Engine of Lies ebook Page 5

  I staggered away from the fire, shaken out of my self-control. I had steeled myself for a merciless answer, but this was so far in the other direction I was stupefied—and bewildered. This woman, my former enemy, had paid me a higher compliment than I had ever imagined possible.

  Jean’s eyebrows rose. “This is Sorceress Lorraine, head of the Water Guild?”

  Beorn said, “Yep. Not what we expected, huh?”

  I looked up at him. “If she trusts me, why wouldn’t she tell me the secret?”

  The two men exchanged glances. Beorn said, “You won’t believe me, but she paid you a compliment.”

  I glowered, but he was not lying. He believed what he said.

  Jean said, “You heard what she said to Enchanter Paul. She asserts she trusts you, and she does not change opinion on a whim.” He stroked my cheek, then rested his hand on my shoulder. “Forget about the secret, for now, my love, and treasure her commendation.”

  “Why are you sticking up for her? You didn’t want to go to that meeting either.”

  “About that,” Beorn said. “Mother Celeste made me promise to chew you out. She said as young as Lucinda is, she has some excuse, I have less, and you don’t have any. She said you knew about the aftereffects of black magic and should have made allowances instead of acting like you wanted to be offended.”

  Jean’s head drooped. “Guilty as charged. I have for so long wanted to bring about change in Frankland, and now it has come I find it hard to credit. What kind of a reactionary am I?”

  “A human one,” Beorn said. “There’s more. Watch.”

  “But Paul,” the Frost Maiden continued, in a voice holding enough passion she could have been in the Fire Guild, “that begs the question you did not ask. If not now, when? We have a locksmith of such calibre as has not been seen in a millennium, a sitting Fire Warlock, and the second ever retired Fire Warlock, who comprehends the Fire Office better than anyone since its creator.

  “If we do not take advantage of these talents now, will their like ever come again, even in another thousand years? Will our successors praise us as the second Great Coven, having the courage and talent to fix the flaws the first Great Coven left? Or will they curse us for having let the opportunity slip through our fingers, so they must watch without hope as the nobility turns into a bunch of slobbering idiots and all our best young men and women flee a country no longer worth living in and caring for?

  “Paul, that is the choice we face. We must, at least, fix the Water Office, and we must fix it now.”

  The Frost Maiden Loses Her Cool

  The word ‘now’ has a different meaning to someone who has lived a century and a half than it does to a young woman of twenty. When the Frost Maiden said, “We must fix the Water Office now,” I clutched at Jean’s arm and yelped.

  The image of Beorn in the fire barked, “Can’t be done. Not now. She’s not ready.”

  Mother Celeste patted his arm. “She doesn’t mean tomorrow.”

  The Frost Maiden said, “I meant within the next decade. Enough time for the Locksmith to become adept, but soon enough we do not risk either her or Jean dying of old age.”

  My knees buckled. I sat down on the floor with my head in my hands. A decade. Time enough for my pounding heartbeat to return to normal.

  In the fire, the phantom Beorn described the lock on the Fire Office. “It’ll be years before Lucinda can handle that lock. If the one on the Water Office is anything like it…”

  The Frost Maiden said, “The lock on the Water Office will be a trivial matter, given the great friendship between that wretched fire witch and the first Water Sorceress.”

  Beorn scowled. “Yeah, you’re right, it’ll probably be worse. On the other hand, the Fire Office protects the other Offices, so maybe they weren’t so paranoid about them. Fortunatus, at least, expected we’d have to make changes someday, and put in spells to deal with the other Offices being temporarily out of commission.”

  “A rational warlock? That’s as—” The Frost Maiden winced. “Never mind.”

  “As rare as a fire witch wearing pearls? I won’t argue with that.”

  She blinked at him. He grinned.

  She shook her head. “It will be safer if I express my apologies to Quicksilver and the Locksmith in writing. Celeste, could you persuade her to read the lock on the Water Office under your supervision? Once she has recovered her temper, of course. She will listen to you when she would spurn me.”

  “Of course, dear. What a pity there is still such tension between the two guilds. Jean hunted for a locksmith for decades, but I had no idea you were anxious, too.”

  The Frost Maiden grimaced. “I was not.”

  “But you said—”

  Her voice took on a bitter rasp. “My intellect was prepared, not my emotions. I have known about the Locksmith for months, but I would not dishonour my predecessors and ask for the Fire Guild’s help. Only now, with that foul lock gone, has the pain our people suffer touched me. Only now does my heart, as well as my head, demand the mockeries of justice be stopped.” Her face was flushed, her breathing ragged. “I have never cared for the sobriquet Frost Maiden, as if the sum of my duties is as the king’s executioner, but the ice encasing my emotions kept it from wounding, and made it, perhaps, appropriate. Now, every use is a dagger through my heart.”

  Mother Celeste squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry, dear.”

  Beorn walked over and patted her shoulder. “Steady there.” The Frost Maiden’s head jerked around. He snatched his hand away.

  Her voice quavered. “A Fire Warlock comforting a Water Sorceress. The world is coming to an end.”

  Above me, Beorn waved away the images. “Paul and I talked a bit about what it would take to rebuild the Water Office, mostly to give her a chance to get control of herself again, but that’s all that matters.”

  Jean took a deep breath then let it out with a long sigh. “It is magnanimous of her to offer further apologies. I can no longer predict her behaviour. I would have expected her to wait in icy silence for us to make the first move, since we walked out on her.”

  I winced. My father would have caned me for being so rude. I stood up and dusted off my skirts. “Right. We can show her we can be decent, too. Let’s go the Crystal Palace and do the grovelling first.”

  Jean said. “I beg your pardon? I have never set foot there. None but members of the Water Guild go there of their own free will.”

  “Then it’s about time, isn’t it? Let’s go.”

  The dear man, who had faced armies of wizards without flinching, looked alarmed. “Surely you do not mean now.”

  Beorn laughed and whacked Jean on the back. “You’re marrying her—you’d better get used to her running your life.”

  “Right now,” I said, taking Jean’s arm, “before I have time to think about it and chicken out.”

  We stepped out of the fire onto a stone causeway leading to an arched entry flanked by two guards. The guard on the right fainted.

  Neither of us moved forward. A monstrous wave broke on rocks below and I flinched. Jean flicked a hand and the spray blew around us. I eyed him. He was looking at the towers overhead. The many windows reflected the overcast sky’s dull grey.

  “We are fortunate,” he said, “not to view the Crystal Palace in its full, shining glory. It has never been kind to commoners.”

  I said, “It’s unnerving me even without the sun on the windows. But you…”

  “I feel the weight of its grim history, too, my dear.”

  “She walked into the Fortress like she’d done it every day of her life. Are we going to let a water witch show us up?”

  “Of course not. Shall we?”

  We walked past the guards and through the arch unchallenged. The guard still standing remained at rigid attention, staring through us, acknowledging our presence th
rough a sheen of sweat and rapid breathing. The gate opened into a courtyard with a trio of water wizards crossing in front of us. They panicked and ran.

  “We should have warned her we were coming,” I said.

  Jean sighed. “Yes, but it is too late now to retreat.”

  We crossed the courtyard towards an arcade through an inner wall, where the Frost Maiden, looking dazed, met us. We made stiff reverences and began to explain why we had come. Half a dozen pools of water welled up on the floor. Sorcerers and sorceresses stepped out of them and formed a protective circle around their leader.

  A sorcerer in his fifties, bristling like an angry dog, stepped in front of the Frost Maiden. Water wizards aren’t supposed to look dangerous. I took a step backwards.

  Sorceress Eleanor plucked at his sleeve. “Charles—”

  He said, “What’s going on? We won’t tolerate rudeness towards Her Wisdom.”

  The Frost Maiden said, “Charles, you do not understand. It is not they…”

  Jean had gone rigid; his eyes glittered. I had dragged him into this mess—I had to do something about it. I stepped between him and the angry water wizard and curtsied. “We’ve come to apologise, sir. I took offense at something the Frost… something the Water Sorceress said and walked out of a meeting after hearing only half the story.” I made another deep curtsey and held it. “The Fire Warlock showed us what you said, Your Wisdom. I’m sorry I was disrespectful.”

  Out in the courtyard somebody yelled something about the Fire Guild invading. No one in the circle of water witches and wizards moved or spoke. Curtseying has never come naturally to me, and having the Water Guild Council staring at me guaranteed I would wobble as I rose. I might have toppled over if Jean hadn’t slipped a steadying hand under my elbow.

  His bow was not his most graceful effort, either. “I, too, offer an apology, Your Wisdom,” he said, in a tight voice. “The Locksmith and I have both been guilty of imputing insult when none was intended.”

  The Frost Maiden nudged the water wizard out of the way and made a deep and elegant reverence. No wobbles. “You are both generous, but I offer my own apologies. I did not and do not intend to offend. I beg your patience with me; a bad habit reinforced over a lifetime is hard to break.”

  “That is true for both of us.” Jean’s jaw clenched tighter. “I disparaged your proposal because you made it. I should not have; it is an excellent suggestion.”

  Colour rose in her cheeks, and she curtsied again without speaking.

  There was a slight pause. The witches and wizards around the Frost Maiden displayed shock, relief, and confusion in equal measures.

  “Lucinda, my dear,” Jean said, resuming his smooth, urbane voice, “You have not met the other members of the Water Guild Council. Let me introduce you, starting with the senior Water Mage, Sorcerer Charles.”

  The wizard who had planted himself in front of the Frost Maiden bowed. So this was the man who loved her. I studied him with interest. With the shock over, he looked more cuddly than dangerous, and made his own sheepish apology. “I beg your pardon, Your Wisdom. I know you better than that.”

  Jean accepted the apology with a tight smile. “Friction between the guilds affects even the Company of Mages. We are guild members first, mages second.”

  While Sorceress Eleanor continued the introductions, Jean pulled Sorcerer Charles to the side for a quiet conversation. I strained my ears, but all I caught was “Master Sven.” They rejoined us in a few minutes, and after an exchange of inconsequential pleasantries that was a love fest by the standards of the usual Fire and Water Guild interactions, with the Frost Maiden saying little, we took our leave. Sorcerer Charles led us back out into the courtyard. Not a moment too soon—the arcade was as cold as my father’s springhouse. If we had stayed much longer, my teeth would have started chattering.

  The witches and wizards crowding the doors and windows overlooking the courtyard scrambled for cover when we reappeared. Jean expressed our regrets for our invasion of their stronghold, but the sorcerer made light of it.

  “Once the news gets about that you two came to pay your respects, it will soothe the troubled spirits in our guild who don’t understand the nature of the spell Lorraine was under and were offended that she made the first move. So no harm done. Although I admit to being taken aback that you could walk in with such aplomb. Few besides a pair of warlocks would have such nerve.” He tilted his head at me. “By the way, I want to thank you for helping her maintain her dignity when she went to the Fortress.”

  “I beg your pardon? I didn’t do anything.”

  “Perhaps nothing other than greet her warmly, but that was enough. She said she admires your sangfroid in walking under that portcullis. If you hadn’t been there she would have been frozen, scared out of her wits.”

  Beorn was waiting for us in the Fortress’s hidden practice room. He sat in one of the metal chairs with his feet up on the table, his hands locked behind his head.

  I said, “Why don’t you want Master Sven studying the spells in the Fire Office?”

  Beorn’s brows drew together. “Who said we don’t?”

  “Jean hasn’t invited him to any of our sessions studying them.”

  Jean sank into a chair and massaged the back of his neck. “You have a mistaken impression. His scrutiny of my revisions would be invaluable, but the Fire Office will not allow us to show the spells to anyone not on the Fire Guild Council, or approved by the Company of Mages.”

  “But if he’s named a mage…”

  “Should have happened a year or more ago,” Beorn said, “We can’t get it past Flint because Sven is Jean’s fair-haired boy.”

  “Oh. Poor Sven.”

  “I had hoped once I was dead,” Jean said, “Flint would allow Sven’s nomination. But now…” The corners of his mouth twitched. “I do not intend to die to pave the way for Master Sven’s ascension. A bit of subterfuge is in order.”

  “Is that what you were talking to the water mage about?”

  “Yes. Sorcerer Charles has proposed bylaw changes—ones I have already approved—but he will imply he is pushing through insupportable changes while there is no flame mage present. That should force Flint’s hand.”

  Beorn grinned. “Good. I’m all for pulling the wool over Flint’s eyes, so long as it’s not me doing it. I have other problems on my mind. If not fixing the Water Office means civil war, with the commoners rebelling, and fixing it means civil war, with the nobles going berserk, how do we keep Frankland from tearing itself apart?”

  Jean leaned back and closed his eyes. “There is a third possibility. A narrow and perilous path between two horns of a dilemma.”

  “Yes?”

  “The nobles are a flock of sheep, gone astray because they have been leaderless for generations. If we can call the king to account, and convince him to take the Great Oath, the nobles will understand they have no choice, and will fall into line.”

  Had he gone mad? Even he couldn’t make that wish come true.

  Beorn’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Pray tell, how do we do that, O great and wise one?”

  Jean opened his eyes and smiled—the first whole-hearted smile I’d seen on his face in several days. “I do not know. Ask the Fire Warlock; he knows everything.”

  Beorn flamed him. With a sigh, I added my attack to his.

  Some time later, Beorn signalled he’d had enough. He emerged grinning from the smoke. “Thanks. I needed that.”

  I pushed wet hair off my forehead and fanned myself. “What does the Frost Maiden do to release tension?”

  “About that,” Beorn said. “You heard what she said about being called the Frost Maiden. We ought to start calling her the Water Sorceress.”

  “Yes,” Jean said, “I had on occasion wondered why she tolerated that pejorative title. Let us drop it, although it will be a hard habit to break.
For all of us.”

  I said, “At least I didn’t call her, Her Iciness.”

  “Tempting as it may be, that would be most undiplomatic. As to your question, she retreats to the far north, and sculpts ice.”

  Beorn gawked. “You’re kidding.”

  Jean’s eyebrows arched. “I am not. She is a talented artist. Her sculptures are quite lovely.”

  Ice? Lovely? I shivered.

  We met in the Warren, and under Mother Celeste’s calm influence, I followed a beacon of blue starlight through the maze of spells to reach the lock on the Water Office. The lock was identical to the one on the Fire Office, as was the power needed for release, but I did not panic this time.

  After I reported what I had learned, and the potential dangers, the Water Sorceress said, “I am not surprised, given what we know of the earlier Locksmith.” She cast me a piercing look. “Are you willing to pursue tapping into the volcano to release the lock?”

  I said, “Do you still want to fix the Office, knowing that releasing it may kill you, too?”

  “Yes,” she said without hesitation. “I have seen far too many men and women dead or ruined because the Water Office has gone so badly awry. My own life is of little consequence in comparison. How could I live with myself if I could fix it, but would not out of cowardice? I only regret that to do so puts others in danger.”

  Why had I been angry with her at the earlier meeting? She had called me nosy and insubordinate, among other things, but those charges were true. At that moment I felt nothing but respect for her.

  I said, “I will unlock it, Your Wisdom. No one else can.” I would have to; my overactive conscience and the love of my life wouldn’t let me escape it.

  Sometimes, being a warlock stinks.

  Among Old Friends