The Outstretched Shadow

by Mercedes Lackey

  Once they had allowed farmers and traders to enter the City itself, but that course of action had proven … unwise. Now City buyers went out and brought the produce into the City, where it was kept fresh and vermin-free under spells of containment until the Merchants and Provenders Council was ready to release it to the City markets. Under their guidance—advised by the Mage Council, of course—all ran smoothly, with neither glut nor famine to disturb the steady workings of the City. Only a few choice items were permitted to enter the markets directly from the fields, to create an illusion of scarcity and a kind of aura of festival—the first crop of early-summer strawberries for instance, and Spring Beer. Such occasions were necessary to give the populace something to look forward to. Gorging on strawberries once a year was hardly harmful, and allowed the masses a chance to feel that they were indulging themselves. Indulgence bred content, and a content population was a quiet one.

  As for the traders …

  They traded now in Nerendale, the closest of the farming villages, less than a day’s ride from the City gates, offering goods to a Journeyman-Undermage who acted as broker. Those that were on the Approved List—or which Armethalieh’s broker thought might be approved—were sent on into the City.

  It was much tidier.

  Lycaelon settled himself in his chair again and reached for his jade teacup, then drew back his hand when he realized the cup had grown stone cold. It would be the work of an instant to summon enough Magefire to warm it, but reheated tea was an abomination. Better to send servants to the kitchens for fresh.

  He was reaching for the bell-pull when the door to his office opened, and his confidential secretary, Chired Anigrel, entered. Anigrel was as fair as Lycaelon was dark, and many decades younger than his master, but both men bore the unmistakable stamp of Mage breeding: the narrow saturnine features, high forehead, and slender, long-boned build that set them apart from ordinary men. Anigrel wore the dark grey robes of a Journeyman-Undermage; in a few years, he would be a Master Undermage, released from mundane tasks such as this and on his way to the years of study that would lead to full Magehood. But for now he served and learned.

  But given his somewhat elevated position as Lycaelon’s assistant and tutor to Kellen, Anigrel was permitted something other than plain grey robes. Although he was not allowed any variation in color, his robes were made of somewhat finer materials than most, and were tastefully ornamented with cursive grey embroidery. It did not suit Lycaelon to have his personal aide taken for an ordinary Journeyman; not when Anigrel carried his master’s word and prestige. It had only taken a single instance of Anigrel wasting half the day cooling his heels in some officious little noble’s hall instead of discharging his errand and returning to his duties before Lycaelon had ordered the change in wardrobe.

  “Master,” Anigrel said, folding his hands and bowing his head submissively.

  “There is a problem?” Lycaelon asked, attempting to mask his irritation. Anigrel knew better than to interrupt him with trifles.

  “A … small problem. But one that can be handled by no one else, Arch-Mage.”

  Lycaelon sat back in his chair, sighing. He trusted Anigrel’s judgment—or else the man would not have long survived in his current post—but he loathed being interrupted.

  “You may continue,” he said grudgingly.

  “A merchant family has lodged a complaint—of sorcery within their home,” Anigrel said reluctantly.

  Lycaelon leaned forward. “Sorcery? Uncontrolled Magery? Piffle! More likely their cook has been using the wrong sort of mushrooms in the stew—and if it is sorcery, any trained Undermage could deal with it. You could deal with it!” He glared at the secretary.

  Anigrel cleared his throat nervously. “Forgive me, my lord Arch-Mage, for not making myself entirely clear. The family involved is the Tasoaire family. Apparently this … sorcery … has been going on for some days. They are quite distracted, if I may say so.”

  He hummed under his breath for a moment, then added, reluctantly, “Actually, things are at a bad pass with them, by the report they have given us. It is my opinion that it should be … dealt with, immediately. They are not of exalted status by birth, but they are … influential.”

  And very, very rich. Lycaelon added what Anigrel was too tactful to mention aloud. The Tasoaires were one of the wealthy trading families who controlled much of Armethalieh’s material wealth, and paid a great deal in taxes for the privilege. Whatever the true nature of their problem, they were important enough to need their feelings soothed by having no less a personage than the Arch-Mage himself deal with their problem, whatever it was.

  He focused his attention on Anigrel again. “Very well. You were quite right to come to me with this. I will go to see them. And now you may stop quaking in your slippers and tell me what else you know about this problem, the part you are certain I will very much dislike.”

  Anigrel swallowed hard. “Naturally we did a preliminary investigation of the complaint—without bringing it to the attention of the family, of course. There does seem to be some actual cause for alarm. And the focus of the disturbance seems to be the, ah, daughter of the house …”

  A scant quarter-chime later, Lycaelon Tavadon strode down the main thoroughfare of Armethalieh, his heavily embroidered black-on-silver Arch-Mage robes belling behind him with the force of his passage, and the wide-brimmed, pointed hat that matched them held on to his head by a clever cantrip. The afternoon sunlight flashed off the bright ornament at the tip of his Staff of Office, its gold-and-crystal finial meant to depict the Unbounded Light in all its glory. He could certainly have taken his carriage, or a sedan chair, or even a horse, but he knew he needed the walk to clear his head and calm his feelings, or else he’d risk blasting the entire family to ashes where they stood, and wouldn’t that set the merchant families fluttering like chickens with the fox among them! Not so easy to deal with at the next Trade Council meeting, half of which seemed to be spent soothing ruffled feathers and smoothing over imagined slights at the best of times.

  The crowd parted before him, giving him a wide berth even without the need for his retainers to clear the way. In fact, people pressed back against the walls as he passed, their faces blank, transfixed with awe and a little fear. They might not know one Mage from another, usually, but everyone knew what his staff of office looked like, and knew by extension who the bearer must be. Their deference soothed him, but only a little. Anigrel was right, he could not delegate this particular task, much as he would like to: Arch-Magisterial oil was needed to calm these waters.

  But …

  A girl! A puling insignificant maggot of a female, Tradeborn to boot, working magick, or trying to. Of course it had gone wrong! And now he must come in and deal with it, and calm their superstitious fears—for as Anigrel had reminded him several times, the Tasoaires were the wealthiest of the merchant families, terrified beyond reason by this firebird in a hen’s nest, and fear could quickly turn to anger …

  Anger was the bane of every Mage, from the lowliest Student to the Arch-Mage himself. No one, not even a street-sweeper, much less a wealthy merchant, should ever look upon the works of a Mage with anything other than the deepest and most profound gratitude, a gratitude all-important and all-encompassing. The City could not survive without that gratitude, though the citizens knew it not.

  These idiot Tradeborn fools—they would never, ever guess what the Arch-Mage had saved them from, besides their folly, that is, when he finished with this mess. For there was a worse thing that the girl could become if she continued down the path she was on; something so dreadful he dared not even hint at it to anyone outside the most trusted of the Mageborn.

  There were times when he wished devoutly to sink every female in the world to the bottom of the Selken Sea. Only a female could create such havoc with so little effort!

  So. He took a deep breath, and another, willing himself to be calm in the face of this mortal insult to his Art. No one would see his inner feelings. He
went to pacify, not to frighten. We all serve the City, each doing his part in service to Armethalieh the Golden.

  Although sometimes only the Light can see how!

  HE would easily have found the Tasoaire home even without the uniformed servant who was waiting at the nearest cross-street to lead him to it. The man was wearing a livery more suited to a captaincy in one of Armethalieh’s little-used cavalry regiments than to a footman of a proper merchant family, but the Tasoaires had done more than well for themselves, and were not averse to letting the world know it. Wealth had long since outstripped good taste, and though the Tasoaires were not so blind to all good sense and common decency to think of moving out of the Merchants’ Quarter, they had certainly let their good fortune seduce them into making such extensive changes to what had once been a modest and sensible home that Lycaelon could almost have imagined for a moment that it was one of the mansions of the Mage aristocracy, grotesquely distorted and crammed into a space far too small for it.

  As Lycaelon followed the man to his destination, he kept his face from showing the disdain he felt. The house stood out from its fellows in a way that was almost—Lycaelon’s lip curled—foreign. Honest timber and stone had been replaced with golden marble that would not have been out of place in Lycaelon’s own courtyard (and so was very much out of place here), and instead of the neat stone walls and colorful glazed pots filled with seasonal flowers that graced the forecourts of other merchant houses, the Tasoaire home was enclosed by a fanciful iron gate with gilded accents behind which a fountain—small, but still far too large for the space it occupied, and covered with vulgar imported colored tiles besides—sprayed jets of water into the sky. Anyone approaching their door, tradesman or guest, was sure to receive a soaking, regardless of the weather.

  But “anyone” was not the Arch-Mage Lycaelon Tavadon. He paused for a moment before the gates, and concentrated on a simple Binding Spell, drawing on the stored power in the Talisman around his neck and one of the many simple cantrips he had memorized years before. There was a stuttering sound from deep beneath the earth, and the arcing jets of water drooped and died.

  The servant stared up at him, wide-eyed and anxious. Lycaelon allowed himself a thin smile. Let them all wonder—or, if they thought about it at all, perhaps they would blame the fountain’s sudden failure on the madness they were harboring within their own walls. The madness he had come to end, and the sooner, the better.

  Straightening his robes, Lycaelon tapped the butt of his staff meaningfully on the paving. The servant stopped staring and scurried to open the gate. The Arch-Mage’s escort peeled off to stand at strict attention on either side of the gate, while the Arch-Mage entered.

  Before Lycaelon had taken three steps up the walk, the door of the house was swinging open at the hand of an even more ornately uniformed personage than the footman who had guided him to the house. Correctly identifying this apparition as the Tasoaires’ butler, Lycaelon surrendered his cloak, hat, gauntlets, and staff. He imagined the servant looked embarrassed to be seen in such an outfit—as well he ought, in such a hideously indecent household! Wealth, like power, belonged only in those hands suited to wield it properly.

  It occurred to Lycaelon that perhaps something could be done about the Tasoaires’ improper good fortune. Some gradual readjustment of their affairs—for the good of the City, of course. He would look into it once he got back to the Council House. But at the moment, he had a more immediate problem to solve …

  “I am expected,” he announced austerely.

  “Of course, Lord Arch-Mage. If you will accompany me?”

  Lycaelon followed the butler into the house, amusing himself by attempting to discern the bones of the original building beneath the veneer of its clownish makeover. It was like walking through a jackdaw’s nest—there was no regard for taste and balance, only for vulgarity and expensive display. And he was certain that at least a few of these items had made it off the Selken ships without the Council’s imprimatur.

  He was also interested to note that there seemed to be gaps—prominent, but irregular—in the overabundance of tawdry ornament, as if broken items had been hastily removed and the survivors had not yet been rearranged to hide the absence. Apparently the girl had indeed broken most of what was breakable in the Tasoaire household, for which he held himself much in her debt.

  But to Lycaelon’s faint disappointment, the room to which he was led seemed to have suffered the least from the Tasoaires’ new wealth. The heart-room of the house still displayed its timber and plaster walls unchanged, and the large tiled fireplaces at each end of the room were lovely and tasteful examples of merchant-class craftsmanship. Small-paned windows, open to the unusually warm spring day, showed glimpses of a small back garden that was very much as it ought to be. Carved oak settles, their wood honey-dark with years of beeswax polishing, flanked each hearth, and there was a small writing desk under one window, angled to catch the natural light. There was a sideboard on the wall facing the windows, and Lycaelon was interested to see that where he would have expected to see fiery cut-crystal, he saw instead a pewter jug and a collection of mismatched pewter cups, badly dented but polished to a satiny gleam.

  But the seemly and modest effect was spoiled by an enormous gilded chair with a scarlet velvet cushion that squatted in the middle of the room, obviously carried in for his benefit, with a painted and gilded table beside it that was undoubtedly more suitable to a whorehouse than a merchant’s townhouse.

  The two people awaiting him arose from their seats on one of the settles as the door opened, and moved hesitantly forward to greet him.

  Lycaelon recognized Ioan Tasoaire from his many appearances before the Council, and the painfully overdressed woman beside him must be his wife, though Lycaelon didn’t trouble himself to recall her name. Both were upholstered in so much satin, multicolored brocade, gold lace, and velvet piping that they looked like a pair of overstuffed chairs designed by a madman. Both of them looked worn and frightened. Lycaelon smiled, radiating charm—a simple enough cantrip, really, among the many every High Mage always kept in readiness for situations such as this.

  “Come, Ioan, you know me,” Lycaelon said, injecting good humor and warmth into his voice. “I’m here to help. And who is this lovely young thing? Surely this isn’t your daughter?”

  Ioan Tasoaire smiled, and Lycaelon could see that it cost him some effort. “Nay, Lord Arch-Mage, this is my wife, Yanalia.”

  “You can help her, can’t you, Lord Arch-Mage? Help our Darcy?” the woman burst out. “You do know what it is with her, don’t you? Don’t you?”

  “Hush now, Yana,” Ioan said, pulling his wife back before she could approach Lycaelon. “I’m sure the Arch-Mage will do all he can.”

  “Of course I will,” Lycaelon said, settling himself in the garish throne-chair, inasmuch as seemed to be expected of him. “I came as soon as I heard there was trouble—in fact, I’m a little hurt, Ioan, that you didn’t come to me sooner. What are friends for, if not to help one another?”

  Yanalia began to weep in harsh strangled sobs, clinging to her husband. Lycaelon forced himself to keep his face smooth, his expression benign. Puling and weeping with hysteria already, and he hadn’t been in the house more than a few moments! How like a woman!

  “We were afraid,” Ioan said slowly.

  Lycaelon composed his features into an expression of hurt regret and bowed his head. “If that is the case … if that is truly the case … then I have failed you, failed all the people of Armethalieh. How can I help you, if you won’t come to me for help? Look at me, Ioan.” He spread his hands, a sad smile on his face. “I’m a Mage. That’s all I am. That’s all I do. I don’t plant crops, or spin cloth—or make gold out of thin air like you do, Ioan!” He allowed himself a rueful smile at the small joke, and was pleased to see Ioan smile in return. “All I do is help people. That’s all any Mage does. That’s all the Art Magickal is for. But when people won’t come to me for help, then, well
… I’m useless. I can’t help you if I don’t know that you need help, and my Gifts go to waste.”

  He lowered his head again, as if meeting their eyes was too much for him. Had he overplayed his hand, laid it on too thick? But no. They were distracted, afraid, and from the looks of things hadn’t been sleeping well at all. If he could get them feeling guilty as well, they should be supremely easy to manipulate.

  “It weren’t—it wasn’t that.” Ioan had made his way up from the laboring classes and married a minor merchant’s daughter, taking her name, as was customary when marrying into a higher-ranked family. When he was upset, his low-class origins showed in his speech.

  “We thought it would go away. It didn’t, but then we thought she’d get better!” Yanalia burst out, her voice still thick with tears. “But it’s only gotten worse, Arch-Mage. The fires, and the breaking things, well, at first we thought it might be a spirit or something, not her—we had a Light-Priest in to bless the house, and it stopped for a while, but then it started up again. Then I began thinking about old tales and when we realized it was her, not a spirit, we thought it would get better …” Her voice faltered, and for a moment Lycaelon thought she was finished speaking, but she composed herself with an effort and went on. “After all, don’t all Apprentices have trouble when they start learning magick?”

  Only years of self-discipline and iron self-control kept Lycaelon’s features composed in a benign mask. He even managed to smile at the witless creature. “Perhaps you had better begin at the beginning,” he said smoothly. “Tell me everything. Leave nothing out.”