by Karen Myers
Tun Jeju nodded. “And guards.”
“No, I think that’s a mistake. It’s a declaration of weakness. It makes any internal enemy think you’re afraid. Besides, they’re more likely to attack as wizards, and what good will Kigali guards do then?”
“You plan to present yourself as a… what? A herald? An ambassador?”
“Why not?” She shrugged. “I’m clearly a foreigner, someone relatively neutral—if anything, sympathetic to the wizards.”
“A knife in the dark isn’t going to care about neutrality,” Tun Jeju commented.
They hammered out a few more details, and agreed to meet early in the morning, to confirm what she had in mind.
She left the room first and picked up Zep Pangwit who’d been told off to wait in the corridor outside for hours and was predictably sour about it. “They’re waiting for you downstairs,” he told her. “Your man and that boy.”
She mind-scanned the lower level to check, and found all five prisoners back in their cells, presumably locked in, and all the other wizards gone. School was done for the day, apparently.
When she caught up with Najud and Munraz on the steps of the building outside, her scan picked up the two chained wizards that she’d noticed in the morning. “Wait here a moment, everyone,” she said, absently. “I want to try something.”
Without looking behind her to see their reaction, she walked down the street directly to the two wizards, a young man and an older woman. They both wore the high-necked robes that were so useful at concealing the chains, and the mutual distance of several feet that the chains enforced made their attempts at casual observation awkward, since they were clearly together, but standing too far apart to seem normal.
As she’d hoped, they were so startled at this direct approach that they were at a loss for how to react. She was within speaking distance before they’d recovered.
“I’m Penrys. Thought you might want an update,” Penrys said, in a conversational tone. “Dar Datsu and the others are probably going to be released tomorrow morning. I thought I’d come with them to your place.” She pointed east toward the industrial Chankau Tep. “I’d like to talk to whoever’s in charge.”
The older woman recovered first. She gave Penrys a wary look. “Who have the shaibowen got?”
“Well, the rest of the names they gave me were Goi Ofa, Lai Tsumai, Lir Pako, and Tse Lorping.” She watched the reaction. “I see—those aren’t all familiar to you. Well, any that aren’t yours already were probably on their way to find you, so I hope that’s not a problem.”
The young man finally found his voice. “How do you know where to go?”
“Oh, are you worried someone talked?” Penrys let an amused tone color her voice. “I’m afraid you stand out like a beacon to anyone with eyes to see.”
At the appalled look on the older woman’s face, Penrys said, “Tell your leader, if he doesn’t know, that you’re being watched by the local wizards. Lots of them. That’s part of what I want to talk about.”
“I’ll be here in the morning,” the woman said, coming to a decision. “I’ll let you know what he says.” The young man opened his mouth to object, and she shushed him. “Can’t you see there’s little point in hiding?”
“I’ll be bringing one or two other people with me, just so you’re not surprised,” Penrys told her.
The woman nodded, and both of them watched as Penrys walked back to the steps of the Imperial Security building’s entrance, where her husband shook his head at her.
“What were you thinking?” Najud said.
“We have a new job,” she told him. “Or at least I do. You’ll love it. Thought we’d call on the neighbors tonight, after dinner, and get that ball rolling, too.”
“This is madness,” Najud said.
He’d listened after dinner as she recounted her conversation with Tun Jeju, and then with the two chained wizards outside on the street.
They kept their voices low in their room in the ambassadorial quarters, but Penrys could hear the steel beginning to enter Najud’s voice and wanted to forestall a quarrel.
“Look, Naj-sha, if Tun Jeju hadn’t been so clumsy with the notice to locate chained wizards, then this could be done with more planning. But once that happened, he ran out of time.”
She could see he didn’t quite understand. “These wizards have been here for who knows how long, hiding from the rest of the population. What does that tell you?”
Najud visibly reined in his temper. “They’re organized. They have a way of bringing in new members and keeping the news from getting out.”
“Right. And no one has ever spilled the secret? In generations? How is that possible?”
“Enforcement.” His head nodded slowly. “They must discourage exposure.”
“Discourage? They probably kill to prevent it. It means everything to them. No matter what, the Kigaliwen mustn’t know that wizards are among them.”
Penrys shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s because they’re afraid the Kigaliwen will kill them, or if it’s because they like being hidden to exert more power, whatever it is they’re doing. Whichever, it isn’t important now.”
She leaned forward. “Don’t you see? Ever since that Imperial Security notice, it’s been clear that the presence of the chained wizards is known, even if the ‘chain’ part is clearer than the ‘wizard’ part. So it’s just a matter of time before the whole thing is out in the open and they’ll be exposed. What do they do when threatened with exposure?”
“They’ll try to kill you!”
“Not if it’s pointless, not if it’s too late anyway. That’s why we have to move as quickly as possible to get past that, to make it impossible to stay hidden.”
Najud gave her a hard look. “It’s not clever to force their hand. What if you make them feel they have nothing to lose? They’re not all going to be long-range planners—what about the hot-heads?”
“There’s not a lot of choice. The trigger event was none of our doing—all we can do is try to normalize the situation as quickly as possible. Besides, who knows better what the various wizard factions are up to than the other factions. We have to start somewhere.”
“Not Munraz.” Najud said. “Tonight or tomorrow morning.”
“No, not Munraz. It’s one thing to risk my own neck, but not a student’s.”
“And I’m coming with you.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” she said, and smiled at him.
Penrys and Najud stood before the closed gate of a compound two blocks west and one south of the Zannib ambassador’s. The symbol engraved and painted next to the gate declared it to be the Char family, famous providers of the purest and finest pharmaceutical products to the emperor.
Nervously patting her throat to make sure her chain was visible, Penrys struck the wanbum, the small gong suspended next to the gate with a knuckle. Before the reverberations had died away, a small hinged panel at head height pulled back and they were examined by someone on the other side.
“Your business, binochiwen?” a voice inquired.
Penrys scanned the interior of the compound and bespoke the first adult wizard she found. *We’d like to speak with the wizards of this family, please. It’s a friendly call. May we come in?*
She tried to hide her amused expression at the startled mental reaction of the recipient.
In moments, the face at the panel was replaced by a young man. “Zannib? Oh. You.” He shook himself. “Please wait a moment, binochiwen.”
The little viewing panel was closed again.
Najud glanced over at Penrys and winked at her.
They waited patiently for several minutes. Penrys shielded them both from any other wizards in the area, but she found none on the streets immediately around them. Other than the six in this compound, of course—the reason they’d chosen it from among other nearby options.
There was a clatter as the inner bar was lifted from the gate and then both doors swung open. An older man b
owed to them, his long gray braid attesting to his years. Beside him stood four others, including the young man who’d peered out at them through the gate panel. Each of them bowed as well, and Penrys and Najud returned the courtesy.
A gray-haired woman hastened out of one of the inner buildings, but the old man raised his hand to stop her. “These are foreign initiates of our temple, my wife. We’ll be taking them there. No need to stir up the household.”
He turned to Najud. “Please, binochi, we can talk in private if you’ll follow me.”
“As you wish,” Najud said.
The young man took a torch from the door guard and followed with the others. Penrys kept her attention on the wizards gathered behind the old man, but it was clear they’d been taken by surprise, and there was no immediate threat intended.
A girl of perhaps ten years hastened up to join the party as they made their way to a building in the corner of the compound. When the old man turned to admonish her, Penrys said, “She’s welcome to come along. There’s no danger.”
He stared at her uncertainly, then looked down at the child. “Mouth shut, ears open.”
“Yes, grandfather.” She bestowed a shy but grateful smile on Penrys.
They paused before the small building with the curled eaves that Penrys associated with temples in Kigali architecture. The old man opened the door, and the young man went inside with a torch and lit two lanterns before ducking back outside to return the torch to the servant who’d followed behind, before closing the temple door to shut him out. In the dim light, Penrys watched the old man open an interior door that led down a few steps into an inner chamber. Without warning, an even light spilled up the stairs into the main room.
*Devices, like the Rasesni use.* Najud nodded at Penrys’s silent comment.
Everyone walked down the steps, and the last one, the same young man, paused to bar the door at the top.
The air was fresh. Built-in stone benches ran down two sides of the room, and above them four more lights gleamed brightly. Shelves covered with books and papyrus scrolls filled the other two walls. Penrys spotted the round opening with a grate on the floor in one corner, and a similar one high on one of the bench walls. Ventilation or escape routes, she suspected, or maybe both.
Najud bowed low to the old man. “Thank you for seeing two foreign wizards, binochi. We would have sent you notice to request this visit, but we did not know how to address it, or how it might disturb your… arrangements.”
He bowed again. “My name is Najud, son of Ilsahr of clan Zamjilah, of the Shubzah tribe. This is my wife, Penrys, lately of Ellech.”
Penrys executed her own bow and said, “We’re here in Yenit Ping, along with other foreign wizards, at the request of Tun Jeju, a notju of Imperial Security, to speak with the wizards and the chained ones, here in Kigali.”
The old man drew himself up in full dignity. “I am Char Nojuk. This is my second daughter, Char Dami, and my nephew, Char Dazu, my youngest sister’s third son. These two are my adopted daughters, Char Dachi and Char Danau, and that,” he waved his hand at the little girl, “is my first son’s second daughter, Char Pangfa. We are rich in women, in my family.”
Penrys smiled. “I can see that, samkatju-chi. Can you tell me, how long there have been wizards in your family?”
“Granddaughter, fetch the sumkui. You know where it is.”
He sat down on one of the benches and invited his guests to do the same.
The girl ran to a shelf just within her reach when she stretched up and carefully pulled out a wooden box. She carried it to her grandfather and put it on the bench next to him, and then stayed to watch while he opened it and reverently pulled out a fragile scroll, bound with a red ribbon, and mounted to a rod at each end.
He held it for a moment and looked at Penrys. “This is not the original, but a copy made a lifetime ago. Soon it will be time for a fresh copy. The original is in our room of treasures here in the samke, the compound, but only our version in this sanctum records the wizards.”
After untying the ribbon, he unrolled the scroll from one rod while his granddaughter carefully took up the slack with the other rod.
“Not many families have been in Yenit Ping as long as we have,” he confided, “but then we have been dealers in medicines and similar items for several dynasties. I cannot say for certain who was the first wizard in the family, but we do know when this private sanctuary was built.”
He stabbed with his finger at a line on the sumkui. “See, just at the start of the Chaik dynasty.”
He gave the ignorant foreigners a pitying look, and amplified his comment. “About seventeen hundred years ago.”
Penrys could feel her scalp creep back. “That’s a long time to keep a secret.”
“Not a secret anymore, is it?” Char Nojuk said, suddenly truculent. “This is a disaster, and no mistake. What does Imperial Security intend to do, now that they know we exist, eh?”
“That largely depends on you and the people like you, samkatju-chi. Imperial Security is surprised by the discovery of both the chained and unchained wizards, as you might imagine. If they’d known what to expect, they wouldn’t have bungled the request for information that was so disastrous for the chained ones, but once that happened, the time for hiding in the old way was finished.”
Char Nojuk was silent.
“Or don’t you think so?” Penrys asked.
“If you foreign wizards weren’t here, they still wouldn’t know,” he muttered belligerently.
“Perhaps,” Najud said. “Or perhaps the disaster for the chained ones would have precipitated a hidden war that brought you all into the light.”
Penrys slashed her hand horizontally through the air at chest level. “Sennevi. It is done. It doesn’t matter what might have been, samkatju-chi—we have to deal with what is.”
There was no response. Penrys could feel the fear in the air, different for each of them, though strongest in the eldest. No one would contradict the patriarch.
Penrys tried again, more gently. “We came calling tonight partly because your family was close to where we’re staying, and partly because there were so many wizards watching us everywhere we went that it was just… silly pretending we didn’t notice. Tomorrow morning we’re going to visit the compound in Chankau Tep where the chained wizards seem to be based, and return the ones held by Imperial Security. I know there are wizards watching them, too.”
“What do you want of us?” Char Nojuk said.
“We want to talk with your own leaders. Tun Jeju has the emperor’s mandate to resolve this situation, and he wants to do it peacefully if he can. He hopes to bring all the wizards out into the open, the way they are in Zannib or Ndant.”
“We’re under sentence of death, by order of the emperor,” Char Nojuk said. “We put all our families at risk, just by existing. Just by talking to you. Even if we believed you, who would go first?”
Char Dazu suddenly spoke up. “What one emperor decrees, another can put aside, uncle.”
Najud said, “I see from these books that you have studied in the traditions of your own nation. I see from the devices on the wall that you have knowledge in the areas of physical magic, like the Rasesni and the Ellech. My wife spent three years in the Collegium of Wizards in Ellech and we understand the lure of libraries.”
He leaned forward. “Don’t you want to broaden your knowledge?” He cocked his head at Char Pangfa. “Don’t you want your granddaughter to live her life without fear of exposure?”
Char Nojuk’s gaze drifted to his granddaughter’s eager face and then to the floor. “There will be blood at this.”
Penrys nodded. “Yes, those that lose power will fight to keep it, and those that fear change will panic. But you have a chance to help steer it.”
“No one speaks for all wizards,” Char Nojuk said, after a moment, and hope rose in Penrys that they may have turned the corner with him, persuading him to talk.
“There’s a council in Yenit
Ping, but it’s weak. The oldest families speak there, and the rest support them and are represented by them. Consensus on security matters is strong, but in other areas…” He swallowed. “Our family sits on the council, but we have never been numerous or powerful compared to some. Advisors, not rulers. Medicines are sold everywhere, of course, and we have branches throughout the towns, but here in Yenit Ping we are, perhaps…”
“Insignificant.” Char Dazu finished his sentence for him impatiently. “We don’t count for much, but we have friends, allies. We sometimes swing policy. It was our family that pushed through the adoption process centuries ago—to rescue the wizards born into unaffiliated families and bring them into the wizard families. That was an important achievement.”
“We’ve been trying to do something similar with the chained ones that started popping up,” Char Nojuk said, after an admonishing look at his nephew stopped his outburst. “The problem was that so many of them were foreigners—hard to adopt those without very awkward questions. We’ve been debating it for three years, and now it’s too late.”
“Maybe not, if all of this comes out into the open,” Penrys said. “They need support and help.”
“What are they? Where did they come from?” Char Pangfa clapped her hand over her mouth after the questions escaped.
“We don’t know, young Char,” Penrys said. “All of us, and me, too—we just appeared three years ago, often in countries where we look like foreigners, without any memories. Until this morning, I’d only met two others, so I don’t know very much yet, myself.”
She looked up at Char Nojuk. “All the ones I’ve seen are indeed wizards, not just chained, and it seems to be random whether any of the ones here are Kigaliwen or something else. We seem to be tossed around the world like carelessly scattered grain, near as I can judge. That’s why Tun Jeju summoned the foreign wizards—to hear about chained wizards in their own countries.”
