Above His Proper Station

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Lord Blackfield had told him that the number of sorcerers in the empire was declining; had it declined that much?

  Perhaps earlier volumes contained additional information; after all, that first one had said it contained true names and secret histories.

  “Excellent,” Lorsa said. “Seneschal, you and your men may leave us.”

  “No, sir. We must see that the emperor’s instructions are followed.”

  Lorsa looked at him, obviously annoyed, but before he could speak, Gluth cut him off.

  “Master Seneschal,” he said, “You need to see what we do, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you do not need to hear what we say.”

  “No,” the seneschal admitted with obvious reluctance.

  “Then let you and your men take up positions at the far end of the library, and observe us from there. We will leave the entry open and as unobstructed as we can manage, and if we wish to speak of matters that do not concern you, we will whisper.”

  The seneschal hesitated, then nodded. “As you say,” he said and with a gesture he sent the other two men in green and gold to the far end of the outer room, then joined them there. All three turned to watch.

  Lorsa clapped Gluth on the shoulder, and together the two of them stepped into the secret room where the list was stored. Gluth dragged one of the library chairs with him.

  “Now,” Lorsa said to Anrel in a hoarse voice he probably intended as a whisper, “Fetch the ones we need. Set them on the table, and let us get on with the task at hand!”

  Anrel retrieved volume 167, then 166, as he asked quietly, “What is the task at hand, then?”

  “Why, copying out the true name of every living sorcerer,” Lorsa said with a glance at the seneschal. “We have no need of the details about trials and bindings. The names will suffice.”

  “All of them?” Anrel said. “But I had thought you had only a few you wanted to investigate.”

  Lorsa looked at him pityingly. “Delegate Murau,” he said in a better approximation of a whisper, “I had thought you a man of sense. We may never have this opportunity again—the emperor may change his mind, or even, may the Father prevent it, die, and leave the throne to a less cooperative successor. Even if we have but a handful of sorcerers we want to question now, there may be occasion in the future to confront others. Let us seize the opportunity to gain what small advantage against our oppressors that we can, while we can.”

  During this exchange Guirdosia and Essarnyn had stepped cautiously into the list room, bringing chairs and writing supplies with them. Each set his writing box upon the table and got out pens and paper. Savar and Gluth followed suit.

  Anrel hesitated, and as he did, Guirdosia reached out and took volume 166 from his hands. “I’ll start with this one,” he said.

  Anrel started to object, then looked at Lorsa and released the book. He watched as Guirdosia opened it, flipped past the title page and a few introductory notes, and then set it down with the first page of names.

  “Some of these are dead,” Guirdosia said, pointing.

  Lorsa glanced over, and Anrel peered at the page; sure enough, at the bottom of the first entry someone had written in, “Deceased of natural causes, 13 Winter, 21st year of Lurias XII.”

  “We have no need of those,” Lorsa said. “Record only those still alive.”

  Guirdosia nodded, dipped his pen, and began copying the names in the second listing.

  “We must all of us make haste,” Gluth said, opening volume 167 and glancing at the seneschal. “I will take the left-hand pages in this volume; Savar, you will take the right.”

  “I have the right here,” Guirdosia said. “Essarnyn, would you essay the left?”

  That left Lorsa and Anrel with volume 168. “My hand is not strong,” Lorsa said. “Do you think, Master Murau, you can manage this volume alone?”

  Remembering that two-thirds of the pages were blank, Anrel thought he could easily manage this one in the time it would take each of the other pairs to finish their tasks, but he hesitated. “This book is only for the past four years,” he said. “Those listed here would most likely be no more than seventeen years of age; need we concern ourselves with them?”

  “The merest kitten will grow fangs and claws in time,” Lorsa said. “Let us be prepared.”

  Reluctantly, Anrel sat down and began copying.

  After a moment, as he turned a page, he paused and looked around. Four of the others were scribbling busily; Lorsa was standing by, his hands clasped behind his back, trying unsuccessfully to look interested.

  Gluth noticed Anrel’s gaze; he leaned over and whispered, “If you wonder why Lorsa does not help us, rest assured, he is willing enough, but his education is lacking—he can barely read, and his writing is all but illegible.”

  Anrel nodded, and looked at Gluth’s own papers. Gluth wrote a fine, steady hand, without a smear or smudge to be seen, a little smaller and less elegant than Anrel’s own, but very clear. Savar and Guirdosia also wrote well; Essarnyn’s work was not readily visible.

  None of them seemed troubled in the least by the work they were doing, but Anrel could not overcome his own reservations. The knowledge contained in these pages could ruin hundreds of lives; the merest half-fraudulent witch, given a sorcerer’s true name, could strip away the sorcerer’s magical birthright and bind him to her will.

  Anrel had no great love for most sorcerers, but he recognized this as powerful and dangerous information, and he did not want to entrust it to someone like Zarein Lorsa. Lorsa was a fanatic, a man who loathed sorcery and sorcerers, and these names would give him power over hundreds of them. He could destroy any sorcerer he chose, or use the threat of such destruction to blackmail one.

  And not merely some theoretical sorcerer, either—somewhere in these books were the true names of Anrel’s uncle and cousin.

  What had the emperor been thinking, agreeing to give the committee access to the Great List?

  He had probably been thinking he was ingratiating himself with the Grand Council, and arranging for Lord Allutar, and perhaps a few other scapegoats, to be sacrificed to calm the populace. Anrel doubted it had ever occurred to the emperor that Lorsa might want far more than that.

  Anrel could only conclude that the emperor was a fool—but then, he had suspected as much for some time.

  Was there some way, perhaps, that Anrel might protect a few people? He could miscopy names—but he was only recording the true names of children; one of the others would find the listings for Lord Dorias Adirane and Lady Saria Adirane.

  He copied out name after name as he tried to devise some way to ensure that his family, and perhaps some of the other sorcerers he had known and liked over the years, were not accurately recorded.

  He could come up with nothing, no stratagem to arrange it so that he, and no one else, would copy their names.

  They had been writing for more than an hour, and Anrel, despite writing as slowly as he dared, was nearing the end of the filled portion of volume 168, when he was interrupted by a sudden shout.

  “I have him!”

  28

  In Which Anrel Learns His Foe’s Secret

  Anrel looked up, startled, to see Essarnyn pointing at a page, grinning broadly. “I have him!” he repeated. “Allutar Hezir, succeeded in twenty-four of twenty-four attempts!”

  “What is his true name?” Lorsa said, turning to look.

  “Don’t read it aloud!” Anrel warned.

  The others turned to look at him.

  “Why not?” Essarnyn asked.

  Guirdosia glanced at the three men in imperial livery, standing out of earshot. “They won’t hear us.”

  “He’ll hear you,” Anrel said.

  “What?”

  “He’ll hear you,” Anrel repeated. “Lord Allutar.”

  “But he’s nowhere near us, surely,” Guirdosia said. “Why would he be in the palace?”

  “He’s probably not in the palace. It doesn’t
matter where he is,” Anrel said. “He’s a sorcerer, and it’s his true name. He will know when it has been spoken, no matter where or by whom. It’s a part of him.”

  “Most interesting, if true,” Gluth said.

  “What does it matter if he hears us?” Lorsa said. “We have his true name! We have complete power over him!”

  “Not without a magician who can work a binding,” Anrel replied. “And if he knows someone has learned his true name, he may be able to create defenses—I don’t know what or how, I’m no sorcerer, but there might be a way. Why give him a warning, and a chance to prepare?”

  Lorsa’s brow knitted; Anrel met his gaze, but neither of them spoke.

  “Just write it down, then,” Gluth directed Essarnyn. “Delegate Murau has a point. We will have it when we need it; no need to alert our foe.”

  “No, let him know his days are numbered!” Lorsa protested. “Let him taste the fear, just as those who have felt his heavy hand have known fear.”

  “Surely, Delegate Lorsa,” Gluth said mildly, “it is better to forego the pleasure of his fearful anticipation if it makes it all the more certain that when the time comes, and our spell descends upon him like a bolt from the heavens, he will have no possibility of dodging the blow.”

  “I’ll write it down,” Essarnyn said, matching his actions to his words. “And circle it, so that it may be found easily.”

  The others watched as he dipped his pen and carefully recorded the syllables of Lord Allutar’s true name, then drew a neat ring around them.

  Then Gluth clapped his hands and said, “Come now, Delegates, we are not here merely to counter one man, but to restrain an entire class. Let us get on with our work!”

  At the far end of the library, the seneschal cleared his throat. “Excuse me,” he called, “but how much longer do you intend to be at this? Surely, you have found what you were after by now.”

  Startled, Lorsa turned to face him. “Why, I think we will be some time yet,” he said. “I can’t say exactly.”

  “I don’t believe that is acceptable,” the seneschal replied. “The emperor ordered me to give you access to the list, and I have done so, but he did not say I must allow you unlimited time. I think I have been quite generous in saying nothing until now, but we are at the point when I must insist you inform me how much longer this will take.”

  Lorsa looked at the others; Gluth looked at volume 167 and said, “Another hour. Give us another hour, and we will be content.”

  “There, Master Seneschal,” Lorsa said. “You have your answer—another hour, and you may send us on our way.”

  “Thank you,” the seneschal replied. “I can give you another hour, but not a moment longer.”

  With that settled, the five scribes returned to their work. Instead of continuing to work as slowly as he dared, though, Anrel hastily finished up volume 168, deliberately reversing syllables in every remaining true name he recorded—he did not think anyone had the right to bind the souls of boys and girls of thirteen.

  When he had completed that, he joined Essarnyn and Guirdosia on volume 166, and again, from that point on he deliberately introduced errors in every entry he copied—with the need for speed, he was fairly sure that no one would check his work.

  He looked for any Adiranes, but did not see them.

  They finished volume 166 with perhaps a quarter hour remaining, and pulled volume 165 from the shelf, to see whether any of the elders listed therein might still be alive. Several were. By this point Anrel and Essarnyn had run out of paper, even after squeezing more entries into every available margin, but Guirdosia still had a few sheets, which he shared out.

  They had not finished with volume 165 when the seneschal called time, but they had made a good start, and the three later volumes were complete. Under the seneschal’s watchful eye the four volumes were returned to their proper places on the shelves; then the six members of the Committee for the Regulation of Sorcery gathered up their writing utensils and their stacks of paper, and allowed themselves to be shown out of the list room, dragging their chairs behind them, leaving only the single table, chair, and lamp. On his way out Gluth extinguished the lamp’s flame, returning the room to the state in which they had first seen it.

  When everyone and everything had been cleared out the emperor’s men swung the bookcase back into position, and the seneschal locked it.

  “Good night, masters,” the seneschal said, bowing. “My men will see you out.”

  Ten minutes later the six delegates and their associates were on the Promenade, outside the line of watchmen, clutching their writing boxes and sheaves of paper. The sun had set, and the sky above the river was deep indigo, fading to black, but torches blazed on the palace ramparts.

  “Now, friends,” Lorsa said, “give me your work, and I will see to it that it is put to the best use.” He took the bundle of papers from Essarnyn’s hand as he spoke.

  One by one, with varying degrees of reluctance, the others surrendered their lists to the committee’s chairman.

  “What are you going to do with them?” Guirdosia asked.

  “I am going to have copies made,” Lorsa said. “Indeed, if any of you would care to aid in that, your assistance would be most welcome, but I would think your hands must be tired.”

  “I would advise organizing the material,” Gluth said. “At present, these lists are a jumble, very roughly arranged by age; I would recommend a geographical list, or perhaps ordered by rank or family. The time may come when we cannot spare a minute to shuffle through these pages seeking a particular name; a properly ordered list might be essential.”

  “Excellent, Delegate,” Lorsa agreed.

  “I would be happy to assist with that.”

  Lorsa clapped Gluth on the shoulder. “Come with me, then. We will let these other fine men go to their well-earned supper while we devote ourselves further to the task of freeing the empire from these magical parasites.”

  The two of them turned away, leaving the other delegates standing there. The aides had already drifted off.

  “But what are they going to do with the list, after they copy it?” Guirdosia asked. “He didn’t say!”

  “Perhaps it’s best if we don’t know,” Savar replied.

  “They’ll use it to make sure any sorcerer we question will answer us,” Essarnyn said. “What else could they do with it?”

  Anrel could have answered that with a dozen possibilities, none of which he liked. He was beginning to think that he had made a very grave error in agreeing to serve on the Grand Council. Giving the speech that led to the creation of the Committee for the Regulation of Sorcery was even worse. He had long thought that the council was doomed to be ineffectual, to accomplish nothing significant; now he hoped it was. That list could make the committee, if not the council as a whole, very dangerous indeed.

  It could make Zarein Lorsa, in particular, very dangerous.

  But it was too late now to stop it; the list was made, and in Lorsa’s hands, and despite Anrel’s best efforts, most of it was accurate.

  Surely, someone should be warned—but who?

  “Well, whatever it’s for, we have done our part,” Guirdosia said. “I’m going home. I wish you all a good night, fellow delegates.” With a tip of his hat, he set off down the Promenade.

  Anrel glanced at the other two, wishing he knew them better, knew whether he could trust them—but he did not. For all he knew, they might think a scheme to destroy every sorcerer in the Empire would be a fine and glorious thing. He could not share his concerns with these men. He needed to talk to someone, but not his fellow committee members.

  “Good night,” he said, touching the brim of his hat.

  Then he, too, turned and departed, bound for Lourn Street.

  29

  In Which Anrel Receives a Letter

  The next day’s council meeting was uneventful, in large part because certain delegates were not in attendance. Among the Hots, Lorsa and Gluth were noticeable for th
eir absence. In the cloakroom most of the delegation from Lume itself had failed to arrive. No explanations were given.

  There were always a few people who could not be at any given session, but the number was unusually large on this occasion, and the missing voices included several who were normally among the louder and more insistent. The result was a relatively brief session in which nothing of note was accomplished.

  Anrel sat on the steps of the great pool and listened to the reports, speeches, and debate, but he did not address the council himself; he felt he had said quite enough already. He was uneasy, to say the least, about the previous night’s exploits; what did the Committee for the Regulation of Sorcery intend to do with those names?

  Or really, what did the Hots intend? There could be little doubt that Lorsa, Gluth, and their fellows were solidly in control of the committee, and therefore in control of the names they had copied from the Great List.

  Anrel wished there was someone he could talk to about this, someone who would understand his concerns, but he could not think of such a person. Every member of the Grand Council was pursuing his own agenda, and would see the news of the copying of the Great List through the lens of that agenda, while others, such as Tazia, lacked a grasp of the politics involved.

  Lord Blackfield might have provided a sympathetic ear, but as a foreigner he could not be trusted with the knowledge that the Hots now knew the true names of hundreds of sorcerers. If Quandish or Ermetian spies were to obtain a copy of the list, the empire would be almost helpless before an invasion.

  The longer he sat there, listening to his countrymen droning on, the more Anrel regretted his role in the creation of Lorsa’s list. This might be the worst thing he had ever done, worse than his speeches in Naith and Beynos, worse than allowing Valin to die, worse than any of the crimes he had committed when he lived in the Pensioners’ Quarter.