A Young Man Without Magic

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “I did stay at that establishment, yes.”

  “Remarkable! I thought he had fabricated the entire tale in hopes of delaying his daughter’s death.”

  “I am afraid not.”

  Allutar’s expression turned somber. “How very unfortunate for us both.”

  “Is it, my lord?”

  “It may be.” He cocked his head to the side. “Or perhaps not. Whatever are you doing here?”

  “I would think it obvious.” He gestured toward the chained woman.

  “I meant, sir, what are you doing in Beynos?”

  “Only passing through, my lord; it is mere unhappy chance that we should both be within these city walls at the same time.”

  “You are not pursuing me in some mad hope of further vengeance for Lord Valin’s death?”

  “I regret to say I was not.”

  “And I should not expect you to turn up on my doorstep in Lume or Alzur?”

  “Unless I should somehow be pardoned of all my supposed crimes I have no intention of ever setting foot in Alzur again, and I would think Lume quite large enough for us both. I certainly have no plans for troubling you there.”

  Allutar considered that for a moment, then nodded. “Step back, lad, and if you would be so kind as to keep your hands in sight—I think we need to talk at some length, and I would prefer to do it behind a closed door.” He gestured.

  Anrel hesitated, then stepped back, away from the door.

  Lord Allutar advanced into the study, and closed the door behind him. “Pray be seated, Master Murau,” he said.

  A moment later both men had pulled chairs out from the wall and sat facing each other across the central table, eyeing each other warily.

  “Now,” Lord Allutar said, “let us begin at the beginning. I killed your friend, Lord Valin, because I considered him to be a rabble-rousing fool who might well incite riot and insurrection with his populist rhetoric. You were understandably upset by his death. After failing to obtain any satisfaction by legal means you resolved to retaliate by carrying out the very acts I had killed him to prevent. You prepared a pretty speech espousing his idiotic politics, which you, calling yourself Alvos, delivered from the statue of the First Emperor in Aulix Square. Do we understand these events similarly?”

  “I believe you have stated them accurately enough, my lord,” Anrel answered.

  “You do not argue with my description of your motives?”

  “I could quibble, I suppose, but all in all, I think you have described my actions fairly.”

  “Lord Neriam did not take your posturing well, and sent the city watch to silence you, whereupon you quite sensibly fled.”

  “Yes.”

  “I am given to understand that you then disguised yourself as a guardsman and commandeered a canal boat in order to escape from Naith, and were last seen fleeing on foot northward along the bank of the Raish.”

  “Yes.”

  “That was roughly a season ago, and in that time sightings of the mysterious Alvos have been reported in any number of places, scattered across the empire from Kallai to Swoi. None of these reports held up to scrutiny.”

  “I would not know about that, my lord. I made no more speeches.”

  “You did not.”

  “No.”

  “So these reports are all fiction, then?”

  “Not necessarily, my lord. They may be fiction, or they may be cases of mistaken identity, or of impersonation. I only know that I did not play the role of Alvos again after leaving Naith.”

  Allutar nodded. “You had accomplished what you set out to do.”

  “More or less. Ideally, I would have seen you dead, or ruined, to avenge Valin’s memory, but I could see no way to encompass that. I had made sure, though, that the voice you attempted to silence was heard in Naith.”

  “And those words were seeds on fertile ground, exactly as I feared they might be. Half the Grand Council is made up of idealistic fools thinking they can somehow overthrow the natural order.”

  Anrel smiled grimly. “I am pleased to hear that, my lord.”

  Lord Allutar smiled back. “Fortunately, I had overestimated how much damage this might do. This popular uprising you helped bring about, this great groundswell that peopled the Grand Council with dreamers and idiots, frightened the emperor—did you know that, Master Murau? You gave our dear overlord a mighty scare, because he knows what I feared he did not—that without sorcerers, the empire is ungovernable.”

  “Oh?”

  “Oh, yes. He had summoned the Grand Council as a club to use against the nobility, to force us to straighten out his finances. He had required it to be largely elected by the common people because he thought that the commoners would love and obey him, that these delegates would be overawed by his magnificence in a way that we sorcerers are not. He thought he was filling the council with loyal sheep. You, dear fellow, ensured that he was wrong, by seeing to it that hundreds of radicals and malcontents were sent to Lume instead.”

  “Did I?” Anrel asked uneasily; his smile vanished.

  “Oh, indeed you did,” Allutar replied with a grin. “And your acolytes so terrified the emperor that he would not permit them in the courts, instead sending them, and the rest of us with them, to that drafty ruin, the Aldian Baths, to hold our meetings in an ancient bathing pool. And while it is still much too early to be certain, it appeared to me from our first gathering that the Grand Council is now so divided, so disunited in purpose, that it cannot possibly accomplish anything, for either good orill. We will sit and discuss and argue, and in the end we will all shrug our shoulders, pay off the most pressing of the emperor’s debts and repudiate the others, and then put everything back just as it was, before we all go home to our own affairs.”

  Anrel blinked at him. “It had never occurred to me, my lord, that the Grand Council might do anything other than what you describe.”

  “Alvos claimed that the Grand Council could be the agent of sweeping change.”

  “Alvos spoke the beliefs of Lord Valin, and much as I loved my friend, I never took his politics seriously. I like to think myself more realistic than that.”

  “If the Grand Council had indeed become the emperor’s tool, it might have been dangerous,” Allutar said. “It would give what would otherwise be seen as acts of open tyranny a veneer of legitimacy.”

  “Was that what you feared, then?”

  “Let us say I was . . . concerned,” Lord Allutar said. He glanced at the closed door. “We are not here to debate politics, though.”

  “Indeed. I came here to save a young woman from the noose.” He nodded toward Reva, who was listening to Allutar’s side of the conversation with interest.

  “I do not think that will be possible,” the landgrave said.

  “Then what are we discussing?” Anrel demanded angrily.

  “We are discussing whether you will hang with her, of course.”

  Anrel heard Reva suck in her breath. He frowned. “I am afraid I do not see how the Grand Council’s composition is relevant to that issue. Though I confess, I am not sure what would be relevant.”

  “Ah, Master Murau, you are such an innocent! I have been explaining the political situation because it has a very direct influence indeed on your own fate. As Alvos, you created a new faction in the empire’s governance. Previously there was the emperor, and there was the nobility, and each held the other in check. The emperor was the highest authority, but could scarcely enforce his will without the cooperation of the sorcerers. The sorcerers held all the real power, but could not exercise it freely because the emperor has the Great List, and can render any rebellious sorcerer powerless by invoking the miscreant’s true name. It was a fine balance, and worked for centuries, until the present occupant of the imperial throne decided to tip it in his favor by summoning the council. He had intended the council to be his tool, but you saw to it that the council is instead a third force, compelling the emperor to make common cause with his nobles in order to restr
ain it. A new balance has been created, and with luck we can maintain it until the council is once again disbanded and the old order restored.”

  “This is all very interesting, but I—”

  “Do not see how it matters to you?” Allutar finished for him. “That’s very simple. I do not want you meddling with these matters any further. As Alvos, you have acquired a great deal of influence and could cause a great deal of trouble. One way to ensure you do not do so would be to kill you. Now do you see?”

  “Oh,” Anrel said.

  “That would really be the simplest solution, and the Lords Magistrate have indeed sentenced you to death, so that no one could possibly question it.”

  “But Lady Saria would not be pleased,” Anrel said. “My death would impede your expectations of marital tranquility.”

  “Exactly. Your cousin holds you in high esteem—as do I, for that matter, though I do not share her affection for you. My wife will be required to tolerate a great deal, simply because of who and what I am, and I would prefer not to burden our relationship with any unnecessary additional strain. I do not want to kill you. If you were to be captured and killed elsewhere, I confess I would not be displeased, but I do not want to be involved. I did not send the guards to arrest you, nor did I pass sentence upon you for treason, so my betrothed cannot hold your present situation against me—”

  “You killed Valin,” Anrel interrupted.

  “Well, yes, I did precipitate your actions by killing Lord Valin, but really, how could I have known it would come to this? I believe Saria can accept that much, as she has so far.” He shook his head. “But if you are captured in my house, or by my orders—that would be a very unfortunate circumstance.”

  “For both of us.”

  “Yes. Which brings us to a possible bargain.”

  “What would this bargain be?”

  “You would give me your word, as a Murau and an Adirane, that you will not interfere further in political matters—no more speeches, no grand gestures, no further attempts to assert the unfortunate Lord Valin’s beliefs—and that you will do your best to stay away from me and mine, and cause me no embarrassment. In exchange, I would let you live, and depart freely from this house. I would further undertake to say nothing of this meeting to anyone.”

  Anrel stared at him for a moment. “So all I would get from this bargain is my life.”

  “And your freedom. Surely, that is enough, under the circumstances? You are here, in my study, under sentence of death, with no weapons or allies in evidence. I am a sorcerer of some note, and you are a commoner. You have nothing I want save your silence. What more could you expect from me?”

  Anrel turned and looked at Reva. “The witch, for one.”

  Lord Allutar frowned. “Why do you want her? In fact, why are you here at all? Why risk your own neck in a hopeless attempt at rescue?”

  Anrel saw no point in avoiding the truth. “For reasons not unlike your own for letting me live,” he said. “I am courting her sister.”

  “Ah. How very awkward.” Allutar glanced at Reva, then back at Anrel. “If her sister is as beautiful, I can understand how that might be a powerful motivation indeed. Alas, I do not believe I can let her live, not even if it means I must kill you, as well.”

  “You told her father you would trade her life for mine.”

  “I lied, of course. I had assumed he was lying, and why should I not be equally false in return? The possibility that he might actually deliver you simply did not occur to me. I confess to some dismay upon your admission that his tale was not entirely a fabrication—I do not enjoy learning that I have misjudged a man, or that I may have inadvertently compromised my honor as a result.”

  Anrel felt a grim satisfaction in this vindication of Tazia’s mistrust. “She is just an ordinary witch,” he said. “A poor unfortunate never given an opportunity to become the sorceress she was born to be, and relegated instead to roaming from town to town treating the diseases of cattle and telling impressionable girls pleasant lies about their marital prospects. Why does she need to hang?”

  “Do you not know? I had assumed that whoever sent you here would have told you what she did.” Allutar sounded genuinely surprised.

  “Her sister said nothing of the nature of her offense,” Anrel said. He knew, of course, exactly what had happened, but he wanted to hear Lord Allutar’s reasoning.

  “She tried to enchant me, sir. That cannot be tolerated. Had she confined her activities to what you describe she would be free today, but casting spells on sorcerers is simply unacceptable.”

  “But you, more than anyone else, are proof against such magic!”

  “That is not the point,” Allutar said, tapping the table with a fingertip. “The point is that the person of a sorcerer is due respect, and is not to be defiled by commoners, not even those commoners who through some mischance are capable of magic. No such defiance of the natural order can be permitted; the authority of sorcerers cannot be compromised. That was the same crime that cost your friend Lord Valin his life; I would think you would understand my position by now.”

  “Do I understand that you are construing her attempt to bewitch you as treason?”

  Lord Allutar leaned back in his chair, lips pursed, and considered for a moment before replying. “That does not overstate my position. And of course, a traitor cannot be permitted to live.”

  Anrel stared silently for a moment, carefully not commenting on the contradiction between this statement and the bargain Lord Allutar had offered a moment before. Then he asked, “And what of the person who hired her? Has that individual not suborned treason, then?”

  “To my mind, she has indeed, but the law as written does not agree, just as it did not agree that Lord Valin’s importunities constituted a real crime.”

  “And have you—” Anrel began.

  Allutar interrupted, “Do you know who hired her, Master Murau? I had assumed you were ignorant of the specifics, but perhaps not.”

  “I—”

  Allutar did not give Anrel time to respond. “She was hired by a woman named Mimmin li-Dargalleis,” he said, “who is asleep in my bed upstairs even now. Mistress li-Dargalleis sought to become my mistress in hopes of capturing a portion of my wealth and power, and to that end she hired Mistress Lir to cast a love spell upon me.”

  “You know that?”

  “You heard me say that Mistress Lir knows I can compel her to speak, whether she will or no. She has had this demonstrated.”

  “Yet you say Mistress li-Dargalleis is in your bed?”

  “Yes—but she is there on my terms, rather than hers. The law perversely does not deem her to have committed a serious crime by hiring the witch, but I do, and I intend to make her pay an appropriate penalty for her offense. Yes, I could send her to prison or even kill her, but she has powerful friends, an influential family, and a good bit of money, so that to do so would be troublesome.”

  “Her father is not just a village baker, then?” Anrel asked bitterly.

  “No, he is not. He is, in fact, a banker, and one of the emperor’s creditors. I prefer not to affront him. He can hardly object, though, if I take his daughter into my bed when she offers herself—and I cannot believe she will tell him what I do to her there, what degrading acts I have forced upon her, or how little profit this role will gain her. Believe me, I do not love her, and she can have no doubt of that, but I have use for her—are you aware that there are certain spells that draw their energy not from earth or sky, nor from blood, but from sexual acts? I have never before pursued these, and would never inflict them upon your cousin, but Mistress li-Dargalleis has made herself available for extensive experimentation in this field. It amuses me to punish her thus, rather than in some more open fashion; it seems very fitting, given the nature of her indiscretion.”

  “You think she will tolerate this?”

  “I think she has no choice. I am a sorcerer, Master Murau. Witches are not the only ones who can cast love spells and other c
ompulsive bindings.”

  “You have enchanted her?”

  “I have enslaved her.”

  Anrel shuddered. “But she is a free woman, not a bond servant,” he said.

  “She is a woman who attempted to place me under her control. Whatever the law may say, I make no apology for imposing upon her much the same fate she intended for me.”

  Anrel glanced at Reva. “Then you have dealt with the true villain; can you not show mercy to the witch? Flog her, perhaps, but allow her to live?”

  “The law specifies that witches are to hang.”

  “But you are the landgrave of Aulix! Can you not set aside the statute?”

  “We are not in Aulix. What’s more, she has seen and heard things that I cannot allow her to describe.”

  “Are there no spells that would suppress her memories of those secrets?”

  “There are, but really, sir, why should I trouble myself with them? She will hang, and that will be the end of it.”

  Reva whimpered; Anrel glanced at her again, then turned back to Lord Allutar. “You asked what more I wanted, in addition to my freedom, and I am telling you, I want the witch’s life.”

  “You can’t have it. I said before a house ful of guests that she would hang, so she must hang.”

  That was the true reason for the landgrave’s intransigence, Anrel realized. He was not willing to lose face.

  But he did not want to antagonize Lady Saria, either. Which did he want less?

  “And if I refuse to accept a bargain that does not include her?” Anrel asked.

  “Why, then you shall hang with her. Master Murau, forgive my bluntness, but you are at my mercy here; we bargain on my terms or not at all.”

  That did not sound like a bluff. Anrel did not look at Reva again; he did not want to see her face when he gave in. “Very well, then. If I cannot have the witch, then I want three things from you in exchange for forswearing all further involvement in politics and doing my best to stay out of your way.”

  “Three?” Allutar frowned. “Name them.”

  “My life.”

  “Done.”

  “My freedom.”