Nissi’s eyes shifted for an instant to Aureste Belandor’s face, and then away again.
“Ah, I see. But how dreadful. You mean that the murderer”—Yvenza’s voice lingered pleasurably upon the word—“the murderer is here, hiding his evil among us? Name him, child. Come, we’ll protect you, name him aloud.”
The situation was deteriorating by the second. Aureste burned to seize control. A confidential discussion with Innesq would furnish the best means. His brother’s arcane powers, suitably directed, would surely serve to mend matters. Perhaps Innesq could bring Vinz Corvestri back to life. Or maybe he could turn time back upon itself, and the entire unfortunate episode could be avoided. At the very least, he could offer a truly thorough removal of the corpse. Perhaps it could be whisked off to the depths of some ocean on the far side of the world, and then it could be given out that Vinz Corvestri had simply elected to depart in solitude during the night. And certainly Innesq would be willing to oblige, once the true facts had been properly explained to him. The true facts were murky, but no matter. The Magnifico Aureste possessed powers of improvisation.
But there was little opportunity to use them. A discreet exchange between his brother and himself was now impossible. No chance of slipping away unnoticed; the hag Yvenza had seen to that, with her deliberately clarion tones that had roused the last of the company from slumber. They were all stirring now, sitting up, rubbing their eyes, murmuring. Sonnetia Corvestri, unaware of her widowed state, but visibly uneasy; her son, Vinzille, fired with youthful energy, wide awake and already on his feet, his quick glance traveling everywhere; and Ojem Pridisso, frowning, drawing in his breath preparatory to the issuance of some reproof or command.
Aureste met Innesq’s eyes and silently mouthed the words, Send them back to sleep.
He saw that his brother understood, but the response was less than he desired. Innesq’s face was full of trouble, sorrow, and something that might best have been described as dread. He had never seen such an expression there before, and for the first time he considered the possibility that the situation was beyond control, even of the arcane variety.
“Friends, what’s the commotion?” Ojem Pridisso’s Taerleezi twang punched through the surrounding murmurs. “I’d appreciate an explanation, if it’s not asking too much.”
“Ah, Master Pridisso, we are all but speechless. We are overcome with alarm and confusion,” Yvenza Belandor declared with patent untruth. The moon shone full upon her tall, strapping form, charged with vitality. “The news is dreadful. My young ward Nissi, too shy to address this gathering, informs me that she has witnessed the murder of the Magnifico Vinz Corvestri. Our dear comrade is gone. His killer stands among us even now.”
The shocked silence that followed was broken by a single voice of determined denial.
“Not true. It’s a mistake.” Vinzille Corvestri spoke as if daring her to contradict. “She’s got it wrong.”
“Ah, if that were so.”
“It is so. My father can defend himself.”
“Against treachery?”
“Here now, that will do,” Ojem Pridisso decreed. “I’ll deal with this, and we’ll soon have the truth of it.” A few long strides carried him to Nissi, still on her knees beside Innesq. There he halted, looking down upon her from lordly heights; an imposing, splendidly attired figure, magnificence offset by the absence of shoes.
“Now then, Miss Nissi. What tale is this?” Pridisso demanded. “Is it true that you’re saying you’ve witnessed a killing? Speak clearly, now.”
Eyes fixed on the ground, Nissi shook her head.
“You’re not saying it, then?” He waited in vain for an answer. “Well, then, what are you saying? Come, don’t be shy, just speak up.”
Nissi slanted a quick glance at Innesq, who inclined his head almost invisibly; whereupon she replied in a whisper that her interrogator stooped to catch. “I did not see him go. He had already left.”
“The Magnifico Corvestri, you mean? Dead before you arrived on the scene?”
She nodded.
“You might be wrong about that. I’ll see for myself. I want you to lead me to him.”
“You’ve not heard all that she has witnessed,” Yvenza ventured helpfully. “Ask her whether she spied someone crouching above the Magnifico Corvestri. Go ahead, Master Pridisso—ask her.”
Pridisso directed a look of inquiry.
Nissi drew in her breath and moistened her lips.
She could not be permitted to speak. The dramatic moonlit disclosure, the sound of his name upon her hesitant young lips, his own disquiet demeanor, the subsequent discovery of Corvestri’s bloodied remains—all of these things would shout his guilt to the stars. Best by far to step forward boldly and volunteer his own account of the incident, thereby lessening the impact of Nissi’s revelations. Accordingly, he raised his sonorous voice.
“Hear me, if you will,” Aureste requested clearly. “Young Nissi speaks truly. The Magnifico Corvestri is dead by my hand. He lies yonder in the woods.”
Dead silence greeted this announcement. The faces of his listeners appeared devoid of color, but that could have been a trick of the moonlight. They reflected varying degrees of shock, amazement, and incredulity, with one exception. Intense avidity heated the eyes of Yvenza Belandor.
“Here is the blade that shed his blood.” Drawing forth the dagger, Aureste let it fall from his hand to the ground. Collective attention followed the weapon for an instant, then returned to his face. “I hope never to touch or to look upon it again.” Entirely untrue. The item in question was in fact a handsome piece of steel, and he regretted its loss. Fortunately, he had brought others. “I hate the sight of it, despite my debt to its keen edge. It saved my life, yet took another life more precious than mine own. Far better to have sacrificed myself, yet the basest instinct drove me to self-preservation. I deflected his attack, defended myself as best I could, and in so doing destroyed a fellow human being. I regret it with all my heart. Perhaps, had I not been taken so suddenly, I would have weighed the relative value of our two lives, and permitted him to slay me.”
He paused, awaiting query, but his listeners stared dumbly, so he continued without prompting. “I do not know why the Magnifico Corvestri chose this place and this night to strike at me. I cannot pretend to understand his motives or his hatred. I know only that he led me from this camp and attempted my life by magical means. I resisted with all the strength of my mind, and my will prevailed over his. I am thankful that I live, yet this is a night of tragedy.”
Another pause, another agonizing silence, during which Aureste kept his eyes becomingly downcast, and then Pridisso’s voice resumed dominance.
“Well, then. For now, nobody knows what to make of all this, but we’ll get to the truth soon enough. We start at the beginning, and work on from there. First question—is the Magnifico Corvestri really dead? We’ve got a Faerlonnishman without arcane knowledge or even ordinary medical skills who says that he is, supported by the word of a gifted but very agitated young lady, so there’s room here for doubt. I mean to sort it out, and I’ll commence with a look at Corvestri himself, who may yet live.”
Nissi shook her head again.
“You say no, miss? Let’s just see, then. Lead me to him now. The rest of you”—Pridisso issued a general command—“just stay here for now. When I’ve taken stock, I’ll let you know how things stand.”
This directive was less defied than simply ignored. The erstwhile sleepers, wide awake but still largely mute, donned footwear and wrapped themselves in cloaks. Innesq Belandor was helped into his chair, and Littri Zovaccio silently stepped forward to push.
Nissi’s glance flew between Innesq and Yvenza. Discerning no dissension there, she turned and made off through the woods. Her companions followed.
Aureste walked in their midst, his mind intensely active. Many a covert sidelong glance fell upon him, but nobody ventured a word. Nissi trod unerringly, straight on to a quiet stretch of moist
, nearly bare ground, ringed with gaunt trees. And there on his back lay Vinz Corvestri, arms flung wide, chest black with blood, sightless gaze aimed at the moon.
Aureste eyed the corpse with some curiosity.
Exclamations arose on all sides. Vinzille Corvestri sprinted to his father’s side and dropped to his knees, applying first his palm and then his ear to Vinz’s chest. Evidently discovering no heartbeat, he pressed his fingers to the throat, and then the wrist. His frown of concentration as he performed these tests, combined with his silent air of competence, somehow served only to emphasize his extreme youth.
The boy looked up as his companions drew near.
“I can’t find him,” he confessed. Tears glistened in his eyes, but he managed to keep his face and voice under control. “I need help. Come, Nissi, Pridisso, Zovaccio, Master Innesq. Join me. We’ll find him and call him back.”
Almost imperceptibly, Nissi shook her head.
“Here, all of you, stand aside. Let me take a look.” Ojem Pridisso stepped forward and bent to the fallen man. A brief examination sufficed to convince him. “My friends, it is true. The Magnifico Corvestri is dead.”
“But only for minutes.” Vinzille clung visibly to an appearance of mature composure. “That’s no time. We can still bring him back.”
“You did as much for Onartino,” Yvenza observed in a voice pitched to reach Nissi’s ears alone.
Nissi’s answer was barely a breath. “The last thread had not been cut …”
“It’s no use, lad,” Pridisso returned. “He’s gone, that’s it. Nobody can bring him back.”
“Perhaps you can’t do it, Master Pridisso. Or I, or any one of us, alone. But the five of us, working as one—that’s enough power to do it. If we can cleanse the Source itself, then we can bring back my father.”
“That’s a different matter. The Source isn’t a living being with a complex mind.”
“This is more of a challenge, you mean? That’s all right, we’ll just work the harder. We must, all of us. Remember, he’s not just the Magnifico Corvestri—he’s an arcanist, and we can’t afford to lose him. There’s no choice.”
“I’m sorry.” Pridisso folded his arms with finality.
“What, are you saying you won’t even try? You’d rather just give up, without so much as an effort? You’re not much, are you? Either as an arcanist or as a human being.” Without awaiting reply, Vinzille shifted his increasingly urgent attention to Innesq Belandor. “Come, Master Innesq. You’ll show this Taerleezi what an arcanist is, won’t you?”
“We cannot help your father now,” Innesq returned gravely. “It is too late. I am sorry.”
“Don’t tell me sorry, I won’t hear it. Miss Nissi? Master Zovaccio? Will you help my father?”
The arcanists thus addressed both mutely declined.
“To blazes with all of you then. You’re scared, you’re useless, you don’t care.” Vinzille’s face was whitely set. “I don’t need any of you. I can do it alone, and I will, if it breaks my mind to pieces.” Reaching into his pocket, he drew forth a couple of white lozenges, of the sort used to ready the human intellect for arcane endeavor.
“Vinzille. Stop. Put those away,” Innesq enjoined gently. “You do not understand.”
“I understand that you people—my father’s colleagues, as he thought—are willing to let him die without lifting a finger to help him.”
“It is too late to help,” Innesq returned quietly. “All of us—I in particular—would gladly do all that we can, but he is gone beyond recall. I do not say that you might not raise him. You possess great talent, and you might perhaps see him stand before you once again. But it would not be your father. It would only be the shell of a man, devoid of memory, intellect, emotion. He would, in fact, resemble a Wanderer. That is all that could be achieved, and it is not what you want for him.”
“How do you know what might not be achieved, if you’re not willing to try? How do you know that we can’t go further—higher—to break through the old, tired limits?”
“Ah, perhaps you’re right, and at last we shall. Perhaps that will be your destiny.”
“But not tonight,” Pridisso informed him. “We’re not there yet, lad. For now, there’s no help for it, and you must bear your loss like a man. Come, you should look to your mother, and comfort her as best you can. She’ll be depending on you now.”
Aureste glanced at Sonnetia Corvestri’s profile. He could hardly judge her expression, but saw that her attention was focused upon her son to the exclusion of all else.
Vinzille, with evident reluctance, slid the lozenges back into his pocket, tacitly acknowledging the weight of his elders’ arguments. Neither his face nor his stance, however, communicated capitulation; quite the contrary.
“My mother may well depend on me.” The boy’s precocious self-possession remained largely intact, but displayed signs of fraying. “She can depend on me to seek justice for a murdered husband and father. We know who the murderer is, he’s already confessed. Aureste Belandor took a life we couldn’t afford to lose. He pays for it with his own. That’s justice, and I demand it in my father’s name.”
Aureste’s vision altered abruptly. Until that moment, he had viewed the adolescent Vinzille as the hostile, indefinably insolent son of his enemy; annoying, but too young to merit serious attention. The boy’s face, with its large greenish eyes and elegant bones, so like his mother’s face, had purchased a measure of tolerance. Now, in an instant, Vinzille Corvestri assumed a new aspect. He offered a genuine threat, and he qualified as a genuine adversary. Aureste’s palm yearned for the haft of a dagger. He could feel the blade breaching the son’s ribs, as it had breached the father’s. It would not do, however, to reveal such enmity. Its object, after all, was thirteen years old.
Thus, affecting the forbearance of an adult addressing a raging child, he observed, “I understand a grieving son’s anguish and fury. I do not blame him.”
“You do not blame me!” Vinzille’s artificial composure visibly quaked. He took a deep breath, mastered his emotion, and addressed deliberate words to all his listeners. “I demand justice for my father. His killer must be punished. Death to the murderer, Aureste Belandor.”
Aureste shot a brief blast of hatred into the eyes of his half-grown adversary, who braved the basilisk stare defiantly.
Surely some responsible adult would now instruct the obstreperous brat to curb his tongue. But the frozen silence lengthened, and nobody spoke a word. It seemed that he himself would have to answer; and with some restraint, taking care to maintain an appearance of suitable respect and kindness.
“The desire for justice informs the noblest of human hearts,” Aureste intoned mellifluously. “The fire of youth heats that desire to a righteous passion, and our world is the better for it. Yet where shall we find true justice divorced from reason? The son of the slain magnifico demands my life in the name of justice. He is very young, and in his grief he speaks without sober reflection. For there never was a system of law devised by free people that accounts a man blameworthy for protecting his own life. Vinz Corvestri attacked me by stealth and magic. I defended myself. His loss is an immense misfortune—but not a crime.”
Almost before the last reverberation of his rich tones had faded, the response came like a flying dagger.
“You are a liar.” Vinzille Corvestri did not need to raise his voice. All within earshot were straining to hear every word. “My father never attacked you. I know this for two reasons. One—unlike you, he was a man of decency and honor. He’d never have dirtied his arcane talents by turning them to such purpose. Second—he had no reason to attack you, nothing to gain by harming you. No, it was always you who tried to work his ruin, for the sake of hatred. Now at last you’ve succeeded in destroying him. Enjoy your triumph while you can, Magnifico. It won’t last long, I promise.” Addressing himself once more to the entire gathering, the boy declared, “By the laws of Vitrisi, I call for the execution of the murderer Aurest
e Belandor.”
“Well, we’re nowhere near Vitrisi, and things are different out here,” Ojem Pridisso pointed out. “We’ve got no proper legal system, no courts, nobody with the right to pass sentence.”
“And I am no murderer,” Aureste interjected. It was incredible. He was actually defending himself against the plaints of a youth barely past childhood, as if confronting an opponent of adult power. “I do not know the magnifico’s motives in seeking my life, and will not attempt to fathom his thoughts. I know only that the attack was sudden, unheralded, and deadly. By magic he led me from the safety of the campsite, then assailed me with monstrous visions, ghostly demons, all manner of horrors designed to shatter my mind and freeze my heart.” In fact, his recollection of the event was confused and clouded, but as he spoke, the conviction grew in him that his description was accurate and factual; surely, this must have been the way that it had happened.
“We’re nowhere near Vitrisi, but that’s no reason to forget about justice,” Vinzille answered Ojem Pridisso as if Aureste had not spoken. “A murderer should be punished. If there’s no judge to be found out here in wild, then we can make a court of our own, and pass sentence as needed. That’s what we should do, and that’s what I ask, for my father’s sake.”
“We shall not censure the wild sentiments of a fatherless son,” Aureste counseled generously. “His ungoverned passion is understandable—he is a boy of large and courageous spirit.”
“He is a little more than that.” Yvenza Belandor’s demeanor was pensive, as if she pondered an obscure point of law. “Upon the death of his father, our talented Vinzille accedes to the family title. He is now the Magnifico Corvestri, a nobleman of Faerlonne, head of his House, and master of one of the Six. As such, if my memory does not fail me, he is fully entitled to prefer charges against a fellow noble, to demand judgment and penalty.”
“He is still too young.” Sonnetia Corvestri’s sentiment, escaping stiff lips scarcely moving in an ashen face, barely made itself heard.
The Wanderers Page 2