House of Shadows(32)

She knew, though she could not see it, that a fat white candle sat on a saucer at her feet. “You may find it helpful to use fire to remind yourself of light,” the mage had explained. “Light the candle if you wish. Then, when you have reminded yourself of the heft and quality of fire, blow it out and try again to summon a purer light.”

Nemienne had not yet reached for the candle. She had never been frightened of the dark in her life, yet she thought she could become afraid of this darkness. That didn’t help. It made her angry. That wouldn’t help, either.

Light. She needed to think of light… There was the pearly light of the early morning before the sun had quite risen above the mountains; there was the light of the morning sun that glittered on the waves of the harbor. Flames leaping in fireplaces drove away the chill. Slender tapers with tall narrow flames created a mysterious flickering light so sisters could huddle close and tell stories in the dark.

This darkness did not seem to invite companionable stories. Nemienne held her hands in front of her face, opening and closing her fingers. Her hands were completely invisible.

In summer afternoons, heat poured down into the narrow streets of the city and ran, heavy as gold, along the cobbles. At home on those afternoons, she and her sisters would go out onto their balcony to sleep at night. Miande would let the fire in the oven go out, and Father would send out for cold soups or chilled noodles.

Nemienne closed her eyes, fiercely homesick. It was the fault, she thought, of this featureless dark. She could almost believe that when she opened her eyes, she would find herself in the familiar gallery, with the voices of her sisters echoing up to her from the house below.

She opened her eyes to darkness and cold, and the sound of the distant slow dripping of water onto stone. The candle sat before her in its saucer. She reached out to find it, ran a fingertip over the smoothness of its wax and the stiff little wick reassuring at the top. Yes. The mage had shown her how to light a candle: pulling a little fire from the air to light a candle was not difficult. She had done it seven tries out of ten only the previous afternoon. Only now, though she tried and tried, fire refused to bloom along the candle’s wick. Nemienne took her hand away from the candle, grimacing.

In the distance, water dripped from some unguessable height into an unseen pool.

Abruptly, the darkness folded back around her, and she found herself sitting on the floor of the mage’s workroom. The room was flooded with light and heat, from wide windows and lanterns and a fire roaring in the great fireplace. The darkness, so heavy and impenetrable a moment before, immediately seemed a distant, weightless thing. Nemienne blinked in the light, feeling half drowned by it, wondering how she could have failed to summon such a powerful substance.

Mage Ankennes sat at his writing desk, one elbow propped on its surface. Enkea perched on his knee. He leaned his chin on his palm and regarded Nemienne with a thoughtful expression very like the cat’s. “Can you light the candle now?” he asked.

Nemienne blinked again and lowered her gaze to the candle sitting on the floor by her knee. The heat of the fire beat against her face. Looking into the fire, Nemienne borrowed a little of its fierceness. Reaching out, she brushed the wick of the candle with the tip of her finger and, as he had taught her, let the fire run through her mind and into her hand. The candle burst into flame.

“Yes,” said the mage thoughtfully.

“It’s easy,” Nemienne said. “I mean, here it’s easy. I don’t know why it’s different in the dark.”

“Hmm. Tell me, what disturbed you most, in that dark place?”

Nemienne thought about this. She said finally, “The dripping water.”

“Mmm.” The mage studied Nemienne, seeming taken a little by surprise. “The water. Not the dark itself.”

“The sound of the water seemed too far away. Hearing the drops fall made the dark seem to stretch out too far. As though there was no end to it anywhere. And the sound seemed too loud for its distance.”

“Ah. A good observation. You are a perceptive child. Ordinarily one would expect insight to lead to practical achievement.” His tone gave her no hint whether he valued insight more than practical achievement or the reverse, but he offered Nemienne a hand up without apparent disapproval, lifting her effortlessly to her feet. His grip was firm and impersonal, his hand almost fever hot, as though fire burned behind his skin. He said, “That is water that falls from one darkness into another without ever being touched by light. It carries power into the depths of the mountain. You felt that. Were you afraid of that darkness?”