Vincalis the Agitator

by Holly Lisle

  “You bring this woman before the court in what capacity?” the old man asked him privately.

  Wraith sighed. “She and I were childhood friends, and she was once my lover. I asked her to take vows with me, and she refused me, so I put her aside. I had not heard from her since, except on the day she took vows with someone else. But today she appeared in my office, looking like this and begging me to help her. Out of old obligation, I am helping her out.”

  “You had no hand in her situation, either as the man who beat her or as the man over whom her vowmate beat her?”

  “My conscience is clear, Sveth. Hire whomever you will to search out the secrets of my life; I have not seen her in three years. Today’s visit has been a disruption and an inconvenience—but I once had feelings for her. I would not see her hurt like this again.”

  The judge nodded. “Very well. I would not have thought otherwise, but I had to ask.”

  He sent Wraith back to a seat and called Velyn forward. Wraith could not hear what they said, but he could see Velyn’s shoulders shaking as she sobbed. Could see her holding out her battered hands, moving aside bits of her clothing to show a cut or a bruise. He could tell how effective her presentation was because of the increasingly stunned expression on the judge’s face.

  Finally the judge asked her to step onto the verifier, a small raised cube with a dais set in front of it. He murmured the spell that started the verification process. On the dais in front of her physical self, a second Velyn appeared, this time with Luercas. Luercas’s expression belonged to a madman. Wild-eyed, his face red with fury, his lips curled back from his teeth, he forced her into a corner. He drew a knife, and with the fingers of his free hand wrapped around her throat, he began to cut her with the knife—little, shallow cuts on her arms and her neck that bled freely. He cut her shirt away, and began drawing bloody lines across her breasts and belly. The whole time, he was calling her his beloved, his darling vowmate, the joy of his life—but in a voice that made Wraith shudder.

  “Enough,” the judge said when Luercas jammed the knife into a conveniently close chair back and began to smash his fist into her face, her chest, and her belly, over and over. The image vanished, and the real Velyn slumped to the floor, burying her face in her hands and sobbing.

  The judge and Wraith exchanged horrified looks. The judge called Wraith forward again and said, “I will issue an edict of nullification of vows, with a rider of failure to abide by the terms of the contract written against her vowmate. That’s what I can do, but it won’t be enough. She left without money, and I cannot permit her to return to that house for any reason, under any circumstances. She’ll need a place to stay, funds, medical assistance—”

  “I’ve taken care of that already. My personal healer will attend to her injuries. One of my staff members will take her to an excellent boardinghouse. Others of my staff will stand guard over her, to make sure that Luercas does not manage to find a way to finish what he started.”

  The judge nodded. “And what of you?”

  Wraith glanced over at Velyn and shrugged. “I will make sure she is well taken care of, that she is safe and does not want. But I have moved on with my life. She will find someone else eventually, or perhaps not. In either instance, I’m out of her life.”

  The judge looked from her to him, back to her, and settled on staring off into the distance between the two of them.

  “What would you say, then?” Wraith asked, just as Velyn asked, “Why do you stare that way? It’s … horrible.”

  The judge seemed not to hear either him or her—and then suddenly he was back with them again, looking from one to the other. “Velyn,” he said, “you are not to contact Wraith again. He may seek you out if he has reason to do so, but because of the danger that association with you may pose to him, you are to remain well away from him at all times.”

  Wraith nodded, satisfied. He gave the judge the name and the reservation information for the fine suite in the boardinghouse he had obtained for her. He informed the judge that he had paid for the first week, and that if she had not come to some accommodation with her circumstances by the time that week ended, he would be sure she would have another week paid. The judge carefully wrote out and gave to one of his junior wizards the injunction against Luercas that placed full blame for the incident on him and dissolved Luercas’s and Velyn’s vows, with severe prejudice against Luercas. And both of them turned to Velyn.

  “My healer will be waiting for you in your rooms when you get there,” Wraith said. “You’ll have everything you need—food, money, shelter, the best care I can find for you, and good guards who will ensure your safety. Please accept my assistance until you are able to care for yourself.”

  “You’re not going to let me stay with you?” Velyn asked. “You could be sure I was safe, but you’re going to shunt me off to some shoddy suite of rooms in the Belows, and leave me there while you just go on with your life?”

  Wraith looked at her steadily. This was the reaction he expected, and in a perverse way it pleased him. She was doing exactly what he needed her to do to clear him of any complicity in all that would come later. “Yes,” he said. “I have forgiven you for not wanting me, and for not loving me. You chose, and you did not choose me—and I have learned to live with that. But I do not wish to have my heart broken again, nor do I wish to die on your behalf in some ill-fated attempt to spare you from your vowmate’s ire. You will be safe in the care of qualified guards. Luercas will not touch you—I swear to that.”

  “But don’t you love me?”

  Wraith looked at her and calmly and with all the sincerity he could put into his voice told the biggest and most awful lie of his life. “No.”

  He sent her on her way, and then returned to his office to construct his alibi for the rest of the evening and perhaps the next day.

  Solander had made himself at home in Wraith’s office, over the nervous protests of the secretary or assistant or whatever she was that he would be more comfortable in the lounge, and so was sitting on the windowsill admiring the view out the huge old window when Wraith walked through the door.

  Poor Wraith looked so shocked that—in spite of his problems— Solander almost laughed.

  “Sol?”

  “I thought I’d drop by and say hello.” Solander didn’t want to discuss anything sensitive with Wraith in the office, which he knew the Dragons, with their special distance viewers, would be able to observe. “Actually, I have a colleague with me, and I thought I would invite you out to dinner.”

  Wraith started to turn him down—Solander could see the words forming—and then the oddest look crossed Wraith’s face. A secret little smile, there in an instant and then gone; and Wraith said, “I’d love to go to dinner with you and your colleague. We can talk about old times, or I can tell you about the theaters I’m building in four other major cities right now. I have all evening.” That strange smile grew broader. “In fact, I know the perfect place. It’s a bit crowded, but the food is a miracle, and the service is flawless. My treat.” He leaned out the door and said, “Cancel my appointments for the rest of today—reschedule as necessary. My old friend Solander Artis has invited me to dinner, and I’ve decided to take him and his colleague to the Abundant Harvest.”

  “But what about—” the assistant started to ask, but Wraith made a quick, sharp movement that silenced her. “We’ll probably be out all night. I have a sudden lust for good food, great wine, and a long night of talking.”

  Her “Yes, Master Gellas, of course” sounded strained to Solander.

  Odd and odder. What did Wraith have going on? Not as much as Solander and Borlen did, certainly.

  Solander picked up Borlen from the lounge, and the three of them walked out of the theater and down the street. This theater was, to Solander’s surprise, in a well-kept and busy neighborhood. Little shops and restaurants lined the main street, and well-dressed couples wandered along the walkways looking into windows at exotic imports, fine silks, e
legant leathers, and other expensive goods. Some of the things he saw as they strolled toward Wraith’s choice of eatery looked as fine as anything that could be obtained from the private designers of the stolti. The lower classes in this part of the Belows seemed not much different from the stolti; Solander knew that fact should neither shock nor bother him, but somehow it did. Wraith wasn’t truly stolti, nor was Jess—but they were different. They’d been brought up stolti.

  When they reached the restaurant, Solander discovered that Wraith’s comment about it being crowded had been complete understatement. A line came out the door and halfway around the block. But Wraith ignored the line. Instead, he walked alongside it, and the people waiting to eat waved to him and shouted his name.

  The man who stood at the elegant desk just inside saw Wraith as he walked up the stairway, and rose and came out to greet him. “Master Gellas, you honor us with your presence. You don’t come nearly as often as we would like to see you. And these are your dining companions tonight?”

  Wraith nodded. “Thank you, Wyn. Just the three of us. Have you a table?”

  “For you? Always. My mate told me the next time I saw you that I was to thank you for the seats you got for her and her sister—she said it was the first time in years that the two of them managed to spend a pleasant evening together, and she credits you.”

  “My pleasure. Deera is a lovely lady. I was only too happy to help her out.”

  “She has a cousin,” the greeter said, leading them into a wide and well-appointed dining room, “a stunning young woman who has just completed her education in Arim. Shanit finished in literature and hopes to become a modern playwright in the style of Vincalis—and she’s both witty of speech and charming of manner. She’s not promised to anyone yet—and Deera says if you do not find a vowmate soon, you shall wither away like a raisin, and that will be a tragedy worthy of your friend Vincalis.”

  Wraith laughed. “Promise her that I shall not wither. I may be alone, but I am not lonely. She must not worry on my account. But, as hard as I work and as much as I’m away, I fear any vowmate but my theaters would find me sadly wanting.”

  The greeter said, “Deera told me you would find a way to avoid this introduction, too. Well, you may be a wise man. For all of Deera’s many charms, there are times when I miss the life of the bachelor.” He smiled and showed them through a door into a dining room where they could be seen by everyone on the main floor, but not heard. “Your table, Masters. One of the staff will be with you shortly to recommend something to your taste from the night’s specialties. In the meantime, I’ll have the winemaster come right over.”

  And then he was gone.

  “Is it always like this?” Solander asked.

  “You mean the admirers, the best tables, the special service?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes,” Wraith said. “Sometimes more so. They don’t make much of a fuss over me here, and they always let me have a table away from the main room so that I can eat without people constantly asking me if they can get tickets, if the person with me is the great Vincalis, if I might look at something they’ve written and see if I’d consider producing it …especially that last. I think there isn’t a soul in Oel Artis who doesn’t harbor a secret desire for being a playwright.”

  Solander was, for just an instant, deeply envious. He thought it would be wonderful to be so beloved by strangers, to be so widely recognized and so fawned over and pampered. And then he tried to imagine taking a woman someplace, hoping to have a romantic meal with her, and having instead to smile and engage in endless conversations about his private life with complete strangers—and suddenly he did not feel envious at all. In fact, “I’m sorry,” he said. “That must get quite wearing.”

  Wraith shrugged. “If the plays were not reaching them, they would not even notice me.”

  “But are they? Reaching them? The way you … hoped they would, I mean?”

  Wraith’s glance flicked from Solander to Borlen and back to Solander, and he managed a small, strained smile. “Vincalis has given me good material. Some of it gets through, I think. Most of the audience doesn’t look any deeper than the surface, of course. We tell a joke, they laugh; we send a lovely girl to her tragic death and they weep. They don’t look beneath the story for the meaning of it all. But … a few people in every crowd walk away with a thoughtful look on their faces.”

  Borlen said, “I’ve seen several of your plays. I’ve been lucky enough to get tickets for some wonderful performances—even if I didn’t get particularly good seats. I always wanted to ask Vincalis—does he mean to imply some danger in the general use of magic, or is that just something that I misunderstood?”

  Wraith smiled at Solander and said, “See? Some people pay more attention than others.” He shrugged. “What Vincalis means in what he writes, I don’t know for certain. I’ve never so much as met him, much less had the opportunity to talk with him about his intent or philosophy. I know what the plays mean to me, and I’m satisfied with that. I think every viewer has to find his own meaning in them.”

  “I think he’s fairly clear in some of his work, and I think that’s … rather brave of him—and you, too, for producing such dangerous plays, of course—suggesting some flaw in one of the keystones of the Empire.” Borlen rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Or perhaps it’s simply foolhardy.”

  Wraith frowned. “As I said, you would have to ask him what he means by his work. I know he has never said anything that was blatantly anti-Empire; I would not have produced it if he had. Still, as a citizen of the Empire, I don’t think anyone who understands the complete cycle of Dragon magic can do anything but question the way magic is used here. The … the cost of magic is too high, and the use of it too profligate.”

  Solander winced. “This is one conversation I would really rather not have tonight,” he said softly. “I have much that I would discuss with you, but not your politics, Wraith.”

  “Wraith?” Borlen asked.

  “A silly boyhood nickname,” Solander said, feeling heat rise to his cheeks. He had not made such a careless mistake in years—but then, he had not felt himself in such dangerous straits in years.

  He had to tell Wraith why he had really come to see him. He was going to have to lay out his final success, and his realization that success was much worse for him than failure—and Wraith was going to tell him, I told you so.

  But Wraith still might be able to help. They’d grown so far apart— and Wraith had achieved such stature on his own since—that Solander couldn’t really claim a favor for debts owed. He could only appeal to an old friendship that had fallen by the wayside, and hope that Wraith might be able to see a way clear of his dilemma.

  He glanced at Borlen and nodded, and the two of them whispered in unison the final two words that cast a small, sound-blocking version of the shield Borlen had devised earlier that day. Nothing visible happened, but Solander could feel the bubble swirl to life around the three of them. Wraith frowned and said, “Now form? What does that mean? Or have to do with anything?”

  “We have to talk quickly. If they’re watching us, and I’m sure they are, they’ll notice the sound drop-out on their distance viewers and have an agent arrive in person to see what the problem might be. I need to drop the shield before anyone can do that.”

  Wraith stared at him, and Solander could see the moment when comprehension hit. “The Dragons are watching you. Us. But you’ve done something so that they can’t hear what we say.”

  Solander nodded.

  “Talk, then. But be fast, because there’s more going on tonight than you can imagine, and I dare not lose my alibi of being in a public place with friends.”

  Solander did not question this; he knew Wraith would not answer him, and they had little time.

  Quickly, he explained how the final pieces of his new form of magic had fallen into place, and how Borlen, looking at the formulas, had devised a shield that would serve as its own weapon, and
then he told Wraith why he thought the Dragons would have him quietly killed if they found out about his new magic.

  Wraith considered the dilemma only a moment. Then he said, “If it doesn’t work, you have no problem, right?”

  “Of course. But it does work.”

  Wraith said, “Not anymore, it doesn’t. You change a few essential parameters in your formulas so that they will fail. You go in tomorrow, calibrate all of your equipment as you said you were going to do, bring a slew of your colleagues in to observe your tests—and then fail miserably.”

  “We’ll look like idiots,” Borlen muttered. “We’ll lose our prime work-rooms, we might lose our patronage—”

  Solander was grinning, though. “No, no. We’ll be fine. We announce preliminary and questionable results, state that the more we think about it, the more we think we were getting artifact, bring in the tester group to help do the calibration and double-check our results, and then we fail miserably. If we go in skeptical, state ahead of time that we are expecting no results, and then test with no results as the likely outcome, we’ll be doing what ninety percent of the other Dragons …” A thought occurred to him. Chilled him, actually.

  He glanced at Borlen. Then at Wraith. Wraith, he thought, had jumped to the same idea, because the corner of his mouth was twitching in a suppressed smile. Borlen looked blank—but then, Borlen didn’t have a devious mind.

  “I’m guessing at least some of the ‘dead results’ I ended up signing off on were successes that the discoverers didn’t dare report.”

  Wraith said, “I’m guessing that many of your colleagues are developing all sorts of fascinating technology at the Empire’s expense, and then hiding the results to sell off the record.”