Circle Opens #03: Cold Fire Read online

  “More tea, Frostpine?” Matazi inquired. He passed his glass to her and got a full one in return. From a dish on the table at his side he took a lump of sugar, set it in front of his teeth, and drank his tea by straining it through the sugar. Daja watched him do it with a shudder. He liked to practice the customs of the country they were in, and the Namornese drank their tea either that way or by straining it through a mouthful of cherry preserves. Daja didn’t care if it was rude not to follow the custom: she hadn’t eaten the baked sheep’s head in Karang, either.

  Jory bounced up to a sitting position. “Were you doing something magical, Daja? Frostpine said you were doing something magical. He said he could tell.”

  Daja sat down hard in a cushioned chair, clutching her tea glass to keep it from splashing. Suddenly her knees had gone watery. Her work had taken more out of her than she’d expected — missing supper hadn’t helped. “Yes, I was,” she told Jory. “And of course Frostpine could tell. He’s my teacher.” Holding her glass with both hands to steady it, she drank her tea. By the time she finished, the maid arrived with a large supper tray. As she caught a whiff of its contents, her stomach gave a growl that everyone could hear.

  “Daja can tell you what she did after she eats,” Kol Bancanor told Jory as the maid put dishes and utensils on a small table beside Daja’s chair. Daja wasn’t about to argue. She started with the soup, spooning it up eagerly.

  “I hear you had a fire in the alley today,” Frostpine remarked.

  “A small affair. We’ve grown very casual about these things, thanks to Ben Ladradun. He’s drilled all Kadasep Island in what to do,” said Kol. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, easygoing man with a lean face and very sharp blue eyes. He wore his brown-blonde hair combed straight back. He dressed well because Matazi, a former seamstress, saw to it, but there was little trim on his plain brown wool coat and breeches or on his white, full-sleeved shirt. His boots were polished to a glossy finish, to the credit of the bootboy, not because Kol took an interest. He told Frostpine, “Three years ago, four, maybe five houses would have caught from that one mishap. Now our people walk around clapping one another on the back and saying ‘That wasn’t so bad.’ ”

  “So this fellow, Ben —?” asked Frostpine.

  “Bennat Ladradun,” Kol supplied.

  “Ladradun did the island a favor,” remarked Frostpine.

  Kol nodded. “Other islands, too. Over the last two years he’s been training firefighters and getting the island councils to clean up obvious fire hazards.”

  “It was a wonderful thing, to draw out of such devastation,” Matazi said, sipping her tea. Daja had been relieved to see that the mistress of Bancanor House drank tea like a normal person, without sweet stuff smeared all over her teeth. “Only think, he lost his home, his wife, and his children. They feared for his sanity. He was absolutely shattered. And then off he goes to Godsforge —”

  Frostpine raised his heavy brows. “The fire-mage?”

  Kol nodded. “Ben studied with him for two years. Then he came back to Ladradun House like a man on fire, if you’ll excuse the expression. He talked, wheedled, bullied, all to get funds and firefighters to train. He’s changing how we approach fires. Other Namornese cities send people here to study his methods.” He shook his head. “Awe-inspiring. Heroic, even without the people he’s saved with his own two hands. If he sees smoke, he’s there as fast as he can move.”

  Daja listened as she ate. For the thousandth time she wondered what these three were like when they had first become friends. Kol and Frostpine had roomed together for three years in the capital of Bihan, studying the goldsmith’s craft. They had met the beautiful seamstress at the same time, and Kol had courted and married her after her affair with Frostpine ended. Only on their arrival in Namorn did Matazi learn that the copper-counting student she had married was the heir to one of the wealthiest merchant families in Namorn. Through that and the years that followed they had stayed in touch with Frostpine, and convinced him and his student to stay with them over their winter in the north.

  Daja looked at the plates and bowl before her. She had cleaned them all. When she sat back with a sigh, all eyes turned to her.

  “Now will you say what you were doing?” Jory demanded.

  “Jorality, manners,” warned Matazi.

  Jory rolled her eyes. “Please say what you were doing?”

  Kol frowned at her. “I believe your mother meant that you should give Daja a moment to take a breath.”

  Daja looked at Frostpine. “You could start,” she offered.

  Frostpine shook his head. “No halfways,” he informed her. “Talking to the family is part of the responsibility.”

  Daja scowled at Frostpine, who dipped up a spoonful of jam. Before she actually saw him drink tea through it, she turned to Kol and Matazi. “Jory used magic today.” Since she couldn’t think of a delicate way to deliver the tidings, Daja chose to just say it. “Not a charm or a chant, something she’d buy from a street seller or a shop. This was her own, coming from her. She took the lumps out of a green sauce she was making. And Frostpine says if one twin has magic, so has the other.”

  “But I told you,” Jory began.

  “We’ve had magic-sniffers at both of them, twice,” Matazi protested. She refilled Daja’s empty tea glass.

  “Thank you,” Daja told her. “Jory’s what we call an —”

  “Ambient mage,” said Kol with a nod. “Taking the magic that’s already in things and turning them to her own use.” He grinned at Daja. “You don’t live with a mage for three years without learning a thing or two.”

  “Ambient magic isn’t always easy to see,” Daja explained to Matazi. “You have to look for it in a particular way. Since I can’t tell what Nia’s got, I made a mirror to use as a scrying device. That’s why I missed supper.”

  “Excuse me,” Nia asked as Daja took a swallow from her fresh glass of tea, “but — scrying?”

  “Seeing,” Frostpine told her. “Mirrors, crystal balls, bowls of water — it depends on the mage, but all of them work for most people.”

  “Here’s the mirror I made to test for magic.” Daja fished it out of her belt pouch and held it up for them to see. The disk was edged in living metal and covered with it on the back; runes for seeing and magic were carefully etched into the rim. The mercury she’d used to wake the silver to its magical potential was covered over with her power and made solid, making it safe for those who were not metal-mages to touch it.

  Frostpine extended a hand. Daja put her mirror in it. When he looked at the surface, white light blazed out, startling everyone. “Very good,” Frostpine said with approval. “A nice, neat, thorough job.”

  “May I?” asked Matazi, holding out her hand for the mirror.

  Daja nodded and Frostpine handed the mirror over. As Matazi looked at it, Daja went behind her to watch over her shoulder. All the mirror revealed was Matazi’s own lovely features. When she returned the mirror, Daja offered it to Kol, who shook his head.

  “Nia,” Daja said, beckoning. Jory would be so busy talking about her power that Nia might leave unnoticed. She was good at that. Daja had yet to decide if Jory did such things deliberately to help her shyer twin get away, or if Nia was the only one to see that Jory’s speeches left her time to escape. Whichever it was, Nia would not slip out this time.

  Reluctantly, Daja’s skating teacher came forward. Unlike Jory that evening she wore a single braid that harnessed most of the wavy masses of her hair. She didn’t share her twin’s affection for glittering bracelets and beaded hair ornaments, though she wore a copper wristlet that had obviously come from the south, and tiny pearl earrings. Jory liked bright colors and plenty of intricate embroidery on her blouses and hemlines; Nia kept her clothes plain.

  “Must I?” she asked Daja, looking at the mirror as if it would bite.

  “Magic has to be used, and trained, the minute it starts to appear,” Daja told her gently. “Otherwise you won’t be able to c
ontrol it later. Remember I told you about my foster-sister Tris, the weather-mage?” Both twins nodded. Daja continued, “Her magic wasn’t recognized for years, and it kept breaking away from her. She actually made it hail indoors once. I know I saw Jory use magic, whatever Anyussa said.” She glanced at Jory, who grinned. “That means you have it, and if you don’t get it under control, it could turn on you.”

  Nia shook her head, but she took the mirror, and looked into it. Faint light, sparkling like opals, raced around the mirror’s rim, making the runes shimmer. Watching over Nia’s shoulder, Daja saw flickering images of tables, a pile of wooden buttons, hands wielding a plane to smooth wood flat, inlaid boxes, a pot of stain, and Nia’s face behind it all, her dark eyes wide in shock.

  Frostpine gripped Daja’s shoulder warmly for a moment and let go. “Carpentry, Niamara,” he said. “Your power moves through shaped wood. Aren’t you glad there’s a reason you like whittling so much?”

  Nia’s face had a look of mingled confusion and pleasure. “Yes,” she whispered, then thrust the mirror into Daja’s hands and clung to her mother. Kol and Matazi exchanged looks.

  “My turn,” Jory said, bouncing up and down.

  Opal fire darted around the rim, just as it had for Nia. Looking over Jory’s shoulder, Daja saw what she expected to see: pots on hearth-fires, spices being measured, busy hands working dough, all reflected with Jory’s face in the mirror.

  “Cooking and carpentry,” remarked Kol. “Well. Don’t look so glum, Nia. This could make you girls more sought-after marriage choices.”

  “It’ll make Jory more sought-after,” said Nia. “Families want cook-mages for their sons. What house will want a bride covered in sawdust?”

  “A wise one,” Matazi said, kissing Nia’s head. “I can think of three ship-building clans who will give their eye-teeth for a bride who can sense woodrot.”

  “Ship-builders?” Nia asked, her face brightening a little.

  “Ship-builders,” Kol said firmly. “Including old Domanus Moykep. I don’t believe he’s arranged matches for his youngest son’s boys.”

  Nia blushed and hid her face against her mother’s shoulder. Daja wasn’t surprised that the Bancanors were already looking around for good matches for their twins: northern girls were married at fifteen or sixteen, and negotiations between wealthy families took years to complete. She was surprised to find Nia liked one of the rowdy teenaged boys who lived down the alley — she would have expected Nia to hide the moment a boy so much as addressed her.

  Looking at Daja, Kol asked, “What comes next?”

  “I’ll need to find what mages are here in the twins’ specialties. Each twin will do best with a teacher who has the same magic that she does,” replied Daja. “And Frostpine says I’d best start showing them how to meditate, so they can get to know their magic and control it.”

  “Oh, splendid,” moaned Jory. “More lessons.”

  Daja ignored her. “I’ll need a regular time for meditation every day,” she told the twins’ parents.

  Matazi thought for a moment, tapping her cheek with a graceful finger. “I’ll change the dancing master to the hour after midday,” she said at last. “You can have his time in the late afternoon to meditate — will that suit?”

  Daja nodded.

  “These mages,” Kol asked, a wicked glint in his eye, “what kinds of fees will they charge? Will I get a two-for-one discount, since they’re twins?”

  “Papa,” cried the girls, rolling their eyes in exasperation.

  “Just like a banker, always thinking about money,” said Frostpine with a grin. “Just keep in mind how much bigger a bride-price you’ll get for mage-wives. The lessons are an investment.” He drained his tea glass and continued more seriously. “As for fees, if a potential teacher got a credential from Lightsbridge or Winding Circle, he won’t charge a fee. Teaching is what graduates of those schools do to repay their masters for their own training. You want graduates. They have broader learning than someone who only has a Mages’ Society license.”

  Matazi nodded. “I’ll draw up a list,” she said. “Those I don’t know, Anyussa or the housekeeper will.” She looked at her daughters. “Well, you two are always full of surprises. Off to bed with you.”

  The twins kissed their parents and raced toward the stairs. Jory wondered aloud if she really could make and sell a charm to take the lumps from sauces and gravies, as Daja had jokingly suggested earlier. Daja shook her head, thinking, Merchants’ daughters to the bone.

  Kol, Matazi, Frostpine, and Daja sat once more. Daja ran her finger around the mirror’s rim. She was trying to decide if it could be used for other things than magic-seeing when Matazi said, “This isn’t from my side of the family.” Daja looked up to see Matazi shake her head, her smile half-amused, half-rueful.

  “No, it’s mine,” Kol said tiredly as he poured himself a fresh glass of tea. “That’s why we called in magic-sniffers twice,” he explained to Frostpine and Daja. “We have cousins at Lightsbridge now, and one who graduated from there. There’s an uncle in Dancruan who’s a cook-mage. My great-grandfather was a carpentry-mage. So they come by it honestly.” He and Matazi exchanged a troubled glance.

  “Most parents would be happy, with such an opportunity for their girls,” Frostpine remarked softly. Kol said, “It complicates things.”

  “Two families who expressed an interest in the girls will turn mages down flat,” added Matazi. “Many people think that mage-wives are far too independent and unpredictable. Yes, we’ll replace Nia’s candidates with ship-builder clans, but we’ll have to start talks all over again. Namornese marriages take years to arrange.”

  “We have time,” Kol said. “We’re not remotely ready to let them go. And I know that Nia has an eye on that Moykep boy. We’ll need to see how she feels in a couple of years before we finalize anything. The Moykeps will reduce what they want as her dowry since she does have carpentry magic.”

  “All of this is nothing you have to worry about, though,” Matazi told Daja with a smile. “I feel like we’re imposing on you, asking you to choose their teachers, but I’d feel better leaving that to a mage.”

  Daja covered a yawn. She was exhausted. “I have a responsibility to them,” she told Matazi. “To them, I suppose, and to my own teachers. If you could make up a list of possible instructors?”

  “We’ll have it for you by breakfast,” Kol promised.

  “If you’ll excuse me, then.” Daja got to her feet and tucked the mirror into her belt purse.

  “Good night, Daja.” Frostpine reached out and gripped her wrist. Through their shared magic he told her silently, You did good work here tonight, with the girls and with Kol and Matazi.

  She smiled at him shyly. A compliment of that kind from him was worth cherishing. “Good night,” she said, and kissed his bald crown.

  3

  The next day was Watersday: people traditionally spent it in worship and relaxation. Daja knew she would find no teachers doing business that day. She wouldn’t be teaching, either, with the Bancanors visiting first the temple where they worshipped, then family members scattered all over the city. Daja reminded Kol that the twins had to begin to meditate, only to see him shake his head. “It’s Mother’s sixtieth birthday,” he explained with regret. “If we aren’t there all afternoon and well into the night, she will be quite unhappy.”

  Daja winced. Once she’d overheard one of Kol’s mother’s scolds. She didn’t want to witness the results of another, or subject anyone else to it. The older women of Namorn were famous for their power over their families, and for their tempers.

  With the Bancanors gone the big house was quiet. All but a very few of the servants left to worship, visit their own kin, and run personal errands. Frostpine was absent, chasing his counterfeiter. Daja tried skating on her own, now that she could fall as much as she liked without anyone to see her, but grew discouraged after her fifth landing on her back. Stripping off her skates, she went to her room and s
pent the rest of the day working on her Longnight gifts.

  At breakfast the next day, Sunsday, Matazi gave Daja the promised list of Kugiskan mages versed in carpentry or cookery magic. “I’ve also assigned you a sleigh and driver for all this,” she told Daja. “You’ve only been here for two months, and some of these places are out of the way. Do you know our footman Serg? He’ll be waiting outside — just send word to the housekeeper when you’re ready to go.”

  Daja thanked Matazi with a rueful inner sigh. It would be so much easier if she could skate. Or perhaps it wouldn’t, she thought as she looked the list over. She hadn’t the least idea of where most of these streets were.

  When she walked out of the house, Trader staff in hand, her medallion gleaming against her sheepskin coat, a young man in the yellow-trimmed brown livery of Bancanor House jumped down from the driver’s seat of the small sleigh in the front courtyard. “Viymese Daja, good morning!” he said. Serg was in his late teens, an efficient young man with a long, cheerful face and light brown hair that hung to his shoulders. Despite the flakes of snow that drifted slowly from the sky, he wore his sturdy, quilted wool coat open. It revealed a band-collared tunic shirt that fastened near the right shoulder, favored wear for eastern Namornese. This garment was a cheery red like his full trousers. He wore cowhide boots lined with fur, and carried leather gloves, also fur-lined, thrust into his belt. “Ravvi” — Namornese for “Mistress” — “Matazidah has asked me to take my orders from you.” He had the Kugisko accent that Daja liked so much, one that made each word sound like a particularly tasty piece of cheese. “Where do we go?” he asked.

  Daja consulted her list. “Nyree Street,” she told him as she climbed into the sleigh.

  Serg took the driver’s seat. He clucked to his horses, snapped the whip well over their heads, and guided them out the open main gate onto Blyth Street with the ease of long practice.

  Walking into the large, prosperous, busy woodworking establishment that belonged to Camoc Oakborn, wood-mage, Daja felt ridiculous, a child in adult clothes pretending to be a mage. How was she supposed to convince this man that she was any judge of who had magic and who did not? Her palm was sweaty where she gripped the ebony of her staff; her mouth was paper dry.