At about the midpoint of the bridge, he noticed a group of men following him. They were dressed no different from any of the other pilgrims, wearing workday trousers, shirts and tunics, but they were all big, with harsh expressions, and no disguise could conceal the ingrained swagger of the Viceroy's Personal Guard. Then, twenty paces ahead of him, another trio of imperial thugs separated from the crowd to block his path.
Mar was not wearing his brigandine, just the merchant's costume that he had appropriated, but he did have on solid boots and could have flown out of danger, but decided to go for the river instead, thus avoiding a potentially calamitous public display of magic.
When he heard rushing footsteps behind him, he bolted for the side of the bridge.
Almost at the same instant, one of the adolescents darted forward into his path and the collision sent both he and the girl sprawling.
Before he could scramble to his feet, something heavy and solid impacted the back of his skull.
FORTY-THREE
Wrapped in complete darkness, Mar woke feeling as if several someones in hobnailed boots had jumped up and down on him. Repeatedly and enthusiastically.
Though the realization did nothing to improve his situation, it was now embarrassingly apparent that he had been stupid to believe that a simple change of clothing would provide a disguise sufficient to fool the Guard's legion of snitches.
Hanging painfully by his wrists in what felt like steel manacles, he was suspended against a cold, wet wall of granite or similar rough stone. By extending his toes -- those same someones had also appropriated his boots, trousers, shirt, and jacket, leaving him only his smallclothes -- he could touch a slime-smeared floor, also stone. He pressed down with the toes of both feet and managed to gain some relief by taking a small amount of his weight off his wrists, and then studied the ether.
Within the range of his magical sense, he detected nothing with the sound-colors that he had learned to associate with living things. He identified the tweeting-mud of the thick stone blocks that made up his cell and the purging-ebony of the aged oak of its narrow door, but nothing else.
To be this dark, he must be underground. He could be under one of the river fortresses, but more likely the Imperials had tossed him in the deep dungeons that were commonly known to exist beneath the House of Justice. It was impossible to be sure. He had never spoken to anyone who had been in the dungeons and lived to tell about it.
If the Imperials had intended simply to kill him, they would have cut his throat and tossed him off the bridge. Clearly, they had some special punishment in store for him, some grand exhibition designed to play to the vanity of someone with influence and power.
Unluckily for that individual, Mar intended to deprive him of his opportunity for entertainment; he was not going to hang around to find out the nature of that special punishment. Once he figured a way to get out of the manacles, the door should not be much of a problem. After that, he would have to improvise.
He studied the stone and mortar above his head, delving into the wall to discover the depth and configuration of the shank of the iron ring to which he was shackled. As far as he could tell, the shank went half an armlength into the wall, with an x-shaped anchor at its end. He doubted that he could do much with the iron, but the stone that fixed it in place should move if he applied sufficient flux. However, the wall seemed more than solid and the amount of outward impetus needed to move the blocks holding the ring's shank might also bring it all down on his head.
Pondering the problem, he sensed the four men approaching his cell in the either long before the weak light of their single lantern snuck around the door.
Listening both with his ears and his magical sense, he followed their heavy tread along the corridor. They stopped in front of his door and one of them inserted a key in the lock, then turned it with a rough, rusty sound.
"All of you ready?" a voice muffled by the door asked.
"Yeah."
"Open it. He won't be any trouble for the four of us."
The fourth man must have just nodded.
The door did not fit its frame well, and the man with the key had to skid it with his hip, the bottom loudly scraping the floor. That man held the lantern as well, and when he sauntered inside, its light showed a three pace square, featureless chamber with a vaulted ceiling. The lantern bearer, who also carried a stool, advanced to face Mar while his fellows spread out in a semi-circle behind him. All were wearing the tabards of the Viceroy's Personal Guard and all were in chainmail over leather padding, wool trousers, and boots. The three behind carried armlength long wooden cudgels bound in brass, but no edged weapons. All four appeared to have been cut from the same pattern: tall, broad, scarred, and cruel.
"You give us any trouble," the first guardsman, with a gleeful grin, told Mar, "and we'll break every bone in your body."
Without waiting for an acknowledgement, the Imperial set down his stool to Mar's left, climbed up on it, grabbed the thief's wrist and unlocked the cuff of the manacle. When the jailor released wrist and manacle, the chain to the other cuff rattled through the ring and dropped Mar's feet to the floor.
In quick succession, Mar did four things. First, he kicked out left to knock over the stool, toppling the first guard and causing him to fall heavily. Second, he enchanted the armor of the other three and smashed all of them against the walls with enough force to knock out their wind and, with any luck, break bones. Third, he twisted to whip the unlocked manacle at the end of the chain across of the face of the first guardsman, who, yelling at the top of his lungs, was trying to get to his feet. Fourth, he sprinted out the door.
Never slowing, he followed the corridor in the direction that his guards had come, running as if death itself -- a high probability -- was on his heels. The corridor made a left turn, passed rows of closed cell doors, then made a right turn into a short corridor lit with lanterns. At the end of this, stairs led upward. Leaping up the steps three at a time, he saw a closed door ahead of him and enchanted it without missing a stride. The door swelled outward and then burst with a great rending crack, hurling a cloud of deadly splinters through the guardroom beyond. Hurdling bleeding, screaming Imperials, he dealt with the door sealing the exit in the same fashion and ran through it, taking in the complete scene beyond in one quick look.
The chamber was a large, circular hall with a glorious frescoed dome three manheight above. Casting slightly blued shadows, a row of circular windows set into the dome admitted light. Below the windows, delicate marble columns supported galleries trimmed with pastel woods and gold leaf. Though perhaps originally intended for spectators, the galleries were empty. In the shadows of the galleries, imperial guardsmen armed with shortswords and wearing fine ceremonial livery stood at equidistant points. To the left a wide, semi-circular platform raised about half an armlength above the rest of the mosaic floor supported three tower-backed chairs-of-state and a long table curved to match the arc of the platform. On the chairs sat three elderly men wearing the ostentatious crimson robes of Imperial Magistrates. To the right, a row of varnished pews accommodated a dozen odd scribes and factors, probably observers for various Patriarchs. A few functionaries and clerks stood about as well. There were several other exits from the courtroom, but the open arch to the rear, Mar's right, looked the most promising.
The explosion of the guard door had ignited an immediate uproar and sewn general confusion and Mar raced ahead, vaulting over the tops of the pews as he angled for the rear archway. The scribes and factors in his path scattered.
Mar did not see or sense the crossbow bolt that pierced his calf. As its momentum carried it on, the steel point at the end of the armlength shaft smashed into the wood of the pew and lodged, pinning him in place. Thrown down by the sudden lurch, he stopped half across the pew's back. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he immediately enchanted the pew, ordering it to rise, but it did not budge. Cursing, he redoubled his efforts, trying to wrench free the anchors that bound it to the flo
or.
Another bolt slammed into the pew next to him and he twisted about to find one of the armsmen from the guardroom, blood oozing from punctures on his right cheek, franticly winding the hand crank to re-cock his weapon.
Mar flooded the crossbow with a rapid overcharge of flux and it shattered, the blast knocking the crossbowman to the floor.
Somewhere, a quavering voice began screeching orders.
Desperately, Mar laid a hand to the blood slick shaft protruding from his calf and tried to pull it free, but the barb had penetrated all the way through the fingerlength-thick boards of the pew and it would not come backwards through the hole. Before he could enchant the shaft, several swordsmen rushed at him, and he had to concentrate fully to enchant all of the leather of their armor in order to throw them back. He only managed to sail these first attackers halfway across the room before another bunch closed and he had to repeat the process.
As the Imperials milled about while attempting to regroup, he enchanted every weapon that he could see, using the wood of the stocks of crossbows and the leather straps on the grips of the swords, and ripped them from the guardsmen's hands. He made the weapons take flight and eject themselves through the windows of the dome, bringing down a shower of glass that made his opponents dive for cover.
A moment of dizziness almost made Mar swoon, and the next wave of attackers gained to within an armlength before he was able to push them away. He kept the Imperials at bay for some time, but his thoughts began to grow fuzzy and his strength to fade, a toll of the combination of the severe beating that he had endured and the loss of blood from his newest wound.
As his body grew weaker, so did his control of the ether, and when five advanced upon him from different directions, urged on by shouts and curses, he was unable to catch them all. One slipped through his ethereal shield and struck him a stunning blow to the head, and he lost control of the others who immediately closed to grab hold of him. The grunting, cursing, hoarsely breathing, and enraged men took to punching and kicking him and only stopped when a fugleman commanded, "Bring that scum before the judges!"
The armsmen wrapped him in heavy chains, binding his arms and legs and weighing him down. One of them fetched an axe to hack through the crossbow bolt to free him, leaving the remains of the shaft in his leg, and the gang dragged him roughly across the floor to a spot in front of the dais.
The chief magistrate poked his head up from behind his overturned chair. When he was sure that it was safe, he stood, straightening his robe with shaking hands, and advanced to the edge of the platform to confront Mar.
"What manner of man are you?" he demanded in a small, reedy voice. "What evil sorcery has given you these despicable powers?"
Mar, eyes swollen shut and jaw dislocated, did not deign to respond.
The magistrate rolled his lips in disgust and turned to a disheveled and wide-eyed clerk, just emerging tentatively from a side passage. "Who is this fiend?"
"He is Mar, the thief, Chief Magistrate Khaiboyndt. He was next on the docket for today. The complainant is Patriarch Hwraldek of Korhthenr"
"Ah." Frowning, Khaiboyndt surveyed the disorder of his court, the wounded guardsmen, and the blood trail that Mar had left across the floor. "There is no need for presentation of evidence. It should be clear to all that his guilt is self-evident."
The magistrate gestured impatiently. "Make the criminal to stand."
Unable to summon even the smallest bit of energy to affect the ether, Mar could offer no resistance as four of the armsmen raised him upright.
"Mar, degenerate thief and godsless wielder of the corruption of magic, you are condemned," Khaiboyndt pronounced. "For the crime of the unlawful entry into the dwelling of august and sacred personages and the subsequent villainous burglary of same, we hereby sentence you to death. You shall be crucified in the Imperial manner. For the vile and sacrilegious crime of sorcery most foul, demonstrated with frightful potency here in this very court on this very day, we hereby sentence you to cleansing fire, such that no spark of your evil shall remain to taint our blessed city. Further, I decree that the dust of your mortal remains shall be scattered in the great river and thus carried away from Khalar forever. These sentences shall be carried out concurrently and immediately. Take him away."
The guardsmen hauled Mar hurriedly from the chamber, through an adjoining hall, and out a small door to a courtyard fully enclosed with high walls. Khaiboyndt and the other two magistrates, as well as the majority of the observers, clerks, court officials, and armsmen, followed.
In the center of the court, two tall black stone pillars stood a manheight apart. A beam hoist on a turntable sat nearby, with a crossbar attached to it by a hook and chain.
While those following spread out to watch, one of the Mar's bearers asked the others, "How are we going to fasten his hands to the crossbar with his arms pinned?"
"We'd best not take off the chains. We'll just hang the chains on the crossbar and not worry about the nails," another said. "The fire will do him in quick enough."
In short order, the guardsman fastened Mar to the crossbar, raised it to the notches, and dropped it in place to leave him hanging an armlength from the pavement.
Wood was brought and piled up at the base of the columns almost to the soles of Mar's feet. This was doused liberally with oil and then, to a resounding and drawn-out hurrah from the Khalarii onlookers, a torch savagely applied.
When the flames rose and seared the bare flesh of his feet and legs, Mar screamed.
FORTY-FOUR
1626 After the Founding of the Empire
"I want to go back," Telriy told her grandmother.
It was a nice, warm autumn day, with a clear sky and a gentle breeze, and Gran had dragged their table outside the back door of the hut to wash the breakfast dishes. The old woman had spent quite a few days (and a lot of mumbled cursing, groaning, and haveasits) paving the small patio with slate that she had dug up and lugged down from further up the hill. Any spilled water would run off down a gutter instead of turning the loamy clay of their small bit of hillside into slimy mud, and Gran washed dishes and clothes outside whenever the weather permitted.
Gran rinsed a bowl in a bucket of sun-warmed water and handed it to the girl to dry. "Go back where, child?"
At seven years old, Telriy still had to stand on a stool to be able to reach above the table. She took the bowl with great care, dried it with her dishtowel precisely and exactingly, and then stacked it on the table with the two others. They only had three bowls, which meant that they had to wash dishes after each meal. "To before we were alone."
Gran made a rude, grumbling noise as she began to scrub their one skillet. "You'd have to be a wizard to do that."
"What's a wizard, Gran?"
"A wizard's a master of time and space, girl. Hasn' been none for so long that nobody knows what they were, anymore. Except, of course, us that have saved a bit of magic from the time before."
"What does that mean, Gran?"
"What part?"
"Master of time and space."
"Oh, that just means that they can go anywhere and anytime, just as they please. Wasn' very many, even when magic was as common a trade as farmin'. Took a strong magic to survive being outside of the world."
"What kind of magic, Gran?"
"Powerful strong magic, girl. Enough time wasted on silly questions. We've still got to muck out the goat shed."
FORTY-FIVE
142nd Year of the Reign of the City
(Fourteenthday, Waning, 1st Autumnmoon, 1644 After the Founding of the Empire)
Above Gealkaei, capital of the Princedom of Gealollh
The launch bumped the side of the tallest tower of the Palace of Geal and the two liveried sailors standing ready at bow and stern caught at the merlons to hold it steady.
"You are getting much better, Mother Heldhaen," Ghorn complimented. "There were only a few bobbles that time."
The old woman grinned. "Had to get the right
application of the medicinal elixir, that's all. Four cups, no more, no less."
As wine and other spirits were forbidden on warships of the Principate by longstanding decree, Ghorn had declared his pilot's special ration to be "medicinal elixir for magical purposes."
A strong western wind had brought them to Gealollh in only four days. Its rugged land producing little but wines and olive oil, it was the westernmost and the smallest of the Sister Cities and lay a good distance inland from its short stretch of rocky coast. The small Princedom had no navy to speak of and hardly enough armsmen to guard its own amorphous borders. Her elevated status in the Principate, inconsistent with her size and prowess, was almost entirely due to the randiness of one of Ghorn's ancestors. Taking a liking to a comely sister of one of the current prince's grandmothers at a diplomatic ball, the fellow had pursued his natural inclination. Negotiations over recompense for the scandal and care for the unsanctioned offspring had insured that the small domain would become a signatory to the Treaty of Plyyst, the foundational document of the Principate.
Ghorn waited until his ceremonial guard -- Fugleman Hraval and two quads of marines, all in polished armor overlain with the new sea blue tabards sporting the device of the blood red crown -- disembarked, slipping agilely through embrasures, and took station in parallel rows leading up to the waiting Gealollhaerii dignitaries, who, by their looks, were mostly upper level palace bureaucrats. When his men were in position and all braced stiffly to attention, he crossed over to the tower and marched at a sedate pace up the aisle they formed to the greeting party.
One of the group was an officer in the colors of Gealollh. He came to attention and saluted. "Prince-Commander Ghorn, I am Thorhaein, Commander of the Royal Cavaliers of Gealollh."
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