A Young Man Without Magic

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Anrel screamed something, probably his friend’s name, and ran to Valin, reaching him as he hit the soft ground. Blood was spilling upward in a horribly unnatural fashion, like a sort of red mist, from a gaping split in the young sorcerer’s chest.

  “Stop it!” Anrel shrieked as he ran. “Stop! He’s down! You’ve won!”

  Lord Allutar lowered his hands to his sides, and stood unmoving between his two ash trees. He said nothing.

  Valin was gasping for breath as Anrel knelt beside him.

  “Valin,” Anrel said, “can you hear me? Can you heal this?”

  Valin gasped wordlessly, his fingers clutching at air. The flow of blood from the wound had changed to a more natural form; a pool of rich red was filling in the tear in the flesh, covering up what Anrel realized were exposed bones.

  “Help him!” Anrel said, looking up at the three sorcerers standing on the other side of the clearing. “Help him, please!”

  “We are forbidden to interfere,” Lindred called. “Seconds can only attend their own principal.”

  “Lord Allutar isn’t forbidden!” Anrel cried. “Please, you’ve won—don’t let him die! You don’t need to kill him!”

  Allutar stared at him for a moment, then turned and headed back toward his coach without a word.

  Anrel stared a precious few seconds in disbelief, then turned back to Valin. He pulled at the torn remains of his friend’s shirt, trying to stanch the bleeding. “Valin!” he called. “Bind it! He unbound your flesh—bind it back!”

  “I . . . never was good at bindings . . .” Valin gasped, as he held up shaking hands, trying to form the gestures he needed.

  “No, listen,” Anrel said, then stopped.

  He had no words that would help, even if Valin heeded them. Valin was a sorcerer, and had been trained in bindings; Anrel had failed his trial and never learned a spell. He could not guide Valin.

  But he raised his own hands, curled his middle fingers in, and tried to gather power from the earth, tried to channel it. He didn’t know the right words, so he spoke his own. “Close, bind, heal,” he murmured. “Be one flesh again.”

  Anrel brought his hands down and together, trying to close up the ghastly wound with the magic he had denied for so long, the magic he had deliberately rejected when he was twelve, the magic that he had refused because of what had happened to his parents.

  He could feel the power; he could sense it flowing through him—but it then spilled out aimlessly. He could not direct it, could not bind up Valin’s chest, could not undo what Lord Allutar had done. Blood continued to bubble up from the wound; it had filled the entire gash from end to end and was dribbling out, running down either side of Valin’s neck and trickling onto the earth, and the power Anrel summoned could not stop it.

  “Cold,” Valin said, his head falling back, his left hand sagging to the side.

  “No, Valin!” Anrel said. “No, no, no!” He reached down and put both hands on Valin’s chest, trying to press the wound closed; the pooled blood rose up and spilled to either side. Anrel tried to push magic into the gap, to bind up the flesh, but the power seemed to squirm and twist and slip away.

  Valin’s right hand fell; he coughed, and blood seeped from his nose and mouth.

  And then the flow stopped, and Anrel realized he could no longer feel a heartbeat beneath his hands. Valin’s eyes were open, but unseeing.

  Anrel pulled his hands away. They were covered in blood; blood had soaked into his shirt cuffs, and one knee had Valin’s blood on it, as well, where he had knelt in the spreading pool.

  He looked up.

  Lord Allutar’s coach was still there, the door still open. Lord Neriam was standing by, watching Anrel; Lord Lindred was walking back toward the carriage.

  “You could have saved him,” Anrel said.

  Lindred paused and looked back over his shoulder.

  Anrel rose from his dead friend’s side and repeated more loudly, “You could have saved him!”

  “I take it Lord Valin is dead?” Neriam asked.

  “You know he is!” Anrel shouted.

  “Then our business here is done. Shall I have your uncle send men out to collect the remains?”

  Anrel stared at him in horror, then glanced back at Valin’s corpse.

  He could not answer—and there was nothing more he could do to help Lord Valin. Instead he turned and marched through the center of the grove, toward the landgrave’s coach.

  Neriam and Lindred made no move to stop him, but the two footmen closed ranks, blocking the carriage door.

  “Allutar!” Anrel cried. “Why did you kill him? You didn’t need to do that!”

  Allutar turned in his seat and looked calmly out at Anrel. “He challenged me,” the landgrave said. “I was within my rights to use whatever means I chose to defeat him.”

  “But there was no reason to kill him!”

  “Of course there was,” Allutar retorted. “He was hounding me to no purpose, and he had made clear that he intended to continue hounding me, both here and in Lume. I warned you that I would not tolerate it. I asked you to restrain him. You did not—for which I do not fault you, Master Murau; I have no doubt you did your best. Lord Valin was a man of high ideals, great determination, and very little sense. The empire does not need idealistic young fools like that making impassioned speeches in the Grand Council, wasting everyone’s time and giving the peasants impossible notions. Better for everyone if he’s dead.”

  “Better for him?” Anrel demanded. “For me? Do you think Lady Saria and Lord Dorias will look kindly on the man who killed his fosterling?”

  “Your uncle and your cousin are sensible people, Master Murau. They will recognize that your late friend brought this on himself with his populist rantings.”

  “Could you find no other way to silence him than to kill him? You didn’t need to let him lie there and bleed to death!”

  “You think a mere defeat would have silenced him? That he would have been sufficiently chastised if I had torn him open, and then closed the wound back up? That I should have waited until he could fetch sorcerers here to be his seconds, so that they might have kept him alive?” Allutar shook his head. “I think you misjudge your friend. I do not believe he would have been cowed. He always knew that his magic was weak—I think that was why he fought so hard against the system that has served us so well for so long. If I merely demonstrated that I could best him in a duel of sorcery, that would convince him of nothing; if I then healed him and left him alive, do you honestly think he would not return to preaching his nonsense? If anything, I would expect him to redouble his efforts.”

  “I don’t . . .” Anrel hesitated.

  “He was a stubborn man, and a man of strong will,” Allutar said. “I don’t know whether you could feel it, unskilled as you are—I suppose you could not—but right to the end he was still trying to draw power from the earth, so that he might close the wound with it. He was unable to direct it, but I could sense the flow of magic from here.”

  “That was . . . I—” Anrel stopped. He had assumed that he had given away his own secret, after keeping it safe for a decade, but apparently Allutar had thought Valin was the one failing to heal the wound.

  Although it seemed utterly unimportant in comparison with Valin’s death, some tiny portion of Anrel’s mind realized that this was to his benefit. He would not need to explain his ability. He would not need to make up some lie about developing it late, and hope that would be accepted. No one would suspect that he had hidden his talents, such as they were, deliberately. Hiding magical ability was a crime, a serious crime. So was using that hidden skill. For anyone but an untested child or an acknowledged sorcerer to work magic, however ineptly, was witchcraft, and witchcraft carried the death penalty.

  If Lord Allutar and his seconds thought that was Valin’s magic, then Anrel need not fear being hanged as a witch, nor, if he gave lying explanations that were believed, would he have to allow himself to be made a lord and a sorcerer.
He could remain the commoner he had always been, untainted by power.

  “Your friend fought hard to live,” Allutar said, bringing Anrel’s thoughts back to Valin’s death. “Harder than I expected. It’s a shame that such potential was so utterly wasted.”

  “You wasted it!” Anrel said. “There was no need to kill him. If you had dropped your spell the instant he fell—”

  “I did,” Allutar interrupted. “No, I did not immediately lower my hands, because I thought he might manage a counter, but I did nothing after the first instant of unbinding.”

  “So you claim.” Anrel turned. “Lord Neriam, I say that Lord Allutar failed to cease his attack as required by the rules of the challenge. Doesn’t that make this a case of murder?”

  Neriam sighed. “Lord Allutar did not continue his attack. I am a sorcerer myself, Master Murau, and I can assure you, the attack ceased instantly.”

  “He killed Lord Valin needlessly! He could have won without killing him!”

  “He is the landgrave of Aulix, with the power of high and low justice. If he thought lethal power was necessary to defeat the challenge, he had the right to use it.”

  “The power of high and low justice over commoners, perhaps, but Lord Valin was a sorcerer . . .”

  “Which means he was entitled to high justice, rather than low, but a landgrave is empowered for both.”

  “Lord Valin was to be Alzur’s delegate to the Grand Council,” Anrel said. “Doesn’t that matter? The emperor’s letter forbade interference in the selection of delegates.”

  “Lord Allutar did not interfere in any selection. He defended himself against a challenge. Really, Master Murau, while I understand your grief, Lord Allutar has committed no crime. You do yourself, and your friend’s memory, no service with these empty accusations.”

  “He didn’t kill Valin because of any challenge,” Anrel insisted. “That was an excuse. He killed Lord Valin because Valin annoyed him. Because he thought Lord Valin’s politics were a nuisance, perhaps dangerous!”

  “Lord Valin challenged Lord Allutar’s right to the office of landgrave, before witnesses,” Lord Lindred said, as he stepped past Anrel and clambered into the coach. “The reason for Lord Allutar’s ac ceptance of that challenge is irrelevant.”

  Anrel glared at both Allutar’s seconds in turn, then turned back to the landgrave.

  “You killed my friend to silence him,” he said. “I swear to you, Lord Allutar, that you have not silenced him. Lord Valin’s voice will be heard. His death will gain you nothing, I promise you that.”

  “I would advise you, Master Murau,” Allutar said quietly, “to make no threats. Threatening the emperor’s appointed officials can be construed as treason. I have already killed two of your friends in the last several days; I would prefer not to kill again, but I will not be threatened.”

  Lord Neriam climbed into the coach, blocking the door for a moment; when the way was clear and Anrel could see Lord Allutar again, he said, “Urunar Kazien was no friend of mine, and his death was no great crime, but this attempt to silence Lord Valin li-Tarbek—that was wrong, my lord. You will yet hear his voice.”

  “Only necromancers can hear the voices of the dead, Master Murau, and under the enlightened laws of the Walasian Empire, necromancy is illegal.” Allutar gestured, and the coach door swung closed. “We will inform Lord Dorias where he can find his fosterling’s remains. I will not insult you by wishing you a good day, Master Murau, but I assure you, I wish you no further ill.”

  With that, he rapped on the roof of the coach, and the driver shook out the reins. The two footmen jumped for the rear platform as the carriage began rolling.

  Anrel stood and watched as the coach turned and headed back toward Alzur. He watched until it was a hundred yards away, almost out of sight among the trees.

  Then he turned and walked back through the grove to sit with his friend’s body until the burgrave’s men arrived.

  14

  In Which Anrel Makes Good His Promise

  For the two days leading up to Lord Valin’s funeral, Anrel spent most of his time in his room. His uncle and cousin, both miserable themselves at Valin’s death, scarcely noticed his absence, but so far as they were aware of his isolation they assumed he was lost in grief. They would have been astonished to see that he was instead devoting every second to reading from a variety of books, or writing draft after draft of a speech.

  Anrel had promised that Valin’s voice would be heard, and he intended to keep that promise. He would not be able to speak to the Grand Council, as Valin would have, but he could still see to it that someone heard the words Lord Allutar had sought to silence.

  He judged he would probably only have one chance to speak out. Oh, he could have simply taken Valin’s place in the wine-garden discussions behind Aulix Square, but that was not enough; he could not speak with conviction in such a setting, since he did not in fact believe most of the populist nonsense Valin had espoused, and such idle conversation accomplished little. Valin’s words had been heard there, and had meant nothing. No, if he was to disturb Lord Allutar’s calm Anrel needed to do something more, something that would draw the attention of people who would never have listened to a bunch of idealistic young fools chatting idly in a tavern.

  Not all that attention would be favorable, so he would need to have his words planned out, so that he could say what he had to say quickly and then leave quickly.

  He hoped that he could make his speech without being recognized, but he had to consider the possibility that that would not happen. He had to be prepared for the consequences. It might well be necessary to flee the area temporarily, rather than return immediately to his uncle’s house. With that in mind he made a few preparations in addition to his speech, gathering and concealing his personal fortune, such as it was—all of it, he knew, given him by Lord Dorias; he owed his uncle debts he could never repay.

  “Your voice will be heard,” he muttered to himself more than once.

  At the burial itself, when it came Anrel’s turn to speak a few words, he stood up and said, “My friend and childhood companion was murdered by Lord Allutar so that his voice would not be heard by the people of Aulix. I want you all to know that his voice will be heard. I did not believe the things Valin believed; I did not share his idealism; but I will not permit those beliefs and ideals to die with my friend. To do so would be to betray him, and that I will not do. We bury the body of Lord Valin li-Tarbek today, but his words will live on.”

  Then he sat down. This was not the time or place to make his stand; there were no more than thirty people in attendance, most of them servants. Lord Allutar, of course, was not in attendance, as his presence could only have been considered a deliberate insult to Valin’s memory.

  Lord Dorias clearly found Anrel’s brief speech disconcerting; Lady Saria, red-eyed and weeping, seemed baffled by it. Their own eulogies were far more traditional, extolling Valin’s compassion and good humor.

  Valin’s parents, brother, and sisters, however, appeared to be frightened by Anrel’s words, and refused to speak to him afterward. Anrel regretted that; he had only met them once or twice before, years earlier, and would have liked a chance to share their grief. He did not pretend, however, that he did not understand their reluctance; they had heard him call the landgrave of Aulix a murderer, and wanted no part of such sedition. Their son and brother was dead, but they were not, and they preferred to keep it that way.

  After the service, after the li-Tarbeks had turned away, declined an invitation from Lord Dorias, and left for home, Anrel went directly to his room and shut the door, not speaking to anyone.

  The following morning, immediately after breakfast, he set out for Naith. He had chosen his attire carefully, to be tasteful without being particularly distinctive—he wanted to look like a man to be taken seriously, but not one who would stand out immediately. He wore a fine brown velvet coat and fawn-colored breeches, and had replaced his customary student’s cap with a broad-br
immed traveler’s hat. In case he should be caught and searched he had concealed a good part of his funds by sewing coins into his coat, under the lining, each one suspended by just a few threads.

  He made his way to Aulix Square, following the route Valin had shown him, and found the square just as he remembered it. He walked around the perimeter, considering it all carefully, choosing the best spot to carry out his plans.

  The north end of the square was taken up by the courthouse, the center of government for the entire province, an imposing building in the simple, elegant style of the late Old Empire; legend had it that the original courthouse had been converted from a wizard’s abandoned villa after the Old Empire’s fall, but the structure had been expanded many times over the centuries, and Anrel doubted much remained of that ancient estate. Elaborate warding spells kept its polished stone façade clean.

  The south side of the square was completely filled by the Provincial College of Sorcerers, a dark contrast to the clean, straight lines of the courthouse; the college had been built three hundred years before, in the ornate fashion of the time, and had been blackened by centuries of smoke and filth that clung to the porous gray stone and accumulated in the niches and crannies—no wards had been devoted to appearances here, though Anrel had no doubt the structure’s magical protections were otherwise formidable. Twisted spires thrust up from every corner and portico, and gargoyles clung to every cornice, their carved faces glowering down at the crowds in the square.

  To the west the square was bound by a row of grand houses—Anrel counted five. Most were of recent vintage, going by the architecture. Anrel considered the grand balcony on the central one thoughtfully before moving on.

  The eastern side of the square was made up of shops—vintners, restaurants, a bookshop, a bakery, and half a dozen others—with two or three floors of rooms and apartments above each one. The wine garden where he had spent the day with Valin was not technically on the square itself, but just around the corner at the southern end of this row.

  Down the center of Aulix Square was a line, north to south, of sculpture. At either end of this was a fountain—a round stone pool, perhaps twenty feet in diameter, with water spraying up from the center. Between the fountains stood several carved stone benches, facing east and west, and between the benches, upon sturdy marble pedestals, were statues of famous men—though in truth, Anrel did not recognize most of them.