Free The Unmaking by Catherine Egan Page B

own Sorceress-in-training.
    Swarn looked up from the fire, locking eyes with Eliza. Her brown eyes were almost lost in the wrinkled folds of her eyelids.
    “I do not believe the Mancers wish you harm. But they have their own agenda, and for your own sake it is best that you never be powerless among them.”
    The vegetable and minnow mix was smoking a little. Eliza let the subject drop and scraped a portion off for each of them, filling up the white dragon-bone bowls. The mix of roots and plants and dried fish was bland but surprisingly filling. They ate in silence, seated cross-legged on coarsely woven mats on the cold earth floor. When they had finished, Swarn handed her bowl rather imperiously to Eliza. She washed the dishes in the bucket of water reserved for that and set them aside on a mat to dry. She threw the dirty water outside, then took off her clothes and the new bra and washed herself in the doorway with a rough cloth and cold water. The night sky was full of the monstrous screaming shapes of dragons casting their great shadows over the moon. Her clothes were thick with mud and so she rinsed them off too and then hung them over the fence to dry. She wore the black tunic that was the costume of the Shang Sorceress mainly as a nightgown these days.
    When she came back inside, Swarn was already lying down with a rough blanket pulled around her, her shoulders rising and falling steadily with her breath. Eliza unrolled her own sleeping mat and lay down gingerly, sore and bruised from the day’s training.
    In her dreams the house was crowded with ravens. They were all jabbering at her, their nasty beaks snapping open and shut, and what she heard them saying was “Making, Making, Making.”

Chapter
    ~5~
    A fter the day’s work in the Inner Sanctum was done , Foss went to Aysu’s chamber and requested an audience. They sat facing each other across the low stone table inlaid with ebony crabs.
    “I did not wish to trouble Kyreth with this, as it may be nothing,” said Foss. “But I believe the holes our enemy is making in the barriers may be more dangerous than we realize. I cannot decipher the pattern and yet there is a pattern, some kind of Deep Logic, I am certain. I catch hints of it, but cannot link it all together.”
    “Is it perhaps only fear, or weariness, Spellmaster, that makes you think so?” Aysu suggested softly. “You did not sleep last night. All the manipulators of water were disturbed.”
    “Forgive me,” he said humbly. “I became overanxious. It is not only due to my examination of the holes. My trances have been full of disturbing images. Disaster. Is no one else seeing such things?”
    “No, Spellmaster. You are the first to say so.”
    “Then perhaps it is nothing,” said Foss, relieved. “If something were truly amiss, you too would have sensed it.”
    “Perhaps not,” said Aysu thoughtfully. “The barriers are your design. It may be that you are more sensitive to the damage being done to them. It should be looked into further. I will inform his Eminence.”
    “Thank you,” said Foss. He rose to go but Aysu made a gesture inviting him to sit again.
    “Spellmaster, you know that in seven years, I will pass on.”
    “Yes. You will be missed.”
    “You are very kind to say so. The matter of my successor is not yet decided.”
    “No. You will appoint a successor with Kyreth’s approval three years before your passing.”
    “For many years, it was common knowledge that you were favoured. You are the Spellmaster; your knowledge is unparalleled and your power respected by all.”
    “I thank you. But circumstances have changed. I understand well that it is not for me to become an Emmisarius. I am content.”
    “Good. The matter is quite out of my hands, Foss. But you still have my respect. That is what I wished to tell you.”
    “I am most grateful,” Foss said, moved. “Convey my greetings to his Eminence when you speak to him.”
    “I will do so.”
    ~~~
    After they had