Tracing the Shadow (3 page)

“It’s about the Vox,” Rieuk said in a loud whisper. “I think I’ve found two crystals with a sympathetic resonance.”

Hervé de Maunoir’s tired expression vanished. “You’d better come in!”

He led Rieuk to his study which, unlike Magister Linnaius’s spotless laboratory, was crammed with precariously piled stacks of books, jars of gruesome specimens pickled in cloudy alcohol, and cases of dried insects. On the desk, amid all the clutter, gleamed the second Vox, twin to the one in college.

“I don’t recall ever seeing a stone like this before,” said de Maunoir in puzzled tones. He picked it up and examined it. “Where did you find it?”

Rieuk hesitated a moment. “Magister Linnaius brought it back with him.”

“So he’s returned at last! And he told you to use it in the Vox?”

Rieuk made a vague gesture. “He told me to bring it to you…”

“Well, I don’t suppose it can hurt to try.”

“It worked in the laboratory.” Rieuk refused to let himself be defeated. Yet the crystal remained silent, and every attempt to make it sing as it had before failed.

“Perhaps we should try again tomorrow.”

“Hervé,” called a woman’s voice weakly. “Has Klervie had her supper?”

Hervé leaped up. “Is that the time already?” he called back. “I’m on my way, dear.” He returned a minute or so later. “She’s not in the garden. She must have gone to her friend Youna’s.” Rieuk did not miss the flustered look in his eyes. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Let me try once more, Magister.” His future as an alchymist might rest on this one act. If he succeeded, the Admiralty would get their invention and the college would be saved from closure.

“By all means…” Hervé was already hurrying out of the door.

Rieuk took the crystal out of the Vox and pressed it to his forehead, seeking again for that elusive voice. For a second he felt a tremor of energy, like a distant flicker of lightning. Hastily, he replaced it, and waited.

And waited.

Tired and dejected, Rieuk leaned forward on the desk beside the Vox and let his head rest on his outstretched arms. He closed his eyes. So close to success and yet still so far…

“
So you really think this will lead to war?
”

War?
Who was talking of war? The voice had been faint, but utterly distinct.

“
Francia laid claim to the islands first. Yet the Arkhan of Enhirre has just signed a trade treaty with Prince Karl of Tielen.
” That dry tone sounded just like his master’s. But how could it be? “
He’s granted Tielen exclusive rights to the spice trade. And now it’s stalemate…
” The voice faded out. Rieuk raised his head, wondering if he had caught fragments of a conversation drifting in as people passed by the cottage.

“
Are you being entirely frank with me, Kaspar?
”

Rieuk sat bolt upright. Few people were permitted to call Magister Linnaius by his first name.

“
You’ve a distracted look about you.
” The voice was issuing from the receiver of the Aethyr Vox. “
You haven’t been doing any meddling yourself, have you?
”

“
I may have stirred up a little trouble, yes, but nothing that I can’t take care of.
”

Rieuk gripped the edge of the desk, rigid with concentration. The voices faded in and out, almost as if the two speakers were pacing to and fro in front of the Vox.

“
Yes, but trouble may follow you here to Karantec and bring misfortune on us all,
” came Gonery’s voice, suddenly clear, as though he were bending close to the speaker, making Rieuk jump.

“
What’s this?
” demanded Magister Linnaius. “
Who placed this crystal in the transmitter, Gonery? Has Hervé been working on the Vox?
” Rieuk shrank back. Even though logic told him that neither alchymist could see him, he felt as if he had been caught red-handed.

“
I haven’t seen Hervé today.
”

“
Then who’s been in my rooms?
” The question was asked in such a menacing tone that Rieuk felt a sick, sinking sensation in his stomach. Magister Linnaius did not sound in the least pleased.

“
Only your apprentice.
”

“
Rieuk? Could he have tampered with—
”

A thin, high whining sound began to emanate from the Vox.

“
What is that infernal racket?
”

The sound set Rieuk’s teeth on edge. It was like chalk rasped over a blackboard, a knife blade scraped against glass. And it went on and on, growing ever more piercing.

“
It’s coming from the Vox!
”

“
I’ll remove the cryst—
” The voices ceased abruptly as the connection was broken. But the excruciating sound continued, drilling through all the cavities of his skull. Pressing a hand to one aching ear, Rieuk reached out to prise out the throbbing stone from its setting.

But the excruciating sound did not stop. The crystal lay in his sweating palms, still emitting its shrill vibrating cry, almost as if it were alive. His whole body began to judder in sympathy. And now the crystal began to glow with a cloudy white light, so that its brightness made his flesh seem transparent.

The door was flung open and Hervé de Maunoir ran in. “What’s happening?” he shouted, his voice barely audible above the din.

“The Vox works. But it’s—tearing me apart!” Someone—something—was trapped inside. Its agony possessed Rieuk until he felt himself sucked helplessly into its frenzy of despair.

“Where are you?” he cried, his voice barely audible above the wailing cry.

A slender, translucent figure appeared, sealed within a column of milky-white light. The light was so dazzling that he could not see the figure clearly, he could only hear its anguished cry—a cry that seared all thoughts from his brain but one:
Set me free
.

CHAPTER 2

A deliciously creamy perfume wafts through Klervie’s dream: she runs through dew-soaked grass, the cool wetness dampening her bare feet. The pale shadow of the unicorn flits in front of her as she pursues it, eager to stroke its silky flanks. It will lead her to the hidden grove where the Faie dance in the moonlight. And if you catch a Faie, it must grant you a wish. White flowers open their petals as the unicorn passes and a delicious scent breathes out. Mmm…vanilla cream…

A faint, thin cry shudders through the starlit night…

And Klervie awoke. She lay still, clutching the sheet to her. It had been such a beautiful dream until—

There it was again!
And it was coming from the kitchen, she was sure of it. It was the desolate, desperate cry of a trapped creature.

“Mewen, you
bad
cat!’ she whispered. The family’s sleek grey tabby had taken to bringing in his prey half-dead, delighting in tormenting it until it expired of exhaustion, or he grew bored. Klervie slipped out of her truckle bed and padded across the moonlit flagstones, wondering if it were a field mouse or a baby rabbit. Could she rescue it in time from Mewen’s cruel claws?

Yet again the cry whispered through the cottage. Klervie stopped. It made her feel cold and shivery, even though the summer night was close and airless. And it was not coming from the kitchen; it had issued from Papa’s study. And the light she had taken for moonlight was seeping from beneath Papa’s study door. Was he working late?

Klervie went up on tiptoe to raise the latch. The door slowly opened, revealing a strange radiance that flickered like silver firelight burning from a tray of translucent coals on the desk. The light sharply outlined in shadow-silhouette the two men bending over the tray. They were so engrossed that they did not see her. She just stood staring, bewitched. A little voice nagged at the back of her mind, warning, “
Go back to bed. Papa will be angry if you disturb his work.
”

And yet she lingered.

“What
is
it?” She recognized the voice of Rieuk Mordiern, hoarse with excitement.

“I believe it may be an aethyrial spirit,” said Papa. Both men spoke softly, amazedly.

“But how did I—”

“In working with aethyr, it is always possible to encounter forces invisible to mortal man. Even to entrap them. It seems you may have done just that.”

Klervie heard the words but did not understand them. She must still be dreaming. For there, fading in and out of clarity like a reflection seen in a wind-rippled lake, she glimpsed a face, its features twisted into an expression of such agony that it pained her to look at it. And as she gazed, she saw it fix on her for a second with its anguish-riven eyes.

Was it a Faie? So translucent was its form, it could have been scratched on glass. And it seemed to be begging her to help it.

“It’s changing,” warned Papa. “Don’t let go, Rieuk. If it gets loose, God knows what damage it’ll do.”

The dazzle of light emanating from the Faie was increasing, until it was so bright that Klervie’s eyes ached to look at it. It began to spin, particles of brightness flying off like scattered raindrops.

“It’s resisting.”

Its high-pitched scream of defiance shattered glass and made Klervie press her hands to her ears.

“Help me,” gasped Rieuk. “I can’t hold it for much longer.”

Papa raised his hands high above the wavering spirit. “By the power of my blood, I bind you! Transmute,” he commanded, “and contain.” Klervie could not see what they were doing as both leaned over the desk, their shadows blotting out the silvered light. There came a last faint, wailing shriek—and suddenly all the brilliance was sucked out of the air.

“What have you done, Rieuk?” a voice asked exhaustedly in the darkness. “What have you done?”

“You damned fool!” A stinging blow caught Rieuk across the cheek and chin; he reeled, toppling backward, knocking over a laboratory stool. He had no idea that the magister could muster so much physical strength. “What were you thinking of, risking something so dangerous?” Magister Linnaius’s silver eyes glinted with fury in the gloom, cold as winter lightning. “You let out an aethyr spirit. You could have killed us all!”

Rieuk cowered, terrified. He had never seen his master so angry before. “B—but I made the Vox Aethyria work—”

“You deserve to be expelled. Meddling with elemental forces far too strong for you to contain.”

“Expelled?” That single word shocked Rieuk to silence. Not one student had been expelled in all his seven years at the college. To be expelled before completing his apprenticeship was the worst possible punishment the magister could inflict.

“And look at this Vox, it’s damaged beyond repair.” Linnaius picked up a piece of twisted metal and let it drop again with a clang. “Hervé and I will have to start over.” He examined the crystal. “And just when the Admiralty are breathing down our necks, threatening us with the Inquisition—”

“Please, Magister.” Rieuk struggled to his knees. He could taste blood; the stone in Linnaius’s signet ring had cut his lip open. “I was only trying to help. Please don’t have me expelled.”

The Magister’s eyes gleamed cold as winter ice in the early dawnlight. Rieuk shivered. He knew that implacable look. “Now I’ll have to order new parts for the Vox from Maistre Guirec to replace those that were ruined by your foolish tampering. And as for you—you will go to your study and stay there until you’re sent for.”

Kaspar Linnaius stared down at the twisted pieces of his Vox Aethyria. That arrogant fool of a green-eyed boy had undone all his plans. Why had he ever agreed to take him on as his apprentice? He should have known the boy would cause trouble. Was it because he had seen something of his younger self in that wan face? When the waif had arrived drenched at the college door one wet, windy autumn night, his unkempt brown hair plastered to his head by the driving rain, his thin face dominated by those huge, pleading eyes of green, he had remembered from over a hundred years ago what it felt like to trudge for weeks on end, always hungry, shunned and rejected for being “different”…

Linnaius brought his clenched fist down on his desk. What was he doing, allowing sentimental memories to cloud his judgment?
Am I turning into Gonery?
He had finally run out of patience with his headstrong, ambitious apprentice.

Yet Rieuk Mordiern made the Vox work.

The delicate metal spindles, cogs, and shafts wavered, blurring together as he stared at them. A mist was obscuring his vision. The tightness in his chest increased and he felt himself fighting for breath.

I’m spent. I used too much of my power in Enhirre and I’m fading…

With great effort, he rose to his feet, the laboratory jars swimming before his eyes as he struggled toward the door. He caught sight of himself in the mirror and saw that his hair had turned as white as thistledown.

In the echoing hallway he passed Goustan de Rhuys, who gazed at him with concern.

“Kaspar, are you all right? You look…”

“Old?” Linnaius managed a wry grimace. “Tell Gonery I’m off to Maistre Guirec. Nothing can be done to repair the Vox till he’s made new parts…”

“This stone is no ordinary crystal, is it, Kaspar?” Magister Gonery held the jewel up to the light, turning it round and round.

Kaspar Linnaius let out a grunt. “Damn it, Gonery, did you think I’d forgotten that the Vox is all that’s keeping the Inquisition at bay? But every crystal Hervé and I tried just didn’t work. I had to go a long way to find one that was a little…different.” Exhaustion overcame him; he sank down into a chair.

“A little
too
different, as it turned out. What in the name of the five elements is it?”

“It’s an aethyr crystal.”

Gonery raised one wispy eyebrow. “And how exactly did you come by it?”

“It’s better you don’t know.” Linnaius had expended too much of his remaining strength. Weakened by the long, wind-tossed flight from Ondhessar, he wasn’t sure how long he would last.

“Kaspar?” said Gonery warningly. He put the stone down. “What have you done to yourself? You look so ill.”

“Don’t worry,” said Linnaius lightly, “I made certain it would be very hard for anyone to follow me.” The daylight seemed to fade from the room; when he blinked, he found he was lying on the floor of the study, with Gonery hovering anxiously over him.

“You need rest, Kaspar. Let Hervé and Rieuk repair the Vox.”

“Don’t—let—that—damned apprentice anywhere near my Vox,” Linnaius managed to grit out the words.

“But you said yourself that Rieuk made it work.”

“He’s an elemental. I suspected as much, but now we’ve proof absolute. He doesn’t know his own strength. He’s a danger to himself and everyone else.”

“Rather like you, many years ago, hm?” Gonery reminded him mildly.

Linnaius allowed Gonery to help him to sit up but ignored the last remark. “I may be away for a while,” he said, rising unsteadily to his feet. He felt as if a thin transparent veil had unfurled between him and the world around him, muffling sounds, dampening the brightness of the light of day. “My faculties are failing. If I leave it much longer, I won’t even have the strength to reach the Jade Springs.”

“So even the Elixir has its limits?”

“I hear that the waters of Lake Taigal are exceptionally good for the health. Quite rejuvenating, in fact,” said Linnaius, slowly making his way to the door.

Rieuk’s attic room was situated at the top of the student wing of the college, looking out over the little town of Karantec below, its central street winding down the hill to the sleepy green waters of the River Faou. The younger students slept in a dormitory on the first floor, but the older apprentices—Deniel, Madoc, and Rieuk—were each allotted his own study, on the top attic floor of the ancient building. Swallows nested under the eaves and he could hear their incessant twittering as they skimmed in on swift-scissoring wings to feed their young.

Rieuk threw himself down on the bed and lay there, hands behind his head, glowering at the dawn sky. He had been up half the night cleaning Magister de Maunoir’s study. He was past exhaustion now, trembling with self-righteous anger.

“The spirit should be mine. I divined it. I drew it out. So what if I didn’t have the power to hold it, to bend it to my will? They could have taught me how. But no! A mere apprentice can’t be trusted with an aethyrial spirit.”

At the very moment when he had sensed the spirit’s life energy, he had also glimpsed what it could be like to wield such power. It was as if a charge of lightning had coursed through his body. And then, when he saw it…Pale as the crystal that had birthed it, its unearthly beauty had taken his breath away. He had never encountered any creature like this before—nor heard such a terrible raw keening, that tore through his whole being until he felt as if he were being ripped apart, vein by vein, sinew by sinew. That was when he had lost control, when he had dropped to his knees, hands clutched to his throbbing ears.

At the very moment when he should have used his skills to bind the spirit, he had failed. He had not realized how powerful it would be. And that was when Hervé de Maunoir had stepped in. Somewhere at the back of his mind, a reasoning voice reminded Rieuk that had he not done so, the spirit would have disappeared back inside the aethyr—or, worse still, have wreaked mindless devastation within the cottage, attacking the one who had dared to drag it into the mortal world.