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A headache throbbed behind my eyes as we set out. I was so sick of being in the coach.
As if catching my mood, the gremlin latch winked to life with a flickering sneer. “I have been very patient,” the latch said in a thin whine that put the lie to the statement, “but all your cousin and that unpleasantly large and frowning cold mage do to pass the time is argue about this thing called politics and law which means nothing to me! Could you not tell me stories instead? Or at the least, let the cold mage draw some of those pictures in the air like the other one used to do. I’ll tell you a secret if you do.”
“Everyone claims to have a secret!” I said.
“Cat?” Bee bent to look at me. “You’re very worn down, dearest, and now you’re babbling. Perhaps you should try to sleep some more.”
“I can’t rest,” I said, “but perhaps the mansa could explain to us how young magisters are taught the basic skill of illusion. It would make the time pass, would it not?”
To my surprise the gaze I fixed on the mansa, meant to be venturesome and coaxing and more likely appearing fractious and sour, softened his bearing. He had begun to treat Bee and me with the grave amusement shown by an exalted and wealthy uncle toward his impoverished but marginally respectable nieces, the ones who with better clothes and improved elocution might hope to make modest marriages to humble clerks. He drew the basic illusions every young magister was expected to master: a candle flame, a glinting gold ring, and a veil of mist that could be shaped into the shadows of living creatures. The slow play of shadow and light eased my mind and let me doze.
The next day we moved into a dense lowland scrub forest as the great valley of the lower Rhenus River opened before us. Now and again we caught glimpses of the wide river glittering to the west. We passed a toll station, which had been burned. Threads of smoke ghosting up from its embers told us that Drake’s troop was not many hours ahead.
As night fell the mansa lit globes of cold fire to light our way. Scraps of cloud lightened the moon-scarred sky. Very late we halted in a lonely meadow amid the creak of insects and a night breeze winnowing the grass. The coachman preferred to water and care for the horses at night, and I was grateful for the chance to lie down on a blanket on the ground. An owl’s white wings fluttered through the trees, and for an instant the weight of ice pressed down on me as if malevolent claws had reached across the worlds to throttle me. Then Bee put an arm around me and, comforted by her presence, I slept.
At dawn I woke to see a big furry flank draped alongside me. The big cat snored softly, until I punched him in the shoulder to wake him up.
“Rory! Where are your clothes? What are you doing?”
After he dressed and as we ate our provisions, he told his story. “I decided to scout. Drake’s party is not even half a day ahead of us.”
“I should have gone with you! I could have rescued Vai.”
“No, you should not have gone. They have little mirrors hung up all about the camp, so they would have caught you.”
“Like a troll maze! I wonder how Drake knew.”
“Mirrors are no danger to me!” Rory smiled with the preening confidence of a male who accepts that he is lovely. “I scared their horses, so they lost more time because they had to round them up. Wasn’t that clever?”
“Indeed.” The mansa’s puzzled frown would have amused me another time. Rory’s shape change had taken him aback in a way the confession of my parentage had not.
“What about Vai?” I demanded.
“He was tied up and staked to a post. The other cold mages were tied up, but they looked like sheep to me, so fearful of the wolf they hadn’t a bleat among them. I wasn’t sure if Vai had seen me but then he began to talk. I must say, I wouldn’t have used that tone of voice if I had been the one in captivity.”
“What did he say?” asked Bee.
“He said, ‘I’m surprised you can stand all these mirrors, Drake. They keep showing you how poorly you look in my clothes.’ And Drake replied, ‘I’ll see how poorly you look as you beg me not to destroy your mage House.’ ”
“Gracious Melqart!” murmured Bee.
“Then I had to run, for their riflemen started shooting. I fear I gave us away.”
The mansa said, “He already guesses we’re following. Best we move quickly.”
In another hour we reached a major curve in the road that opened onto a vista. The wide, flat valley at the confluence of the Rhenus River and the Temes shone in the sunlight. Horribly, all four ferry landings and the ferries were burning.
I shrieked out loud, out of sheer frustration. “How far is it to the next ferry? We’ll have to go days out of our way!”
The mansa tapped my arm. “Enough, Catherine! Drake’s people can’t have had time to hunt down and burn every farmstead along the river. We can cross by rowboat. Four Moons land begins on the other side of the river, so we do not need the coach anymore. Many a path runs through backcountry to the main house. We may still reach the estate in time to assemble enough magisters on the main road to crush James Drake’s flames.”
Shaking with rage, I settled back into the seat as the mansa told the coachman his plan. Then the eru latched the shutters and closed the door, leaving us in darkness.
The mansa shaped a globe of cold fire. “Are we to be shut up like prisoners?”
A mouth glimmered on the latch. “I like it when he does that. Can he make more pictures?”
“Obviously we are promised secrets and then denied them!” I snapped, giving the latch a dark stare, although both Bee and the mansa did stare at me, for they could not hear the latch. Rory yawned, looking amused.
