“Do justice and kinship mean nothing to you, Your Highness?” DiSolera snapped.
“Duty means more, my lord.” Terrell held the older man’s gaze until it dropped. More softly he added, “I note that all of you have other paths open before you, such as investing in trade as DiBrollino has, or partnering in the new mage workshops that have produced much wealth over the last decade. DiNivir, I understand that your younger son is actively managing several such investments and has forged a profitable alliance with a significant merchant house.”
DiNivir’s face reddened to the color of mahogany. “You need not rub my face in the actions of my offspring, Your Highness.” The man’s nostrils flared but he choked off further words and simply glared at the four smiling Gwythlo lords on the other dais.
Aha, Terrell thought. He sees his son’s marriage to a merchant heiress as shameful, even though it rescued the DiNivir family from destitution. Dinner with his in-laws must be a tense affair. I’d better try to guide the son’s ambitions away from the father’s brooding.
“The choice is yours, my lords,” Terrell told the three. “This matter is dismissed without action. I will not entertain any such petitions again unless they come with allegations of substance, such as a gross dereliction of duty or an outright violation of Silbari Law. You may all depart.”
Terrell carefully ignored the grumbling at the door as all eight men crowded through.
“Nicely handled,” Pen said quietly. “Any more of these hot coals tossed into your lap today?”
“That’s the last, thank the One!” Terrell sighed. “But those fires aren’t quenched, merely dampened. I’m sure DiSolera, at least, will find a new way to cause mischief, and eventually I must face him atop the Hill of Sight during the Choosing.”
He stood and stretched. “Now for a sadder duty. We have a funeral to attend.”
* * *
Hours later the soft breeze atop the Hill of Sight stirred Terrell’s yellow curls. He breathed deeply of its scents as he topped the final tread of the Five Hundred Steps. Flowers on the grassy slopes, smoke and manure from the city below, and the salty odors of the sea beyond. The funerary urn seemed far heavier than its size warranted.
It’s the weight on my heart that I feel. Shimoor, Shimoor, I already miss you dreadfully.
Pen had offered to carry it, and accepted Terrell’s refusal without comment.
Dona Seraphina alighted from her carry-chair. The tasseled ends of her black and pink stole fluttered in the wind as she joined Terrell, Pen, and the Royal Wizard. Terrell looked around the gleaming marble space atop the Hill.
“Is there a traditional place?”
“Downwind?” suggested Pen helpfully. Dona Seraphina gave him a dry look.
Wizard Chisaad cleared his throat after a quick gasp for breath and said, “Baron Penghar is correct, Your Highness. It is traditional to distribute ashes off the north side, which on most mornings is downwind. It is also the side visible from the cemetery, where many of your people have gathered to watch.”
“Thank you.” Terrell carried the urn to the opening between the first and second bollards, set it on the seat that would be his on Choosing Day, and pried off the cap. He hefted the urn again and stepped to the edge of the platform beside Seraphina. Chisaad adjusted a voice-amplification spell and nodded to her. She began the traditional ceremony for dispersing ashes. Her voice carried all the way down the Hill to ring across the crowd gathered in the cemetery.
Terrell tried and failed to prevent his mind from wandering. The Hierarch had conducted Shimoor’s actual funeral in the Mother Temple three hours ago, after which Chisaad and the entire Council of Colors had overseen the magical cremation of the former Royal Wizard’s cast-aside and preparation of his ashes for this dispersal. The urn was still warm in Terrell’s hands even though they had cast chilling spells on the carefully-ground ashes before loading them into it. Terrell hoped no bit of bone or scrap of tooth had escaped their grinding spells to bounce embarrassingly down the Hill. He looked toward the waiting people and waited his own turn.
The Hill fell away below him in a long smooth slope starred with black-and-pink blossoms. Black and pink, he thought. The colors of death and rebirth.
Dona Seraphina finished the standard oration and a murmur of anticipation went through the waiting crowd as she turned to him. Terrell cleared his throat and nodded slightly to Chisaad, who switched the amplification spell to him. Terrell’s lips and throat tingled slightly as the spell settled and he began to speak.
He commenced with a recitation of Shimoor’s humble beginnings in the Old City, spoke briefly of his rise through the ranks of the Mage Guild, lingered over his long service to the Silbari Throne, and delved into his own training and teaching at the old mage’s hands. By the time he reached his final lines emotion tightened his voice.
“May you go to your promised rebirth, Shimoor,” He prayed aloud. “As sure as the suns rise in majesty every morning, the Door to Heaven will open for you.”
He tilted the urn forward and a fine shower of gray ash flowed out. The breeze took it, spread it into a long plume that flowed a hundred feet down the hillside before it settled into the grass and flowers. He poured until the urn was empty, shook it to send the last fleck downwind with his prayers. Below, the thousands gathered in the vast cemetery and along the roadside, on the towers and parapets of the Gray Fort, and in the windows of the Red Street, watched in silence as the ash plume slowly settled and vanished. A long sigh floated up from the multitude, followed by the murmur of prayers. Shimoor had never forgotten his roots among the folk of Aretzo, who counted him as one of their own.
And now he has the final and supreme honor of having his ashes spread on the Hill of Sight with the Kings and Queens of old, Terrell thought. That cannot help but please the common people. Even after death, my teacher, you still help me. May Father Haroun and Mother Umana carry your soul to the One.
Chisaad shifted the amplification spell back to Seraphina, who gave the closing prayer and benediction, and it was done. Seraphina boarded her carry chair and headed back to the Palace while Chisaad carefully folded up the spell. Terrell consented to let a servant carry the empty urn. He paused at the top of the Five Hundred Steps to gaze over the Palace and the city. Chisaad stopped beside him and Pen waited behind them both while, at a slight gesture from Terrell, the servants went on ahead to escort Seraphina.
“I am minded to appoint you Royal Wizard in full,” Terrell said to the mage. “Would that please you?”
Chisaad hesitated, even quieter today than usual. “Once I would have loved few things more,” he slowly answered, his eyes squinting against the sun’s light. “That form of acceptance and status used to loom large to me, in my younger days. Yet I have functioned for more than eighteen years with the title Acting, and now I find it to be a light burden. One that I can readily bear for a little longer, if it please you, Your Highness.”
“It is no dishonor to Shimoor for me to speedily promote his pupil to fill his title,” Terrell pointed out. “And I need a Royal Wizard.”
“You already have one, who has borne the burden for many years,” Chisaad answered. “And you face a momentous choice before the summer is over, as Shimoor warned you after I warned him. Mage Blue and the Council of Colors are readying their petition to reallocate the Aretzo Node between mages and priestesses. He will submit it within the next few tendays. I am told that the Council has secured more than twelve thousand signatures of Aretzo mages, including every Magister-level mage in the city who does not serve the Hierarchy.”
Terrell twisted his lips in acknowledgement. “Yes, the gossip is everywhere. I’m certain the Hierarch is preparing a counter-petition.” Haroun help me. I need her support, but I need the Mage Council’s support too. This is going to be much more challenging than a handful of whiney dispossessed aristocrats!
“Therein lays the problem, Your Highness,” Chisaad said apologetically. “I will be supporting the Council, in
deed leading its effort, as she surely must expect. To promote me immediately before such a struggle is joined will be seen as declaring favor for the Mages before you have judged their petition.” With delicate understatement he added, “The Hierarchy will not be pleased by that.”
“But there isn’t any doubt that you deserve the title!” Terrell protested. “Every mage I have consulted agrees on that, including the few who’ve been at odds with you in the past. The priestesses too. Dona Seraphina is very favorably impressed by your record of working with the Hierarch’s appointees to the Palace.”
Chisaad made a gesture of polite disagreement. “What I do or do not deserve is not the issue here, Your Highness. The issue is avoiding a breach with the Hierarch early in your reign.”
Terrell snorted. “I could do that simply by siding with her and rejecting Blue’s petition.”
“Which I doubt you will do, because he has powerful arguments on his side,” Chisaad replied calmly. “The priestesses are unquestionably less efficient in their use of the Node than are the mages. Every priestess in this city has a personal allocation of power that is more than half again as much as the share granted to each mage. Some of the Hierarchy exceed their limits repeatedly, which would lead to sanction and even punishment if they were mages. Instead they are barely even chastised. This wastefulness means that less work may be done by the mages, which produces less wealth, which limits the Crown’s revenue from trade and taxation. That is why I have chosen to support the Council on this matter.”
He didn’t mention how helpful the extra revenue would be towards the tribute I have to start paying to Osrick, Terrell thought. Tactful.
“I see your point.” He sighed regretfully. “Better a victory of substance, with as few ruffled feathers as possible, than one merely of symbolism.”
“Exactly, Your Highness.” Chisaad smiled wistfully. “I can hear Shimoor’s teachings in your words.”
For a moment they stood there, each mulling over bittersweet memories. What would Shimoor suggest if he were here? Terrell wondered. He’d say don’t deceive yourself, strategy must always triumph over tactics. I play for the long term, as Chisaad knows I must, and so he signals that he, too, is prepared to wait. Ahh, Shimoor, this will be much harder without you, but at least I have the loyalty of your best pupil.
Pen shifted uncomfortably as Irreneetha hummed a lamenting descant to the murmur of the departing crowd below, then settled back to his watchful waiting.
Terrell shook off his sorrow and spoke briskly. “Very well. We’ll leave you in your comfortable limbo for a season longer, until Blue’s petition is settled. I shall revisit the issue after the Hierarch’s feathers are smooth again.”
“I can wait,” Chisaad said blandly. “I have ample work to occupy my days.”
CHAPTER 22: CHISAAD
Chisaad breathed a quiet sigh of relief when the prickly watchful sensation emanating from Sir Penghar’s soulsword passed down a side corridor and beyond range. He shut himself into his office where, for a while, he could relax the fierce discipline over his thoughts required to deceive her.
I must separate him and his damnable sword from the Prince if this is to work, he thought. But how to do it?
A soft knock on the door announced Ap Marn, who slipped inside and shut the door quickly. Without a word Chisaad led him into the inner office, secured the privacy spells, and sank into a chair. His knees were aching from climbing the Hill for the third time in six days.
“We have got to do something about that damned bodyguard,” the ex-governor snarled. He slammed a fist into his opposite palm. “His cursed sword puts my back up.”
“Yes.” Chisaad stroked his close-trimmed beard, thinking. “The latest message from Gwythford Castle indicates that our queen won’t last another forty days. You need to provide the Prince with a sufficiently strong incentive that he’ll willingly send his most trusted servant away on a task that will occupy him for at least four or five tendays.”
“What are you talking about?” Ap Marn scowled at him.
“We both know why he’s keeping you here by his side.” Chisaad stared boldly into the other man’s eyes. “He’s collecting evidence of your peculation to use against you. When he’s satisfied that he’s got enough, he’ll try and convict you and strip you of every asset he can. Your ill-gotten wealth would go a long way toward that tribute he’ll eventually have to pay Osrick.”
Ap Marn flushed an angry red but didn’t deny the truth. “I can’t leave. He’s made sure the Gwythlo garrison officers all know he has been given direct command over them by the Emperor. Not a one of the sodding sons-of-bitches will take a risk for me. And between the Harbor Wizards and the Navy he’s got the sea-routes in his pocket.”
“If you do nothing, he’ll snare you in webs of evidence at his leisure and ship you off to Osrick in chains,” Chisaad agreed. “I suggest, My Lord, that we need to start taking some risks. You need to enable that Treasurer of his to find enough evidence that he can trace part of the stolen sulfur to your tools in Sulmona.”
Ap Marn went pale. “What good would that do?”
“The sulfur pits don’t draw as much attention as the silver mines, but they still represent a sizable part of the Crown’s revenue,” Chisaad pointed out. “Prince Terrell must plan to sort them out sooner or later but for the immediate future he dares not leave the city, not with the Mage Guild about to pick a fight with the Hierarchy. If he feels pressured to deal with them sooner—”
“He’ll send DiLione.” Ap Marn nodded. “But even after we sideline him and his sword, there’s still all the bureaucracy and guards loyal to him and his bitch of a mother. It makes me sick the way that whoreson Fantillin fawns over him! And there’s this damned Palace too, with all its spells.” He looked at the walls without favor and lowered his voice. “The Gods only know what tricks he can make it do for him.”
“I can deal with those.” Chisaad gave him a chilly smile. “If you get DiLione out of here for long enough, I’ve been working on some special tools to handle the magic side of our problems. But timing is crucial. DiLione must be in Sulmona before the Queen dies, and must not return until after the Choosing.”
Ap Marn studied him for a moment. “And what happens when the Queen dies? Is this Silbari ritual really so damned important?”
“Yes,” Chisaad answered, with a profound understatement that he knew the foreigner would not understand. “Handled right, you’ll be Governor in fact if not in name, because we’ll have a weak King that we can manipulate. Give new Emperor Osrick a few years to establish his control over the Empire before you remind him how you kept the silver flowing and Silbar stayed peaceful. He won’t care how you got your money. And by then I’ll have raised the Mage Guild to primacy over the Hierarchy, and thereby have won my heart’s desire too.”
Ap Marn shrugged. “I’ll take your word for it. If we don’t pull this off, I’m dead anyway.” He glanced at Chisaad’s face through half-lidded eyes. “And you after me.”
Chisaad smiled. “It appears that we understand each other. Good.”
He managed to get Ap Marn gone swiftly, afterwards leaned against the inside of his inner sanctum’s door, thinking.
He’s not the best of tools, but he is competent. This will take a bit of finesse and some courage on his part. It will be a good test for what must come after . . .
CHAPTER 23: KIRIN AND CHISAAD
“You’ve been spending more and more time with that wizard in the last few tendays,” Maia told Kirin, shifting her swollen belly uncomfortably while she trimmed Pieter’s hair and beard. She looked more than twenty-four tendays pregnant. “It worries me.”
“Worries? Love, there’s really nothing to be worried about,” Kirin assured her as he took his good hose off the drying line and pulled them on. “I know I said I was a little suspicious of him at first, and sure he’s not the kind of man I can invite home for beer and fish stew. But he’s been honorable and straight with me on everythin
g.”
Pieter looked thoughtful. “You told me about those tests he set for you. It’s pretty clear you don’t have any spellcasting abilities at all.”
Kirin winced as he pulled his tunic on over his head, remembering how badly that had gone. His Shadow had eaten every bite of power in the sulfur he’d tried to use to make beginner-level castings. It had also gulped down the spells powering two of the small artifacts that Chisaad had tested him on. Worse yet, when Kirin got too close to the wizard’s cleaning golem, his Shadow had devoured the spell animating the ugly thing’s longest arm.
That had been so embarrassing that the memory still made him cringe. For a moment Kirin had thought his new teacher would explode in outrage. The Wizard had flushed red as a beet and his eyes opened so wide Kirin had been able to see whites all the way around.
Chisaad had slowly exhaled a long breath and said, “We both must bear this in mind, Kirin. Your ability, undisciplined, can be severely damaging to property and thus, potentially, to people. You have a duty to develop unfailing control over it.”
Kirin knew his error had to have cost the Royal Wizard a pile of charged silver, or whatever powered the weird thing. He still knew a pang of shame every time he saw the cleaning golem, or the more human-shaped one that washed the Wizard’s dishes and clothes.
“That’s sure the truth, Father,” he agreed morosely with Pieter.
“But you can drain or destroy spells cast by others,” Pieter continued. “You said he is teaching you how to be more skilled at that?”
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