“You could guide me there? And this Hao Tan – who rules it? Who represents the Domdur here? Where can he be found – and killed?”
Asari blinked, and then smiled.
This wizard clearly knew nothing of Matua. But he had real, powerful magic, and obviously intended to use it to assassinate the local prefect.
Black magic. A wizard with black magic. An Olnami wizard out to destroy the Domdur, a wizard who knew nothing but magic.
And he wanted Asari to help him.
If he couldn't find some way to make himself money off this, Asari told himself, he deserved to be a beggar!
#
Wai Ko looked at the angle of the sun's light on the painted wall and frowned. The Domdur prefect had never been this late for the day's business before!
“Perhaps he's ill,” he said to the waiting aide. “Has he eaten yet today?”
“No, sir,” the aide replied. “The servants say he has neither come to the refectory nor called for a tray.”
That settled it. “Come, then,” Wai Ko said. “We must check on him.”
“Yes, sir,” the aide said.
Together, the two men walked down the passageway, wooden soles tapping sharply on the polished wooden floor.
Wai Ko rapped on the gilded door and called, “Prefect? Are you well?”
When no reply came he opened the door and peered in.
Wai Ko gasped. “Gods, behold!” he said in his native Matuan. He flung the door wide, and the aide, too, gasped.
The light was too bright; oddly, that was the first thing that they noticed. Sunlight was pouring in through a gaping hole in the roof.
The red and gold walls of the prefect's bedchamber were spattered with a darker red-brown; scraps of the richly-embroidered coverlet were strewn about on all sides, but the tapestries that had hung on the walls were gone.
The great golden statues that had stood on either side of the immense bed were gone, as well, along with the lacquer cabinets that had held the prefect's private stocks of gold and drugs.
The prefect and his concubine lay still in the great bed amid the scattered cushions and the tattered remains on the coverlet. Both of them were naked – and both of them were torn open from throat to crotch, gutted like fish.
The aide fainted, and fell heavily to the floor of the passage.
Wai Ko remained conscious and upright, and even managed to retain his breakfast, though it took a struggle.
When he had recovered from his initial shock, he exclaimed, “Who did this? How? Where were the guards? Why was nothing heard?”
He repeated these questions at length throughout the day, demanding answers from everyone in the prefect's palace.
The most important question, however, was never spoken aloud: What would the Domdur do about it?
#
The wagon arrived in Fadari Tu while Tebas Tudan was in the cave with his latest group of students, and the villagers argued cheerfully with the wagon's drivers about whether someone should be sent to fetch the magician out, or whether the wagoneers should go up into the cave themselves, or whether they should simply wait until Tebas Tudan appeared on his own.
Eventually a messenger was sent, and not long after Tebas Tudan came out to see what was going on. He brought his short staff, just in case, and upon emerging into sunlight began charging the crystals on either end.
“You're Tebas Tudan?” one of the wagonmen demanded.
“I am,” the magician said.
“Then everything in the wagon is yours,” the head driver said. “Where do you want it?”
Tebas Tudan looked curiously at the several large boxes and bundles in the wagon. “What is it?” he asked.
The driver shrugged. He reached down and fished around by his feet for a moment, then came up with a rolled parchment. “Here,” he said.
Tebas Tudan accepted the parchment, unrolled it, and read, “Our payment, as promised. Our oath is fulfilled. Rebiri Nazakri and Aldassi Nazakri.”
The words were in Domdur. The handwriting was terrible.
Tebas Tudan frowned, and clambered up into the wagon, where he partially unwrapped one of the bundles and found a fine Matuan tapestry. Another bundle contained a fortune in gold and silver. The two largest were golden statues, such as the Matuans used as spiritual guardians for the homes of the wealthy and powerful.
Tebas Tudan stared at those for a moment, then climbed down.
He was not sure just how he would deal with this, but he couldn't keep the teamsters waiting indefinitely while he thought it out. “In here,” he said, leading the wagonmen to his house.
He stood by and watched as the wagon was unloaded, his frown deepening steadily.
He knew that the two Olnami could not have come by these things by honest means so quickly, not even with the magic he had taught them. They had stolen all this, almost certainly – and probably by using the New Magic.
The magic that he had taught them.
He should have realized this would happen, he told himself. Now he was partially responsible for whatever crimes the two committed. He would have to go to Ai Varach and explain to the garrison commander there just what had happened.
He would also probably have to return these things to their rightful owners, once he knew who those owners were. Assuming, of course, that the owners were still alive – which, he had to admit, seemed unlikely.
This would have to be the end of his school here; he could not go on teaching the New Magic after seeing how easily it could be misused.
He sighed.
An hour later the now-empty wagon was on its way back down the mountain, each of the two drivers richer by a dozen pieces of silver from the stolen trove. It wasn't until the next morning that Tebas Tudan took his staff in both hands and lifted himself into the air, headed for Ai Varach.
Chapter Eight
Lord Gornir leaned forward and frowned at the note in his hand.
“I don't like this,” he said. “What under the Hundred Moons are those confounded Matuans doing?”
Lord Shoule, who had been slumped half-dozing in his chair, looked up, startled. “What Matuans?” he asked.
The two men were seated in an antechamber near the base of the central tower of the Imperial Palace, in the middle of the Inner City of Seidabar – the heart of the Domdur Empire, the core of Domdur power over all the world. They were awaiting an audience with Prince Granzer, President of the Imperial Council, who was in the midst of a discussion with his mother-in-law, the Empress Beretris.
The Prince had said the discussion would take perhaps a quarter of an hour; the two noblemen, both members of the Imperial Council themselves, had now been cooling their heels for something more than two hours, and had long since studied every detail of the rich carpet, the brocade curtains, the rather faded tapestry on the north wall, and the view from the broad windows to the east. Neither was in a mood to speak to the other; they worked together well enough, but neither would call the other a friend, nor did either care to speculate aloud about what might be responsible for the delay.
As a result, they had resorted to simply sitting, waiting for the prince to appear.
The boredom had been interrupted a few minutes before by the arrival of a temple messenger bearing a brief letter for Lord Gornir, Minister of the Provinces – a letter that had been marked “Urgent,” and that Gornir was now holding.
“What Matuans?” Shoule repeated.
“The Matuans in Hao Tan,” Gornir replied. “In Matua.”
“Oh,” Lord Shoule said, losing interest. “Never been there.”
“Neither have I,” Gornir said. “It's a town of no particular distinction, so far as I know; by all accounts it's just another collection of merchants and bureaucrats. Matua's full of places like it. But someone's murdered their prefect.”
Shoule, who had meant not merely that he had never heard of the particular town but that he had never been to Matua, sat up.
“Murdered?” he said.
/>
“So they claim. Murdered in his bed.”
“Wait a moment, Gornir,” Shoule said, gripping the arms of his chair. “Was this a Domdur prefect, or a Matuan?”
“A Domdur,” Gornir said. “Not Matuan, anyway – his name looks Karamador to me.”
“Whatever.” He waved the detail of the name away. Shoule, like most people, considered any government official not a native of the area governed to be a Domdur, regardless of actual ancestry; the gods had long made clear their disapproval of excessive concern with pure bloodlines, and even with the oracles silent the word “Domdur” still meant much more than a specific ethnic group. “A Domdur official was murdered in his bed? Not in a drunken brawl, or by a cutpurse in the street, but in his own home?”
“So it seems.”
“He had no guards?”
“He had guards. There's been no trouble in Matua in years, but he had guards. The killer came in through the roof.”
“The audacity!” Shoule sat back, shocked. “In the old days, no one would dare harm a Domdur official!”
Gornir did not need to ask what Shoule was talking about, and in fact there was some degree of truth in what he said – once upon a time they could simply have asked an oracle for the name and whereabouts of the assassin, and gotten it. Very few people were stupid or desperate enough to attack their rulers under such circumstances. That had all ended more than seven years ago, though, when the oracles fell silent, once and for all.
Gornir felt a pang of envy for his predecessors – this post, Minister of the Provinces, must have been so much easier in his father's day. Almost everything of importance must have been easier in his father's day. Or most of his father's day, anyway; the last two years before the old man's death had reportedly been very bad indeed, simply by the contrast with what had gone before.
Of course, if the oracles had still been speaking five years before, Gornir thought, he himself might not even be Minister of the Provinces – the gods had chosen heirs on the basis of divinely-determined merit, not just primogeniture. They might have stuck his younger brother, or one of his sisters, or a cousin, or even some total stranger with the job.
All that was long gone, though, and now the Domdur had to muddle through as best they could without any supernatural guidance. Gornir continued silently re-reading the note, making no further comment as Shoule continued to grumble aloud.
Gornir didn't like what he read. Matua had never seriously chafed under Domdur rule, and this prefect – Anoka Kahi by name – had never come to Gornir's attention before. There were supposed to be spies keeping track of any misbehavior by Domdur officials, or anything else that might stir up trouble, and the sort of aggravating actions that could have spurred someone to murder should have been reported.
Of course, the spies' report, if one existed, might not have made it all the way to Gornir; he could scarcely be expected to keep track of every single prefect, viceroy, or governor in the entire Empire, and one of his underlings might have decided that particular item wasn't worth passing along. Gornir told himself he would have to check on that.
The letter included a brief verbatim statement from one of the prefect's Matuan aides, however, and there was no hint there that Anoka had been disliked by his subordinates, or that anyone might have seen this coming.
“I tell you, there's trouble brewing,” Shoule said, getting to his feet. “Without direct daily contact with the gods, there are people out there who don't believe we still have divine favor. They're beginning to think they can do as they please, and treat the Domdur as if we were just ordinary people.”
“We are just ordinary people now,” Gornir muttered, not really listening.
The letter mentioned a concubine who had been killed as well – could that be the cause of this mess? Had she had a jealous lover, or a berserk father or brother who disapproved of how Anoka treated her? The traditional method for disposing of rivals in Matua was poison, not breaking in the roof and cutting them apart while they slept, but perhaps the concubine's family was not traditional.
And then there was a mention of gold and other precious things that had been taken, though the letter was appallingly vague about the quantity and value of these items – had the killer snatched a few things as mementos, or had this simply been the work of a spectacularly bold gang of thieves? Matua certainly had its share of thieves – not as many as Olnamia, where theft was considered an art, but certainly more than, say, Sautala, or Daona...
“We are the chosen of the gods!” Shoule shouted, startling Gornir.
“We used to be,” Gornir said, looking up from the note. “Now we're just the people running things, and I wish they'd run more smoothly – ”
The sound of a door-latch interrupted him; he glanced over and saw that Prince Granzer was at last joining them. Quickly, he folded the letter and tucked it out of sight in his blouse.
“Your Highness,” Gornir said, rising.
“My lords,” Granzer said, nodding an acknowledgment.
“How is Her Imperial Majesty faring today?” Gornir inquired politely.
“Her Imperial Majesty is an arthritic, dyspeptic old woman who can't abide her children's squabbles, but she's otherwise well enough,” Granzer replied dourly. “At least she kept her breakfast down today.”
Gornir frowned, not at Granzer's disrespect – he was accustomed to that, and after all, the Prince's position entitled him to a certain familiarity – but at the reminder of the chronic digestive difficulties the Empress had developed in the past year or so. Her health was important; the Empire was not prepared should anything happen to Beretris. She had been on the throne for almost half a century, and the mechanisms for the installation of a new sovereign were rusty – or gone altogether, since the oracles were no longer capable of warning of an impending death, or affirming the choice of an heir.
“Now, what brings the two of you to see me?” Granzer asked, rubbing wearily at his temple.
“Famine, your Highness,” Gornir said quickly, before Shoule could speak. “Crops have failed on the outer archipelago of the Veruet Isles, a plague has wiped out thousands of sheep, and the fishing has been poor. Food reserves were low to begin with – ”
Granzer sighed. “Why were reserves low?” he interrupted. “Haven't we warned them often enough that we can't predict the weather any more?”
Gornir shrugged apologetically. “Grain prices in the Isles were high last year, and the farmers sold their grain. Fish and mutton don't keep.”
“If they made so much money selling grain, can't they buy it back?” Granzer asked.
“Prices are even higher this year,” Gornir explained.
“So they've called on the Empire to save them from their misfortune, and of course we shall.” Granzer nodded. “But why is this my concern, rather than something to be handled at a lower level?”
“Because I don't have the resources to supply the shortfall on my own,” Gornir replied. “With Lord Dabos' assistance, I have collected the food the islanders need – in fact, it's waiting on the docks at Forsten and Rishna Gabidéll. But I must call on others to transport it, and neither Lady Mirashan nor Lord Orbalir is willing to commit to doing so. I assume you would prefer not to ravage the Imperial Treasury by simply purchasing space on privately-owned vessels.”
Granzer considered that. “Mirashan... how would she do it?” he asked. “She doesn't have anything that could make the trip to Veruet.”
Gornir had the explanation ready; Lady Mirashan was Minister of Trade, but that gave her control of the ports, not the ships themselves. The fat little flat-bottomed harbor craft under her jurisdiction could hardly be expected to cross the stormy Northern Seas. “She could, as a docking fee, require every merchant ship bound for Veruet to transport grain as ballast, and to deliver it to the governor at Mabor for distribution,” he said.
Granzer nodded. “Whereas Orbalir could simply send the fleet,” he said. Lord Orbalir was Commissioner of the Imperial Fleet, respons
ible for every warship afloat.
“Exactly, your Highness.”
“And how severe is this famine?”
Lord Gornir launched into a recitation of facts and figures.
Half an hour later the matter was settled – due to the severity of the shortage the islanders might prove unruly, and for that matter merchants might balk at hauling freight unpaid; therefore Lord Orbalir's fleet was called for, so that the navy's trained warriors could maintain order while the grain was distributed.
“Was there anything else, my lord?” Granzer asked.
Gornir hesitated; one hand touched his blouse where the letter from the temple's magicians, bearing word of the situation in Matua, waited.
A simple murder, however unexpected, hardly called for the personal attention of the President of the Imperial Council. And the Prince looked exhausted.
“Not today, your Highness,” Gornir said with a bow.
“Good,” Granzer said. He turned to Lord Shoule. “You've been very patient, my lord,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
Lord Shoule launched into another of his diatribes about the need to radically restructure the government, removing the Great Temple and its priests from authority and rearranging the Imperial Council to better suit present-day realities.
Lord Gornir did not stay to listen; he slipped away, anxious to relay the Prince's orders to Lord Orbalir, and then to go to the Great Temple to send a message back to Pai Shin, authorizing the governor of Matua to appoint a new prefect. Another message would go directly to Hao Tan, exhorting the surviving officials there to make every effort to apprehend the murderer and ensure that there was no repetition of the crime.
It wasn't really an important matter, but it had to be dealt with.
Chapter Nine
The confounded iron did not want to bend properly. Bardetta wanted a perfect circle for her new chandelier, and Malledd could not get the curve right. He glowered at the uncooperative metal he held in the heavy tongs, then glanced at the banked fires of the forge. Did he need to soften the iron more, perhaps?
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