Cold Magic

He did not flinch. No doubt he had forgotten about the two men he had so recently slain.

I backtracked, anyway, lest he think I was criticizing him. “You must know that the Kena’ani built a sea-trading empire three thousand years ago.”

“Yes, yes, even I must know that. Everyone educated knows that the Romans and the Phoenicians fought to a standstill in the Mediterranean wars two thousand years ago.”

“Well, after that, we maintained our ports and markets and ships against the might of their land empire. In Europa, meanwhile, the Celtic tribes and nations shifted allegiances and quarreled and built their cities and armies with the grain and metals we Kena’ani brought them.”

“I’m not sure from this tale how sea traders came to be mercenaries and spies.”

“You have to know of the salt plague in western Africa that released the ghouls from the depths of the salt mines.”

“Of course. The Koumbi Mande people—my ancestors—were the first ones attacked.”

“It happens that about the same time as the diaspora, the nation known as Persia rode out of the eastern Levant and conquered the great Kena’ani city of Qart Hadast, which you may know as Carthage. So my people also had to flee their home. Some went to their kinfolk in Gadir and the Iberian colonies. Many traveled even farther north, to Adurnam, Havery, and Lutetia, for instance. Many were cut off from their old sea-trading routes, so they had to find a new way to make a living. That is how the Hassi Barahal lineage was established. First we became messengers. Couriers often have to fight to protect themselves, so some hired out as soldiers. And that led to scouting, spying, and scholarly work.”

“Is spying meant to be less uncouth than soldiering?”

My anger sparked. “Many condemn mercenaries for their trade without considering the culpability of those who pay them. That’s what I meant. People with power do not want to share the secrets that allow them to stay in power. Or at least, that’s what my father always said.”

He kept his gaze steady on me. “So the Barahals decided to make their living stealing secrets from one set of powerful people and selling them to another.”

I found wisdom enough to imprison any further statements inside my throat by working halfway through a mound of baked squash drenched in butter. I patted my mouth with a linen napkin and with vast self-control considered three pink slices of roasted beef and a fan of sliced apples precariously tucked against them on the edge of the plate. Keep silence.

“I sense there is more you wish to say,” he said.

“That’s all I feel is safe to say. My father spent his life traveling. He called himself a natural historian. He recorded his observations. Whenever he had reason to sojourn in a city with a branch house of any of the Hassi Barahal cousins, he would leave his full journals with them. In time, the journals were gathered under my uncle and aunt’s roof.”

“Thus you prove my point.” He reached across the table, prized an apple slice from my plate, and ate it. “Those who remain silent cannot have their secrets stolen and then sold in the market, or to their enemies.”

I felt anger flush my cheeks. “That’s not what my father was doing. Natural historians seek to understand the world. Some scholars hoard what they’ve learned, as dragons are said to hoard gold and gems. Others choose to share so many may be enlightened.”

“To what purpose?”

“To what purpose do the Houses wield cold magic?”

He snagged another apple slice and paused, the apple like a tutor’s rod, held to emphasize a point. “Before the Houses rose, farmers and craftsmen labored under the whim of princes and lords, who strove with each other in incessant war.”

“That’s what the Houses must say, isn’t it? I don’t see how they are so different from princes. They just use a different weapon to hold on to their power.”

“So say the radicals, who desire to overturn the harmonious order of things.” He ate the slice of apple, picked up a spoon, and dug into the remains of my baked squash. “But the radicals are disruptive spirits, who sow trouble.”

“Like destroying an airship?”

He didn’t even blink. “We in the north have lived at peace for many generations because of the stability provided by the mage Houses. What do the trolls who brought over that airship know of our land? They call us rats! They live far away across the western ocean. They’re interfering with what they do not understand.”

I cut the beef into pieces and slid the plate a handbreadth toward the center of the table. Like my father, I was curious about human behavior. “What is it the trolls do not understand? That the Houses stand in the way of innovation and industry?”