Thus I reasoned to myself—if what passed through a mind in such straits as mine could be named “reason.” Unfortunately, my dilemma remained unresolved. If Sher Abener’s theurgists disguised themselves, how could I identify them in order to interrupt their power? By custom, theurgists did not attire themselves as men of rank, but instead wore symbolistic robes, bore amulets and talismen. That gave me no aid, however. Without searching the hall, I saw no fewer than six such individuals. Four of them were known to me—yet that signified nothing, since my knowledge did not extend to the private details of bribery and conscience. Furthermore, one or both of the necromancer’s henchmen must surely have set aside traditional garb, as an added disguise for their intentions. My enemies might wear the raiment of honored merchants, favored relations, or even trusted retainers.
In frustration, I fretted like a steed at once reined and goaded, driven ahead and restrained—tormented by conflicting commands. Was the Thal truly lathered with fear? No more so than I. The insanity of my presence here was exceeded only by that of the stranger who had taken my name, and my doom. As I had assured Tep Longeur, I was not the man to effect bold salvations. Too late—years too late—I asked myself why I had not attended more closely when my tutors had striven to teach me a wellborn young man’s polite knowledge of theurgy. Had I but listened then, I might now be able to act.
An apprehension resembling my own accumulated in the hall. Tense muttering sank to silence amid the folds of the draperies. Men shuffled their feet. Courtesans and ladies plucked the lint of anxiety from their purses and sleeves. The Thal had not yet made his entrance, and the assembly grew ever more restive at the delay. Doubtless the men and women before me were disturbed by my usurper’s air of inviolable confidence. None of them would have met the prospect of our sovereign’s displeasure with such a mien. And doubtless also their concern was enhanced by their awareness of the true threat looming before this Sher Urmeny. If a merchant of my wealth, charm, and complaisance might be threatened thus, who among them could consider himself safe?
At last, however, a flourish struck upon a tabla announced the Thal, and he swept past hangings into the hall, accompanied not by his usual coterie of ladies, but by a phalanx of pikemen. He arrived directly upon the dais, where the light concentrated to augment his stature, for he was not by nature an imposing figure. For that reason, I saw him clearly, although I cowered nowhere nearby. Rowel had described him aptly. A sheen of perspiration accentuated his fleshy visage, and his eyes stared widely, so that the whites of the orbs gleamed. He might have been an overwrought gelding—or a stallion maddened by the presence of too many mares. Indeed, he was palpably afraid.
Observing him, I deemed that he understood his own plight. The rule of Benedic had already slipped from his grasp, whether he willed it or not. His “displeasure” was entirely the necromancer’s. His sole concern here was not to punish me, but rather to preserve some residue of his own riches and standing against Sher Abener’s designs. As Tep Longeur had suggested, my enemy aimed at all Benedic.
Sadly, this altered nothing. Those who opposed Sher Abener would suffer for it nonetheless.
From the side of the dais, an oblivious chamberlain, immune to the mood of the gathering, recited the tally of the Thal’s titles, possessions, and honorifics thoroughly, but no one heeded him. Our ruler himself chafed under the delay. When the proclamation of his significance was complete, he spoke without further ceremony.
“This has become a dark day,” he complained, “when it should have been pleasant for us all, blessed by festivity and acquisition.” His voice was high and unstable, like a mistuned theorbo. His white gaze rolled about the hall, avoiding only my usurper. “One among us, Sher Urmeny himself, an esteemed and prosperous merchant, has transgressed the standards of conduct observed by all Benedic since the time of my father, and of his father before him.
“We are a municipality of commerce.” In his distress, the Thal allowed himself petulance. “On commerce we all depend. Without it, we would sink to rabble and poverty. Furthermore, we are a compliant people, generous and acquiescent in all our dealings. By this virtue, we conduct commerce without ill will or jealousy, and every honest trans-action is sanctified.
“Yet Sher Urmeny has offended against one among us, a respected neighbor and honored citizen, by refusing commerce.”
As I have said, our Thal was a weak ruler, self-interested to the point of greed, and easily led. At an earlier period of my life—yesterday, perhaps—I would have listened witlessly to his words, nodded bland assent to their import, and given them no further thought. Now, however, I seemed to hear them with new senses, a new knowledge of pain—with my damaged feet, for example, bleeding through their own crust, or with the scorched wasteland of my mouth and throat. Thus I understood that the Thal’s speech itself meant nothing. Its only real purpose was to muster his courage for the denunciation Sher Abener required of him—and, if I heard him rightly, to beg the forgiveness of his people. He wished Benedic’s citizens to understand what he did, and hold him blameless.
Well, he was a weakling. And I was a madman. Although I heard him with new ears, I did not attend to him. Instead I wracked my peculiar insanity for some means by which I might divert what would follow.
Others around the hall were more present in their alarm, more concerned for the immediate appearance of events. A grumble of assent rose uncertainly to meet the Thal’s displeasure. I heard such descriptives as “insult” and “dishonor.” Sher Abener’s theurgists may have already begun to work upon the gathering.
Beyond question, I should have given my tutors better attention than I had ever accorded the Thal.
Emboldened by his own peroration, perhaps, or by the murmuring of his supporters, he turned at last to confront the stranger unrepentant before him. In his manner, he strove to convey a virtuous indignation which his manifest fright undermined.
“Sher Urmeny, you have disgraced Benedic. You have disgraced me.”
In response, my usurper smiled. The effect was less than amiable. “You are mistaken,” he replied so that all could hear him. “The facts are otherwise. You have disgraced yourself.”
The sheer audacity of this affront struck the Thal so that he gaped like a fish. For the space of several heartbeats, I forgot my own concerns to gape as well. A stinging tension afflicted the entire assembly. Men and women whom I had known from my youth turned rigid with apprehension, or retreated to increase their distance from the stranger. Pikemen gripped their weapons expectantly. Retainers and relations withdrew from the reach of harm, while theurgists fumbled for talismen hung about their necks or secreted in pouches at their belts.
In his consternation, the Thal spoke without considering what he said. “How so?” he asked fearfully, thereby granting the supposed Sher Urmeny leave to distress him further.
My usurper showed neither hesitation nor doubt. He did not raise his voice, yet his strength grew as he answered the Thal.
“A citizen of this municipality has accused me of improper dealing. You do not name him.” The stranger lifted one finger as though to enumerate a list. “And you do not inquire whether the accusation is accurate.” A second digit joined the first. “You do not inquire whether there might be circumstances which explain my conduct.” A third. “Indeed, you do not inquire whether there might be circumstances which would cast my dealings in an altogether more favorable light.” And a fourth. “This is unjust.”
Standing vividly in the enhanced illumination, he closed his list into a fist. “You are the sovereign of this demesne,” he concluded. “The responsibility of justice is yours. If you choose to set it aside, you disgrace yourself, and your demesne as well.”
Now the Thal achieved the indignation he had feigned a moment earlier. Doubtless he borrowed its force from his fear of Sher Abener. He reminded me uncomfortably of Tep Longeur as he protested, “Choose? Do you think I choose?”
Yet the difference between him and my former overseer was
palpable. By the necromancer’s arts, Tep Longeur had been deprived of volition. Our Thal had not.
Supporting the Thal, my friends and associates and neighbors protested vociferously. Outright anger mounted against the stranger, warning me of theurgy and bloodshed. He spoke simple truth. Therefore Benedic’s citizens took offense. I felt my own ire rise, as though I, too, had been insulted.
And still I could think of no means to deflect what transpired.
My usurper remained undaunted, however—secure in his imponderable confidence. “Surely you do choose,” he countered. “You are a man, free of heart and mind.” Briefly he lifted his head and appeared to scent the air like a hound trained to the hunt. Then he remarked, “If I am not mistaken, there are those in your demesne who experience a coercion which is beyond their strength to overthrow”—I could not conceive how he had acquired this knowledge—“but you are not among them. Each word you speak, and each breath with which you speak it, is a choice. You are self-disgraced, and must bear the stain yourself.”
In response, a mood for blood swelled across the assembly, gaining force as it deepened and grew. Sher Abener’s theurgists were at work, I was certain of it, although I could see no sign of the baffling arts. At any other time, Benedic’s Thal and citizenry would no doubt have been similarly offended by the stranger’s words, but their reaction would have been otherwise. They would have disarmed his accusation with jests, dissipated it with laughter—and declined to heed it. In their place, I would have done the same.
On the present occasion, however—
The Thal’s round face and fleshy features quivered like those of a man in the throes of apoplexy. Threats gleamed in the sweat of his brow. Vehement punishments stared from his wide eyes.
“You dare?” he gasped. “You dare insult me so?”
The indignation of the gathering appeared to feed his—or to feed on it. Ladies and courtesans cried shame on the impostor. Merchants of high birth and low offered uncharacteristic imprecations. Retainers, relations, and sycophants posed themselves as though only decorum restrained them from rushing to their lord’s defense. Unbidden, pikemen advanced a step or two on my usurper. Even I was overtaken by an accumulating wish for retribution. A fury which consorted ill with my plain terror thickened my throat. Involuntarily, I yearned to call for my own destruction.
Surely, I told myself while unwilling wrath and quick dread opposed each other in my veins, surely there must be some means by which I might determine who had cast this mood upon us.
“You are a merchant, Urmeny,” the Thal continued on the strength of his people’s support. “It is not your place to judge me. Like your father, and his father before him, you dwell among us and acquire wealth and enjoy your ease because the Thal of Benedic permits it!”
Another man might have accepted this reprimand—might at least have mustered a decent silence—while he still retained his life. However, the man who had bereft me of my name was relentless. “Again you are mistaken,” he stated in clarion tones. “It is the place of every honest citizen to name injustice whenever it occurs, and to reject it honestly.”
The Thal brandished his fists. “Insult!” he roared. “Outrage!” Spittle splashed from his lips. “This merchant threatens the Thal of Benedic. He threatens me! Did you hear him? Is this to be endured?”
“No!” a man quavered from the assembly—none other than decrepit Sher Vacompt himself, as vacant a fop as ever strode the avenues of Benedic. “No!”
At once, he was seconded by his elderly Sharna, as well as by the twin courtesans Milne and Vivit, with whom he had carried on an ineffectual dalliance for some years. “No! Never!”
They were the first to encourage the Thal’s wrath. And they encouraged others. New voices quickly joined theirs. Nevertheless they had done me an oblique service. The sight of Sher Vacompt’s flaccid jowls and Sharna Vacompt’s powdered bosom straining with vehemence restored my sense of discrepancy. The Sher and his lady were altogether too vapid to convey intense emotion credibly, and their incongruous outrage had a salutary effect upon me. My own ire did not fall away. However, it ceased to mislead me. To some extent, I recovered my comprehension of events.
Theurgy—not passion—gripped the hall. And any art could be countered, by one means or another.
If I could but remember—
Not to be outdone, more citizens named their disapproval. A queasy hunger for harm filled the chamber. Men and women who would not have lifted their hands to strike a pillow called for Sher Urmeny’s disgrace—even for his death. At the same time, the guards answered their lord’s outrage by surrounding the stranger. Ingrained custom or indolence caused them to withhold their pikes, but they did not withhold their hands. Some of them clutched at my usurper to secure him. Others struck him about the head and body. I heard the sodden pounding of hard bone on undefended flesh. In moments, he had received more blows than I had ever imagined.
Still I could not aid him. This fate had befallen him in my name, my name, and I could do nothing.
I found, however, that need and despair had at last improved my recollection.
As a youth, I had been taught the merest scraps of theurgy, nothing more than the sort of small acts and invocations which might prove useful or appropriate for a young merchant of high birth who chanced to find himself in unfamiliar circumstances, confronted by men and purposes he had cause to mistrust. And one of those minor skills was an easy and unobtrusive exercise in—so my tutor had named it—demystification. It was used, I now remembered, to detect the presence of theurgy, and to determine its source, so that the young merchant might be wary of bafflement.
Fortuitously, I also recalled how this demystification was done.
I feared I had regained my memory too late. The stranger had already been accorded punishment enough to flatten a stallion. Pikemen pummeled his face and body. Merchants and retainers delivered weaker blows to his shoulders and back. Among them, I recognized Sher Ablute and his personal scrivener, Tep Jacard, as well as Vivit, Teppin Sommenie, and others. And those who were not near enough to strike called in compelled voices for his death. Some may have demanded dismemberment. In his place, I would no doubt have died where I stood—slain by fear if not by pain.
Nevertheless I set to work without hesitation. My own urgency tolerated no delay.
The beauty of demystification, as my tutor had explained it, was that it required neither talent nor apparatus, for it drew on the preexisting energy and exercise of theurgy. Therefore it might be within my abilities, despite my rather wan condition. It demanded of me only that I utter certain arcane syllables in certain ways, accompanying them with subtle but appropriate gestures.
The gestures I recalled well enough. They were performed thus and thus, using only the fingers and a small rotation of the wrist. I could repeat them as often as needed without attracting notice. The words, however, came to mind less distinctly. Did the invocation speak of cataphract or cataphracsis? Did it make reference to abeminil or abemanol? I could not remember.
Sweating feverishly, I struggled to achieve my aim. Every blow suffered by the stranger in my name caused my heart to labor with more violence. How he remained on his legs I could not conceive. In haste, I attempted every imaginable variation of sound and stress, repeating my gestures with greater and greater emphasis.
Through the rising tumult, I heard the Thal shout, “Let him be beheaded!”
Swallowing curses, I exercised my invocation once more, performed my tense gestures—and saw an eerie spangling punctuate the air of the hall. Small, misshapen flashes resembling sunlight a-dance upon disturbed waters stretched and broke above the heads of the gathering. They were apparent only to me—so my tutor had assured me—accessible only to the man who had invoked them. Nevertheless I saw them plainly. At first, they covered all the chamber, shattered gleamings, rough fragments of illumination, indicating theurgy at work upon the entire assembly. Soon, however, they concentrated toward the sources of their ef
fect.
The milling and clamor of the crowd had grown so strenuous that I could not immediately identify Sher Abener’s theurgists. There were two, as Rowel had indicated, one near at hand, the other somewhat apart. But who—?
There! The nearer one became clear to me—a theurgist in the Thal’s service, a gaunt, haughty man by the name of Bandonire. I had been acquainted with him for years, but knew little about him except that he had practiced sneering until his contempt had acquired the refinement of fine weaving or sculpture. Spangles flurried about his bald pate, marking him for me. One hand he held deep in the pouch hung from his belt. The other clutched an amulet at his throat. His lips moved incessantly, murmuring words without sound.
As a theurgist, he was impervious to me. My unreliable memories held nothing which might obviate his arts. Still I did not hesitate. Ordinary doubt and caution had deserted me. Rushing forward, I pounced upon Sher Vacompt for the simple reason that he supported his years and infirmities upon a cane.
The Sher’s cane had caught my eye on more than one occasion. Its polished and luminous teak shaft was surmounted by a crown of inlaid bronze sculpted to suit its owner’s fingers. I snatched it from him and swung it high in one motion. Gripping it by its shaft, I aimed its heavy head and my own desperation at the curve of flesh between Bandonire’s neck and shoulder, and struck.
He collapsed under the blow like a man who had been shattered within his robes. I felt a sudden alteration in my hearing, as though I had lifted my ears from submersion in a basin of water. At once, the spangles which had echoed Bandonire’s arts faded.
Around me, the entire gathering staggered, overtaken by uncertainty. Between one heartbeat and the next, the grip of imposed passion weakened. Some few of my fellow citizens may have wondered what they were about. Others merely paused in their avarice for dire actions.
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