She held a hand out. “May I?”
“Yes, Isaura, this is the puzzle I want you to help me with.” Chytrine gave her the ruby, then looked down and stroked her fingers over the yellow stone. “Tell me what you think of it.”
Isaura let both hands enfold the stone, then clutched it to her bosom. She closed her eyes and lowered her head. She forced away the sound of the fire and any sense of its heat. She willfully isolated her mind from all physical sensations and focused on the stone. Isaura felt resistance at first, then suddenly blasted past it.
“Oh!” She gasped aloud and recoiled, her hands opening. The stone dropped toward the floor, but before it could hit, a wave of sorcery caught it up and lifted it into the air again.
Isaura immediately dropped to her knees. “Forgive me, Mother.”
“Child, I am the one who needs forgiveness. I did not warn you.” Chytrine gestured fluidly and the ruby floated to the table. “What did you feel?”
Isaura concentrated. “Several magicks, Mother. It is linked to the True-stone, and strongly. There is a spell there that would take any magick seeking the stone and convert it into energy that feeds the link. It is as if tugging on a string here rings a bell further away. This decoy would call all the more loudly when searchers neared the Truestone.”
Chytrine smiled. “Yes, that spell was quite interesting and rather unexpected. And of the magick that created the fragment?”
The young woman frowned. “That is difficult to get a sense of. It is a very complex spell, because the duplicate really does carry with it some of the resonance of the original. It combines elements from four different themes of magick, but that’s not the most interesting thing. It seems constructed along the lines of a human spell, but there are elven and urZrethi elements in it. What is it?”
Chytrine shook her head. “I do not know, save that it indicates that the Southlands have a new champion, or the potential for one. It would be too much to hope he had been slain at Draconis. He is out there, I can feel it.”
Isaura glanced up, her eyes widening with horror. “Is it the Norrington, Mother?”
The Aurolani Empress arched an eyebrow. “What brings the Norrington to mind, daughter?”
“Only my concern for you. Nefrai-laysh said he had seen the Norrington, and that you had sent Myrall’mara to destroy him. I know you do not want me to worry about you, but I do. I cannot help it. I fear for you because of him.”
Chytrine strode to her and raised a hand to caress Isaura’s cheek. “Pet, you need not worry. This Norrington is but a pup. He will come to see reason as his father and grandfather did before him. There is danger, however. I need someone I can trust to help me deal with it. You, Isaura, shall be my agent.”
“Yes, Mother.” The girl’s face blossomed with a smile. “I won’t fail you. Whatever you need done, I shall do it.”
Chytrine took Isaura’s hands in her own. “I know you will, child. You must listen very carefully. You know there is a chance that events will cost me my life. Yrulph Kirun knew as much and groomed me to carry his mission forward. I must prepare against that eventuality, so I will send you south, that you may see the conditions there for yourself. You will know what I have told you is true.”
“I already know that, Mother. I know it in my heart and mind.”
“Isaura, dearest, you know better than to assume that untested ice is strong. And though you accept every word I have said about the south, what you see will make the urgency of my mission that much more clear to you.” Chytrine nodded slowly and gave her hands a squeeze. “Soon enough, daughter, you shall repair to the south and see for yourself. Once you are finished there, I shall have more work for you. With your willing aid, this coming winter shall be the Southlands’ last.”
9
Will didn’t even turn to look back toward the fire as the stick snapped. “Couldn’t sleep, Kerrigan?” The other’s breath caught in his throat. “Oh, the stick cracking told you someone was here. None of the others would have stepped on it, would they?”
A tiny part of Will wanted to reply, “No, you stone-footed oaf,” but he withheld that comment. He shrugged and pointed to a moss-saddled portion t of the log he sat on. “Only me, but that’s because I’m the only person less suited to being in the woods than you. Resolute’s worked hard to learn me things, but not all of it takes.“
Kerrigan sat and pulled his blanket tight around his shoulders. “You don’t have to humor me, Will.”
“I wasn’t.”
The jowly mage nodded. “You are a thief. Stepping on something like a stick would alert householders, so you would have learned long ago not to do I that. Moreover, I’ve seen you in the woods, but I’ve not heard you.”
The thief couldn’t suppress his smile as he glanced at Kerrigan. Off to the left, twenty yards back, the fire around which Princess Alexia’s bodyguards slept blazed merrily. At the southern end of that circle, a tent had been pitched to provide the married couple some privacy. A stake had been driven into the ground in front of it, and twin chains that led to anklets snaked in through the flaps. Beyond it, another twenty yards on, lay the Tolsin camp-fire, with Mably and his men positioned between the prisoner and the horses.
Out away from the fire only a fragment of its light and none of its heat touched them. “I really didn’t mean to be humoring you, Ker.”
The mage looked up. “Care?”
“Ker, like the first part of your name? I know you don’t want to be called Keri, but Kerrigan is kind of a mouthful. It’s a nickname, you know?”
Kerrigan shook his head. “No, I don’t. I’ve never had one.”
Will blinked. “Never? I’ve had lots, and even get called by one. Okay, look, Will is my nickname.” He lowered his voice. “My real name is Wilburforce.”
Kerrigan nodded solemnly. “That’s a good, strong name.”
“Now you’re humoring me.”
“Oh, no, I’m being quite sincere. In the Twilight Campaign, there was an Oriosan cavalry commander, Wilburforce Eastlan, who helped drive Kree’chuc north. Surely you know that, and know that is why your name is taken as a particularly good omen.” Kerrigan looked at him with innocent, green eyes. “When we passed through the Valsina area, that’s what people were saying.”
“You know this history stuff, and you don’t know what a nickname is?”
The mage shrugged. “On Vilwan we did not use nicknames.” He hesitated for a moment, then frowned. “I must amend that. On Vilwan I never had one. I don’t know about the others.”
Something in Kerrigan’s voice piqued Will’s curiosity. He turned, bringing his left shin to lie across the trunk of the fallen tree. “You didn’t have any friends who called you stuff? Sometimes, like in the winter, some of the other kids would call me Chill because it rhymes with Will, and is another word for ‘brrrr,’ which is part of my name and because my feet were cold in the bed. I hated that. The ‘Chilly-willie’ name.”
The mage canted his head to the right and nodded a couple of times. Will knew he was taking apart the nickname, studying it the way Resolute had him study tracks in the dirt. Finally, Kerrigan looked at him again and blinked a couple of times. “I see how they got it, yes. And, no, I didn’t really have friends. I remember, when I was very young, that there were some other students who studied with me, but pretty soon we were split up and I was given to tutors like Orla, though none of them was her equal.”
“You had no friends?” Will tried to keep the surprise out of his voice, but failed completely. “No one to joke with, to tease, nothing?”
Kerrigan recoiled from the questions. “Vilwan is a different sort of place.”
“I remember. I was there.” Will stopped short of pointing out that while he was there, he had seen plenty of mages who had friends, who fought together in teams, who could joke. Even Orla had had a sense of humor at times. “I was there at the siege.”