triggered by the Bers' new frequent interaction with commoners.

Her. And her own Magic.

As if she were "
something,
" and not someone. As if the Magic was what mattered in her, and not at all Linden or her Science.

Which, of course, was exactly the case. She had been just a foolish girl, dazzled by the promise of Science, splendor, and a handsome young man, to believe otherwise. Dazzled, too, by everything that had happened in the last few days.

She listened to him talk about his experiences in the temple, then about making her a lady with the two of them alone together. She said nothing, and Rianor passed on to telling about the changeling banners and how the two of them thought that lord Audric the Insane had left a message.

He said little of the Inner Sanctum and naught of swords made of light, or of basic instincts and random wenches. He only let the others know that she had entered the Inner Sanctum alone and that he had made her a lady there. For that, she was grateful to him. Their eyes even met for a moment. Then, he looked away again, his face hard, as if he refused to share those events even with her.

Well, wretch him!

Linden shoved the piece of bread, the last of a whole loaf that he had forced her to eat, back to its plate. Her hands were trembling.

What was she doing here? She could simply walk away. She cared not about fancy dresses, carriages, and trifles. She cared not about being a lady. She cared not about young men, either; nothing good ever came out of them.

She cared about Science, about knowledge. What was it that kept her now in this place of glaring candles that swallowed both night's darkness and day's light, leaving nothing but harsh contours of grim, twisted faces? Night was not welcome in Qynnsent's Council Room, she had heard. But day was not, either.

Linden rose from her chair, and her scarf lashed around her, swiping a plate to the floor.

The plate broke.

No one said anything. The High Lord had been talking, and the others would not interrupt him even to pay attention to her own interruption.

But
he
was watching Linden in the eyes now, and Linden met his eyes in challenge. Would he perhaps punish her? Oh, let him try. His High Lordliness had earlier thrown her in that chair for no apparent reason, but she had been weak then. She was not weak now. And she knew, she
knew,
about High Rulers. She had made a choice last night.

Which was why she could not simply walk away.

The others here, except for the High Ruler himself, did not know about High Rulers, did not know of the overwhelming thirst to conquer, smash, and subdue, to be the only one. And they would never know—for, born as nobles or having been servants to nobles for many years, they had become so used to High Rulers that they would never wonder.

They would never
learn,
just as they would not wonder about or learn many other things that were right beneath their noses.

Things that they would thus never act upon.

It was a revelation.

Knowledge must be an easy thing to deny to people. Even to nobles, who were not whipped for aberrant thoughts. You did not even need to hide the knowledge. Just make it and its applications a part of a routine, a habit. Then people would not
care
to see it.

But Linden saw it. She saw the elevator, for instance. "
Magic,
" lady Jenne had called it, and perhaps Magic there were in it, but its ropes and pulleys looked like Science.

"
Science is insufficient to haul people,
" Mister Podd had said earlier, but what did the good man know? He was always so careful, Mister Podd, trying to somehow both encourage Linden's interests and protect her. But perhaps it was time for her to protect
him.
Mister Podd, like any teacher, had knowledge and yet did not have enough and thus walked on the sharp edge between wisdom and ignorance. It was a harsh place, that egde.

Since Linden
could
see knowledge—why, it was the thought of the elevator that had kept her from collapsing several times this night, including when his High Lordliness had shoved her so—since she could see knowledge, she
must
make sure to see all of it. Then, she should give it to Mister Podd, and to the people here at the Qynnsent Council. She would give it to everyone.

People would not be so obtuse and apathetic, or anxious and bucket-overturning-on-others, if they had knowledge. If they, too, were made to see it.

This
was why she was here now.

Rianor had continued talking, ignoring her. As if she were naught but an obnoxious child. The High Lord had not even thought that she might leave, had he? He certainly did not suffer from lack of arrogance. And why would he? He was a High Lord and this was his Council, the place where everyone submitted to him. The place where people knelt. She had even done it herself, and why had she? Before that she had not done it for the Ber.

Their eyes met. There was something in his that felt like little creatures creeping up her back. Then his gaze became unreadable, blank. He
was
a High Ruler—and he was only ignoring her unspoken challenge because he chose so.

Because there were more important things than that.

Linden sat back in the chair, a silent apology in her own eyes. He might have saved her life and taken her to this House on a whim, because of naught but his Magic curiosity—but that already meant that he had Magic curiosity. He might have thought of her simply as a Magic toy, as a mere tool for knowledge, but that meant that he
sought
knowledge.

Right now he was talking, and his words concerned her deeply, for they were knowledge. So, she listened. She had indeed not stopped listening to him at all, whatever her feelings. She would give her advice after he was finished, too.

She had to. Because gathering knowledge, facing knowledge, need not always be pleasant. Or easy.

Besides, they needed each other. He had walked around the wells, searching for knowledge, and yet he had not seen the symbols in his own House. She, on the other hand, had never wondered about the Healers she had grown up with. But they had met and now they both saw.