31
The Cell
‘I suppose this was inevitable,’ Mer’esan said as she opened the door to the cottage. She caught sight of the markings around my eye and something like sympathy flickered in her expression. ‘Come inside. We’ll need to cover that up before someone sees you.’
As I entered, Mer’esan noticed the two squirrel cats following behind and her upper lip curled. ‘Hideous little monsters, aren’t they?’
Reichis sauntered past her. ‘You’re no prize yourself, you rancid old prune.’ He clambered onto the lone chair in the room, then hopped up onto a shelf and began examining the various trinkets adorning it.
‘Foul-mouthed too,’ Mer’esan said, motioning for me to stand beneath a lantern.
‘Wait … You can understand them?’
‘I’m three hundred years old, Kellen. You think I haven’t the magic to follow their simple little minds?’ She gave me a look of disdain that was remarkably like the ones Reichis kept giving me. I decided not to mention the similarity.
From within the folds of her garments, Mer’esan pulled out a small jar. She opened it and dipped a finger inside, then spread a small quantity of lotion over the markings around my left eye. She knew, I realised. Not just that I had the shadowblack, but that I’d end up back here.
‘There,’ she said, once she was done. She handed me the jar. ‘Keep this with you. The paste blends well enough with your natural skin colour, but you’ll need to put more on as it wears away over the course of the day.’ She grabbed my jaw and forced me to lock eyes with her. ‘This won’t protect you, you understand? Mages who know the spells will be able to track you if they want to. Believe me, son of the House of Ke, they will want to.’
‘Is there a cure? Can you—’
The dowager magus took a seat in her customary chair. ‘What did I tell you about asking questions to which you already know the answer?’
My heart sank. She was right – I already knew the answer. My parents had already confessed to me that they’d long feared I would contract the condition. They must have searched everywhere for a cure, if only so I didn’t embarrass our house and hurt my father’s bid to become clan prince. Was there ever a time, even just a moment, where they saw me as their son and not as some danger to our house that had to be dealt with?
‘Great,’ Reichis chittered, peering down at me from his perch on the shelf. ‘He’s crying again.’
‘I’m not—’
‘They are simple creatures,’ Mer’esan said. ‘For all their cunning, they do not comprehend the notion of sympathy.’
Reichis’s mother stepped forward and gave a low growl. The dowager magus bowed her head in reply. ‘I suppose you have a point, little mother. I stand corrected.’
‘What did she say?’ I asked.
‘She reminded me that our people sometimes suffer from the same deficiency.’
‘So it’s true? You’re locked in here?’ I started looking around the small one-room cottage, at the walls where they met the floor and the bottom edge of the door. I could find no signs of anything that might be used to hold a mage captive.
‘I can leave anytime I want,’ Mer’esan replied.
‘Then you aren’t a prisoner?’
‘We’re all prisoners in our own way, Kellen.’
‘Yes, but …’ I stopped, noticing the odd expression on her face and sensing that nothing I said or asked would get her to answer what I wanted to know. That, in and of itself, provided the explanation. ‘A mind chain,’ I whispered, awed that such a thing was even possible against a mage of Mer’esan’s power.
She said nothing in reply, merely leaned back in her chair, looking placidly at the wall in front of her as if it were a peaceful vista. The spells lighting up her skin beneath the silken fabrics she wore shifted and shimmered, her features changing back and forth, sometimes young and beautiful, almost innocent. Other times she looked as old as every one of her three hundred years.
A sudden anger overtook me. Who would chain her like this? Who would have the strength? Mer’esan was vastly more powerful than Ra’meth or even my father. Maybe if the whole council of lords magi were working in concert, but the chances of that were slim. That left only … Oh … ‘Your husband. The clan prince did this to you, didn’t he?’
Again there was no reply, as if she hadn’t heard my question. The mind chain keeps her from saying or doing anything that would impede its control over her. Underneath the calm exterior, I saw a deep sense of sorrow in her eyes. Sorrow, and betrayal.
Reichis’s mother walked over and clambered up onto the old woman’s lap. It was an oddly intimate gesture. ‘Disgusting creature,’ the dowager magus said, but then proceeded to stroke her fur.
‘What if we took you out of here?’ I asked. ‘Would the chain still—’
‘I like this old place,’ Mer’esan said before I could finish. ‘I’m used to it. It’s like my own little …’ she seemed to struggle with the next word before finally saying, ‘oasis.’
This is her power source. This was why she never left the cottage: only here did she have the strength required to maintain the spells holding her body together. ‘All these years … keeping yourself alive …’ Had she been waiting so long for the clan prince to finally die and for his spell to fade?
‘The things we build in life often outlast us,’ she said absently.
I took this to mean that the mind chain was too powerful. Even with her husband in the ground, she was still bound by it.
So then what? She figures out she’ll never be able to break the spell, that she’s going to go on like this, never able to reveal the truth, until she dies. All that left was waiting for an opportunity – for someone who might ask the right questions to unlock the chain. ‘That’s why you summoned me that first day,’ I said, knowing she wouldn’t reply. ‘You didn’t care if I passed my trials; you were looking for someone who might figure out your secret. That’s why you were so interested in Ferius. You thought that maybe an Argosi like her might uncover it … perhaps she could help you reveal it.’ But then why not just have someone bring Ferius here? Because that would be too direct. The mind chain would never allow it.
Mer’esan, the most powerful living mage of my people, had been left only with the hope that, by some combination of outside events and subtle manipulations, her secret could be discerned by the very weakest mage in our clan: me.
Okay, then do it. Figure out the secret that’s binding her.
I tried to think of ways of getting round the chain – some roundabout way of asking the question that might enable her to answer. But a spell this strong, cast by the clan prince himself – probably when he was at the height of his power – wasn’t going to be broken by some clever turn of phrase. No query, no riddle, no guessing game would uncover what was locked inside her. So think of something else. Change the game somehow.
‘What’s the plan, kid?’ Reichis asked.
There was a small table in the corner of the room. I dragged it in front of Mer’esan and reached into the pocket of my trousers for the deck of cards Ferius had given me. I laid them out on the table, face up. Four suits, each one with its little symbols: white seven-pointed stars we call septagrams, to represent the suit of spells and the Jan’Tep people, golden shields for the Daroman empire, silver chalices for the Berabesq, and black leaves for the Mahdek.
‘I would think someone with all your troubles would have better uses for his time than to play cards with an old woman,’ Mer’esan commented.
‘Just one game.’ I ran my fingertips across the surface of the cards. Each suit had the same numbers, but the names at the bottom were different. The highest card of the Daroman suit was the king, but for the Berabesq it was called ‘Grand Vizier’, and for the Jan’Tep, of course, ‘Clan Prince’. The cards went on like this, down to the lowest numbers, each one depicting people in various settings, like actors waiting to deliver their performance.
‘And what game do you wish to play?’ Mer’esan asked.
I caught her stare and tried to see in her eyes whether she understood – whether my ruse would enable her to navigate around the mind chain. I picked up one of the cards, a seven of leaves, representing something called a Mahdek shaman. I tossed it on the table in front of her. ‘Let’s make our own game,’ I replied.
Her eyes narrowed, but she gave me a small smile. ‘Clever,’ she said, and then reached to pick up the rest of the deck. ‘What shall we call this game of ours?’
‘Let’s name it after the one foe that can’t be defeated by magic,’ I replied. ‘The truth.’