„I still don't see... ."
„Consider everything that's happened in your lifetime. Back to the El Murid Wars. Sorcery, but nothing really startling. Come forward. Here, there, a bigger thing or two. Then Shinsan's war with Escalon. The biggest release of thaumaturgic energies since the Fall. Then the Great East ern Wars. Bigger still. And now this war with Matayanga. Even bigger. Part of it is increased know-how, but more is because spells are getting easier to cast. Less talented people are using the Power with greater effect.
„We're chewing holes in the fabric of reality. Our spells are like worms gnawing through timbers. Each one lets a little raw Power leak away and float free. Just like the air. Next time someone tries a magick, it's a hair easier, a hair stronger, and more Power leaks free. I think it's that free-floating energy that powers my Winterstorm. And Radeachar."
„Then he'd be getting stronger too, wouldn't he?"
„He is. That's what started me thinking."
„Is it important?" Ragnarson saw shadows. Black shad ows. More shadows that he did not want to see.
„It could be. I don't know. I hope it doesn't mean something is beginning to unravel. ... I don't know what it means." The wizard seemed to be talking to someone else, to be arguing. „There're too many distractions. I don't get time to think, to study, the way I once did. What I need is a year locked up in Fangdred."
„The older you get, the more the world closes in," Bragi observed, for want of a better response.
They were several blocks into the city. „Here's where I leave you," the wizard said. „Place is a couple blocks that way."
„Take care." Ragnarson resumed trying to invent an excuse that would impress the judges.
The wizard stood in the street with his eyes closed. Passers-by looked at him askance, recognized him, hastened away. Most made signs against the evil eye. Often as not, the sign was repeated, interposed between signer and palace. There was a distinct fear of the darknesses the King had enlisted as allies.
The wizard listened to his creature, Radeachar. He scanned the building with his own powers. He was a cautious man.
Nothing. No trap. But still he was nervous. Not a half mile away lay a castle filled with people he could not read. He prepared a bitter spell. Any ambusher would receive a nasty surprise.
He need not have wasted his time. Nothing moved inside save the ubiquitous roaches. The men who had occupied the flat would threaten no one ever again.
For a long time he could not look at the bodies. He had seen his horrors over the centuries, but... .
The flat was barren save for blankets ranged as pallets along the walls. The dust was thick. A few sausages hung from a beam. Gnawed, moldy cheeses lay piled in one corner. A scatter of crumbs marked the site of a bread stack.
He glanced at the bodies. The rats had been at them. Tiny red eyes stared at him through a tangle of dry hair. He shuddered.
He prowled restlessly, sneezing as he stirred up the dust. There was no stink of corruption. Norath's creatures seemed immune.
He began searching, wizard's senses probing. Nothing. What had they done here, these created assassins? Sat in silence, eating when the flesh demanded? No games to while the time?
He murmured, „Norath, you scare me more than my old enemies in Shinsan."
Searching as if these had been true men, likely to conceal damning evidence, he nearly overlooked the paper. He looked for loose boards and secret compartments till by chance he noted the tattered, wadded scrap behind the cheeses, perhaps thrown there before the food was laid in.
A long, lazy hand, full of arrogance, declared, „Milady: The appearance of the bearer will assure you of the comple tion of my half of our agreement. Norath." The ink had faded to sepia
Varthlokkur eased toward the door, an unhappy man. This scrap could hang. Should he pass it to the King? The assassins had failed, after all.
The message was less important for content than for the language in which it was written. Itaskian.
Ragnarson found himself passing through Vorgreberg's west gate. His mount seemed to be taking him to Lieneke Lane without conscious guidance.
„Sire?" the voice called a second time, breaking his self-enchantment, startling him with its concern. „Are you all right?" Sir Gjerdrum and Aral Dantice were staring at him.
„Just daydreaming." He flashed a grin. „Tell Slugbait I got the Panthers match set back. Put your money on the Guards. We're going to win."
Dantice responded with a dubious scowl.
„Well, don't bet the deed to the old family farm. I'm headed out Lieneke Lane. Come from there?"
Gjerdrum nodded. He looked grim.
„Something wrong, Gjerdrum? Trouble?"
„No. It's personal. Going to tell Gwenie it's over. Can't think how to say it. Julie and me... there might be a wedding."
„Congratulations. I guess. Seen Mist, Aral? She pull out yet?"
„She's gone." Dantice fumbled inside his shirt. „Left you a letter." He was not a happy man.
Ragnarson accepted the envelope, opened it after leaving the younger men.
Mist merely repeated her apologies, saying he had been a friend good and true throughout her exile. As a gesture, she would leave her children with him. He grinned. Crafty witch. They would be less hostages to fortune here. She wasn't making a gesture. She was shielding them from the politics of the Dread Empire.
He'd have to hand them over to his daughter-in-law. How would Kris take that? Two more mouths, two more little bodies to cuddle and mend, another two hearts to keep unbroken... . „She's going to raise merry hell."
Lieneke Lane was quiet. His own house seemed silent, moody, withdrawn. Down the lane, Mist's place already looked deserted.
Kristen stepped out as he dismounted. She placed hands on hips, glared. „Just what makes you think I'm going to take care of Mist's brats too? What is this? An orphanage?"
„What?" He threw up his hands in faked bewilderment.
„Don't try to con me..."
Bragi's face drooped into an idiot grin. Sherilee was leaning out an upstairs window. Kristen shrugged, defeated by chemistry.
The old doorman collected Ragnarson's horse. Bragi gave Kristen a hasty peck on the forehead, charged upstairs. Sherilee squealed when he swept her into his arms.
Varthlokkur cradled his daughter with his right forearm. His left hand lay folded within his wife's fingers. He stared out the window. „Looks like rain tomorrow."
„What's the matter?" Nepanthe asked.
„Trouble."
„Always trouble. Ours?"
„The King's. Looks like Inger bought those assassins."
„Inger? She's so nice. I don't believe it."
„It wouldn't be a historical precedent. I think Bragi knows, too. He's trying to lie to himself. Like maybe if he ignores it long enough, Inger will come to her senses."
„Talk to him."
„Too much like telling a man his wife is cheating. He don't want to hear it. Puts him in a vise. He has to do something. Like as not, he takes a whack at you instead of the woman." He didn't want the King taking a poke his way. He might say something Nepanthe shouldn't hear.
How much did Bragi know about the east? And Mist? She would soon be intimate with the situation.
„Talk to Prataxis. Bragi will put up with anything from him."
„That might do it." But he was thinking Michael Trebilcock, not Derel Prataxis. Michael would do some thing.
The sun plunged into the clouds of the west. Derel and Baron Hardle reined in before the King's suburban home. They made a mixed pair, those two, yet were as alike as pod-mate peas today. Two more sour, embittered faces could hardly be imagined. They did not speak as they stalked toward the house.