"Your discretion is appreciated."
He nodded even while keeping his back to me, his hands moving so quickly as to be almost invisible. "Ask what you will. As I've told you, I believe the Lady's story. She was cruelly used, but she is strong as you are strong, and she survived it as you have survived the injuries done to you and the path of sorrow that is the Way laid down for you."
"Is the Lady an Arcanist? She seems to have so many talents. So much power. I've been curious."
"An Arcanist? No. No. I don't think so. The Lady D'Sanya does one thing at a time and the power is her own. The nature of an Arcanist is to bind many things together: I can take the herbs from a Gardener, infused with the force of his talent, and bind them into a paste to smear on the eyes of a Sea Dweller so that she can permeate it with her own power, so I can then use the paste to penetrate darkness in the way of an Imager, seeing the colors that radiate from the mind of an Artist, so we can understand why his talent has failed him. So am I Healer or Gardener or Sea Dweller or Imager? No. None of these. I only use their talents. The Lady is not one of us."
"Then what, Master Garvй? We must understand her before she takes the throne of Avonar, and how is it possible to understand a Dar'Nethi without understanding her talent? Your tradition says it is rude and unworthy to ask the question, as the qualities of the soul are so much more important. Yet I have never met a Dar'Nethi whose soul was not shaped by the gift born in him: the talent that guides his fingers and the power he brings to serve it."
Garvй's hands slowed, and I felt the shifting of the air, the chest-crushing pressure that was his notice. Only when he forced his hands busy again and started speaking was I able to breathe without conscious effort. "You have seen us at our best and worst, my lady, and at many levels in between, I suspect, and of course you are correct. We profess that we see beyond our talents, but we cannot. As for the Lady, I do not know. I might have thought her a Word Winder, but even in my brief examination I noted that she uses words carelessly—and far too many of them. I would guess she is something like a Devisor, one who creates physical objects to accomplish certain tasks. It is why she can do some things that seem like healing, yet not everything, and things that seem like a Gardener, but not everything. You understand? A Word Winder creates enchantments from the power of words, a Devisor from the physical properties of nature. She makes things to carry her power—a little portion of herself contained in each one."
"I see. Yes, I've been told she carried protective 'devices' that she made with her mentor in his workshop."
"She spoke of a mentor?"
"Yes. A man named L'Clavor."
There are moments between sleep and waking when you feel a slightly nauseating sense of falling, as if you go in and out of time and the body can barely manage it. Whenever I managed to distract Garvй with something unexpected, the room wavered a bit.
"L'Clavor!" Rapidly Garvй pushed his mixing aside and set up a brass oil burner on the workbench. Into a flat copper dish he spilled the contents of one after another of the little twists of brown paper he had tossed in his baskets, and then he set the dish on the burner and hovered over it, stirring the contents rapidly with a copper spoon while dribbling in a thin stream of oil from a glass cruet. "Odd I had not heard this from the earlier investigations. You're sure of your source?"
"Absolutely sure."
"The name answers your question, my lady. L'Clavor was the most famous Metalwright in all of our history."
"A Metalwright . . ."
"Yes. The Lady would be able to create devices of silver, gold, and such to carry the mark of her power. And because she was mentored by L'Clavor, who developed the technique, she would be able to link her devices with each other to make even more intricate enchantments."
I puzzled over this revelation, as Garvй bustled about with his never-ending activities. It seemed so incongruous—totally unexpected. I had always thought of the Lady as being involved in the more nature-oriented talents, like Healer or Gardener, or the more abstract ones like Balancer or Speaker, but never as one who could shape metal into jewelry or teapots or door locks, weaving her enchantments into them.
I was ready to ask more, but Garvй had set down the cruet and was attempting to read while stirring his nasty-smelling concoction over the burner. He'd already come near setting his book afire at least twice as colored flames shot upward from the contents of the copper pan. Though his voice held calm and steady, his hands were trembling. "Madam, it has been a delight, and I would take great pleasure if you were to grace my home again, but for now … I think it would be best if you were to leave. And I would recommend you be quick about it."
"As you wish. Thank you, Master Garvй. I'll think on—"
"Go now!"
I ran. As I darted through the cramped rooms, the floor shook. Several boxes tumbled from their piles, and a basket of pinecones toppled into the pathway. I bent to pick them up but thought better of it when the shaking grew worse and I could scarcely keep my feet under me. I ran out the front door, and from behind me came a noisy rumble in the earth and a clamor of falling metal and breaking glass. Red smoke puffed from the chimney and the door.
When the shaking ended and silence fell, I considered going back into the house to see if Garvй had survived. But from the dust-filled darkness behind the doors and windows, I heard a huge, groaning sigh. Perhaps my absence might be of more help than my inquiries.
I pulled up the hood of my cloak and walked the streets of Avonar for hours, twisting my mind into knots with everything I'd heard from Eu'Vian, from poor mad J'Savan, and from the gently violent Garvй. I could make no sense, no connection, though I knew it was there for me to find.
Exhausted, I touched the bellpull hanging by Aimee's front door—a white cord with a simple ring of brass at the end—and the ring began to spin slowly, catching the brilliant gleam of the small white lights that blossomed in Avonar's streets at night like stars fallen to earth. The movement caught my eye and focused my distracted thoughts upon it as I listened to the silvery jangle of the bell. Then, in an instant, it was as if my own small earthquake shook the pieces until they fit together. I knew what D'Sanya had buried in the rootling grove, and what J'Savan had found there when he dug to see what was killing his precious trees—the burning eye in the desert. Oh, holy gods . . . Gerick . . .
Chapter 17
"Are you hungry? Should I call Vanor?" I picked up the book that had slid off my father's lap unopened and set it on the table, then crouched down in front of him in hopes he might look me in the eye and show some spark of life.
"Wine, perhaps. I don't know." He propped an elbow on the arm of his chair and rested his head in his hand. "It's just so difficult. . . ."
I jumped up to pour a glass of wine from the carafe on the sideboard. "We could take a walk if you like. It's a fine afternoon. Have you been out while I was away?"
"I don't remember." He waved away the wine without touching it. "No taste. I told you I don't like it."