The answer was simple. He couldn't. “Thank you, Your Grace,” he stammered. It was no small offer and a little surprise could be expected – he hoped. Larkrise had been a profitable kingdom for years and, as the original home of the Emperor’s Bloodline, had been assured of favourable treatment by the Royal Court. “I am sure that I will make you proud.”
“Your task will be to crush them and convince the commoners to know their place,” Herod informed him. “You will break them of their belief that they can work their way up into the nobility. The rewards for success will be high. The punishment for failure will be unpleasant.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Reginald said. He saw it now. Instead of turning Eric’s kingdom into a profitable country – after it had been thoroughly devastated by the invasion – his task was to ensure that it remained devastated. “I understand what you want.”
“Good,” Herod said. He gave Reginald a long searching look. “You appear to be different.”
“I came very close to death when that avalanche hit us, Your Grace,” Reginald said, truthfully. Let Herod think that that explained his change in attitude. “It focused my mind on remaining alive.”
“A worthy attitude,” Herod said. He stood up and smiled at Reginald. “Come; walk with me.”
Reginald hesitated, but there was no choice. Herod led him out of the Great Hall and down towards one of the smaller halls. The smell reached Reginald before he turned the corner, the stench of too many unwilling humans forced into a comparatively tiny space. Herod seemed unbothered by the smell, leading Reginald into a hall holding the elderly men and women he’d seen as he rode up the hill. Their guards were standing on the sidelines, occasionally using their whips on unruly prisoners. Reginald opened his mouth to protest and then closed it with a snap. Herod would never have listened to him.
“The Golden City and the surrounding Kingdom was quite rich in population,” Herod said, cheerfully. Reginald, who knew what was to come, felt sick deep inside. He thought, again, about drawing the sword, but he knew better. Herod was testing him and, if he were to do any good, he had to pass. Whatever suspicions Herod had, he couldn’t be allowed to keep them. “Most of them, of course, are absolutely useless. The farmers feed, the soldiers and servants do their part, but what use are the traders and merchants? What use are the elderly who only eat good food and drink?”
Reginald had to swallow hard to avoid a wave of nausea. Herod was only speaking words that Reginald himself had said, months ago. He’d convinced many noblemen to go along with his plan because he’d promised to stamp out uppity commoners, but no one had realised that he meant to turn commoners into sheep...no, Reginald knew; they had known exactly what he’d meant. They’d gloried in the prospect of turning the world back into what it had once been; a world where everyone knew their place and stayed in it. It wouldn't be long before commoner-born magical children would be taken away from their parents and adopted by high-born families, or perhaps they would simply be strangled at birth.
And he’d gone along with it, knowing what Herod had had in mind.
“They are no use at all,” Herod said, as if he was unaware of Reginald’s internal turmoil. “What use is a commoner who cannot work on the land, or turn out babies to grow up into the next generation of farmers? Why should we keep them around?”
This time, he seemed to want an answer. “We shouldn’t,” Reginald said, desperately. He knew he had to appear unbothered, yet...it was so hard to keep his voice stable. How had he ever gotten involved in Herod’s mad schemes? Like so much of his life, he had only himself to blame. “If they cannot serve, what good are they?”
“Quite right,” Herod agreed. He lifted a hand and Reginald felt the magic building up around him...and then he lowered his hand. For an absurd moment, Reginald wondered if Herod had changed his mind, and then the necromancer looked right at him. “Would you like to learn how to tap their power for yourself?”
Reginald looked down, trying to think. The secret behind necromancy was hardly common knowledge; it was how Herod was tempting other – weaker – magicians to join his cause. If he learned how to use murder as a power source, he would be Herod’s equal and he could fight him...except it would never happen. The more he used necromancy, the greater the risk of madness and death, burned up by his own powers. He wanted to refuse, but how could he refuse, not when he’d been so keen to learn.
“I do not believe that I could absorb so much power at once,” Reginald said, finally. Herod seemed oddly amused by the answer, even though it was reasonable. “Can I start with a smaller number of people?”
“That would be best,” Herod agreed, seriously. He lifted his hand again and, a moment later, the captives dropped dead. Herod’s eyes flared bright red as the power raced into him, his entire body glowing with the energies he had unleashed, before fading back down to normal as he trapped the power within his wards. “We will start your lessons tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Your Grace,” Reginald said, desperately. He’d trapped himself, again. “With your permission, I will retire to my room and sleep off the trip.”
“Of course,” Herod said. He snickered, an eerie sound that had more than a hint of madness. “You need your rest. You may even need to relax with one of the girls. Tomorrow is going to be the greatest day of your life.”
And he laughed.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Precisely on time, the Grandmaster stepped through the door and into a meeting room that many knew existed, but few knew how to find. Lost somewhere within the warped interior of the Academy, the Council Chamber was one of the most secure rooms in the world, perhaps the most secure now that the Golden Palace had fallen. His mind reached out and tested the wards surrounding the room, ensuring that the Council of Thirteen could neither be spied upon nor attacked. An Oracle could presumably see what they were saying, a few seconds in the future for her, but a regular far-seer had no hope of seeing within the room. The other doors within the chamber opened, allowing the eleven other members of the Council of Thirteen to step into the room. The magic field flickered and changed as they probed the defences for themselves, testing every ward as if the future of Touched depended upon it. Paranoia, particularly at such high levels, was a survival trait among the most powerful magicians in the world.
The Grandmaster sat down in his chair – designed more like a throne by a Grandmaster who had passed away many centuries ago – and waited for the others to take their places. The Council of Thirteen was, in reality, the Council of Twelve, but no magician would seriously consider changing the name. A single black chair, empty apart from a sword that had been placed across it centuries ago, marked where the Head of Necromancy would once have sat. Now, with necromancy officially banned, no one had taken the chair and hopefully no one ever would. The Grandmaster considered it sourly, remembering the letter he’d received from Mistress Hind. If necromancy was truly loose in the world again, someone might just try to claim that chair.
The Heads of Disciplines took their chairs and looked up at their Grandmaster, challenge written in their eyes. Unlike the Grandmaster, who was the single most powerful magician known to exist, they were the greatest experts in their field, something that didn't always translate to political acumen. Or, at least, they were the greatest experts known to exist. The Grandmaster tried hard to keep an eye on rogue magic researchers who might make breakthroughs that evaded the more official magical authorities, but they had the entire planet to hide on. They could be anywhere. Each of the Heads had one vote in the Council Chamber. If they ever acted as one, they could block any motion of his and vice versa.
He looked up as Castellan Peter stood up. The Castellan was the elected administrator of the Academy, the man who organised classes, teaching schedules and whatever bureaucratic business had to be handled by the Council. He was trusted by everyone, even though he wasn't such a powerful magician, with skills that lay more with organising rather than magic. The Grandmaster trusted him completely; afte
r all, they had been friends for years.
“This meeting is now called to order,” Peter said, in his calm precise voice. He had always been calm, even when facing exams and practical tests that could kill an Apprentice magician and had been known to do so from time to time. The Grandmaster had often envied him that calm, even if it was sometimes the mark of a lesser magician. “The wards are secure. We may talk freely.”
Unless the Oracle is watching us, the Grandmaster thought, worriedly. He’d been worried enough about the Oracle to enquire directly as to what had happened to her, but the reply from the Golden City had been vague in the extreme. The overthrow of the Emperor had led rapidly to the fall of his city, yet no one in their right mind would harm an Oracle and risk the anger of the gods. If she was in Herod’s hands, the balance of power, already warped out of shape, would change rapidly. He’d looked for the remains of the Sages, but they all seemed to be gone or scattered.
“Thank you,” he said. He looked around the room, meeting eyes that ranged from indifferent to hostile. The Heads were a fractious bunch and known to resent anyone who dragged them out of their work and into the Council Chambers, where they had to consort with their equals. “I have received a distressing letter from Mistress Hind, one of our Freelance Mages.”
He looked over at Lady Asma, but she showed no reaction that he could see on the surface and her wards were strong, preventing him from looking into her mind. The new Chancellor had already made herself unpopular with some of the students, but she had actually made a few friends among the Heads, mainly by promising them extra resources for their pet interests. He missed the old Chancellor. He might have been appointed by the Emperor to keep an eye on the Academy, but he’d been a close friend as well. Lady Asma was clearly not going to be anyone’s friend.
“She was forced to flee the Golden City with her husband, Prince Eric,” the Grandmaster continued. The Academy wouldn’t recognise Hind as a Princess, either directly or indirectly, for she had never earned that title. The title of Mistress, Master of Magic, was one that she had earned the hard way and thoroughly deserved. “Her letter states that they were attacked by magicians using necromancy and, later, zombies who were clearly under magical control. She further alleges that Herod, the Duke who led the coup against the Emperor, is a necromancer himself, breaking the most solemn law of Touched.”
He gazed around the room, his eyes finally coming to rest on Lady Asma. “We must decide what we are to do about this,” he stated. “It is our duty to deal with any necromancers who attempt to practice their dark arts.”
Lady Asma coughed, delicately. “The claim that Emperor Herod uses necromancy is a lie,” she said, flatly. Her voice brooked no contradiction. “Hind...”
“Mistress Hind,” the Grandmaster corrected, firmly. “Please use the title she has earned.”
“Mistress Hind was not even married to the Prince when they fled the Golden Palace,” Lady Asma continued, acknowledging his contribution with a nod. “Regardless of her exact status, she has every reason to lie about the Emperor, hoping that she can snare the Academy into assisting her lover in reclaiming the Throne. While I do not deny that there have been many deaths as a result of the rightful overthrow of the Emperor, they did not involve necromancy or anything related to the dark arts.”
“A claim we could expect you to make,” one of the Heads pointed out. “You are, after all, appointed to be the Emperor’s mouthpiece on the Council.”
“That is correct,” Lady Asma said. If she was flustered by the comment, she didn't show it. “The charge of necromancy is the most serious charge that can be brought against a magician and to bring it against a magician who is also an Emperor....well, it requires considerable proof and what proof has Mistress Hind presented us with? She has given you nothing!”
The Grandmaster pressed his fingertips together and studied her dispassionately. The hell of it was that she was right. The Academy had the legal authority to deal with necromancy wherever it popped up, but it had no legal right to interfere with political turmoil, even a coup mounted against the Emperor himself. It didn’t matter if Herod was the rightful Heir to the Throne or if he had as much right to it as a swineherd from the Mountains of Mourning; the Academy was not allowed to interfere. And, with someone so important, the charge of necromancy would need extremely strong proof or all hell would break loose.
“We are obliged to investigate,” he pointed out. “Do you believe that the Emperor would raise any objection to our investigation?”
Lady Asma took a moment to answer, leaving him thinking hard. The problem was that if the Academy acted badly, it would unite the other noble families against it, perhaps to the point that they sought to revoke the Academy’s charter. The Academy might have some of the best and brightest magicians in the world under its command, but they were by no means the only ones...and Herod had been calling as many as would come to the Golden City. His combined force of magic-users, working together, would be able to present a challenge to the Academy anywhere outside its grounds.
“He could not admit – or appear to admit – that the investigation had any validity,” Lady Asma countered, finally. “He could not allow you to proceed without objection.”
“It is our duty to investigate any claims of necromancy,” the Head of Alchemy pointed out. “We can investigate without his permission.”
“And yet doing so without proof will appear as if that we are interfering in politics,” the Head of Enchantment countered. They always argued in Council, which the Grandmaster found rather amusing, for they shared rooms and a homosexual relationship that had lasted for years. “We cannot afford to raise questions about the Academy’s integrity.”
The Grandmaster sighed and leaned back into his chair as the argument raged on, listening carefully as the various Heads took sides and changed them, allowing the argument to sway their positions as they saw fit. Several, including the Head of Alchemy, were in favour of investigating anyway, while others demanded proof or refused to investigate at all. The Grandmaster mentally traced back family relationships and muttered a curse under his breath as he realised that many of the objecting Heads were related, either directly or indirectly, to Herod and his plotters. No one had foreseen that a necromancer might occupy such a high position in the nobility. The handful of necromancers that had popped up after the Necromantic Wars, when necromancy had been banned, had all been isolated and driven more by a desire for revenge than power. They’d been dangerous as hell, but they’d only presented a tactical threat, not a threat to the entire system.
Not for the first time, he cursed his predecessors under his breath. In a desperate bit to eliminate necromancy entirely, they’d wiped out as much of the knowledge concerning necromancy as they could, burning books and destroying parchments and even knowledge stones created by long-dead magicians. The Ban had been ruthlessly enforced, yet there had simply been too many books and other stores of knowledge for necromancy to be totally eradicated from the world. Even without another necromancer to learn from, a new necromancer could clearly learn the art...yet how? The few details that had been kept in the Academy’s library, under a set of security spells that took the entire Council to lift, were vague and very imprecise. Someone else knew more than the Academy, the greatest repository of magician knowledge in the world, about one particular subset of magic...and it just happened to be the most dangerous of all. Somehow, the Grandmaster decided, that was just typical.
He tapped the table loudly enough to get attention, even if it was mostly hostile, with vague undertones of mass rebellion. “This discussion is getting us nowhere,” he said. “We have a duty to investigate any sign of necromancy.”
“And yet we need proof,” the Head of Enchantment pointed out. “Do we have the proof we need?”
The Grandmaster shook his head. Hind’s word was good – if he hadn't had faith in her, he wouldn't have urged the Emperor – the former Emperor – to put her name forward as a possible bride for his s
on. And yet, when the target was a powerful magician who was related to most of the highest nobility on the planet, it required more than just suspicions, but ironclad proof. Hind’s letter had referred to a black knife, a tool of necromancy, yet as long as it remained in her possession, it was suspect. Herod’s allies could claim, just as easily, that she had created it to incriminate Herod. Even truth spells couldn't be trusted with so many powerful magicians involved.
He’d ordered the various far-seers in the Academy to start looking for proof, but they’d found nothing, unsurprisingly. Far-seers could see anywhere where there were no wards keeping them out, yet such wards were everywhere. No one liked the thought of someone spying on them from a distance and so even the weakest of magicians created wards to block spies as a matter of course. Herod’s allies would have added to the network of defences, further confusing the far-seers. It was a very neat defence and, unlike many other defences, was hardly suspicious. Everyone did it, even without necromancy or the need to defend themselves against charges of necromancy.
“Then we must vote,” the Castellan said. They shared a long look before he tapped the table and stood up. “The motion before us is that we should investigate Duke Herod, Lord of Azimuth, who has been accused of practicing necromancy. You may vote yea or nay, or abstain from the voting. Place your votes...now.”
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