Now she had manifested another ability: healing. She had cured herself of a troublesome injury, without even realizing. Illusion could be marvelous, but in the end it was transitory. Real magic lasted. Her healing, supposedly a mask over injury, had eliminated the injury itself.
They came to the end of the row. “Come inside,” her mother said. “I will bandage your hand.”
Because they could not let it be known that the healing had taken place. After a week, yes, but not after a day. After less than an hour, actually.
Nona followed her mother to the house.
A week later the bandage was reduced to a thin wrapping around the finger, and that was masked by a spot illusion. Only those who actually touched her hand sensed the bandage. In a few more days she would remove that, and wear only a small scar—which would actually be illusion, because her finger had healed scarlessly.
The errant boy, Jick, had been severely disciplined. He now wore a muzzle. It would be long before he bit another person—and if he did, he might be subject to the discipline of the despots, who well might conjure away his teeth. Nona had been relieved of her assisting, not because they thought her injured or culpable, but because it was policy to let things settle after an incident.
She used the time to query her mother, when they could converse with minimal risk. Her father worked at the castle as a horse trainer, so was no problem in the day. It was not that he would willingly betray her secret, but that the despots could use their terrible magic to get anything from anyone who knew anything. Only complete lack of suspicion protected her. So she acted like a somewhat spoiled juvenile, sleeping late, until her mother hinted strenuously that she should help with the field-work. Then, grudgingly, she went out to tackle the relentless weeds beside her mother, and only then, their real purpose masked by the charade, did they talk. Even so, it was in interrupted segments, so that any magical eavesdropping would pick up only an innocuous fragment.
Nona would soon be eighteen. If she did not find out how to save Oria before then, she might not be able to thereafter. She was the only one of all the theows who could do it. This was her window of opportunity.
“But why not longer?” she asked.
Because, her mother clarified in snatches between weeds, a woman’s magic came to her through her ancestry, and departed through her babies. With each baby she had, she would lose part of her power, until the ninth would take the last of it, and she would be no more than an ordinary caretaker. In addition, she would have to care for the children, and that would anchor her to her house. She could not afford to marry, or if she did, she could not afford to have children.
“But I don’t want to anyway,” Nona protested. Indeed, whether because of her raising or her nature, she was appalled by the prospect of becoming a brood mare. Romance she could handle, but that notion stopped short of baby birthing.
Her mother only smiled sadly. Marriage and babies and deepening poverty were a theow woman’s destiny; everyone knew that. It was an aspect of the system. Only those who had significant magic lived well; the others got along as well as they could. Those who became too poor to sustain themselves, whether because of age or depletion, disappeared: the despots had little tolerance for burdens.
“But how?” she asked.
That was the key question. She had more or less understood the answers to the others, for they were common knowledge. But since the magic power Nona had was no more than that possessed by the despots, that was not enough to oppose them. It merely signaled her nature. Perhaps it would continue to grow as she aged—but not if she started having babies. Since it would be hard to avoid having babies if the despots remained in power, that prospect seemed insufficient.
“You must ask the Megaplayers,” her mother murmured, hardly loud enough to be heard.
The Megaplayers! But they were long gone, now hardly more than a memory. Only their giant stone instruments remained, weathering at the brink of the sea, awesome monuments to the greatness of the past. Of course the despots would not have a chance if the Players returned! Yet surely the Megaplayers were dead.
Her mother shook her head. “They live.”
How could she know that? But Nona trusted her. The Players lived.
Still, how could she find the Players, to ask them anything? And if she did, why would they pay any attention to her? She was only a lowly theow woman.
Her mother smiled. “Music.”
If there was one thing Nona excelled at, it was music. She had a natural talent for it, enhanced by her magic, which sublimated in this expression. Now she realized that the Megaplayers had to be musical. Consider their instruments!
So she had her answer. She would have to seek the Players where their instruments lay. She would have to appeal to them, and if they responded, they might act to abolish the despots. It would be easy, for them, for the magic of the Megaplayers was like none known since.
Yet what had banished the Players, long ago? Surely it could only have been some power even greater than they. Where was that power now?
Nona shook her head. Whatever the answers were, she had perhaps two months to find them. Then she would be eighteen, and her fate would pursue her.
SHE could not risk a trip alone to the instruments. This was not because there was physical danger, for the region was sanguine. It was because it might alert the suspicion of the despots. She had to have a seemingly unrelated pretext to go there.
So she did the obvious: she made a date with Stave to view the sea. The fact was that the place of the instruments was a rendezvous for lovers, because of the bracing sea air and the lingering magic of the region. But she specified afternoon, thus signaling that the prospects for romantic involvement were limited. He, however, was free to hope that if the afternoon excursion turned out to be successful, there would be an evening liaison on another occasion. He was happy to agree to the date.
The day was beautiful. There had been recent rain, and the meadows were greening. Even the dread castle of the despots, at the crest of the highest hill, looked almost pretty. Of course it had not been built by the despots; they had merely moved in after the Megaplayers left. So whatever beauty it possessed was what lingered despite its present occupancy.
She wore her best red theow tunic with the matching slippers. Stave, more sensibly garbed in his dull blue work tunic, was taken aback. “You’ll soil it on the grass!” he protested.
“Not if I don’t sit,” she replied.
“Of course,” he agreed, politely masking his disappointment. Couples normally sat near the brink of the cliffs, looking out over the waves, and drew close when the sea winds were chill. It was a most seductive pretext. Hands could stray as far as desired or tolerated, concealed under those tunics. In fact, almost anything could be done under tunics, when both parties wished.
She did not want to turn him off, however. She had no intention of getting serious, but Stave was a decent young man who deserved decent treatment. Had she desired a settled life and babies, he would have been as good a choice to share them with as any. “If I do sit, it will be on you,” she said. “So that my tunic will not touch the ground.”
He pondered that as they walked. There were ways and ways to interpret it, and some of them were intriguing. His disappointment faded.