A Young Man Without Magic

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  And at the midpoint of this line, in the exact center of the square, was a broad plinth, perhaps fifteen feet square and four feet high, supporting a grand pedestal that held a statue of the First Emperor, in his robe and crown, holding up a golden sphere in his right hand, a sphere that shone so brightly with magic that the glow was dimly visible even in daylight.

  Anrel considered that balcony, and the courthouse steps, and the central portico of the college, and even the arbor over the entrance of a restaurant, but in the end there really wasn’t any other choice. As the midday crowds began to fill the square he threw himself atop the central plinth, then grabbed the First Emperor’s leg and heaved himself up onto the great man’s pedestal, where he reached up and steadied himself by holding that outstretched right arm. He tugged his hat forward to shadow his face—while it was unlikely anyone from Alzur would be here and recognize him, he had been introduced to several people in the wine garden. There was no need to make his features too visible.

  “People of Aulix!” he shouted.

  A few faces turned up to look at him; one or two people pointed him out to companions, and someone laughed.

  “People of Aulix,” Anrel repeated, “you stand at a crossroads of history!”

  “Who are you?” someone called.

  “You have an opportunity to remake your province, the empire, the world!” Anrel proclaimed. “It is within your grasp; you need merely reach out and take it!”

  “What’s he talking about?”

  “Is he a sorcerer?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Who are you?”

  Anrel looked down at his audience and decided he needed a name, but even if he were to admit his identity, who would listen to Anrel Murau, the obscure young scholar, the failed son of dead sorcerers? “Call me Alvos,” he said, using a word for “speaker” from the ancient Imperial tongue. “I speak for all of you—not only for those who are here today, but for those who have died, and those yet to be born. I speak for all Walasians everywhere, throughout the empire!”

  “He’s mad,” a woman’s voice called.

  “Let him talk,” someone answered.

  “You all know that the emperor has summoned the Grand Council,” Anrel shouted. “You know he has said that half the representatives are to be chosen by the common people of the empire. But do you understand what that means?”

  The crowd of upturned faces was growing; more and more of the people in the square were gathering about him, and listening to his words. Anrel thought he saw familiar features here and there, people who had listened to Valin hold forth at the wine garden.

  “The first Grand Council made the empire!” Anrel said. “The Old Empire had fallen, the ancient wizards had vanished, and the survivors, the original Walasians, gathered in the Grand Council to create a new empire. It was the Grand Council that first decreed that all sorcerers and only sorcerers would be nobles of the empire. It was the Grand Council that decreed that to lessen the risk of assassinations and struggles for the throne, the emperor could not be a magician. It was the Grand Council that chose the First Emperor, whose image you see here behind me, and decreed that he and his family would rule. There is no higher human authority than the Grand Council. There can be no higher human authority than the Grand Council. The Grand Council is the empire.” He paused dramatically, then continued, “And now, after almost six hundred years, the emperor has commanded the reinstatement of the Grand Council, and you, people of Aulix, are to choose members of the Grand Council. You are to choose the men who will determine your fate.” He pointed at one face after another. “You, and you, and you—you will decide the fate of the empire! You have the power to send our arrogant spendthrift empress back to her Ermetian family! You have the power to remove the wastrel emperor from his throne and set another in his place! You have the power to dismiss Lord Allutar and name a new landgrave of Aulix—or to do away with sorcerers and landgraves and provinces altogether! It is for you to decide! I am not telling you what the Grand Council should do, because that is not for me to say—I have no more right to direct it than you do, each and every one of you! Do you understand that? Do you?”

  A few voices called out something that might have been agreement.

  “That part is simple enough—you don’t know who I am, and I’m just another citizen,” Anrel continued. “But here’s the part you may not have grasped yet. Lord Allutar has no more right to direct the Grand Council than you do! The burgrave of Naith has no more right than you do!” He pointed first at the courthouse, and then at the college. “The Lords Magistrate, the entire College of Sorcerers—they have no more say than any of you once the Grand Council convenes in Lume, unless—” He paused again, looking out over the crowd.

  Hundreds of faces were turned up toward him now; hundreds of voices were hushed in anticipation. Anrel glanced toward the courthouse, and as he had expected, there were men in the uniform of the city watch conferring on the courthouse steps. He might not have much time left to speak.

  He turned his attention back to the crowd below him. “Unless you give it to them!” he shouted. “That’s right, all power in the empire comes from you, but the sorcerers will be only happy to take it from you if you let them. You must choose your own delegates! Don’t let Lord Allutar handpick his own lackeys as your representatives—choose your own men, men of goodwill and stout heart, men who will stand up for the rights of every citizen of the empire, whether he has a true name and wears silks and velvets, or scarcely knows his own father and goes barefoot in rags! All of us have rights, all of us! We are all the heirs of the Father and the Mother; we are all the heirs of the Old Empire. The empire belongs to all of us, from the mightiest lord to the poorest beggar. Our ancestors gave the sorcerers their privileges so that they would use their magic to help the empire thrive, but have they earned those privileges of late? Has your family been thriving? Has their sorcery helped you, or are you worried about what your children will eat this winter? Have the sorcerers earned our loyalty? Do we still need their magic? Do they use it for the good of the empire, or for their own ends? Perhaps it’s time for the Grand Council to take those privileges back!” He gestured broadly, but then drew his arm back to his chest, his hand in a fist. “Or perhaps not. Perhaps we do still want the sorcerers to tell us what to do. It’s not for me to say. But I do say that you must choose delegates who will have the courage, the audacity, to do whatever is right, to think the unthinkable, to consider every option, and to do whatever it takes to make the empire flourish and see that every belly is filled, regardless of who they may need to defy, what power they may need to cast down, to see that it’s done!”

  “And who would that be?” someone called from the crowd. “You?”

  “Me?” Anrel laughed. “Me? No, I am only a speaker, I am merely Alvos—I don’t have the integrity, the courage, the learning to represent you on the Grand Council. No, you must choose men who have studied the issues, men who know and understand the ways of the world, men with the vision to see what the empire can become. Men like Derhin li-Parsil or Amanir tel-Kabanim.” His smile vanished as he said, “A few days ago, my friends, I might have named Lord Valin li-Tarbek; indeed, Lord Dorias, the burgrave of Alzur, had named Lord Valin as Alzur’s appointed delegate. Lord Allutar was not happy with that choice, and four days ago he killed Lord Valin, so that his voice would not be heard in Lume. He silenced one of the finest voices in this province so that he might substitute a man more to his liking. I implore you, people of Aulix, do not allow this injustice, this tyranny, to stand! Do not vote for any candidate Lord Allutar might name; vote instead for the likes of Derhin li-Parsil, for the voices that will speak up for freedom and justice and prosperity! Demand that your burgraves choose good men, not toadies and lickspittles!”

  “That’s enough of that!” someone shouted from somewhere to the north. Anrel turned.

  Lord Neriam was walking across the square, with a line
of a dozen of the city’s watchmen moving ahead of him, pressing the crowd back.

  And what’s more, it was obvious from the magistrate’s expression that he had recognized Anrel.

  So much for any hope of anonymity. Anrel had gambled, and he had lost. How seriously his crime would be taken remained to be seen, but he was now a known criminal.

  “Lord Allutar’s lackeys are coming to silence me,” Anrel called. “In a moment I’ll be gone—but remember what I’ve told you! Remember, the Grand Council is yours! It represents you, the people of the empire! Not the sorcerers or the emperor or any mere part of the empire, but all of you! Don’t let them tell you otherwise! Don’t let them choose for you! It’s yours!”

  “Get down from there!” one of the watchmen bellowed.

  “Why should he?” someone in the crowd shouted back.

  “Let him speak!”

  Anrel had no intention of speaking any further, though—he had done what he set out to do, and it was time to get down and see if he could get away unscathed. What would become of him he did not know, but staying here could only mean disaster. Still, he hesitated, watching to see what would happen. Would the watchmen try to force their way into the crowd? There were twelve of them, with Lord Neriam’s sorcery supporting them, against several hundred citizens of every age, sex, and condition.

  “Step aside!”

  Then someone shoved one of the watchmen, and a truncheon swung, aimed at a bare head but striking only a shoulder. Blades appeared—and to Anrel’s surprise, not only in the watchmen’s hands.

  “Alvos! This way!” someone called up to him.

  He turned to see a woman beckoning to him. He took one final glance at the line of watchmen—now not so much a line as a huddle—and the mob that was encircling them, and then jumped down from his place on the First Emperor’s foot, to the plinth and then to the surrounding pavement, where several hands quickly grasped his own hands, arms, and coat. He found himself being hustled away by a score of people who seemed to know what they were doing. He put up no resistance, but let himself be led away.

  Before he was able to see clearly where he was, he had been pushed through a door, which had then slammed shut behind him; he was in a narrow corridor, and a woman in a red bonnet and white blouse was pulling him toward a stairway leading up.

  “Hurry,” she said. “The watchmen may have been too busy to see where you went, but their spies will know.”

  “Where is this?” Anrel asked.

  “It’s a way out, nothing more,” she said. “Up here, then across, and out through the back garden.”

  Anrel glanced back at the closed door. He could hear shouting, but could make out no words.

  “Hurry!” the woman repeated, and Anrel yielded, rushing up the stairs.

  They climbed three flights in all, then ran through an empty room and out through a tall casement onto a narrow balcony. At the woman’s urging Anrel leapt from it to an adjoining balcony, one building north; there he found an open window leading back inside, and made his way back down to ground level, where an unlocked door let him out into a surprisingly large and well-kept garden. A brick walkway led him to the back gate, where he lifted the latch and slipped out into a quiet alleyway.

  The shouting from Aulix Square had not abated with his escape. Indeed, it had escalated to screaming, and as he stood by the garden gate he heard the unmistakable sound of shattering glass.

  It would seem he had started something a little more violent than he had intended. He had thought the crowd of listeners would disperse when the watchmen arrived, and the entire affair would be a minor incident, but from the sound it seemed he had started a riot, with the crowds fighting the watchmen vigorously. He tried to decide whether he regretted that, and concluded that he probably did not. This would make his appearance that much more memorable; his words, his attempt to sum up Valin’s most important political position in a single brief speech, were more likely to be remembered and spread this way.

  Of course, it might also mean that the authorities would take it that much more seriously, making his own escape more difficult, but those mysterious people who had rushed him out of Aulix Square had given him a good start.

  He wondered who they were. Had they improvised their actions on the spot, or were they an organization of some sort, prepared for such eventualities as slipping a man out of the square mere yards ahead of the city watch?

  He might never know, and it didn’t really matter. He had done his part, made good on his promise, and he was done with politics. It was time to leave.

  He turned and trotted down the alley, looking for a way out of Naith.

  15

  In Which Anrel’s Departure Proves Difficult

  Anrel was not entirely surprised, upon reaching the city’s northeastern gate, to discover that the portcullis had been lowered, and the guards were questioning all travelers before allowing them in or out through the narrow postern. Had his little speech gone as he had expected, and resulted in little more than gossip and a few shouted insults, Anrel doubted that anyone would have bothered with such measures. Since he had apparently started a good-sized riot, though, the magistrates were taking matters more seriously.

  This did complicate his situation. If he tried to walk out, even giving a false name and fabricated background, they would almost certainly see that he matched the description of the rabble-rousing speaker—brown velvet coat, fawn breeches, broad-brimmed hat. He needed to change his appearance, or find another way out.

  Discarding his hat would be simple enough, though he hated to lose it—it was a good hat. The coat and breeches would be more difficult to disguise; a man without a coat would stand out even more than one in brown velvet.

  Better, then, if he could find another way out of the town.

  That woman who had shown him the back way out of Aulix Square—might she know a way out of Naith? Or might someone be able to provide him with a change of clothing?

  In Lume he would have known where to go; there was a row of shops in the Catseye district, just outside the Pensioners’ Quarter, where the merchants were known for their discretion. They would sell the same item, whether a frock coat or a letter of introduction or a sound dagger, for either of two prices—a low one for those who could afford nothing more, or a much higher one that would come with the certainty that they would tell neither the city watch nor the Emperor’s Watch anything, should they be questioned. While these businesses dealt primarily with Lume’s more unsavory inhabitants, students sometimes had reason to shop there, as well, and Anrel had on occasion seen one nobleman or another, usually wrapped in a cloak and with his hat pulled down, hurrying along that block.

  Anrel supposed that Naith must have something similar, but he had no idea where it might be.

  One of the guards at the gate was looking at him, and Anrel realized he had been standing in the same place, staring at the postern, for a minute or so. He waved, and turned away.

  He was a good half mile from Aulix Square, but he could still hear the shouting of many voices—the disturbance was continuing, and had perhaps even spread. He had not anticipated that. He had expected a few people to argue with the watchmen, perhaps, but no more. He had thought anyone who took his words seriously would digest them, then go peaceably about their business until the election.

  A full-fledged riot had come as a complete surprise.

  As the noise continued, he found it more distressing. Yes, he wanted his words—or Valin’s words—to be remembered, but if this went on people would be hurt, property destroyed, to no purpose. He did not want that.

  He was not sure what he did want. He did not really think that the empire would be improved if the sorcerers lost their exclusive hold on power; the injustices and abuses of authority came about because the rulers were human, not because they were sorcerers. He had made his speech to give voice to his dead friend’s beliefs, not his own. He did not really care who was elected or appointed to the Grand Council, or wh
at they might do once the council met, but Valin had cared, or at least had claimed to.

  Lord Allutar had cared enough to silence Valin permanently. Anrel had done his best to ensure that did the landgrave no good, and in so doing had, beyond any reasonable doubt, branded himself a criminal. Despite the false name he had used, he knew he had not gone unrecognized. Even if Lord Neriam had somehow failed to identify him, which seemed vanishingly unlikely, or if the magistrate took a blow to the head in the rioting that knocked Anrel’s name from his lips, many of Valin’s friends had seen Anrel and heard that name in the wine garden a few days before, and many of them had undoubtedly been in the square today, listening to Alvos.

  He had expected that when he planned his little adventure, of course. He had thought they might keep the information to themselves, out of sympathy to Valin’s cause, but that was when he assumed he was just someone making a foolish speech. Now that he was the instigator of a riot, a preacher of sedition, it seemed likely that someone would inform the authorities of his actual identity.

  Until he knew more of what was being said and done he did not dare go home to Alzur, nor could he stay in Naith. He had to get out of the city somehow, and then get well away as quickly as he could—probably out of the province. Lord Allutar could not very well pursue him into Kerdery or Demerren. If he could remain free for a few days, until the initial excitement had passed, he thought he would be able to manage a quiet return to his uncle’s home, but first he had to survive those few days.

  Now that he took a moment to think, he knew where he should go. His most sensible destination was Lume. It was the only place in the empire he knew well enough to hide in effectively, and in that seething mass of humanity, who would notice one more face? He could presume upon the hospitality of some of his friends in the student courts and write Lord Dorias a letter to let his uncle know he was well. If he could find some way to receive a message, Uncle Dorias could tell him when it was safe to go home.