Valira frowned, remembering a little man with ginger hair whose painting had shown her her soul. He had recommended her to Myrtis, had taught her that even a half-penny whore from Sanctuary's waterfront could have a future. And when his wife, Gilla, stayed here during the False Plague Riots a few seasons back, she had been kind.
"You do know a mage!" exclaimed Joia, watching her. "Please help me, Valira-I'm afraid!"
"Lalo is not exactly a wizard - . . and his wife is more than enough woman for him," Valira said slowly. "I don't know if he can help. But I'll take you to see."
"Go back to the Mageguild if you want formulae'" Lalo exclaimed. "I've told you-I don't work that way!" He pushed the diagram back across the worktable to Darios. His easel was waiting beside the window with the finest imported paints beside it. Why was he wasting the moming light talking?
"All arts have rules. Can it hurt you to try and think systematically?" the young man asked patiently, "Why do you think the gateway you visualized to reach my spirit when my body was walled up in that vault worked so well?"
"Because I'd painted the thing in the first place-" Lalo began.
"You didn't make up the design!" Darios shook his head. "The details you remembered so clearly came from S'danzo tradition. Without those symbols the Otherworld would be impossible for the human mind to comprehend. The images let us focus our perception of reality, just as we control our emotions through words." The young mage paused for breath. "Look-here is the first plane-that's the world around us, the world you know-" He tapped the crudely drawn diagram.
Lalo glared at him. The boy was unnatural. Lalo was the one who should have been making the careful explanations, complaining about hotheaded youth when his apprentice protested as his own master used to do. But it was only a fluke of fate that had made the mageling his student at all.
"You're wasting your time, Darios. Why don't you go back to the Mageguild? Now that things have settled down, they're trying to rebuild the school," Lalo exclaimed. It was not yet noon, but the day was hot already. He could feel perspiration adhering his thin tunic to his skin like one of Cholly's glues. "What in the name of Us do you think you can leam from me?"
"The things that no one at the Mageguild knows." Darios combed his fingers through his curly black beard. Young as he was, it flowed across his chest like a master's. Gilla's feeding had filled him out. He took refuge sometimes in a dignity that gave him the air of a much older man.
"You can kick me out, but no one can force me to go back there. Even in the old days wizards like Enas Yorl and Ischade could go their own ways, and now Markmor is back, and there are half a dozen other independent operators trying to hide the fact that there's precious little of the old magic left in this town."
"Well, if my magic has survived because it's different," Lalo said triumphantly, "why are you trying to change me?"
"Because magic draws magic," Darios replied. "You've got it, and you can't get rid of it-wouldn't if you could-" The dark eyes lifted, and Lalo grimaced, remembering the days when he had thought both mortal and magical sight lost. He knew better now. Even if fate should blind him again, he could see in the Otherworld.
"Randal tried once to recruit you, and as things calm down, others will be after you-others who fear you and want to get you out of the way. Or who want to use you, as Molin Torchholder is using your paintings of Sanctuary's past to shape the future. Don't you wonder about some of those symbols he's having you put in? Here's the key to them-" He tapped the diagram. "I'm just trying to help, you know. Molin or Randal or anyone else with knowledge can use you as you use your own paints until you learn!"
Lalo covered his eyes. His head still hurt sometimes since the concussion that had temporarily blinded him. There was a pounding in his temples now-if he was going to have the headaches, he might as well start drinking again!
"The second plane," said Darios implacably, "is the sphere of the moon. It governs all things fluid, both the ocean and the astral sea. A good source of symbols for operations involving the Beysib, wouldn't you say?"
This afternoon, thought Lalo, Darios is going to practice drawing until his fingers wear away!
They had reached the fourth sphere when the sound of feminine laughter from the kitchen broke Darios's concentration.
"I doubt I'll remember even what we've done so far-" said Lalo, taking pity on him. He could hear Gilla and their oldest son, Wedemir, but neither of the other two voices sounded like the girl with whom both Wedemir and Darios were in love. Darios can't hear the difference, he realized. Maybe I do know a few useful things after all. He opened the door.
A wave of chypre scent tantalized his nostrils even before he saw the two women who were eating Gilla's Enlibar orange nut cake at the new kitchen table. Gowns of sheerest gauze struck a compromise between Sanctuary's minimal demands for decency and the unseasonable heat. They were a strange sight in Gilla's kitchen, brightened though it was by the burnished copper pots and bunches of peppers that hung from the beams.
Parasols of painted silk leaned against the whitewashed wall. One of the women had a tumble of garnet curls dressed high through a circlet of pearls. The intricately knotted dark braids of the other seemed dusted with gold. It was only when she turned to face him that the sophisticated veneer vanished and he saw the bright spirit within, as he had seen it once through garish face paint and the pinched face of poverty.
"Valira! You're looking well!"
Darios, following him through the door, stopped short, staring.
"Joia and Valira are from the Aphrodisia House," said Gilla, suppressing a smile. "Ladies, this is Darios, my husband's apprentice."
"He's wearing a mage-robe-" said the second girl. Her voice was strained.
"He used to study at the Guild," explained Gilla. The girl looked up then and Lalo recoiled, seeing the naked face of fear.
"Sabellia be praised. Perhaps they can help me!"
Darios sent Lalo a glance in which panic and professional interest warred. The limner found himself relaxing. Magic might still frighten him, but mere physical beauty had no power over him now. Wedemir leaned back in his chair and grinned at the mageling's discomfort.
"Have another slice of cake," said Gilla. "You girls worry about your figures too much to eat properly, but troubles are best faced with a full belly. We'll get some real food into you as soon as the sausages are done."
Valira set down her teacup and laughed. "I remember-you used to feed half the neighborhood when I was a child."
"It's not food I need, but sleep!" said Joia.
Lalo cleared his throat. "Neither of which I can help you with. So just what is wrong?" Joia wiped away tears without smudging her eye paint and began to tell her tale.
"And Joia is not the only one," said Valira when they had finished. "Doree has been having nightmares too, and some of the others. Well, after the past few years there's hardly a one of us who hasn't lost someone she cared for. We're supposed to be professional, but when a man has been kind to you, it's hard."
"I wanted Aglon alive! Why is his ghost trying to kill me?"
"His ghost, or is it something else, taking that form?" asked Darios.
"A demon lover?" Wedemir laughed. "At the Aphrodisia House?" He sobered as Valira glared at him. "Sorry, lass-but you have to admit-"
"I hope Aglon's ghost comes to the barracks to haunt you!" Joia exclaimed. "You were his friend!"
"Aglon-" said Gilla into the strained silence. "The name sounds familiar. Did we ever meet him, dear?"
"He was one of the lads who helped me dig out Darios," Wedemir said bitterly. "Got knifed in a little cleanup action Downwind a few days ago."
"He was a lovely boy when he was alive-" sniffed Joia. "Always gentle with me; he used to give me things-"
Lalo sighed. "I understand your sorrow, but what can I do? If you want an exorcism, perhaps Darios-"