A way out of the shadows to which even Mentors' minds succ.u.mbed. Out, to the world of order and away from the Lost Ones' ethereal poison.

"Master, guide my hand for what is good and right," Dominick whispered. Even though upon his words eldritch mist wrapped around his wrist, nailing it down with a great weight, he managed to raise the holy whip and hit the s.p.a.ce before him.

The Other World faded away.

Dominick opened his eyes to find his body on a stiff chair and his head on a cold metal table, in an almost bare room not unlike his own in the temple. Fading morning stars shone through the dusty windowa"normal, Mierberian stars, dimmed by the street lantern. Not hot ma.s.ses of blazing matter that looked straight through him and into his mind and quintessence. Not aberrant stars, although their light cast eerie shadows over the two figures in the corner.

One of the figures was kicking at the other one, which was smaller and grunted as its head met the wall and flakes of old paint sprinkled its body. Dominick winced, his own right thigh pulsing, the leg disobedient as he tried to push the chair back and rise. Slowly, he reached out and touched the leg, and his fingers became colored in crimson.

The tall figure kicked again. "Confess your crime, sc.u.m!" it shouted in a woman's voice, and the small figure moaned.

"I ain't dun nufink!" It was a boy's cry, Dominick could easily tell. A Mentor knew what specific nuances age and s.e.x brought to a voice in pain. Children screamed differently from adults, women screamed differently from men.

"I ain'ta"I haven'ta"I haven't done anything!"

The woman laughed. "So you've caught on posh city talk, haven't you, little peasant. Pity you seem to forget it at times, it sounds so cute with your little accent. Now confess!"

It felt wrong. Laughter meant pleasure, and pleasure was incompatible with punishment. A punishment was only necessitated by transgression, and if anyone, punisher or punished, was rewarded with pleasure during transgression's inevitable consequence, it meant a reward for the transgression itself.A Mentor who succ.u.mbed to that succ.u.mbed to the path of self-undoing.

"Stop it." The words came low and coa.r.s.e through Dominick's dry throat, but the others heard him. The woman turned towards him, light from the room's single candle flashing in her eyes and on the insignia on her shoulders. Militia. What on Mierenthia did the secular law enforcers want with him? Dominick blinked, his drowsiness suddenly dissipating, the traces of nightmares fading to be replaced by the night events' vivid sharpness.

Maxim! Despite his numb leg, Dominick jumped, and saw the Militia woman raise a crossbow towards him.

"I am sorry, Father. You shall remain where you are."

She was perhaps forty or fifty years old, wrinkles marring her skin, shadows surrounding eyes that perhaps saw too many night shifts. At twenty, Dominick could have been a son to her, were he not a Mentor. As it were, however, he had responsibility for the quintessences of worthless creatures of her kind; for guiding their lives and taking their petty sins and concerns upon himself, for suffering in their stead. And she had the audacity to point a weapon at him.

He stepped towards her, the complaints of his leg suppressed deep down inside where they would not interfere. Pain could be a nuisance. It certainly was for the piteous brat in the corner, who was bent halfway, trembling. Village boy. The full-bottomed breeches on his body and the pig-hide tsarvuli on his feet were as out of place in Mierber as Dominick was in this tiny local Militia station, with a crossbow thrust at his face. They brought memories, too.

With one flip of the whip, Dominick s.n.a.t.c.hed the crossbow out of the woman's hands, "It is easy to fight those weaker than yourself, isn't it, Militia officer. But it has a drawback. It never makes you any less weak than you know you are.Or less of an aberrant torturer. You shall come with me, after you have told me where Mentor Maxim is."

She hit him in the stomach, and he felt his body fall. He was unwell; he had already been wounded tonight. By a samodiva and a man he had not seen well. A samodiva. In his city. A samodiva and now a village boy, probably from Balkaene Province as per his clothes, in the same night. It was almost too much. Dominick blinked to chase the vertigo away while the Militia woman aimed her retrieved crossbow again, her hands shaking.

"You are under arrest" she snapped so fast that the words almost blended together, "charged with attempted murder. Because of your condition you will be seen by the healer when he is done with tending to your victim, then you will be put into custody to await a court gathering and the righteous judgement of blessed Menta"" She stumbled, her learned speech interrupted by an overdue realization. A Mentor could not be judged by other Mentors. If she arrested him, she would have to surrender him to the Bers and answer their questions.

Her face now terrified, she glanced at the boy. Dominick was meanwhile fighting the combined effects of physical weakness and sudden mental relief. Maxim was alive.

"Fathera""

So he was "Father" again, even though she considered him a murderer. Even though it was her duty to prevent and protect, to constantly cleanse the city from the criminal sc.u.m that threatened its citizens' peace and prosperity. They were supposed to work together, Mentors and Militia: Mentors to sentinel people's minds and quintessences and protect them from themselves, and Militia to guard them against others. Militia chased a.s.sailants, vandals, or thieves, and Mentors judged them. Were the situation a bit different, it would have been her task to give him a murderer. Unless the criminal was a Mentor or a n.o.ble, of course, for then only Bers would be able to judge rightly.

"Father, please, you can go. I am sorry for my momentary lapse of judgement. You cannot be a murderer, of course. This boy there, he found you and the other Father in the street, unconscious. A knife matching your sheath was in the other Father's body. These peasants, they come here uninvited, to only disrupt our city. How could he? Attacking, using your own knife to try to kill a Mentor. This is our city! They should all go back where they came from."

Interesting why you are so righteously certain that Mierber belongs to you rather than to those who have made an effort to deserve it. Or if you know where your own ancestors came from.

It was not the boy who had attacked Dominick and stabbed Maxim. The boy was probably harmless, some younger son of pitiful parents who had more sons than they could count, if they could count at all, a brat whose only luck in life was that he was not born a wretch. A ragam.u.f.fin seeking his own fortune in the big city. He could find ita"Dominick should know. If the Master willed it, merit could sometimes overshadow birth.

Dominick watched the woman's fingers tremble on her almost lowered crossbow. Funny how all bent and lost self-control when faced with a Mentor's silent stare.

"Officer, your behavior demonstrates purposeful aberration. First, you torture an arrestee even though Militia have no right to impose punishment, then you offer to release another arrestee for your own perceived benefit, upon your own judgement. You have no right to judgement, either. We will await the healer, who shall then summon a Ber."

It was an uncommon situation. Had she not arrested him and thus stripped him of his Mentor's duties and his citizen's right to walk away from the Militia station, he would have had to confine and interrogate her. But Militia did not usually arrest Mentors, and Mentors did not usually punish Militioners.

She shot. The bolt pierced Dominick's arm as he leaped aside. Perfect, now he had a lame arm in addition to a lame leg. Something was broken; he could feel the pulsing of the detector inside his hand. He was bleeding hard, too. The world rotated before Dominick's eyes, but there was no time to be weaka"she would not be armed with the crossbow only. He jumped again, grabbing the crooked chair he had awakened in, throwing it in her direction. The whip was gone, probably dropped when she had shot him. The woman fell as the chair collided with her knees, but she rolled in just the right way to still aim at him from the ground. He was not going to make it. She was too far for him to reach before she threw a dagger, and there was nothing to protect him; nothing but the table, which was too far ...

The woman screamed just as Dominick made an effort to jump towards her, the dagger that should have hit him colliding with the ceiling. The village boy was hanging from her arm, pummeling her weapon hand with a fist-sized stone. The brat had just saved his life. Swiftly, Dominick punched the woman's temple at the same time that her other hand bloodied the boy's nose. Then he hauled her unconscious body towards the table, using his belt to tie her hands to the metal legs.

Funny that she had not tied him before. Probably she'd had plans. It was too perilous to arrest a Mentor, but how about a hapless boy instead? Since it had not worked, she would have killed Dominick and probably accused the boy. Or maybe she would have killed the boy, too, and run away, for otherwise the Mentors judging the case would look straight into her dark quintessence and know.

Or, would they? For the first time Dominick wondered why Mentors did not usually apprehend Militia.

It did not feel right. Mentors were supposed to be just. Militioners were, after all, common humans. Dominick could not see how being permitted and able to handle a crossbow should be enough to lower someone's potential for becoming a reprobate. Or, a treacherous thought brushed his mind, how a detector in someone's hand could be enough for that same purpose. Doubt. It was another path to a Mentor's undoing. Nigel or Oliver would probably not be thinking so much in his place; they would be waiting for the Bers' decisions. Presently he held no responsibility even for this particular woman's quintessence, let alone those of all Militia. Or of Mentors.

Maxim would understand. Maxim had been there for Dominick since that time long ago when Dominick had first come to Mierber. Maxim understood doubta"and questions.

Now a samodiva had hurt him, and she would pay dearly.

Dominick blinked the blurriness away from his eyes once again, retrieved his whip and limped towards the boy. The boy was sitting on the floor, his hands squeezing his stone, his eyes clouded as if looking far, far away.

"Here." Dominick pulled a handkerchief from his robe's pocket. "Wipe your nose."

He then tore the sleeve from his numb arm and wound it tightly below the shoulder to stop the bleeding, then treated similarly his leg. All the while, the boy was staring at the clean cotton handkerchief as if it were precious. Well, for the likes of him, it was. Dominick remembered. The brat even looked like he himself had some eight years ago, down to the pale eyes and the tangled, dirty blonde hair. Dominick tore another piece of sleeve.

"Here, wipe your nose with this and keep the handkerchief. And may I see that stone of yours?"

The boy extended his hand, gingerly, and Dominick took the stone with caution. He currently had no right to demand someone else's possession, even if this possession seemed to call to him, its inaudible voice tickling the inside of his mind.

But he had not demanded; he had asked. The stone was warm and smooth in his hand. Then the warmth spread through his veins and caressed him from the inside, whispering to him, lulling him away.

The leaves were green and sprinkled with snow, glittering in the blazing sunlight. Then the harshness of light and heat and cold was gone, and a pleasant breeze tugged at his hair and clothes, as well as at the gra.s.s on the green hill where he stood alone. Bright flowers spotted the meadow down below, while behind him Balkaene, the Olde Mountain, loomed. The air tinkled with the tunes of a shepherd's pipe.

When the stone slipped from Dominick's fingers, in the small Militia station of a normal Mierberian neighborhood, his bleeding had stopped. Slowly, he took a deep breath while the boy bent to retrieve his stone.

It was just a stone. Probably just a peasant boy's piece of homeland, like those that many peasants brought with them, for Dominick could not detect any aberrant thoughts in the boy himself. Pride, he detected. And worry. Fresh worry, as well as a distant worry deep down inside, related to someone or something far away. But not aberration. d.a.m.n the Balkaene stone. d.a.m.n the samodiva. This world, the Bessove world, did not exist. Could not exist. Not in reality. Dominick took another deep breath.

"Did the Militia officer say you were under arrest?"

The boy could go free if she had not, although he probably did not know it. Civil rights education did not have priority in Balkaene villages. The education needed for toiling in the land did.

The boy looked into Dominick's eyes now, and the young Mentor was surprised at how sharp the gaze meeting his had suddenly become. Perhaps the boy did know his rights. Perhaps he would try to lie to Dominick now, although no one, ever, had succeeded, even before Dominick had become a Mentor. Oh, just let the brat try it.

"She did say so, m'lord. I am under arrest."

"I am not a lord." I am currently not a Mentor, either.

The boy stared harder. "She did say so, sir." He had almost no accent and used perfect grammar, although Dominick could tell he still needed a little time to think about the right words. A smart one with the potential to learna"if the Bers let him, if what he had was just a regular stone. The boy had said nothing more, but Dominick could hear the unsaid words. "I saved your life, and I didn't lie to you, so why aren't you letting me go?" Even though he was wounded, Dominick was still stronger than a little boy. The boy could not leave without his permission. Dominick gripped the whip's handle a little more tightly than necessary, fighting a tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with wounds.

"Because if I did, I would be no different from the torturing reprobate over there who trampled rules, honor, and integrity in the name of perceived personal benefit. If I broke the rules meant to preserve Mierenthia's order and let you go because you saved my life, or because you reminded me of myself, how could Mierenthia rely on me to maintain and protect order later? How could I rely on myself? No. I can't do it. And I am not letting myself go, either."

He had not meant to say the words aloud, but they had slipped off his mouth as if of their own accord. Now a tear was rolling down the little boy's cheek, and somehow Dominick knew that it was not a childish tear, that there was something deeper, far behind. It showed in the boy's eyes, too, when the boy just kept on watching Dominick, not motioning to fight or run. It was eerie, a child's tears with an adult's tormented look.

"I will follow the rules," the boy said in a quiet voice. "But"a"his eyes flashed with a sudden defiancea""do you really think Mierenthia's rules are right, sir Mentor?"

Dominick did not reply. He did not have to. Someone else would make an inquest with the boy; others would judge his aberrant words if he uttered any before them. For the first time in his life Dominick was glad that a decision was not his to make. If it were, he would have to make the right choice, and right now the right choice was not one he would enjoy making.

"Be quiet," he said, waiving the boy to the overturned chair, he himself leaning on the wall, waiting. d.a.m.n the boy. It was the rules that kept the samodivi and other Bessove away; it was the rules that made their unreal world stay far beyond the Edges that the Master had built to protect Mierenthia.

One should never question the rules, every Mentor knew. Such questions were keys to what should always stay locked.

Chapter 4: Entrance.

Linden

Morning 78 of the Fourth Quarter, Year of the Master 705 It was a door made of steel, indistinguishable from the one they had used to enter the Healers' Pa.s.sage, or the dozen or so other doors they had pa.s.sed. Two steps ago its grayness had blended with that of the walls in a perfect illusion of continuity. Now, its polished surface glittered with what looked like a thousand lights between the dark stones.

Linden s.n.a.t.c.hed the candle back from where she had extended it to illuminate the door better. It bruised her, as she thrust it under her cloak to make the lights fade. Reflected lights. Lights that had not existed in the real world a moment earlier, lights born out of steel contorting a single candle's beam. Mirrors were often covered at night in Mierenthia, for Bers said that reflected fire could sometimes be almost as treacherous as wildfire. Linden had never believed it. To her, this had been one more thing of the many things Bers did to encroach people's homes and minds and take away their freedom.

She believed it now. Reflected light was not real, it had no warmth in it. She had seen many lights on many doors tonight, and they were all explosions of magnificence that would hint of limitless power and yet fade as soon as she took the candle away. They were all tricks of polished surfaces, which would scream of fake heat long after she and Rianor had died of the chill in their bones.

Not that the tunnel was chilly; it was bearable, and Linden's body itself was mostly warm. Yet, there was a certain chill inside, as if in her very mind, creeping, sc.r.a.ping, hollowing her out.

She and Rianor were never going to find their way out. The samodiva had tricked them; she had not exactly lied to them, but she had tricked them nonetheless. She had let them out of where they had fallen, but not out of the Pa.s.sage itself.

Perhaps chill was how despair felt when one finally succ.u.mbed to it.

Linden halted. She could not make a step further. Trembling, she pressed her back to the rough surface of one of the walls beside the door, transferring all possible weight away from her wounded leg. At least the leg hurting meant that she could still feel it.

Persevere. Keep control. There must be a way, and despair could only conceal it. Despair could veil their eyes so that even though there was a way, it would not matter, and they would always wander in this place. Like the samodiva, always trapped. Like Katrina, while the Mentors were doing who knew what to Linden's parents at that very moment.

Linden shook her head again. The tunnel was invading her again, dark and stale, mixing her own fears with someone else's memories. She should keep the tunnel out. And she should not be thinking about her parents when she knew nothing and could do nothing, for it would only lead deeper into despair. Keep control.

"I am all right," she whispered as Rianor came beside her. "Don't help me. Think."

But he had already extended an arm to support her, so that she would stop sliding down along the wall. Linden had not even known she was sliding. She took the light out again. A small teasing smile was twitching on Rianor's lips, as he fought to control his own breathing.

"Is this an order, my lady? I thought I were the master and you the apprentice, but if it be the other way around, do remind me."

Linden smiled weakly in reply.

"You cannot command me, either, my lord. We live in a freea"" Her smile faded as she swallowed the word "city." She pulled herself away from him and closer to the door, and the steel gleamed with light again, but Linden paid no attention to it.

"Don't support me, Rianor," she whispered through tears. "You have broken bones, I do not. Please, just find the way to your House."

He regarded her for another moment, then leaned on the wall and fixed his eyes to the door, cold and distant in his concentration. He is all right, Linden told herself as her eyes lingered over his body's stillness, this is how he becomes when he thinks about something important. At least, this was how concentration affected him after he had fought Mentors, falling stones, and a hysterical apprentice, all in the same night.

Linden glanced at the door again and bit her lip. She could not help him this time. The samodiva's moving stairs had taken them to a different place in the upper Pa.s.sage, not where they had been when they had fallen, so Linden could not much partic.i.p.ate in determining where in the Pa.s.sagea"and in the city abovea"they were. She had ideas of the general direction they had taken, but she did not at all know the corresponding parts of Mierber above. If their guesses were right, it was not a part of the city much familiar to commoners. And, in the Pa.s.sage or above ground, Linden did not know the way to Qynnsent.

We live in a free city. The thought became stuck in her mind even as she tried to relax and wait. This had been the third universal truth she had learned in school, right after the one about the greatness of the Master and that about the justice and benignity of the Bers. Oppressed by the other two, she had somehow failed to give the "free city" its due consideration. But if it had ever been true, why had she never seen Qynnsent on a map?

Linden sighed. She had gone through all the maps Mister Podd or her librarian mother could offer, and she was certain she could not get lost in the Mierber her social cla.s.s could access. She knew where the slums were, too, and she was aware of the black spots with "Do not enter" written beside them that meant those were Factories or perhaps Mills (even though some normal people, such as Master Millers, did enter the insides of Mills). But the only thing related to n.o.bility the maps listed was entertainment and shopping areas that were far too exquisite and far too expensive. Although she had never been there, she knew it was not where the n.o.bles lived.

Why the secrecy?

"It is forbidden to anyone but the members of a House to know its location," Mister Podd had said, reluctant to discuss n.o.bility further. Like many other things he had claimed, this one was at least partly untrue. It might be forbidden to her, but certainly not to a patient of Dad's who had broken his hand while laying bricks for the new wing of the House of Tremayne. The man had said that he had not been blindfolded; that actually he and his colleagues very well knew the House's location, but had given an oath to not tell. There were many who worked for the Houses. Although for reasons either moral or related to Mentors and whips many of those would obey their oaths, others would share what they knew after a few gla.s.ses in the pub.

Linden rubbed her eyes, a new vague thought in her mind. Only some of these people were revealed and punished, and indeed, she had broken an oath herself. Throughout her life her questions and doubts had been breaking the only oath she had so far made in her lifea"the oath everyone made upon their Initiation to Mierenthia in the year of her or his fourth birthday.

I vow to revere fire, for it gives light and life to us all. I vow to be loyal to the Bers, our blessed Mothers and Fathers who create fire. I vow to love the Master, dear Father to us all, and to heed the kind guidance of Mentors. I vow to always be a good citizen and to do my best for our world's prosperity. With all my quintessence and mind, I give myself to Mierenthia.

Of course, the oath was too difficult for a four-year old to understand. Even one such as Linden who, unlike her peers, had at least been able to learn it and say it before the Mentor and the Initiation crowd without stumbling, biting her tongue, or relying on the whispered prompts of parents.

"But, Mom, the Bers are not mothers or fathers to me. You are my mom, and Dad is my dad," she had however quietly added, and her mom had hushed her before anyone else could hear.

Mom had been right; four was the age when you started being whipped for aberrant thoughts, even if you did not know which thoughts were aberrant yet. This was one of the things Initiation brought to you. So Linden had waited until they got home to wonder aloud how, on top of the impossibility of Bers being her mothers and fathers, the Master was also her father and everyone else's. She also waited until then to say that she should not have said the oath's words. "If you say something, does it become true, Dad? Can you take the words back?" Little Linden had not wanted to give herselfa"was not giving herselfa"to Mierenthia or to anything else. She was Mom and Dad's, and Grandma and Grandpa's and her own, and that was how it should be. She wanted no changes.

Many times had Linden broken her Initiation oath, but she had never been caught, and until four days ago she had never even found herself in danger.

She looked away from Rianor and towards the door, once again trying to relax, seeking lighter thoughts. She could wish for a mirror (and sunlight) to see if her own eyes would look like steel. Yes, vanity was exactly what she needed. It could help keep thoughts about oathbreaking, the Master, and danger at bay. If Calia was an example, it could keep any thoughts processes at bay ... Linden let her mind roam. She wanted to pursue the vague idea from before, but focusing on it would make her lose it rather than help.

The n.o.ble Houses could not be secret. In addition to the workers' knowledge, there were rumors of the lavish b.a.l.l.s n.o.bles hosted for their peersa"so the n.o.bles knew how to reach someone else's House. And then there was the Healers' Pa.s.sage and the doors for the Commanders of Life and Deatha"and Linden fought the urge to start crying again. She had never known. The parents she loved with all her heart had been keeping secrets from her.

Rianor was leaning on the wall in the very same way as before. His eyes were closed. Sweat was glistening on his temples and forehead, and his chest rose and fell in a ragged rhythm. Please persevere. Linden hesitated only briefly before she reached into his coat's pocket for the small Qynnsent-crested vial.

Rianor shivered and opened his eyes as she touched the cold wet handkerchief to his temple.

"I see that you are already wasting precious Science samples," he whispered hoa.r.s.ely, but the twinkle in his eyes was grateful and teasing rather than annoyed.

"I won't use all of it if I can help it," she murmured, gently wiping blood from his cheek, then smiled for a second before she locked his eyes with hers. "But only if I can help it. As much as I want to keep some Water of Life for us to experiment with, other things have higher priority."

"I can see that." Rianor closed his eyes and inhaled, and when he opened them, his face was less stiff, and his hand did not tremble when he raised it and stroked her wrist.

"Thank you, Linde. I will survive, though. Let us leave some for later."

Leave some of what for later? For a moment she was confused, the awareness of his fingers on her skin suddenly too strong, the thoughts about Water of Life and tunnels suddenly too weak.