The Sleeping Life

Chapter Thirty-Two

Rennyn woke, and celebrated that fact. Then she groaned, coughed, and croaked: "Illidian?"

"Off at a Kellian meeting."

Rubbing grit from her eyes, Rennyn blinked at late afternoon light drifting through open windows, then shifted in time to see Kendall closing a Sigillic dictionary. The girl stood up, arms folded.

"How do you feel?"

The question sounded portentous, but the answer surely unsurprising. Rennyn’s skin itched, her feet throbbed, and the inside of her throat was raw. Her bladder ached—though she was at least far less grimy than on her last waking. She…

Rennyn lifted her hand to her throat, found a thin chain, and traced it to a wire pendant holding her focus. On the way, her fingers brushed the tender line she’d cut into her own skin, scored across the bite mark. Then she levitated.

It was the kind of self-indulgent Thought Magic she had not dared for months, and her attention was all for how her aching body reacted to a sustained flow of Efera. She drifted up to the ceiling.

"Enjoying yourself?" Kendall asked, with the particularly fierce glower Rennyn had learned to recognise as an attempt to hide pleasure.

"Yes, rather," Rennyn said, but allowed herself to sink back down to a sitting position. "So they got the miscasting off me?" She felt dizzy, but it was from sudden, violent relief, not the bone-deep physical weakness that had dogged her for so long.

"This morning. They decided they had to try, because…it was something about your heartbeat going too slow. And also, I think, because a whole bunch of them wanted to show each other up and be the one to do something that even you couldn’t manage."

"There are advantages to rescuing a few dozen mages. Did they use my Wicked Uncle’s focus?"

"Yes—they got Captain Faille to crush it. I think he liked that. You’re still sick, though, and run down and all that stuff, and are supposed to stay warm and not do anything much."

"I think I’ll take myself to the privy," Rennyn said, with a level of pleasure that a year ago she would never have associated with such a statement.

"I’ll get you something hot to eat," Kendall said. "Don’t go wandering—I’m not supposed to be letting you out of my sight."

It felt like no effort at all for Rennyn to whisk herself down the corridor and back, but by the time she regained the bed the tremor she hated had come back to her hands. Run down, too many weeks without regular casting exercises, or a physical weakness she would never escape? Destroying her Wicked Uncle’s focus made for appropriate symbology, but undoubtedly killing him would have been a better choice to rid her of all trace of the miscasting.

She coughed for a while, numbed the pain in her feet, and decided that whatever the case it was still an improvement on yesterday. The great hurdle had been overcome. She could move on to other concerns.

The tremor had mostly gone by the time Kendall returned, and she managed, under the girl’s critical eye, to eat without dropping spiced mince all over herself.

"What is the meeting about?" Rennyn asked, once the edge had been taken off her hunger.

"You think they tell me stuff like that?"

"That depends on the meeting. And whether you picked up enough to make a few educated guesses."

Kendall shrugged. "Your stupid uncle, mostly. A bit about that smug-ass Emperor as well."

That made sense. Two major potential threats to the future of the Kellian.

"Are any of the mages we rescued still here?"

"Most of them. You’ve only been asleep a day. They’re still all covered in leaf patterns, and they never shut up."

This had been delivered with a particularly aggrieved note. "And how have they been annoying you?"

"That blabbermouth told them I can Thought cast. Talking of people who never shut up."

"Fallon? Aurienne?"

"Auri," Kendall confirmed. "You’ve given Fallon your cold, and he’s already sicker than you are."

Rennyn frowned. "I hope they’re staying close together. I think Fallon is still sustaining her."

"He still dreams of her all the time he sleeps, so yes. Captain Faille told her to stay in the so-called Dezart’s room, and put Fallon in with her. Last I checked, she was trying on all his clothes." A pause. "Are you going to take her on as a student? She seems to think you will."

"Not for Thought Magic," Rennyn said firmly. "Unless she demonstrates considerably more focus than I’ve seen so far. But I don’t have a problem trying to teach her devising—if only to keep her in check. Unless something comes up, I’ll start you on the exercises for abstract casting tomorrow. And what is that expression about?"

After a very long pause indeed, Kendall muttered: "It should have been Sukata."

"Should it? Why should it have been Sukata?"

"Because she’s the one who wants to be a real mage!"

Rennyn summoned her hairbrush from a far bench, and considered the girl curiously. Kendall had clearly spent the day brooding over Sukata’s feelings instead of celebrating her own progression—or the satisfactory-sounding conversation the two girls had had before Maja Keshkant arrived.

"And so?" Rennyn said at last. "Your progress won’t impede Sukata’s. Are you not even a little bit pleased with your own achievements? Ignoring that it’s a terrible term to use, don’t you want to be a real mage?"

"No," Kendall said, screwing up her nose. "I already told you that! It’s so boring. I’m never going to wrap my head around what makes the Eferum work the way it does, and why it makes monsters, and all that. When your brother starts on about it, it just sounds like blah blah blah to me. I can’t make myself care about it. What’s wrong with just casting these standard forms?"

Highly entertained, Rennyn said: "There is some space in between taking on Seb’s love of Eferum theory and only memorising established Sigillics. My family specialised in Eferum theory because they thought it necessary to defeat Solace, but the plan that ended up being used was nothing to do with the Eferum. You can be a devising mage, and a good one, while ignoring Eferum theory altogether."

"And I don’t want to kill people!" Kendall burst out. "Look at Auri! Not only did she make a mess of herself, she almost took the Pest with her. And that wasn’t even with some new spell she made up, or all the guesswork that seems to go into this Symbolic rot. It’s just not worth it."

This was fascinating. Rennyn had put Kendall’s reluctant approach to the Sigillic exercises down to being so far behind Sukata and Fallon, not because the known forms represented safety. There was still a great deal she didn’t know about Kendall, and why she was so insistent that people didn’t "mind each other’s business". Had she been wrong to respect the girl’s privacy, to not have her past investigated?

"Aurienne is not who you should be comparing yourself to," Rennyn said mildly. "If the past few years haven’t cured her of hasty overconfidence, I’ll certainly work to do so, for it’s the worst trait for a mage. As for devising Sigillics that work, and only do the things that you want them to: it’s really not the great mystery you seem to consider it. First you learn the basics, then the accepted forms, and then apply what you know to a problem, and compose the solution that doesn’t kill people."

Kendall’s expressions were wonderful. All that disdain and disgust packed into a single glare.

"You say that like it’s simple. But every second mage I’ve met is terrified of what you do."

"Every second mage you’ve met has been taught that copying is the best approach," Rennyn said. "Think of it as cooking soup. No, don’t roll your eyes at me. You’re saying you only ever want to cook by using an exact recipe someone else has made up, without even adding a tiny extra bit of salt, because you can kill people with soup."

"You can if you put in the wrong mushrooms."

"Exactly. The first step is learning how to identify mushrooms."

"Do you ever cook?" Kendall asked irrelevantly. "I’ve never seen you."

Rennyn laughed, then took a sip of water to soothe her throat. "I have a basic competence. I haven’t put the time in for more, since it’s always been easier to buy someone else’s expertise. Seb knows how to cook the three or so things he likes most, but nothing else."

"You really think I could write spells that don’t hurt people? I don’t understand half the reasons you cast the way you do."

"Kendall, you’ve only been learning Efanian for a handful of months. I fully expect you to compose workable Sigillics, and at least understand the fundamentals of Symbolic casting as well. You have both a good memory and a strong will, which will help considerably, and beyond that it really is going to depend both on your basic feel for casting, and on what you’re trying to do. Isn’t there anything you’ve ever wanted to do with magic that people can’t currently do?"

That produced a blank stare and then a withdrawal. The girl muttered something too low for Rennyn to make out, but then lifted her chin and said: "I sure as shine don’t want to end up chained to any statues. Or to turn myself into one."

"No, nor hung up in a garden to dry," Rennyn agreed. "I certainly can’t predict whether becoming a mage will lead to such a fate, or merely make you better able to protect yourself. Corusar’s problem, at least, is one of rule, and becoming a devising mage will not inevitably put you in charge of an Empire."

From Kendall’s expression it appeared Rennyn must too clearly have shown how enjoyable she found the idea of Empress Kendall, but the door opened and Illidian came in before Rennyn could entertain herself further.

"I’ll go check on the Pest," Kendall said hastily, and took Rennyn’s tray away.

When the door had closed behind the girl, Rennyn put down her water glass and considered her husband. Had she imagined the tension in him when she’d transferred Aurienne to Corusar’s golem?

He banished any immediate concerns by sitting beside her and kissing her thoroughly.

"You’ll catch my cold," she protested, at the first pause.

"Unlikely." He tangled his fingers in her hair, but restrained himself to only another brief kiss before saying: "It is not simple wishful thinking to say that I can see at a glance that the miscasting truly is gone. It’s in the very way you hold yourself."

"I do feel like several anchors have been cut loose," she said agreeably. "Fel, it’s been a complicated couple of days. I suspect we’ll need to take ourselves back to Koletor rather quickly, too, to get Fallon and Aurienne untangled. If he’s maintaining her waking and sleeping now, he’s going to struggle."

"Meniar and Sarana have come to the same conclusion. They do not expect an immediate decline, but it does not help that you have shared your cold. You don’t feel you can solve the issue without Corusar?"

"It would be a risk. Golems…" She paused, then laughed softly. "Golems really are out of my area of expertise, and I’ve not encountered the idea of copying memory at all before." She glanced up at him. "Those transfers bothered you, didn’t they?"

"The question of how separate he is from his copies does. I felt very distinctly that the person we knew as Samarin hated the mask he carried. Is that because the Emperor, trapped as he is, finds all masks intolerable, or is it because the Emperor-become-Samarin is a person with a five month lifespan?"

"The mask a symbol of servitude to his other self?"

"Something in that order."

Rennyn followed this philosophical thread to the point of making herself dizzy again, then said: "I have no idea whether there is an answer to that. I don’t think he limits the lifespan to prevent himself—his copy self—from abandoning whatever Imperial task he’s been set and making for the nearest border. Most of Corusar’s casting power is taken up with the enchantments set on the throne room, so creating a copy at all is quite a feat. I think it was important to him—Samarin, I mean—that we recovered the missing mages."

"And asking Corusar for Samarin’s opinion of the use made of him would gain little."

Rennyn hesitated. "I don’t know that the copy’s identity would necessarily be lost or subsumed," she said. "To a certain degree, it may even be dominant. Though…no, it would have to take some form of merging, or Corusar would have a reputation for occasionally forgetting several months of state business. Has that mask been sent on already?"

"This morning. Depending on your condition, we will follow tomorrow morning."

She felt her own momentary withdrawal.

"We will not force you to wake the Ten," he murmured, after a pause. "It is a request, not a duty."

"No, I think it is exactly that," she said. "A duty of my family to people who are, substantially, a branch of that family. I keep shying away from the idea, but I think eventually I would have asked to see the Ten even if I had not stayed with you."

Illidian twined a strand of her hair around his fingers, watching it slip and fall. He was wearing another of her ribbons around his wrist: his own form of Symbolic Magic. Their marriage had been a series of challenges, but they met each one with—she would not even call it a determination not to be parted, but instead a mutual drawing together. Staying together was not work because she was as much home to him as he was to her.

Touching the tip of one of his fingers, she traced the shape of the nail: not a sharp point, but it was longer than he had allowed himself for months.

"I no longer see blood beneath them," he murmured. "But the nightmares have not stopped."

Rennyn did not waste breath on platitudes, admitting instead: "I still don’t think I could sit through the end of that play. Even after watching him flinch as I took a piece of broken glass to his throat. I’m not altogether sure even killing him would have…maybe eventually."

"We have chosen to end our hunt for Prince Helecho." His tone was resigned. "Unless we discover he has found a way to cause harm. It is far from ideal for us, but we cannot justify killing him merely to protect ourselves from the possibility of inheritance."

Rennyn curled her fingers through his, thinking of the Kellian under the command of her Wicked Uncle. Her decisions had tied their hands, and so the possible ascendency of Helecho Montjuste-Surclere would haunt them for years to come. Not so complete a nightmare as Solace, but a thing to dread.

She wondered whether the Ten also had nightmares about Solace’s return. Endlessly, without waking. The idea made it feel like pure cowardice to postpone any longer, so she dressed and Illidian carried her through the drowsing shadows of late afternoon to where the Ten slept. Only Darian Faille joined them, falling silently into step with her son as they walked up the gentle slope to the Ten’s resting place. It was a beautiful afternoon, with southern light picking out points of colour on the hillside. Rennyn felt none of the reluctance she had experienced on their previous visit, merely an acceptance that this task belonged to her, as much as any magical puzzle.

But she could not help but remember the conversation she had had with Darian after her first visit to the Ten. Children. Kellian leadership. An endless reel of complications that brought her back to the possibility that the Symbolic casting that maintained the Kellian could unravel. She would certainly be glad to no longer be able to command them inadvertently, but she knew very well that it was not a solution Illidian—that any of the Kellian—would choose.

Autumn had come to the fan-shaped cave. Vivid leaves and berries, arranged in wreaths and garlands, decorated the walls and the stone coffins. Did the Kellian bring flowers in spring, and layer symbols of renewal on this place that spoke so strongly of death? Or had this been done in preparation for Rennyn’s visit, so that the original Kellian constructs would wake to a celebration of colour?

With an effort of will, Rennyn focused on the nine still-living constructs. When Solace’s control had been withdrawn, they had learned to protect each other, had found a friend and guide, and then discovered joy in creation. Had lived long lives, and now…

Imbuing into her voice all the command she tried to avoid around the Kellian, Rennyn said: "Wake up."

There was no immediate response, no alteration to the steady hush of sleepers' breath. Rennyn did not allow herself to hope this continued, for a non-response would only make matters more complicated. A minute shift in Illidian’s stance warned her of change, and her ear more than her eye detected a series of tiny movements among the sleepers. Then larger alterations: a hand raised to a face, a turn, a lifted head.

"I give you welcome," Darian Faille said, and her voice seemed firmer than usual, deep with added emotion. "I am glad."

Two of the sleepers sat up, and both moved their hands in response. Rennyn had only begun to learn Kellian hand-speaking, and could not follow.

"Thank you, child of Faille’s line," Illidian murmured, translating. "I give you thanks, Darian." Then, the one third from the left—Seya—rose, and Illidian added: "You have brought us a child of the Queen."

"This is Rennyn, eldest child of Tiandel’s line," Darian said. "In her lies the ability to command all descended from the Ten."

"We saw this one when the Queen returned," Seya responded. Her gaze had shifted to Rennyn, and her hands moved swiftly. "You asked if the Queen could separate herself from us. And yet your intention was the Queen’s death."

"Yes," Rennyn agreed, as more of the shadowy, attenuated women sat up. "I—in truth, I was not very eager to kill her. I was hoping she would answer differently, that she would show some sign of remorse."

"And what is it that you ask of us now?"

Rennyn realised her heart was beating faster. Was she imagining a palpable sense of threat? Before her were nine women who had been created to protect Solace Montjuste-Surclere, who had been used and abandoned, and who were far from likely to accept a replacement for Solace. Who had just been told that Rennyn could command their children.

"Tiandel exiled you from Tyrland," she said carefully. "Abandoned you. I came to apologise for that, and to revoke that exile. You are free to…" She hesitated, then repeated definitively. "You are free. Come and go as you please. Live and…live and die as you wish. I will aid you and yours if you ask that of me, but the line of Montjuste-Surclere claims only kinship with you, not ownership."

Nine pairs of grey eyes studied her, occasionally catching a flicker of torchlight. Nine heads turned as the Kellian forebears looked at each other. Rennyn took a long breath, and realised that her jumping pulse marked more than nerves. A steady flow of power was being drawn from her. In waking the Kellian constructs she had begun to actively feed the Symbolic casting that sustained them.

Two days ago, this would have killed me.

"We give you thanks, Rennyn of Tiandel’s line," Illidian translated, when Seya’s hands moved again. "And we give you welcome. To our home. To our family."

They rose then, from their coffins, and walked down to greet the children of their children. They admired the changes to their settlement, met the youngest of their grandchildren, and shared silent words and gentle embraces.

Then, one by one, they returned to the cave decked in crimson and gold, and died.