The Weavers of Paths: Book Three of The Masters That Be

By Lynna Merrill

Spring is here, and there is a hint of summer in the air, but it is not a hint of warmth and abundance. All that people expect these days is failed factories and heavy rains splashing over Mierber's broken and filthy streets, newly spoiled grain, and famine.

Heartened by their Stratagem success and their new relationship, Rianor and Linden attempt to save themselves and their House through science. When they barely survive an encounter with the Bers, they start preparing for war.

Meanwhile, in one of Mierber's less savory neighborhoods, Dominick is about to take the Order of the Mother to Balkaene despite his hatred towards the place. Besides, in old Darius's tower and in the Firemind, Merley is making hard choices that she knows will change the whole world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lynna Merrill
• Release date: Nov 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465889669

Lynna Merrill

Lynna Merrill was accused at an early age that she lived in a world of her own. Since then she has changed the country, continent, and language—but she still lives in worlds of her own. As a result she is the author of the young adult dystopian novel "Unnaturals" and the fantasy series "The Masters That Be" ("The Seekers of Fire", "The Makers of Light", "The Weavers of Paths"). In the real world Lynna has a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from the Ohio State University and works in the software industry. She has participated in various open source software projects and writes her books using VIM and LaTeX. She also makes her own cover and interior art. Lynna is interested in books (of course), computers, and “what if” questions. She lives on the southern shore of lake Ontario with her husband and soulmate, Alex.

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The Weavers of Paths: Book Three of The Masters That Be

By Lynna Merrill

Copyright © 2011 Lynna Merrill

Cover artwork © 2011 Lynna Merrill

Map and title page artwork © 2011 Lynna Merrill

Smashwords edition

Discover more titles by Lynna Merrill, as well as updates, excerpts, and the author's blog at:

http://www.lynnamerrill.com

Also available as a trade paperback

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, concepts, and events are either products of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

This book, as well as the whole series, is dedicated to my husband, Alex

Chapter 1: One World

Merley

Evening 43 of the First Quarter, Year of the Master 706

It was cold. Or, rather, Merley was cold herself, despite the fire burning behind the thick walls of the stove, and the naked little flame writhing abandoned in a metal plate on the table.

The little flame could not warm her. Not like this, severed, outside of her body and mind, a tiny flame inside metal but not strong enough to melt metal—so a flame inevitably confined. It was just a token she had made for herself, a reminder.

Merley turned a page of the book, yet another thin, almost transparent page packed with dense, miniature text. She blinked, then rubbed her eyes, but the words would not become more clear, either in appearance or in meaning. Her eyes felt as if they were filled with dust. They often did, these days, and not because of dust on the books themselves. No, Darius would never, ever let dust mar the large ancient tomes or their shelves. He had been carefully wiping all the dust every day, year after year.

Why was she doing this?

Merley tossed her head and stood, her feet weak from hours of stillness. She walked to the window, where the Sun had still managed to paint the clouds violet and pink, as if in challenge to the white snow that had been softly falling for hours. Like a blanket the snow was, gently but persistently enveloping the world.

The world, and the Sun itself.

Yet, she could feel the Sun, and she could hear the Sun, even though the eyes only saw a flash of color here and there amongst the blanket's threads. She felt the Sun, its smile distant and yet there for her; it was a kind smile like Darius's, and the thought of them both made her a bit warmer.

Darius was the most wonderful man in the world. Others made fun of Darius, for Darius might forget to eat for two days when playing with some little device of his, or he could go out with mismatched shoes. Yet, Darius was not careless. He took most painstaking care of his devices and his books, and in the days since Merley had become his student, Darius had also taken care of her.

And why did shoes have to match, anyway? Merley rubbed her eyes, then massaged her temples, this yet another fleeting thought inside a mind tense and restless. Did not shoes just have to be comfortable enough to walk? Did the Sun care for matching shoes? Did the snow? No, it was people, always people, who thought and said and did the little things, senseless, useless little things at first glance, and yet things that could cut and cut straight to the heart.

A knock sounded on the door, and at first Merley smiled, then suddenly froze still, for the sound was unlike Darius's soft tapping. It was sharper, faster, more demanding, as if the person knocking was both in haste and used to doors being immediately opened.

This person was not welcome. Beyond the window, the pink of the setting Sun was now washing out, and the white and gray of a snowy day was flowing into the blue and black of a silent snowy night. It was peaceful, or had been, for these past thirty days. But, often nervous and lost in her own thoughts, perhaps Merley had not paid attention; she had not always noticed, the fool.

But the peace had been there, a certain slow quality of life, a certain silence breached only by the ticking of devices, Darius's soft voice, the song of birds, and the winds that howled out up on the roof. Even that howling was peaceful in its own way, despite the songs of mountains that it sometimes brought, with their longing and their simultaneously quiet and stormy sadness.

At nights like this, Merley could not fall asleep, and sometimes tears flowed down her cheeks, for reasons she did not know clearly. She sang her own songs then, songs that came straight from a place in her that was truly hers and yet a place she could not reach always. Then, when in the mornings she tried to write the songs in a book, inevitably she could not. Instead, she wrote fragments of stories, her own fairytales that she did not show even to Darius.

This knocking now, this urgent harshness, did not belong to the tall, faraway tower where nothing was ever urgent and harsh, where even the songs and noises she had heard all her life did not come easily. The knocking belonged to the world of Bers and humans, to the world of softly-dressed sharpness, honey-coated poison, noise, and constant misdirected haste.

Seven strides, a hand on the latch, a door swung open—and this world stood before her just as outside the Sun went fully down.

What do you want? Merley whispered, against Adept Brighid's smile.

Why, to see how you are doing, my dear.

Brighid pushed back the wet red hood of her cloak. Drops of melting snow trickled down the woman's thick dark hair and down the garment, marring Darius's—Merley's—cleanly polished floor. Snow was usually clean so far from the center of the city with its loud, carriage-packed, filthy streets. But not snow brought in by Brighid. Everything Brighid touched, Brighid tainted, and Merley was going to personally clean the room after the woman was gone, to remove every little trace of her.

Old Slava back in Balkaene had believed that if you swept the floor after a visitor had left, you would banish her or him forever. Old Slava had seriously scolded a scullery girl who had swept the kitchen floor once after Merley had been there for Slava's wondrous cookies. Merley had not believed you could truly chase away a person with a broom, and the girl probably had not wanted that, anyway—and Merley had gone back later. But could she go back again now? Had the broom perhaps not worked in her case, after all, and could it not work in Brighid's? Could not wishing Brighid gone with all her heart work by itself?

Won't you perhaps offer me a glass of water and a bite, lady Merlevine?

A bite. The word brought an image that was not that of the polite cake bites nobles offered to visitors, perhaps because Merley had been thinking of Slava just now. Slava's cookies it brought, together with their taste, so strong that it made Merley's mouth water, a taste of baked flaky dough full of freshly-churned butter, dressed with an exquisite layer of rose-petal jam.

Merley swallowed, both the taste and the tears, everything blending in a bitter lump inside her throat. But tears were never a good condiment, and she was not going to cry before that woman.

No, I am not going to offer you anything, Merley said with all the calm she could muster. I am a noble lady no more, even though it was lady you called me, and I am not bound by silly noble rules of politeness to offer food and drink to even an unwelcome guest. Who made those rules and why, anyway? They make no more sense than the rule of matching shoes.

The rule of matching shoes, is it, now?

If Merley could swallow back words, she would have swallowed back hers. She should have said nothing of shoes, or of her wonderings. She had just uttered what had been on her mind, like she had easily become used to with Darius, but this was not Darius. Brighid was smiling again, obviously undaunted, her smile almost mocking and yet not entirely—a knowing smile, as if she were a nosy but not necessarily ill-meaning friend whom Merley had just presented with a secret of hers. It was not a secret, it was nothing special, and yet she felt breached. Anything she told Brighid, any access to herself she gave Brighid, was one thing too much.

I could tell you who invented these rules and why, Merley. Brighid slipped inside, a hand reaching out to close the door. Her nails were long, carefully shaped and painted. I can tell you many things.

Could she? Could she really? For a moment, Merley's curiosity was stronger than the repulsion she felt towards the woman. She had asked a question to which she expected no answer, a question to which she thought there were no answer, for she had learned to think that rarely were the rules of humans good or right, or made any sense. And good or right perhaps they were not, but were there explanations? Was there anything an Adept Humanist knew that could help Merley know this world herself, with its mingled paths and mingled lives, and noise and discord that permeated every breathing or non-breathing thing except perhaps fire? Was there anything Brighid could tell her that would make her understand why she could not find peace even here, amidst Darius's kindness, in Darius's peaceful home?

No. Merley did not shake her head at herself only because if she did, Brighid would see and would know that Merley wanted to believe her. Merley did not know what Brighid knew about human rules and the world, but she knew that Brighid knew about her, about the restiveness that for a year had been her constant companion, her enemy and her friend—and she knew that Brighid would not hesitate to use it. Had she been a Brighid, I can tell you all you need to know, would have been what she would have told a Merley, perhaps followed by I can help you find your own place.

Why have you come, Adept Humanist Brighid? Merley sat at her table, in front of her little confined flame, and Brighid sat across from her, the adept's eyes lingering on the metal plate.

Both were silent for a while. Then, Such a waste, my dear, Brighid finally said. A flame with no purpose, at a time when flames are born in pain and die easily.

How do you know it has no purpose! Merley snapped, then wished to bite off her tongue. She had done it again, she had shown emotion to a person who could harvest emotions like grain, and like grain, turn them to something of her own making.

Strangely enough, Brighid did not immediately take the opportunity to do that. She just stared at the flame for a very long time, eyes half-closed, her long fingers clenched together on the table. She looked ... vulnerable for a little while, but not like Merley's mother, who wore vulnerability like she wore her beauty, like a garment carefully planned and sewn, constantly redesigned to fit her better throughout the years. Brighid, combed and manicured as she was, somehow did not seem to care for beauty in the same way Fallon or other noble women, young and old, did. And right now Brighid looked truly vulnerable—which for some reason made Merley afraid.

You are right, of course. Brighid sighed, her fingers carefully unclenching themselves. All things that humans do have their purposes, I should know that. But not all purposes are equal, my child. Some are worthier than others.

Merley remained silent. She refused to yet again ask why Brighid had come. As much as she wanted, she could not make her leave, either, for the room was not truly Merley's, and Merley did not have the power to welcome others or bid them gone. This room, together with the other one at the end of the corridor, where Darius slept, was not even Darius's. Neither was the study where the tiny devices buzzed and lived lives of their own.

Everything owned by Bers was owned collectively, and even though one may favor some places better than others, or live in a room or a tower all her life, no one owned the room or tower. The Master, long ago, had been vehement that it would be so, the books said. In reality, in the centuries after the Master the rooms where Bers lived had become private, so despite the old rules Merley could indeed throw Brighid out of the room itself. But not from the tower. Brighid could stay at Merley's threshold forever if she so chose, trapping Merley inside, and Merley did not consider doing this to be beyond Brighid. She might as well hear what Brighid had to say.

Darius is not too well, I hear. You must be so worried. Brighid smiled again, a typical smile of hers, so motherly and concerned, and so devoid of vulnerability that Merley might have imagined it a moment ago.

Stay away from him. Rules be damned, she might be hesitant to throw that woman away from her own room, but she would throw her away from Darius's—she would throw her from the top of the tower if she must.

I am not going to intrude on dear Darius's much needed rest, dear. I indeed came straight to you without talking to him first for that very reason. What are you thinking? I only mean Darius well. I even sent Darius our most skillful acolyte, even though I would have wished to keep her for myself.

The smile yet again, that dirty fake smile that only looked fake if you watched very carefully—or if you felt it. Merley must have felt it, for she was not watching carefully. She was not careful at all. If she were, she would not have said yet another thing she should not have said, would not have made yet another mistake. Couldn't she just have smiled and said that Darius had a slight cold, nothing too serious, thanks for your concern? Couldn't she have brushed the question off, as if it did not matter much? Obviously not. Now Brighid knew that even a small cold could worry Merley when it was Darius who was affected, and she knew how much the old man meant to her. Merley clenched her fists, hiding the sweat that had suddenly surfaced on her palms. Brighid could use all she knew.

I know what you are thinking. 'A Humanist can use and abuse,' you are thinking, and you are worried about the dear old man. You are right to worry.

Merley said nothing this time; this time she knew that whatever she said would only make things worse. Words were not her weapons. She could burn Brighid—that she could do. The fire had suddenly started kindling inside her, chasing away the cold for the first time in days, making her hot, almost too hot to bear. She tried to breathe slowly, so that Brighid would not notice, and to control her stomach, which seemed to want to turn inside out. She had killed a human once for her own sake. If need be, she would kill another for Darius's.

She squeezed her hands together beneath the table, the trembling hopefully invisible to eyes that were not hers. No matter what else, if need be, she would do it. And even if Brighid did not mean Darius harm at this time and in this place, would she not mean harm later, and did she not mean harm to someone or another all the time? Knowing Brighid, would not the world be a better place without her?

Help the world. Kill her.

Suddenly the room was so quiet that Merley could hear the big clock in the study through the thick stone wall, which should in reality be impossible.

Tick, the clock said, and tack, and tick again, every sound in rhythm with the sudden wild thumping of her heart against her chest, and with the thumping of the fire confined inside her. Confined? Had her fire ever been confined? Merley blinked as if to chase the strange, confusing thought away. It was her fire, and inside her was its home. Inside her was where her fire always should be—except for those few flames she let out in the world. The flames she let out, the flames that warmed others, melted wolf chains or bench legs, the flames that maimed and killed—they were precious to her and always hurt a little, and yet they were never as strong, and never as painful or beloved, as the flames that never left her.

Tick, tack, the clock said once again, that dear, soothing sound suddenly sharp and pressing against her mind as if a fork had started scraping it from the inside. Merley shivered, unable to hide her body's reaction this time. Perhaps it was all because the time was a minute to the hour, and soon the clock would strike. She could strike, too. Her head was suddenly free of ache and her stomach was stiff and stable. She could strike so easily.

But do you control it, or does it control you? Brighid had said before. Her hands now shaking wildly, Merley suddenly stared at the woman as if she were seeing her for the first time, and stared for a long time after the clock had finished striking.

You have the right instincts, child. Brighid's voice startled her, even though it somehow sounded kinder than before. Merley jerked her eyes away, and suddenly the strength that had been keeping her still and staring drained away. She barely resisted dropping her head on her hands on the table. The flame in the metal plate faded.

Brighid watched the plate in silence, then her eyes bore into Merley's, dark and deep, and hot themselves.

You are right to worry, and to doubt my intentions, even though presently I truly mean your master no ill. I need him, you see. But if there is one thing you should know about humans, one thing that would never fail you in dealing with them, it is doubt. Doubt me, Merley. Doubt Darius. Doubt yourself, for she who watches herself constantly is apt to notice whenever she is about to fall, and apt to find a way to stay up or at least to choose where she falls—so that she can scrape back up again.

Is this what you did? Chose where you fell? Perhaps Merley should not have said this, either, but right now her mind seemed too faint and distant to berate her.

Perhaps. Brighid's voice was quiet. Perhaps this is exactly what I did. But this is not a topic for today. Today, I have come to talk to you about Magic and mechanisms.

Why to me? And why you?

Merley had talked about these things with two other people fourteen days ago, and this was the reason she had been cold ever since. This, and the fear for Dreadful, the nagging fear that seemed to always stay at the back of her mind. He had come to her when she had stood alone in the snow in that park where you could see the river, and he had been wounded once again, she did not know by what or whom. Then, while she had still been in shock and in fear for him, before she had decided what to do and where to take him, those two and their dog had come and helped both him and her.

A lady of Qynnsent, that woman was now. Was that truly not a joke? One House entangled in the Balkaene dirty games had lost a witch, while another House had gained one. Interesting what the Laurents themselves would lose or gain next. But what did Merley care? She should be glad that she was well rid of nobility and the pain and futility it brought. A Ber at least had the power and ability to do things that mattered to the world.

A Ber should not care that there had been a handsome, smart, and kind lord to embrace the water witch in the cold and snow, while no one but Dreadful had been beside Merley. But Dreadful—sweet, soft-coated, warm-breathed, loyal Dreadful—alive Dreadful—was enough. Every night since she had moved to Darius's tower, he would come to the courtyard and lick her face while she buried her hands in his fur. He would listen to her tell him everything about her, his yellow eyes wells of wild wisdom that she felt closer to her heart than everything else in the world.

He would come tonight, too, and every night Merley wished he would stay, but he had not wanted to, so far. He was not a dog, and perhaps the wildness in him was far too strong. She only hoped he would be fine, for the wounds were still healing—healing properly, for those two had seemed to know what to do. For that, she loved them, even if she sometimes hated them for other things.

She was cold again. The warmth inside must have faded together with the little flame, and suddenly Merley dared not try to make another flame for fear that she would fail. It was a new feeling. She had never failed since that moment she had first discovered her fire, but too many others were failing nowadays, and right now she was cold and doubt had crept into her. Was it because of Brighid and the fire that Merley had not let out? Was it because of Brighid's words about doubt? Or perhaps it was because that water witch had brought her own coldness to too deep a place inside Merley's mind and heart.

The water witch had become hot, on the other hand. It had been her place where they had met, that place of blue, gray, snow, wind, and water flowing beneath sunset-bathed ice. Her place and her man. Fire and Merley's touch had afflicted her just like the coldness of that same touch had afflicted Merley—just like the treacherously soft snow gathering along the window frame right now was pressing at Merley's mind and squeezing her heart tightly.

About mechanisms the lady Linden and the High Lord Rianor had talked, and perhaps mechanisms they loved, but it was not mechanisms they wielded. It was coldness the two of them had inside, coldness so fierce that it burned, and it repelled Merley and drew her towards them at the same time.

Strangely enough, it seemed to be mechanisms on Brighid's mind, too, but presently Brighid said nothing further, for there was a knock on the door. A soft knock, of a person used to peace, and yet, a knock in a way persistent.

Adept Humanist Brighid must have come to you and not to someone else because she is very interested in your skills and perhaps even wants you to develop them well, Merley, Darius said as he entered, having obviously heard the latest exchange. Is that not so, Adept Humanist? Beneath the pince-nez, the blue eyes were sharp, even if reddened by the cold.

Of course I want her to develop them well, Adept Darius. Brighid smiled sweetly at the old man, but he did not even seem to notice, adjusting his pince-nez to take a look at the book Merley had left on the shelf beside the table.

Ah, A History of Metal Making, I have not read it in a long time. I should. That I should do ... He tsk-ed. So many things to do and so little time to do them. He gently took the book's heavy bulk in his wizened hands, his eyes clouded, his mind traveling far, as it was apt to do. Merley smiled, then stood and started brewing a cup of tea for him, and then frowned, adding a double doze of honey as she heard him cough.

Thank you, dear child. Darius took the cup, seemingly oblivious that she had not offered a cup to Brighid.

So, Adept Brighid, what does a Humanist want from my student?

The world is fading, Brighid said in a soft voice with her eyes half-closed, and were this Temple Square and were there a crowd, the crowd would perhaps have stood in stupor, gawking at her mouth for the next words this voice would utter. But this was not Temple Square and there was no crowd, only Darius, who coughed and rummaged through his pockets, murmuring something like Now, where did I put that handkerchief.

Merley handed him hers. He started bringing it to his nose, then his eyes opened wider.

Child, this is as thin and clean a piece of cloth as I have seen lately, and Little Sylvester lies in parts on the middle desk in the study even now, his cogwheels waiting to be cleaned very thoroughly. Do you have any more of these? Anyway, I am not going to waste this one.

Darius coughed again, the handkerchief safe in his shirt's pocket—the clean one, for Darius would never wipe Little Sylvester with anything that had been in the other pocket, the one that contained the melted dinner fork and the beeswax.

Wait a bit, master. Merley stood and went to ransack the topmost drawer of her desk, where things were admittedly in a disarray. She found two more handkerchiefs of the same kind as well as a coarser one, made of flax. She expected Darius to wipe his nose with that as she stacked all on his lap, but instead he unfolded it, a finger tracing the strong interweaving threads, his mind obviously solely occupied with their pattern.

Silently, Merley scribbled Little Sylvester on a piece of paper, took one of the thin handkerchiefs and folded the note inside it before she placed the whole package in Darius's pocket. In this way, two hours from now Darius would not wonder what the things in his pocket were and why they were there. He smiled at her, stuffing the linen handkerchief in the pocket with the wax. Well, at least it would smell nice.

Before she had come to live here, Merley had thought herself disorganized. As a noble lady of Waltraud, her mother had expected her to learn things like planning menus for the Cooks to cook and