He finds his eyes wandering away from the full-length mirror, and he concentrates on trying to hold his image…then laughs softly.
“What is it?” Ryalth looks up, as if slightly annoyed at the noise.
“I’m sorry,” Lorn says softly. “I’ll ask for my favor. It won’t take but a moment, and then I’ll leave you to the reading.”
“What is it?” Suspicion mixed with amusement clouds her voice.
“I want you to read for a moment or two, then look up at me, and tell me what you see.”
“Is that all?” A faint frown furrows her brows.
“That’s all.” Lorn grins at her. “Really.”
“I start reading now…”
“Exactly.” Lorn concentrates once more on the sense of aversion, of nudging the order-reflected chaos of light just slightly so that the pattern makes Ryalth, or anyone, wish to look away from himself.
“Lorn! Don’t do that.”
Lorn drops the blurring shield. Perhaps that is not what it is called, but that is what it feels like. “Do what? What did you see?”
“I wanted to look at you, and it was as though I couldn’t. My eyes kept drifting away from you as though you weren’t there.”
“Good.”
After a moment, Ryalth nods soberly. “I can see that, but be careful when you do that.”
“I will, but from what I recall, it’s hard to detect, even by a lector, because it’s such a gentle and delicate manipulation of order and chaos.”
She shakes her head, then smiles. “There are times when not being seen could be useful, especially when some Austran trader wants to know why you won’t sell him a quarter-case of golden brandy.”
“Because most others won’t buy a broken case?”
Ryalth nods.
“That’s my favor, dearest. I need to practice some more so I don’t forget how I did it.”
“Just don’t expect me to watch.”
“I won’t.” After his smile fades away, and Ryalth picks up the next invoice, Lorn tries once more…and then again.
After a mere halfscore of attempts, he finds his whole body is shaking, and his vision is blurring. Faint stars seem to appear wherever he looks. His lips curl. Another skill that takes much energy, and even more practice.
He wipes his brow. “I need to get some bread or cheese or something. Do you want anything?” He looks at the trader who is more than halfway through the invoices.
“Just some more quiet.”
Lorn nods. “I’ll be in the study. If you let me know when you’re done?”
“I will.”
He unlatches the bedchamber door, steps out into the dark corridor, and starts down the stairs to the kitchen to see what he can find to eat, placing each foot carefully, and trying to ignore his wavering vision.
CXXIII
The older magus looks at the unconscious healer lying on the bed. He concentrates, and the slightest shimmering of chaos enfolds the young woman for a moment, then vanishes. The younger magus, broad-shouldered and with dark red hair, breathes a gentle sigh.
After a moment, the two step from the bedchamber.
“You see?” asks the red-haired and green-eyed older magus. “That was her sister’s doing, and she will not remember this…not for a time, if ever. The suroyen will make her feel ill, as if a minor flux…but she will not have her order powers fully back for a day or so. Best you ensure you have an heir by then.”
“Yes, ser. Was there no other way?” Ciesrt wrinkles his forehead, then purses his lips.
“Have you found any such, my first-level adept?” Kharl’s eyebrows lift. “You have been consorted now for, what, four years?”
“Almost five,” Ciesrt replies.
“And have you an heir?”
“No. But I worry. In her own way, she is fragile.”
Kharl shakes his head. “She is a healer. She will love the child, and it will make it easier in time for you two to have another. Be kind and gentle, and you will see. Healers always love children. You have seen her with her brother’s son, have you not?”
Ciesrt nods.
“All would have been well, had her elder sister not become involved. Yet…one can say nothing, not now, for she is most effective as a healer, even if she chooses to dally with a dissolute merchanter.”
“None know much of him, save he provides her lodging and gambles much.”
“He gambles well,” Kharl says, “well enough to hold a dwelling in the merchanter quarter, and to do little else. It is sad that a daughter of such a once-great line will have neither consort nor heirs.” He frowns, momentarily. “But you and Myryan will continue that heritage, and you may prosper far more than any would have dreamed.”
“She’ll be all right, won’t she?”
“She will be fine.” Kharl coughs gently. “She will not even recall anything until tomorrow morning, I would judge. Do what you must, and tell her that she has the flux when she wakes.”
Ciesrt frowns, then nods.
“I will be going.” Kharl steps toward the doorway of the bedchamber. “I can let myself out.”
Ciesrt looks at Myryan, then at the doorway, but it is empty, and shortly there is the sound of another door closing.
CXXIV
The Recording Hall in the Quarter of the Magi’i is of polished white marble, like that of the small hall in Jakaafra where Lorn and Ryalth were consorted. The tall and narrow windows are also of ancient blue glass, and there are no furnishings in the hall save a single white sunstone pedestal. There, the resemblance ends. The white granite walls soar high overhead, into an arch whose highest point is nearly thirty cubits directly above the pedestal. The windows are more than ten cubits high, and their casements are of green marble.
Among the halfscore couples standing at the back of the hall before those windows, all are in total shimmercloth white-except for Lorn and Ryalth. He wears the green-and-cream formal Mirror Lancer uniform, and she the green-trimmed formal blue shimmercloth tunic and trousers of a merchanter clan head consorted to a Mirror Lancer.
To their right stand the parents of Aleyar-Liataphi and Lleya-and to their left, Tyrsal’s mother.
Behind the sunstone pedestal stands a senior lector-Hyrist’elth. Hyrist looks down at the massive open book that rests on the stand of white sunstone. Each page of the book is a cubit-and-a-half in height and two-thirds that in width. The senior lector wears a sashlike white shimmercloth scarf that barely stands out against his white shimmercloth tunic and trousers.
“I am Hyrist’elth, senior lector, and recorder of consortings for all the Magi’i. Approach…you who wish to record your consortship here in Cyad, the city of Eternal Light, and home of the Magi’i.” The lector and recorder inclines his head to the couple.
Tyrsal and Aleyar walk slowly toward the book and sash-wearer until they stop and stand two cubits back from the sunstone pedestal and the book upon it. Both look to the recorder.
“Do you two-Tyrsal’elth of the Magi’i and Lady Aleyar, healer of Cyad-declare your intention to take each other as consorts?”
“I do,” Tyrsal replies.
“I do,” affirms Aleyar.
“Would you each inscribe your name in the book before you, signifying that such is your choice of your own free will, in the prosperity of chaos and light and under the oversight of the Emperor of Light?” With a smile, Hyrist extends a shimmering white pen to the slender healer.
After taking the cupridium-tipped pen, Aleyar bends forward and writes her name. She straightens and hands the pen to Tyrsal. He leans forward and writes his name.
Hyrist takes the pen and replaces it in the ceremonial cupridium holder, then clears his throat before declaiming, “As entered in the book of the Quarter, in Cyad, the City of Eternal Light, you are hereafter consorts.” Hyrist looks at the couple and declaims sonorously, “May you always be fulfilled in the light and in the fullness of time.”
Tyrsal slips the shiny silver onto the pages of the book, according to custom, then steps back, standing before the sunstone pedestal almost awkwardly.