Martha Wells - Ile-Rien 1 - The Element of Fire

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thereof, in any form.

Cover art by Eric Peterson

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, N.Y. IOOIO

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

ISBN: 0-812-52097-1

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 93-17046

First edition: July 1993

First mass market edition: July 1994

THE GRAPPLING HOOK skittered

across the rain-slick stone of the ledge before dropping to catch in the

grillwork below the third-story window.

Berham leaned back on the rope to test it. "That's it, Captain Sir. Tight as

may be," the servant whispered.

"Well done," Thomas Boniface told him. He stepped back from the wall and

looked down the alley. "Now where in hell is Dr. Braun?"

"He's coming," Gideon Townsend, Thomas's lieutenant, said as he made his way

toward them out of the heavy shadows. Reaching them he glanced up at the full

moon, stark white against the backdrop of wind-driven rain clouds, and

muttered, "Not the best night for this work." The three men stood in the muddy

alley, the dark brocades and soft wools of their doublets and breeches

blending into the grimy stones and shadow, moonlight catching only the pale

lace at the wrists or shirt collars ofThomas and his lieutenant, the glint of

an earring, or the cold metal sheen on rapiers and wheellock pistol barrels.

It was a cool night and they were surrounded by foiled counting houses and the

crumbling elegance of the decaying, once-wealthy homes of the River Quarter.

Thomas personally couldn't think of a good time to forcibly invade a foreign

sorcerer's house. "The point of it is to go and be killed where you're told,"

he said. "Is everyone in position?"

"Martin and Castero are up on the tannery roof, watching the street and the

other alley. I put Gaspard and two others at

the back of the house and left the servants to watch the horses. The rest are

across the street, waiting for the signal," Gideon answered, his blue eyes

deceptively guileless. "We're all quite ready to go and be killed where we're

told."

"Good," Thomas said. He knew Gideon was still young enough to see this as a

challenge, to care nothing for the political reality that sent them on a

mission as deadly as this with so little support. Glancing down the alley

again, he saw Dr. Braun was finally coming, creeping along the wall and

uncomfortably holding his velvet-trimmed scholar's robes out of the stinking

mud. "Well?" Thomas asked as the sorcerer came within earshot. "What have you

done?"

"I've countered the wards on the doors and windows, but the inside ... This

person Grandier is either very strong or very subtle. I can't understand what

protections he's used." The young sorcerer looked up at him, his watery eyes

blinking fitfully. His long sandy hair and drooping mustache made him look

like a sad-faced spaniel.

"You can't give us any hint of what we're to find in there?" Thomas said,

thinking, This would have been belter done iftve hadn't been saddled with a

sorcerer who has obviousfy escaped from a market-day farce.

Braun's expression was both distressed and obstinate. "He is too strong, or

... He might have the help of some creature of the Fay."

"God protect us," Berham muttered, and uneasily studied the cloudy darkness

above. The others ignored him. Berham was short, rotund, and had been wounded

three times manning barricades in the last Bisran War. He claimed that the

only reason he had left the army was that servants' wages were better. Despite

the little man's vocal quavering, Thomas was not worried about his courage.

"What are you saying?" Gideon asked the sorcerer. "You mean we could fall down

dead or burst into flame the moment we cross the threshold?"

"The uninitiated so often have ill-conceived ideas about these matters, like

the fools who believe sorcerers change

their shapes or fly like the fay. It would be exceedingly dangerous to create

heat or cold out of nothing ..."

"So you say, but. . ."

"That's enough," Thomas interrupted. He took the rope and tested it again with

his own weight. The first floor of the house would be given over to stables,

storage for coaches or wagons, and servants' quarters. The second would hold

salons and other rooms for entertaining guests, and the third and fourth would

be the owner's private quarters. That would be where the sorcerer would keep

his laboratory, and very likely his prisoner. Thomas only hoped die

information from the King's Watch was correct and that the Bisran bastard

Grandier wasn't here. He told Gideon, "You follow me. Unless, of course, you'd

Uke to go first?"

The lieutenant swept off his feathered hat and bowed extravagantly. "Oh, not

at all, Sir, after you."

"So kind, Sir."

The brickwork was rough and Thomas found footholds easily. He reached the

window and pulled himself up on the rusted grating, balancing cautiously. He

felt the rope jerk and tighten as Gideon started to climb.

The window was set with small panes of leaded glass and divided into four tall

panels. Thomas drew a thin dagger from the sheath in his left boot and slipped

the point between the wooden frames of the lower half. Working the dagger

gendy, he eased the inside catch up. The panels opened inward with only a

faint creak. Moonlight touched the polished surface of a table set directly in

front of the window, but the darkness of the deeper interior of the room was

impenetrable. It was silent, but it was a peculiar waiting silence that he

disliked.

Then the window ledge cracked loudly under his boots and he took a hasty step

forward onto the table, thinking, Now we'll know, at any rate. Dust rose from

the heavy draperies as he brushed against them, but the room remained quiet.

"Was that wise?" Gideon asked softly from below the win-dowsill.

"Possibly not. Don't come up yet." Thomas slipped the

MARTHA WELLS

dagger back into his boot sheath and drew his rapier. If something came at him

out of that darkness, he preferred to keep it at as great a distance as

possible. "Tell Berham to hand up a light."

There was some soft cursing below as a dark lantern, its front covered by a

metal slide to keep the light dimmed, was lit and passed upward. Thomas waited

impatiently, feeling the darkness press in on him like a solid wall. He would

have preferred the presence of another sorcerer besides Braun, the rest of the

Queen's Guard, and a conscripted city troop to quell any possibility of riot

when the restive River Quarter neighborhood discovered it had a mad foreign

sorcerer in its midst. But orders were orders, and if Queen's guards or their

captain were killed while entering Grandier"s house secretly, then at least

civil unrest was prevented. An inspired intrigue, Thomas had to admit, even if

he was the one it was meant to eliminate.

As he reached down to take the shuttered lamp from Gideon, something moved in

the comer of his eye. Thomas dropped the lamp onto the table and studied the

darkness, trying to decide if the hesitant motion was actually there or in his

imagination.

The flicker of light escaping from the edges of the lamp's iron cover touched

the room with moving shadows. With the toe of his boot Thomas knocked the

lantern slide up.

The wan candlelight was reflected from a dozen points around the unoccupied

room, from lacquered cabinets, the gilt leather of a chair, the metallic

threads in brocaded satin hangings.

Then the wooden cherub supporting die right-hand corner of the table Thomas

was standing on turned its head.

He took an involuntary step backward.

"Captain, what is it?" Gideon's whisper was harsh.

Thomas didn't answer. He was looking around the room as the faces in the

floral carving over the chimneypiece shifted their blank white eyes, their

tiny mouths working silently. The

THE ELEMENT OF FIRE

bronze snake twined around the supporting pole of a candle-stand stirred

sluggishly. In the woolen carpet the interwoven pattern of vines writhed.

Keeping hold of the rope, Gideon chinned himself on the window ledge to see

in. He cursed softly.

"Worse than I thought," Thomas agreed, not looking away from the hideously

animate room. Unblinking eyes of marble-ized wood stared sightlessly, limbs

and mouths moved without sound. Can they see? Or hear? he wondered grimly.

Most Mkety they can. He doubted they were here only to frighten intruders,

however effective they might be at it.

"We should bum this house to the ground," Gideon whispered.

"We want to get Dubell out alive, not scrape his ashes out of the wreckage."

"How?"

Good question, Thomas thought. The vines in the carpet were lifting themselves

above the surface of the floor like the tentacles of a sea beast. They were as

thick around as a man's wrist and looked strong, and metallic glints that had

been gilt threads in the weaving were growing into knife-edged thorns. It was

only going to get more difficult. Thomas caught up the lantern and stepped

down into a chair with arms shaped into gilded lampreys. They were struggling

viciously but were unable to turn their heads back far enough to reach him.

From there he stepped down to the hardwood floor and backed toward the

doorway.

Gideon made a move to climb into the window but the vinelike tentacles were

reaching up above waist-height and groping along the edge of the table. Thomas

said, "No, stay back."

At the sound of his voice the vines whipped around and stretched out for him,

growing prodigiously longer in a sudden bound, and Thomas threw himself at the

door.

The latch was weak and snapped as his weight struck it. He stumbled through

and caught himself, just as something

MARTHA WELLS

thudded into the dark panelled wall in front of him. He dropped the lantern

and dove sideways, scrambling for cover between two brocaded chairs and the

fireplace.

Embedded in the wall, still quivering, was a short metal arrow; if he had come

through the doorway cautiously it would have embedded itself in his chest. The

lion heads on the iron fircdogs snapped ineffectually at him as he pushed

himself farther behind the chairs, thinking, Where the hell is he? The

sputtering candle sent shadows chasing each other across crowded furniture and

everything was moving. Then in the far comer he saw the life-sized statue of a

Parscen archer. Naked to the waist and balancing a candleholder on his

tur-baned head, he was drawing a second arrow out of the bronze quiver at his

side and putting it to his short bow.

Rolling onto his back to make himself a smaller target, Thomas dropped the

rapier and drew one of his wheellocks. He'd loaded both pistols down in the

alley, and now as he wound up the mainspring, an arrow thudded into the

over-stuffed chair seat. The other chair began to edge sideways using the

clawed feet at the ends of its splayed legs, and without thinking Thomas

muttered "Stop that." He set the spring, then braced the pistol on his forearm

and fired.

The plaster statue shattered in the deafening impact. The shot scarred the

wall behind it and filled the room with the stink of gunpowder.

Thomas got to his feet, tucking away the empty pistol and picking up his

rapier. Now the whole damned house knows I'm here. He hadn't planned to do

this alone either, but the vines filling up the first room and curling round

the doorway into this one committed him to it.

Avoiding the animate furniture, he went to the door in the opposite wall and

tried the handle. It was unlocked, and he eased it open carefully. The room

within was dark, but the archway beyond revealed a chamber lit by a dozen or

so red glass candelabra.

Thomas pulled the door closed softly behind him and moved forward. The dim

light revealed stealthy movement in

THE ELEMENT OF FIRE

the carvings on the fireplace mantel and along the bordered panelling. In the

more brightly lit chamber beyond the arch, he could see an open door looking

out onto the main stairwell.

He stopped just before the fall of light from the next room would have

revealed his presence. There was something . . . Then dearly he heard the

creak of leather and a harsh rasp of breath. It came from just beyond his

range of sight, past the left side of the arch. They knew Grandier had hired

men to guard the house; it was the only way the King's Watch had been able to

trace the sorcerer, since there was no one in the city who could identify him.

The man in the next room must have heard the shot; possibly he was waiting for

the protective spells to dispose of any intruders. Thomas had planned on

something to distract the sorcerer's human watchdogs, to send them down to the

lower part of the house, if Gideon would just get on with it...

From somewhere below there was a muffled thump, and the floorboards trembled

under his feet. Thomas smiled to himself, shouts and running footsteps sounded

from the stairs as the hired swords hastened for the front door. In theory, he

wasn't disobeying die King's orders to keep the raid on Gran-dier/s house

secret. Placed correctly, a small charge of gunpowder could blow a wooden door

to pieces while making little noise, and the houses to either side of

Grandier's were empty anyway.

The waiting guard did not take the bait with the others, but went forward to

stand at the doorway into the stairwell, his rapier drawn. He was big, with

greasy blond hair tied back from his face, and dressed in a dun-colored

doublet. Thomas had already decided to kill him and had started forward when

the man turned and saw him.

The hired sword's shout was muffled by the clatter of his comrades on the

stairs and he rushed forward without waiting for help. Thomas parried two wild

blows, then beat his opponent's sword aside and lunged for the kill. The man

jerked away and took the point between die ribs instead of under the

MARTHA WELLS

breastbone, dropping his weapon and staggering back. Cursing his own

sloppiness, Thomas leapt after him, grappling with him and trying to drive his

main gauche up under the man's chin. In another moment Thomas was easing the

limp body to the floor. There was blood pooling on the rug and on his boots,

but hopefully the others were occupied below and there was no one left to

follow his trail.

He glanced quickly around the room and noted it was free of the sorcerous

animation. There was a closed door on the opposite wall, and it bore examining

before he ventured out onto the main stairs.

As Thomas was reaching for the handle, he felt a sharp stab of unease. He

stepped back, his hand tightening on his sword-hilt, baffled by his own

reaction. It was only a door, as the others had been. He reached out slowly

and felt his heart pound faster with anxiety as his hand neared the knob.

Either I've gone mad, he thought, or this door is warded. Testing it with his

own reactions, he found the ward began about a foot from the door and

stretched out to completely cover it. It was a warning, with a relatively mild

effect, more than likely meant to keep the hired swords and servants away from

this portion of the house. It could also explain why the dead man hadn't left

his post to investigate the pistol shot or to follow his comrades to the front

entrance. He had been guarding something of crucial importance.

Thomas stepped back and kicked the center panel, sending the door crashing

open. Beyond was a staircase leading upward and softly lit by candlelight

glowing down from the floor above.

Bracing himself, Thomas stepped through the ward and onto the first step, and

had to steady himself against the wall as the effect faded. He shook his head

and started up the stairs.

The banister was carved with roses which swayed under a sorcerous breeze only

they could sense. Thomas climbed slowly, looking for the next trap. When he

stopped at the first landing, he could see that the top of the stairs opened

into a long gallery, lit by dozens of candles in mirror-backed

THE ELEMENT OF FIRE

sconces. Red draperies framed mythological paintings and classical landscapes.

At the far end was a door, guarded on either side by a man-sized statuary

niche. One niche held an angel with flowing locks, wings, and a beatific

smile. The other niche was empty.

Thomas climbed almost to the head of the stairs, looking up at the archway

that was the entrance to the room. Something suspiciously like plaster dust

drifted down from the carved bunting on the opposite side.

A tactical error, Thomas thought. Whatever is hiding up there isn 't doing it

to be decorative. He took a quiet step back down the stairs, drawing his empty

pistol. The air felt warm; beneath his doublet, sweat was sticking the thin

fabric of his shirt to his ribs. From the powder flask on his belt he measured

out a double charge and poured it into the barrel. He pushed the bullet and

wadding down with the short ramrod, thinking that it would be quite ironic if

the pistol exploded and ended the matter here.

Thomas wound and set the spring, then carefully aimed the pistol at the top of

the archway and fired. The fifty-caliber ball tore through the light

ornamental wood and into the body of the plaster statue that had perched up on

the opposite side of the arch. Thomas shielded his face as splintered wood and

fragments of plaster rained down. A sculpted head, arm, and pieces of a foot

thudded to the floor in front of him.

He climbed the last few steps and stopped at the front of the gallery, which

was now wreathed in the heavy white smoke of the pistol's discharge. This next

trap wasn't bothering to conceal itself. Ponderously the angel statue turned

its head toward him and stepped out of its niche in the far wall. Thomas

shoved the empty pistol back into his sash and drew the second loaded one,

circling away from the angel. It was slow, its feet striking the polished

floor heavily, plaster wings flapping stiffly.

It stalked him like a stiff cat as he backed away. He wanted to save the

pistol for whatever was behind the next door, so he was reluctant to fire.

MARTHA WELIS

Then his boot knocked against something that seized his ankle. He fell heavily

and dropped the wheellock, which spun across the polished floor and somehow

managed not to go off. Rolling over, he saw that the hand and arm of the

broken statue had tripped him and was still holding onto his ankle. He drew

his main gauche and smashed at it with the hilt. The hand shattered and fell

away, but the angel was almost on top of him. Scrambling desperately backward,

he caught the base of a tall bronze candlestand and pulled it down on the

angel. The heavy holder in the top struck the statue in the temple, knocking

loose a chunk of plaster. It reared back and Thomas got to his feet, keeping

hold of the candlestand. As it lurched toward him again he swung the stand. A

large piece of the wing cracked and fell away as the blow connected, and the

creature staggered, suddenly unbalanced.

Past the stumbling statue he saw movement on the stairs. There were dark

writhing shapes climbing the steps, dragging themselves upward on the

banisters. He backed away, realizing it was .the vines that had sprung out of

the carpet in the first room. Are they filling the entire house? He had known

he couldn't get out the way he'd gotten in, but he had hoped to have the front

door as an option. Now that way was blocked. Thomas dropped the candlestand

and turned to the other door.

He pulled the heavy ironbound door open and one quick glance told him the room

seemed unoccupied by statues. He slammed the door closed as the angel lumbered

awkwardly toward him, bracing against it as he shoved the bolt home. He

stepped back as the thing battered against the other side.

Moonlight from high undraped windows revealed shelf-lined walls stacked with

leatherbound books, most chained to the shelves. It was a large room, crowded

with the paraphernalia of both library and alchemical laboratory, quiet except

for the erratic tick of several lantern docks. There was a writing desk

untidily crammed with paper, and workbenches cluttered with flasks and

long-necked bottles of colored glass. It smelled of tallow from cheap candles,

the musty odor of

THE ELEMENT OF FIRE

books, and an acrid scent from residue left in the containers or staining

floors and tabletops. He drew his rapier again and moved around the overladen

tables, inbred caution making him avoid the stained patches left by alchemical

accidents on the floor. He knew he would have to come back to this house at

some point: the desks and cabinets crammed with scribbled papers would

undoubtedly hold some of Grandier's secrets, but now he hadn't time to sort

the vital information from the trash.

Thomas circled the rotting bulk of a printing press and a cabinet overflowing

with ink-stained type, and stopped. At the far end of the room, hidden by

stacked furniture and shadows, was a man seated in a plain chair. He faced the

wall and seemed to be lost in thought. Dressed in a black cope and a baggy

scholar's cap, his face was angular and lean in profile and his hair and beard

were gray. He didn't seem to be breathing.

Then Thomas saw the shimmer of reflected moonlight from the window and

realized the man was encased in an immense glass b^ll. Wondering at it, he

took a step forward and the enigmatic figure didn't move. He went closer and

lifted a hand to touch the glass prison, but thought better of it.

As if the gesture was somehow perceptible to the man inside, he turned his

head slowly toward Thomas. For a moment his expression was vacant, eyes fixed

on nothing. Then the blue eyes focused and the mouth smiled, and he said,

"Captain Thomas Boniface. We haven't formally met, but I have heard of you."

Thomas had not known Galen Dubell closely, the fifteen years ago when the old

sorcerer had been at court, but he had seen the portraits. "Dr. Dubell, I

presume." Thomas circled the glass prison. "I hope you have some idea of how

I'm to get you out of there."

There was another heavy crash against the door. The statue, the animate vines,

or something else was intent on battering its way in.

MARTHA WELLS

"The power in this bauble is directed inward, toward me. You should be able to

break it from the outside," Dubell said, bis composure undisturbed by the

pounding from the door.

It would be dangerous for the old sorcerer but Thomas couldn't see any other

way. At least the heavy wool of his scholar's robe would provide some

protection. "Cover your head."

Using the hilt of his rapier, Thomas struck the glass sphere. Lines of white

fire radiated out along the cracks. The material was considerably stronger

than it looked, and cracked like eggshell rather than glass. He hit it twice

more, then it started to shatter. A few of the larger shards broke loose, but

none fell near the old man.

Galen Dubell stood carefully and shook the smaller fragments out of his robes.

"That is a welcome relief, Captain." He looked exhausted and bedraggled as he

stepped free of his prison, glass crackling under his boots.

Thomas had already sheathed his rapier and was overturning one of the cabinets

beneath the window. He climbed atop it and twisted the window's catch. Cool

night air entered the stuffy room as he pushed it open. An ornamental sill

just below formed a narrow slanted ledge. Leaning out, he could see the edge

of the roof above. They would have to climb the rough brickwork.

He pulled his head back in and said, "I'm afraid we'll have to take the

footpad's way out, Doctor." He just hoped the old man could make it, and

speedily; the battering at the door was growing louder.

Dubell scrambled up die cabinet easily enough. As if he'd read Thomas's

thought, he said, "It's quite all right, Captain. I prefer the risk to more of

Urbain Grandier's hospitality." He might have the easier time of it; he was

almost a head taller than Thomas.

As Dubell pulled himself carefully out onto the narrow sill, the door gave

way.

The sorcerer used the scrollwork around the window casement as a ladder,

drawing himself up toward the roof. Thomas

THE ELEMENT OF FIRE

swung out onto the sill after him and stood, holding onto the window frame.

Broken fragments of brick sprinkled down as Dubell grasped the edge of the

roof above.

Thomas boosted him from below and the scholar scrambled over the edge. Digging

fingertips into the soft stone, Thomas started to pull himself upward. Dubell

had barely been able to grasp the ledge from here; Thomas knew he would have

to stand on top of the cornice before he could reach safety.

There was a crash just inside as the cabinet they had used to climb to the

window was torn away. Straining to reach the edge of the roof, Thomas bit his

lip as something gave way beneath his left boot. Fingers wedged between die

soft brick, he groped for another hold and felt the mortar under his hand

crumble.

Then from above, Galen Dubell caught his arm in an iron grip, supporting him

as he found another foothold. For a man who must do little with his hands

besides write or do scholarly experiments, Dubell was surprisingly strong. The

man's gentle demeanor made it easy to think of him as nothing more than an

aged university don and to forget that he was also a wizard.

Thomas scrambled over the edge, his muscles trembling with the strain. "I

thank you, Doctor," he said, sitting up, "but there are those at court who

won't appreciate it."

"I won't tell them about it, then." Dubell looked around, the damp breeze

tearing at his gray hair and his cap. "Are those your companions?"

There was a shout. The two men he had stationed atop the tannery were waving

from the edge of the next roof.

"Stay there," Thomas shouted back. "We'll come to you."

Slowly they made their way up the crest of the pitched roof to the edge where

the others were throwing down some planks to bridge the gap. The slate tiles

were cracked and broken, slipping under their feet. They had just crossed the

makeshift bridge to the tannery when Thomas turned to say something to Dubell

and in the next instant was lying flat on the rough planks with the others as

the timber frame of the

MARTHA WELLS

building was shaken by a muffled explosion. Then they were all retreating

hastily across the tannery roof, choking on acrid smoke, as flames rose from

the Bisran sorcerer's house.

"So much for keeping this quiet," Thomas remarked to Gideon. The two men sat

their nervous horses, watching from a few lengths down the street as

Grandier's house burned. There was a crash as the facade collapsed inward,

sending up a fireworks display of sparks and an intense wave of heat. The

neighborhood had turned out to throw buckets of water and mud on the

surrounding roofs and mill about in confusion and panicked excitement. The

real fear had subsided when the residents had realized the fire was confining

itself to the sorcerer's home, and that only a few stray sparks had lit on the

surrounding structures.

Three of the hired swords had been taken alive, though Thomas doubted they

would know much, if anything, about Grandier's intentions. His own men had

obeyed their orders and come no farther than the front hall, so they had been

able to escape the fire. There had been one casualty. Gaspard, one of the men

who had been posted in the court behind the house, had been hit by a

splintered piece of flaming wood as he tried to escape from the explosion. His

back and shoulder had been badly burned and he'd only escaped worse by rolling

in the muddy street. Dubell had insisted on treating the injury immediately,

and Thomas had been only too glad to permit it. Now Gaspard sat on a stone

bench in the shelter of a hostler's stall, his shirt and doublet cut away so

Dubell could treat the blistering wound. The servant Berham was handing the

sorcerer supplies from Dr. Braun's medical box and Dr. Braun himself was

hovering at DubelTs elbow. Thomas suspected that Berham was being more help

than the younger sorcerer.

"The fire is hardly our fault" Gideon shrugged. "Blame Grandier for it."

"Yes, he's a cunning bastard."

Gideon glanced at him, frowning. "How do you mean?"

THE ELEMENT OF FIRE

Thomas didn't answer. Dubell had finished tying the bandage and Martin helped

Gaspard stand. As Castero led their horses forward, Thomas nudged his mare

close enough to them to be heard over the shouting and the roar of the fire

and said, "Gaspard, I want you to ride with Martin."

"Sir, I do not need to be carried." The younger man's face was flushed and

sickly.

"That was not a request, Sir." Thomas was in no mood for a debate. "You can

ride behind him or you can hang head down over his saddlebow; the choice is

yours."

Gaspard looked less combative as he contemplated that thought, and let Martin

pull him unresisting to the horses.

Berham was packing the medical box under Braun's direction and Dubell was

staring at the fire. Thomas had been considering the question of why Grandier

had not killed Galen Dubell. The answer could be simple—Grandier might have

wanted to extract information from the old scholar, and his plan had gone awry

when the King's Watch located the house. But somehow he didn't think it was

going to be simple. The fire should have started when I broke the glass ball.

Yes, it served the purpose of destroying Grandier's papers, butwhy not kill

all the birds with one stone? Unless he wanted us to rescue Dubell. But why?

To announce his presence? To show them how powerful and frightening he was? To

make them distrust Dubell?

As Berham took the box away to pack on his horse, Thomas waved Dr. Braun over

and leaned down to ask him, "Is it possible for Grandier to ... tamper with

another sorcerer, to put a geas on him?"

Braun looked shocked. "A geas can be laid on an untrained mind, yes, but not

on a sorcerer like Dr. Dubell."

"Are you very sure about that'"

"Of course." After a moment, under Thomas's close scrutiny, Braun coughed and

said, "Well, I am quite sure. I had to put gascoign powder in my eyes to see

the wards around the house, and a geas, or any kind of spell, would be visible

on Dr. Dubell."

MARTHA WELLS

"All right." That was as good as they were going to get without taking the old

scholar to Lodun to be examined by the sorcerer-philosophers there, and there

was no time for that.

Dubell turned and came toward diem. "An unfortunate fire," he said. "There was

much to learn there."

"I thought you said it was dangerous to create fire out of nothing?" Thomas

asked Braun.

"It is," Braun protested, flustered.

Dubell smiled. "It depends on one's appreciation of danger."

"So much does," Thomas agreed. "They'll have some questions for you at the

palace."

"Of course. I only hope my small knowledge can aid you."

"We'll find Grandier," Gideon said, coming up beside them.

DubelTs eyes were troubled. "If he continues his mischief on such a grand

scale, he will be hard to miss. He'll also be a fool, of course, but he may

not see it that way."

"Oh, I hardly think he's a fool," Thomas said. Castero and Berham had gotten

Gaspard mounted up behind Martin, and they began to turn their horses away

from the crowded street. As the others went down the alley, Thomas took one

last look at die burning house. So far Grandier had shown an odd combination

of ruthlessness and restraint, and he was not sure which he found more

daunting. The sorcerer had snatched Galen Dubell out of his home in Lodun,

indiscriminately slaughtering the servants who had witnessed it. For no

practical reason, since Lodun University was full of wizards and scholars of

magic who had been able to divine Grandier's identity within hours of

examining the scene. Yet the fire that could have been so devastating stuck to

Grandier's house like pitch and refused to spread to the ready tinder of the

other old buildings. As much as he might wish to, Thomas couldn't see it as a

gesture of defiance. He only wondered where, in what corner of the crowded

city, the word had passed to watch for a sorcerous blaze in the night, and

what to do then.

"DOES THE MASK fit?" Anton

Baraselli looked up at the young woman who sat on the balcony railing, her

feet swinging under her tattered red skirt.

Gray eyes stared back at him from die pale features of the distorted

half-mask. "It fits. Do I have the part?"

Baraselli sat at his table on a balcony overhanging the main room of the

Mummer's Mask tavern, where his acting troupe made its home. He was

middle-aged, his dark hair diin and wispy on his nearly bald head, but his

plumpness and the newness of his clothes reflected his troupe's recent

prosperity. He could barely hear the woman's deep voice over the shouted

conversation, drunken arguments, and the competing strains of mandolin and

viola that rose up from the rowdy crowd on the tavern's main floor below. The

wealthier patrons were drinking in the small private rooms off the

second-floor gallery, the shutters propped open so the music could reach them

clearly.

"Well, you've no troupe to recommend you," Baraselli said, leaning back. He

didn't want to pay her as much as she might ask. His last Columbine had run

off to be married, leaving without a backward glance yesterday morning.

Baraselli had come to Ile-Rien from conquered Adera years ago when all forms

of the Aderassi theater were despised and confined to back alleys and peasant

festivals. Now the war with Bisra was over and Ile-Rien's capital was more

cosmopolitan and free with its money. Vienne was a jewel of a city in a rich

setting, standing on temperate plains roughly in the

MARTHA WELLS

center of the country, with rolling hills and olive groves on the warmer coast

to the southwest, rich forested midlands, and black-soiled farmland in die

terraced valleys of die high country to the north. Baraselli had liked it, and

now that Commedia and other foreign theatricals were popular he liked it a

great deal more.

The woman took the mask off and tossed it onto the table. Her long hair was

dirty blond and her narrow face with its long nose and direct eyes was plain,

too plain to ever play the unmasked heroines. Her faded red dress was old and

well-worn, better than a country woman's but no bawd's false finery either.

Whatever the rumomiongers thought, whores made terrible actresses.

She looked toward him with a grin. Smoke from the candles and clay pipes below

had reached up to touch the tavern's high beamed ceiling and had spread out

like a cloud behind her. It was an interesting theatrical effect, but there

was something about the image that Baraselli found faintly disquieting. She

said, "I'm not here to make my fortune. I'll take what you paid the last one."

She had good teeth, too. "All right, you're our Columbine. But on sufferance,

mind. WeVe got an important engagement—a very important engagement. It happens

when you attract the crowds and praise we have. If you don't give a fine

performance, you're out. If you do, well, it's one silver per fortnight and a

fair share of whatever they throw onto the stage."

"That's well, I agree."

"Anton! Look out the window." Garin, still wearing the gray beard from his

Pantalone costume, came pounding up the stairs.

"What? I'm busy."

Garin pushed past him and threw open the shutters of the window behind

Baraselli's table.

"Damn it, you'll let die night air and the bogles in, you fool." Baraselli

stood abruptly, jarring the table and slopping wine onto the stained floor.

THE ELEMENT OF FIRE

"But look at this." Garin pointed. The Mummer's Mask stood in a huddle of

taverns and old houses on the side of a low hill commanding a good view of die

River Quarter. Lying before diem were the narrow overhung streets of the older

and poorer area, which eventually led into the vast plazas and pillared

promenades surrounded by the garden courts of the wealthy. Farther to the west

and standing high above the slate and wooden roofs were the domes of churches,

die fantastic and fanciful statues ornamenting the gables of the fortified

Great Houses, the spires of die stone-filigree palaces on the artificial

islands on the river's upper reaches, all transformed into anonymous shapes of

alternating black and silver as clouds drifted past the moon. But now, against

the stark shadowy forms of the crowded structures of the River Quarter, diey

could see the bright glow of fire, a harsh splash of color in die darkness.

"Down near Cross Street, I think," Garin said.

More of die troupe had drifted up the stairs in his wake, curious. "Lord save

it doesn't spread," one of them whispered.

"Another bad omen," Baraselli muttered. One of die clowns had died of fever

last month. Clowns were traditionally good luck in Adera, if not in Ile-Rien,

and having one of them die unexpectedly had shaken the other performers. Gods

and spirits, no more omens before this of all performances, Baraselli prayed.

"Maybe it's a good omen," the new Columbine said, selecting an apple out of

the bowl on the table and watching the worried actors widi oblique amusement.

"Some people think fire is."

Dark smoke streamed into die night sky.

They rode through St. Anne's Gate and into die cobbled court between the high

walls of the Mews and the Cisternan Guard Barracks. The facades of the two

buildings were almost identical, though time and weather had scarred the

dressed stone in different ways. Each was entered by three great archways that

faced one another across die length of the court. Now torches

MARTHA WELLS

threw reflections up onto the mist-slick stone as grooms and stablenands

hurried to take the horses or curious Cistemans wandered out to see what the

excitement was.

Thomas dismounted and handed the reins to one of the grooms. He took off a

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THEELEMENTOFFIRECopyright©1993byMarthaWellsAllrightsreserved,includingtherighttoreproducethisbook,orportionsthereof,inanyform.CoverartbyEricPetersonATorBookPublishedbyTomDohertyAssociates,Inc.175FifthAvenueNewYork,N.Y.IOOIOTor®isaregisteredtrademarkofTomDohertyAssociates,Inc.ISBN:0-812-52097-1Librar...

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