He wheeled around, eyes keen and dangerous. Hanging wisps of smoke shook and dissipated as Planir swept past to stand in front of the empty fireplace. “So what was it you wished to discuss with me, Shiv?”
Shiv had been sitting on the far side of the room, deep in the shadows of a winged chair. “I have had news of Kalion, Archmage,” he said diffidently.
“Should I be concerned?” Planir sounded surprised.
“Given what you’ve just been saying about Toremal worrying over mages with unbridled ambition, I should say so!” Shiv’s initial hesitation was rapidly evaporating.
“Tell me what you’ve heard,” invited Planir.
“That Kalion spent his time in Relshaz meeting all the most powerful men in that most influential of cities. Supposedly he was promising all manner of profit and advantage when ‘wizardry takes its proper place in the upper levels of decisionmaking.’ ” Shiv’s mockery was bitter. “At the turn of Aft-Winter he moved on to Toremal. He was invited to all the best parties, from what I hear, met all the well-connected nobles. Now I believe he is traveling between the Dukes of Marlier and Parnilesse in Lescar, offering his services as an honest broker in their negotiations.”
“What makes you think I’m unaware of the way Kalion has been amusing himself?” the Archmage inquired politely.
“You’ve been very busy lately, Archmage.” Shiv struggled for words. “But if you say—I am satisfied…” He got hastily to his feet.
“I don’t think you are,” Planir crossed the room to light a branch of candles with a snap of his fingers, incidentally blocking Shiv’s path to the door. “And I don’t think I am. Do sit down.”
Shiv’s knees buckled beneath him, color rising under his sallow skin.
Planir took a chair on the far side of the fireplace. He studied Shiv for a moment. “You say I have been busy? Yes, granted, my duties keep my days full, but of late no more than usual.”
Shiv coughed awkwardly. “You’ve been a little preoccupied.”
“Indeed?” Planir leaned back and crossed one elegantly booted foot over his knee. “By what?”
Shiv stood up again. “Obviously I was mistaken. I’m sorry to have taken up your time.”
“Or did you think that I had myself tangled in a pretty girl’s garters?” asked Planir genially.
Shiv’s jaw dropped. “I wouldn’t say—” His mouth snapped shut as the Archmage began to chuckle. “Since you put it like that, most revered Archmage, yes. Chimney-corner gossips all over Hadrumal say you’ve been head down and tail up after a wet scent since Larissa first flirted her petticoats at you!”
Planir’s laugh at this was a full-throated guffaw that startled a roosting pigeon from the window ledge. “Oh, sit down, Shiv, and let’s have a drink.” He went to the sideboard, collecting a wine bottle and clinking two glasses negligently together. “I seem to be doing this earlier and earlier each day at present,” he remarked, glancing at the timepiece on the mantel. “Now that would be something you really would have to concern yourself with. You weren’t here when Gelake was Flood-Master, were you? That man drunk was an absolute menace.”
Defiance and apprehension warring in Shiv’s face fled, replaced by simple confusion. He drained his glass in one swallow.
Planir sat back in his chair. “I’m touched by your concern, but it really is unnecessary.”
“Is it?” retorted Shiv. “That’s not how it looks to me or to anyone else. We see Kalion, whom we all know to be blindly ambitious, waving the potential assistance of Hadrumal in the faces of anyone with the least power or influence. He’s a joke here, where there are plenty of people to keep him in check, but out there, with all his fine clothes and his lordly manners, people are taking him very seriously! Why aren’t you doing something about it? Because all your time is taken up squiring your pretty new apprentice around parties and dances and giving her late-night tuition that lasts until breakfast at least three times a week! Troanna doesn’t approve and as Flood-Mistress, as long as you keep refusing to appoint a Cloud-Master to replace Otrick—if Kalion were to mount a serious challenge to you in Council—” Shiv stopped speaking abruptly and peered into the depths of his goblet.
“You’ve made your point.” Planir refilled Shiv’s glass with the crimson wine. “Let me offer you a different perspective. I am fully aware Kalion is letting his mouth write notes his purse cannot hope to honor. He can make all the promises he wants, but he cannot make good on any of them. However long he pulls out his leash, I still have hold of the end and can yank him back whenever I choose. For the moment, I’m content to let him take all the slack he wants and get himself thoroughly tangled up. Then I will naturally come to his aid and with all his fine words proved worthless he will look extremely foolish. Believe me, that will do more to discredit him than any rebuke or penalty I could impose. Kalion will doubtless continue to do all he can to rouse the Council in his support, but I do not propose to give him solid grounds for enmity by express action against him. I won’t make an enemy of Kalion, Shiv, because ultimately he truly wants the best for wizardry and, beyond that, to put the wider world to rights. I have no quarrel with that ambition; we just differ rather radically in our approach.”
“You’re sure you have the Council?” Shiv asked.
Planir smiled. “Kalion’s supporters have become both bold and careless, assuming I am far too busy with the delights of the flesh to pay attention. I’ve been noting just who is feeding Ely and Galen gossip. With Larissa’s help, I’ve laid out some very tempting morsels for those scavenging around the inner circles of the halls. They’ve taken the bait, but it’s Kalion who’ll find it so horribly indigestible. He doesn’t have nearly the support he imagines, not least because whenever I see Ely and Galen charming someone I later make my own discreet appeal to that individual’s common sense.”
“Yes, Archmage,” Shiv looked sheepish.
The Archmage’s genial expression hardened. “Troanna does not approve of my dealings with Larissa, that is very true, but being both old and wise she knows that sensual pleasures are entirely separate from the business of magecraft. Do not make the mistake of confusing the two, Shiv, on my account or on your own. Troanna will judge me as Archmage on my discharge of my duties, not on how I choose to spend my time inside my bed-curtains. You of all people should appreciate that.”
Shiv colored and shifted uneasily in his chair. “Yes, Archmage.”
“I have my own contacts in Relshaz and Toremal. You remember Mellitha? When Kalion is promising both moons and the stars in between to one of the Magistracy, the first thing he does is talk with her. Kalion cuts a fine figure in his tailored gowns, talking loud and long about the infinite resources of wizardry. What he doesn’t see is that the non-mage-born find the idea of magic rather worrying, especially in the hands of a brash and forceful man. Kalion says he can do all manner of things, but he never stops to ask if anyone actually wants him to; arrogance raises hackles, Shiv.
“So they go and talk to Mellitha, whom they know to be a mage, granted, but far more importantly, has lived in their city for nigh on a generation and everyone agrees is a fair and honest tax contractor. She tells them not to worry, that Kalion is all gong and no dinner and the person they need to look to is the Archmage.” Planir grinned. “A mage even more daunting than this unstoppable enthusiast? No, not at all, Mellitha tells them. He’s a man just like you, enjoys pretty girls, a dance and a drink and a dubious joke. Everyone knows that to be true, in Hadrumal or anywhere else.” The Archmage’s eyes glinted steely gray in the candlelight. “Reassurance the princes of Tormalin may cling to, if I am ultimately forced to drive these Elietimm into the ocean with fire and lightning, flood and earthquake. I will loose all the might of Hadrumal against these enchanters if need be, Shiv. What I won’t do is waste time and energy in dealing with petty pinpricks when the real danger is us all having our throats cut if I misstep.”