A Young Man Without Magic

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Valin snorted. “Why would he do that? We agree on nothing.”

  “But it would get you out of Alzur, where you could no longer interfere with his plans for Lady Saria.”

  Valin started to retort, then stopped. His expression turned thoughtful. “Alzur is entitled to a representative, isn’t it?”

  “Of course it is,” Amanir replied. “At least one.”

  “And the burgrave would choose him?”

  “That isn’t as clear,” Derhin said. “Especially since Lord Allutar makes his home there.”

  “Surely Lord Allutar won’t begrudge Lord Dorias one selection!” Amanir said. “Especially if it clears the way for his own courtship of Lady Saria.”

  “Are you seriously considering this, or is it the wine talking?” Anrel asked.

  “Why not?” Valin said, turning to Anrel. “Your uncle doesn’t care a crumb about politics, not really—he gripes about the emperor, but beyond that, he doesn’t concern himself with the empire’s affairs. He hasn’t set foot in his family’s house in Lume since he delivered you to school four years ago. He probably cares more about getting me out from underfoot than he does about the imperial accounts, or crop failures, or the abuse of black magic, or anything else the council is likely to consider.”

  Anrel could not argue with that. “But the landgrave . . .”

  “The landgrave will have several of the other seats under his control, I am sure. He can surely spare one to please his intended father-in-law.”

  “And would you want a seat, under such circumstances? I thought you wanted the commoners to choose their representatives, not Lord Allutar and Uncle Dorias.”

  “But think about it, Anrel! If I am the representative for Alzur, I will have a chance to speak for the commoners. I can make certain that their voice is heard, through me!”

  “But you, Lord Valin, are not a commoner at all,” Anrel pointed out. “How can you speak with their voice? Were you not saying that the commoners of Alzur should choose one of their own?”

  “And have you not been telling me that would not be possible? Here, then, is a compromise!”

  “He’s right, though, Valin,” Amanir said. “You aren’t a commoner.”

  “I was until I was twelve,” Valin said. “Even now, while I am called ‘lord,’ other sorcerers see me as the lowest of their class—I have no family ties, no hereditary lands or talents. My magical skills, while real enough, are dismissed as hopelessly inadequate for any great rank or important post.”

  “Are they?” Derhin asked. “I hadn’t realized.”

  “I can cast a decent ward,” Valin said defensively. “I can manage any of the simple bindings. I can do as much as half the lords in the college here. But no, I cannot perform the sort of grand magic that caused the emperor to name Lord Allutar a landgrave, nor the complex wardings that my guardian maintains around Alzur. His ancestors have built those up over the last two centuries; they’re in his blood, while in my own veins flows the blood of shop keep ers.”

  That speech made clear to Anrel a few things he had not entirely understood about his friend Valin. Yes, Valin had made the jump from commoner to nobleman—but as he saw it, only to the bottommost rung of the nobility. That seemed to rankle.

  “At any rate, if the representatives are to be appointed by the nobility, as seems so inevitable to many, can you name a better choice than myself?” Valin demanded.

  “No,” Derhin said mildly, “but I would still prefer to let the people choose their own representatives. Even if they make a worse choice, it will be theirs, and not the whim of aristocrats foisted upon them.”

  “Pfah,” Amanir said. “If the right choice is made, does it matter who made it?”

  “Exactly,” Valin said.

  At that same instant Derhin said, “Yes,” and the two turned to glare at each other.

  Anrel beckoned to the serving girl for more tea.

  The discussion continued through much of the day; on occasion other young men joined in, either taking seats at the table when there was room, or crowding around to listen and comment. It became clear that a great many people in Naith knew Valin, and that most of them seemed to think highly of him.

  Anrel wondered at that; for his part, he did not find much wisdom in Valin’s words. Derhin seemed to have done a better job of thinking through his positions, and keeping them consistent, than either Valin or Amanir, but when disagreements arose, most of the audience tended to side with Valin.

  Listening to them, Anrel came to suspect that this was because he was Lord Valin, while the others were all commoners. Valin might feel that he was not respected by other sorcerers, but it would seem that he needed no distinguished family or powerful magic to impress the people of Naith; the bare title was enough.

  Although Valin had claimed to have come here in pursuit of the latest news, Anrel heard little evidence that anything under discussion was based on more than gossip. No one cited sources; simply saying, “I’ve heard,” seemed to be sufficient grounds to treat a statement as proven fact. In some cases the tales obviously originated from the provincial magistrates, or members of the College of Sorcerers, but others gave every sign of being pure speculation and wild fancy.

  As the crowd around the table grew, Anrel grew steadily more nervous. In Lume a gathering like this would have long since drawn the attention of the Emperor’s Watch; there would be bowmen atop the nearest arch, and a sergeant coming to break it up. Naith had no network of arches, and no one here would answer directly to the emperor, but surely, there must be watchmen who would take a dim view of what amounted to sedition, should they realize what was being said. When his concern became unbearable Anrel tried to push back from the table and dissociate himself from the conversation, letting another young man take his place while he moved his teacup to a low wall, away from Valin’s table.

  Once he had settled in this new position he sat silently, declining to contribute further. He refused offers of wine, restricting himself to tea and some lovely sweet rolls. When the others ordered a midday meal of stewed beef, complaining mightily about the price as they did so, Anrel made do with a mild onion soup.

  The conversation rambled on, across a variety of inflammatory topics—the food shortages, the emperor’s debts, why there were rumored to be hired magicians from the Cousins at the imperial court, why the money that paid for those magicians was not being used to import food or pay the imperial debts instead, the lingering mystery and scandal surrounding the gruesome death of Lady Arissa Taline, and half a dozen others—but in truth, none of these discussions were anything new to Anrel. He had heard all of the complaints and accusations, and many more, in Lume, in the taverns and common rooms. They had never been aired as openly as this, out in the streets, though, nor with so large a crowd in attendance.

  As it happened, Anrel knew beyond question that there really were hired magicians at court; a season or so back he had been introduced to one, a fellow from Azuria by the name of Garzan tel-Barragun, during a meeting with one of his professors, and had exchanged a few polite words with the man. He knew that at least eight magicians of various schools, from various nations in the Cousins, had been brought in at the request of the Empress Annineia, who was of Ermetian birth and did not trust Walasian sorcerers. All the same, he said nothing. He did not care to become involved in the conversation to that extent.

  A few of the discussions involved outright lies. In Lume the students would have picked these apart and, if no authority could be named, dismissed them as nonsense, but here many absurdities were accepted almost without question.

  The story of the empress driving her carriage over starving children, crushing them, Anrel knew to be a fabrication; had such a thing happened the news would have been all over Lume in hours, and there would have been riots. No such event had occurred. The closest anything had come, and perhaps the origin of the tale, had been when a magistrate’s coachman had whipped an urchin hard enough to crack bone, and that had triggere
d a small disturbance, if not quite a riot.

  The empress had not been involved, and the magistrate, Lord Orvaz Pol, had eventually appeased the mob by paying a physician to attend the boy and make sure that the injury would not cripple him. As told in Naith, though, the empress had merely laughed and driven on, leaving dead and dying children in the road.

  Anrel had avoided commenting on the foreign sorcerers, but the blithe acceptance of this account was too much; he spoke up, saying the tale was nonsense, only to be told by Amanir, “I suppose they hushed it up somehow.”

  Others were more realistic, and agreed that Anrel was probably right, and that particular story was at best an exaggeration.

  Anrel did not consider it a mere exaggeration, but he had no interest in arguing with these people. He said no more, allowing the arguments to continue without his interference.

  The entire experience amazed him. He had always assumed that the debates in the student-haunted taverns of Lume were a manifestation of the sophistication and perversity of the capital’s educated elite; to hear the people of Naith spouting the same seditious talk astonished him. While he had known that times were hard, and that some honest peasants had been driven to begging and thievery, the discontent of the empire’s people obviously ran much deeper than Anrel had thought.

  That was a troubling realization, and Anrel was uneasy as he drank tea and listened.

  Most troubling of all, though, was the realization that Valin was the ringleader of this treasonous gathering.

  At last Derhin glanced up at the position of the sun and said, “I must get back to work. The afternoon session will be starting.” He rose, then turned to Anrel. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Master Murau.”

  Anrel shook his hand, and watched him go.

  Several members of the crowd took note of his departure, and scattered as well. Many of them headed for the courthouse, as Derhin had.

  “Fine men, all of them,” Amanir remarked.

  “They are the future of the empire,” Valin said.

  Somehow, Anrel thought that unlikely. However clever and impassioned these people might be, they were mere commoners in a provincial capital, and he thought it far more likely that the future of the empire would be shaped by the sorcerers of Lume.

  8

  In Which the House of Adirane Celebrates the Equinox

  Lord Allutar was still in Lord Dorias’s parlor when Valin and Anrel returned from Naith, though the evening was well advanced. He did not linger; he nodded an acknowledgment of the new arrivals, then took his leave of Lady Saria and departed.

  Saria’s face was flushed, Anrel noticed, though he could not have said precisely why. Whether it was perplexity or passion he could not guess, and his cousin did not volunteer an explanation.

  “Is Naith as you remembered it, Anrel?” she asked.

  “In most respects, yes,” he said. “It is I who have changed; I see it with more educated eyes now.”

  “Oh?”

  “Saria,” Valin said, interrupting, “I trust today’s visit from your suitor went well?”

  “Well enough,” Saria said.

  “Did you think, perhaps, to ask him to spare the baker’s son? Perhaps he would do so to please you, as a courting gift—surely, you would prefer not to wed a murderer.”

  Saria’s flush deepened. “No, I did not ask, Lord Valin. I have no interest in seeing Urunar Kazien’s life spared.”

  “No? And what has Master Kazien done to you, that you would see him dead?” Valin demanded.

  “Not to me, but to Mistress Lenzinir,” Saria snapped. “I was merely one of those who sought to comfort her; I did not share her misfortune.”

  Taken aback, Valin said, “What?”

  “Do you pay no attention to what happens in Alzur, then?” Saria asked. “Is our little town so utterly beneath your notice, my lord? Or is it only the women you ignore?”

  “I don’t . . . who is Mistress Lenzinir?”

  “Gei Lenzinir, the weaver’s apprentice,” Saria said. “From Orlias, originally, though she has lived here in Alzur for three years now.”

  That relieved Anrel’s mind; he had been trying unsuccessfully to place the name, but if she had only dwelt in Alzur for three years, then he would have had no opportunity to meet her. “Valin,” he murmured, “I think you had best drop the subject.”

  Valin looked from Saria to Anrel and back, then retreated in confusion, leaving the parlor to the two cousins.

  “What does he do in Naith?” Saria asked, after a moment of silent consideration. “What does he find so fascinating there?”

  “He sits at a table in Aulix Square, drinking cheap wine and debating politics with his friends,” Anrel said. “The fascination would seem to lie in the admiring audience these discussions attract.”

  “He was not talking to prospective employers?”

  “No.”

  “Then how does he ever hope to find employment? He has no land, and no chance of an imperial appointment; he needs to earn a living if he is not to remain dependent upon my father forever.”

  Anrel smiled wryly. “He has decided he wants a seat on the Grand Council,” he said. “It was suggested that you and your father might want to arrange it merely to get him out of Alzur, and away from Lord Allutar.”

  Saria started. “What an outrageous notion!” she said.

  “Indeed.”

  Saria looked at Anrel, realized he was serious, then turned to stare at the doorway where Valin had departed. “I sometimes wonder how the mind of someone who has lived in my home since I was a child can be such a mystery to me.”

  “He lived his first twelve years as a shop keep er’s son,” Anrel said. “And he does not share our blood.”

  “Even so.”

  Anrel nodded. “How did the visit from Lord Allutar go?”

  “Oh, wonderfully well, really.”

  “I’m pleased for you,” Anrel said sincerely.

  She looked him in the eye. “I believe you are,” she said. “I know you dislike Lord Allutar, but you mean it all the same, don’t you?”

  “Whatever my opinion of the landgrave, Cousin, I love you, and I wish you to be happy. If you want Lord Allutar as your husband, then I hope you shall have him.” He smiled. “Do not expect frequent visits from me, however, should you achieve your goal.”

  “I can only hope you will give him a chance to change your estimation of his character,” Saria said.

  “I will do my best, for your sake.”

  With that, they parted.

  Over the course of the next four days Lord Valin continued to campaign for Urunar Kazien’s life by every means at his disposal—and furthermore, he did indeed introduce the notion that he might represent Alzur in the Grand Council. To the dismay of Anrel and Lady Saria, Lord Dorias did not dismiss the notion out of hand.

  There was no evidence that Lord Allutar had relented, but Valin seemed to have convinced himself that the baker’s son would be allowed to live. Anrel worried about how his friend would react should his optimism prove unfounded.

  Anrel also troubled himself uselessly over having let the axe-wielding stranger go, rather than at least attempting to trade his life for Urunar’s—but then, had the exchange been made, would Valin have taken up the axe-man’s cause, as he had the baker’s son’s? True, the Kazien family lived in Alzur, while the would-be wood thief did not, but would that have mattered to Valin? It was not as if he actually knew Urunar any better than he knew the stranger. Valin would probably have fought as hard for any commoner’s life.

  In any case, Anrel realized there was no point in questioning his impulsive actions; what he had done was done, and could not be undone. Still, his mind was accustomed to activity, and when given little else to engage his thoughts he found himself returning to this subject again and again.

  On the day of the solstice the household gathered, then trudged over the hill to the ancient shrine of the Adirane family, where one by one they knelt before the pha
lloliths and made their personal prayers to the ancestral spirits. Although Anrel had proclaimed himself a Murau rather than an Adirane, he took his own turn, as he always had, acknowledging his mother’s blood.

  He had not been here in four years, instead making his quarterly obeisance in the temples of Lume, but as he knelt he thought he could feel the divine presence, as if he had never gone. That presence had been perceptible in most of his youthful visits as well, though not, perhaps, in all of them.

  He murmured his true name, so there could be no mistake of who was speaking; the one good thing to have come from his sorcery trials, in his opinion, was that he now had a true name that he could use at moments such as this. He then apologized, as he always did, for forsaking his heritage and failing to prove himself a sorcerer. He prayed for the safety and happiness of his family, and of his friend Valin, and of some halfdozen comrades he had known in Lume, and for the welfare of Alzur and all the empire.

  Finally, he acknowledged the inadequacy of his own wisdom, and wished for the affairs of Lord Allutar, Urunar Kazien, Lord Valin, and Lady Saria to resolve themselves in the best possible fashion, whatever that might be.

  He felt a sudden darkness and oppression at that moment, and he shuddered, unsure what that might mean. Was this the response to his prayer?

  Then the sunlight seemed to return and the air to lighten, and he arose, still puzzled, making way for Valin. Valin was no Adirane, by any stretch of the imagination, but as a former apprentice of Lord Dorias who still remained in the household, he was permitted to attend services with the family.

  After Valin would come the three servants who had accompanied the party—the senior footman Ollith Tuir, and his wife and daughter, who were respectively the housekeeper and the upstairs maid. The other four members of the household staff had gone to their own places of reverence, whatever those might be. Anrel walked back up the hill to where Dorias and Saria waited, trying to think what that peculiar psychic darkness might have meant.

  Then he realized what it must have been.