In an instant, I had regained my feet. Before my feigned self had taken two steps, I sneered at his back, “And do you believe he cares whether you do or do not condone it?”
The stranger paused to face me. Briefly he scrutinized me as he had once before, on the banks of the Ibendwey. Then he nodded as though he had been reassured.
“That does not concern me,” he replied. “You have not described how you incurred this necromancer’s enmity, and I do not ask. The answer is plain. Still I am in your debt. It is your dread of possession which caused you to abandon your home and your life. It caused you to abandon Tep Longeur, who served you. Is that not so? In order to repay you, I must confront this necromancer. As I have already said.
“I am,” he concluded, “a man of my word.”
I found his confidence maddening. I had in fact done all that he said. Yet my fear was the fear of a reasonable man, a sane man, and I did not merit blame for it. Certainly I did not deserve to be held responsible for my usurper’s lunacy.
Did he mean to suggest that I should have stood by my word to Sher Abener?—that having accepted a commission I should have held to it? Then what would I have done when Tep Longeur declined to obey me? Would the stranger have found my actions honorable if I had enlisted the necromancer’s aid to compel my caravaneers?
My position was intolerable. I could not stomach Sher Abener’s demand for slaves.
“You intend to seek him out?” I protested, fuming. My indignation seemed to expand until I could no longer contain it. “In his manor? With all his powers and servants about him?”
My usurper regarded me sternly. “I am a man of my word,” he repeated.
His eyes had lost none of their clarity. Events had not diminished his vividness, or his air of substance. Indeed, he seemed more potent than ever—beyond suasion or compromise. Now, however, he did not daunt me. Instead he fed my ire.
“You are also a great fool,” I shouted at him, “and soon you will be a dead one! But that will not end your usefulness to Sher Abener. He is a necromancer. His strength is drawn from the dead!
“Heed me,” I pleaded. “Hear me. I do not understand this debt of which you speak, or your notion of repayment, but I release you from it. It is accomplished, forgotten. Restore my name, and I am satisfied.
“Here is my villa.” I flung out my arms, including all my riches in their sweep. “Raiment aplenty. Food and drink. Horses to bear us. Coin to pay our way.” My strongboxes held a considerable sum of saludi. If Tep Longeur had not taken them for Sher Abener’s use— “All this will enable us to flee with some prospect of success.”
My usurper frowned. “As I have said, I am a—”
“You are a man of your word!” I cried in fury and dismay. I could not bring myself to strike him. Rather, I flailed at the empty air. “You are a man of your word. I heard you! But you are also deaf. Do you hear nothing? Mere fools and madmen are wiser than to confront necromancers with nothing more than their virtue to protect them.
“Have you entirely failed to notice that you would have died in the hall of wisdom if I had not rescued you? I fought for you. In all my life, I have never lifted my hand in anger against another living man, and I fought for you.
“I will not do so again!” There I lowered my voice. My shouts meant nothing to him, and I wished him to understand that I, too, would not be swayed. “I will not dare enter Sher Abener’s manor.” I could not. The mere thought caused my heart to quail utterly. “If you go there, you will learn that I have spoken the truth. Doubtless your power to assume my name and place amuses you. Perhaps the master of that dwelling will be amused as well.
“Go if you must. You will go alone.”
In reply, my usurper shrugged. My failure to discourage or save him was complete. Quietly he answered, “I did not ask you to accom-pany me.”
Then he turned his back and strode away. In a moment, he had passed the doors and was gone from my sight.
He left me trembling at the extent to which I had been diminished. Although he went to oppose a necromancer, he placed no value upon my aid. All that he desired of me was my name.
Very well, I thought as I shook with anger. I did not ask you to accompany me. Nor had he asked me to defend him in the Thal’s mansion. I had done so because I had persuaded myself to the hazard, hoping to reclaim some vestige of myself.
Now, for the same reason, I meant to abandon him to his chosen fate. Whatever the cost of his usurpation, he had incurred it himself. While he repaid his debts, I would at last provide for my own survival.
To do so seemed simple enough. Despite my long reliance upon servants, I knew my own home sufficiently to obtain what I needed from it. Food, apparel, saludi, a mount—I could dispense with everything else. The stranger had given me one gift—a respite, an interval during which Sher Abener’s attention would necessarily be concentrated elsewhere. If that interval lasted as long as an hour, I would be safely beyond his reach.
As I set about my purpose, however, I found that it was not so simple as I had imagined.
The villa was my home. My home. Each room and hallway raised memories to teach me the cost of flight. Pangs of loss set their teeth into my heart at every turn. And wherever I went, the same voices echoed in my mind.
If you do not save us, we will never be free.
I am a man of my word.
I will render the marrow from your bones, and drink it while you die!
The entire domicile seemed ghost-ridden and forlorn, reft of life by Tep Longeur’s ruin. Malice and supplication haunted me as I readied my final departure.
You have mistaken me for my father. I am not such a man.
Go if you must. You will go alone.
Aching in pained recollection, I visited my kitchens, where I drank several flagons of water and eased my hunger with bread, cheese, and olives. Then I limped to my private chambers. After washing and tending my damaged feet, I shod them in sturdy boots. I selected garments for travel, including a dark-hued cloak which might serve as a blanket at need. When I had considered the contents of the theurgist Bandonire’s pouch, I affixed it to my belt. I equipped myself with a hardwood staff, which I could employ as either support or weapon. A well-honed dirk I hung at my side.
Thus I prepared myself, to the accompaniment of voices and remembered anguish.
It is the place of every honest citizen to name injustice whenever it occurs, and to reject it honestly.
At last, I was ready to depart. I had already chosen the road which would lead me away from my life in Benedic.
And yet—
And yet I could not do it. My resolve failed me—or was transformed. When I bid farewell to my villa, I took no coin, and no horse. I carried neither food nor drink. I had no need of them.
From my gates, I directed my steps, not away from Benedic, but toward Sher Abener’s dark abode.
My course horrified me. Indeed, I felt that my mind had failed altogether. Still I did not turn aside.
I did not ask you to accompany me.
The choice was mine to make. Therefore I made it.
I could perhaps have borne abandoning the stranger to possession and death. He had disregarded both my warnings and my attempts to save him. Somewhere during this long day, however, I had lost my capacity to endure Sher Abener’s wish to practice his cruel arts in Benedic. He did not merit my compliance.
If my usurper yearned for doom, I would require him to seek it in his own name, not in mine.
Midafternoon had turned toward evening, for I had spent more time in preparation—or in the Thal’s mansion—than I realized. The sun spread tall shadows upon the roadway before me so that they led me into darkness. Along the avenues to the necromancer’s manor, I questioned my resolve a thousand times. But I did not alter it. The easy comfort of my former life could not be reclaimed. Therefore I let it go.
All too soon, I reached the grim granite which enclosed Sher Abener’s manor.
In the walls, the blac
k iron of the gates stood shut, as they had early this morning. Perhaps they would have opened themselves for me again if I had spoken my name, but I left the experiment untried. Although I could not hope to take the necromancer unaware, I had no wish to proclaim my approach. Instead I thrust my staff between the bars above the lock and levered until the bolt twisted from its seat. Then I stepped between the gates.
As I passed, I heard no voices, bodiless or otherwise.
Upon reflection, I was surprised by my success. I would have expected Sher Abener’s arts to hold more securely. However, I did not complain. If he believed that no one other than the supposed Sher Urmeny would come against him, so much the better. His inattention might work to my benefit.
The doors to the manor were likewise closed. Rather than seek another entrance, which might have served me ill in any case, I forced the door bolt with the point of my dirk. Easing the portal open, I slipped into the manor.
The vestibule remained as I recalled it—large and empty, furnished only with gloom, a wide stair rising toward midnight on one hand, an archway clutching its secrets on the other. Here at last I was forced to acknowledge the folly of my intentions. A lifetime ago—a lifetime measured in mere hours—when I had approached Sher Abener to recant my acceptance of his commission, I had been guided by lamps which appeared to light and extinguish themselves of their own accord. How would I find him now? By what means could I hope to discover him in this dire place?
While I fretted over the question, however, I heard the sound of a step upon stone. In alarm, I wheeled toward the stair and saw a gloom-shrouded figure descending. Some man or fiend slowly paced the treads to confront me.
I contemplated screaming. I considered flight. Neither alternative seemed likely to procure Sher Abener’s defeat. With an effort of will, I held my tongue and stood my ground.
Partway down the stair, the figure paused. “Who are you?” a man’s voice demanded. “Why are you here? I have seen you—” His tones faded into uncertainty, then returned. “Where have I seen you before?”
Apparently the stranger’s glamour shielded me yet. In contrast, my own recollection was precise. I recognized the voice, and knew the man. Rowel! I had heard him shout. Scut! Aid me! He was the disguised theurgist who had labored with Bandonire to bring about my usurper’s death.
On impulse, I ducked my head and replied in a frightened gibber, “If it please your worship. Your mightiness. I am a mate of Rowel’s. Not that fool Scut. Maybe you saw me when we were employed, Rowel and Scut to slaughter that fop Urmeny, me to watch their backs.” In a show of deference, I dropped my staff. Hunching abjectly to conceal what I did, I put one hand into the pouch at my belt. With the other, I gripped my dirk. “I would have done the deed myself, but pikemen prevented me,” I whimpered abjectly. “I came when the way was safe—to ask how I can serve—”
“Be silent, fellow!” snapped the theurgist. “You lie. Such ruffians as you do not force entry to their master’s homes. And that is not where I have seen you.
“Come to the light,” he commanded. As though by incantation he produced a lamp from the darkness and set it alight. “I will look at your face.”
The sudden illumination dazzled me. For a moment, I could scarcely discern my boots, or distinguish the stair. Fortunately, I did not need to see my hands. Touch alone sufficed.
In Bandonire’s pouch, I had found a sackette of rough powder like grains of sand—white, rough to the touch, and faintly malodorous. I could not for my life recall the powder’s proper use. However, I remembered clearly one of the lessons it had taught me in my youth.
Cringing and shuffling, and blinking furiously as I did so, I approached the theurgist. At the same time, I withdrew the sackette from Bandonire’s pouch and secreted it in my fist.
“If it please your worship,” I whined repeatedly. “If it please you.”
“But it does not,” retorted my antagonist. “Lift your head, you cowering fool. I will see your face.”
As an inattentive youth exasperating my tutor, I had once—and only once—inadvertently sneezed a similar powder into my own eyes. For an hour afterward, I had believed myself blinded by fire. Nearly a week had passed before my sight was fully restored.
When the theurgist had fixed his gaze on my features, I fumbled open the sackette and flung its contents into his face.
At once, he stumbled backward, roaring in pain. As he did so, his heel struck against a tread, and he fell. His hands slapped at his eyes in a belated attempt to protect them.
His lamp dropped to the stair. Fortunately, it continued to burn.
Before he could restore his sight with theurgy, or heal his eyes by any other means, I snatched out my dirk and aimed its butt at the side of his forehead.
Groaning, he slumped aside.
Tears streamed from his eyes as though he dreamed of grief. By that sign, I knew I had not struck too hard. Despite my fears, I did not wish to do murder.
But I was no nearer to discovering my enemy’s whereabouts. I could not begin to guess how long the stranger might withstand Sher Abener’s arts—or how extremely the necromancer might wish to protract my usurper’s death—but I believed that I could afford neither uncertainty nor delay.
Since the theurgist had approached me from above, I chose to think that my goal lay there. Retrieving the lamp, I ascended the stair and cast about me for some sight or sound of habitation.
At first, I saw and heard nothing. The gloom was deeper here. Despite the lamp, I could scarcely discern the walls which enclosed the wide chamber at the head of the stair. My own unsteady respiration seemed to baffle my hearing, so that no other noise reached me. To left and right, hallways held featureless midnight. Sher Abener’s dwelling was apt for fiends and bloodshed. I felt sure now that he did not drink the blood of sheep when he broke his fast. He quenched his thirst with darker fluids.
Holding the lamp before me, I ventured toward the nearer hallway. My small flame revealed only blunt stone and bare walls. When I had advanced a few steps, however, I heard a sound that might have been a human cry, stifled as it issued from the throat of the hall.
As if involuntarily, I quickened my pace. I had never known a man less likely to scream than the stranger. Independent of my mind, my limbs and flesh believed that no pain sufficient to draw a wail from his lips should be suffered to continue.
That hall ended in another perpendicular to the first. Apparently these passages followed the outer wall of some large chamber or suite. Yet no door gave admittance inward, just as no window offered any view beyond the manor.
Striding ahead, I rounded another corner—and lurched to a frightened halt so suddenly that I nearly dropped my lamp. In the hallway before me stood Tep Longeur. Although shadows muffled his features, I was certain of him. I had known his hardened cheeks and forthright gaze all my life.
He showed no surprise—indeed, he appeared to expect me. One arm cocked its fist grimly on his hip. His other hand rested on the hilt of a saber with its point braced on the stone at his feet. Lamplight gleamed along the blade, implying bloodshed. Clearly he had been set to guard his master.
“Come no farther,” he commanded me. Authority and desolation complicated his tone. “You have committed crime enough by trespassing in Sher Abener’s home. Do not compound your offense.”
In response, I gazed my misery at him and wondered how I could dream of freeing him.
By what means was possession broken? I did not know. I was a fool, indolent and compliant, and I had neither weapon nor art which might accomplish my purpose. Truth to tell, I did not understand my overseer’s plight. How then could I hope to restore that which had been reft from him?
He had served me, and my father before me, faithfully through all the years of his life. I should not have imperiled him for the sake of my efforts to appease the necromancer.
I required aid.
In this place, there was no one who might help me except my usurper. He did not condone poss
ession. And he was a man of strange strengths—as well as of unwavering determination. He might perhaps know what was needed.
Therefore my first task was to reach him, despite Tep Longeur’s—and Sher Abener’s—opposition.
That was an endeavor which might lie within my compass.
Clearing my throat uncomfortably, I asked, “Tep Longeur, do you know me?”
He answered without hesitation. “Well enough.” Bleak intent left his voice as parched as a wilderland. “You’re a fool in Sher Urmeny’s service. You’re trying to aid your condemned master.
“But you won’t. You will not pass here.”
At his reply, my heart lifted against its burden of dread. While the stranger retained my name and station, no one knew me for who I was. His glamour baffled even the overseer of my merchantry. Sher Abener himself might not discern the truth—
“You are mistaken,” I countered more strongly. “Grievously mistaken. I serve the necromancer. And I must give him warning. Why otherwise was I admitted this far?”
Apparently the condition of Tep Longeur’s mind permitted doubt. “What warning?” he demanded.
My circumstances inspired shameless invention. “The Thal has recanted his earlier submission,” I explained in haste. “He means to expel Sher Abener from Benedic. Even now he marches on the manor with all his pikemen. If he is not met and halted, he will drive our master away, and tear this dwelling to the ground.”
The overseer raised his saber. His jaws worked as though he were disgusted by the taste of my words—or of his own. “You lie.”
That I could answer. Holding my lamp beside my face to aid his sight, I repeated imperiously, “Do you know me? Look well.”
He leaned slightly forward to peer at me. The doubt I invoked troubled him despite his weapon—and his subjugation to Sher Abener’s will. After some consideration, he shook his head. “No.”
“Then,” I snorted, feigning scorn, “you do not know that I lie.
“Escort me to the necromancer,” I instructed him. “He will distinguish truth from falsehood.”
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