The two young men beneath the awning gazed silently out at the rain for a few seconds; then Anrel turned and reached for a chair. Valin followed his example, and the pair settled at one of the tables, setting Anrel’s drenched luggage to one side.
“I expect it will let up in due time,” Valin said.
“Eventually, it must,” Anrel agreed. “I doubt the Father has decided to drown us all.”
Valin smiled, and shook the water from his hat.
Anrel glanced at his companion. There were a thousand things he wanted to ask Valin, so many he scarcely knew where to begin, about Valin’s situation, and Lord Dorias, and Lady Saria, and everything that had happened in Alzur in his absence, but he was puzzled. He would have expected Valin to talk about all that without prompting. Why was the fellow so quiet? His only questions so far had been about luggage and matters in Lume; he had not so much as asked after Anrel’s health. It would seem he really had changed, and not for the better.
Lord Valin li-Tarbek was no kin to Anrel or the Adiranes; he had been born to a family of commoners, but had demonstrated a talent for magic as a child. He had undergone the trials and had been determined to be a sorcerer, and therefore had been made a noble of the empire. But he had needed training if he was to do anything with his sorcery, training his own family could not provide. Uncle Dorias had generously accepted him as a fosterling and an apprentice, and had raised him alongside Anrel and Saria.
Valin and Anrel had been almost inseparable as boys, despite the difference in their rank and background—in fact, Anrel had sometimes wondered whether Uncle Dorias had taken Valin in just to give Anrel a playmate.
Their personalities were utterly different, though. Anrel had been happy as a student, spending hours poring over dusty books, while he suspected Valin would not have lasted a single season in the court schools before going mad with boredom—either that, or he would have spent all his time arguing in the capital’s innumerable taverns, forcing his tutors to expel him.
They had been fast friends all the same, but Anrel’s long absence seemed to have let them grow apart.
Anrel frowned. Perhaps a little further conversation would allow him to judge just how Lord Valin had changed. “You were saying, just before this deluge began, that you cannot take any great pleasure in an accident of birth,” he said. “But surely you realize that a great many sorcerers do just that, particularly those who are heir to some specialty, some ancient binding or unique talent.”
“They mark themselves as fools thereby,” Valin replied. “The Father and Mother give each of us gifts at birth, and those say nothing of who we are, or what our worth might be. It is what we do with those gifts that makes us deserving of respect. That I was given the gift of sorcery, when none of my ancestors had it, when none of my siblings are so blessed, does not make me a better man than they.”
“It makes you a noble of the empire,” Anrel pointed out, “and entitles you to call yourself Lord Valin. It opens many doors, gives you access to rights and privileges denied to the rest of us. There are many who take pride in that distinction.”
Valin shook his head. “Fools. And their folly may soon be demonstrated, should the Grand Council so choose.”
Anrel grimaced. He had heard this sort of nonsense in Lume, and had hoped he would not hear it again once he left the student community behind. The emperor’s announcement that he would summon a second Grand Council was just a ruse, Anrel was sure; it meant nothing. “I think you wildly misjudge the situation if you consider so radical a change to be likely.”
Valin leaned closer. “You do not? What is the news, then, in Lume? Has the emperor said how the delegates are to be chosen?”
Anrel suppressed a sigh. He was quite sure that it did not matter what process was used; the Grand Council would be impotent. That was not what his friend wanted to hear, though, and Anrel did not want to antagonize Valin.
“On the contrary,” Anrel said, “the emperor has continued to change his mind with every shift of the wind, but his latest proclamation says that each province, each city or town, is to decide upon its own method of selection, just as was done when first the Grand Council met, some six centuries ago.”
“Well, then,” Valin said, straightening again. “Do you not think—”
“Valin,” Anrel interrupted wearily, “do you not see what will happen? The people of the provinces are scattered, and unaccustomed to any meddling in civic affairs. They will do as they have always done, and leave it to the landgraves to choose their representatives, and the landgraves, protecting their own interests, will appoint delegates who will see to it that nothing changes. Likewise, the people of the marches must always defer to their margraves, who they depend upon to guard the borders. Only in the towns is there any possibility that the selection will be left to commoners, and even there, who’s to say they won’t name whomsoever the burgraves suggest?”
Lord Valin shook his head. “Anrel, you have been locked up in the courts and schools for four years; I think you underestimate the discontent of the populace. Food is in short supply, and most of my fellow sorcerers do nothing to alleviate the shortages. There are beggars in the streets of Naith where there were none when I was a child. When crops fail, the lords shrug and say it’s the will of the Mother. The magic that might help feed the hungry is devoted instead to extravagant displays intended to assert status within the government—and that doesn’t even mention what is sometimes done to ordinary people to power that magic. These things must change!”
Anrel turned up empty hands. “While I concede that times are hard and many unhappy, this is how our society has conducted its affairs since the Old Empire fell,” he said. “The realm needs magic to function, so those who have magic have power, and those who do not have none—save for the emperor, of course. A few misfortunes, a few bad years, won’t alter that. It’s how the world works.”
“But it doesn’t need to be like this!” Valin insisted. “Look at Quand, where there is no link between magic and nobility, and where the people choose their leaders. Look at Ermetia, with its two sets of nobles, terrestrial and arcane.”
“What do you know of Quand or Ermetia?” Anrel asked, startled. Valin had never shown the slightest interest in reading about foreign lands—or much of anything else, for that matter. “Have you been traveling while I was in Lume?”
Valin shook his head. “No farther than Naith, but I have spoken with travelers. There is a Quandishman called Lord Blackfield who came to visit with your uncle not long ago, and who I believe is now Lord Allutar’s guest; he has told me a great deal about the world beyond the empire’s borders.”
Lord Blackfield’s name was vaguely familiar, but Anrel could not place it at first, though he didn’t suppose it mattered. He should have realized that Valin would put his trust in such a source. “You believed every word he said, of course. We all know how utterly reliable and impartial foreign barbarians are.”
“Now, that was uncalled for,” Valin protested. “I am no child, to accept nonsense without question.”
“Ah, that’s right,” Anrel replied. “You did say you had changed.”
“Anrel!” Valin appeared genuinely annoyed.
Anrel held up a hand. “Yes, I know, I have overstepped the bounds of decency. I apologize, dear Valin; I have no business questioning my superiors.”
“Even your apology contains more sarcasm than contrition!”
“It does, doesn’t it? I am sorry, Valin. I fear it’s just my nature.” He smiled. “Does it not strike you as odd, though, that you, a Walasian sorcerer lord, should be arguing for the abolition of the system that has elevated you to a rank your ancestors could never achieve, while I, the outcast spawn of two sorcerers who somehow remained a mere commoner myself, should be arguing to retain the privileges of the magically gifted?”
“I do not think you want to be a lord, Anrel. I think you were relieved when you failed that trial.”
That came uncomfortably close to matters Anrel did not want to discuss. “Can you wonder at that, given my parents’ fate?” he said. He shook his head. “No, I am content to be a clerk or a scholar, well outside the corridors of power and privilege, answerable to no one but myself and perhaps a burgrave, or some lesser lord.”
“But a man of your intelligence—what a shame that you have no magic! Perhaps I should put your name forward as a delegate to the Grand Council.”
That notion horrified Anrel. “Oh, you will do no such thing! I would be of no use there; I would merely poke holes in everyone else’s ideas, while putting forth none of my own.” Before Valin could reply, Anrel changed the subject. “This Quandishman, Lord Blackfield—what is he doing here? Is he a sorcerer?”
“He is, yes. He is on a campaign to stamp out black magic, it seems—he and a few of his foreign friends. They call themselves the Lantern Society, shining a light in darkness.”
“Darkness? They consider the Walasian Empire benighted?”
“Only in our use of black magic, I think.”
Anrel cocked his head. “Black magic?”
“Magic that draws power from blood, pain, or death, or that requires unwilling participants, or that exists only to cause harm. In Quand, it seems they divide magic into various colors—black, white, and gray, for the most part. Black magic has been outlawed entirely, Lord Blackfield says, much as we have outlawed witchcraft.”
“Ah, I’ve heard something of that.” In fact, Anrel had read the statute itself during his studies, but in the original tongue. He had not immediately recognized the Walasian term, though, as he had mentally translated the Quandish as “malevolent magic,” rather than the literal “black magic,” and he had not taken any particular note of the regulation.
“The Ermetians impose similar limitations on themselves,” he added. “So do some of the Cousins—in Skarl, I believe, and perhaps Andegor.”
“There are said to be some Ermetians among Lord Blackfield’s group,” Valin acknowledged. “I have heard nothing of anyone from the Cousins, though, and I have met only Blackfield himself.”
Anrel considered for a moment, then asked, “Who decides which magic is black? It’s simple enough to determine whether a Walasian magician is a sorcerer or a witch simply by consulting the Great List, but how does one judge whether a particular spell is malign?”
“I told you—if it draws upon blood or pain, or causes harm.”
“All magic that draws blood is forbidden? Wouldn’t that outlaw most fertility spells?”
“I suppose it would, yes.”
Anrel shook his head. “They’re foolish idealists,” he said. “When social rank is determined by magical power, one can hardly expect sorcerers to set arbitrary limits upon themselves.”
“But these limits are hardly arbitrary!” Valin protested. “And if all are bound equally by them, how can they interfere with the determination of status?” He sighed. “For that matter, have I not just been arguing that we should abandon using sorcerous talent to determine rank?”
“Were we to do so, we would hardly be Walasians,” Anrel said. “The system has been in place for centuries, Valin—just as the Quandish have maintained their bizarre arrangements for centuries, and the Ermetians theirs. Ours works best for us. The situation is stable as it is, and change can only bring grief.”
“Ah, but change is surely coming! The emperor has called the Grand Council, for only the second time in our history. It was the Grand Council that created the system, and the Grand Council that has the power to alter it—if only we can send the right delegates to Lume.”
This theme again. Valin’s bizarre enthusiasm for the Grand Council and its supposed transformative effect annoyed Anrel. “The emperor seeks only to revise the tax system, to pay his debts,” he said. “He will not welcome any meddling beyond that.”
“But the Grand Council outranks even the emperor himself!” Valin insisted. “It was the first Grand Council that established the imperial family and set the first emperor upon the throne, and the second Grand Council will have the authority to remove the present incumbent, should he resist whatever changes the council sees fit to make.”
“Father and Mother, Valin, I would hope that you have not suggested anything so treasonous where anyone else might hear it!”
“It has been mentioned in the taverns and tea houses of Naith,” Valin said, a trifle defensively.
Anrel stared at his companion in amazement. “In Lume,” he said, “such talk might well see you dragged off by the Emperor’s Watch and cast into one of their dungeons, or simply hanged as a traitor.”
Valin turned his head, rather than meet his friend’s intense gaze, and looked out at the square. “The rain is lessening,” he said.
“Good!” Anrel said, straightening. “Then we can go home, and I can see my uncle.”
Before Valin could reply, a woman in a white apron came bustling up to their table and said breathlessly, “Lord Valin! I’m so sorry; I didn’t think anyone would be out in this rain. How can I serve you?”
Anrel noticed she was focused entirely on the sorcerer, ignoring the poor student. That was no surprise. The only surprise was that he did not recognize her; when last he had been in Alzur this café had been the property of the widowed Dailur Harrea. Master Harrea had apparently died, remarried, or sold the business in the interim.
Valin, Anrel noticed, did not bother to introduce them. Instead he looked questioningly at his companion. “We are here,” he said. “Shall we have a little something while we wait out these last few drops?”
“I dined at the Kuriel way station,” Anrel said. “Just a little wine to wash the road dust from my throat would be fine.”
“A bottle of Lithrayn red, then,” Valin said to the woman. “And a plate of sausages, and some of those lovely seedcakes from—” He stopped, frowning. He had turned to point to a nearby shop, but now he broke off in midsentence and asked, “Is the bakery closed?”
The woman followed his gaze and said, “Hadn’t you heard? Lord Allutar caught the baker’s son stealing from his herb garden, and has sentenced him to death.” Anrel noticed that she pronounced the landgrave’s name much as she might speak of some detestable vermin. “The whole family is up at the landgrave’s house now, pleading for his life.”
“I was aware of some commotion as I came into town, but I had no idea!” Valin said, horrified. “I was too eager to welcome my old friend home to ask what it was about.”
“Very unfortunate,” Anrel said.
“Unfortunate!” Valin turned to face him, shocked. “Unfortunate? A young man’s life is at issue here!”
“A thief’s life, from the sound of it.”
“Still, a human life! Over a few herbs?”
“A sorcerer’s herbs, Valin. Lord Allutar’s herbs. Lord Allutar is still landgrave of Aulix, is he not?”
“Of course he is.”
“Then he has the power of high and low justice over all the commoners in the province, and stealing from the landgrave’s own garden is the height of suicidal folly. The baker’s son is doomed, and his removal can only improve the species.”
Valin recoiled. “Anrel, how can you be so cold? Is that what they taught you at the court schools? This is a human being, a young man with almost his whole life yet to be lived! He’s this woman’s neighbor! He’s the baker’s son! He has friends and family who are about to be arbitrarily deprived of his presence, who will grieve over his loss—”
“Who, it would seem, did nothing to prevent him from stealing from a sorcerer’s garden.” As it happened, since the baker had only one son, Anrel knew exactly who the youth was—Urunar Kazien. He had known the boy when they were children, though they had little contact after Valin’s arrival. This acquaintance did not incline him to any special sympathy; he had never liked Urunar. “Valin, really! Those herbs might well be magical, for all we know, and what would happen if ordinary folk, those whose true names are unknown, began meddling with magical powers? That would be witchcraft, and witches are hanged; executing the thief before he can do any harm does not change the outcome, but merely avoids any possible damage to others.” He saw Valin start to protest, and hastily concluded, “In any case, what can we do about it? What’s done is done.”
“But he isn’t dead yet, and while he lives, there is hope.” Valin turned to the woman. “You said his family is pleading for his life?”
“So I’ve heard, my lord.”
Valin thrust back his chair and got to his feet. “Then let us go add our own voices to theirs, Anrel! Let us make clear to Lord Allutar that it is not merely the family who wants to see the boy’s life spared, but every soul whose heart holds a trace of common humanity.”
Anrel grimaced. “I think you may find, Valin, that there are not as many of those as you would like to believe—that common humanity is, in truth, not common at all.” He remained seated.
Valin glowered at him. “I think you may find, Anrel, that your pessimism is unfounded. Surely, a spark of decency must flicker even in Lord Allutar’s breast, and it is our duty, as citizens of the empire, to fan it into flame. I am going, even if you are not!” He turned and hurried out into the rain.
With a sigh, Anrel arose. “Your pardon, mistress,” he said, with a tip of his sodden student’s cap. “I’m afraid we won’t be having that wine and sausage just yet, nor shall I be going to see my uncle—I must first save Lord Valin from his folly. I can only hope we will be back soon.” He glanced down, and added, “If you could look after my luggage, I would be in your debt.” A coin appeared in his hand—a penny this time, not a sixpence—and was passed to hers. She bobbed in acknowledgment, and Anrel set out on his friend’s heels, leaving the two traveling cases behind.
This was definitely not how he had envisioned his return to Alzur.