Elicarno told his apprentices to return to the workshop and prepare for the coming contest.
“What should we prepare, Master?” asked the eldest.
“Everything. Tools, timber, the portable forge, ingots of iron and bronze. I want to be on the Field of Corij one mark after dawn!”
The trip back to the Quarry District passed in silence, surrounded as they were by the celebrations ringing through the streets of Daltigoth.
Nazramin rose from the tangle of bedclothes. The chamber was stifling. His head swam from too much wine and his throat was dry as dust.
Pulling on a robe, he slipped out, stubbing his toe on a table leg before reaching the door. The resultant shower of curses did not wake the two women snoring softly on the bed behind him. He couldn’t remember their names. They were the sisters-daughters?-of an ambitious courtier and had sought him out at the feast, eager to curry favor.
He’d found them amusing enough at first but loathed the sight of them now. He’d have the servants throw them out at daybreak.
In the antechamber, he went to a small table that held a pitcher of cider, several cups, and a tray of breads and sweets. Servants replaced the food on the tray regularly, knowing better than to allow their master to discover anything stale or less than perfectly presented on the tray.
The tart cider stung his throat as he gulped it down. He was about to refill his cup when he noticed a strange shadow moving on the wall in front of him. Spinning, he flung the cup at the fireplace.
The brass cup clanged against the stone hearth. Mandes easily ducked the awkward throw.
“How dare you come here unbidden!” Nazramin snarled. “Get out!”
“Please, Your Highness! Be not hasty!” said the sorcerer, holding up his gloved hands in a placating gesture. “We have common cause against these upstarts, Tol and Elicarno! If you will lend me a few men, Highness, I could chastise them properly!”
“I’d sooner throw my men off a cliff. Master Tol has taken the engineer under his protection. He’ll be vigilant. Armed assassins won’t get within bowshot of either of them.”
Nazramin drank greedily from the heavy brass pitcher, cider trickling down his cheeks. Sated at last, he slanted a dangerous glare at Mandes.
“You are not welcome here, Mist-Maker. Get out.”
“We are allies,” Mandes insisted.
“You are my hireling, not my equal!”
Hefting the brass pitcher in one hand, Nazramin advanced. The flickering firelight was the room’s only illumination, but it plainly showed the violence in the prince’s eyes. Mandes sidled out of reach, beseeching his former patron to listen to him.
Without warning, Nazramin relaxed. He dropped the pitcher carelessly to the floor. Cider dregs splashed onto the intricately woven wool and silk carpet.
“The peasant was at your house last night, did you know?” he said. “He came there to kill you.”
Mandes nodded. He’d been told as much.
The prince snorted. “He would have slain you tonight, in front of the entire coronation party, had not Elicarno diverted him. You should be grateful to Master Soot-and-Gears. He saved your cowardly carcass.”
“No one spoke up for me at all,” Mandes muttered.
Another snort. “You’re hardly well loved, sorcerer.”
“After all I’ve done for those lords and ladies-the troubles I’ve handled for them-and they just sat there, gawking, while I was threatened! Even the emperor failed me.”
Nazramin’s eyes narrowed. “He seems to have recovered much of his will. What happened to your spells?”
Mandes explained that Ackal IV had been spending an unusual amount of time in the Tower of High Sorcery, which had helped to restore some of his equilibrium. “His recovery is only temporary, Highness,” the sorcerer added.
From a squat vase in a corner of the room, Nazramin drew a hefty cloth bag. He tossed it at Mandes’s feet, and the contents clinked loudly.
“The balance of your fee.”
“Highness, your brother still lives and reigns. My task is not yet done.”
“You’ve done enough. Amaltar won’t last long on the throne. Besides”-the prince smiled in a most unpleasant fashion-“something tells me you won’t be in Daltigoth much longer.”
Mandes, fingering the bag of money he’d picked up, froze. “What do you mean?” he stammered.
“You’re finished here, sorcerer. Surely you realized it yourself, tonight. You’ve gone too far. None of your wealthy ‘friends’ is willing to be your patron. Master Tol thirsts for your blood, and the engineer will do his best to shame you on the Field of Corij. When that happens-”
Mandes flinched hard, and Nazramin’s smile widened.
“When that happens,” he repeated, “your only recourse will be exile, unless you wish to face the tender mercies of the farmer or any of the several hundred other worthies in the city who hate you for what you’ve done to them.”
The cold words were like a judgment. Mandes shivered, but he was not finished yet. Drawing a deep breath, he straightened his back and declared, “That tinker will never beat me!”
“Care to wager on it? That villa of yours is quite handsome.
Want to hazard your house against my gold that Elicarno humiliates you?”
Mandes’s hard-won composure failed him, and his gaze dropped. Nazramin laughed harshly.
“No? Well, no matter. When you’re gone, I’ll claim it anyway.”
Mandes looked utterly bewildered. His empire was crumbling, and he couldn’t begin to understand why. The prince, his most powerful client, was exploring the food on the tray with a casual hand, ignoring him completely.
“I know many compromising things about this city’s nobles,” Mandes whispered desperately. “I will speak. I will tell all.”
Nazramin made a disgusted sound. “Open your mouth, and I’ll see your tongue cut out before you finish your first word.”
This was no idle threat. Nazramin would likely do the deed himself-and enjoy it.
The sorcerer pulled the shreds of his dignity around himself and backed away. His dark blue robe blended with the shadows by the wall.
“Don’t be too smug, cruel prince. I can see your future,” Mandes said. His form began to fade away. “You will gain what you most desire, only to have it taken from you, bit by bit. Your own blood will strike you down, and the last thing you see in this life will be the eyes of the one you have wronged most…”
Nazramin uttered a loud, vulgar exclamation, but Mandes was gone, dissolved into the shadows by the hearth.
The prince tied the belt of his robe with angry, abrupt gestures. The Mist-Maker was obviously flinging false prophecies in hopes of saving his waning prestige. When Nazramin wore the crown of Ackal Ergot, his enemies would know true fear. Already he had a list of those who would not long survive his coronation. The list grew longer with each passing day.
He returned to his bedchamber. The rasping female snores and tangle of pale limbs in his bed filled him with revulsion. He strode back across the antechamber and flung open the doors to the upstairs hall.
The walls rang as Nazramin bellowed for his servants. Soon the calm was shattered again by the shrieks and protests of his former guests, driven out into the night with whatever bedclothes they could grab.
An uneventful day and night passed at Rumbold Villa. A steady stream of Elicarno’s apprentices came and went, bringing their master reports on the progress of the many projects underway at his workshop. The shop was in the New City, between the Old City and the canal district. A three-story barn-like structure housed Elicarno’s workshops on the ground floor, storerooms and studies on the second, home quarters on the third. Forty-two apprentices worked under the engineer; most were young men from provincial cities like Caergoth and Juramona.