The Schemes of Dragons

XIX

DUSK HALLOWED THE CORRIDORS of the main edifice of the temple complex as Geim led Toren up spiraling stairs to the third floor. They stopped before a door in the northeast corner of the building. Geim knocked. A thin, warbling voice responded.

They entered a small, hexagonal chamber whose walls overflowed with books, scrolls, and tablets. A high, arched window provided a view over the wall of the temple grounds-the city climbed into the heights of the gorge, and the final traces of sunlight scintillated off the snow banks of the high peaks. Sweet herb incense burned in a freestanding brazier. A narrow bed took up space along one wall; otherwise the only furniture consisted of a small round table and a broad, soft chair.

A man sat in the chair. As they entered he touched the lamp on the table and the wick caught, staving off twilight's impending gloom. The illumination flickered over a flowing white beard and glistened on a bald, age-mottled scalp. Toren stared at his host's hand, but the fingers held no match or striker.

Geim uttered a sentence. The old man nodded. Geim turned back to Toren and said, "This is Obo, former counsellor of Keron, King of Elandris."

The name jogged Toren's memory.

Obo inclined his head. "I see you've heard of me," he said. Though his voice quavered, each word seemed to echo.

"You were Ivayer's teacher. The wizard who made Geim's net," Toren replied. "You speak Mirienese?"

At the mention of Ivayer, Obo's eyes clouded. "Yes. My apprentice was with the party sent to capture you," he stated sadly. "And I made the talisman, though Struth had to teach me a few tricks to do it. As for the last, I was born in Mirien."

"Ivayer died well," Toren said. It was the highest compliment a modhiv could pay, but he could tell that Obo was not consoled.

"Yes. Geim told me." He ran his fingers through his beard. "Such a promising lad. I had hoped to finish training one last apprentice before my days came to an end."

"The men who killed him did not escape unscathed," Toren said.

"I care nothing about that," Obo said, ending the matter. "Geim tells me you're in a hurry to learn the High Speech. Did he mention what's involved?"

"No. The topic came up by accident."

"It's a dramatic technique. I've had to prepare for several weeks. But the result will be worth it. I would be happy to get it over with early. Have you eaten?"

The question took Toren by surprise. As if in response, his stomach growled. "Not since dawn, before entering the city."

"Excellent. That's best for this type of spell."

Toren's eyes narrowed. "Another spell? I am getting worn down by all this sorcery in my life."

"Young man," Obo said flatly, "if you could see your own aura, you would know that you were born to have sorcery in your life."

Geim shuffled. "I need to report to the high priestess that I located you, Toren. Are you staying?"

The modhiv shrugged. "Yes. I suppose so."

Geim made his excuses to Obo and departed.

"Very well," Toren told the wizard, "another spellcasting probably won't bruise me more than what I've been through today."

"It won't," Obo said reassuringly, as if he knew all about the totem's restoration. Toren had no doubt that he did. The modhiv had never met a person who projected such a sense of wisdom and knowledge. "Though I suspect you gained something, however uncomfortable the experience may have been."

"That remains to be seen," Toren said. It bothered him to think the sorcerer could guess that.

"Indeed." Obo lifted a tiny flask off a shelf and uncorked it. "Drink this. Be forewarned it will make you sleepy."

Another potion. Toren sighed and sniffed the concoction, catching a hint of licorice. He sipped carefully, no more than a drop, and a few moments later was surprised to discover that he had eagerly swallowed it all. He stared dumbfounded at the flask.

"More?"

"That's plenty," Obo said quickly.

The potion left a warmth like wine. His stomach stopped complaining. The promised effect was immediate. Drowsy and calm, he let Obo lead him to the bed. The modhiv tugged off his moccasins and stretched out on his back.

"Relax," Obo said. "Clear your mind. All is well." The words made an extraordinary amount of sense. The wizard pulled the chair close to the bed, sat, and placed a palm on Toren's forehead. The room faded, leaving only a faint afterimage of a cobweb high in the rafters.

He saw a cliff two thousand feet high, rising sheer above a plain, cut with deep erosion scars and banded with brilliant strata. His vantage point was a window of a farm house down on the plain. The setting left him with vague sensations of security, curiosity, and awe-childlike emotions.

Next came images of an island, and Toren, who had visited an ocean only on two brief occasions, realized that the vast expanse of water before him felt familiar. The island was Acalon, the center of the Calinin Empire, once the home of the wizard-kings, and still the best place for a sorcerer to get his training. He saw the columns and gardens of an ancient, distinguished academy. The people walking through the halls and along the paths spoke words that clung to his memory-not the content of their conversations, but the words themselves, the usage, the vocabulary, the grammar.

Next he saw another ocean; but this time, his view was from within it, looking through a glasslike dome at the waves above. The city within the dome was spectacular, exotic, beautiful, and the people in its streets spoke to him in the same language as that used in Acalon, but with a pure, precise flavor. They called the city Firsthold, capital of the nation of Elandris.

And finally Toren saw a forest, one of trees that dwarfed those of the Wood itself. The people there called the place Cilendrodel, and at times they spoke a tongue almost identical to the people beneath the sea, and at other times the words mutated into alternate forms, their metaphors calling up visions of wood and shade rather than sea and salt air, their dialects losing the uniformity of the city speech.

Toren knew what was happening to him. The experience was similar to that he had endured during his coming of age ceremony, when he had first received his totem. It differed in that the lives and personalities of his ancestors had come to him fullblown, whereas he was receiving only specific aspects of Obo's life-the general milieu, the cultures, languages, and scenery of the northern lands. Unlike his shaman, the sorcerer could control what was transferred.

Toren roused briefly. Obo stooped over him. Moons' light streamed through the window, supplementing that of the lamp.

"Don't try to hold it all," the mage cautioned. "Take in only what reaches for you."

Toren obeyed. He felt safe. The surroundings were becoming familiar. He was only slightly disconcerted to hear his own voice whispering passages of classic tomes. Neither he nor any of his tribe knew how to read or write. This spellweaving was quite the opposite of Struth and Janna's earlier in the day; the irony made him chuckle drunkenly. Obo was making himself Toren's ancestor.

He awoke with a ravenous appetite. Obo had obviously anticipated the need, for a stack of roast fowl and other tantalizing foodstuffs waited on the table. A small kettle of carrots boiled above the brazier.

Toren paused. Before going to sleep, he would have been unable to identify the carrots. Now he could name everything in the room.

Bright daylight streamed in, setting a cheerful mood. Obo strolled in, dragging a stool. "I don't often have visitors up here," he said amiably. "One chair is usually enough."

The magician spoke in the language that had haunted Toren's dreams. Toren paused, disoriented.

"What's the matter? Did your tongue fall off?"

"Good morning," Toren blurted. Yes, he had said it right. He grinned with almost childlike glee.

Obo smiled. "Excellent. No accent. It will become easier very soon. You'll have to practice, though. Transplanted speech patterns pale compared to those you actually use. That's why Deena and Geim couldn't teach you the High Speech. You might have continued to speak with their accents and other faults even after learning correct usage from me."

"You said you were born in Mirien. Have you no accent?" The image of the Great Cliff of Mirien spontaneously returned to Toren's mind.

"I left my home ninety years ago, and have used the speech of the Calinin ever since in one form or another. I have a good ear, and I had started to learn it as a child. I have my quirks, of course, but they'll not handicap you. Convenient, is it not, to learn a language in only three days?"

"Three days?"

"Well, three nights, to be precise. It's now the third morning since you went to sleep."

Toren nodded. Some part of him had kept track. "My tribe's shaman took a week to put my ancestors' spirits into me."

"That doesn't surprise me. It would have taken Struth and Janna that long to put them back had the pathways not been forged already. The part that took me so long was sorting out information. No need to transmit the tale of my life-you've enough going on in your head as it is. The language, the cultural referents, were all that were necessary. I shielded the rest. It's a technique you can use, by the way; it will help you keep your ancestors cooperative. Search within and you will find you already know how to summon that ability, a fringe benefit I thought you might appreciate."

For the first time, Toren realized he was not having to strain to muzzle the voices of his totem. "Thank you. I do appreciate it."

Toren trusted Obo. He remembered enough of the wizard's life to know that a good man sat across from him. This security, even more than the cultural transferral, mitigated the shock of being in an alien land. In all his life, the only "person" he had trusted at such a level was the collective voice of his totem, and with the latter disrupted, he valued the chance to talk with the old man.

Obo yawned. His lids drooped. In the full light of day, his pallor stood out all too clearly. His hand wavered unsteadily as he lifted the kettle lid.

"Are you well? Have you slept?" Toren asked.

"The spell did not exhaust me, if that's what you're concerned about. My part took only a few hours each evening. The rest of the time you were sorting the information, tucking it away. I am simply very old. Breathing tires me."

Suddenly he shrugged off his somber tone. His eyes regained their spark. "Enough of this serious talk. The food's ready. Let's not waste it. You have an audience with Struth today."

Starting gradually, Toren began to make up for his long fast. Either the potion had sharpened his taste buds, or the fruit and bread he ate were exceptionally flavorful. The meal almost banished the dread of confronting the frog god again.