A muggy day in Growth, 935
The growing season hit Midormere like wildfire, heat rolling across the plains in buzzing waves. The rivers hunkered low in their beds, muddy banks appearing between the waterline and the canal walls. The upper city’s Sister Dykes, built along the river’s edges in places most prone to flooding, seemed very optimistic indeed.
Idah wished she could see the state of the perpetually flooded lower city. The servants wondered aloud to one another if this might be one of the rare dry years — a ripe opportunity to build and repair in the neighbourhood of barges and house boats. Idah often considered wrapping herself in illusion and walking the city — not that she would need to. Did anyone outside the palace even know what she looked like? But the risk would be too great.
She could put her own safety on the line without much thought — old enough now that dying of an angry mob sounded less daunting than waiting for her failing body to lose its grasp on life. But if the Thiab found her in the streets — the grand master outside of her cage — the breach of trust would go farther than just herself. The chance of the citizens allowing another grand master to be put on her perch after such a display would be slim, and without a mage in the tower to watch for magical attack and receive messages from afar, the empire would be vulnerable to attack.[AP1]
Not that her health had allowed her to perform many of her duties lately. She’d taken to her bed during Waking over a fever, missing several key messages from Dunsta Noc that could have tapered some of the chaos sown in the city streets. Any day now, the tensions would come to a head and those seeds of discord would be reaped.
A polite knock at the door hailed the arrival of her lunch, and Idah bade them enter, dismissing the protective runes over the door with a wave. The waif of a woman who entered held the tray gingerly, taking slow, awkward steps, her face bunched up in concentration.
“Is that as fast as you go, girl?” Idah chided. “If you climbed the stairs like that, my lunch will be cold as a Dunsta Noc winter.”
The girl’s cheeks reddened as she picked up the pace, her shaky hands making the porcelain rattle. She mumbled, “Sorry, Grand Master,” without taking her eyes from the tray.
Idah sighed, settling herself into her armchair and removing the scroll she had been studying the previous evening from the side table. As the tray was settled into place, Idah peered closer at the delivery woman. She didn’t recognize her.
“Are you new, girl? Where’s Ravi?” Idah asked, already missing the steady, unflappable presence of her usual servant.
“No ma’am.” The woman bobbed a quick curtsy, already backing away to the door. “Ravi is unwell today and I was asked to bring you your food.”
Idah cocked her head to one side. She supposed getting sick for one day in three years of service was forgivable, but that didn’t explain the riddle of the girl before her. The servant’s thin frame and pale face reminded Idah of a friend she had made as a child, and her lips sunk into a frown as she remembered the day she lost both that friend and her aunt.
“Well. Wish Ravi a swift recovery for me. But if you’re going to be delivering meals, you’ll need to stop acting like a rabbit in a wolf’s den — I’m a cranky old bitch, but I don’t bite.”
The woman looked at her then, shocked off her guard for a moment. Idah took in her soft features and dark eyes. Thaven traits, but not quite right.
“I’m half-Thiab,” the woman answered her unasked question.
“That would explain it, then. I won’t torment you by making you stay to watch an old mage eat. You and your superstitions are dismissed but be quicker about dinner tonight.”
The woman’s relief melted her rigid posture and she gave a perfunctory curtsy before bolting for the door. Idah rolled her eyes as she moved her lunch tray onto her lap, arthritic hands aching with the weight of it. Since arriving in Midormere and taking up the mantle of Grand Master two decades earlier, she had only ever met Thiab elite. Generals, nobility, and the sage that headed the Family cathedral. All of them had been tempered by manners or exposed to magic before meeting her. She shuddered to think of the reaction women like that servant would give her if not threatened with the prospect of dismissal.
It had been years since a mage was caught studying in Midormere, trying to unravel the relationship between magic and the Thiab gods. The crowd that had formed marched with the discipline of soldiers to the man’s inn, hauling him from his bed and tearing him apart right there in the street. Ravi had lived nearby and had told Idah about the sight, watched in horror from a second story window. The most chilling part, as Ravi described it, was the instant change in the crowd from a collected, purposeful unit, to ravening, bloodthirsty lunatics and back again when the deed was done.
Idah shook the tension from her neck as best she could, massaging away some soreness with her hands before picking up her spoon and taking her first bites of cold bison stew. Her jaw ached with the constant worry that had plagued the relatively calm city in the last two years. A coup, rampant corpsefever, and a god-started fire had only been the beginning of it.
An army had gathered, hiding among those fleeing Dunsta Noc’s own struggles with plague. Idah’s magic throbbed with their ill intent, but unless she could get permission to leave, their location would remain a mystery to her. Instead, she locked down the palace with her most powerful castings. Wards glistened over every entrance, rimming entire doorways and window frames to the imperial suites. Her tower stairs glistened with a greasy layer of spells that would allow no one with malicious intent to pass. Even the very air around the upper levels of the palace would report flying interlopers to her, just in case.
Idah chewed her meal without vigour as she looked out her tall windows at the city. A haze of heat wobbled above the dark-roofed buildings, hiding the shapes of people living their lives in the streets below. The dome of the Family cathedral rose above it all, mirrored by the centuries-old, untouched ruins of Suryanook. Swallowing with an effort, Idah imagined what the city might have been like before the world-rift, when a mageocracy ruled from Suryanook’s impenetrable halls.
She mopped beads of sweat from her brow absently, staring at the dark patches on her sleeve for a long moment. Her thoughts came slowly, as if fighting through a layer of molasses. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d sweated like this. Old age had brought an inescapable cold to her bones, making her infamous in the palace for her many layers of shawls and constantly roaring hearth — even in Growth.
All at once she felt the wrongness in her body. She flung the tray from her lap, sending soup in a spraying arc across the rug. She staggered toward her vanity — covered in bottles of every shape and size. Some held mundane perfumes and medications for her joints, but others she used for the alchemical arts. One jar in particular held a butterfly that could be released to raise a magical alarm. Surely, she had something for poison?
Her legs took her three strides before crumpling, a pins-and-needles sensation sending a bolt of discomfort into her bad hip with each step. She landed softly on the plush rug, dragging herself forward on rickety arms. Nausea rose up to greet her, and she retched. Her head spun violently; the room shifted around her like a sea in storm as agony spread to her limbs.
Crawling with her eyes closed against the pain, she bumped her head into the vanity, the clink of disturbed glass oddly tinny to her ears. She fought to open her eyes. The world came blurrily into view between sluggish, unfocused blinks. The smooth leg of the vanity felt cool under her fingers as she tried to climb to her potions.
“Fuck me,” she grumbled as her weight unbalanced it, sending it tipping onto the floor with a mighty crash.
As she lay amongst the shards of glass and felt the wetness of her concoctions soaking through her clothes, she thought of the princes — emperor and high prince now — and their young, open faces when they had visited her as children. Above her, the butterfly flew, loosed from its jar, but she didn’t hear the wild keening alarm that sounded with each flap of its frantic blue wings.
She could see the young faces before her as the pain began to fade — Erskine’s serious, thoughtful expressions and the puckish mischief of Sindrin’s grin. They swam in and out of focus, melding together to become one sharp-featured, familiar face.
Idah lay panting on the ground, the sensations of pain and damp and sick drifting to a distance as she looked up at Buu, standing calmly over her. He looked identical to how he had in memory, from all those years ago. He offered her his small, pale hand.
“Hello, Idah.”
His voice sounded young but buttressed with time and wisdom. A world-weariness sat about his small shoulders that she did not remember, though he wore it with the practice of an older man.
“Buu?” Idah stared at him, her mind catching up. Around them, a dark mist spread in every direction. In life, she would have found it unnerving, but it suited this place — wherever it was.
“I’ve been looking forward to seeing you again. May I?” Buu asked, smiling.
She took his outstretched hand, letting him pull her to her feet. As she stood, she felt her body fall away, leaving her as light and easy as a songbird. She followed Buu into the quiet calm of his new home, content to leave her old worries to the living.