Although the sun was bright in the southern sky, there was a slight chill in the air, unusual for so early in the autumn. Anrel refused to allow himself to shiver, though; the other men would misinterpret it. He walked out into the grove while Lord Valin waited behind, as protocol required.
No other seconds had arrived to support Valin; if his letter had reached Naith, it had not yielded any results. Anrel and Valin had come alone.
Valin was terrified, though he was trying very hard to hide it. When Anrel had asked him if he wanted to ask for a postponement, so that another second might be found, Valin had shaken his head and said through clenched teeth, “If we delay, I fear I might faint, or flee. Let us get on with it.”
Neriam and Lindred walked into the grove from the other side; beyond them Anrel could see Lord Allutar’s coach, the door standing open. A coachman sat on the driver’s bench, and two footmen stood close by. Anrel recognized one of them as Hollem, who had admitted him to Lord Allutar’s home a few days ago.
Lord Allutar himself was not in sight. Anrel assumed he was in the carriage.
Anrel stopped at what he judged to be the center of the grove, and waited while Neriam and Lindred came up to him.
“Master Murau,” Neriam said, with an exaggerated nod that was still clearly not a bow.
“Lord Neriam.”
“Is your man ready, then?”
“He is. And the landgrave?”
“Quite prepared, thank you.”
Anrel hesitated. “May I ask whether Lord Allutar has said anything of his intentions toward Lord Valin, in the event he is victorious?”
Lord Neriam and Lord Lindred exchanged glances. “I am afraid that it is not our place to say,” Neriam replied.
“The question is entirely inappropriate,” Lindred added.
Anrel nodded. “I feared as much. Then what is the next step, my lords? You will forgive me, but I am not entirely certain of the procedures.”
“Of course; I would judge there hasn’t been a true challenge in your lifetime.” Neriam glanced at Lindred again; Lindred said nothing. “The principals must take up positions and await the signal to begin. There should be no obstructions, and everyone else must stand well clear.”
Anrel nodded again. “What is the signal, and who is to give it?”
“That is for the three of us to decide. Ordinarily it would be the challenged incumbent whose seconds would give the signal, but this contest is sufficiently—” He grimaced as he groped for a word.
“Unbalanced?” Anrel suggested.
“Yes, thank you. Sufficiently unbalanced, that Lord Allutar has suggested that you should give the signal. The word ‘begin’ should serve nicely.”
Anrel nodded. “I will raise my hand, and call out ‘begin’ when I drop it. Would that suit the landgrave?”
“Most excellently, sir. Thank you.”
“Then let us position the participants to our mutual satisfaction.”
“Excellent.” Neriam nodded again. “Lord Lindred?”
Lindred raised a hand in acknowledgment, then turned and trotted back to the coach. A moment later, as Anrel began guiding Valin to his chosen spot between two large ash trees, Lord Allutar emerged.
He was wearing the full regalia of his office, which Anrel had never seen before. An ankle-length cloak of wine red velvet draped his shoulders; a peaked red hat trimmed in ermine adorned his head. This attire would have been impressive in a more appropriate setting, but here in the sun-dappled ash grove it looked bizarre, almost dreamlike, and Anrel found himself staring.
Then he remembered his role and turned his attention to Valin, who was wearing a good blue frock coat, a white ruffled shirt, and soft leather breeches. “Over here,” he said. “You have your wards in place?”
“As best I know how,” Valin said. His voice was not entirely steady, but he was able to speak clearly enough.
“And protective bindings?”
“I don’t know any. I tried; there was one Lord Dorias taught me, tried to teach me, years ago, but I couldn’t remember it—” His voice rose, then broke off.
Anrel held up a hand. “Don’t let it trouble you, dear Valin.” He thought, but did not say aloud, that no binding Valin could have worked would make any real difference in any case. “Come this way.”
“I’m going to die, Anrel.” Valin’s voice was thin and unsteady.
“I sincerely hope not,” Anrel replied, wishing he could say something more reassuring. He felt slightly ill, and imagined Valin’s own terror was far worse.
He could not help wondering whether he had somehow contributed to this disaster. Could he not have somehow kept Valin away from Allutar? Might he have saved Urunar somehow? Would Valin have been so outraged and foolish if that stranger with the axe had been executed, instead of the baker’s son?
He had done what seemed best at the time at every step, yet here they were, rendering his own judgment almost as suspect as Valin’s.
Suppressing a sigh, Anrel carefully positioned Valin beneath the arching branches of two trees, very similar to the post Lord Allutar had chosen. Anrel had no conscious memories from before his parents’ deaths, but he had spent his entire life in the homes of sorcerers, or at schools that taught magic alongside the history and logic he had studied, so he knew something of how magic worked. A curve overhead would have some very slight protective value, and the trees themselves were a link to the Mother’s good earth; being centered between two trees would help keep Valin’s energies in balance.
“Stand ready,” Anrel said.
Valin nodded, and raised his hands in a warding. He spoke a word of the old Imperial tongue, and Anrel felt the air ripple.
That was good; Valin had some power at his command, anyway.
Anrel turned, and saw Lord Allutar standing in his chosen spot. His hands were not in a ward, but spread wide, palms up, ready to draw power from the sky above.
That was not good. If Allutar only meant to break Valin’s wards, he would have no need to draw down energy—surely, the landgrave knew how badly he outclassed his opponent.
But there was no turning back now. Anrel looked to the south, up at the sun.
It was approaching its zenith.
“Are you ready, Valin?” Anrel asked.
Valin nodded, unable to speak.
Anrel stepped away, moving well clear, then turned and called, “Lord Neriam.”
“The landgrave is ready, Master Murau.”
“Then when I drop my hand and say ‘begin,’ let this unfortunate business be done.”
“As you say.”
Anrel marched away from Valin, away from the two ash trees, then turned and raised his right hand above his head.
Then he let it fall and shouted, “Begin!”
Valin’s hands and lips began to move, though Anrel could hear no words and feel no effects; then Lord Allutar brought his outspread hands together before his face and spoke a single word, a word that Anrel could never have pronounced, could never remember, and could not imagine being represented in any human alphabet.
The air between the two sorcerers seemed to split in half; for an instant the whole world seemed to be doubled in Anrel’s vision, and then a thunderclap and a rush of wind slammed him backward.
He kept his eyes on Valin, though, and saw that burst of wind or energy or raw magic, whatever it was, tear Valin’s coat and shirt open, baring his chest—and then tear open the skin of his chest, as well. Blood sprayed out, and Valin crumpled, falling slowly backward from the knees.
The entire thing had taken no more than a few seconds.
Anrel screamed something, probably his friend’s name, and ran to Valin, reaching him as he hit the soft ground. Blood was spilling upward in a horribly unnatural fashion, like a sort of red mist, from a gaping split in the young sorcerer’s chest.
“Stop it!” Anrel shrieked as he ran. “Stop! He’s down! You’ve won!”
Lord Allutar lowered his hands to his sides, and stood unmoving between his two ash trees. He said nothing.
Valin was gasping for breath as Anrel knelt beside him.
“Valin,” Anrel said, “can you hear me? Can you heal this?”
Valin gasped wordlessly, his fingers clutching at air. The flow of blood from the wound had changed to a more natural form; a pool of rich red was filling in the tear in the flesh, covering up what Anrel realized were exposed bones.
“Help him!” Anrel said, looking up at the three sorcerers standing on the other side of the clearing. “Help him, please!”
“We are forbidden to interfere,” Lindred called. “Seconds can only attend their own principal.”
“Lord Allutar isn’t forbidden!” Anrel cried. “Please, you’ve won—don’t let him die! You don’t need to kill him!”
Allutar stared at him for a moment, then turned and headed back toward his coach without a word.
Anrel stared a precious few seconds in disbelief, then turned back to Valin. He pulled at the torn remains of his friend’s shirt, trying to stanch the bleeding. “Valin!” he called. “Bind it! He unbound your flesh—bind it back!”
“I . . . never was good at bindings . . .” Valin gasped, as he held up shaking hands, trying to form the gestures he needed.
“No, listen,” Anrel said, then stopped.
He had no words that would help, even if Valin heeded them. Valin was a sorcerer, and had been trained in bindings; Anrel had failed his trial and never learned a spell. He could not guide Valin.
But he raised his own hands, curled his middle fingers in, and tried to gather power from the earth, tried to channel it. He didn’t know the right words, so he spoke his own. “Close, bind, heal,” he murmured. “Be one flesh again.”
Anrel brought his hands down and together, trying to close up the ghastly wound with the magic he had denied for so long, the magic he had deliberately rejected when he was twelve, the magic that he had refused because of what had happened to his parents.
He could feel the power; he could sense it flowing through him—but it then spilled out aimlessly. He could not direct it, could not bind up Valin’s chest, could not undo what Lord Allutar had done. Blood continued to bubble up from the wound; it had filled the entire gash from end to end and was dribbling out, running down either side of Valin’s neck and trickling onto the earth, and the power Anrel summoned could not stop it.
“Cold,” Valin said, his head falling back, his left hand sagging to the side.
“No, Valin!” Anrel said. “No, no, no!” He reached down and put both hands on Valin’s chest, trying to press the wound closed; the pooled blood rose up and spilled to either side. Anrel tried to push magic into the gap, to bind up the flesh, but the power seemed to squirm and twist and slip away.
Valin’s right hand fell; he coughed, and blood seeped from his nose and mouth.
And then the flow stopped, and Anrel realized he could no longer feel a heartbeat beneath his hands. Valin’s eyes were open, but unseeing.
Anrel pulled his hands away. They were covered in blood; blood had soaked into his shirt cuffs, and one knee had Valin’s blood on it, as well, where he had knelt in the spreading pool.
He looked up.
Lord Allutar’s coach was still there, the door still open. Lord Neriam was standing by, watching Anrel; Lord Lindred was walking back toward the carriage.
“You could have saved him,” Anrel said.
Lindred paused and looked back over his shoulder.
Anrel rose from his dead friend’s side and repeated more loudly, “You could have saved him!”
“I take it Lord Valin is dead?” Neriam asked.
“You know he is!” Anrel shouted.
“Then our business here is done. Shall I have your uncle send men out to collect the remains?”
Anrel stared at him in horror, then glanced back at Valin’s corpse.
He could not answer—and there was nothing more he could do to help Lord Valin. Instead he turned and marched through the center of the grove, toward the landgrave’s coach.
Neriam and Lindred made no move to stop him, but the two footmen closed ranks, blocking the carriage door.
“Allutar!” Anrel cried. “Why did you kill him? You didn’t need to do that!”
Allutar turned in his seat and looked calmly out at Anrel. “He challenged me,” the landgrave said. “I was within my rights to use whatever means I chose to defeat him.”
“But there was no reason to kill him!”
“Of course there was,” Allutar retorted. “He was hounding me to no purpose, and he had made clear that he intended to continue hounding me, both here and in Lume. I warned you that I would not tolerate it. I asked you to restrain him. You did not—for which I do not fault you, Master Murau; I have no doubt you did your best. Lord Valin was a man of high ideals, great determination, and very little sense. The empire does not need idealistic young fools like that making impassioned speeches in the Grand Council, wasting everyone’s time and giving the peasants impossible notions. Better for everyone if he’s dead.”
“Better for him?” Anrel demanded. “For me? Do you think Lady Saria and Lord Dorias will look kindly on the man who killed his fosterling?”
“Your uncle and your cousin are sensible people, Master Murau. They will recognize that your late friend brought this on himself with his populist rantings.”
“Could you find no other way to silence him than to kill him? You didn’t need to let him lie there and bleed to death!”
“You think a mere defeat would have silenced him? That he would have been sufficiently chastised if I had torn him open, and then closed the wound back up? That I should have waited until he could fetch sorcerers here to be his seconds, so that they might have kept him alive?” Allutar shook his head. “I think you misjudge your friend. I do not believe he would have been cowed. He always knew that his magic was weak—I think that was why he fought so hard against the system that has served us so well for so long. If I merely demonstrated that I could best him in a duel of sorcery, that would convince him of nothing; if I then healed him and left him alive, do you honestly think he would not return to preaching his nonsense? If anything, I would expect him to redouble his efforts.”
“I don’t . . .” Anrel hesitated.
“He was a stubborn man, and a man of strong will,” Allutar said. “I don’t know whether you could feel it, unskilled as you are—I suppose you could not—but right to the end he was still trying to draw power from the earth, so that he might close the wound with it. He was unable to direct it, but I could sense the flow of magic from here.”
“That was . . . I—” Anrel stopped. He had assumed that he had given away his own secret, after keeping it safe for a decade, but apparently Allutar had thought Valin was the one failing to heal the wound.
Although it seemed utterly unimportant in comparison with Valin’s death, some tiny portion of Anrel’s mind realized that this was to his benefit. He would not need to explain his ability. He would not need to make up some lie about developing it late, and hope that would be accepted. No one would suspect that he had hidden his talents, such as they were, deliberately. Hiding magical ability was a crime, a serious crime. So was using that hidden skill. For anyone but an untested child or an acknowledged sorcerer to work magic, however ineptly, was witchcraft, and witchcraft carried the death penalty.
If Lord Allutar and his seconds thought that was Valin’s magic, then Anrel need not fear being hanged as a witch, nor, if he gave lying explanations that were believed, would he have to allow himself to be made a lord and a sorcerer. He could remain the commoner he had always been, untainted by power.
“Your friend fought hard to live,” Allutar said, bringing Anrel’s thoughts back to Valin’s death. “Harder than I expected. It’s a shame that such potential was so utterly wasted.”
“You wasted it!” Anrel said. “There was no need to kill him. If you had dropped your spell the instant he fell—”
“I did,” Allutar interrupted. “No, I did not immediately lower my hands, because I thought he might manage a counter, but I did nothing after the first instant of unbinding.”
“So you claim.” Anrel turned. “Lord Neriam, I say that Lord Allutar failed to cease his attack as required by the rules of the challenge. Doesn’t that make this a case of murder?”
Neriam sighed. “Lord Allutar did not continue his attack. I am a sorcerer myself, Master Murau, and I can assure you, the attack ceased instantly.”
“He killed Lord Valin needlessly! He could have won without killing him!”
“He is the landgrave of Aulix, with the power of high and low justice. If he thought lethal power was necessary to defeat the challenge, he had the right to use it.”
“The power of high and low justice over commoners, perhaps, but Lord Valin was a sorcerer . . .”
“Which means he was entitled to high justice, rather than low, but a landgrave is empowered for both.”
“Lord Valin was to be Alzur’s delegate to the Grand Council,” Anrel said. “Doesn’t that matter? The emperor’s letter forbade interference in the selection of delegates.”
“Lord Allutar did not interfere in any selection. He defended himself against a challenge. Really, Master Murau, while I understand your grief, Lord Allutar has committed no crime. You do yourself, and your friend’s memory, no service with these empty accusations.”
“He didn’t kill Valin because of any challenge,” Anrel insisted. “That was an excuse. He killed Lord Valin because Valin annoyed him. Because he thought Lord Valin’s politics were a nuisance, perhaps dangerous!”
“Lord Valin challenged Lord Allutar’s right to the office of landgrave, before witnesses,” Lord Lindred said, as he stepped past Anrel and clambered into the coach. “The reason for Lord Allutar’s ac ceptance of that challenge is irrelevant.”
Anrel glared at both Allutar’s seconds in turn, then turned back to the landgrave.
“You killed my friend to silence him,” he said. “I swear to you, Lord Allutar, that you have not silenced him. Lord Valin’s voice will be heard. His death will gain you nothing, I promise you that.”
“I would advise you, Master Murau,” Allutar said quietly, “to make no threats. Threatening the emperor’s appointed officials can be construed as treason. I have already killed two of your friends in the last several days; I would prefer not to kill again, but I will not be threatened.”
Lord Neriam climbed into the coach, blocking the door for a moment; when the way was clear and Anrel could see Lord Allutar again, he said, “Urunar Kazien was no friend of mine, and his death was no great crime, but this attempt to silence Lord Valin li-Tarbek—that was wrong, my lord. You will yet hear his voice.”
“Only necromancers can hear the voices of the dead, Master Murau, and under the enlightened laws of the Walasian Empire, necromancy is illegal.” Allutar gestured, and the coach door swung closed. “We will inform Lord Dorias where he can find his fosterling’s remains. I will not insult you by wishing you a good day, Master Murau, but I assure you, I wish you no further ill.”
With that, he rapped on the roof of the coach, and the driver shook out the reins. The two footmen jumped for the rear platform as the carriage began rolling.
Anrel stood and watched as the coach turned and headed back toward Alzur. He watched until it was a hundred yards away, almost out of sight among the trees.
Then he turned and walked back through the grove to sit with his friend’s body until the burgrave’s men arrived.