Ren drew in his breath in shock.“ What?” It had been a long time since someone had managed to shock the Spymaster.
Lord Kisrah shrugged, leaning back in the chair and closing his eyes wearily. “In the spellbook of the ae’Magi there are symbols that cannot be redrawn. These are necessary to the spells’ castings. After Geoffrey, my predecessor, died,” Kisrah’s voice echoed with remembered sorrow, “we found the Archmage’s spellbook, but someone had been there before us and removed the pages that held the Master Spells.”
The Archmage opened his eyes to look at Ren. “It is possible that Isslic, Lord Winterseine, took the pages. He was a friend of the late Archmage, and would know where to look.”
Ren drummed his fingers on the arms of his chair and swore softly to himself. “What you are saying is that someone else, possibly Winterseine, could cast the Master Spells and hold all the wizards under his power?”
Kisrah shook his head. “No. Not yet, at least. The council holds the method of working the spells in another grimoire. As soon as we found that the symbols were missing, we hid the rest of the spells in a safe place. No one can get to them now without alerting the council. It’s been ten years and no one has tried to get to the second book.”
“Why not destroy the second part of the spell?” asked Ren softly.
“The spells were developed to keep magicians from each other’s throat. Without them, there is no check on the behavior of the mages. I don’t think that we need another glass desert,” replied Kisrah.
Ren snorted. “I think you magicians exaggerate the importance of the Wizard Wars. It can be more dangerous to have the wrong person command absolute control of all magicians than to have the possibility of a battle between wizards.”
“ ‘You magicians’?” queried the Archmage softy. “Don’t you mean ‘we magicians’?”
Ren stared at him for a minute, then smiled reluctantly. “So that’s why you chose to tell me so much. How did you find out about it?”
Lord Kisrah returned the smile. “Old Aurock used to brag about you. She said that you were one of the few apprentices she’d ever had who knew when to quit. I will see what can be done to confirm Winterseine’s involvement. The council will then decide what to do about him. I’ll keep you informed.”
He was gone with the slight disturbance of air that accompanied magical teleportation. Alone, Ren looked into the shadows in the corner of his office for some time, before he left, shutting the door quietly behind him.
Rialla lay flat on her back, pretending to be more winded than she was. No one would bother her if they thought she was resting, and she could tap into the emotions around her without worrying that she would be interrupted.
She’d been here long enough that some of the other slaves had made overtures of friendship, though nothing obvious enough that the dancemaster would see: a wink while she listened to the dancemaster’s impatient scolding, a hand helping her find a towel to wipe her face in the bathhouse. She’d forgotten how warming such small acts of support could be; she’d wanted fervently to forget everything about slave life.
Though in most respects the classes were not as bad as she had expected, in some ways they were worse. The hardest memory of slavery that Rialla had to bear was not the lack of freedom; it was the lack of desiring freedom.
By the time that Rialla had been a slave for a year, she lived for the dance, and practiced far into the night. She’d known that she owed obedience to any freeman, but among the society of the slaves she’d been special. She’d been the best of the dancers that Isslic owned, and she’d taken pride in it.
Lying on her back with the sweat drying slowly in the heat of summer, Rialla supposed that she owed a debt to Lord Jarroh. If she had not felt his slave’s painful death on the night of her escape, she would probably still be dancing in one of Winterseine’s clubs. A wry smile twisted her lips: now she was a spy dancing at Winterseine’s home estate. The sound of the dancemaster’s hands clapping together brought her to her feet before she opened her eyes.
The dancemaster was working one of the standard dances that the slaves would be expected to learn. It was common fare, something that even the Darranian ladies could watch. It was also impressive and, with the right costuming, highly erotic; a useful addition to any slave dancer’s repertoire. He’d been teaching sections of it all week; today he called on Sora to dance it from beginning to end.
Sora reminded Rialla more than any of the others of the slave she had been. Like Rialla herself, Sora had the advantage of being tall and willowy, allowing her to appear more graceful. She was very good, and driven to be even better. Her competitiveness drove her to conquer more and more difficult moves as she labored diligently to please her masters.
It made Rialla’s skin crawl with unwanted memories. She’d tried to forget that she had been like that: driven to exceed the expectations of her master, to be a good slave. It made her almost physically ill to watch Sora strain for the perfect motion of her hand.
She had been careful not to appear to be a challenge to Sora; the girl didn’t need any more encouragement in her effort. Rialla used the dancemaster’s permission to go easy on her leg to restrict herself to lesser moves.
Rialla knew the dance already, but she stood with the rest while Sora performed it from beginning to end. The younger slave was good, but not quite quick enough on the turns, and she didn’t have the experience to bring out the implicit eroticism.
When Sora was finished, the dancemaster nodded at Rialla. She understood his reasoning for having her dance second. Although Rialla knew the dance, Sora had proven herself the better dancer and would give the others something to strive for.
Rialla began her dance, making sure that her gestures were a touch cruder than Sora’s, her moves more hesitant. Because she deliberately held herself back, she was far into the dance before she lost herself to the beat of the drums. She didn’t see the blow that knocked her off her feet.
“If,” said Lord Winterseine, looking down at her coldly, “I had not seen you dance at my nephew’s hold, I just might believe you had lost the talent you had in the seven years you were gone. I might have believed that you were as stiff and unpracticed as you appear. Get up.”
Impassively Rialla got to her feet, wiping the blood off her cut lip with one hand, ignoring the sweat that dripped down her temple. She had the sick feeling that she wouldn’t like what was coming. She instinctively tightened the barriers that she used to keep out of Tris’s mind.
Lord Winterseine strode up to the line of watching slaves and grabbed one of them, pulling her back to Rialla.
“You are valuable,” he purred to Rialla. “I won’t mar your skin by whipping you—but this one will never be worth much as a dancer.” He held out his free hand, and the dancemaster gave Lord Winterseine the staff that he used to keep discipline. The dancemaster’s face was as impassive as Rialla’s, but she could all but taste his fury. “Just in case you don’t believe I’m serious, I think that a little demonstration is in order.”
He pushed the girl facedown on the mat and swung the staff. The slave screamed when her ribs collapsed under the blow. Forewarned, Rialla had blocked out most of the girl’s pain.
Winterseine turned to the dancemaster. “Take her to the side and wrap her ribs, but I want her here until this one,” he patted Rialla gently on her cheek, where the skin was already starting to turn purple, “finishes her dance to my satisfaction. I hope she won’t need another demonstration, but it is always better to be certain.”
This time there was no question of favoring her bad leg. Rialla knew her master well. She knew that there was a good chance that Winterseine would have the other girl beaten to death no matter how well Rialla danced. So she danced to surpass her best, to keep from living with guilt of the girl’s death. If she danced as well as she could and Winterseine still killed the girl, the guilt would be his.