Darkborn

"Lady Tercelle is not receiving-"

"Tell her Telmaine Hearne requests an interview, concerning a favor that her husband Balthasar did Lady Tercelle."

The door closed in their faces. She was aware of Ish"s attention to their rear, of his casting a crisp yet delicate sonn to either side along the street. The moment before the door opened, his head turned back, though she had heard neither voice nor footstep through the door. His acuity was unnerving-was it magic?

She would be ill if she thought too much of magic, though as the footman ushered them across the hall, she itched to free her hands from their gloves. Had she been alone, or in the presence of someone ignorant of the meaning of the gesture, she would have.

She did not need Ish"s hunter"s senses to know that the big house had been long unoccupied and barely reopened; all she needed were a chatelaine"s. With its wide central stair, the hall echoed to sonn, all the muting hangings and decorations removed to be stored or displayed elsewhere. Most of the furniture in the large receiving room was still draped, and the room smelled of dust and aged dried flowers. Tercelle Amberley sat on one of the chairs, wearing a loose morning gown that flowed from the yoke and would conceal her milk-laden b.r.e.a.s.t.s and thickened waist. She had changed very little over the years, Telmaine thought: still the same little droplet face that could sparkle pertly or crumple piteously. "Lady Telmaine," Tercelle said with a tremor. "Do come in. Take a seat. And introduce me to your gentleman friend."

As an insinuation, it was a shaky effort; perhaps it was merely habit.

"Lady Tercelle Amberley, Ishmael di Studier, Baron Strumh.e.l.ler."

Tercelle extended a hand that trembled slightly. "Forgive me, Baron Strumh.e.l.ler, I have been-" And then she froze, jerked her hand back, and froze again. Telmaine realized then that Ishmael had slipped his glove off.

And that Tercelle Amberley knew what that implied.

Telmaine recovered her wits enough to summon a social laugh. "Baron Strumh.e.l.ler, I fear that your reputation has preceded you."

Tercelle panted. "I"m so sorry. I"ve been so very nervous lately. I"m sure it"s nothing, only . . ."

Telmaine regarded her with head c.o.c.ked slightly to one side, a.s.sessing strategies.

Ishmael di Studier, his expression wry, drew his glove on and held out his hand to receive Tercelle"s. When he stooped, he brushed air with his lips.

"Where is my daughter?" Telmaine said.

"What? Your daughter?" said Tercelle.

Her confusion seemed genuine. Telmaine did not trust it. "Yes, mine. You may not care for your sons-"

"Voice down," rumbled the baron.

"-but be a.s.sured that Balthasar and I care for our daughter, and we will stop at nothing to find her."

Tercelle s.n.a.t.c.hed back her hand from Ishmael. "The woman"s mad. I have no sons." She caught up the bell sitting beside her. The baron intercepted her as she started to ring it, m.u.f.fling the bell with his gloved hand. "M"lady, we need your help."

"If you are trying to blackmail me, I warn you, my betrothed-"

"Is as ruthless as any man alive," Ish said, "aye, and y"might rightly fear for your life. But Balthasar Hearne nearly lost his last night, and the same men who beat him almost t"death stole his daughter from his doorstep. Were they your men?"

"Of course not! Why would I risk-" She stopped.

He nodded approval. "First rule of intrigue-the less done, the less tracked. So, if it wasn"t your doing, whose was"t? Who knew you were with child?"

She pressed her fingers to her face. "For pity"s sake," she whispered. "Not here." She tugged to free her hand and the bell, and the baron let her go. The tintinnabulation of the little bell owed as much to the involuntary tremor of her hand as to any deliberate movement. The footman"s prompt appearance justified their caution.

"Mercury," Tercelle said, "tell Idana that my guests and I will be going up to the roof garden for a little while. I think Baron Strumh.e.l.ler might be more at home in a more . . . natural environment," she said, with one of the most perfect parodies of a snide society lady that Telmaine had ever heard.

Telmaine"s sonn caught the bobble in the footman"s throat at the mention of Ishmael"s name.

They trailed their hostess up to the roof garden she spoke of. Her maid followed, a sweet-faced, very fat girl who huffed behind them to the last, narrowest flight, and then sank, panting, down on the lowest step at a signal from the lady. Leaning heavily on the banister, Tercelle led them on. Behind her, Telmaine ungloved with two swift yanks and bundled her gloves into her reticule.

On the roof garden the baron sonned around himself at once, another sequence of overlapping bursts that somehow penetrated without being conspicuously forceful. Telmaine was coming to realize that, in the wilds, at least, the baron was a master with sonn. His last burst caught her, poised with ungloved hands; she perceived his very slight nod.

Her turn. She swept down on one knee and caught up Tercelle"s icy hand in both of hers. "Please," she said, "please, you must help me. They"ve stolen my daughter."

Images, phrases, impressions tumbled into her mind. The exhaustion and discomforts of a woman one day from childbed, bone-deep weariness, aching b.r.e.a.s.t.s, cramping womb, raw genitals. As raw was the memory of writhing agony, the helplessness, the humiliation. Telmaine gasped, losing her own coherence of thought. "Who . . ." she breathed, and remembered lying tense in bed, expectant, disbelieving, thinking, Why? Why? The question always silenced by kissing, fondling, driving all questions away on great surges of molten ecstasy. A man"s erect member, sonned as though she were bending to kiss it. His nipples, his neck, his broad back. Heat surged through her body, and she was no longer sure whether the body was her own or Tercelle"s. The question always silenced by kissing, fondling, driving all questions away on great surges of molten ecstasy. A man"s erect member, sonned as though she were bending to kiss it. His nipples, his neck, his broad back. Heat surged through her body, and she was no longer sure whether the body was her own or Tercelle"s.

"Uh-oh," she heard the baron say, and the woman"s erotic memories were suddenly snuffed out of her awareness as he shucked her hands from the lady"s and caught the lady by the elbow and waist and half carried her the few steps to a bower with chairs. He settled her down solicitously and pressed her head forward. Shortly she struggled upright, saying, "No, I"m all right. For pity"s sake, sir, no one must know."

Feeling dizzy and light in the bones, Telmaine got to her feet and picked her way over to stand in front of them.

"You should rest," the baron said. Telmaine noticed then that he, too, had removed his gloves.

Tercelle, unnoticing, began to weep and rock. "He will know, he will most certainly know, when we come to our marriage bed. And I don"t know, I don"t understand . . ."

Telmaine believed her and, for the first time, pitied her. "Please," she said simply, "do you know anything that might help me find my daughter?"

"No," said the lady, sobbing more loudly. "No, I know nothing."

"Shh," said the baron. "Does anyone else know of this?"

She sniffed, calming. "My maids, Idana and Maia. They have been with me since . . . since I first came out."

"And you trust them?"

"This would have been impossible without them. Maia is very like me in appearance, and she rides well. There will be people who say I rode out after sunset every night until we left for the city. And you met Idana-Idana is a delightful girl, but she has a terrible taste for sweets. If pressed, she will say that she went to visit Dr. Hearne because she thought he could help her with her difficulty." She stopped. "I trusted my life to them."

"Very good," the baron said quietly. "Then in a few weeks, after you have healed up from the childbed . . ." He leaned forward and murmured briefly in her ear. Her mouth fell open. "You are not the only lady with an indiscretion in her past," he a.s.sured her. "But right now, you"d best go somewhere better guarded than this, somewhere where people do not expect to find you. Balthasar Hearne all but died last night, and it may be that by coming here, we have put your life at risk."

"I don"t . . . I can"t-"

"It is your choice," the baron said. "Nevertheless, I do advise it. Now Mrs. Hearne and I will take our leave."

Telmaine They climbed into the carriage, the baron moving as though his bones ached. His expression as he settled himself across from her was grim.

"She didn"t know anything," Telmaine said.

He stirred himself. "No, m"lady. She didn"t. And you pulled on her hard enough."

She frowned, troubled by the flatness of his voice.

"Is something wrong? Is your shoulder hurting?"

"Aye, it is," he said in that same tone. "There"s touch-reading, and then there"s reaching in and taking. You reached in and took; I had to replenish her, and that costs me. Lady Telmaine, you"re a dozen times the mage I am. You have t"be careful."

Hearing her one ally condemn her, for reasons she did not understand, and was not sure she could have helped if she understood, she started to cry.

After a moment she heard him stir and grumble. "Don"t do that."

"Why? Are you one of those who can"t abide weeping women?"

"No," he said, after consideration. "Though I can"t abide those who do it for effect." He lowered his head into his hand and gave an absurdly girlish sob, and she felt a delicate little brush of sonn on her face; he sobbed again, and sonned again, and she could not help it: She giggled, with a little involuntary catch of hysteria. "Why, Baron," she said, "I did not realize you were such a good actor."

He lowered his hand. "I am a very good actor, Lady Telmaine," he said, unsmiling. "As are you."

She rejected the suggestion with a nervous wave.

"M"lady, you have pa.s.sed for the perfect society lady. Oh, a little radical in her choice of husband, true, but nothing I had heard of you led me to suspect the reality. Until I sonned you coming down the stairs by that ridiculous automaton, with your gloves up to your beautiful shoulders."

"Ridiculous," she said, piqued, her mind shying from the rest of his statement.

"Aye, it was. All that machinery t"do what? Move a single silver ball?"

Telmaine drew a deep, steadying breath, glad of the moment"s grace he had given her. "What do we do now?"

"I take you home t"your husband." She heard a rustle of movement as he raised a hand in antic.i.p.ation of objections. "Telmaine, these are not places a lady should go. And I will need all my wits about me, and you, m"lady, are a sore distraction. I wish I had met you before he did."

"Baron," she said, "if I had met you at the age of seventeen, I would have bolted like a deer."

He threw back his head and laughed, wincing and bracing his arm.

She waited out his laughter, since she had told no more than the truth, chewing on the inside of her lip and listening to the rattle of the wheels on the cobbles, coa.r.s.er cobbles now: They were out of the fine neighborhoods. She dearly wished she did not feel compelled to ask this of him, but she had to know. "Baron . . . was she . . . ensorcelled?" She was utterly at a loss for polite and innocuous words to describe the memories she had drawn from Lady Tercelle Amberley, and felt almost faint with embarra.s.sment for herself and for the other woman. She burst out, "What she felt for her . . . for her lover. It didn"t seem . . . decent. I"ve never felt . . . didn"t know anyone . . ." Her face was burning so brightly she was surprised they were both not falling into ashes.

"People do, m"lady," he said, the low rumble consolingly matter-of-fact. "But you ask a good question, and I think . . ." This came very reluctantly. "I fear it"s possible. She had far, far too much to lose by letting herself be taken like this."

"So magic can do that that."

He was silent, jolting along opposite her. When she brushed him with her sonn, he stirred and said, "What would you have me say, m"lady? That yes, magic can be used to abuse and control people? Done that way, it"s called sorcery, and by any measure a crime." He eased forward, wincing slightly. "I"d sooner not frighten you, but it seems I must. Do again what you did then and you risk your gift, your sanity, and mayhap your life. You are not trained, and you are powerful enough to do harm. You drained Lady Tercelle quite thoroughly; without me there to replenish her, you might have sent her into a coma."

"I . . . I never-"

"Hear me out, Lady Telmaine. Have y"heard of the Lightborn Temple Vigilance?"

"Yes, but . . . but they"re Lightborn. They have nothing to do with us."

"Not so. There"re more and more powerful Lightborn mages than there are Darkborn mages. Mayhap they know how to bring on a child with magic; they don"t tell us. The Lightborn Mages" Temple rules magic among Lightborn and and Darkborn. They don"t much care what lower-rankers do; we"re often more menace to ourselves than anyone else. But they do care about real power misused. It goes back, all the way back to the Curse and the mages" war before . . ." Darkborn. They don"t much care what lower-rankers do; we"re often more menace to ourselves than anyone else. But they do care about real power misused. It goes back, all the way back to the Curse and the mages" war before . . ."

He paused, leaning back against the seat. "Y"know virtually nothing of magic, I expect. When we say power power, strength strength, it"s more like efficiency efficiency . Working magic means drawing on your own and others" vital energy to effect a change in th"physical world. How much y"can do depends. Even now, you"d do far more with your vitality than I ever could with mine. First rank to sixth rank, that"s a vast difference. Th"most powerful mages alive are eighth-rank. If you"d known what you were doing, you"d not have needed a spicule to heal your husband. If you wanted to, you could make someone do whatever you wished, or drain them to th"point of death. That"s sorcery. If you were caught by the Temple Vigilance, they"d destroy your magic, and mayhap your mind. The stronger th"mage, the greater the risk. I"ve already lied for you to Mistress Floria. I"d lie for you again. But there"d be a point I"d not be able to go past, even if I wanted to." . Working magic means drawing on your own and others" vital energy to effect a change in th"physical world. How much y"can do depends. Even now, you"d do far more with your vitality than I ever could with mine. First rank to sixth rank, that"s a vast difference. Th"most powerful mages alive are eighth-rank. If you"d known what you were doing, you"d not have needed a spicule to heal your husband. If you wanted to, you could make someone do whatever you wished, or drain them to th"point of death. That"s sorcery. If you were caught by the Temple Vigilance, they"d destroy your magic, and mayhap your mind. The stronger th"mage, the greater the risk. I"ve already lied for you to Mistress Floria. I"d lie for you again. But there"d be a point I"d not be able to go past, even if I wanted to."

Her hands were pressed to her mouth, her mouth open in a silent cry in the dark. She could not even sonn. She felt him take her shoulders in his broad, warm hands. "Take care, m"lady. You"ve a power and spirit that"re beyond price." She felt his lips touch hers.

He released the kiss an instant before she would have pulled away. They rode the rest of the way in silence, and with a proper but not fulsome farewell, he handed her down from the coach and stood guard until she had climbed the steps and opened and closed the door. Through the door she heard the clatter of his carriage leaving, and she braced her gloved hands against the door and leaned her forehead against it. She had never, ever in her life touched someone who could touch her back; never, ever in her life known what it felt like to be known. She knew what it was to be desired, yes: Every time they came together, she drank of Balthasar"s desire like a sparkling wine. It was to preserve the heady clarity of that desire that she would not let Bal make love to her after they quarreled, until they had healed the quarrel with words. But when the baron-Ishmael-kissed her, she had felt the pain of his injured shoulder, felt the anger he still harbored, felt his fear, felt his desire like a resinous brandy, felt the aching loneliness of the outcast. Then she had felt his emotions shift as he felt hers in turn, the anger mitigated, the fear falling away, the desire becoming mingled with surprise, the loneliness become a yearning toward her. For a moment, pure revelation of reciprocity had held her, and then she broke away, and she knew that he knew how nearly she had not broken away. Sweet Imogene, what manner of wanton was was she, with her husband lying beaten near to death upstairs? Magic was as corrupting as everyone claimed. she, with her husband lying beaten near to death upstairs? Magic was as corrupting as everyone claimed.

"Telmaine," said Olivede from behind her.

She turned, at bay. "Don"t come near me!"

There was a silence, and then Olivede"s sonn brushed her very lightly. "So your errand was not successful. I am so very sorry." She stepped back and gestured toward the sitting room. "My colleagues are upstairs," she said. "You might be more comfortable if you waited here until they"re done."

Could the mageborn woman-standing square in the hall, blocking the way to the stairs-sense the wild impulse working in her to scream at them to leave Balthasar alone, to beat or drag them away from him if necessary? She tamped down the scream to a single gulped sob, which reactivated the turmoil in her stomach. There was no baron to offer her his potion-she pushed past Olivede into the downstairs privy. Olivede, blessedly, finally left her alone.

Shaky and purged, she crept into the sitting room and closed the door. She sat, her head back, sonn quiescent, and did not stir as she heard footsteps come down the stairs. Cheap soles, she recognized, cheap soles and the weary tread of a strange man and woman. She braced herself as outside the door she heard skirts rasp and rustle and words quietly exchanged: Olivede, thanking her fellow mages, followed by a low-voiced argument as to whether they should take a cab. She knew what she should do-rise, go to the door, open it, face face them, offer them money for a cab, offer them her them, offer them money for a cab, offer them her thanks thanks. She shuddered; there was that part of her that could not believe that Balthasar was not lying dead, or if not dead, as corrupted as she. And so she huddled in her chair while the argument concluded, with Olivede saying finally, "You will will take a cab and an escort. I take a cab and an escort. I cannot cannot let you return unguarded. Baron Strumh.e.l.ler would have apoplexy." A moment later, through the door came a piercing whistle of the most common sort. Telmaine winced at the thought of her genteel neighbors-even the cabdrivers-hearing that. And plainly, the cabdrivers agreed, for the whistle was not followed by the approaching sound of a cab, but by silence and another whistle, and a, "Curse them," from Olivede. let you return unguarded. Baron Strumh.e.l.ler would have apoplexy." A moment later, through the door came a piercing whistle of the most common sort. Telmaine winced at the thought of her genteel neighbors-even the cabdrivers-hearing that. And plainly, the cabdrivers agreed, for the whistle was not followed by the approaching sound of a cab, but by silence and another whistle, and a, "Curse them," from Olivede.

"We should be able to get a cab on the avenue," said the young woman resignedly. "Perhaps I could walk there and bring it back."

"D-do you think"-that was the young guard-"the baron would mind if . . . if we used his automobile? I can drive it. My b-brother builds them."

Telmaine started to her feet, suddenly finding it intolerable that they should linger a moment longer in the hallway of her-of Bal"s-home. Never mind that she well knew that Bal should not likewise find it intolerable. She handed herself from chair arm to chair back and leaned upon the doork.n.o.b as she pulled the door open. "I will summon you a cab," she said.

She stepped out into the night air, the young guard at her shoulder, and blew upon her whistle. There was a moment"s silence, and then, from the direction of the rank, the jingle of a harness and a cab coming slowly into motion. She waited with her head high, aware that her dress was rumpled and her veil slipping, and refusing to acknowledge either. When the cab drew up and the driver"s sonn brushed lightly over her, she lifted her skirts and stepped lightly down to the curb. "You will take the magistra and magister wherever they need to go, please. They have done my household great service tonight." From her pouch she took a half-solar and put it in the coachman"s hand; for that he should be prepared to drive halfway to the Borders. Then she turned, and, sweeping her skirts aside, she pa.s.sed the mages as they came down the stairs. For the first time she sonned their faces, the young woman a young girl, actually, no older than Anarys, though much plainer, and the man well past middle age. Both moved with that bone-aching weariness she herself felt, drained by magic. The man"s sonn caught whatever of her unwelcome empathy showed on her face, for he paused, and then said gently, "You have a remarkable husband, Lady Stott. What he lacks in const.i.tution, he makes up for in spirit." He did not sonn her again, so he did not sonn her frozen apprehension of his words. She took the last few steps at a stumbling run, and Olivede and the guard stood aside to let her pa.s.s.

"He"s asleep," Olivede said, a penetrating whisper, as Telmaine set foot on the stairs. "Don"t wake him." Telmaine turned; Olivede spread her hands. "The longer we can leave telling him about Flori, the better. I may be the mage, but I"ve never been able to keep anything from Bal."

Nor I, lodged in Telmaine"s throat, so painfully she thought she would gag on it. Teeth clenched, she pressed on upstairs.

Bal lay on his side, on their bed, his breathing slow and deep beneath the quilts piled over him. There was no dreadful sickroom odor, no fumes of bizarre herbs or potions, just a faint scent of new-cut gra.s.s. You had to think to know that it did not belong here, in this small city house. She chose not to think. Very carefully, she drew off her gloves, eased her weight onto the bed, and crept her hand across the quilt to overlap his. Through his skin she could feel how much stronger he was since the last time she had touched him, his breathing no longer an effort against gravity and air, his pain merely monotonous rather than agonizing. He was not healed, but he was healing, and his sweet essence was unchanged. She curled up with her forehead against his hand, drinking in that essence. He did not stir.

Four

Ishmael

I shmael dismounted from the carriage at an address in the fashionable quarter of town. The hour was most unfashionable, and his dress well behind fashion, but at least after a sleepless, hectic night and day he might be taken for fashionably played-out. He padded up the wide stairs and hung on the doorbell until an impa.s.sive manservant admitted him. He handed over his calling token and waited, feet apart and stoic, wondering what he would do if he were denied admission. In this household, a mage"s welcome was never certain. But after several minutes, the manservant returned to escort him into the receiving room. shmael dismounted from the carriage at an address in the fashionable quarter of town. The hour was most unfashionable, and his dress well behind fashion, but at least after a sleepless, hectic night and day he might be taken for fashionably played-out. He padded up the wide stairs and hung on the doorbell until an impa.s.sive manservant admitted him. He handed over his calling token and waited, feet apart and stoic, wondering what he would do if he were denied admission. In this household, a mage"s welcome was never certain. But after several minutes, the manservant returned to escort him into the receiving room.

He waded into a miasma of cologne and tobacco so pungent that he fully expected to sonn the reek itself, like fine gauze draping the walls. He sneezed-the jolt to his collarbone!-and applied the brakes to a whole runaway train of sneezes. The room"s sole occupant, a large young man in lounging dress, sneered at him from his armchair, enjoying his discomfiture.

Guillaume di Maurier was another dispossessed son of the border baronies, but where Ish"s offense was magic, Guillaume"s was a career of dissipation prodigious for a man of only twenty-six. Ish had paid to regain his inheritance, paid in blood, grief, friends, and scars both visible and invisible. Guillaume was slouching toward his own redemption, tight-leashed by Vladimer. Like Ish, he was one of Vladimer"s irregulars, his specialty the dens of the demimonde. Likely the cologne was intended to disguise the smells of stale hard liquor and smoked intoxicants, presumably against the arrival of one of his patron"s more numb-nosed agents.

Ish, far from numb-nosed, had no interest in reporting on the young reprobate, as long as he was sober enough to hear the case and set to work on it. He gave Guillaume the crisp bow of one gentleman acknowledging another, teeth set against the plaint from his collarbone and a new eruption of sneezes.

Guillaume waved a large, soft hand, its nails bitten to the quick. "Didn"t expect you at this hour, Strumh.e.l.ler." Or at all Or at all, his sour tone implied. "You"ve the likeness of death on the stroll. Lively night?"

"Aye," Ish said. "And not over yet. I"ve come for your help."

"My help?" help?"