Thaile nodded.
“You think it unkind to keep a bird in a cage, Novice?” She started to shake her head and then remembered that no one could lie to a sorcerer.
”It seems a little unfair.”
“But Sunbeam has lived ten times as long as any of her nestmates could have done. Should she not be grateful for that?”
Thaile would not think so. Perhaps birds were different. The sorcerer sighed. ”I think she is happy. If you wish, you may go over there and open the cage and release her. But do you know what will happen then?”
“No, sir, er, Archon I mean.”
“She will be terrified! All her life her world has been that safe little cage. Without it, she will do what birds do when they are frightened—fly. Fly and fly. She will fly up and up, and on and on, never daring to come down. And eventually she will exhaust herself and fall helpless from the sky. Unless a hawk catches her first, of course.”
“I see. Then I won’t.”
He nodded, satisfied. “Oopan, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.” The College catalogued the words by their first two syllables.
“A very strong word,” he mused. “It has made many archons. It may even have been one of Keef’s own.” A thin smile twisted his bloodless lips. “But the records are unreliable so far back and that claim is made for many. Everyone would like to think he had been given one of those most sacred and blessed words. I had Oopan of old Geem .. . eighty-three? No, eighty-five years ago. What happened to Quair?”
“Who? Quair, Archon? I have not heard—”
“Two days ago, I felt my power grow stronger. Now you are sent to me to learn Oopan. So it was Quair who died.” Very slowly, the old man rotated his head to look along the bench at her with golden eyes as bright and clear as a child’s. “How?”
She quaked. “I have no idea, sir. No one mentioned Quair to me.”
“He sat where you are sitting now—oh, forty years ago, perhaps. A sturdy young man, brash for one still fuzzycheeked. I shared Oopan with him, and it hurt more to speak than any word I have ever shared. Very strong, you see.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But the years dealt with his fuzz. He turned out well. We considered him for archon more than once. His talents included some unusual . . . Forgive my discourtesy! I have forgotten how to treat guests. So few friends left now! A cool drink? Lemon, perhaps?”
Before she could speak her thanks, a beaker appeared on the bench beside her. She was hot and dry from her walk and the day was muggy. She realized that there were no bothersome insects, though.
“Quair was not old as sorcerers measure old,” Baze continued, still staring steadily at her, like an owl. “So how did he die? What kills a sorcerer?”
She choked on her drink. “Sir, I do not know. No one mentioned him to me. They did not tell me how he had died.”
“He was an appraiser.”
Novices, trainees, recorders, archivists, analysts, archons, the Keeper. . . .
“So you have not yet learned of the appraisers?”
“No, sir. Archon, I mean.”
“There are eight archons,” the dry old voice said. “Although only seven at the moment, as Sheef has not been replaced. I wonder why? There may be many appraisers or none at all, at the Keeper’s whim. I do not know how many there are just now.” He sounded petulant about that.
Thaile muttered something meaningless. She did not want to know about appraisers. She was learning many things that she did not really want to know, and if appraisers were a secret reserved to higher ranks than hers, then she would prefer that they remain so.
Very slowly Baze turned his head again to face the lake. “Appraisers travel the world. They go in disguise, and study in detail that which the Keeper sets them to study. They are extensions of the Keeper, additional eyes for the Keeper.”
Two days ago Master Teal had specifically said that no pixie ever left Thume, except for the Keeper. The Keeper watched Outside and might choose to travel Outside in person. The Keeper could do whatever she, or he, wished and need account to no one, not even the archons, who must remain within Thume. So Teal had said, and it was not the first time he had said it, either. Had he lied, or did Thaile now know an arcane archon secret that a mere analyst did not?
Baze sighed. “Troubled times.”
“Yes, Archon.”
“They are spelled to die, of course. If they are discovered, if their disguise is penetrated, if others’ power comes upon them—they are consumed.”
Thaile shivered and laid her beaker down on the bench with a clatter. Baze raised a hand and rubbed his eyes. “Now Quair is dead and I must share the word lest it die with me.”
She nodded.
“I make you unhappy, child,” Baze whispered to the lake. “What do the young care of an old man’s maundering? Sixty years I was an archon, and you—you will be one for so little a time! Come close and I will share Oopan with you and let you go.”
2
Thaile raced along the way, fleeing from the memory of glory and the old man’s pain. The word of power reverberated in her mind like thunder or the drumming of waterfalls. It had illuminated the world for her as lightning might brighten a night sky, but on the Way all power was curtailed and shut in, restricted to fear and memory. When she left the Way that splendor would blaze again; she wanted help and protection.
The Way twisted beneath her urgent feet and in moments brought her unwitting to the Library. She stood in the rank sea grass upon the cliff top, seeing the breakers far below churn whiteness around the rocks and hearing the cry of the gulls. Even the spray seemed distinct, a myriad cloud of diamonds flying in the sun. The ancient buildings towered around her like sea stacks, grim and secret. They were closed to her, but the world had opened up again. She sensed the insects creeping among the roots and how the stubborn mussels clung against the tugging of the surf. The blue curve of the sky was alive above her and she understood the needs in the birds’ calling.
A stone bench stood in the long grass near the ending of the Way. Two people rose from it as she arrived. She saw four. Her eyes made out Master Teal, fatherly and fussy in his middle-blue shirt and breeches, clutching his doublet over his arm because the day was hot. Beside him stood Analyst Shole, tall and dignified in a golden blouse and patterned skirt. They smiled a welcome.
But with her new occult vision she also saw them as they truly were. Teal was grossly fat and hairy, no more fatherly than a cave bat. Shole was far older than she normally appeared, a scraggy relic, patched like an ancient cabin whose logs had rotted and been replaced. His smile was a drool of naked lusts and hers a grimace of tiny teeth in the mouth of some predatory fish.
Hideous in body, deformed in mind, the two old sorcerers reached out together to grope inside Thaile’s mind. She saw images of slimy, sucking tentacles and struck them away with horror. Teal and Shole recoiled, exchanging shocked glances.
“Archon Baze has shared the word with you?” Teal asked, smiling falsely. The silver fur on his flabby breasts was matted with sweat. His lust had shriveled and been replaced by fear. She sensed the fear sprouting on him like mold on bread and knew that this was madness. The word had driven her insane.
“Your Faculty is remarkable, child,” said Shole, her small teeth glinting and stirring heinous memories. “We must establish now what power you wield, for we shall be asked.” She stood behind a wall of transparent bricks, her image blurring and shifting like a reflection in water. Was she doing that deliberately? Hiding, concealing? Somewhere, sometime, Thaile had met that smile in a buried, forgotten past . . ..
A clawed hand reached for Thaile’s face. She smote it aside. Shole fell back a step and cried out.
“Take care!” Teal cried. “You may do her an injury!”
”Injury?” Thaile shouted. “What would you do with me?” She spun around, meaning to flee, and was restrained. Soothing melody and soft pillows—the two sorcerers were at her side, creamily calming and reassuring, quieting the clamor of life from the grass and the birds and the distant forests.
“It is a normal reaction,” Teal murmured. “In an hour or so you will feel better.”
“You are a mage now,” the woman said. “It takes time to adjust. Come inside, out of the sunshine.”