Mistress of the Empire

by Raymond E. Feist

  'Was she like this when you left for the campaign in the desert?' the First Adviser murmured to the officer who was his cousin.

  'Not then.' Lujan pushed back his helm with a smile. 'But Keyoke told me about the wild march cross-country into the territory of the Inrodaka to win the alliance of the cho-ja Queen. By his account, then she was worse.'

  'Gods save us,' Saric said, making a sign to avert misfortune. But his eyes were laughing, and his stride, like his cousin's, was springy with excitement.

  'Your curiosity will kill us all one day,' Lujan murmured. 'It's a damned lucky thing for my recruits that you gave up your warrior's sword for the mantle of an adviser.'

  Then the honor guard and litter bearers set off for the tavern where Mara would reside while in Sulan-Qu.

  18

  Evasion

  The door flap stirred.

  Jamel, the lesser-path magician, started at the sound, his sweaty hand gripped tight to the knife he held to his breast. He had only seconds to act, he knew. His body would take a while to relinquish life after he fell upon his blade. Apprehension for the agony he would suffer made the little man hesitate. He shifted his wet fingers, biting his lower lip. He must summon courage! The Black Robes had spells to command the wal to remain enfleshed. If he was not before the Red God's divine judgment by the time the magicians arrived, his torments at their hands would be worse than painful death.

  For he had defied them, blatantly, in speaking with Lady Mara of the Acoma. The magicians had been direct in their orders concerning the Good Servant. She was not to be told anything of magic, even should she come with bribes in hand to inquire.

  Feeling the pouch of metal centis against his skin, Jamel repressed a sour laugh. He would never have the chance to spend them! Much as he might wish for the time to give them into the hands of the street girl down the way who was his friend, fate would not allow him even the grace of generosity. He had chosen his path. Too late, now, to wish words unsaid and resolves undone.

  One last time, Jamel ran his gaze around the cluttered hovel that had been his home. Here he had made many marvels to delight the children of the rich; but how much different his life might have been if his powers had not been confined to the fashioning of toys! Hungry for the knowledge he had been denied, thirsty for the testing of limits that he had never been permitted to attempt, Jamel loosed a bitter sigh.

  'Gods go with you, Lady Servant,' he said fearfully. 'And may the curse of Zurgauli, God of ill Luck, permanently visit the Assembly.' So saying, he threw himself down onto the floor before the cushions where Lady Mara's officer had sat.

  The knife against his heart bit deep, and his agony, at the end, was brief.

  Blood soaked into the dry earth of the floor; the ragged edges of torn cushions showed seeping crescents of scarlet where the warm, wet flow had been dammed, then absorbed, by the fabric. Jamel's quivering, clenched fingers fell lax, and his opened eyes shone motionless in the glow of the brazier's coals. The next instant, a stir of air swept the chamber, fanning the curled ash of the parchment that had contained notes to Mara before it burned. The calley-bird feathers in the urn by the clothes chest streamed in the disturbance, and the bells of an unsold child's toy chimed their priceless song into the stillness. Outside, in the dark of the night, the mongrel dog still howled.

  Then over the rush of air came a faint buzzing, and the hovel of a sudden was not empty. Next to the cooling corpse of Jamel appeared two black-robed figures, both of them thin as misers, though one was old, and one young.

  Shimone pushed back his hood, his jutting nose outlined in red by the dying coals of the brazier. He glanced around the hovel, taking swift inventory of every item amid the clutter; he paused, and sniffed thoughtfully. His slippers were damp, and the puddle he stood in was warm. The corpse might have been just another item of bric-a-brac for all the reaction he gave. His deep eyes flashed as he glanced to his companion. 'Too late,' he said.

  Tapek shoved JamePs body with his toe, and his thin lips turned down in disdain. 'By only seconds.' He spat the words like a curse. 'If the wretch had not found his nerve for just a minute longer . . .'

  Shimone shrugged. His thinning silver hair caught light like a cock's comb as he roved the width of the hovel, tracking sticky footprints as he examined the shelves, the bins of faded scrolls, and the battered chests with more care. 'She was here. That is enough.' He reached out one finger and jingled the doll with her priceless headdress of metal bells. 'And anyway, the wretch is dead. He saved us the bother, really,'

  Tapek's heavy, cinnamon-colored brows gathered into a frown. 'Is it enough?' He stepped over the unfortunate Jamel and blocked his companion's restless pacing. 'What did the dead man tell her? That's the issue! We know Jamel broke his obedience. He could have said anything before he drove that knife through his heart!'

  The slight hiss of the coals was now the only sound in the night. The dog had stopped barking. Even the far off rumble from the dockside ceased. The commonplace noises of Sulan-Qu had quieted for an instant, as if the city held its breath.

  Shimone reached out a ringer like a twig and touched Tapek on the breast. He moved his hand. No spell arose, but as if it had, the younger magician stood aside. As Shimone moved past to continue his examination of Jamel's belongings, he said, 'You want to know what she asked? See, then. But I think we waste our time. She knows, now, what she knows. That cannot be changed, but only acted upon.'

  Tapek rolled his shoulders, clearing his wrists from his sleeves. His eyes, pale as oil, threw back the hot light like a fanatic's, indeed we will act. But it is proof of Mara's defiance of our edicts that will move the likes of Hochopepa off his enormous arse. We need consensus within the Assembly, and he and his faction work to prevent that.'

  'Hocho is not a procrastinator,' Shimone defended, his voice made faint by the fact that he had stooped to peer into the dusty cranny under a shelf.

  'Well,' Tapek said hastily, for he was not deaf to subtle chastisement, 'what lesser-path mage would not speak to Mara? She is revered by commoners. They would give her anything she asked, just to win grace in the eyes of the gods. If she corrupted Jamel, what more proof would Hochopepa and you need to condemn her to death?'

  Shimone straightened, absently dusting blood and dirt from his sleeve cuffs. 'Jamel was hardly such a fool. You will see.'

  'I will see!' Insistently Tapek raised his hands. He flashed a last glare at his colleague, whose behavior had been difficult, if not obstructive. While a long-time friend of Hochopepa's, Shimone had always seemed reasonable. 'You will see,' Tapek added. Then he began to murmur the incantation to summon back in spectral form the actions of the immediate past.

  Cold seemed to weave through the close atmosphere of the hovel, though the air itself remained still. Shimone stopped his inquisitive poking through the objects on the shelves. He thoughtfully bent and closed the eyes of the corpse. Then, bright in movement as a bird, he stood back against the wall with folded arms to observe the result of Tapek's spell.

  The younger magician's incantation drew to a sibilant close. His raised hands held steady as if to focus his will and powers. Light glowed beyond the brazier that was not cast by fire or coal. It brightened to an icy silver-blue, then spread into a hazy translucence that slowly sharpened in outline to show the form of Jamel seated, his face turned expectantly toward the door flap. Moments later, visitors entered: Mara and her two officers. Conversation began between the parties, eerily soundless. Shimone seemed as attentive to the noises outside, in the poor quarter, as to the unfolding of Tapek's truth spell.

  Lipreading showed the contents of the discussion to be petty: Mara's concern centered on the estrangement of her husband, which had begun months back at the birth of her daughter. An innocent enough tableau; except that Jamel began, most irritatingly for the magicians assigned to this inquiry, to fuss and toy with a length of silk. Conveniently often, it seemed, the cloth obscured sight of his mouth. By the ripple of the silk caused by
his breath, it was evident that he hid speech. But no spell of past recall could recover the sound of his words. The imprint of light striking objects in the room could be summoned back into coherent form, to be read for many days after, but sound was too fragile to endure more than seconds.

  Tapek swore. Fixed as a relli, lie watched as Jamel arose and conducted Mara toward the wall. There they turned their backs to the room, and to appearances, the lesser-path mage proceeded in all seriousness to instruct the Lady in just the sort of fakery - passes in the air with his hands, motions that meant nothing but were intended to impress the ignorant folk who came calling to buy this or that change in their miserable lives — that demeaned the reputation of magicians as a whole, and that Tapek scorned. His hands shook with anger as he maintained the forces that drove his spell, and he said acidly, 'The Lady seems remarkably stupid, all of a sudden. Is this the fourth repetition of this rubbish, or the fifth?'

  To his fury, Shimone appeared to be laughing - not outright, that was never his way, but his deep eyes seemed dancing with light. 'I warned you, Tapek. Jamel was not an idiot. And the Lady is certainly not stupid.'

  The veiled disapproval in his colleague's tone renewed Tapek's frustration. Still, out of determination and pique he endured the specters' charades, until Jamel finished tracing meaningless symbols and resorted to scribbling on a parchment, hunched over it to conceal the writing. Since the spell only recalled the imprint of past events as if the observer were standing in the room, no matter where Tapek moved, Jamel's writing could not be read. Tapek glared at the brazier, only to realise that Shimone had spied the ashes of the burned parchment already, probably soon after their entry into Jamel's abode.

  'Indeed,' observed the older magician in answer to Tapek's thought, 'the words were lost before we ever arrived.'

  Tapek released his spell the instant that Mara received the carefully folded parchment and took her leave. Unmindful of blood-wet earth or sodden cushions, Tapek stamped in leashed temper around the brazier, every inch of him tense. 'Gods, but if only I could stand where that wall is, and recast my truth spell, I'd learn much, for you could see by their stances that the Lady and our dead man spoke openly when facing the shelves!'

  Shimone, ever the realist, shrugged. 'We're wasting time.'

  Tapek rounded on his colleague, who stood now like an elderly Lord impatiently suffering the slowness of an inept servant. 'Mara!' Tapek exclaimed. 'We shall ask her!'

  As if released from thought into action, Shimone stalked toward the door. He twitched aside the flap of hide and stepped through into the hardly less cloying stink of the alley, saying, 'I wondered when you'd finally think of that.'

  Leaving the corpse of Jamel where it lay, Tapek barged through on the heels of his companion. His red brows jutted in a thunderous frown. If he had dared to speak freely upon the subject, he would have accused Shimone of obstructing him. The old mage was a companion of Hochopepa, and the two of them often championed strange causes. Together, had they not defended Milamber after that disastrous scene at the Imperial Games? It mattered little to Tapek that Milamber had later proven his worth to the Empire by warning the Emperor and the Assembly of the danger the Enemy presented. His feelings regarding Elgohar, the magician who had imprisoned Hochopepa and tortured Milamber, were mixed; Elgohar had been mad, of course, but he had done as he had thought best for the Empire. But Milamber had destroyed him, and along with his other outrages, had demonstrated the risks brought by radical departures from tradition. Tapek was convinced Mara's recent actions were, if not proof, then a strong indication she plotted to defy the Assembly. And that was an affront to tradition that made the pale magician tremble with ire.

  Deep in outraged speculation, Tapek all but ran into Shimone, who had stopped in the street, and to all appearances was listening to the wind.

  'Which way are you going to look?' Shimone inquired.

  Tapek's scowl deepened. It demeaned him to act the part of underling, but if he did not summon another spell to recall the past, and left that bit of business to Shimone, plainly the old fellow would meander through the process and contrive to waste half of the night!

  There followed several frustrating hours, while Tapek, worn by the effort of sustaining the spell, conjured the phantom image of Mara and her two officers. These, her First Adviser and another wearing the plumes of Acoma Force Commander, escorted their Lady on a meandering ramble through the back streets of the poor quarter. Their path circled, even doubled back! Tapek fumed. Dogged as the possessed, he followed. And was forced to wait, while the Lady paid a business call upon a cloth merchant. Money changed hands. A package, sealed and wrapped, was passed to her adviser. Then the parade began afresh. At last the Lady returned to the square where her attendants and escort awaited. She got in her litter. To his annoyance, Tapek realised that the town watch called out the hour of three o'clock! Even fat old Hochopepa, he decided, would have wasted less time than the confounded Servant of the Empire.

  The spectral image of Lujan paused, reached up to adjust his helm. The set of the feathers seemed not to suit him, and he twisted them this way and that, his wrist obscuring his face while he gave elaborate instructions to the Strike Leader in command of his mistress's honor guard. Then, at long last, the ghostly, ice-pale replica of the litter rose in the grip of its spectral bearers. The cortege floated on across the darkened streets of Sulan-Qu, with Lujan and the First Adviser taking the wrapped package upon an unspecified errand, their lips moving in a crossfire exchange of doggerel whose content was obscene.

  Shimone, in his maddening, obtuse way, was chuckling over the humor, which was straight from the gutter. He almost seemed reluctant to pursue Mara's litter, which, thought Tapek, steaming, was what they had been sent from the City to do in the first place!

  Several times Tapek had to refocus his concentration, as he pursued the phantom image. On the wide boulevards, the surrounding buildings and the busy streets gave back muddled images overlaid with hundreds of others. It took great energy of the mind to track the chosen party. Only because the few people still about in the early hours before dawn immediately gave way to the Black Robes, could Tapek keep the illusion of Mara's litter in sight. And she was taking the most damnable rambling course. Tapek was nearly exhausted when the spell led at last to the steps of the Temple of Turakamu. There, the phantom figures and the litter they carried merged outlines as past converged with present and Mara's slaves lowered their burden to the ground. Tapek waved his hands and dispersed his spell. The blue glow faded, showing Mara's litter parked on the pavement, empty. He blinked, to dispel the fatigue that slowed the adjustment of his vision. Mara's guard and servants were gone, presumably to take their ease in some tavern while their mistress attended business within. The stars overhead had begun to pale with false dawn, and Tapek was in a sore mood from stubbing his toes on the cobbles. He scared the wits out of the slave who was sweeping the Red God's front stair, and sent the wretch scurrying for the High Priest. A Great One was free to move as he chose,' but even magicians observed tradition. By custom, no one entered a temple without permission.

  Shimone was silent throughout.

  Thankfully, the wait was brief. The High Priest of the Death God was robed, still, from his visit with Mara. 'How may I serve you, Great Ones?' His bow was formal, precise in degree of deference for one of his exalted rank.

  Tapek reined back his annoyance. 'We seek the Lady Mara for questioning.'

  The priest straightened up with an expression of consternation. 'That is regrettable, Great One. The Lady arrived here not long ago, troubled in spirit over personal matters. She took counsel from me, but was not consoled. By her wish, she retired into the inner sanctum of Turakamu's temple. She has gone into seclusion, Great Ones, for meditation and peace. It is to be hoped that my god will inspire her to overcome her difficulties.'

  Tapek felt enraged enough to yank out his hair, but settled for tossing his hood back from his head. 'How long will she be? We shall w
ait.'

  The priest trembled, perhaps with apprehension, though his eyes seemed supremely untroubled as he replied. 'I am sorry. I much doubt Lady Mara will be coming out this night, nor any night in the near future. She left instructions with her bearers to remove her litter to her Sulan-Qu estate in the morning, for she would stay in seclusion for some time. Weeks at the least, perhaps months.'

  'Months!' Tapek shifted from foot to foot, then directed a glare at the priest. 'Months!' he exclaimed again, his voice echoing down the empty square. The Black Robe continued his tirade with venom. 'I hardly believe that so contrary a woman as Lady Mara would be concerned for her spiritual state at this advanced hour!'

  The priest tugged his robes around himself as if gathering his divinely bestowed dignity. 'Great One, a mortal may be concerned for the state of her soul at any time,' he corrected gently, then folded his hands in a beatific attitude.

  Tapek surged forward as though he would storm up the stair and violate the peace of the temple precinct. But Shimone shot out a hand and restrained him.

  'Think,' said the older magician, his tone snapping. 'The sanctity of the temples extends back thousands of years. Why break such a time-honored tradition as sanctuary, Tapek? Mara must come out sometime. And if she does not, our ends are met, not so?'

  The fire-haired magician looked as if he had bitten into sour fruit. 'You and Hochopepa and Fumita are fools to seek to protect her!' he said in a furious whisper that only his colleague might hear. 'She is dangerous!'

  'As dangerous as a public confrontation between the Assembly and the temples?' asked Shimone, his voice menacing.

  Tapek seemed to cool slightly. 'You are right. She is not worth making into a public issue.'

  Shimone nodded, silent, but satisfied. A faint buzzing had begun upon the air, and by the time the priest realised the confrontation was over, the two Black Robes had vanished in an inrush of breeze and the lingering echo of Tapek's anger.