Above His Proper Station (34 page)

“I do not think Lord Dorias will be at home, Master Murau.”

“Ah.” Anrel blinked; his eyes seemed suddenly moist. “Thank you.” He turned away, and found the warden watching and listening.

The door closed behind him, and he heard Ollith throw the bolt. That sound felt like a knife in his back; he hunched his shoulders and trudged down the steps.

The warden watched him curiously as he descended, then said, “A member of the Grand Council?”

“Yes,” Anrel said. “Representing the commoners of Naith. I was appointed a few days ago, after the death of Amanir tel-Kabanim.” He started walking slowly toward the exit from the court, trying to hold himself straight and strong despite the weight of his disappointment.

“One of the Hots, then?” the warden asked, falling in beside him.

Anrel threw him a glance, startled by the man's familiarity with the council's doings.

But then, he was a warden; he would be keeping up on the news as best he could, and Amanir's apparent suicide had certainly been news. His knowledge was not really surprising at all. “I am uncommitted, as yet,” Anrel said. “I have been gathering in the atrium for the moment.”

The warden nodded. “But you are representing the commoners of Naith, when the burgrave of Alzur's your uncle?”

This time, Anrel was not caught off guard by the warden's knowledge. Naturally, he would know something of the neighborhood he was charged with protecting, and would know that Lord Dorias was burgrave of Alzur.

“I failed the sorcery trials when I was a boy,” Anrel explained. “I'm a commoner, my family notwithstanding.”

“Ah. And your uncle won't see you.”

“Apparently not.”

“You understand, sir, that if Lord Dorias tells me you aren't welcome here, I will have to respect his wishes.”

“Will you?”

“It's my duty as a warden, sir. I am charged with maintaining the peace in my district, and keeping out undesirables.” He let out a sound that was half laugh, half sigh. “Though it's hard to think of a delegate to the Grand Council as an undesirable!”

Anrel turned and gazed thoughtfully at the other man. “And who charged you with these duties?”

“The district council, sir.”

“And who gave them the authority to do this?”

The warden seemed startled by the question. “Why, the Grand Council, wasn't it?”

“Perhaps it was,” Anrel said. “I am only newly appointed, after all.” He sighed. They were passing under the watch arch; he looked up at the stonework.

It looked very solid, but he remembered how the arches around the Pensioners' Quarter had been pulled down by a few determined men with simple tools. It was always easier to destroy than to build. The people of the empire, led by the Grand Council, seemed determined to tear down their old government; he hoped they were building something better in its place.

At least this warden was evidence that they
were
building something. Whether it was better remained to be seen.

The two men emerged onto the main street, and walked together in silence for another hundred yards, to a corner where the warden stopped.

“This is the end of my district,” he said. “Good luck in reconciling with your uncle, Delegate Murau.”

“Thank you,” Anrel said. He shook the man's hand, then continued alone, aware that the warden was watching him. He wondered whether that was mere casual interest, or to be sure that he did not double back and cause trouble.

He did not turn back to assuage his curiosity; better to let the warden go about his business.

Retracing his steps was easier than finding Wizard's Hill Court had been, and it seemed only a few minutes later that Anrel turned into Lourn Street, and found a rather scruffy messenger, wearing the red and white sash that indicated someone in the Grand Council's employ, waiting on the steps of the town house he and Derhin shared. The man was slouched against a pillar, but straightened up as Anrel approached.

“May I help you?” Anrel asked.

“Are you Anrel Murau?” the messenger demanded.

“I am,” Anrel said.

“Then fetch your best pen and ink, and come with me.”

Anrel frowned. “Oh? Why should I?” The man seemed very rude for a messenger.

“Because Delegate Lorsa sent me for you more than an hour past.”

“Ah.” Perhaps the apparent rudeness was really impatience; the messenger had probably expected to find Anrel at home, and had not anticipated a wait. This summons was presumably a committee matter of some sort, and as such not an appointment Anrel cared to miss, regardless of the messenger's behavior. “I'll just be a moment,” he said.

He hurried inside the town house, and took a moment to wash his face before borrowing Derhin's lap desk and its contents—he had none of his own, as yet—and emerging onto the street once again.

The messenger was still waiting. “Come on,” he said, turning to lead the way.

Anrel fell into step at the messenger's heel and asked, “Where are we going?”

The messenger threw him a disbelieving glance. “The emperor's palace, of course.”

“Ah,” Anrel said with a nod. He remembered Gluth's warning that his services as a scribe might be called upon when the Committee for the Regulation of Sorcery was granted access to the Great List.

It seemed that call had come.

“Of course,” he said and quickened his pace.

27

In Which Anrel's Penmanship Is Put to Use

The messenger led Anrel through the streets and along the Promenade, where the afternoon shadows were lengthening and the crowds, none too numerous to begin with, were thinning. A few people turned to stare at the messenger's red and white sash, but most, concerned with their own affairs, ignored the pair. The drivers of the three coaches they encountered paid no attention.

The palace was guarded these days by the Emperor's Watch—not merely the regular watchmen on the ramparts and on the arches connecting the palace to the rest of the network of walkways, but watchmen patrolling the perimeter at street level, ambling along each with a hand on the hilt of his sword, making sure that no one approached the doors or windows too closely. The messenger made a sign to one of these patrols as he led Anrel toward the palace; the watchman returned the sign and let the two pass unhindered.

As they passed the guard Anrel felt a slight resistance that had nothing to do with the Emperor's Watch; they were passing through wards. He had never sensed any wards around the palace when he had been a student, but times were more troubled now; it was no great surprise that the Emperor had chosen to add a little magical protection to the men and walls that guarded him and his family. Anrel wondered just what the nature of the wards might be—did they alert some magician inside the palace? Did they keep certain people from approaching at all?

The messenger gave no sign he was aware of any wards, so Anrel did not mention them. He followed quietly as the messenger escorted him along the palace wall to a small door half hidden beneath the ramparts, only a few feet from the sheer drop into the river. There Anrel's guide knocked twice, then stepped aside.

After only the briefest pause the door opened. An unfamiliar face peered out at the new arrivals.

“Anrel Murau,” the messenger said.

“And more than time,” the other replied. He swung the door wide, and gestured. “This way, Delegate Murau. The others are all waiting.”

Anrel did not bother to reply, but with Derhin's writing desk under his arm he stepped through another layer of warding spells into the shadowy interior, where he found himself in a narrow stone corridor. The door slammed shut behind him, closing out the sinking sun; there were no windows or other openings, and the only light came from a small lantern held by the man who had admitted him.

The messenger had been left outside; his job, it seemed, was done.

Anrel's new escort raised the lantern to illuminate the stone walls, and led the way down the short passage.

The corridor ended in a massive iron-bound door that stood open, admitting them into a small chamber; Anrel was hustled through this, down another passage, through a succession of other rooms, up a curving stone stair, through more rooms, and finally shown into what appeared to be a library, where bookshelves lined two walls and two large tables occupied much of the floor space. Several good oil lamps provided a warm glow, but again, as in the passages that had brought him here, there were no windows.

Several men were gathered around the tables. Anrel recognized five of them immediately as his fellow delegates from the Committee for the Regulation of Sorcery—Lorsa, Gluth, Guirdosia, Savar, and Essarnyn—but the others were strangers. Three of them were dressed in green and gold imperial livery, and one of these three held a large ring of keys, which he was jingling nervously.

“Ah, Delegate Alvos!” Lorsa said. “At last you appear!”

“My apologies,” Anrel said. “I was not expecting your summons, and was seeing to some personal business.”

“I trust it has been concluded, and you are able to devote your entire attention to the task at hand?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Then let us begin!” He turned to the man with the keys. “Master Seneschal, if you would be so kind?”

The green-clad man with the keys bowed, then marched across the room to a bookcase, where he fitted a large iron key into a hole in the wooden frame. He turned the key, and something clicked loudly; then he pulled at the frame. The entire bookcase swung out from the wall, revealing another room behind it—a dim, windowless, and rather dusty room with bare stone walls. A table and a single chair stood in the center, with an unlit lamp upon the table, and shelves that covered the farthest wall held dozens of heavy volumes in similar bindings.

“The Great List,” the seneschal announced, stepping aside.

This was not at all what Anrel had pictured when he had imagined the actual list. He had thought of it as a few sheets of paper—but of course, he realized, it couldn't be. There were hundreds, or more likely thousands or even tens of thousands, of sorcerers in the empire.

Still, that did not account for an entire
room.

“Where?” Lorsa said.

“Why,
there,
Master Lorsa,” the seneschal said, waving toward the shelves of books.

Lorsa frowned, but before he could say anything more Anrel stepped forward. “May I?” he asked the seneschal.

The seneschal glanced at Lorsa, then said, “The emperor instructed me to grant up to half a dozen members of your committee complete access to the list, on condition that not a single volume shall be taken out of that room, that nothing in the list room shall be damaged or altered in any way, and that none of the true names recorded herein shall be spoken aloud within the palace walls. You are a member of the committee, Master … Alvos?”

“My name is Anrel Murau,” Anrel said with a sour glance at Lorsa. “Yes, I am a member of the Committee for the Regulation of Sorcery.”

“Then I am ordered to allow you into the list room.” He gestured for Anrel to proceed.

“Thank you,” Anrel said, stepping into the little room. He could sense magic everywhere here, but he was not certain whether it was yet another layer of wards, or something else. He beckoned to the man with the lantern. “Could you light that for me?” He pointed to the lamp.

“
No,
sir!” the seneschal barked, before the lantern-bearer could respond. “He is not one of the permitted committee members!”

Startled, Anrel blinked, then said, “Of course. My apologies. Delegate Savar, would you please light the lamp?”

Savar stepped forward and took the lantern from the other, while Anrel set Derhin's writing desk on the table, then crossed the little inner room and lifted down the first volume from the left-hand end of the top shelf.

“Be careful,” the seneschal called. “The older volumes are quite fragile.”

Indeed, the book Anrel had chosen was so old that the cover gave beneath his fingers, leaving brown smudges and raising a small cloud of fine, powdery dust. Seeing its condition, he did not try to open it, but did look at the faint, faded label on its front cover.

The ink had faded to near invisibility, and the calligraphy and spelling were extremely archaic, but he could make it out.

T
HE
T
RUE
N
AMES
& S
ECRET
H
ISTORIES OF THE
W
ALASIAN
S
ORCERERS
,
FROM THE
F
ALL OF THE
E
MPIRE TO
—

That much was all in a single hand, but then a final phrase, “the Present Day,” had been crossed out, and someone else had lettered in “the Fifteenth Year of the Reign of the First Walasian Emperor.”

Anrel stared at that for a moment, then carefully slid the book back into place on the top shelf, hoping he had not damaged it irretrievably. He stepped to the right and found the final volume on the bottom shelf, and pulled that out, instead.

T
HE
G
REAT
L
IST OF THE
T
RUE
N
AMES OF THE
S
ORCERERS OF THE
W
ALASIAN
E
MPIRE
, V
OLUME
168: 20
TH
Y
EAR OF THE
R
EIGN OF
L
URIAS
XII
TO
—
The label was unfinished, with a blank space where someone might eventually write the date of its completion.

Anrel turned and set the book on the table, where Savar had managed to light the lamp. He opened the volume.

Most of it was blank; a few pages at the front held neat little entries. Anrel chose one at random and read aloud, “Thirty-third Day of Summer, 22nd Year of the Emperor's Reign, at the College of Sorcerers in Naith in the Province of Aulix, Candidate Evier Kalith completed trials before the Lords Magistrate, Lord Neriam Kadara presiding, succeeding in nineteen of twenty-two attempts in divers wards and bindings. The true name—” At the last instant he remembered the seneschal's instructions that no true names were to be spoken aloud, and stopped. He also remembered another reason not to say it, a reason that had nothing to do with the emperor's whims—or perhaps, the reason the emperor had set that restriction in the first place. The true name was there on the page—Tal Deg Ved Zara—but Anrel did not say it; instead he made a sort of humming noise, then continued reading. “—was bestowed upon Lady Evier, and will bind her hereafter.” He looked up. “This is indeed the Great List, Delegate Lorsa.” He gestured at the shelves. “
All
of it, back to the founding of the empire.”