That assertion drew a rustle of interest from the sorcerer’s audience. “There is a seventh?” exclaimed King Abbator. “I shudder to think that there is a Decimate more virulent than those we have witnessed, to our great cost in blood and pain.”
“And to the great cost of Amika,” replied the Magister with an attempt at imperiousness, “until recently. We no longer do what is done to us because there is a seventh, and it is mighty. It is a power unlike any you have conceived. It does not harm flesh or wood or stone. It does not roil the heavens or shake the earth. Rather, it halts all lesser sorceries. It renders sorcerers futile.
“We are helpless because the seventh Decimate has been invoked against us.”
This pronouncement produced no reaction. It hardly seemed worth hearing. Everyone in the chamber already believed Belleger had been deprived of sorcery by sorcerers. Prince Bifalt was sure of it. No one but a theurgist was capable of so much evil. The only surprise was that the evil had a name.
Fortunately, the King’s wits were more acute. Leaning forward with his hands tangled in his beard so that they would not tremble, he asked urgently, “Where does this knowledge exist? Why is it unknown to us? How did Amika acquire it? How can we? If it is accessible to our foes, it must be accessible to us as well.
“How has such a secret been forgotten?”
While King Abbator spoke, the old man turned away as if he had accomplished his purpose and now had nothing further to contribute. However, when the King snapped, “Magister!” Altimar faced his sovereign again.
“Too many questions, Majesty,” he wheezed. “Too many. I am old and useless. I have no answers.” Before King Abbator could protest, the former theurgist added, “None but one.
“Where does the knowledge exist? Why, in a book. Where else? It must have been learned from a book. A book named—” He paused, apparently groping. His eyes rolled. He bit his lip. “I remembered only this morning. It will come to me. The author’s name is”—abruptly he stamped his staff on the floor—“Marrow. There! I remember again. Hexin Marrow. A Magister at a time when the knowledge of sorcery was young. Or perhaps a descendant of the first Magisters. The book is Hexin Marrow’s Seventh Decimate.”
The King released his beard. He braced his hands on his knees. “Thank you, Magister. Once again, you have proven your worth. I will forego other questions. One remains necessary.
“Where is this book?”
The old man became petulant again. “You have to ask? Where are such tomes kept? In a library, of course.” But then he appeared to relent. After coughing for a moment, he explained, “A repository of books. The great Repository of the sorcerers. My teacher’s teacher’s teacher studied there in his youth.”
King Abbator summoned reserves of patience that seemed more than human to the Prince. “And where is this repository, Magister?”
Altimar fluttered a hand. “Who knows? None of us have been there. None of your Magisters. Not for generations. Only I remember it exists.” He mused briefly. “If it still exists.”
Prince Bifalt bit his cheek to stifle a snarl.
“But if I am asked to hazard a guess,” continued the former sorcerer, “I would say—” His head sagged to his chest. For a few heartbeats, he gave the impression he had fallen asleep where he stood. Then he roused himself. “In the east.” With lugubrious care, he turned away again. “Somewhere.” Slowly, he tottered toward the doors of the chamber. “In the east.”
The King let him go, which seemed to Prince Bifalt the greatest display of patience of the entire exchange.
So it came to pass, two days later, that the Prince, his team of guardsmen, and their laden wains passed through the gates of the Open Hand’s fortifications, heading east. Beyond the walls, they traveled the streets of the haphazard town that had grown outside the King’s main defenses, and had continued growing until its inhabitants outnumbered the city-dwellers. Driven by loss, Belleger’s people had gradually migrated away from the frontiers of the interminable war with Amika.
Outlying towns, villages, and hamlets had been leached of their men, their potential soldiers. Strong fathers and sturdy sons and even able-bodied grandfathers were taken by the army. Eventually, being too few to work the land and the flocks or herds themselves, the families had followed their men in search of employment or charity, leaving most of the north peopled only by stubborn farmers and horse-breeders; by women, grandparents, and children. Of course, women could do as much as men. But without men, the women could not do enough to supply both the army and the realm. Soon they could not do enough to supply their own families. The result around the King’s walls was a stinking mess of a city, unplanned and undrained, and made more noisome by fires blaring from the smithies, by rank fumes rising from the workshops of the alchemists. Whenever there was rain, poverty streamed from the eaves of the ramshackle houses, and the gutters poured sewage into the lanes and alleys.
Prince Bifalt was considered a hard man. Certainly, he had done everything he could to harden himself. At the age when young boys became attentive to their fathers, he had watched pain erode the lines of his father’s face, the strength of his father’s arms, the firmness of his father’s strides. Within a few years, he understood that King Abbator’s pain was caused by Belleger’s suffering. If the realm had been at peace, the King might have been a man in his prime. In a time of war, he was old, flensed of muscle and vigor by the poverty of his people and the threat to his lands. He carried the weight of every wound, every death, on his shoulders.
Seeing King Abbator diminish, the Prince had vowed with a youth’s enthusiasm that he would not fail his father. But now Prince Bifalt was a man: he knew his vow had wider implications than he had first imagined. He knew what failure meant, not just to Belleger’s king, but to Belleger itself. And he had learned a man needed a heart of stone to face Amikan cavalry—and Amikan theurgy.
The sight of Bellegerins living in such slums sickened him. From his mount’s back, he saw eyes haunted by bereavement, faces lined with privation and woe, limbs made scrawny and draped in rags by destitution. If they were the cause of King Abbator’s decline, they were also the reason for Prince Bifalt’s vow. If or when he failed, they would pay the price.
For this, as for the war itself, he held Amika responsible. The conditions surrounding the Open Hand could not be improved until—unless—Belleger’s enemy was defeated.
Amika’s animosity defied his comprehension. He faced it without flinching, but he did not understand it. The tale he had told his comrades before the last battle did not suffice to account for Amika’s savagery. It was only a tale—and in any case, its events had happened a long time ago. Yet the fury of Belleger’s foe endured. It seemed as unnatural as sorcery. If the Prince had not seen Amikans rage and cower and charge and flee and bleed and die like ordinary men on the battlefields, he would have doubted their very humanity.
Nevertheless, he projected certainty while his father’s subjects watched his departure. Through mire and sewage, he held his head high and his mien stern as he led his escort among the throngs. Only when he had left behind the streets, and then the outbuildings, and then the fields, did he permit himself to acknowledge his doubts.
Of his vague destination, he had learned only two details since the King had commanded him to this quest. One of the older captains had shown him a map more explicit than any he had previously studied. In its outlines he had confirmed, first, that Belleger’s borders to the east were imposed by a trackless and unmeasured desert, a boundary that extended north into Amika and perhaps beyond. In a general way, he had known of the desert’s existence. But he had never had a chance to see it: it was too far to the east, and his training to serve against Amika had allowed him no leisure to explore his homeland. Second, the map had shown him that a direct line to the east would take him closer and closer to Amikan lands. From the sea to the desert, the Line River formed the border bet
ween the realms. Eventually, his only protection from his foes would be the terrain on either side of the Line.
In contrast, one less practical matter had become clearer to him. The seventh Decimate had been invoked against Belleger. Therefore, Hexin Marrow’s book must still exist. Therefore, the library of the sorcerers must still exist also. Therefore, the Prince told himself, his only real challenges were to find that library—and to survive the intervening search.
He did not think about what he would do when he arrived there. If he arrived. Books and libraries where sorcerers studied were beyond his imagination.
Still, the most private of his fears clung to him. In his last audience with his father before he left Belleger’s Fist, King Abbator had asked, “Are you ready?”
Hearing those words, the Prince had not been able to restrain a flinch. Glowering at echoes that resembled omens, he replied, “No, Majesty. I do not know what will be required of me. How can I be ready?”
The King put a hand on Prince Bifalt’s shoulder. “I understand, my son. What I ask of you—what Belleger asks—is likely impossible. A book that may not exist, in a library that may not exist, with a destination we do not know at a distance we cannot estimate. Your quest is surely implausible.
“Nevertheless, I entrust it to you. What else can we do?”
Through his teeth, the Prince promised, “For you, Father, I will do what I can. For Belleger, I will do all I can.”
King Abbator sighed. Like a dying breath, he said, “Perhaps it will be enough. It is our only chance.”
Groping now for some insight that might improve his ability to ponder the imponderable, Prince Bifalt called the former sorcerer in his company to ride at his side.
His need to do so vexed him. Memories of his father’s face, and of his own experiences in hell, nagged at him whenever he was in the presence of a man who could cause so much slaughter with such ease—and at such a distance. Even theurgists who had lost their power reminded him of who they were. For the sake of his quest, however, he was prepared to control himself.
By the standard of Magister Altimar, the former sorcerer was not old. Certainly, he did not lack vigor. Though his eyes were commonly downcast, and his beard drooped from his visage like gloom, he rode with easy balance and a light hand, mounted and dismounted without obvious exertion, and conveyed a general air of readiness. Instead of a sorcerer’s customary grey robe, he wore a tan shirt and trousers woven of heavy wool.
Prince Bifalt knew nothing about the man except that he had volunteered. Indeed, he had declared himself the company’s steward. He claimed the task of preparing meals, tending to supplies, and rationing the burdens of the wains for a trek of unknown length.
Swallowing distaste, Prince Bifalt spoke as the man joined him. “Magister Slack—”
Before he could continue, the older man interrupted. “Forgive me, Highness,” he said without raising his gaze. “I am no longer a Magister. That title signifies all I have lost, and I cannot hear it without pain. You will do me a kindness if you discard it.”
The Prince frowned. He had not considered the man—or indeed any former sorcerer—as suffering a bereavement. In truth, he had given no thought at all to the plight of those who had once been mighty. But they were still sorcerers, in their hearts if not in their gifts. He did not care what became of them. Nevertheless, he would need this man. He intended to be cautious.
“Slack, then,” he conceded. “I meant your title to show respect, not cause distress. Captain Swalish will instruct my men to do as you wish.
“But I am curious. Perhaps you will answer a few questions, if you can do it without discomfort.”
Slack looked everywhere except at the Prince. “You are generous, Highness. I am not reluctant to speak. I wish others would forget I was once a man of power. I cannot myself. What do you wish to know?”
Prince Bifalt needed a moment to consider his tactics. “Then I wish to know—” He wanted to understand why any Magister would set aside his former status in order to serve guardsmen and teamsters, but he tried to avoid being blunt. “The experience itself, Slack. The sudden loss of theurgy. How did it take you?”
Slack sighed. “In some respects, Highness, it resembled an instant blindness. Unforeseen. Incurable. For myself, however, I think of it as a door slammed shut. A door barred against me. If you imagine a man, any man, as a house of several chambers, some with few, some with many, then I have been locked out of the brightest and most desirable of mine, those with the best light and warmth, the richest furnishings, the clearest windows, the widest vistas. I have lost a great wealth. Now I am poor and inconsolable.”
This assertion scattered the Prince’s thoughts. He had always considered sorcerers to be men of small souls and large malice. How otherwise could they endure the horrors they performed in battle, the carnage they committed? Yet this man claimed an extreme loss—
Prince Bifalt abandoned circumspection. “Do you tell me you prized—?” A moment of ignorance halted him. “What was your gift, Slack? Did you toss men with hurricane winds? Did you crack the ground under their feet?”
For the merest flicker of an instant, Slack met the Prince’s glare. Then his gaze returned to the dirt of their track.
“My gift was fire, Highness.”
“Then do you wish me to understand,” continued the King’s son while memories beat in his veins, “that you prized your power to burn the flesh from men’s bones?”
The former sorcerer sighed again. His posture drooped like his beard. “Allegiance demands much of those whose lands are at war. The needs of king and realm and home cannot be set aside.” Then he drew himself more erect. “But have you not observed, Highness, that fire has many uses, and many of them do not wreak harm? The same can be said of every Decimate, but we are speaking of mine. Sadly, I cannot adequately describe the solace of being able to set a cold hearth easily alight at the end of a bitter day. I cannot name the value of being able to give my neighbors a similar comfort—or of being able to save their homes when some mischance threatens an inferno, for I could quench flames as readily as cause them. Until the door within me was sealed, I burned the stubble from fields to prepare them for planting—and did so without endangering other fields, or the woods at their borders. Our smithies now lack the heat to forge iron for rifles because gifts like mine are gone.
“Surely, Highness, I prize what I have lost. The killing I wrought in battle was a necessary evil for which I endeavored daily to make amends.” His voice held a tinge of vehemence as he concluded, “A man is not a man at all if he cannot enter and enjoy every chamber of himself.”
Prince Bifalt had not contemplated the subject from Slack’s perspective. He was reluctant to do so now. But he remembered that he meant to be careful, polite; that he would have to rely on this man. He tried to find common ground between them.
“Here is another crime to be laid at Amika’s charge. If our foes would allow us peace, men with your gifts would not be burdened with the need to make amends.”
Speaking as if to himself, Slack inquired, “Do we not have peace now, Highness?”
“It is the peace before the pounce, Slack,” snapped the Prince. “The peace before the pounce. When Amika is ready to spring, we will have no peace until we are in our graves.”
The older man sighed yet again. “As you say, Highness.” Then he continued more firmly, “But you did not call me to your side to discuss my life. You have other queries, Highness?”
The Prince gathered his original thoughts. “Indeed,” he answered in a more neutral tone. “I was told you know some trick or tricks to ward us on this quest. What are they? They will do little good if we are not ready to take advantage of them.”
“They are not tricks, Highness.” Slack’s words suggested umbrage, although he spoke them mildly. “One is a gift all former sorcerers share. If we can no longer perform theurg
y, we remain sensitive to its imminence. I can forewarn you of a sorcerous attack.”
Hearing this, Prince Bifalt allowed himself a moment of relief. Without question, he needed Slack. And now he knew how the first king of Belleger, Brigin, had survived his brother’s betrayal. Fastule’s attack on Queen Malorie had announced itself to King Brigin’s Magisters.
But Slack was not done. “As for the rest”—he shrugged inside his loose shirt—“they are merely skills. I am an adept of the skillet and stewpot. You and your men will eat as well as our rations allow. Also, I am wise with the balms and unguents that mend burns. We will have burns, whether or not we suffer by fire. In the desert, without sufficient water or any shade, our lips will crack, our skin will blister, and our strength will falter. While my balms and unguents last, they will ease us.”
With every response, the older man showed himself in a new light. Prince Bifalt had not expected so much from him. Swallowing his dislike, he forced himself to say, “Then, Slack, you may be the most necessary member of our company.” His quest required that admission. “Now hear my command. See to your own safety. If we are threatened, my men and I will face the danger. If there are obstacles in our path, we will deal with them. Keep to the rear. Seek shelter when you can. I do not mean to lose you.”
The former sorcerer might be able to interpret Marrow’s book if the Prince himself could not.
Like a man compelled, Slack stared at Prince Bifalt. In the former Magister’s eyes, the Prince saw an instant of astonishment. Then the look was gone, and Slack turned his head away. With a hint of his earlier brief vehemence, he answered, “As you command, Highness.”
Bowing his head, he left the Prince’s side.
A man is not a man at all— If Slack were regarded as a dwelling, Prince Bifalt now wondered, how many chambers did he contain? If those that pertained to theurgy had been sealed, how many remained for his use? Could such a man be humble? Or show kindness? Was it possible?
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