Letter X (C.D. to F.M.)

My dear Foofri,

My restored memories match yours for the most part, although the coloring seems to be different in places. There was a certain quality of sympathy for Sean Valerian in your letter that was missing from my own memory. As I recall, our not taking his spell book seriously was as much his fault as ours. In the first place, he spied on us and followed us when we’d made it clear that the magi tree was our secret hideout. And then, after he invaded our no boys allowed space, he kept acting like he had a big deal secret and that he was doing us a favor by showing it to us. Of course we—or, admittedly, I—wasn’t going to take him seriously after that. If he’d just come to Grandmother’s for tea like a normal person, maybe things would have gone better.

However, it was a long time ago, and I suppose we’ve grown up enough to let bygones be bygones. And it must have been quite a shock to discover he was actually doing magic. (Although I’m not saying that if I ever got the chance to rub his face in moonflower dust I wouldn’t do it.)
This afternoon, I reported the listening thread to Justicum security and went to have a cup of tea. Before I was halfway through my plate of munches, one of the Justicum messengers fluttered up to my table bearing the card of none other than Master Blivius.

I’ve seen him, of course, at Council meetings, but I’ve never exchanged a single word with him, and certainly nothing that would merit a command appearance. But that was exactly the message scrawled on the back of the card, ordering me (not so much as a please!) to follow the messenger to his office.

The messenger was one of the new models with three speeds, and it must have been jacked up to the highest because I had to run to keep up with it, the hem of my robe flapping behind me.
Although both annoyed by the peremptory summons and apprehensive about what a Master could possibly want to see me about, I have to admit I was curious. The only Master’s office I’ve ever seen is Lastra’s official one. The Board’s private offices are wrapped in so many layers of security that supposedly you can’t even walk past the door unless you’ve been given special clearance.

I wasn’t entirely unprepared when the messenger zoomed through a stained glass window, but I couldn’t help wincing as I followed it. I didn’t feel a thing, of course, and the holding area where the scan spell made sure I wasn’t concealing any dangerous magic was full of pleasantly multicolored light.

Blivius’s office, on the other hand, was not pleasant. He was sitting behind an enormous desk made of ebony wood, and the chair I had to sit in across from him was straight backed and hard. You know how when you see him at a distance in the Council hall he looks like he was curling his lip out and got frozen like that? Well, he looks like that up close too, perpetually sneering. That was all I had time to take in before he tilted the shade on his lamp and directed the light right into my eyes.

I sat there blinking blindly in the beam, wishing I could say just part of what I was thinking.

“Magi, one hour ago you filed a report with Justicum security. Is that or is that not correct?”

“That is correct,” I answered, wondering why he bothered to ask since he obviously had access to all the security files.

“You reported you found a listening thread on one of your garden paths. Is that or is that not correct?”

“That’s correct.” I wondered if he really suspected me of lying.

“You described it as a generic spell out of an elementary spell book. Is that—”

“That’s correct,” I dared to interrupt. My eyes were watering, and, Master or not, I was feeling very annoyed.

Floorboards creaked beneath his feet, and I could hear that he was pacing, even if I couldn’t see it. “I don’t suppose it occurred to you, Magi, that there was probably a more sophisticated spell hidden nearby?”

“I’ve been looking,” I said, “but I haven’t been able to find anything.”

He ignored this. “Someone is very interested in you. Interested enough to break into your home and spy upon you. Clearly, there is only course of action. You must tell me everything you know about the Stones’ return.”

The Suldan Stones. Of course the Suldan Stones!

I guess I lost my head for a minute. “Of course, Master, I’d be so relieved to tell you what I know!” I exclaimed.

There was a thump as he sat down too quickly. “Yes?” he asked, and he leaned toward me, partially blocking the light so that I could actually see him. I think his smirk was positively quivering with anticipation.

“Well,” I began, “it all started one dark and stormy night when an old woman mysteriously appeared on our doorstep.”

“And she brought you the Stones?” he demanded.

“Oh no. But Grandfather suffered terribly from seasonal allergies, and she had the most wonderful herbal tea remedy—”

“Do you think this is a joke, Magi?” he hissed, slamming his fists onto the desk.

I stood up, shoving my chair back so hard that it fell over. “No, I don’t think this is a joke!” I answered too loudly. “But I’m tired of nobody believing me when I say I don’t know anything about the Stones! I don’t! I don’t know anything! If anyone knows anything at all it’s the Board of Masters with your precious hoard of secrets! If anyone knows how the Stones came back, it’s probably you!”

The next second he was around the desk and hissing right in my face. “Who told you that? Who told you that I know how the Stones came back? Who’s been spying on me?”

More than a little startled that my wild shot had hit a target, I stepped back. “Nobody told me.”

“Whose agent are you? Don’t lie to me, girl!”

He looked truly furious, and for a moment I was frightened. “Nobody,” I repeated. “It only seemed to make sense to me that the Masters would know. After all, they’re supposed to know everything.”

I don’t know if he believed me, but he seemed to calm down. “No, not everything,” he said. “But I know a good deal. A good deal more than my fellow Masters know. More than those who would seize this seat of power suspect. And if you were wise, Magi, you would ally yourself with me before you get hurt. Those who wield the Stones always get hurt, unless they are properly protected.”

“Why?” I whispered.

“They have too much power. Far too much power for any one person to hold. They’ll eat your mind from the inside. Did whoever you’re working for tell you that? Or did they just promise you the power and neglect the danger?”

His eyes looked wild, and there was a fleck of foam at the edge of his mouth. I tried to back toward the door.

“Master, I swear I’m not working for anyone.”

“Do you really expect me to believe that one of the others hasn’t gotten to you?” He laughed harshly. “Well, you go back and tell whoever it is that they won’t get anything from me. I keep my own counsel.” He pointed toward the door. “Get out.”

I was only too glad to obey.

I ran into Jamin and his curricle outside the Justicum. He said he had just dropped Winterfast off for a committee meeting, and he offered me a ride home. I was happy enough to accept since I did not feel like hunting down a taxi. I also didn’t feel like talking, and I suppose I must have been visibly shaken because he started giving me long, sideways glances, and then he suddenly turned off the main road into one of the entrances to the royal park.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Beautiful day for a drive in the park isn’t it?” he asked, gesturing expansively at a cluster of daffodils. “Very soothing to the nerves.”

I scowled at the backs of the horses and braced myself for the nosy questions I was certain were following, but he had more subtlety than I’d given him credit for and stayed absolutely quiet. At first I was impatient for him to start the interrogation, and then of course, I was suddenly dying to talk. Truthfully, Foofri, it’s been a difficult week with you at Seven Oaks. I know we write letters, but it’s not the same!

“It’s those stupid Suldan Stones!” I burst out. “Nobody will tell me anything about them, and yet they all seem to think that I have some secret knowledge, when they’re the ones keeping the secrets! Master Blivius just interrogated me, and then he told me he already knew how the Stones were returned!”

“Did he?” Jamin demanded. “Why that sneaky old buzzard!”

“He is!” I agreed. “He badgered me and all but called me a liar to my face.” To my horror, my voice caught and I found my eyes were full of tears.

“Don’t cry, Maera,” Jamin begged, fumbling for his handkerchief. (I forgot to tell you before that Jamin has made up his own nickname for me. I tried to tell him it was Cordy, but he said it made me sound like a piece of small rope.) I accepted the handkerchief when he found it and blew my nose in what was probably a most unladylike manner.

At that moment, the afternoon took another turn for the worse as two riders came around the bend of the road we traveled. I was still busy with the handkerchief, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Jamin bow, and when I looked up I found that Damorin and Princess Ameliorene had reined in their horses beside us.

The last time I saw Damorin I had just burgled his office. The last time I crossed Princess A’s path, I ruined her tea dress. And now I was being lachrymose in linen. At that moment I seriously considered emigration. Preferably somewhere where political hostilities would make communication with the Realm impossible.

“Magi Demestheln, are you all right?” Ameliorene asked in a sweet, concerned tone that only made everything worse.

“Fine!” I said brightly, shoving the handkerchief beneath the edge of my skirt.

“No, she’s not,” Jamin burst out. I glared at him as a subtle hint that he ought to be shutting his mouth, but it didn’t have any effect. Men and their confused sense of chivalry!

“She’s been bullied by one of you Council high muckamucks, demanding she tell him how those rocks showed up so mysteriously and then telling her he’d known the whole time himself.” He glared at Damorin throughout this speech, I suppose classing him with the muckamucks.

Damorin looked back coolly, looking, if anything, a little bored. “If Cordelimaera has a complaint against another Council member, she can register it with the proper authority.”

“Well, that doesn’t work very well if this Master Oblivious is the proper authority, now, does it?” Jamin shot back.

“Jamin, please,” I muttered pinching his arm.

“I presume you are referring to Master Blivius,” Damorin said coldly. “Allow me to reassure you that Masters, too, are subject to the ruling of the Council.”

Ameliorene was looking back and forth between the two men, wide-eyed, and I hated to think what gossip would be floating around court at the next high tea. It was more than time to end this conversation. “Oh,” I gasped, lifting a hand to my temple.

All three of them looked at me, Jamin the most anxiously. “Maera, are you all right?”

“It’s only that I’ve suddenly got the most beastly headache. But I’m sure it will pass,” I heroically added.

“I’ll take you home at once,” Jamin promised, lifting the reins.

“If the magi is ill, she had better transport. The jolting of the wheels will only make her headache worse,” Damorin said authoritatively, as he maneuvered his horse next to the carriage. Before I had an inkling of what he was up to, he had lifted me off the seat and onto the front of his saddle.

I began to sputter a protest, but he only bowed slightly to Ameliorene with a murmured, “Excuse me,” and then the transport spell swirled around us. A moment later, we (including the horse) rematerialized in front of my house.

“I thought it was better to get away quickly than to make a scene, so I said stiffly, “Thank you for your consideration. If you will put me down, I should go inside and rest.”

“You don’t have a headache,” he told me.

“I most certainly do!” I snapped, forgetting about not making a scene. “How dare you accuse me of … of …”

“What did Blivius tell you?” he demanded, clearly not concerned about my indignation.

“Oh, so that’s what this is about. I might have known. He told me nothing. Nothing at all. So I’m sorry your little transport turned out to be a waste, but on the bright side, you can hurry back to the lovely princess who is, I am sure, mostly anxiously awaiting your return.” With that, I pushed myself off of his ridiculously tall horse and made an ungraceful landing on the driveway. By the time I regained my balance, Damorin had dismounted.

“If he told you nothing, then why were you so upset?”

I threw my hands in the air. “You’d be upset too if you were a first year council member and got summoned to a master’s private office where he made veiled threats and shouted at you. Although I suppose you’re planning to be one someday, so all of this probably seems perfectly normal to you. You’re probably already honing your bullying-lesser-magi-into-tears skills, but unfortunately, I’m all cried out for today, so if you want to practice, you’ll have to go somewhere else.” And with that, I ran up the steps and slammed the front door behind me.

Foofri, I am through. The Suldan Stones can rot in the vault for all I care. And the next person who asks me about them is going to be enchanted into a pair of puce argyle socks which I will then mail to opposite ends of the world.

And does anyone even care that Grandfather is dead? (I know you do, dearest, I didn’t mean that.)

Tomorrow, I am going to begin my Stones-free life. First, and most importantly, I’ll buy a new dress to cheer myself up. Then I have to give my follow up lecture at the BMEFYC, and then maybe I’ll do some actual work (that has nothing whatsoever to do with any mysterious artifacts) at the Justicum. And if Damorin and Blivius and Lastra and Uncle and Sean Valerian don’t like it, well that’s too bad for them.

Affectionately (towards you if not the world in general),
Cordy

PS I saw Yleyagn Fardscarp a few days ago. Time has done nothing but improve him.