novelones CHAPTER 145 – To Balance the Scales
CHAPTER 145 – To Balance the Scales
What she had achieved would have been considered impossible by most magicians; even Taerelle – who knew Saphienne’s potential better than anyone at the time – wouldn’t have entertained it as plausible. To attune herself to the magic of an intrusive enchantment and bend it to her will was an arcanum to rival the greatest secrets of elven spellcraft, and what she had subsequently done went beyond all hitherto understanding.
But Saphienne didn’t know that. She suspected her accomplishment was impressive, taking pride in the doing, yet she didn’t know just how inconceivable her feat would have appeared to the High Masters of the Luminary Vale.
Still, there was something that would have given them even greater pause:
Her work had only just begun.
* * *
Saphienne observed herself from a remove as she was bid a good morning by Tolduin and sent down into the parlour to join Sundamar, letting the obedient woman continue. The sensation was comparable to spiritual possession guiding her body, save that she could perceive faint, impaired thoughts running in parallel to her richer cognition.
Halfway to her family home, she effortlessly resumed control, suspending her meek self until she needed her again.
This was not dissociation: her proxy had been shaped by Hyacinth and refined by her own hand. Having established that her brain was structured in a recurrent, magnifying pattern, Saphienne had hypothesised that she could sacrifice the uppermost layer in order to reproduce a shallow facsimile of herself. Hyacinth had obeyed, duly cordoning off the remainder with a light yet impenetrable band of scarring, splitting her conscious mind in two and placing the weaker in control.
This was why the elves around Saphienne had noted her regression. She’d essentially instructed Hyacinth to repeat on her consciousness what she’d done to preserve her unconscious self, thereby clothing her in a disguise. The night before meeting Tolduin, Hyacinth had then pruned all rebellious memories from her double, making a stunted version of Saphienne that could cooperate with the priest.
Beneath, reduced in acuity yet essentially herself, Saphienne had been poised.
Her recollection of her subjective experience with the sculptor was hazy… yet the fact she was present meant all had unfolded in accordance with her design. She’d evaded detection, grasped the flame of selfhood she’d desperately sealed away, then wielded the transmutation that was intended to pacify her, breaking down the warped patterns grown in the space between her inner being and the decoy — snuffing herself out in trust that her freed fire would swiftly rekindle her original, purer blaze.
Now faint snow was falling in the grove, and each breath of crisp air was indescribably refreshing, rendered more so by the thrum in Saphienne’s chest where she felt the enchantments carried by Sundamar.
She was herself again!
…Mostly. Owing to the portion of her brain surrendered to the ruse, she was a heartbeat slower than she’d been at her peak. Despite being physically alert, mentally she felt as though she’d slept not quite restfully.
She was satisfied with the exchange. When she no longer needed camouflage, she would reclaim her ceded ground.
Arriving at their destination, Saphienne could feel the hum of an abjuration surrounding the tree, pleased that it intensified as she approached and calmed when Sundamar drew closer. She passed the binding without incident, sure now that she’d been correct about its function and author. Were the Second Sense available for her to memorise, she would have loved to scrutinise Vestaele’s handiwork…
“Hello my darling.” Lynnariel was sitting on the couch, daydreaming with her fascinator, and she dimmed the gemstone as she rose to greet her daughter. “Were you good for Tolduin today?”
Had Hyacinth warned Lynnariel today was special? “Yes.”
“Would you like to play in your room?”
What she would have liked to do would’ve been to unleash her fire on Sundamar, destroy the arrows that impeded her spellcasting, and then go rampaging through the vale in laughing carnage until she caught up to Tolduin — there to deliver an overdue reckoning.
Yet absent her sigils, Saphienne chose instead to do something far more dangerous: to exercise patience. “Yes.”
“Go on, then.”
She let her simple self take over as she climbed the stairs. Once she was free, she would never again sketch another frog–
No. No, she would draw one more frog, calling upon all her artistic skill to render it in breathtaking detail.
Then, she would burn it.
* * *
Whim led her to feign reading with the fascinator before bed.
This time, imagining herself was an entirely conscious act, guided by creativity rather than her deepest currents. The dragon who took shape beside her was under her control… yet she allowed her mischief to express whatever felt appropriate.
“I suppose you think it’s hilarious to evoke me again,” her reflection muttered, eyes rolling and tail flicking. “Are you gloating about no longer requiring me? Or has your suffering driven you mad, and talking to yourself is to remain a habit?”
Perhaps both; and yet, another sentiment stirred in Saphienne’s chest.
“I see.” The frilled tail stilled as her imagined self smiled. “You feel grateful; this is your way of expressing gratitude to that part of yourself which conveyed you back to health.”
A partial truth.
“Whatever else could it be?” The conjuring of the magician’s mind leant back on her palms, contemplating Saphienne. “Surely not sympathy? Don’t be ridiculous! I’m just a dream that was born in response to what was visited upon you. I haven’t disappeared into oblivion: your flourishing is my flourishing.”
Rationally, she knew that to be true.
“But irrationally…” Her projection quietly laughed. “…Oh, Saphienne; you really have been maddened by what they did to you. Whatever affection you feel for me, the debt you owe is not to me, but to your mother and Hyacinth. They’re the ones who saved you.” She pictured herself sitting forward, whispering into her ear. “This sentimentality is unbecoming of a dragon. I’m just a figment of your imagination! Of what possible use am I to you now?”
A fair question. She reached for the enchantment.
“If you ever find an answer,” promised the fading fascination, “I’ll be waiting.”
* * *
Hyacinth possessed Saphienne as she slept, dismayed to discover her beloved master sitting peacefully on the broken steps without scale or horn.
Overwhelming grief made her sink down upon her field. “…No…”
The elf watched her in tranquil confusion.
“…Saphienne…” Hyacinth took a shuddering breath as her petals blackened. “I never should have let you persuade–”
Thrusting up through the flowers, a clawed hand gripped her ankle.
* * *
Saphienne giggled as her isle took shape around Hyacinth; she swayed insouciantly to where the bloomkith sat staring out over the glimmering sea. “So my façade also suffices against spiritual intrusion! Good to know.”
Hyacinth spun around in shock, and her blossoms burned fiery red as she surged to her feet. “You live!”
“Of course I–”
The dragon was thrown back by an enthusiastic embrace, falling to the grass and succumbing to the kiss thrust on her. So intense were the joy and catharsis emanating from the spirit that the ground around them sprouted with hyacinths, and Saphienne let the keepsakes linger, her frilled ears fluttering, relishing their reunion with her newly forked tongue.
“…I’m sorry,” she said when Hyacinth sat up. “I wasn’t trying to tease you. I needed a moment to pull you in.”
“Your evil taunt shall not forgiven be.” The bloomkith smiled deviously where she straddled her lover, yellow gaze sultry. “Not lest you earn my trust; then we shall see.”
Blushing under her warmth, Saphienne appreciatively traced Hyacinth’s curves with claws that were no longer blunted, delicately avoiding scratching her skin, threatening to trim her petals. “However will I prove the sincerity of my apology?”
“By showing me around this new domain.” She stood and stepped back.
The magician groaned. “Wicked flower! Your teasing is deliberate.”
“You may command me yield with secret name…”
Saphienne swatted the bloomkith with her tail as she clambered up. “Don’t even jest. I’m trying not to think of you that way; I don’t want to change you.”
Hyacinth’s blossoms diminished to tender pink. “Then from rhyme I shall relent. Explain this scene?”
Taking her arm, Saphienne led the spirit along the shore, indicating the submerged, fiery green that illuminated the waters of the vast cavern in which they were enclosed; no sigils twinkled above, not yet. “This is a sacred place — no one else but you will ever see this view. I fashioned it from my memories.”
Hyacinth pondered the ocean extending into the boundless distance. “Alike the lake upon the vale, this island. Are we within the cave beneath the shrine to Our Lord of the Endless Hunt?”
“As it first appeared when I drank holy brew.”
“Those mourning leaves I know,” the bloomkith added, gesturing to the tree that grew on the opposite end of the isle. “Surprised am I to see them here, given the hand which planted their sapling.”
“…It represents the outside world.”
“And the pavilion? ‘Tis your daily prison.”
Saphienne’s smile was bittersweet. “For now. But Gaeleath’s studio was once where I furthered my art most freely. Would you like to see?”
Together they strolled into the shade of the weeping willow, overlarge where it veiled the tent pavilion, soon crossing the threshold. As they entered the space beyond – far grander and more permanent than ought have been contained – faint laughter and the sound of running feet startled Hyacinth, who stared suspiciously at the shelves and plinths arranged before them.
“I know that presence,” murmured the bloomkith.
“We’re nearer to her here.” Saphienne was relaxed as she brought the spirit to the middle of the stacks, where two comfortable armchairs that had belonged to another wizard faced the fireplace from the library. “There’s a door somewhere… I haven’t looked for it. Oh, and if you see a frog or a toad crawling around, don’t mind them.”
“Pets?”
“Reminders of myself.” She lounged on one of the chairs. “I gave them liberty to roam and hide wherever they choose. Should Tolduin ever raze this place, they will endure.”
“I cannot feel the pattern of your brain,” Hyacinth confessed, electing to sit on Saphienne’s robed lap rather than take the other chair, “but you have made changes. Are you the same dragon I loved?”
She smiled broadly enough to show her fangs. “I hope so. I feel able to defend myself in a way I couldn’t before: more in touch with myself, more resilient. Less of an elf.”
“That split tongue told me so.” Draping her arms around Saphienne’s neck, the spirit peered into the eyes that enthralled her. “Is there no fondness for elves in you? Does my form now repulse you?”
Saphienne leaned in to breathe the floral scent of her hair, inhaling again as she lowered to kiss her exposed neck. “I’m not an elf… and neither are you…”
“An elven spirit, I am.”
She sighed as she straightened. “No, Hyacinth, I don’t hate all elves. Iolas is very dear to me — and every elf who flees the woodlands is my kin. My hatred is for the society built by the Luminary Vale, and all who uphold it through their inaction.”
“Before, you spoke often of vengeance… how feel you now?” Nervousness made the bloomkith bite her lower lip as she held her master’s gaze.
How did Saphienne feel? Enraged. Betrayed.
…Conflicted. “You were right: I wasn’t thinking clearly. I haven’t yet decided what I should do to avenge myself. I only know that if I slink away quietly it’ll do nothing to prevent my treatment being visited on others. Does that justify revenge?”
Hyacinth exhaled her tension. “This is my master; you are the woman I adore.”
“I’m not forswearing retribution.”
“Nor do I desire you forswear it.” The bloomkith closed her eyes and settled against the dragon. “I wish only that you be free and safe. Your judgement I shall follow — for now I hear again the Saphienne who seeks to see the whole.”
Feeling certainty in Hyacinth made Saphienne tearful. “Even if I decide to kill?”
“‘Twas not the taking of a life over which I complained.” Leaning up, the spirit kissed her scaled cheek. “‘Twas that no consideration was given to life’s value. Whoever must die by your decree, you shall not slay them alone.”
“You would kill for me?”
Hyacinth kissed upward, rising to her ear, and then her curling horn. “For you I would murder; and if dream without waking is death for a spirit, then for you I would die.”
Passion more potent than reason compelled Saphienne to seize Hyacinth in a kiss, willing that flowers should wind around her scales, the dragon possessing the yielding bloomkith.
Saphienne-Hyacinth made love to herself.
* * *
They separated upon the sandy shore, naked where they leaned together and let the temperate water lap along their legs.
“…What is your will?”
Saphienne stroked Hyacinth’s back with her winding tail. “You’ve done your part for the time being. Now I have much to do — and I need you to be far away during it.”
She felt the bloomkith tremble. “What shall you do?”
“I can’t cast spells without sigils.” Her gaze narrowed at the memory of her spellbooks in the vault. “Mine are being held securely by Almon. I could steal or create more, but the moment I deviated from my routine I’d be noticed. Even were I to acquire the spells I need, Sundamar is armed with arrows that can disrupt my casting, and I have to assume that similar countermeasures are held by others.
“Then there’s the issue that magic of the Third Degree can be effortlessly bested by the High Masters,” she continued. “We’re only going to get one chance, so I need to prepare for the contingency that we’re uncovered during it. I want to be in a position to catch even Elduin or Lenitha off guard, should they intervene to stop our escape.”
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Hyacinth studied her. “You intend to deepen your mastery?”
“Obtaining the secret of the Fourth Degree might take decades.” Saphienne shook her head at the prospect. “I refuse to be bound that long. We’ve lost enough years — we shan’t spend another in captivity.”
“Then what is your solution?”
Disentangling herself from the bloomkith, Saphienne stood, wading a little distance out from the beach, staring down at the green that shone eerie far below.
“Filaurel told me something before she betrayed me.” Her pulse quickened. “I don’t think she lied; for fear I would have been executed, she never informed Almon about my fire, which lends her comment credence. She said that I might be able to learn draconic magic.”
“A terrible endeavour! Who would teach you?”
“Parthenos.” Saphienne dragged her gaze away from her seething magic, facing Hyacinth. “That is to say, I think she already taught me the fundamentals. She presented her fire and encouraged me to create my own; dragons hold fire to be the ‘ultimate reality from which all else unfolds,’ and so I infer a dragon’s fire is the purest expression of her magic.”
Allured, yet concerned, Hyacinth hugged her knees. “How would this be done?”
“From first principles.” She sloshed back to firmer ground. “I’ll set aside everything I think I know — reexamine my wizardry and sorcery in the same way I beheld Parthenos’ fire. There have been intimations of another method throughout my accomplishments: the common thread has been letting my instincts guide me. If I’m right, then so long as I stop clinging to the elven way, draconic spellcraft will come naturally.”
“But how would this be practically done?”
She crouched down beside the spirit. “If I’m to disguise my research, I need to be able to do more than carve and draw frogs, which means I need to trick Tolduin into accepting behaviour he presently wouldn’t. The Saphienne he knows needs to make a miraculous recovery. That’s why you have to leave — he’ll search everything and everyone around me for an explanation.”
Hyacinth knelt, clasping Saphienne’s claws. “You would draw his attention? After so long avoiding it?”
“I know what I’m doing. He’ll see what I want him to.”
“…You always were adept with your deceptions… yet I fear for you.”
Saphienne pulled Hyacinth close, cradling the spirit as she caressed her neck. “I’ll give you seven days to hide yourself. Go back to the First Vale. Don’t return for at least three months, and don’t approach me unless you see a sculpture in my window.”
Shivering, the bloomkith nodded. “As you command.”
“Good girl.” She tenderly kissed her brow. “Remember: when this is over, we’re leaving the woodlands together. I love you.”
“And I love you.” Hyacinth squeezed her paramour tightly, submersing her dread in another, equally dizzying emotion. “If we are to part… then, for what night remains…”
Hissing with laughter, Saphienne assented to her ardour.
* * *
Sundamar commented to Lynnariel that Saphienne was tired the next day. He assumed that she must have been cold during the night.
Her mother requested a thicker blanket. That seemed to help, for nothing else noteworthy transpired for a week.
* * *
Isolated within her mental fortress, Saphienne had only her thoughts for companionship during her wait. Planning out her pageantry took merely two days, and thereafter she was left to ruminate upon the matter she’d put off, unable in good conscience to avert her gaze any longer.
After she prepared herself… once she acquired the means…
What then?
How was her vengeance to be delivered?
She’d occupied herself with fantasies of mayhem and slaughter, discovering that she contained ample creativity for sadism. In her worst rages she’d pictured herself falling upon Tolduin with claw and fang, burning Vestaele to cinders, terrifying Almon until his confidence in himself shattered and he went weeping and broken into the ground. Her knowledge of anatomy, together with her mastery of Transmutation, was sufficient to draw out the demise of any elf.
And yet… to fantasise before was forgivable. Not because she’d been diminished in capacity – that was no excuse for wilful malevolence – but because she’d been powerless, her hatred restrained by circumstance. Now that she was increasingly able to fulfil bloody oath through action, Saphienne had to confront the thorny issue of what she really wanted.
Did she want to kill? To murder? Was that demanded by what had been done to her?
The hurt child in her said so.
…Except no child truly wanted that. No child could understand that the pitiless judgement of death was not laid upon the dead, too undeveloped to behold the tearing that ensued in the cloth of community when even an errant thread was cut. Were Almon to die, his brother Jorildyn would be the one who continued to suffer.
And suffer eternally. Though discomforted, she was obliged to acknowledge the reality that gave rise to elven cruelty. Elves feared life spent forever grieving. Who could blame them for believing that withholding themselves and forgetting were preferable to pain?
Yet, hadn’t she decided that the cloth of the woodlands was ugly? That it was spun from indignity and torment, woven on a loom of impersonal evil? Tearing all the vales asunder would be merciful to those whose lives were reaped to feed the weaving.
Jorildyn presided over the village as chair of the local consensus. His guilt was not the same as that of his wizardly brother, but the tailor was just as culpable for what was shaped from the social fabric. And if he had a part in the horrors, who didn’t? Didn’t Nelathiel, whose toys that brought happiness to better-loved children were balanced by the indoctrination she visited upon them? Didn’t Athidyn, whose careful predictions of surplus were predicated upon the exploitation of the protectorates? Didn’t everyone?
…Didn’t Saphienne? She couldn’t claim ignorance of what she’d upheld, since she too knew what the ancient ways did to children like Kylantha. Her good intentions for Kob were just as meaningless as the votes of her neighbours. She’d shared in their passivity — by what right could she condemn the people around her?
By right of grievance. Unlike them, she’d been tortured.
How well Nelathiel had foreseen her present circumstance! The stalking priest had once cautioned her against seeing herself as superior. Saphienne indeed had all the justifications she could ever ask for, together with a cause that could be selfless, entirely in the right. Now was come the moment of peril long predicted.
But then, hadn’t the magician spoken the truth when she’d raved at Hyacinth? Hadn’t the dragon been tamed by the elves who raised her? For all her teenage suspicion and scepticism, she’d hardly been immune to the doctrines that her teachers poured into her. Nor had she been wholly wrong when, wounded and snarling, she’d later derided the philosophies she’d studied as pretty nonsense that tranquilised the urgent heart.
Saphienne had tried to lead a moral life as best she’d been able. Over and over, she’d challenged what the tyrant in her yearned to impose, bargaining with herself to find a ethically tolerable arrangement that would stand to see her made welcome. Wasn’t that what a good person should do?
No.
The disappointing fact was that no one actually made their decisions based on philosophical deliberation. Even her own, ongoing meditations on wrath and mercy weren’t impelled by reason. People were moved by ephemeral motivations of longing and belonging, and rational philosophy served exactly the same purpose as passionate religion: both were but stories to reconcile oneself to the world.
What her former instructors believed was illustrative. Almon had issues with loving and being loved, and so his distrust led him to doubt everything beyond his immediate, inner reality, thus favouring epistemic privilege. He hadn’t been reasoned into that lonely view. Taerelle had similar troubles, though hers were milder, and so she assured herself of reality through examining the coherence of its constituent parts, ever seeking an arrangement of relations on which she could depend.
Although less abstract, moral decision-making was no more rigorous. Celaena was utilitarian because she loved calculations and had been raised to want to please her father, pursuing the greatest good to meet with his approval. Iolas had meanwhile come from a happy home, and so conceived of right as emerging from collective, harmonious endeavour, not the possession of the individual but the produce of the many.
Saphienne? She’d ached to be loved and wanted. Thereby had the fiction of the social contract seduced her — for if she could agree on terms and abide by them, whatever in her was unlovable would then be tolerated, wouldn’t it?
Yet all preferences of narrative were secondary to what resulted from how those stories had been introduced. How she conceived of the world and how she justified her actions were irrelevant compared to the manner in which she’d been taught to conduct herself, the framing of which was – she knew – carefully crafted.
Why did the faith of elves begin with theatre? Why were mystery and reverence centred in its teaching? To accustom the adherent to playing a defined role, condition them to discount their own disquiet as the consequence of limited comprehension, and instil deference before religious authority.
So too, why did the philosophy of elves begin with guided debate? Why were rationality and critical review centred in its teaching? To accustom the student to structuring their thoughts in keeping with convention, condition them to discount what they couldn’t ‘rationally’ articulate, and instil deference before examination and evaluation.
Above all else, her teachers had performed a rhetorical slight of hand. She’d been reassured that she was valued — but told that her value was contingent on her being a good person, and that what made a person good was so very complicated. Then had come the stories by which she might judge herself, and she was loosed to run wild in their garden, unaware that they were weeded, the walls of the garden obscured. Whatever she chose, wherever she trampled, she’d been safely confined.
Why then not violence? Why then not chaos? Why must peace always be paramount?
Life gave no answer. And therein Saphienne witnessed the transcendental tragedy.
Arguments about happiness and responsibility, about what was owed to oneself and owed to others, about self and society… they all crumbled when revealed as the struggle between yearning and being. How she yearned to be contested who she was; they had been misaligned by nature and nurture alike.
Even absent the compulsions of her instincts, her rearing, and of the wyrd that had been laid upon her lineage, life itself brought forth divisions that hung in tension — child and master, declared apostate and sanctified, feared and loved. Never did its challenge cease. The world was what it had made of her, now made of her, and would make of her. All that was left to her was what she made of the world. She was that which unfolded from the world and from which the world unfolded.
So it went for everyone.
Her particular happenstance of being was capable of contemplating the ambiguity between what had been decided for her and what she might decide. There Saphienne was blinded by sparks thrown off from the weighty blows that hammered out her personhood, and never could she measure how much of herself was her own doing. She only knew she hadn’t chosen what she felt, hadn’t chosen what she desired.
Alas, had she been granted that insight, it wouldn’t have mattered.
Try as she might to reject herself, she’d been raised a peaceful elf of the woodlands.
Try as she might to reject the elves around her, she’d grown to love them.
And still she yearned to unleash violence upon the Eastern Vale.
* * *
These were the irresolvable admissions that filled her head as she lay awake on the seventh night. Saphienne stared at the ceiling in the dark, eyes lidded to pretend sleep, awash with flooding feelings that flowed counter to each other, trapped within the whirlpool where they ran together.
Punishment: that was the key. While the woodlands thrived on the infliction of suffering without consequence there could be no change. Come what may, someone needed to strike back, teach the elves that they weren’t beyond reprisal, and so force them to care about what was done on their behalf. The situation of moral hazard had to end.
Restless, she shifted.
Was this what Lonareath had intended? To lay a scathing judgement on her people? That Saphienne – or Kythalaen before her – would see the worst in the elves, and either consent to be counted among them or be transfigured into the fearsome form that best aroused their terror? A curse, but not a curse on the bearer; enslaved by her wyrd to adjudicate, but granted freedom to impose whatever was warranted.
Whether or not that was the design, ending their lives would contradict the punishment Saphienne believed apt. Loathe Tolduin, Vestaele, Almon, Sundamar, and Danyn though she did, and in spite of their attempt to end her, to kill them would have been disproportionate to what had actually occurred.
There was only one person she wanted to murder. Not punish, but destroy.
Angry tears spilled from her eyes. Good; they would abet her lie.
Saphienne let her distress burst forth as she sat up with a whimper, drew a powerful breath, and screamed.
* * *
Myrinel was in the room with knife drawn before Saphienne’s cry had died away, her mother swift behind him. Once they had ascertained there was no threat to her safety they tried to calm her down, Lynnariel holding and rocking her, hushing her with promises that she was protected.
What had happened? The Saphienne they spoke to didn’t know. A formless horror had accosted her and then departed.
They brought her through to her mother’s bedroom, where Lynnariel held her and sang a soothing lullaby. Even though he concluded she’d been woken by a nightmare, Myrinel took up position by the window, promising vigilance until the dawn.
That morning, Sundamar asked probing questions that no one could answer. He sent her to her room while he invoked the spirits charged with attending her, but based on his dismissal of the incident afterward, they hadn’t much to add. Saphienne had simply experienced a bad dream.
He changed his opinion when it happened for the third time.
* * *
In the absence of Tolduin it fell to Almon to examine Saphienne, but he couldn’t bear to use the invasive green enchantment on her. The wizard elected to make tea and sit with her while she sipped it, gently inquiring about how she was feeling, walking her back to the prior night and what had startled her from sleep.
Manipulating him required she manipulate herself. Saphienne seeded thoughts in the weak mind that cloaked her intellect, contriving to appear as though he was sifting through confused layers to unearth what the ‘poor girl’ couldn’t comprehend herself.
“…A monster,” her puppet repeated.
Almon patted her back in encouragement. “Very good, Saphienne. So you were in your bed and saw a monster. What happened then?”
Her brow furrowed. Inside, the next revelation was withheld from her until her frustration was vividly visible on her face. “…It wanted to eat me.”
“How awful!”
Standing by the stairs down to the parlour, Sundamar coughed and looked away to cover his amusement.
This irked Almon tremendously. “Does this entertain you?”
The warden smothered his smile as he shook his head. “You sound very sympathetic.”
“Because I am,” the wizard glowered. “A horror we believe in is just as damaging to us as one acknowledged as real by others. Perhaps you would care for a demonstration?”
Being threatened by a master of Hallucination sobered Sundamar. “Point taken.”
Almon faced Saphienne. “…But the monster wasn’t real.” He squeezed her shoulder with what a bystander might have mistaken for affection. “You weren’t in danger. No one will ever hurt you again.”
Her dull gaze passively accepted this.
“This monster,” he queried. “What did it look like? Was it shadowy?”
“No…” Her correction was instant; the rest was faltering. “It was big… and bright… there were colours… like your clothes, and mother’s fascinator.”
Trying not to frown, her former master sought more. “What else?”
“It had teeth.” Saphienne pressed forward the memory of the painting hanging in her bedroom. “It was like a snake… but it had legs.”
Grave worry enshrouded Almon. “…And wings?”
“…Yes. One.”
The wizard stood and addressed her escort. “I’ll send for Tolduin at once. She isn’t to be left unattended until he’s seen her — not even for a moment.”
Sundamar inclined his head, utmost seriousness in his mossy gaze as he studied Saphienne. “Is she remembering–”
“Tolduin removed everything; she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. This shouldn’t be possible.” Almon stalked to the steps leading upward. “Say nothing that might prompt her to recollect more. And keep those arrows ready.”
“Doesn’t she need–”
“She was born a sorcerer, you fool!” The wizard glanced back at her. “The danger isn’t that she becomes the Saphienne she used to be… I’m far more concerned that her magic might erupt again. If it does, she needs to be restrained, or in her present state…”
How ironic: Almon feared she might hurt herself.
* * *
Prior to her assessment by the priest, Vestaele and Almon went through her family home with the assistance of spirits and the wardens, Saphienne sitting with Lynnariel in the kitchen under guard by Myrinel. Every corner was searched by means mundane and magical, Divination spells cast to review her past. Only one oddity was found.
Vestaele thumped ‘The Girl and the Gulls’ on the table. “Explain this.”
Lynnariel blinked. “That doesn’t belong to Saphienne. It’s mine.”
“I’ve read what’s written in the cover.” The master of Fascination crossed her arms. “You shouldn’t own this. Keeping it around her is an unacceptable risk.”
“But she hasn’t read it! I kept it locked away.”
Concealed behind her mask, Saphienne winced. She hadn’t expected her mother to lie when caught. Lying was a poor strategy: there were witnesses, both a warden and a spirit, while a divination could expose the truth. Better to claim ignorance.
Vestaele sneered. “And you’ve never read it to her? You’re not so clever.”
Yet Myrinel surprised Saphienne. “Master Vestaele, are you accusing me of incompetence?”
The wardens bustling around them stilled.
Superior as she was, the sorcerer wasn’t oblivious to their lingering acrimony. “Are you claiming she’s telling the truth?”
“I am.” He interposed himself between Lynnariel and her accuser. “I listen whenever she reads to Saphienne. Whatever that book is about, I don’t recognise it. They’ve mostly read about amphibians — Saphienne only has access to texts approved by Master Almon.”
“She might have evaded you.”
“Ask Barefoot.” Myrinel gestured to the potted monkshoods on the table.
“Very well! I shall.”
Vestaele called for the spirit to give testimony. Lynnariel surreptitiously squeezed Saphienne’s hand as the sorcerer’s eyes soon yellowed with possession.
But Myrinel was confident.
“…Ridiculous!” Fuming with contempt, Vestaele dismissed the bloomkith. “She can’t say for certain what Lynnariel read! How has a spirit who struggles with Elfish come to be charged with guarding Saphienne?!”
That was a delicate misdirection: Barefoot had understood Saphienne perfectly well when the magician had forgiven her before her sisters. She was colluding with Myrinel to protect Lynnariel.
“We’ll see what Almon’s spells show. He’ll be down shortly.”
Ah, but you will of course recall the difficulties faced by Almon and his peers when they had tried to reconstruct the attempt on Saphienne’s life. Did you – like he – ever ponder the cause? Is your recollection of his lessons on Divination sharp enough to arrive at his conjecture?
The wizard was blunt. “What little I’ve glimpsed is quotidian.”
“Little?”
“Master Vestaele, remember you address a colleague.” He smoothed his lapels like ruffled feathers. “Substantial portions of Saphienne’s last few years are warded against divination, notably the evenings.”
The sorcerer wheeled to her former student with narrowing eyes.
Almon chuckled. “Not by her! I conferred with Sundamar on several of the periods for which he was present, and she cannot be responsible. Are you familiar with wards against retrospection?”
“In passing. Do elaborate, Master Almon.”
“Trivially, one need only watch for magical observation to block such divinations. To identify a spell reaching from the future would be for the future to alter the past, and so the act of looking for magical retrospection ensures its failure.” He was rueful. “Thus, exclusion can be inadvertent. I suspect High Master Lenitha once placed a contingent spell on Saphienne to note who else was divining her; that would account for the extraordinary difficulties I faced in identifying her attackers.”
“Surely that wouldn’t still be–”
“No.” His smile was sad. “No, I think this is contemporary work. Someone has been scrying Saphienne, careful not to be caught in the act. A skilled diviner; someone who cares enough to watch her nearly nightly; someone who would never confess the sentimentality behind their voyeurism.”
…Taerelle…
“I’ll inform the vale,” Vestaele growled. “Your young friend has impeded us.”
Almon folded his arms. “You will do no such thing. I will write to inform her she has been noticed; she will cease. Unless you’re so concerned about meddling in investigations that I should send two letters?”
Vestaele reconsidered. “I defer to your judgement.”
“Then we’re agreed. The cause of her state is not apparent…”
Saphienne’s elation was tempered by what he next said.
“…But Elder Tolduin will find it.”
End of Chapter 145