The Elusive Taste of Kolchoan Blue

by Patrick Honovich

Table of Contents

Chapter 7: Roses in Winter

part 1

Adam Tellrus, before he took over as master of the Verrin school, ate in fine society with the noble families of the far West and the corseted East. He danced, sang, screwed, sipped, smiled, and generally made himself a nuisance within the rigid confines of Imperial politics. Despite the fact he hadn’t been seen in the homes of the upper crust for nearly ten years, he could still walk into any gathering of nobles and be quickly recognized, just as quickly given a seat of honor.

His assumption of the mantle of school’s master, before I began my studies, his position as head of the school, did nothing to alter his traditional routines and, as he’s fond of reminding us, there’s always another fight tomorrow so you should remember to eat well today.

With a face that didn’t quite show his age, a smile so practiced even I can’t tell when it’s genuine, a full head of fine blonde hair, and a tendency to wear slippers instead of boots, my master was not your typical sorcerer. When Master Tellrus invited you into his receiving room, you feel simultaneously that the door to the world has been thrown open and that somehow you’ve been stuffed into a very small box.

I knew him as a hard master, kind but demanding, patient but lightning-quick of mind, unafraid to hand out compliments but severe with his critiques. The man’s every cold move was deliberate. Princes and Kings have sipped with Master Tellrus, and been as nervous, so any guess as to how things would turn out was likely to be grossly wrong.

“Satet.” Master Tellrus had dozens of ways to say my name, no, hundreds, each with different inflections, tones, hues... and in this case, his voice had the extra glow of his rarely-heard admiration, so foreign as to be startling and fearful. “Come inside, dear boy, I have a bottle of a fine red from Mercaille. We have things to discuss.”

With a bemused glint in his eyes, a slight moistening of his lips, and a careful turn of his wrist, he motioned at the door to the courtyard, which opened.

“Master?” Tired, frightened, infuriated, I had no time to react, not even now, not even once I’d arrived home, because the front yard I could see through the doorway, with its stone benches and chipped mosaic on the floor, was not my room. I was not yet safe.

He heard all of this in my question and answered none of it. Mid-stride, eyes still mirthful, tone still light as a maid’s half-slip falling to the floor, ever the predator, Master Tellrus paused, turned back to face me, and repeated himself. “Come in, Satet, come in, let these men who wait for you go home. We have many things to discuss, and the night is already overripe. Come inside, now.”

I nodded.

You might think I’d have some deep insight, some analysis to make his master more easily understood but then, assuming I had such an understanding, what use would I have for a man whose motives and metaphors were so easily understood? I couldn’t read Master Tellrus the way I read the other men and women in this charred, charmed world, and he would not be my master if I could.

When he asked, I agreed and followed. This was the way of the Verrin school, where we learned first the difference between ‘cede’ and ‘acquiesce.’ He brought the crates inside through the night-draped courtyard, around the fountain and its small puddle, left down the hall to his chambers, to the receiving room.

Of the several rooms on this side of the school that were expressly his, the receiving room was least-often seen by the students. His workshop served as a classroom, crowded with tools, bottles, every available flat surface layered with open books like mulch, and his study, likewise columned and girded with tomes, was used for reviews at the turns of the seasons, but the receiving room was holy, sacrosanct, and seldom seen.

It was the wrong time of year for roses, but the scent of those flowers, the air hung thick with attar... It was impossible, in Correm, in the cold bones of winter, but the receiving room — I thought, distinctly, the room smelled as if the wood had been oiled with essence of rose. The furniture was understated, maple, except the desk, which was warped and knotted and riddled with contrasting patterns, made of some sort of wood I’d never been able to identify. In the corner, a globe of bubbled glass sat on a dark metal frame and, before the fireplace, two comfortable low-backed chairs, an intermediary table with a carefully pruned rose-bush in a wicker basket, and a bottle of wine.

“In,” said Master Tellrus. “Quit analyzing my furniture, Satet, sit down and have a drink. Stop acting like a damned golem.”

I blinked. As I sat, I took another hard look. The desk had a fine network of cracks, like an old painting, those cracks aged, possibly stained with smoke. The rug on the floor by the fireplace was imported, Gyerican, and the fireplace was in the wrong place on the wall. There wasn’t a chimney on that side of the building, but the receiving room was lit and warmed by a good blaze, in what looked like a real fireplace. Blinking, I took a seat.

Tellrus pointed to a spot by the desk I was certain had been filled a moment ago with a book on a reading stand, and the crates settled in on the edge of the rug. I glanced back at the table, and saw the bottle of red return to its former position beside two enormous goblets made of bubbled glass, both full.

“Don’t gawk, boy, drink up!” Master Tellrus clapped me on the shoulder. I hadn’t heard him move. My back hadn’t been completely turned, either. The master moves, in case I wasn’t being clear, at irrational speeds. That is not a metaphor but a fact; he’s much faster than anyone has any right to be. He sat in the opposite chair, picked up his goblet, and smiled.

“Satet... ” I could hear his patience shifting by tiny increments, and this time, when he said my name, I considered it a warning. I was tired, and the night was going to be replaced by dawn, soon. I sniffed the red, not out of suspicion of my master, but from the bad habit of drinking in rough taverns. Any other kid from Correm’s streets would’ve done the same.

Not a bad red. Better than I’d seen in a good career as a drunk and a scoundrel, robust, not over-sweet. I took another sip.

“You’ve been successful, my boy, in spite of yourself, bravo, and this is a seventy-year old red, but you’ve earned it, so do guzzle to your heart’s content.”

Master Tellrus gave me a hard, cold smile, his attempt to be genuine, which of course I saw right through. The cushion on the chair seemed to be reshaping itself to the contours of my ass. I did what anyone else would’ve done, when so clearly outmatched: I drank more red. Maybe a little wine-drunk would make everything ache less.

“Tell me. You got both lots. I want to hear the tale.”

I sipped. The bottle picked itself up off the table, hanging suspended in midair to refill my glass — I knew that one, I’d used it before to pay off a wicked bar tab.

So I spoke of my entry, my descent, my ride out of the dark depths of Auntighur in the wagon with crates and guards... told most, but not all.

“You were pursued?” He frowned, raised one arched eyebrow.

“Immediately.” I told him the tricks of perception and reaction I’d used to return home, which magics and in what fashion. He listened like a carpenter taking measurements, and as I told him of attacks foiled, he smiled wider saying things like, “Yes, yes, good application, my boy” and once, to my pride: “Clever.”

My master leaned towards me in his chair, and sniffed at the tiny bush in a basket on the table. He wore a different ring tonight, on the hand he used to bring the rose close to his nose. Cast in woven silver, it bore glyphs — Old Imperial — around a dark emerald. I recognized the design, but Cadzana’s had been set with a ruby.

Master Tellrus made no secret of his time at the Sage’s College, although he didn’t speak kindly of Latidium. This was the first time I’d seen the ring he’d earned there. It glittered in the firelight amongst the leaves like some street-painter’s idea of a wood sprite. The room, warmed by the fire, still wouldn’t have been warm enough to preserve roses in a Corremantean winter.

“Satet? More wine?”

His tone, his tone, damn his tone, I knew when I was being led, as I knew he’d wait until I figured it out or made some colossal blunder before speaking. I looked again at his hand, at the rose bush, my nose full of the scent, my mouth still stained with wine. I looked again, then reached to place my hand on the wicker basket, finding my answer in the fact it didn’t move. It wasn’t wicker at all, it wasn’t — my master had in his study a rosebush growing out of the middle of his table, with a set of roots woven together to resemble a basket. He was wearing his ring from the Sage’s College. He’d shown up when we made it to the school. And he was being uncharacteristically nice. I looked again at my master, Adam Tellrus, and couldn’t make sense of his smile, but knew I’d been betrayed.

“Sir, I believe you’ve been trying to have me killed, and I believe we’re out of wine. Will you get another bottle, or should I search through your things until I find one?”

“Hard as nails, Satet, I’m proud of you. I’m sorry.” His hand moved under the table, where I’d seen nothing but empty space before, and produced a fresh bottle of red as he continued. “Yes, very sorry if I’ve been unkind, but it’s a vicious world, and I’ve been working to ready you for it.”

I waited for him to put the bottle down, and refilled my glass by hand before he could make a show of doing it for me. This time when he said my name he implied Watch yourself, but my fear of reprisal was not strong enough to overcome the need to know the truth. Half-drunk, I gulped down the red, put the bubbled glass goblet on the living table, and pointed my finger as I spoke.

“How far did you go?”

The facade in Master Tellrus’ eyes dropped away and, without moving at all, he became infinitely cold, as hard and inert as the knocker on the Auntighur door, without compassion, without shame, and without mercy. “I made you, boy. I gave you the knowledge that’s kept you alive tonight.”

“Who did you tell? Who did you send? Tell me quick, it’s—”

Master Tellrus sighed, stood up, and walked to the desk, where he looked down at the scarred and stained wood. “Satet, this desk was made from the walls of a torched library in destroyed Jakka. It’s been passed from master to master—”

I stood to interrupt, to demand an explanation and, without seeming to move, he struck me down, a hard blow to the jaw, ringing my bell, knocking me to the floor.

“Don’t interrupt me again or I’ll dye your skin orange.”

“Yes, sir,” was said with a split and swelling lip. He’d clipped me with the ring.

“This desk holds the secrets of the school, the lost teachings, the discarded techniques, and the best methods. It’s all here. When it is your time, I will tell you how to open its drawers. When it’s time. Not one gods-damned moment before. Are you listening to me?”

I nodded. My aches and pains put aside, I was certainly listening.

“I am sending you to finish your education.”

“But—”

“Tonight, when you arrived at the auction house, two people knew what you were after, but not why.”

“Div.”

He nodded. “We’re old friends. And Ghita Cadzana. Who, truth be told, is useful to know, as long as you don’t let her take you to bed.”

In light of my struggles, it should’ve been obvious, but even the sharpest wit can convince itself to ignore facts when they run contrary to its desires. I’d had my suspicions, now confirmed. In this one instance, I hated being right.

“You don’t sneeze without my knowing it, Satet. I trusted you to come through, and you have. So drink as much as you’d like.”

He walked across the room, to the crate I’d been nearly ignoring all night. The Khesataan masks. “Do you know what this is, Satet?”

“Masks, from Khesata. They’re worn by the lords of the island.”

He gave me one sharp glance. “You don’t see the significance, do you?”

I blinked, and tried to see something else, but couldn’t, too wiped-out, I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about.

With a wave of his hand, the three masks lifted free from the loose straw, and resettled, without a twitch, on his desk. “Come.” He motioned me over.

“What would happen if there were suddenly a great many foreigners here?”

“What do you know?”

“Nothing I’m telling you now. What if there were suddenly a great many from Khesata? These masks, Satet, carry tremendous power. Not enchantment, but power within Khesataan society. You wear one of these masks, there, and you have the power of life and death, without question. Now what would happen if their kingdom made a move? The masks, my boy, are more valuable than even your possible bottles. And you thought they were insignificant. Your master hears things you do not, and the world outside the Empire is going to come knocking.”

“I didn’t know.” I felt slow-witted, dumb, inadequate, frightened... if I’d been in Auntighur, I would’ve been sick. Even in the school, where I felt most at home, the news was staggering. Master Tellrus smiled, patted me on the top of the head — how I raged and kept still — and pointed at what I’d thought was the world’s most precious prize.

He lifted the lid of the crate I’d worked so hard to secure, and beckoned me closer. “And now we’ll see if your researches and my double-checking were right in the other case. Sorry to steal your thunder, Satet, but really, you have more pride than sense.” His laugh sounded almost heartfelt, even as I was sure he didn’t have a heart. I don’t think I’ve ever felt worse.

Taking the five wine bottles out of the crate, he set them on the desk. The objects of my best effort had been labeled once, but any inscription had long since faded away. Dark green glass, corks sealed with wax, covered in dust and grime from age and travel, the bottles were otherwise unremarkable. Five bottles which might contain a sort of victory over age and death. Five bottles which might hold the most expensive of vinegars or might hold my elevation, my best next step. The thought of what I might be seeing nearly sobered me up.

Proceed to part 2...

Copyright © 2023 by Patrick Honovich