The Obsidian Mountain Trilogy Read online

  The Arch-Mage stepped back, gazing down at the sleeping girl with a certain satisfaction. Everything had been set right. Things were now as they were meant to be. Trouble had been avoided for the good of the City, what was wrong had been set right, and in fact, the world would be a better place for his actions. Thanks to him, the City would now nurture a budding artist of exceptional ability, who would one day bring pleasure to thousands.

  Straightening his robes, he went to give final instructions to her parents.

  Chapter Three

  The Books of the Wild Magic

  “KELLEN, YOU’RE NOT attending.”

  Three mornings a week, Kellen went off to private lessons with his tutor in one of the heavily warded private workrooms at the Mage College of Armethalieh.

  The Mage College was a complex of buildings set among beautifully landscaped grounds in the heart of the Mage Quarter. It was surrounded by the homes of the Mages, and no one who was not himself a Mage or a Mage-to-be had ever set foot upon its grounds. Many of the wondertales circulating about the City dealt at great length with a young Apprentice’s first sight of the College. All were completely inaccurate, as none of the fabulists had ever actually seen it.

  Kellen regarded the fables with a mixture of disgust and amusement. The reality was nothing like they imagined: no talking fountains, no trees bearing every kind of fruit out of season, no herds of animated statuary in every conceivable shape and color wandering over the lawns, no beds of jeweled flowers wafting jets of strange perfumes into the air, no kindly elderly Mages wandering the grounds, trailing clouds of rainbows and Magelights …

  No kindly elderly Mages at all. Crotchety, arrogant Mages in plenty, though.

  … and no circles of eager Apprentices standing about chattering among themselves as they worked on great spells …

  Lots of Apprentices scurrying from class to class, but that’s about it.

  And certainly no strange collections of Other Races, kept here out of sight of the common run of Armethaliehans.

  Everything was just ordinary. And boring.

  The only statues that might possibly be animated were the two lions that flanked the main gate, and Kellen had never actually seen them move, though rumor had it that if a non-Mageborn ever tried to pass between them, they would leap down and rend him to bits. It was unlikely that a non-Mageborn would ever get that far, though. Not only would custom and common sense—and the Constabulary—keep ordinary citizens away, there were simple wards all around the grounds, to turn back the drunk, the sick, and the mad.

  Unfortunately, no matter how hard he’d tried, Kellen had never been sick enough to be turned back.

  He stared blankly at his tutor, Undermage Anigrel. He stared blankly because he knew better than to stare with challenge in his gaze. Anigrel looked like a younger—and blond—version of Kellen’s father; tall, lean, and saturnine, with just a hint of pointed beard and a pencil line of moustache. All the Mageborn were slender and fine-boned, their bodies shaped by no physical labor more arduous than lifting a wand or a pen. Their coloration was vivid; black, blond, or red hair running strongly in particular Mage families. They were elegant.

  Kellen … wasn’t.

  His classmates called him “farmer” and “laborer” behind his back, and in truth, he did tower over most of them, especially since his last growth-spurt. Muscles meant for use, and honed by climbing walls and trees, and simply walking for miles through the City, bulked the fabric of his tunic and the loose-fitting trousers he preferred to the fashionable hose worn by some of his more daring classmates. He bet Anigrel wore hose—not that he’d ever seen his tutor without his grey Journeyman robes, or was likely to. Or wanted to, come to that.

  Chired Anigrel wasn’t from a prominent enough family to have family colors, and as a Journeyman-Undermage he wasn’t yet entitled to colors of his own, so he wore the universal uniform of the Mages of the City, the long grey robes and sleeveless, floor-length vest that would someday—if he was fortunate and worked hard—bear the colors of a full-fledged High Mage. Anigrel was in high favor with Lycaelon, however, which meant that his personal fortune stretched to a finer style of clothing than most—soft grey linen in this weather, with a discreet trimming of darker grey and equally discreet silver-grey geometric motifs in fine embroidery on the front and back panels of the vest.

  It occurred to Kellen at that moment that he hadn’t ever really noticed the way that the differences between those who were in favor with someone of high position and those who were not were subtly displayed despite the plain grey “uniform” that was supposed to be identical for every Mage, regardless of class or social background. Once again—as usual—fine words fell short of reality where the Mages were concerned.

  “Begin again, Kellen,” Anigrel said crossly, and Kellen sighed and raised his Student wand. Anigrel began to chant the names of the sigils that Kellen was supposed to have memorized.

  “Eleph. Vath. Kushon. Deeril. Ashan …”

  As Anigrel spoke the name of the sigil, Kellen was supposed to trace it in the air. In this order they were meaningless, and not even the magick stored in the wand did more than permit them to glow in the air for a few moments before fading. But assembled together in set orders, they would make the key components of the first-level spells that every Student Mage had to master before moving on to the next level. Kellen was only a Student-Apprentice; not even a full Apprentice. He was unable to cast even the simplest spell of the High Magick—or at least, he was supposed to be unable to.

  Kellen was very well aware that he should be long past memorizing sigil-lists by now. He should, in fact, be mastering the first-level spells and well into the groundwork for second-level spells, which involved more complicated structures of sigils and words of Power. And in fact he actually had mastered one or two second-level spells, even though he didn’t really know the groundwork—though that was something he kept to himself.

  The trouble was, of course, that all this business with tracing sigils in the air without much result was boring. When he’d been a lot younger, there had been a certain excitement in seeing the sigils glowing with magick as they hung in the air before him; there was even a kind of aesthetic pleasure in creating them, for like ornamental writing, they were pretty in an austere, yet baroque fashion. But that had been a long time ago. These days, Anigrel kept finding all manner of little defects to correct in the sigils he’d mastered, and lists of new sigils to learn. He was tired of it; tired of rote memorization and repetition without any results.

  His mind kept drifting off to the very different sort of magick that he had found in The Book of Sun. There was substance there, a kind of magick you could get your teeth into. And it was a magick anyone could understand. There didn’t seem to be any nonsense with memorizing books full of sigils and words of power.

  The Book of Sun was the easiest of the three Books to understand, a primer on personal energy and how magick actually worked. It was the first time he’d ever seen anything about how magick worked. The High Mages didn’t want to explain anything—at least to a lowly Student like Kellen—his studies consisted of endless drill, and he was supposed to take it on faith that someday the endless round of memorization would make sense.

  Not like the Books of the Wild Magic. They actually told you things; how things worked, why they worked, why they didn’t work. Even better, they had actual spells.

  He’d discovered that the back half of The Book of Sun was mostly full of little cantrips and minor spells to make things happen—everything from lighting a candle to sending a one-or two-word message to scrying what was happening at a distance.

  If these Books were intended to serve the same purpose for young Wildmages as his textbooks on High Magick, they were certainly a lot more straightforward—and you actually got to do something besides memorize!

  “Kellen!” Anigrel said sharply. “Your line is drifting to the right—I’ve told you over and over: you must keep your sigil centered dire
ctly in front of you! Now, again—retrace that Methra—”

  Kellen sighed; he didn’t think he was off-center. He began retracing the sigil.

  Well, while it was true that you could start doing the Wild Magic immediately, there also seemed to be—ramifications. The spells in the three Books didn’t seem all that different from the basic High Magick spells he’d been learning (if not actually using), but now that he’d finished the first Book he was starting to get an idea of why the Books were anathema to the High Mages. Wild Magic seemed to be utterly unpredictable.

  And oh, how the High Mages hated the unpredictable! Absolutely hated it! As far as they were concerned, everything ought to be regulated, measured, moderated, and controlled, and Wild Magic just … wasn’t. You could cast your spell, set the process in motion, and as far as Kellen could figure out, there was no telling just how your end would be accomplished, or even if it would be attained at all. That point was made over and over again in The Book of Moon. Spontaneity, variety, unpredictability, all linked into that most powerful of things, magick—the High Mages couldn’t possibly do anything other than hate the Wild Magic, now, could they?

  And despite the fact that you might not get what you wanted, that was part of what Kellen found so attractive about Wild Magic, just when he was the most unhappy with his life and the future his father had all planned out for him.

  It was very strange, finding the Books in the Low Market like that, though perhaps it would be better to say that they found him. Perhaps that was just one more demonstration of how unpredictable Wild Magic was.

  Perhaps he had been practicing Wild Magic even before he’d found the Books, even without knowing it, and because of that he had sensed the Books and been drawn to them just when he had been longing for the new and different, for excitement and change. Maybe his longing had become the instrument of Wild Magic …

  Or Wild Magic had used him …

  And that sudden thought made him just a bit uncomfortable.

  “Xota. Jald. Eron. Batun,” Anigrel chanted, as Kellen traced sigil after sigil, each one more complicated than the last. The first set had only glowed with a single color; now that he was into the more advanced of the sigils, the lines that he drew in the air boasted three different—though always harmonious—colors, or three shades of the same color. And now the sigils themselves pointed out where he went wrong, for the colors would not be quite right if his tracing was off even a little. And if they were wrong altogether, well, he’d often get vile shades that set his teeth on edge.

  I wonder what would happen to a color-blind Mage? Kellen thought suddenly. That would hardly be a problem for a Wildmage, now, would it?

  Of course, there were other difficulties with Wild Magic … .

  His mind wandered again; there was something else that had occurred to him that made him more than a little uneasy about his three Books.

  The Books, if they had not actively sought him out, had surely picked him—or something connected with them had. Probably they had sat in that merchant’s stock for years, and before that, perhaps in some other merchant’s stock or some forgotten library. So. What was it about him that had made them pick him? Whoever had copied out the three Books had set a spell on them to enable them to stay together as a set, and must have set a second to ensure that only someone who was “right” for them would find them. The question in Kellen’s mind was—just what was it about him that was “right”?

  Obviously the Books knew they had to go to someone who wouldn’t automatically turn them over to the High Mages, which probably ought to bother him more than it did. And they had to go to someone who had the personal energy to be a Wildmage. But what else was involved? Was it only that the person had to be willing, even eager, to accept something that was different, someone who was tired of the endless sameness enforced by the Council? Or was there something more to it than that?

  Was it a weakness in him? Something, as the Ars Perfidorum suggested, corruptible?

  And of course, he had another worry altogether. Whether or not the Ars Perfidorum was correct about the Wild Magic being bad, there was still the law. The three Books were anathema; there was no arguing with that. At the very least, if they were discovered in his possession, they’d be taken from him and burned. At worst … well, he wasn’t sure what the worst would be. He had to hope that the Books would continue to hide themselves—but what if he was found out?

  He tried to picture his father coming across them. Asking where he’d gotten them. Asking if he’d read them. Just how much trouble would he be in?

  He wanted to think that it couldn’t be that bad; after all, they were only Books. It wasn’t as if he’d done anything, even if he had read them. Right?

  Nevertheless, he had the horrible feeling that it would be a lot worse than anything he had ever gotten into before.

  UNDERMAGE Anigrel felt a headache coming on.

  Being appointed as the tutor to the only son of Arch-Mage Lycaelon was a great honor, one he had fought tooth-and-nail for.

  Life had not been easy for him, although it also had not been particularly difficult, either. He’d been just wealthy enough to see true wealth and long for it; just exalted enough in status to know what real status was and crave it. Perhaps, in a way, that had been worse than being born impoverished and ignorant.

  Chired Anigrel was the grandson of a tradesman. His father had shown Magegift and been taken away by the Mages to be trained. Anigrel knew nothing of his father’s family, and little more of his Mageborn mother’s, who had cut her off completely when she had married the son of a tradesman, even though he was a promising young Mage. She had died bringing Anigrel into the world, despite all that High Magick could do, and after that, Torbet Anigrel’s fate had been sealed. He had been a wealthy man by the standards of the City, but in comparison to the fees the High Mages could command for their work, he’d been a pauper, and his dead wife’s family had made it crystal clear that Torbet Anigrel would never rise above the ranks of the plain, common Mages who labored at the thankless jobs of the City.

  If Anigrel had learned one lesson from his father’s life, it was not to let family stand in his way. His father had died untimely early, while his son was still at his own magickal studies, and once his father was dead, Anigrel had sold the house and everything in it and set about erasing every link that bound him to the tradesman’s son, the upstart Mage who had killed a Mageborn daughter. Everyone would still know, but they would admire the effort he used to try to make them forget.

  The money after the estate was settled hadn’t gone far, but it had bought him a new set of friends, ones with more important fathers, important enough to counteract everything that his mother’s family could muster to pull him down. At length, Anigrel was on his way up in the world—the only world that counted, the one ruled by Mages, and if his mother’s family was no help to him, they did not go out of their way to hinder him, either. With time, the path of friendships and carefully tended connections had led to the House of Tavadon, to the Arch-Mage himself. The Arch-Mage had a young son, and young sons grew, and needed tutors …

  Anigrel knew Kellen’s bloodline, knew his potential, and had cherished daydreams of great reward from his father when he turned over to him a polished and accomplished young Apprentice to follow in the Arch-Mage’s footsteps.

  The trouble was, Kellen wasn’t cooperating. Light knew he’d done his best to make things easy for the boy—he gained nothing from producing a failure, after all!

  But no matter what he did, Kellen would not apply himself to his studies. Would not memorize the basic groundwork, the framework upon which the architecture of High Magick must be built. And without that, Anigrel could do nothing. In fact, as the years passed, Kellen actually seemed to manage to unlearn some of his lessons, if that was possible!

  As time passed, he felt the unspoken pressure from Lycaelon and the increasing resistance from Kellen and felt very much as if he was being squeezed between the two.
/>   Well, of the two, Kellen was the one he could break the easiest. Much depended on it.

  “Kellen,” he said, tinging his voice with heavy disappointment layered with an artful coloring of scorn, “I am not certain what your difficulty is today—if I didn’t know how intelligent you are supposed to be, I’d consign you to the ranks of the useless dullards. And I fear that your father would not be at all surprised.”

  The boy flushed, and his mouth took on that pouting downturn that made him look even more sullen than usual. Anigrel scowled. Kellen was a singularly unpromising specimen, all things considered. He had nothing of the look of the Mageborn—there was some scandal there, something to do with the Arch-Mage’s late and unknown wife, but Anigrel was far too clever a social-climber to ever touch on such a sensitive issue. In his private hours, however, Anigrel sometimes wondered what the nameless female might have had to recommend her to the Arch-Mage’s attention.

  Undoubtedly she had been a beauty, but surely a Mage would seek for more than that in a marriage alliance that would produce sons? The features that commended themselves to masculine attention upon a female face could be unfortunate when passed on to male offspring, after all. That girlish face and pouting mouth might be quite beguiling on a young maiden, but Kellen was far too heavy-featured to make them into assets. In fact, Kellen seemed to take no pains with his appearance at all. Above heavy eyebrows was a thatch of curling brown hair that always looked a little too long no matter how often or expertly it was cut, and never looked neat. Kellen loomed above his peers, with hands and feet too big for the rest of him, and even the most expertly tailored robes and tunics never seemed to quite fit. He was nothing like his elegant father—no ambition, no drive—and Anigrel was more than tired of Kellen’s constant sulking.