Laurell Hamilton - Nightseer

KELEIOS.

WE CAN ARGUE LATER TODAY. I HAD EARLY AND URGENT BUSINESS TO TEND TO.

THE WITCH

She smiled. They had been leaving notes to each other for two years. Keleios signed hers ‘the half-elf5 and Fidelis was always ‘the witch.’ The smile faded when she realized that the urgent business could be the planning of her own death.

Keleios felt a light touch on her mind. She opened to it and Allanna asked for permission to enter her room. The woman appeared in the middle of the floor. As always, Keleios was taken with Allanna’s beauty. She was the heroine of an old legend, or should have been. Being Astranthian, she was tall and slender with straight yellow-gold hair that fell to her knees. Her eyes were the surprised blue of cornflowers, and her skin had never known the touch of sun, white and pure like a wax doll. She was dressed in blue today, which emphasized everything—the eyes, the skin, the golden hair. Her gown was blue on blue-patterned silk. It gapped below her fitted waist to reveal a pale blue dress. A necklace of pearls and sapphires adorned her slender neck. Allanna of the Golden Hair was a princess waiting for her prince, and no one was more aware of it than Allanna herself. Her beauty would have been breath-stealing if it had been an unconscious beauty, but it was affected, like the dress that matched her eyes and the refined gestures. It was a self-conscious show.

She began her sentence with a sweep of long tapered hand. “Belor bid me hurry you.” Keleios pulled her gown over her head. “How late am I?”

“An hour.”

“Carrick will skin me alive.”

The impossibly red lips smiled. “It is a possibility.”

“You think it’s amusing; I do not.” Keleios poured water from the pitcher into the basin, tepid cold. She gasped at the feel of the chill water.

Allanna said, “Here, let me warm it for you.”

“No, thank you.”

Allanna shrugged. She wasted sorcery on minor things like warming water without thinking it a waste.

Allanna sighed gracefully. “I’m sorry. I know you are in trouble but why do you put yourself at the mercy of a man like that?”

Keleios dried herself on a small towel. “A man like what?”

Allanna shifted uncomfortably. “Oh, come, you know what I mean.”

“No, tell me.”

Allanna stamped a delicate foot and sent the blue silk whispering over the floor. “He isn’t magic, not even an herb-witch.”

“True, but then he doesn’t need magic to be the best swordsman in the islands.” It was an old argument between them. Allanna had very Astranthian ideas about people without magic. Without magic one was less than human, and it was this idea that had kept the peasants in thrall for so many years. “When you have exhausted your spells, what is left? You can’t even use a dagger, let alone a sword. What happens when you’ve run out of spells?”

She stood perfectly straight, hands loose at her sides. “I do not run out of spells.”

It was true, in a way. Allanna was perhaps the most powerful sorcerer to come out of Astrantha since Zeln and his sister Sile.

“You are powerful, Allanna, but everyone, everyone, will eventually run out of spells. Or at least the strength to use them.”

The pale face was haughty; her opinion of her magic was very high. Unfortunately, up until now the opinion was deserved. She was one of four people who could enter the arena with Zeln and stand a chance of coming out alive.

Keleios watched Allanna’s face until her linen shirt blocked her view. It was useless to argue. Until someone stronger than Allanna challenged the girl, she would think herself unbeatable. The frightening thing was she just might be right.

Keleios pulled her hair from the shirt collar. “Perhaps you are a special case, Allanna, but I with my more humble talents feel the need for more.”

Allanna gave a small laugh. “You, humble? My father is only a viscount; yours was a prince and your mother, a princess.”

“Such things are much more important in Astrantha than in Wrythe. And as for my mother’s family, they consider me a bastard child.”

She sniffed. “The Calthuians are a barbaric people, no offense intended. Your mother was far above most of her countrymen.”

Keleios, being half-Calthuian, wasn’t sure what was compliment and what wasn’t, but she said, “Thank you, Allanna.”

“I do not profess to understand the ways of elves, but in Astrantha you are not humble.”

A torso of Belor floated through the window. Ghostlike they could see through it. Keleios whispered to it, “I’m hurrying.”

Keleios started to put on the vest she had discarded last night.

Allanna’s delicate lips curled slightly, a look of disgust touching her face.

Keleios held it up at arms length. Allanna did have a point. She opened the chest at the end of her bed and began rummaging through it. “I haven’t even fed the animals yet.”

‘I’ll do that.”

Keleios’ voice came muffled from inside the trunk. “Remember to chop parsley for the canary.”

As if in answer to it, the tiny bird sang an ear-thrumming trill.

Allanna said, “I will see that the dog gets to Feltan, and Mistress Poth will dine in the kitchen under my watchful eye.”

“Thank you.”

She blinked, long gold eyelashes curling downward. “Your haste is my only reward.”

Keleios stood, a rather pale green vest clutched in her hand. It fit rather snug but would have to do. There didn’t seem to be any other clean ones. Poth circled round her ankles. Keleios picked the cat up and cuddled her. “Allanna will tend you, Poth. If you don’t mind?” The cat didn’t, perhaps because Allanna was somewhat catlike herself. They got along very well. And she cautioned the dog, “Behave or Allanna will turn you into a rabbit.”

The dog gave an apologetic tail thump.

Keleios put Poth down and ran a hasty brush through her thick hair. She began to braid it. Allanna stepped forward. “Here, let me.” The swift delicate hands wove her brownish gold hair into a single braid. The fingers lingered on a somewhat pointed ear. “How lovely they would be if you would let me put earrings in them.”

“Thank you for the thought, but they’re fine the way they are.” Keleios scooped up her short sword and belt. She fastened Luckweaver in place.

“Perhaps, Keleios, you should take a more direct route today.” “Direct?”

She motioned toward the windows.

“You mean levitate down. I think not.”

“Oh, come now, Keleios, you are a journeyman sorcerer. Surely you can levitate yourself to the courtyard.”

“It is not a matter of can, or can’t, but a waste of magic.”

Allanna sniffed. “I will levitate you myself if you are so stingy with your spells.”

Keleios sighed, resigned. She strode forward, touching the middle window to release the sound-muffling spell. Steel on steel rang through the courtyard.

The green-brown canary hopped from perch to perch, the wooden cage swaying gently with his movement. She smiled at his inquiring chirp. “Be a good bird, Shotzi, and Auntie Allanna will give you a surprise.”

The Astranthian laughed, and the sound was like wind chimes or feast bells. Surely the woman had to sit and practice. Keleios hesitated, staring down at the courtyard below. It was too much for Allanna’s patience. Keleios vanished with a startled cry and reappeared on the stones below. She frowned up at the slim hands that were closing her window, but she dared not draw more attention to herself. Carrick did not approve of magic anywhere near his practices. A summer breeze swept up, tugging wisps of hair.

She stood in the center of one of the gigantic blocks of square-cut stone. They had been magic-lifted to their places and were magic-supported still. In the middle of the vast stony expanse huddled the weapons practice. Most sat in a wide circle. Carrick strode round the inside of that circle. He wore a sleeveless brown jerkin and baggy trousers stuffed into knee-high boots. He was large, with a beefy, muscled body. He looked slow, but it was deceptive. Keleios had felt his lightning-quick blows too many times to be fooled. His muscles were the kind that hid in a disguise of bulk, no shapely definition for Carrick’s body. His black hair was cut close to the round balding head. His quick brown eyes caught every mistake. The stick he carried poked, prodded, and tripped, so you would notice your mistake also.