The Will of the Empress (12 page)

Daja watched Sandry giggle and wave his remark away. It seems she likes a bit of flattery, whatever she might say, Daja thought. Though if any of them think that Sandry might mistake flattery for true affection, they will be in for a sad awakening. She’s too levelheaded for that. Or she always was.

Sandry glanced at Daja and smiled crookedly.

She still is, Daja told herself with satisfaction.

Shan draped his grass bracelet over one of Sandry’s ears. She laughed and took it off, then threw it, discus-like, to Daja. Within a moment, grass bracelets flew through the air as their group reached and grabbed, everyone trying to collect the most.

“Ah-hah,” Shan said, getting to his feet. It was a long look from the ground to the top of his head, Daja noticed. Now the other courtiers were rising to their feet. In the distance they could see the empress and Briar emerge from behind the greenhouses, Berenene on the young man’s arm.

As most of the court surged forward, Daja kept Rizu back. “They aren’t, well,
courting
Her Imperial Majesty, are they?” she asked quietly. “She’s old enough to be their mother—or at least, mother to some of them.”

Rizu flashed her lovely smile. “Well, it’s the fashion, for everyone to be in love with her. She makes sure of that,” she replied, her voice as soft as Daja’s. “If they’re hanging on her every word, she says, they stay out of trouble. Besides, if she makes one of them her favorite, like some in the court, they can make their fortunes on offices like that of Chancellor of the Imperial Purse and Governor of the Imperial Granaries.”

“Would she marry any of them?” Daja inquired, awed.

“Hardly!” Rizu said, amused. “Give a husband governance over her? No one but Her Imperial Majesty even knows who fathered her three daughters.” She tugged at an eardrop, smiling wistfully. “Being a woman with power in Namorn is nearly impossible. She’s managed it by never letting us take her for granted. She can ride all day, dance all night, and then wants to know why your work isn’t done the next morning—
hers
is. She has spies and mages by the barge load, and she pays close attention to them. Men have tried to get control over her, and failed. Nowadays, they don’t even try. But that’s her.” Rizu shook her head. “She’s one of a kind.”

Tris was absorbed in a history of the Namornese empire when she realized it was stuffy in the small library she had
settled in. Putting her book aside, she got to her feet and went to open a shuttered window. Leaning out, she smelled lightning mixed with water. In the distance she could feel a rapidly climbing build of wind. A storm! she thought, excited. And with so much water-smell to it, I bet it’s on the lake. I wonder if I can get a look—it’s worth the image-headache, to see a storm on the legendary Syth.

Her student Keth had described the lake’s storms to her so eloquently that Tris would even forego reading to watch one. She placed her book where she had found it, closed the shutters, and went in search of a view. Turning a hall corner, she nearly ran into the chief mage, Ishabal Ladyhammer.

“I’m sorry,
Viymese
,” Tris said. “I wasn’t looking.”

Ishabal smiled. “In any case, I was looking for you,
Viymese
Chandler. Her Imperial Majesty and the court are sitting down to afternoon refreshments, and would like you to join them.”

“Must I?” Tris asked, pleading in spite of herself. “I think you’ve got a nasty storm brewing in that oversized pond of yours, and I’d love to take a look at it. I’ve heard so much about them.”

Ishabal chuckled. “Our weather mages predict no storms for today.”

Tris straightened. It had been a long time since anyone had doubted her word on the weather. “Are they always right?” she asked coolly.

Ishabal raised black brows that made an odd contrast
with her silver hair. “No weather mage is
always
right,” she replied in a tone that said this was a fact of nature.

“With normal weather, that’s untampered with?” Tris shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll come to these refreshments of yours once I’ve had a look at the Syth, if you’ll direct me to the outer wall.”

Ishabal covered a smile with one well-groomed hand. “I shall do better. I shall take you there myself.” She stopped a passing footman with a snap of the fingers and murmured something to him. As he hastened back the way she had come, Ishabal pointed to another hallway. “This way.” She led Tris down through the axis of the palace, into a wide room. It held an enclosed staircase that led onto the inner wall that surrounded the palace. From there they took an enclosed bridge to the outer wall that followed High Street on one side of the palace, and the cliffs on the other three sides.

“Don’t you like walking in the open air?” Tris asked on the bridge to the outer wall. “Why enclose your stairs and bridges?” She wasn’t exactly complaining. She could no longer simply let the open air pour over her at will, though sometimes she risked headaches and bewilderment in the open wind just because she missed it so much.

Ishabal smiled ruefully. “Why? The god Sythuthan will turn your breath into a frozen diamond necklace at winter’s height,” she replied. “We dare not walk outside up here at
that season—these stairs and bridges are the closest we get. Fortunately, at that time the god himself, and the lake, are defense enough. No one has to die on guard on this open part of the wall.” They stepped through the doors on the far side of the bridge. Here was a walkway broad enough that three people could ride abreast on it easily. The whole of the Syth stretched out four hundred feet below at the foot of the crenellated wall. The young woman and the old walked some two hundred feet along the top, the wind pulling at their hair and gowns, until Tris halted in one of the crenels, or stone notches. She pointed to the gray mass of storm clouds some ten miles offshore.

“I spoke out of foolish national pride,” Ishabal said, leaning against the merlon at the side of the crenel. “The god Sythuthan is a notorious trickster with a nasty habit of hurling storms at us with no warning to our mages.”

Tris bit her lip. The wind showed her a sharp image of a distant scene that was just a blurred dot to her normal vision.

“I hope all the fishing fleet got back to shore,” Ishabal remarked worriedly. “The storms are infamous for the speed in which they appear.”

“They’re trying,” murmured Tris. The image of the fleet tore out of her hold. She closed her eyes and did a trick with her mind, shifting the shape of her eyes and of the power she slid in front of them. Carefully she removed her spectacles and tucked them into a pocket inside her
overgown, then opened her eyes. Now she could see across the miles without being forced to rely on a windblown image. A small fishing fleet struggled to turn and race for the shore, caught in a crosswind that left it becalmed.

Ishabal’s hands were moving in the air. Suddenly everything in front of the wall rippled, and Tris’s view was ablaze with silver fire. “Ow!” she cried, clapping her hands to her watering eyes. “What did you
do
! That
hurt
!”

Ishabal, who had turned the air before them into an immense scrying-glass that showed them the fleet in exact detail, asked, “Hurt? What do you mean? Why do you hold your eyes—child, what did you do?”

Tris yanked a handkerchief out from under the neckline of her undergown. “What I
normally
do,
prathmun
bless it!” A blessing from the outcast
prathmun
of Tharios was no blessing at all. Tris wiped her eyes and changed her magic until her vision was normal, then returned her spectacles to their proper place on her long nose.

Ishabal clasped her hands before her as she watched the fleet struggle to move again. “If you may correct your vision as you like, why do you wear spectacles?” she inquired, her voice distant.

“Because I like them,” Tris grumbled. “Because I have better things to do with my magic than fix my vision when ordinary glass will do.”

“Isha, what is this?” The empress, along with her court,
Sandry, Daja, and Briar, had come to join them. “Your messenger said
Viymese
Trisana predicted a storm on the Syth.”

“And more, Imperial Majesty.” With a wave of the hand, Ishabal spread the zone of air along the walkway so the entire group could see the drama that unfolded miles away.

“Are you going to do something,
Viymese
Ladyhammer?” asked Tris, mindful of her manners now that they had company.

“This is not an area in which I have expertise,
Viymese
Chandler,” Ishabal replied. To Berenene, she said, “They won’t be able to escape in time, Imperial Majesty.”

“We’ll see about that,” Tris said. She hated making a scene. More than anything she wished the court would go back to its refreshments, but she was in no position to give orders. Those fishing crews were running out of time. She drew an east wind braid from the net at the back of her head and undid it, unraveling half. Berenene and Ishabal were forced to step back as wind roared around Tris, stirring dust and grit on the walkway. Tris turned up her smiling face into the air current as the wind tugged at her. Carefully, stretching out both arms, she pushed her wind out over the wall and through Ishabal’s spell.

Once it was in the open air in front of the cliff, Tris clung to lengths of the wind like reins, letting her magic stream through them into the billowing air. For a moment her grip on the wind shuddered as the air tossed, confused.
Why was it starting in the south, it seemed to ask, if it was an east wind?

“Because I need you to go north first, then east,” Tris whispered to it. “Now, go. I’ll tug when you’re to take your rightful path. You have sails to fill and boats to send home.”

That satisfied her wind. It liked to fill sails. North it went, Tris keeping a light tension on her airy reins. She moved both into her right hand, then searched her head to find a braid with a hurricane’s force bound up in it. Unraveling only a third of it, she thrust its power north, straight at the onrushing storm. The lesser hurricane raced ahead of her east wind, spreading as it flowed high over the masts of the fishing fleet. Tris gave it a fresh shove north, then tugged on the east wind’s reins. The wind found its natural path at last, slowly, as Tris dragged on its reins, until it struck the limp boats’ sails with a strong punch. The sails filled to the cheers of the court, watching through Ishabal’s spell. The fishing boats scudded through the rough lake water, headed for the shore.

Tris ignored the fleet. She had released the east wind. All of her will was fixed on that quick-moving storm and its battle with her lesser hurricane, as the force she had turned loose fought to keep the storm from advancing. Sweat trickled down her round cheeks. Making even part of a hurricane obey was hard work, particularly when its biggest need was not to halt a storm, but to join in and help it along.

They don’t want me anymore, her east wind seemed to say. Now what?

Tris risked a glance at the fishing fleet. They had made harbor safely and were furling their sails as the ships drifted toward their docks.

“Thank you,” Tris murmured. She released her east wind, setting it free of any future claims. She could always braid up another. “Now for the interesting part.”

She let one end of her small hurricane feed into the storm. It plunged in gleefully. The storm, though, was another matter. If I let it loose, with my bit of hurricane in it, there’s no telling what other fleets or even villages it’ll destroy, she told herself. And I knew I couldn’t hook it with anything weaker than a piece of hurricane. Oh, curse it all. I’ll have to take the whole thing back in before it does any harm.

She took a deep breath, wishing she had a moment to pray. Quickly the hurricane struck sparks that turned to lightning as it wove itself among the thunderheads. Tris leaned on a stone merlon, letting it hold her on the wall, then reached with her magic to grip the hurricane’s tail. Sweating, she dragged on it with all of her strength, drawing it toward her as Sandry might draw a fine thread from a mass of wool.

Once Tris had brought that storm thread to her, she jammed the end into a coin from her pocket. Once it was secure, she twirled it until the thread of storm began to spin. All storms were drawn to spin, as Tris knew very well: The trick was in keeping them controlled, not allowing
them to break free to become a cyclone or full-sized hurricane. Around the wind spun, dragging the storm into the funnel that ended in her thread. Out stretched the stormparts woven in with her bit of hurricane, twirling under Tris’s magical grip. She kept the air moving, shaping it as a fine web so that its natural strength could never overwhelm her once it reached her. If she had looked up, she would have seen the long funnel of cloud that stretched from the storm to her, narrowing until it became her thread.

On and on she spun, making the thread into a ball of yarn, a skill she drew from part of Sandry’s magic still mingled with hers. Finally she had turned the entire storm into a ball the size of her hand. She broke it free of the coin, then attached the ball to her partially unraveled hurricane braid. Eager to get out of her hold, the storm sprang into her braid, feeding itself into the many hairs as if it raced along a thousand streets. Once it was absorbed, Tris tied off the braid with a special ribbon that would hold no matter what, and tucked it back into the net with the other braids. Into her pocket went the coin.

She swayed. Hands grabbed her and helped her sit in a crenel. Tris looked up.

It was Briar who had helped her sit as the court stared at her. Sandry came over with a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from Tris’s face. Daja grinned as she leaned on her staff, watching. Ishabal looked thoughtful, as did the empress herself.

Tris lurched to her feet to curtsy, Briar holding her by her elbow. She looked at her brother, her eyes pleading. She didn’t want to have to explain, not to these well-dressed strangers. Better still, she didn’t want to talk at all, not until she got all those storm powers inside her calmed down.

Briar winked at her and turned to the empress, though he continued to brace Tris. “So, Your Imperial Majesty,” he said cheerfully. “Might we go back to those refreshments? She’ll be fine once she’s got some food in her.”