Vincalis the Agitator

by Holly Lisle

  When they burst into the theater, Wraith was so excited to show them all what he had accomplished, he sent poor sleeping Solander into a graceless, panicked tumble from the bench he’d stretched out on.

  And Wraith realized what a worry his disappearance must have been to his friends. Poor Solander. Poor Jess. Jess, who worried about the tiniest of things, must have spent the night frantic. Solander at least had managed to get some sleep, though he looked much the worse for a night spent on a bench made only for sitting.

  Solander, bleary-eyed and still confused, scrambled to his feet and stared at the strangers, and then looked to Wraith for explanation. “You’re all right? You weren’t hurt or … anything … last night?”

  “I got lost,” Wraith told him. “Ended up in a village way at the northern perimeter of the city.”

  “Bakangaardsvan,” Wraith’s new friend Rionvyeers said.

  Solander nodded. “I’ve never heard of it. But …” He looked down at the floor, clearly annoyed, and said, “You could have let someone know where you were. Jess and I spent most of the night messaging each other, checking to see if you’d shown up anywhere yet.”

  “I couldn’t,” Wraith said.

  “It takes a minute.”

  “It takes a minute if you have a speaker. Bakangaardsvan doesn’t have speakers. Doesn’t have anything that uses any form of magic anywhere in it.”

  Solander looked disbelieving—and then he gave Wraith’s companions a second and much closer study. He looked at the clothes, at the shoes, at the hairstyles—and when he’d finished staring, he turned to Wraith. “They’re Kaan,” he said, as if that were an indictment.

  “I know.”

  “Wraith. You can’t associate with Kaan. They’re one of the proscribed peoples. They’re tolerated within the borders of the Hars Ticlarim only so long as they follow special laws given to them. They must keep themselves and their kind apart from the general population—they are not permitted to proselytize, nor are they permitted to gather outside of the confines of their villages in numbers greater than twenty-five.” He glanced at the group accompanying Wraith, and Wraith could see him counting. “They must, when they are not within their villages, wear clothing that marks them as being from one of the proscribed peoples.” He seemed to be drawing away from the Kaan, even though he stood still. “You can’t associate with them, Wraith. You’re stolti. You’re a student of one of the finest academies in the Hars. You’re … you’re on your way to being someone of importance in the Empire, and if you allow yourself to associate with Kaan, you’ll carry a taint that won’t wash away with time, with explanations, with … anything. Just by being with them, they’ll ruin you.”

  Wraith crossed his arms over his chest, leaned against the wall, and smiled just the tiniest bit. “Sol. You’re nearly apoplectic. Take a deep breath, and then I want to ask you a simple question.”

  “I’m fine,” Solander snapped. “I’m just praying that no one who matters will come through those doors before we have a chance to get these … these people out of sight. My … gods … I could lose any chance I had of making it onto the Council if I were seen with them.”

  The Kaan looked at each other, their expressions ranging from uncertainty to distaste to outright horror. “He’s a … wizard?” the woman Bleytaarn said to Wraith.

  Wraith nodded. “He intends to change the Council from the inside. To find a way to do away with the forms of magic that require sacrifice. He’s on our side.”

  “He doesn’t sound like he is. He sounds like he’s one of them, through and through.”

  “He hasn’t thought yet,” Wraith told her. “Patience.” And he turned to Solander. “They’re proscribed. Fine. Why are they proscribed, Solander?”

  “They have disgusting religious beliefs. They practice bizarre and totally unacceptable sexual practices—”

  “Like the festival?” Wraith asked.

  “And they maintain a belief system that is treasonous to the aims of the Empire, and that, if it were to spread outside of their little groups, could lead to the downfall of the Hars.”

  Wraith nodded and smiled. “And what belief system do the Kaan maintain?”

  “What?” Solander frowned at him. “Treasonous beliefs.”

  “What sort of treasonous beliefs?”

  “I don’t know,” Solander said. “What difference could that possibly make?”

  “They believe that magic as used by the Dragons of the Hars Ticlarim is an evil tool that permits the Dragons to have control over the lives of the people who accept its use, and thus they eschew magic in any form. They do not use magic to power their homes or their vehicles, they do not permit magical communication, magical observation tools, or any forms of magic to make their own lives easier or to aid them in achieving their goals or needs.” He watched Solander’s expression begin to change, and he said, “No medical magic, no educational magic, no industrial magic, no agricultural magic, no architectural magic, no infrastructural magic.”

  “What about overthrow of the government, beliefs in anarchy … cannibalism … ?” Solander had lost some of his air of assumed superiority.

  The Kaan shook their heads. “No,” Rionvyeers said. “None of those. Just the personal conviction to live lives untouched by magic. That in itself was enough for the Empire to proscribe us.”

  Solander looked bewildered. “But … why?”

  Guyeneevin, a lean blond girl with a darkly tanned face, said, “Because the Masters of the Hars truly do use magic—and people’s dependence on magic—to control them. That which you cannot live without you must pay the price to live with—and the price of magic in the Empire of the Hars Ticlarim is the enslavement of each magic-dependent human.”

  “Your father paid for his dependence on magic with his life,” Wraith said. “And you are dedicating your life to the same pursuit.”

  “But I’m not. I’m going to reform the system from the inside.”

  “They’re living outside the system. It doesn’t touch them, except in the government’s oppression of laws.” Wraith hooked his thumbs into the catch-rings on his tunic and said, “And the New Brinch Theater is going to help them escape some of the oppression of those laws.”

  Solander paled. “You’re going to … employ them?”

  Wraith nodded. “The theater will use no magic. I have a grant for its … its aberrations from the norm, if you will, from the Master of Literary Application at Materan. I’m granted the right to demonstrate works experimental in form and method of production, beyond and beside the normal scope and scale of the classical repertory, for the enlargement of the arts community and the expansion of the public good.”

  Solander took a seat on one of the benches and rested his head in his hands. “Oh, Wraith—do you realize what will happen if you’re found to have the Kaan working in your production?”

  “They aren’t just going to be working in the production, Sol. They’re going to be my actors,” Wraith said.

  “But you could be shipped off to the mines. Gods all, you could be tried and executed for treason. Well … not as long as you’re thought to be stolti, you’re immune from major prosecution so long as everyone believes you’re stolti, but if they ever find out who you are, Wraith—”

  “If they ever find out who I am, I’m guilty of treason anyway. My existence as a conscious being, my entire life, is an act of treason. That I compound the treason of knowing that I breathe and thinking my own thoughts by trying to free my people from hell … well, what of that? Imprisoned is imprisoned. Enslaved is enslaved. And dead is dead.”

  Solander looked at the Kaan. “I can respect their decisions. Their beliefs. In a way, I suspect they’re right. They are overlooking beneficial magic, and the sort of magic that I’ve been working on, which doesn’t require the sacrifice of others to function—but in their assessment of the Dragons, of the Hars, I suspect that they are more on the side of the gods than the devils.” He took a deep and shaky breath and
continued. “And I am sure that you will dress them as citizens. I’m sure you will have the sense to make them appear acceptable. Still … I cannot come here in any capacity other than as an interested patron once your work is finished. I can’t help you anymore, Wraith. I can’t allow myself to destroy by carelessness and thoughtless actions the future I have planned for myself since I was a child—the career that will be the vindication of my father’s life, and atonement for his death. I cannot lose my chance to change the Dragons, Wraith. If I can first join them, if I can become one of their colleagues, then I can show them that the Hars could be better than it is. I won’t put that dream aside.”

  Wraith nodded. “I had thought you would not be able to keep coming here anyway. We’ve hidden your underwriting of the theater, but if you’re seen here as people begin to notice what we’re doing, our dummy financiers will be easy enough to spot for what they are—and then, for better or worse, your name will be linked with the theater and its productions. And our mysterious playwright, Vincalis the Agitator. And me.”

  “My name is already linked with yours.”

  “At this point, we are friends. Distant relatives—at least by our papers. Two young men whose paths traveled for a while together and then diverged, as such paths often do. If I were you, I would play heavily on that divergence.”

  Solander looked almost crushed. “And what of our work together?”

  “Your experiments on me to see why I’m so different?”

  Solander nodded.

  “Those can continue in secret. We’ll find a safe meeting place and establish times when we can meet. You won’t lose your opportunity to find out why I’m … broken.” Wraith smiled a little.

  Chapter 10

  Jess thought she had come to terms with loving Wraith as a friend. She came to accept the fact that Wraith would never love her while he was with Velyn. Then he sent Velyn away, but Jess had Solander, and Wraith had been … distant. But now he was building a wall between his old life, which had at least included her as a friend, and his new life, in which she was supposed to go on her way and not think about him or see him again.

  This final separation had done more than hurt her; it had forced her to look at her life with Solander and without Wraith and ask herself if she had any reason to be with Solander if time spent with Wraith was no longer part of the equation. Jess cared for Solander. She’d convinced herself that she loved him. But she didn’t love him enough. If Solander told her that he needed space, that he needed to be apart from her, she would have been understanding. Maybe even supportive. She wouldn’t have been devastated the way she was devastated by this same news from Wraith.

  So what did that make her? Did it make her someone like Velyn—was she using Solander for her own convenience? Because Solander offered security, a place in the world that no one questioned? Because as long as she was Solander’s lover, no one questioned who she was in her own right?

  Finally, lost between confusion and self-loathing, she went to the theater, where she knew Wraith would be. She still had her key; when he and Solander told her that visiting would be a bad idea and that she should get rid of any evidence that she had been associated with Wraith or the theater, she had kept it, claiming that she didn’t have it with her at the time, and later saying that she had lost it.

  She found the doors locked, but she heard faint strains of music emanating from the heart of the building. She entered the anteroom, and stepped into a new and wondrous world. Someone had painted the walls in brilliant colors and patterns, and had hung silk and beads and feathers in arrangements that came to life when she moved. She could hear the music more clearly once the door to the street had closed. Strong, masculine singing, the heavy beat of a drum, and then a voice saying, “You missed your entrance, Talamar. Again, from … ah, the third verse. And this time, come out with more … with more emphasis.”

  Wraith’s voice. Her heart constricted, and for a moment she couldn’t catch her breath. Her eyes filled with tears, but she blinked them back and bit her lip—hard—until the pain drove away the urge to cry.

  The anteroom split, and the passages to both the left and right banks of seats were dark. This suited her. She wanted to be able to go all the way around, enter from the back, and watch for a while without being seen. She needed to know in her gut instead of just her head why Wraith had pulled himself apart from her and Solander and his old life; she hoped that by seeing what he was doing, she would get a feel for this obsession—this madness—that drove him.

  So she made her way through the black passage all the way to the back, and cautiously opened the door farthest from the stage, and took a ground-floor seat at the very back of the theater in almost complete darkness. The stage glowed, however; the lightmaster had illuminated it so perfectly that the scene seemed real to her. A group of men dressed as trees stood to the left, singing, and at center stage but well to the back, two trees danced. Jess knew Wraith was not permitting any magic on the stage, and yet she found that hard to imagine, for when the trees danced, they managed to hang in the air as if some carefully wrought spell suspended them, spinning or leaping so high she felt herself breathless for them.

  Then, from the right, a man burst onto the stage as if pursued by horrors from his nightmares and roared, “No peace shall I find this night; no peace shall I find ever,” and threw himself prostrate at the roots of the singing trees.

  They stopped their singing.

  “What will you have of me?” the wizard pleaded. “Would you have my flesh to feed your roots? If you want my heart itself, here, take it—it’s yours.” He ripped his shirt open and bared his chest to the forest, and the lead tree bent forward and touched him over his heart with one branch.

  “Of our fruit you will eat, before you find surcease,” the tree said in a voice as hollow as death itself. Jess shivered, delighted by the effect, and wondering how Wraith had managed to create it.

  “Give, then, your poison; I taste willingly of my own death.”

  “If there is poison, it exists already within you,” the tree intoned. “We will free you from it.” And he dipped another branch into the raised hands of the wizard, who plucked the fruit offered to him.

  The wizard took a bite of the fruit, and then another, and then a third. With each bite he took, the stage grew darker, and with the fourth bite it went black.

  The whole of the theater sat in utter darkness then, and Jess listened to the trees telling the wizard to dream well—to dream himself to the truth. She also heard shuffling noises, and thumps, and something rolling, and the odd sounds thrilled her—they held out a promise of excitement and mystery to come.

  Then a single red light illuminated the wizard, lying on the stage, and when the light touched him he opened his eyes and rubbed them and stood. Facing the stage, he said, as if speaking confidentially to a friend, “I feared that I would dream a hell, dream a nightmare, that my sins would catch me up and devour me, but look—I am awake again, rested and unscathed.”

  The red light spread, and now Jess could see the shapes of horrors behind him, reaching for him with hands twisted into claws. And as he stood with his back to them, gloating in his escape from nightmare, these tangible nightmares came forward and surrounded him. He turned to walk away, and saw them, and tried to find a direction in which to flee, but they blocked his every opportunity to escape.

  Jess sat transfixed as they identified themselves as the ghosts of the innocent dead and accused him of their deaths. She shivered deliciously as they forced him to watch the way that they had died, and as they forced him to watch, also, the use to which he had put their spent lives—as an ugly old woman drank the potion he had created and stepped forward, young and beautiful, able to spin and saunter across the stage for a moment before she grew old again and needed another draught of the potion. A parade followed, of the old who became young, and then old again, and of the dead whose numbers grew until they crowded on the stage so tightly that the wizard in the c
enter could not see a single space that did not hold the souls of the dead he had hurt.

  Jess sat through the whole rehearsal, and when it was finished, she quietly picked up her jacket, put it on, and slipped away before anyone could see her.

  She understood now why Wraith was doing this thing. He had created something amazing—something unlike anything that she had ever seen or, for that matter, that anyone had ever seen. He had brought a story to life without magic—and it was more magical than the best theater productions that had every possible spell and every imaginable device to create their effects. People would come to see this, and they would go away changed. They would … She fought for the right definition as she trudged to her aircar. They would believe. They would see in magic a danger that they had never let themselves see, and it would nag at them as they returned to their houses built on air, as they rode through the sky in their magical cars, as they vacationed beneath the sea or went to a wizard to have their bodies resculpted in younger and more beautiful forms. That parade of souls crying out for repayment for the sins done to them would haunt them.

  And some of them would begin to ask questions—the right questions—the ones they should have been asking all along.

  Jess had intended to beg Wraith to at least come back to the house, to spend time with her and his other friends, to become a part of his old life again. But he had moved beyond that. He had found a direction—a wondrous, amazing, beautiful direction.

  And it was time she did the same.

  She drove herself home—or rather, she drove herself to the place she had allowed herself to think of as home since she had escaped the Warrens—and on the way, she considered her life. She was pretending, and doing it on a lot of different levels. At base, she was pretending to be someone she was not; she did it for her own survival, but that did not make the lie better. Further, she was pretending that she and Solander might have a future together, and letting him believe this for her own comfort and convenience. She knew that by staying with Solander, she was wasting his time and keeping him from finding the woman who would love him the way he deserved to be loved.