With Maia free, Kirin realized the danger in what he’d done. He forced his Shadow to break off the attack and flee into the cemetery, praying they would think it came from there. Once among the tombs he made it drop to the ground, sink below the dirt, and travel back to him unseen. He stayed flat while he drew it up through the cobblestones, through his back and safely inside his chest again.
The grabby soldier gasped, “What in the sodding hells was that?”
“Bung me if I know!” answered the kicker.
Both of their swords wavered around, hunting a target. The ranks beyond them were milling in confusion, the whole column disrupted.
“Make way!” screeched a harsh female voice. “Let me at these darkies!”
A slim gray hunting beast glided out of the chaos of men and horses. Some breed of dog or wolf, it stood as tall as most ponies. Claws clicked on paving stones and hungry eyes glared at Kirin on the ground. The beast stopped between the two cavalrymen, standing nearly as tall as their horses, and then crouched. A small pale woman in black and green riding leathers slid off its back—a Gwythlo Druid. Kirin stared and forgot to get up.
She couldn’t be even as tall as him, but Power radiated from her like heat from an oven. Silver glinted on her wrists, throat, and belt. She moved much like her mount, teeth bared as if she too wanted to tear out throats. Her beast snarled at the huddled DiUmbras.
Kirin scrambled to his feet. The other men of the family were pushing the women and children behind the wagons, but Maia rushed to his side. He hugged her with one arm even as he raised the other to shade his eyes. The Druid’s green aura flamed in his magesight.
“Where is it?” She stalked towards him. “One of you serves Darkness. Evil is here!”
Kirin nerved himself to act. His worst fear made real, here, and by a conqueror no less. He should push Maia away so the Druid wouldn’t burn her too, he should run, he should—
Before he could do anything at all, there came a click and a long metal groan as the cemetery gates opened behind him.
“The only evil here is what you bring with you, Druid Boerga,” said a new voice, and the cemetery’s resident priestess strode out. Maia and Kirin hastily made way for her. “Your men woke one of the vengeful dead.”
The new arrival wore formal yellow robes with Orthodox embroidery. Five stars glinted on her wimple. She had her silver-headed shepherds crook in her hands and two acolytes at her back. Kirin guessed she had been conducting a funeral ceremony at a noble tomb. Her own aura glowed ghostly yellow around her as she looked down her long nose at the Druid.
“Necromancer!” Boerga insulted her with a snarl while her beast whined. “My men did nothing! You must have raised that spirit yourself!”
“Honored Wisewomen,” Pieter intervened, bowing so that his shaven head and silver hair rings gleamed in the sun. “That soldier offered dishonor to my niece.” He pointed, and the grabby soldier shifted uneasily in his saddle, lowered his sword. “His actions awoke the spirit. It did not harm your soldiers, noble Druid Boerga, and it returned to the earth when he released her.”
Boerga stared at the soldier. He avoided her eyes by sheathing his sword. Kirin fought down the temptation to smile.
The five-starred priestess gave Boerga a sardonic look. “Hear the monk. If you cannot control your men, Silbar’s dead will do it for you.”
The Druid glared at the Priestess. She spat, and the gobbet gleamed on the dirt between them. “That for your defeated dead!” Boerga turned her gaze on the DiUmbra troupe and snarled, “You Silbaris failed to clear the road. Let this remind you to be swifter next time!”
Her beast lunged and sank its fangs into the throat of the nearest horse. It screamed, tried to rear, and collapsed as blood gushed. The beast whirled and ripped the throat out of the adjacent horse too, and this time worried at it until it tore a mouthful of flesh free. The other two horses, trapped in the harness behind the dead ones, reared and neighed while Uncle Ger and his sons struggled to control them.
Boerga spoke a commanding word in her language. Her beast slunk to her side, licking blood off its face, and crouched. She remounted, stared haughtily at the family, and left with a swirl of gray fur. The soldiers sneered at the troupe, reformed their marching order and rode into the city.
Pieter bowed again, this time to the priestess. “We thank you for rescuing us from her attentions.”
She favored him with a wry smile. “If I in fact did, Monk. Boerga never forgets a slight. The loss of your horses is regrettable. That your niece is free of dishonor—” Her gaze lingered on Kirin and Maia as they clung to each other, and on the small gold rings on their wedding fingers. “Is fortunate for you and her.” She looked at Kirin. “I believe I have seen you praying at a grave in the Poor Field, have I not?” The five stars above her forehead glittered.
Kirin nodded, bowed hastily, and said, “Yes, Dona Quintissima. My mother is buried there.” His heart still raced, but she seemed friendly.
Her gaze turned approving. “That speaks well of you. Go with my blessings, children.”
To his amazement this priestess he’d never met before raised her free hand and moved it in the gesture of blessing. He barely reacted in time to prevent his Shadow from reaching for the holy magic. Golden sparkles billowed from her hand, settled over him and Maia and the whole DiUmbra Troupe. They glowed softly for a moment and winked out. She said, “Fare well,” and returned to her funeral service. The gates clanged shut behind her.
Grandfather looked like he wanted to explode. He hissed between his teeth, unable to curse in this place or after such a blessing. Instead he said to Pieter, “Replacing two draft horses will cost us a fifth of this trip’s profit!”
“But none of our family needs to be replaced,” Pieter answered as he met his father’s gaze. “Much less our best acrobats.”
After a tense moment the troupe’s leader let out a sigh. The whole family relaxed as he said, “Clean up the mess. Ask the knackers what they’ll give for the carcasses. I’ll send your brother back with two of the other horses so you can bring the second wagon along when you’re done.”
Pieter nodded obediently and the family all turned to the work. Sevan, Pieter, Ger and Kirin managed to unharness the dead horses and wrestle them free, then cleaned the harness. Men from the butcher yards came and dragged away the carcasses. Uncle Ger shook his head over the pittance that they paid.
“The rental master will be furious,” he muttered. “We’ll have to pay for replacements and pay a penalty, too.”
“Too late to help that,” Pieter answered. “Thank the One it wasn’t worse.”
“Aye.” Ger sighed and glanced at Kirin but said nothing.
Kirin dragged the washed harness on top of the wagon to spread it in the sun to dry. His eye caught a swirl of copper skin and gray robes on two Duermu men herding goats toward the Bazaar. He remembered the words of the fortune teller back in that little town whose name he had already forgotten.
She said I would be tested with fear and loss. That Druid sure scared me, and we lost two horses. She also said Powers would help me, and that priestess came out of the cemetery and did. Did I just survive that ‘test’ or is there going to be another? What am I caught in?
The warm sunshine gave him no answer.
An hour later Sevan the elder returned with two horses and they were moving again. He had a grim silence about him that nobody dared break. Maia and Kirin nestled together atop the load next to Pieter, subdued.
“Father,” Kirin asked him, troubled. “Should I not have sent my Shadow at that soldier?” Maia’s grip on his arm tightened.
“I wouldn’t say that, son,” he answered seriously. “There were no good choices. You made perhaps the least bad choice available.”
Kirin relaxed as their wagon creaked past the hulking Gray Fort and past the entrance to the Red Street. The two bracketed the road inside Northgate. They were halfway through the Bazaar and about to turn into Sulfur Street for h
ome when Kirin noticed a change.
“Hey!” He pointed to the Bazaar space where the DiUmbra Troupe usually performed. “The Suliemons are using our space!”
Sevan the Elder nodded. “See how they’ve changed the name on the sign?”
“I don’t like the look of that,” Pieter muttered. “What happened while we’ve been gone, Sevan?”
“The Suliemons have stolen our Bazaar lease,” Sevan the Elder said flatly. “We’ve lost our performance space.”
Everybody gasped. Kirin stared at the Bazaar receding behind them. How do we earn our living without a place to perform?
CHAPTER 5: CHISAAD
Chisaad found himself torn between delight and annoyance.
His eyes could see a group of travelers, one of them at the center of the Shadow’s movement. A halfbreed youth, the wizard’s eyes could see him plainly through the cemetery gate. But Chisaad’s most subtle spell had slid right past the boy as if he wasn’t there.
He can manipulate a Shadow and can render himself invisible to magic, the Royal Wizard thought. How has no one ever noticed him before?
He cursed himself for an oblivious fool. Most people only saw what they expected, or could easily explain, and everybody knew stage performers practiced illusions.
Even me, he admitted to himself in the privacy of his own mind. If I hadn’t been looking at exactly the right moment to see, I wouldn’t have believed it either. But I did see, and now I know.
For a moment he thought to race back into the Palace, through its labyrinth to the internal door to the Gray Fort, and from there to North Gate, to see if he could intercept the youth. But the Royal Wizard running through corridors would attract far too much attention. And even if he reached North Gate in time, what then? He couldn’t very well accost one traveler amid the horde on the King’s Road to demand an explanation. Far too many people would overhear. He quivered in frustration.
Stop, he told himself. One step at a time. Those people look like stage performers so start there. Find out about them—about him. Quietly, secretly. Let no one know what you suspect; let nobody discover your interest. If control of a Shadow is truly possible, it might be harnessed to penetrate the most protected of places—
He cut the thought off and began to pace inside the pergola. Don’t build a mountain of hope on a molehill of knowledge. First find out who really summoned the Shadow; don’t assume it was the half breed. Learn how it was controlled, and what it really is. It could still prove to be a mere entertainer’s trick, useless for anything significant.
He stopped pacing and stared at the empty road where the travelers had been.
But if it is not; if what I suspect is true! His hopes soared. He could be the perfect tool.
He returned to the Palace.
The Governor’s arrival already had servants rushing about, though the man had barely had enough time to dismount in the Grey Fort. Chisaad positioned himself near the connecting door between Fort and Palace, and soon enough the sunburned face of Lord Cadoc Ap Marn appeared, followed by his traveling gaggle of sycophants.
It didn’t take Chisaad any time at all to deduce that the Imperial Governor had returned in a foul mood. The man barked at his Gwythlo aides and cuffed the Silbari servants as they changed him out of his road-soiled riding leathers and boots into a comfortable robe and sandals. When he saw Chisaad he growled, “Wizard! Walk with me.”
“Of course, My Lord Governor,” Chisaad murmured, and stepped in front of a hapless military aide at the Governor’s left hand. The youth gave way and Chisaad matched Ap Marn’s pace.
Ap Marn strode to his office, threw himself into his waiting chair, and gestured at Chisaad.
“Sit. I’ve come from Sulmona. Sulfur production is down by a tenth since last year!”
Chisaad sat. Serving as Ap Marn’s sounding board had proved useful before. He considered the problem. It didn’t bode well for the Imperial purse. Silver and sulfur were the two main engines of magic for any Mage who didn’t have a Node close enough to draw upon, which meant most of the Empire. Silbar produced generous amounts of both, the silver from mines in the Bright Mountains north and west of Aretzo, the sulfur from pits on the edge of Sulmona in the eastern deserts. A part of Ap Marn’s duty included making sure that a tenth of the annual sulfur production flowed to the Imperial treasury.
“A drop that large will doubtless receive unfavorable Imperial attention,” Chisaad said diplomatically. Shrieks of outrage, more likely. Blue and his Council won’t be happy, either.
“That incompetent idiot Gwynned spends all his time drinking and wenching instead of managing the mines,” Ap Marn ranted on. “I bet half the loss is due to his slack management!”
“And the other half, My Lord Governor?” Chisaad asked respectfully, since Ap Marn wasn’t about to admit how much he personally skimmed off. The man’s gambling debts were whispered about from the Palace to the Old City slums.
“Not enough workers,” the Governor fumed. “Gwynned whines that the supply of slaves from Klinto has dried up and he demands that I make up the difference with condemned criminals.” He glowered.
“You’ve already done that, my Lord,” Chisaad said, thinking how unpopular those sentences had been with the city’s poor. “There has been another objection to the practice filed by the Temple while you were away. The Hierarch likened it to the slavery that is proscribed by Silbar’s Holy Writ.”
Ap Marn scowled. He didn’t give a damn about Silbar’s religion, but he’d been made painfully aware that the Hierarchy could make his life uncomfortable.
“Those bitches,” he muttered. “There ought to be some way to get back at them.”
As unproductive lines of thought went, Chisaad reflected, that was a big one. He coughed slightly and changed the subject.
“My Lord Governor, has anyone yet informed you that Prince Terrell is about to be dispatched to Silbar?”
Ap Marn needed a moment to add one and one and get two. “What? Why? He’s not even reached his age of majority yet.”
“I am informed that the Emperor’s health is declining,” Chisaad answered tactfully. “Apparently he has decided to deliver on his pledge to the Queen-Empress. That her son would have Silbar as his own.”
“But that wasn’t supposed to happen until the brat reached twenty-one! More than three years from now!”
“The Emperor,” Chisaad said delicately, “changed his mind.”
And caught you by surprise, I see, he thought, carefully hiding his amusement. You thought you’d have plenty of time to collect bribes and steal as much as you could. He tried to sound apologetic as he added, “Apparently His Highness will arrive in four tendays, his father’s grant in hand, to replace you.”
Ap Marn’s face underwent an interesting change of colors and expressions. The man wasn’t very practiced at hiding his thoughts, a trait Chisaad had found common among Gwythlos. If the about-to-be-displaced noble could manage some control, he might be useful in the plan beginning to form in Chisaad’s mind.
The Lord Governor wasn’t quite stupid enough to protest aloud. He did grind his teeth, glare, and clench his fists. The sound of the bigger man’s popping knuckles both entertained and intimidated Chisaad. At last Ap Marn said, “How many others know?”
“By now I would expect a number in the high dozens or low hundreds,” Chisaad estimated. “By nightfall it will probably include everyone of significance in Aretzo. Gwythford Castle leaks information like a sieve, my Lord Governor, possibly with the Emperor’s full knowledge, and message constructs have become quite swift.”
“The yellow bitches probably know by now.”
“I would be astonished if they didn’t. Dona Seraphina’s husband is a skilled mage and a message construct is well within his capabilities. I would not be surprised if the Hierarch knew before any other soul in Aretzo.”
Ap Marn gritted his teeth again. Then he took a deep breath, blew it out, and growled. “So. Prince Terrell is on his way, you say
? Did your informant tell you what route he’s following?”
“No, though I expect there will be further enlightenment delivered by message constructs in the days to come. He’s bringing the Silbari Brigade and a small army of attendants. His procession is bound to be well watched and duly hosted by every noble along the way. At least, every noble who wants to curry favor.”
“And I’d be wise to do likewise.” Ap Marn looked at Chisaad through half-closed eyes. “Tell me, Acting Royal Wizard, what does this change of Governors imply for your position?”
Chisaad made an intentionally nervous gesture. “I gave my oath to King Tollir, and through him to Queen Shyrill for the duration of her absence, or if she chose, to be ended at her pleasure—or displeasure. As she has been absent these eighteen years, I have remained. But that chain cannot be stretched to a third link. Once Prince Terrell assumes command here, he is free to appoint a Royal Wizard of his own and presumably will do so. There is no shortage of possible candidates.”
Chisaad strove to inject the right note of worry into that last line. Give him an opening, set the hook.
“I see,” Ap Marn said after a pause. “Well. I’m going to be very busy for the next few ten days.”
“As will I, my Lord Governor. I’m afraid I may need to meet with you more frequently than we have in the past. To plan.”
Ap Marn squinted at him, calculating. Chisaad stared back, calculating.
They both smiled. Chisaad rose and bowed himself out.
This will not be easy, he thought as he left the Palace and made his way back to his home. He is unbalanced and suspicious, fearful of everybody. But with care and planning, and a little good fortune, I may be able to manipulate him into a useful treason.
Now to find those performers!
He returned to his tower in the Clerks Quarter south of the palace. He owned an old house that had once lain outside the walls of the then-smaller city, and consequently featured a fortified tower rising from one side. His mother had left it to him, a part of her legacy from her mother’s family. Her much older husband had been an undistinguished mage more interested in fashioning small artifacts than in founding a dynasty. He had refitted the tower as his magic-working sanctum, and later bequeathed it to the surprise son his wife had delivered in his old age.
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