Chapter 8

Phillip tugged his cloak tight about his body against the driving rainfall. Like most evenings in the Crystern Isles, the rain was coming down in sheets. Normally, such storms broke as soon as the land had cooled to the same temperature as the surrounding ocean. However, fall was approaching, a short season on the cool tradewinds from the north, and the rains lingered longer often.

He had spent too long at the house of the Blue Order, and it was well past nightfall when he passed under Nalgen's Gate, so named for one of the more popular of Tressen's former monarchy for some victory that all but scholars have forgotten. No walls surrounded Tressen, as an island city-state, it had never needed them.

The gate stood as pure symbol, a high marble archway ten paces thick, with ornately fluted columns supporting it from the sides. It was ten paces wide, as well, but towered over him as he passed under, deep gloom in its depths, despite the light that illuminated the streets about it from inns, taverns and irregularly-placed light posts. The keystone stood thirty paces overhead, a magnificent carved work, in the form of a dragon's head, the symbol of Tressen's ruling nobility - when it had nobility.

That absence weighed much on Phillip's mind of late. Many of the woes befalling the Blue Order could be laid at the feet of this single issue. The Blue Order had been originally formed by decree of Tressen's king. The king's magister had been its head, and it had been sworn to protect the monarchy. Those few folk who still clung to the traditions of Tressen, a small but powerful minority, felt a betrayal in the fall of the crown and survival of the Blue Order, even after a full century.

Shifting winds carried some of the wet beneath his cloak and his mount, another fine beast, with long, powerful legs, wickered and shook its mane at him. Seems it did not care for this poor weather, either. The movement broke his reverie, however, and he looked about, focusing on his surroundings for the first time in most of an hour.

Per usual, the streets emptied during the storms. Especially, they would empty for the fall torrents, which were cold and fell with vigor. Stopping at the stables, two blocks from his home, returning the rented horse and tipping the unfortunate youth who worked this late hour with a tenth mark coin, small and silver.

The sight of any coin cast in silver, for this child anyway, met welcome from a horse handler. The boy, no older than twelve, bowed and beat a hasty retreat back into the stable, pulling the tall black horse behind him, then pulling shut the tarred oak doors, as well, sealing out the rain and Phillip with his gloomy expression.

He arrived at his own door a few minutes later, not much wetter, and much more alert for the walk. It was dark within and had the distinct feel of emptiness that meant no one was home. Phillip chastised himself for a sudden flash of upset, and pushed it back. He did tell Siska that he would be late and that she was to just enjoy herself the rest of the day. Perhaps she was doing just that, enjoying herself - or someone else.

A brief and bitter twinge of jealousy shot through him and he pushed that back, also. No room for such feelings. She was his student, not his lover, and she would never be the latter. The thought of her beauty and that it had been offered to him, even since her freedom, made him smile, though. He was inordinately proud of the fact that he resisted her invitation. Not that it had been easy to resist.

He glanced into the box that held the other talas spheres, dropping the brightly glowing one among its formerly identical mates, nestled in their velvet cubbies. None of the others glowed as fiercely, and he knew she had not done any 'repairing' to any of these. Now that he thought on it, telling her to do the same thing to another had been something of a mistake, for the first had left her lying on the ground in a swoon, drained of her own mana and frosted over from mana pulled out of the environment around her.

"No more charging them like that, young woman," he said to himself as he closed the lid of the box and returned it to its spot in the glass-fronted cabinet.

It had been a trying day for him, and he was weary. Tomorrow he would begin her on a new regimen of exercises recommended by Gelten. Since her progress with the arts of spellcasting needed to be slowed, she would be taught other things, as well, things which required great amounts of concentration and would keep her mind occupied with other matters than furthering her studies in magical things.

To that end, he would, on the morrow, seek out the assistance of Madam DeSandiago. The Rojanda had, over the years, instructed perhaps half the nobles of Tressen.

She was not a tutor herself, as such, but a 'knower of tutors'. When she took a young person under her wing, she organized the instruction regimen of the new student, finding proper instructors and setting up the schedule they would follow. He would loose some of the control over Siska's education that he might resent from time to time. However Siska's time would be so well spoken for that she would be hard pressed to learn much faster than a normal apprentice. Just as he desired at this early, delicate, and dangerous stage of her development in the arts.

He plodded up the stairs to the second floor, weary with the exertions of the day, though, and the pleasant thoughts of maintaining Siska's proper educational needs only helped a small bit.

Little Siska, as he was now thinking of the homunculous, was lying upon the floor of the common room, sprawled out as if she had fallen while running. Panic and worry gripped his chest, constricting it like steel bands.

He lifted the tiny duplicate of Siska, cupping her in both palms. She still breathed, he found with relief, but she was cold, very cold.

Siska felt like she had been run through a laundress' mangle. She lifted her head slightly, but the ache that was her body forced her to settle for opening her eyes.

The room she was in danced with a candle's flicker and she had to concentrate to focus on the ceiling overhead. Rain pounded on the roof, she could hear, a soft patter of fat raindrops on thatch.

"You're awake, then?" asked a voice that cracked with age. Siska could hear someone shifting out of her field of vision. A wrinkled face loomed into view, an old woman, with her gray hair pulled back and pinned up in a bun.

"Yes," said Siska, startled at the hoarseness in her own voice. It had come out like a dusty whisper over a parched field.

"I don't know what kept you alive long enough for me to mend you, dear," said the old woman, handing Siska a teacup. It was one of four mismatched pieces on the little pewter tea tray. It had the look of fine porcelain, chipped in a couple of places, but still possessing much of its original beauty. "I'm not really a good enough healer to have repaired that hurt had you not had something keeping you going."

Siska gave a small shrugged, really just a wiggling of her shoulders. "Perhaps it simply looked worse than it was," she said. She felt exhausted. Magic could not, ever, cure all the hurt a person took. Whether it was an unwillingness on the part of a healer, or a limitation of magic, the thing was truth. Her side hurt mightily, most of the pain originating just beneath her shoulder and behind.

"It looked like your entire body of blood was on the cobbles around you, girl," she said. "Your heart was stabbed through, mark my words. Living in this city has given me ample chance to see what sort of wounds kill a man - or woman for that matter."

The woman was old, that much was obvious. She had wrinkles like others had hairs. Not that she had any lack of those, some growing from improbable places, mostly one particularly dark and frightening mole.

To say she was a homely woman would be to say that manacrystal was cherished. While it would be a true statement, it would fall far short of the real mark for intensity.

Under the current circumstances, Siska thought her lovely beyond compare.

"And no one saw who stabbed me?" asked Siska.

The woman had not given a name and Siska thought it rude to ask just yet.

"Oh, people saw him, I'm sure," she said. "And if twenty people saw him, you'll get twenty descriptions of what he looked like. I trust witnesses almost as much as you should trust the motives of young men."

Siska blushed at the old crone, dipping her head demurely. "Some men have clear motives," she said.

"Only those who admit they seek to claim you as their own," said the woman, following that with a cackle that truly marked her as a crone. The woman shook her head though, muttering. "You'd not know it to look at me, dearie, but I was once almost as fair as you."

Siska tried to don a smile that would say that she thought the woman not as far fallen as she, herself, did.

"Bah, don't deny it that I'm as homely as an old sun-dried apple now, young one," she said, seeing Siska preparing to speak.

Siska sat back tightening her jaw and stopping the words that had almost flowed off her tongue. She said something that would not countermand the woman's order, though. "I want to thank you for what you've done," she said, finally, reaching for her purse, which had been placed on a small table next to the bed in which she lay.

The old woman pushed her hand back. "If I wanted your coin, I'd have taken it already. You've not enough in that purse, I wager, to pay for a tithe of the arts I expended healing you as much as even I could."

Siska nodded miserably. She was in the woman's debt, heavily. "I would repay you in whatever way you require of me."

"Good," said the old woman. "Then you will tell me why you are scryshielded and why someone would hire a paid knife to assassinate you."

"Assassinate?" asked Siska, suddenly sitting up and feeling the newly formed skin over her wound protest at the abuse. She slumped back onto the pillows and sighed. "The assassin said something as I fell, about a young nobleman whom I crossed words with earlier today."

"Harsh words rarely earn a rebuke quite so pointed," said the old woman. "You're sure you only crossed words?" Her expression was sidelong, knowing, and offended Siska deeply.

"Despite what you may think of me," said Siska, a distinct chill creeping into her soprano voice, "I only exchanged words with Lord Tornadin, nothing else."

The old woman's eyes opened wider, revealing their color for the first time. They were bright green, like emeralds set in wrinkled leather against her aged, sun-browned skin. "Young Lord Tornadin, eh?" she asked. "He is a fiery one, that. I've patched more than one hide pierced by his retorts. He's a fondness for dueling that is matched by few. Granted he doesn't really duel most of my custom, rather than simply attack them as his inferiors."

Siska nodded. "That sounds like him, yes."

"And you were foolish enough to cross him?" asked the crone.

The young apprentice had her back up again. "It was not as if I knew who I was speaking to."

"Where have you been, then, living under a rock?" she asked. "I've had precious little contact with noblemen, One protect that happy state continues. Yet even I know who Lord Tornadin is and of his particular favor to violence."

Siska dropped her eyes again. "I was living on an estate," she said.

"I should have guess the daughter of a noble, no doubt living out in one of the country estates and visiting the big city," said the old lady. "Your father should have had the sense to hire a guide and give you a bodyguard or..."

"I am not the daughter of a noble," said Siska, her voice lowering. "I live on an estate as property, not owner." Perhaps I should simply have 'former slave' tattooed across my brow, she thought.

This admission seemed to startle the old woman, who seemed not in the least upset with half dead people. "Former slave?" she asked. "You're a runaway?"

"No," said Siska, hastily, looking about herself, as if there might be hearers in the tiny cottage. So far as she could tell, there was but one room, largish as it was, that held the entire household, including two nooks with beds, one of which she lay in. She did not even wish the word said around her. It could so easily lead to an embarrassing and painful series of events, even if ultimately, her records would be found and her status as a freed slave determined. "I was freed, just last week."

"I see," said the old woman, rubbing a wrinkled hand across a more wrinkled cheek. The mole tried, for the third time thus far, to draw Siska's eye, but she fought the urge and kept looking at the woman's face. "But what of the scryguarding, then?" Her sudden question reminded Siska it had been asked in the first place, before the sidetrack of her status.

"My mentor scryguarded me," she said. "If such is what it is called. He wished to keep my status somewhat shielded."

"Mentor?" asked the old woman. "You're of the arts?"

Siska nodded. "I am apprenticed to Phillip Naamen of the Blue Order." She looked down to find her pendant gone, along with the silver chain which had held it. "I had a dragon pendant."

"No doubt the would-be assassin, or someone else, took it. Else it may have just fallen off when I asked the two young men to carry you."

Given how the old woman had browbeat the two young men who had been with her when she awoke, somehow Siska suspected 'asking' was a gentle euphemism. The crone had laid into them as if the two had injured Siska themselves, not just carried her. One only knows how far they had run, at full speed, from the panting they did.

"So, you're a young wizard, are you?" asked the old woman. "Well, a girl going into the arts is something I can appreciate."

The crone was a sorceress, Siska knew, she could see the faint halo about the woman. Phillip had explained to her the difference between wizards and sorcerers, and showed her a couple of texts that dealt heavily with the subject.

There were two ways to become a sorcerer. The first was to be born with a gift. The second, a much grimmer way, was to steal the gift from another. "Don't worry girl," said the old woman at her worried look. "I came by my gifts honest. Else, I could do more than heal feebly and see auras."

Not that there would be evidence, either way. The main source for the gift of healing, for those who had no qualms, was to kill an elf. Elven folk inherently possessed that gift, and many dark sorcerers begin their path down that hellish trail by draining the life of an elf in a dark ritual that left them with that ability, and the elf dead.

False sorcerers, as they were known, were not as strong in the gifts as those they stripped them from, but they still had the gift. Elves, lupine, even dragons, could fall victim to the gentle methods of 'stripping', as it was called.

Siska had been horrified, reading this in Phillip's library. There seemed extensive studies made of false sorcerers and true sorcerers. At least, it seemed Phillip had a fascination for them. Even the blandest, most clinical descriptions of the methods of 'extraction' for a gift was almost enough to make her retch.

Wizards were different. They possessed no inherent gifts, except the ability to sense and manipulate mana about them. A wizard had to learn every application of magic they wished to utilize. They had to provide mana for their magical powers. Sorcerers could use their powers freely, within limits, and could use their powers almost instinctively. Even those who stole the power from another could use it with little practice.

A rivalry naturally sprang up between wizards and sorcerers. In some places that rivalry flared into open hostility and aggression. In some regions, one or the other was outlawed, in a few, such as Costa Roja, both were.

Siska gave the old crone, who did, after all, look every part the storybook witch, a long, considering look.

"I had you at my mercy, my young wizard," said the woman, seeing the look, which did have a few shreds of suspicion tossed into the salad, and returning a broad smile. "I lay on hands, not breathe on my patients, as elven folk do."

Siska gave her a nod, she had been half conscious part of the time, and knew this to be fact. Some of the suspicion evaporated, though not quite all of it.

"Pity you weren't so suspicious before the knifing."

A rich rose climbed into Siska's cheeks and she nodded her head. "Yes, a pity." Her agreement was grudging. She hoped that, in the future, she would be a bit more wary of shuffling feet behind her.

One of the two boys returned who had carried her. Ducking into the little cottage out from the rain. It was a very old cottage, Siska thought, the lintel over the door was so low that the tall, gangly youth had to truly duck into the place. Houses were built like that in the past on the isles. Materials were short for the earliest of penal colonies that made up its original founding.

Siska looked about the little cottage again with newly appraising eyes. The place was snug and warm, despite the cold winds blowing the rain into a froth outside. The smell of the bay was strong in the air, smelling of salt and silt.

The room was furnished plainly, but all that furniture was well made though age-worn. The woman she was under the care of was not wealthy, from appearances. A roaring fire burned in the fireplace, and a tall stack of wood stood beside it, ready to be added.

There was no glass in the windows, another mark of poverty, but the shutters were fitted tightly and edged with leather to aid in sealing. It had all the earmarks of someone who took great care, despite a lack of coin.

"It's rude to ask," said Siska, pulling her eyes from the cottage back to the old woman, "but I don't know your name."

"And I don't know yours, girl," said the woman, smiling again. "It would be more polite for the younger to introduce herself."

Siska shrugged a small shrug, nodding. "I am Siska," she said. The way she said it made it obvious that it was her only name.

"I am Sherlynn Lemarsal," said the old woman. She then stood and turned to pour a pitcher into a turned wooden cup, carefully engraved with tiny roses.

The scent of wine filled her nose and Sherlynn held the cup out to her. "You need sleep, dear," said the wrinkled old woman.

"Phillip will worry for me," said Siska, protesting and trying to rise for a second time.

Pain ripped through her from the back of her ribs and deep inside and she fell back onto the soft mattress.

"He might, and will be immensely relieved when you come home hale and hearty," said the woman, still holding forth the wooden cup. "I've added some herbs to it that will help you sleep."

Siska nodded and took the cup, the woman spoke sense. She sipped from the cup and the sweet wine warmed her throat and belly. With surprising speed, she had drained the cup and lay her head back onto the pillow. "Thank you," she said, feeling the effects of the wine and whatever was in it begin.

"We'll speak when you waken, Siska."

Two men stood just inside the front door, both wearing oilcloth cloaks and carrying long rods of polished steel. Deep inside the rods were light stones, set at the back. The gleaming insides of the rods reflected and concentrated the light from the stone into a tight, bright beam of light that formed white circles of illumination on the floor of Phillip's common room.

"Nearest I can tell, she was seen on the street, and was attacked by some man in a mask," said Phillip, pacing excitedly.

The others in the room, bounty hunters, nodded. The two had a seedy, rough-hewn look to them, despite one being dressed in what looked to be Ghantian merchant's garb, complete with gold embroidered cuffs.

Phillip was nervous simply to speak to them, much less retain their services. "You have her description and that of those that helped her," said Phillip, again setting the pair to nodding. "Consider the rods a retainer and one hundred marks to him who finds her."

That got their attention. The word had been a standard fee, not a inconsiderable sum, at a twenty-five marks. This wizard must want his little minx back badly to give out such an amount.

Phillip grimaced as they shuffled out of the common room and into the downpour. Siska had gone missing just after noon and she could be anywhere in Tressen by now. He shuddered at the thought about how many places outside of Tressen that could have been gotten to by now.

Tarmal tsked at him from the armchair. "I don't think bounty hunters was the proper way to go about this," he said.

"You tell me who else I can ask at this hour," snapped Phillip, turning on him. "Almost half the Order doesn't want her around, due to me, due to her power, due to their own blindness."

Tarmal nodded. "But she is a member now, whether or not they like it," he said. "They would have no choice."

"I would rather have eager, greedy eyes seeking for her than eyes that truly wish her to remain missing."

Phillip paced back and forth as Salira emerged from their kitchen. "She came to for a minute, and then fell asleep again," she said. She was holding the tiny homunculous in her hands.

Tarmal looked at her with an odd expression as she cradled the tiny Siska.

"Her detail is exquisite, your apprentice knows herself well," she said, peering closely at the tiny copy of the young woman. "I've never seen such detail and precision in a homunculous."

"That's probably what's wrong with the little thing," said Tarmal. "She's so closely aligned to Siska, in truth, that she is suffering from the same effects." Tarmal specialized in thaumaturgy, the magical study of the interrelation of things.

"Then Siska regained consciousness for a moment?" asked Phillip, his eyes glimmering with hope.

"Or else the Homunculous, who is in truth unhurt, simply overcame the bond for a moment." He looked at little Siska who was sleeping quietly in his wife's palm. "She seems to be simply asleep this time."

Phillip nodded. "Maybe Siska is well now," he said. "But she is still missing."

"Even with healing, she would be far from well, if your witnesses are correct about her being stabbed in the back," said Tarmal.

"You're a comfort, my husband," said Salira, her hazel eyes giving him a level stare. "Shall I kick him in the shin by way of added commiseration?"

Phillip threw himself into one of the armchairs. "No, he's right," he said. "I should be cautious with my hopes. From what the witnesses said, she looked dead already to them and she fell like a rag doll."

Both Tarmal and Salira looked at him with sympathetic eyes. "I'm so sorry," said Salira, reaching out a cool hand to stroke his cheek. "We will pray for her safety. So long as the homunculous lives, Siska lives."

Phillip rose from his chair and picked up another of the long steel rods, then strode to the hooks inside the door, where his own oilcloth cloak hung. "I can't give up yet," he said, then strode out of the house, slamming the door behind him without a backward glance.

Salira and Tarmal looked at each other in that way that only old friends and long married people could manage. Tarmal picked up a metal rod and waved it at her. "Not a word," he said, growling the words.

"I love you, dear," she said, holding down a smile of pride in her husband.

He tugged on his cloak with vigorous pulls and gave her a sidelong look. "And I love you, kitten," he said, throwing himself out the door and letting the door slam behind him.

Salira sighed, shaking her head at the men in her life. She sat the little Siska down on a soft pillow on the long couch. Imagine, Phillip has throw pillows, she thought.

Tarmal had taken the last of Phillip's light rods. Useful devices, those, gave one a good beam of light and did not disturb the whole neighborhood with unwanted side illumination. Phillip was a great one for combining magic with mundane to make interesting things.

She shrugged on her own cloak, a pale green one with a hem of light blue. She sighed deeply and cast a small spell, deftly controlling a little mana and her eyes flashed blue for a moment. "They always do things the hard way," she said, grinning and then stepped out into what was to her, broad daylight on a particularly sunny day, even the rain was invisible to her eyes now.

Salira pulled the door shut gently behind her and there was a flash and the bolt secured the door to the frame with a loud snap.

"You look much better for the wear," said Sherlynn, opening the shutters on her small cottage and allowing the morning sun to enter the darkened little house.

Siska blinked at the sudden brightness and lifted her head. A little muzziness still clung to the edge of her consciousness, but it quickly faded to a background haze. She sat up quickly, looking about herself before realizing where she was and who she was with. The stitch in her back was far lessened from last night.

"You're feeling better, too, I'll warrant," said Sherlynn, chuckling.

Siska looked down to regard her nude body. "You would not have wished to wear that dress now, dear," said Sherlynn. "It is quite ruined, I fear. It was a fine garment. A pity."

"I only wore it the once," said Siska, sighing and pulling the sheets up to cover herself.

The old woman nodded in sympathy, picking up a plain farmgirl's dress. "I thought as much," she said. "One of my neighbors brought this by after you went to sleep, she said it should do, even for a highborn lady, for something to wear home."

Siska smiled at the very idea of her being highborn, but said nothing of it. She reached again for the pouch, pulling out two silver marks. "Give her this," she said. "To pay for it."

"Dear girl," said Sherlynn, taking the coins. "She may not take it from you, you know, some of these folk are proud, even if poor."

"If she doesn't, then use it for alms," said Siska, sliding out of the bed and standing to pull the long dress over her head. It was a bit tight across the hips and loose across the chest, but fitted closely enough. It also fell several inches short of the floor.

"Ground dragging dresses are fine for ladies, but poor folk have to try to keep them up, and it's a sore trial," said the crone, noting her look. "Not that you mind showing a bit of leg, hmm?"

Siska gave her a weak smile. "No, I don't." She cinched the bodice as tightly as it would allow, without bunching on her chest and pulled on her boots. "I still don't know how to thank you, Mistress Sherlynn."

"You will be called upon to do a good deed for another, or many others, just remember this then," said Sherlynn in sage tones.

Siska nodded at that. "I will."

When Sherlynn pulled open the door to her tiny cottage, the two youths from the previous day stood. They had been sitting on her low stoop. One was shoving a leather cup into his pocket. "You lads know I don't take with dicing on my porch, Bradler," said the old crone.

"Yes, ma'am," said the one who had the cup. "I'll not again."

The quick bow the youth gave the old woman was heartfelt if clumsily executed.

The old woman turned to Siska. "This is Bradler and Tannis," she said to Siska. "They will be ensuring you get home safe."

The two youths were young, probably barely fifteen, if that. However, they stood taller than Siska and looked strong, healthy lads. One had typically Crystern dark features, with nearly black hair and brown eyes. The other was a descendant of the penal settlers, a redheaded youth with gray eyes. Both shared a disarrayed look, like they had been playing.

The one with the dice cup spoke again. "It's good, milady, to see you on your feet again." He made another of the small bows to Siska, who nodded her head in return. She considered him a moment. He reminded her of Keeley's brother, Garel. He had one of those smiles, too, though this one had yet to blossom into the dangerous thing that his older version owned.

"It was kindly done, asking these young men to escort me," said Siska, turning to face Sherlynn.

The old woman gave her a wide smile, showing a couple of gaps in her teeth. "I asked nothing, they asked me this morning when I first awoke, not ten minutes after the sun first broke the horizon."

Both the youths nodded enthusiastically, though the dark one had yet to speak.

"I think, maybe, they were taken by your pretty face, truth be told," said Sherlynn, narrowing her eyes at the young men as if to question their motives.

Siska smiled at that, too. She was becoming used to men reacting to her favorably, and was not inclined to try to stop men doing so just yet.

"We'd offer if she were as homely as a sack of turnips," said the roguish one, his gray eyes sparkling.

The crone, laughed and pointed off down the street with a knobby, bony finger. "Off with the pair of you. Keep out a keen eye for Miss Siska, too."

The two young men were as good as their word. Despite their youth, they seemed to take their charge seriously. As she moved down the street, looking back to see Sherlynn still upon her stoop, they flanked her on both sides, their heads turning constantly, eyes scannin in every direction. They might be young, little more than boys, but their eyes had the look of Defenders. Siska decided to tell Mannis about them, perhaps he could talk to them about joining the Defenders.