Certain Symmetry Read Online Free Page A

lines of flame, intersecting at a right angle,
hanging just above Veverain's head. She held her breath, staring,
and Veverain picked up the scrap of paper.
    "The winter after Rowan returned from Veyru
was a bitter one. We spent the days in the window, a book between
us, while I taught him his letters. He learned to read--and
write!--quickly, nor, once he had the skills, did he rest. He read
every book in the village, and came back from the vineyards one
evening to tell me that he had determined to write a book on the
lore of the vine, so that the young vinemen would have a constant
teacher and the old a check to their memories. He wrote that book,
and others, and kept his journals. More, he passed his skills to
other men of the village, who have taught their sons, so Karn need
not forget the cure for a vine blight encountered in my mother's
time." She hesitated, fingers caressing the scrap.
    "This paper bears his signature--the very
first time he signed his name."
    Lingeringly, the scrap of paper went into
the bag and Moonhawk very nearly gasped. The third interlock was a
bar of flame as thick as her arm, burning a pure, luminous
white.
    Carefully, Veverain picked up the scrap of
wood.
    "This is a piece from our vines on the hill.
Rowan loved the vines, the grapes, the wine."
    A fourth bar of fire joined the first three,
blazing. Stretching her Witch-sense, Moonhawk found the other
woman's grief significantly calmer, less gray, melting, like heavy
fog, in the brightness of the spell she built.
    For the last time, Veverain reached to the
table, and picked up the scarred silver band.
    "This is Rowan's promise-ring," she said, so
quietly Moonhawk had to strain to hear. "He wore it every day for
twenty-five years. If anything on this earth will remember Rowan,
this will."
    The fifth bar of fire was
so bright, Moonhawk's Witch-sense shied from it, dazzled. So, the
thing was built, and a powerful spell it was, too. But it wanted
binding and it wanted binding now , before the heat of it caught the
timbers of the house.
    At the table, Lute moved. His right hand
rose, the fingers flickered, and there between finger and thumb was
the twig he had broken from the herb bundle.
    "Rosemary, Queen of Memory," he intoned,
solemn as a prayer, "keep Rowan close." He placed the sprig in the
bag. Reaching out, he took up the rawhide cord on which Veverain
had worn Rowan's ring, and began to tie the spell-bag shut.
    "In love, memory; in life, love." His hands
moved more complexly now, creating two elaborate knots, and half of
a third. Sternly, he looked at the woman across from him.
    "Once this bag is sealed with the third
knot, the spell is made. Once made, it cannot be unmade." He
extended the bag, the final knot incomplete, the spell burning,
dangerously bright, above the woman's head.
    Veverain took the cord in her two hands, and
with infinite care made the final knot complete.
    "Sealed with my heart, that I never forget,"
she said, and pulled the cord tight.
    Above her head, invisible to all but the
staring Witch, the flaming bars wheeled, blurred and vanished,
leaving behind, for those who could hear such things, the
definitive snap of a spell sturdy-built and bound.
    "Stand," Lute said, doing so himself.
Veverain rose and he set the bag on its rawhide cord about her
neck. "Wear it. And never forget."
    From the floor, a flash of white-and-black
ascended, landing light-footed on the table. Tween the cat bumped
against the housemother's arm, tail held joyously aloft.
    Veverain smiled.
    * * *
    "HAVE YOU MASTERED the counter yet?" the
magician asked his apprentice as they walked toward the high
village in the morning. Behind them, their hostess was already
engaged with broom and dust rag, the windows flung open to receive
the day.
    "You know I haven't!" his apprentice
retorted, hotly. "If you must know, Master Lute, I don't think you
ever made that counter disappear in the first place--you merely
entranced me into believing you had done