by Karen Miller
“All right then!” a voice shouted from the midst of the throng. “So what’re you goin’ to do about it?”
He grinned. “Well now, I’m glad you asked me that question, Willim Bantry, and that’ll be three trins in the Barlsbox if you please, for speakin’ out of turn.”
A gust of laughter. Asher’s grin widened.
“So. Guild Meister Roddle wants the secret to Indigo Glospottle’s superior piss handed out willy-nilly to every guild member, even though they did nowt to deserve the money they’ll make off it. And Indigo Glospottle wants to keep his secret piss a secret and get rich off it all on his lonesome. And if they won’t let him do that, he wants to leave the Guild.” He sighed and shook his head. “Well, I can’t be having that. The guilds keep us strong. I ain’t about to weaken ‘em, Indigo, by lettin’ you run about on your own undermining the Dyers’ Guild’s authority.”
Glospottle pouted.
“But,” he added, with a burning look at Roddle, “I ain’t about to sit back twiddlin’ my thumbs as you get rich off another man’s invention. So here’s my ruling. Indigo gives the Guild his secret piss recipe, and for every bolt of fabric sold that was made with that same recipe the guild gives Indigo a tithe. Five trins sounds about right to me.”
As Indigo Glospottle broke into excited laughter Guild Meister Roddle rose shouting to his feet. “I object, sir! I object!”
“You don’t get to object, you whingeing bloody ninny-hammer!” roared Asher, closing on him. “If you’d stuck by the first agreement, that Indigo’d keep his secret to hisself and pay the Guild a tithe from every sale, we wouldn’t be here now! But you didn’t and we are and now I’ve made my ruling! So get out of my sight afore I knock you on your pimpled arse and make you drink a pint of Glospottle’s secret bloody piss! Hot!”
The hearing concluded immediately thereafter, amidst much confusion, cheering and acclaim.
———
With her ribs still aching from laughter Dathne hovered at the rear of Justice Hall and waited for Asher to emerge. Half an hour after his riotous conclusion to the trial and still he’d not escaped. Guild Meister Roddle had come out, ashen-faced and spluttering, supported by a bevy of guild members, after signing the paperwork that entered the ruling into law. Indigo Glospottle had come out too and hugged her, weeping with relief. Pellen Orrick had come out briskly, raising his eyebrows at her in passing.
Pellen Orrick’s risen eyebrows spoke untold volumes.
At long last Asher emerged, all alone. He saw her and smiled. “Take me away from here, woman,” he said limply, and let her hustle him into the small, anonymous hired carriage she’d paid to wait round the side of Justice Hall. The official carriage she’d dismissed with a coin for the coachman and a conspiratorial smile.
“You fool,” she said, and kissed him. “I’m afraid to imagine what you’ll think of next.”
They went back to her apartment over the bookshop and watched the sun go down from the rooftop. When hunger stirred she fetched them roast chicken and baked potatoes and soaking sweet honey cakes from Meister Hay’s cookery down the street, and they gorged themselves to hiccups.
Then she took him by the hand and led him to her bedroom.
“You know I can’t stay,” he said. There was honey smeared in the corners of his mouth.
“Not the whole night,” she agreed, kissing him clean. “But for a while.”
Falling breathless into each other’s arms, onto her creaking old bed, they let pleasure have its way with them. Afterwards he slept, and she sat up in the bed and watched him, marveling. Eventually she drifted into dozing sleep and woke only when something cold and feather-light kissed her on the cheek.
It was snowing.
Heart-stopped and speechless she stared at the whirling ice flakes as they fell from the lacy white cloud beneath her bedroom ceiling. In the bed beside her Asher muttered and moaned, his eyes closed tight. The merest thread of blood trickled meanly from beneath his lashes, like a tear.
She nearly suffocated, she held her breath so long.
It was over soon enough. The snowfall stopped, the lacy cloud dispersed. He began to stir. Alarmed, she slid under the blankets beside him and pretended she was sleeping. She felt him slip from the bed. Heard the swish of silk and leather over skin as he pulled on his clothes. Shivered as his warm lips touched her mouth.
And then he was gone.
Alone and still shivering she lay in her bed and rocked like a child, stunned beyond the release of weeping.
Of all the things she’d ever imagined, she’d never imagined this.
———
Close to panic, Willer turned away from shuffling the papers and parchments on top of Asher’s desk and began to rummage through its drawers instead. He had to find something incriminating tonight. This was the fifth time he’d crept into Asher’s office, he couldn’t fail again! Lord Jarralt was losing his patience, there’d been harsh words outside Justice Hall today after the Glospottle hearing and besides, the whole business was so dangerous.
Nothing in the first drawer. Or the second. What about the third . ..
Just as he reached for the last drawer he heard a pair of muffled voices. A key, scraping in the office door’s lock. He swallowed a shriek. Snatched Lord Jarralt’s lightstone from the desktop and smacked it against the timber until the tiny glow extinguished. Fumbling it into his pocket he made a dive for rat-faced Dathne’s desk just as the office door swung open. Heart pounding, runneled with sweat, he wrapped his arms about his head and waited for the axe to fall. A flare of conjured glimlight splashed shadows on the carpet and lit up two pairs of passing legs.
“—extraordinary discovery,” the king was saying, voice hushed. “I can scarce believe Durm kept it secret. Who knows what might be in it? A cure, perhaps . ..”
“Then keep on bloody lookin’ for it if you reckon it’s so important!” said Asher, stamping across the carpet to his desk. “Or go back to readin’ Durm’s books. I told you, I don’t need you there. I can manage for one night on my own.”
“No, you can’t,” the king retorted. “It’s too dangerous.”
Shuffle, shuffle, as Asher searched through the papers scattered all over his desk. “It ain’t no more bloody dangerous now than it was the night before last. I survived then, I’ll survive tonight. All I want from you is a way out of this! I want to come back from the Weather Chamber and hear you say: ‘That’s it, Asher. That was the last time. No more WeatherWorking for you.’ “
In the silence that followed, Willer stuffed his coat sleeve in his mouth to stifle a horrified cry. Asher was WeatherWorking? How could that be?
The king said, very quietly, “Don’t you think I want that too?”
Asher’s reply was swift and scathing. “Well, wantin’ ain’t enough, Gar. We’ve gone a bloody long ways past wantin’. Durm can’t help us now, he’s dead. It’s just you. One way or another you got to fix this, ‘cause every day that goes by with you pretendin’ to be king and me pissin’ blood to make it rain and snow is one more day someone could find out the truth. How many bloody times do you need to hear it? I can’t do this much longer!”
Willer was afraid they’d hear his heartbeat, pounding in his chest like a madman’s hammer. Durm was dead? When? How? Don’t say Asher had killed him!
“I promise,” the king said after a long and tension-filled pause. “You won’t have to. I know as well as you this has to stop.”
The sound of Asher’s palm slapping timber was so loud, so unexpected, Willer almost hit his head on the underside of Dathne’s desk. “Are you sure you left the new Weather Schedule in here?”
“I put it on your desk myself,” said the king. “Let me look.” More slithery sounds of paper and parchment shuffling. “Here it is. You buried it under your notes for Glospottle’s hearing.”
“No, I didn’t! I ain’t been—oh, never mind!” said Asher, and Willer let out a sigh of silent fright. “Bloody Darran prob’ly snuck in her
e snoopin’ while Dathne’s back was turned. Now, you’re sure you got this right? I ain’t goin’ to send snow where there should be rain, and ice where there ought to be snow?”
“It’s right,” the king said. “I may have lost my magic, but I can still read and count.”
For a moment Willer thought he might faint dead away. King Gar had lost his magic?
“Glad to hear it,” said Asher. “Now you get back to your books and I’ll take care of this.”
“All right then,” said the king, reluctant. “But for Barl’s sake, be careful. Don’t overtax yourself. And make sure you drink Nix’s potion after.”
“Nag, nag, nag,” said Asher nastily. Oh, he was such a nasty man ...
There came the sound of parchment, rolling. Two pairs of booted feet, leaving. Willer held his breath until the door clicked closed behind them and Asher’s key scraped again in the lock.
Alone again, and undiscovered, he stayed under Dathne’s desk and shook so hard he thought his teeth would shatter like glass. Durm dead... the king unmagicked... and Asher of Restharven a criminal. The man who just that very morning had stood up in Justice Hall and dared, dared, to lecture on the welfare of the kingdom. The sanctity of Barl’s great Laws.
He was WeatherWorking. Even more incredible, he was doing it with King Gar’s knowledge! His blessing, even. How could that be? Gar wasn’t evil. There was only one explanation: Asher must have bewitched him, somehow. Ensorceled him into doing his wicked bidding. Perhaps even stolen his magic in the first place.
Monstrous. Monstrous.
And then horror slowly gave way to a dawning joy. How this had all happened was no longer important. It had happened, and that was more than enough.
Praise Barl! he wept in silent ecstasy. Praise Barl and all her mighty works! My prayers at last are answered!
Then, unexpected, within his transcendent triumph chimed a thin sharp note of fear.
When the kingdom learned all he knew—when Asher’s perfidy and the king’s blind foolish faith were revealed— there would be chaos. The uproar following Timon Spake would be nothing, nothing, to the crisis brewing now. It was inevitable: all Olken would in some way, large or small, pay for Asher’s crime. Even though they were innocent. Even though this wasn’t their fault.
Imagining it, he felt his courage falter. He held their lives in the palm of his hand. Would be, once he told Lord Jarralt of this discovery, the immediate cause of their unjust suffering. People would know it. And blame him. He swallowed more tears. Oh, how unfair. How unfair.
One more crime to lay at Asher’s feet.
And yet, he had no choice. He had to speak. For the good of the kingdom, he could not stay silent. Asher must not escape punishment. The king must be freed from his pernicious, evil influence, no matter the cost. No matter that-poor Willer, Barl’s blameless instrument, would yet carry some of the blame. History would redeem him. In time, he’d be seen as a hero. A champion for right, and justice.
That’s what I am, Barl. I’m your champion!
When he judged enough time had passed, he unlocked the office door with Lord Jarralt’s magical key, crept unseen from the Tower and made his way towards the Weather Chamber. He didn’t want to report this momentous news to Lord Jarralt until he’d witnessed with his own eyes the filthy stinking depths of Asher’s crime.
He got lost twice. Royal staff knew in theory where the Chamber was located but none had cause to visit it. Snow began to fall just after his second wrong turning. When at last he stumbled onto the right pathway, he was cold, wet and out of breath, his pantaloons were torn and his left hand was scraped to blood from when he’d tripped over a tree root and gone ungainly sprawhng.
The Weather Chamber was awe-inspiring. Terrifying. It was a wonder Asher dared stain it with his shadow, let alone defile it with his presence. A strange glow flickered at its very top, flashes of blue and silver-white and scarlet.
Willer crept closer, jumping at every whisper in the grass, every creaking in the trees. The mournful hoot of a low-flying owl nearly made him piss his pants. Hot-faced, gasping, he fell against the Chamber’s door. He almost couldn’t hear over the pounding of blood in his head.
To his surprise it was unlocked. He felt his lip curl. Sunk deep in arrogance, Asher thought himself inviolate. Undiscoverable. He couldn’t wait for the look on the bastard’s face when he realized how wrong he’d been.
He entered the Chamber. Not daring to use the light-stone he fumbled his way up the stairs in the dark, stubbing his toes and chewing his lip to stop himself from crying out at the pain. There were tight iron bands clamped about his chest. He was going to have a seizure, his legs were about to burst into flame.
Just as he thought he really would die the endless stairs came to an end and he was outside the Weather Chamber itself. The door was open the merest sliver. Through the hairline crack he could see a fierce bright light and hear, strange and horrible sounds. Someone was screaming, a garbled gobbling of extreme distress, and buried within was a string of unintelligible words.
Willer felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck.
As he stood there, dithering, the screaming rose to a ragged crescendo and abruptly stopped, as though cut with a knife. A moment later came the thud of a body hitting the floor.
Trembling, hardly breathing, he pushed wide the door and looked his fill.
An austere room papered with complicated charts and diagrams. Shelves crammed with ancient books. In its middle a miraculous thing, a model of the kingdom, and above it tiny clouds twinkling snowflakes. Unmoving beside it, Asher. Smeared and dribbled with blood. Dead then? Please not. Please not, for he must live to face his crimes, to kneel at the feet of his vanquishing foe. To be stripped naked before all the City, the kingdom and seen for the monster he was, knowing full well who’d unmasked him.
He crept closer. Asher was breathing. Shallowly, groaningly, with lines of pain cut deep in his flesh. Blood caked his eyelashes, clogged his nostrils, glistened redly on his lips. He was deeply, gloriously insensible.
Stealthily, Willer withdrew. Used Lord Jarralt’s charm to lock the door behind him and used itagain on the door at the foot of the staircase.
And then he ran.
———
“Conroyd! Conroyd, wake up, dear, wake up!”
Morg opened his eyes. Who—ah yes. His gormless, wittering wife ... at least for now. “Ethienne?”
“Oh, Conroyd!” she said, querulous and pouting. “There is a dreadful little Olken downstairs and he won’t go away no matter what I say! He insists you must see him and he won’t leave the premises till you do!”
Morg stretched, reveling in the oiled ease of his glorious new body. “Did he give you his name?”
“Willim. Or Wolton. Or something beginning with ‘w’,” said Ethienne, still pouting. “Do make him go away, Conroyd, please? It’s the middle of the night and he really is quite awful!”
Morg flung back the blankets. “Willer?”
“Yes, that’s it. Willer. What in Barl’s name have you to do with such a—”
He leapt out of bed, cursing. “Be silent, you ridiculous old hag!” And ignored her gobbling shock as he flung on Jarralt’s dressing-gown and hurried from the room.
Willer waited in the foyer, disheveled and bloodied and muddied and gross. “My lord!” he cried, and scuttled across the carpet to meet him at the foot of the stairs. “Oh, my lord! The Master Magician is dead, and ... and ...”
Morg seized him by the shoulders and shook him. “And what, man? Is it Asher? Tell me quickly, is it Asher?”
The fat little Olken’s eyes were shining like stars. “Oh, my lord, yes, it’s Asher! At last, sir, at last! Lord Jarralt, we have him!”
PART THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Pellen Orrick sighed and took another thoughtful sip of tea. Beyond the window of his guardhouse office, silent snow continued to drift through the air and settle on the sill, the garden, the gateposts a
nd the street. The glow of glimfire from the City streetlamps turned white to gold, a constant reminder of magic.
Deep silence surrounded him. The guardhouse cells downstairs were free of guests, for the moment, and the lads on night call were sleeping peacefully in their cots. Business as usual, now that the City had emptied of mourners and life was slowly falling into its new rhythms. Gar on the throne. Asher the Olken Administrator.
The thought of Asher tipped his mouth into a smile. Outrageous. The man was outrageous. Today’s—no, yesterday’s—performance in Justice Hall would be gossip fodder for weeks. Months. He’d thought Guild Meister Roddle would drop dead of a seizure on the spot. He’d nearly had a seizure himself from trying not to laugh out loud.
Reprobate Asher had climbed onto the Law Giver’s chair. The chair that had cradled royal law-giving rumps for years. But then that was Asher all over, wasn’t it? Always climbing onto things. Yes, and over them too. Benches. Tables. Obstacles. Restrictions. Traditions. Shredding pomp and consequence with all the finesse of a cheese-grater.
A silent convulsion of laughter shook his bones. Indigo Glospottle’s name would live on for generations now. Asher had seen to that. So much authority resting on those broad and brawny shoulders. If it had been anybody else standing on that Law Giver’s chair he knew he’d not be laughing, but worried. Power like that could turn a man’s head more easily than the lilting walk of a pretty girl passing by. But not Asher’s. If ever he’d met a man entirely unimpressed with the trappings of power, it was Asher.
Sparks spat in the fireplace as a log broke apart, crumbling into coals and ash. The room was warmed with magic, of course, but he still kept a fire burning through winter. Most people did. Even the Doranen loved the sound and smell of fresh burning pitty-pine. The romance of leaping flames.