The following day a message arrived for Lord Dorias, saying that Lord Allutar hoped to call on him and his daughter that evening. Dorias promptly sent a reply assuring the landgrave that he would be made welcome.
He then summoned Anrel.
“Yes, Uncle?” Anrel said, as he entered Dorias’s study. “Anrel, my dear boy,” Dorias said, shifting in his chair so that the leather upholstery creaked. “While I am delighted to have you here, do you not find the quiet evenings here tedious, after the excitements of Lume?”
Anrel considered this for a moment, debating whether or not he should pretend to be unaware of his uncle’s purpose, and decided to save everyone some time and avoid the possibility of misunderstanding, at the cost of any pretense of civility.
“Not in the least,” he said, “but I take your true intent to be to ask that I take Valin elsewhere this evening, so that he and Lord Allutar might more readily avoid each other.”
Dorias blinked, then seemed to sag in his chair. “Yes,” he said. “You’re right. I don’t know what it is with that young man; he seems to take an unnatural delight in angering the landgrave.”
“I think he has appointed himself Urunar Kazien’s avenger, Uncle,” Anrel said. “Though why he feels that troublesome youth deserves avenging I am not entirely sure. Perhaps Valin took too much to heart Lord Blackfield’s admonitions against black magic.”
“Perhaps so. Trust a Quandishman to stir up trouble, eh? At any rate, I would very much prefer that Lord Allutar hear of Valin’s selection as my delegate from me, rather than from Valin.”
“A worthy goal, my lord uncle.” He sketched a bow. “I will do what I can to keep Lord Valin entertained elsewhere.”
“Thank you, Anrel.” Dorias shook his head. “There are times I think it very perverse of the Father and Mother to have given Valin sorcery, and left you with none.”
“I am quite content with my lot, Uncle,” Anrel replied, retreating a step. “Remember what befell my parents—do you know, my very earliest memory is of stepping in their blood, and not understanding what it was? I know I then looked up and saw their bodies, and I am told I began screaming uncontrollably, but I do not recall that; I only remember feeling the sticky wetness under my shoe, and looking down to see what caused it.” He shuddered. “If sorcery carries such risks, I am just as pleased to live without it.”
“Oh, but!” Dorias protested. “Really, Anrel, you know better than that. You have lived with me for these, what, almost eighteen years—well, thirteen or fourteen, I suppose, if one doesn’t count your time in Lume. You have seen me perform any number of wardings and bindings. You have seen Lady Saria, little more than a child, and Lord Valin, who you know to sometimes show all the sense of a sparrow, cast any number of spells without suffering any harm. You have felt the resonances when Lord Allutar works enchantments that cover the entire province. Has any of us come to any harm thereby? What happened to your dear parents was a horror—I miss your mother to this day—and yes, it was to all appearances caused by sorcery gone wrong, but it was an almost unique tragedy. Its very nature remains a mystery. You might just as well fear walking out of doors lest you be struck by lightning.”
“There are those who will not walk in the rain for that very fear, Uncle,” Anrel replied.
“Which is completely foolish! Can you name a single other sorcerer who has been harmed by his magic?”
Anrel knew the question was rhetorical, but could not resist answering, “Lady Arissa Taline.”
“Lady . . . ?” Lord Dorias drew back his head and frowned for a moment, then shook it. “No, no, Anrel—I said by his own magic! Lady Arissa was murdered.”
“There is still no solid proof of that.”
“Every witness and divination says it must be so, though.”
“Witnesses and divinations may err.”
Lord Dorias hemmed and hawed briefly, then waved the matter away. “I think we cannot count her case for either side, then,” he said. “It’s of no matter. I tell you, Anrel, sorcery is a blessing.”
“Uncle, why would you have me think so, when I have failed the trial given me when I was little more than half my present age? What good can it do me to wish for it?”
“Oh, none, none! I just—” Dorias stopped and frowned, as he realized the uselessness of the argument.
“Suffice it to say, Uncle, that because I remember what I do, I do not in the least regret having failed the trial. Everything you say may be true, sorcery may be the greatest gift any can inherit from the Mother and Father of us all, but no matter what reason and logic may say, there is yet a terrified child in my heart who is very glad indeed that I could not cast a ward for the Lady Examiner, nor break the binding she placed upon me.”
Dorias sighed. “As you will, then. Will you keep Lord Valin elsewhere this evening?”
“I have said I will, Uncle.”
“Oh, of course you did. Thank you.”
“Was there anything else?”
“No, no. Thank you, that’s all.”
“Then I take my leave.” Anrel bowed, and left the room.
It seemed as if keeping Valin out of trouble was becoming a full-time occupation, a duty that both Lord Allutar and Lord Dorias laid upon him. This was hardly a career he would have chosen, but at least he was making himself useful, after a fashion. He was beginning to wonder how Valin had ever survived the four years of his absence.
There was no point in putting off his assigned task; it was not as if he found Valin’s company disagreeable. He had a good idea where he might find the young sorcerer, so he turned his footsteps toward the south terrace. As he had expected, he found Valin there, looking out across the hills from a wrought-iron chair, a glass of wine in his hand, a mostly empty bottle by his foot.
“Hello, Anrel,” Valin said, glancing up.
“Hello, Valin,” Anrel replied. He found another chair, and settled beside his friend. “Enjoying the weather?”
“Thinking about the future, rather,” Valin said. “Imagining what will become of all this when the old hierarchies are swept away.”
“I would say, if the old hierarchies are swept away,” Anrel answered. “Even with your appointment to the Grand Council, I hardly consider it a certainty that anything significant will change.”
“But it must! A system where men like Lord Allutar, ruthless killers with no thought for the lives of their people, rise to the top, cannot be permitted to stand.”
“It has stood for half a millennium.”
“Too long! Far, far too long!”
Anrel sighed. “You should read more history,” he said. “Consider Ermetia, where the kings and lords have no magic of their own; do you think their rulers have proven any less cruel than our own, or any less ruthless?”
Valin frowned.
“Or look at the Cousins, where most titles of nobility are entirely a matter of ancestry, often unconnected to sorcerous ability. In terms of vicious stupidity, pointless wars, and brutal savagery, there has been little to choose between those noblemen who perform their own magic, and those who must hire others to do it for them.”
“But those are barbarians,” Valin said. “What of Quand?”
Anrel hesitated. “Though I learned the language, I read only a little Quandish history in Lume,” he said. “Quandish authors seem oddly reticent about their nation’s past. Perhaps they prefer to keep their internal quarrels on their own side of the Dragonlands.”
“Or perhaps they have found a system that rewards character and ability, and has no room for petty tyrants.”
“They’re still human, Valin,” Anrel said. “Most of them, at any rate—there are questions about some. Nor is their history entirely free of needless cruelty, by any means. Have you ever heard of Lord Westmoor? Or the Archmage Fimbin?”
“No,” Valin admitted.
“Along the western shores, I am told, they still use Westmoor’s name to frighten children. And they still haven’t found all of Fimbin’s bones, after better than a hundred years—a knucklebone turned up about eight years ago, completing the left hand, but half the right and several ribs are still lacking.”
Valin smiled indulgently. “You always had a fondness for stories, Anrel, while I prefer to study how the world works, so that I might see how to better it. The Quandish elect their rulers, and have outlawed black magic, and to me those seem to be improvements—improvements I would like to see made here in Walasia.”
“But they are not improvements in Quand, Valin! The Quandish have always chosen their Gathermen, and have never permitted dark sorcery. Those work for them, yes, because they are the way Quand has always been; here in Walasia, though, we have always done it our way.”
“Perhaps, though, it is time to try theirs,” Valin replied. “We are on the verge of famine, our emperor says he is bankrupt—is our situation so glorious that we really want to preserve it just as it is?”
“So you want to sweep away five hundred years of history, and make the Grand Council into a Walasian version of the Quandish Gathering?”
“Why not?” he demanded. “We might bring the empire to new heights of glory! With the unity of purpose an elected government can bring we might be able to reconquer Ermetia and the western Cousins, and finally restore the boundaries of the Old Empire.”
“Unity of purpose?” Anrel blinked in astonishment. “Valin, you and Lord Allutar are both going to be on the Grand Council—do you think you have any commonality of intent?”
Valin hesitated. “I suppose we both wish to see the empire prosperous—but he hasn’t been elected by anyone but himself.”
“And the emperor.”
“Yes, the emperor, true. But still, he was not chosen by popular vote.”
“Neither were you. Do you think it impossible, though, that both of you might have won election, were the entire Grand Council to be chosen thus?”
Valin paused, considering that.
“I do not think an elected government must have unity of purpose at all,” Anrel said. “The people of Walasia have no unity of purpose; why should their representatives? Are we no different here in Aulix from the people of Lithrayn, or Pirienna, or Agrivar?”
Valin frowned. “You may be right,” he conceded. “I had been thinking that the elective process would winnow out those ideas and behaviors that disrupt our national thinking—that each representative would become a reflection of the purified will of the majority, and as such, would each share the same goals and beliefs as the population as a whole. But I see now that in practice, the system must work with human frailty, and must take regional variation into account, so the purification cannot be complete.”
Anrel did not dare reply to this nonsense with more than a simple, “Yes.”
“An interesting point. I shall want to hear what Derhin has to say about it.”
“Have we time to ask him today?”
Startled, Valin, who had been staring off at the horizon, turned to stare at Anrel. “I hardly think so,” he said. “Derhin is in Naith.” He glanced at the sun. “It’s too late to make the trip today.”
“Is it?”
“Anrel, are you mad? Of course it is!”
“The sun is not yet at its zenith.”
“But the morning coach has been gone an hour!”
“There are other ways to travel, my lord.”
“Do you propose to walk such a distance?”
“My uncle would surely lend us horses, should we ask.”
Valin looked distinctly uncomfortable. “A twelve-mile ride would be a wearisome effort to make merely to see what Derhin thinks of our discussion.”
It was clear to Anrel that Valin did not want to go to Naith, and would find excuses at every turn—perhaps he had drunk enough to make the long ride awkward. Anrel abandoned that approach. “Still, it is too pleasant a day to remain here at home! Let us at least walk into Alzur—I never did get the wine and sausages you promised me when I first returned. Perhaps we can find a decent luncheon there, and in any case, it will give you an opportunity to become better acquainted with the people you are to represent in Lume.”
Valin considered that for a moment, then nodded. “If it would please you, Anrel, then let us go.”
“It would indeed please me.”
“Then let us be off!”
An hour later the two were seated beneath the awning in the town square, giving their order to the same woman who had told them of Urunar Kazien’s doom several days before. As they did, Valin glared past her at the black mourning bunting that draped the bakery’s sign, and frowned deeply.
When he had proposed this outing Anrel had not considered that they would be sitting near the bakery, reminding Valin of his inability to save the late thief’s life. That had clearly been an error on Anrel’s part. He wished that Valin had been interested in visiting Naith, which would have avoided the issue.
He had not expected the somber draperies, either, and they certainly aggravated the situation, making it impossible to pretend everything here was as it had been before.
Another potentially troublesome matter was that this square lay directly on the most natural route from Lord Allutar’s home to Lord Dorias’s. If the landgrave happened to pass through while Valin was here, questions and recriminations might arise.
Since Lord Allutar was not expected at the house for several hours yet, that danger was not immediate, but Anrel had observed in Naith that Valin was capable of sitting at a table for an entire day. He would need to pry his friend away by midafternoon. He could not hope that Valin would restrain himself; after all, Valin had already been drinking for some time.
“I’ll have that for you in a moment,” the woman said, when Anrel had agreed with Valin’s choice of beverage. She turned and hurried away.
Anrel watched her go, and therefore did not notice immediately when Valin’s gaze turned hard. The young sorcerer said nothing, but stared intently past his friend.
And when Anrel’s own attention returned to the table, he saw that intensity instantly; Valin was staring at the bakery with a fierceness Anrel found startling.
“What is it?” Anrel asked, turning to see what Valin saw.
The door of the bakery stood open, and a man in a cloak was in the doorway, his back to them. He wore a fine hat. Two other men stood nearby, and with a sinking sensation Anrel recognized their livery.
“How dare he?” Valin said. “How dare he intrude on the family’s grief? Is he buying a dozen biscuits there as if he had never wronged them, as if he had not snatched their son from their arms?”
“I doubt it,” Anrel said. “He would have sent a servant for that.”
“Then what is he doing there?”
“I don’t know,” Anrel admitted.
Valin stood so abruptly that his chair fell backward; he did not seem to notice.
“Valin,” Anrel said warningly.
Valin paid no attention; he marched around the table, past Anrel, and toward the bakery.
Anrel rose and grabbed his friend’s sleeve. “You promised you would not trouble him.”
“I promised I would not go out of my way to do so if he committed no new atrocity, but look at him, Anrel!” He gestured wildly toward the black-draped bakery. “He affronts the boy’s memory by daring to set foot in a house of mourning.”
“It’s a shop, Valin, not a house,” Anrel said, “and for all you know he is there to apologize, to offer his respects!”
“That would require some sense of decency, and Lord Allutar has none.” He pulled his sleeve from Anrel’s grasp and stalked toward the bakery.
Anrel followed, trying to think of words that might dissuade his friend, and watched in horror as the cloaked figure turned and stepped out of the bakery. It was indeed Lord Allutar, who now stood calmly watching as Lord Valin marched up to him.
“You unspeakable monster,” Valin said without preamble, loudly enough to be heard throughout the square. Half a dozen villagers turned, startled.
“A pleasant day to you, Lord Valin,” Allutar replied calmly.
“How can you barge in on them like this, when their son’s body is scarcely cold?” Valin demanded.
“I understand you knew Master Kazien, Lord Valin, and so I will pardon your rudeness,” Allutar said. “I came here to personally deliver my apologies, and the compensation required by law and custom; the sum was large enough that I preferred to present it myself, rather than tempt an underling.”
“You think money can make up for the loss of a human life?” Valin shouted. “Do you think they will be grateful for your miserable attempt at charity?”
Allutar’s mouth tightened. “No, my lord, I do not,” he said. “I am quite sure that the loss of their son will affect them deeply for as long as they live, and that they will in all probability never forgive me. Nonetheless, I am required by law and my own conscience to make this payment so that at least, while they will yet inevitably suffer, that suffering will not be compounded by any risk of financial ruin.” He sighed. “I could have had the entire matter attended to by my servants, or by other go-betweens, but I prefer to think myself enough of a man to run my ownerrands when they are as distasteful as this.”
Allutar’s calm seemed to infuriate Valin—a reaction Anrel understood, as he had experienced it himself on more than one occasion in the past. Oddly, this time he felt no outrage at all, a fact that troubled him—had his years in Lume hardened him? Or was it that, for once, Lord Allutar was behaving with appropriate dignity and grace?
Certainly his behavior was better than Valin’s.
“You foul, heartless creature!” Valin shouted. “It is a disgrace to the empire that you are called a landgrave!”
Allutar’s expression hardened.
“Guard your words, my lord,” he said. “Guard my words? Oh, you would have me silence myself, and bow to your vaunted authority? I think not, Allutar Hezir! I am a delegate to the Grand Council now, as much as you are yourself, and I will see to it that all Lume knows you for the appalling beast you are!”
Allutar blinked. “What did you say?”
“I said I will denounce you before the council and the emperor; I will see your title stripped from you, your lands confiscated, your name disgraced. I will see you cast down from your high place, into the mud where you belong.”
“You are to be on the Grand Council?” He looked past Valin at Anrel, who could only stand in horror-stricken silence, hands spread.
“My guardian has granted me that honor, yes,” Valin said. “I am to represent Alzur on the council, on behalf of the burgrave.”
Still looking at Anrel, Allutar demanded, “Is this true?”
“Yes, my lord,” Anrel said, his heart sinking and his gorge rising.
“You call me a liar, now?” Valin demanded.
“The possibility that you are mad had not escaped me,” Allutar replied. “Indeed, I had hoped your appointment was a mere delusion.” He shook his head. “I am most disappointed in Lord Dorias.”
“Disappointed that he dared make his own choice, rather than toadying to you? I remind you, Allutar, that the emperor has forbidden interference in the elections. Do not think yourself free to cozen my guardian.”
“You will address me properly, young man,” Allutar snapped.
“‘Lord’ is a title of respect, is it not? I have no respect for you.”
“I am still the landgrave of Aulix, Lord Valin, and you will address me accordingly.”
“You have no right to be any sort of noble!”
A sudden stillness seemed to settle over Allutar’s features, and a chill closed on Anrel’s heart.
“Are you challenging my right to my position?” Allutar asked, calm once again.
“Of course I am! Haven’t you heard what I’ve been saying?”
Allutar spoke very clearly and precisely as he said, “You are a sorcerer of the empire, challenging me to demonstrate my fitness to be landgrave of Aulix?”
Anrel’s blood seemed to freeze in his veins. He recognized that formula, as Valin almost certainly did not. He wanted to call out, to warn his friend, but Valin replied before Anrel could speak.
“Yes!” he said.
Anrel’s heart sank. The challenge had been made; any warning now would be useless.
Allutar turned to the two men who had accompanied him. “You have heard this?” he asked.
The two exchanged glances; then one of them nodded, and said, “Yes, my lord.”
The other hesitated another moment under Allutar’s intense scrutiny before finally saying, very quietly, “Yes.”
“Good!” Allutar said. He turned back to Valin. “I accept the challenge. My seconds will call on you in the morning to arrange the details.” He looked over Valin’s shoulder. “Master Murau!”
“Wait—you what?” Valin said, baffled.
“Yes, my lord?” Anrel said, dreading what was to come.
“I am afraid that I must change my plans for this evening. Would you please inform your uncle and your lovely cousin that I will not be calling on them, after all?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Does Lord Valin have friends who can act as his seconds?”
Anrel hesitated a fraction of a second before replying, “He has me, my lord.”
“More than he deserves, I think.” He turned back to Valin and stared at him for a long moment—silently, as under the law he could no longer speak to him. Then he tugged at his cloak and turned away.
“Wait,” Valin said.
Allutar ignored him; Anrel grabbed Valin’s sleeve again. “Not another word!” he said.
The two men stood, Anrel clutching Valin’s sleeve, as Allutar and his two attendants marched away, across the square and up the hill toward the landgrave’s estate. When they were gone, Valin asked plaintively, “What happened? What did I do?”
Anrel stared at him. “You really don’t know?”
“No,” Valin said. “What did I do?”
Anrel sighed. “You challenged Lord Allutar to trial by sorcery,” he said. “The winner shall be landgrave of Aulix.”
“I . . . what?” Valin whirled and stared after the departing sorcerer.
Anrel did not bother to repeat himself.
“And . . . and the loser?” Valin asked, still watching Lord Allutar.
“That is up to the winner,” Anrel said. “Assuming, of course, that the loser survives the trial.”