Above His Proper Station (44 page)

“I feared as much,” Anrel said. “Are you … have you been ensorceled?”

“I am bound, yes,” Dorias whispered. He looked up at Saria and Anrel with terror in his eyes. “Magic … magic is forbidden me. I am a sorcerer no more.”

35

In Which Help Arrives

“My uncle must go,” Anrel said.

“Of course,” Lord Allutar replied. “And Lady Saria.”

“That's four,” Tazia said. She had gotten to her feet, as well. “Lord Blackfield can take four?”

“I think so,” Anrel said.

At that moment Ollith reappeared in the doorway and saw his employer slumped in his chair, obviously stricken. “My lord?” he said.

“I am no longer a sorcerer, Ollith,” Dorias said.

Ollith looked puzzled and uncertain; he glanced around the room for guidance, but found none.

“What of your uncle's staff?” Tazia asked, gesturing toward Ollith.

Anrel shook his head unhappily. “They are in no real danger here,” he said, “and the three of them would crowd the carriage.”

“But their master is fleeing the country,” Tazia said. “What will they do if they stay?”

“No one will hold them to account for their employer's misdeeds,” Anrel said. “They can find another position.”

“I don't think many sorcerers will be hiring.”

“I know,” Anrel said. “But what are we to do? They would make seven, and would fill the coach to overflowing. There would be no room for
you.
”

“For
us,
” Tazia said. “I will not be parted from you again.”

Anrel looked at the footman. “Ollith,” he said, “do you
want
to go to Quand?”

Ollith hesitated, and glanced at Lord Dorias. “I would prefer to remain in my present position, sir.”

“You can't,” Lord Dorias said, his voice hollow. “I am no longer a sorcerer. This is the end of the House of Adirane. I must flee the country, and I have no holdings in Quand, nor in the Cousins. I will be a pauper, a penniless refugee. I cannot pay your wages.”

“In that case, my lord,” Ollith said, “I would prefer to remain in Walasia. I speak no Quandish.”

“Lord Dorias,” Tazia said, “what will become of your property here?”

“I don't know,” Dorias answered, bewildered. “I have no idea.”

“If he is captured and executed,” Anrel said, addressing the entire company, “then his lands and possessions will go toward paying the emperor's debts. That was the bargain the Committee for the Regulation of Sorcery made.”

“And if he is not captured?” Lord Allutar asked.

Anrel shrugged. “They may be forfeit to the crown all the same; I don't know.”

“Lord Dorias,” Tazia said, “could you perhaps sign your property over to Master Tuir? As you say, you cannot take any of it to Quand with you.”

“If you like,” Dorias said, sunk in despair. “It doesn't matter. I am finished.”

“Ollith,” Lady Saria said, “fetch my father's writing desk, and ink, and paper.”

Ollith blinked, and for an instant a smile flickered across his face. It vanished, and he bowed. “Yes, my lady,” he said. He turned on his heel and left the room.

“A clever notion,” Lord Allutar remarked as he watched Ollith depart. “Let us hope the empire's new overlords will honor this bequest.”

“And would you like to make provision for any of
your
staff, my lord?” Anrel asked. “Your man Hollem, perhaps?”

“Oh, they won't honor anything
I
might write,” Allutar said, smiling wryly. “I am the monster who poisoned the Raish Valley with the blood of innocents; had you forgotten? No, even if by some miracle I survive, my property will go to the emperor's moneylenders and mercenaries; that conclusion is foregone. I regret to say that poor Hollem must fend for himself in this valiant new empire you and your friends are building.”

Anrel could think of no useful way to respond to this—Allutar was obviously correct about what would become of his possessions, and arguing about Anrel's role in events would go nowhere useful.

“You
are
coming with us, aren't you?” Lady Saria asked.

Lord Allutar looked at Anrel, then back at Saria. “That may not be up to me to decide, my dear.”

“But you're my fiancé!”

“I am also the man who condemned their daughter and sister to the gallows,” Allutar said with a gesture toward the three Lirs. “That would make for an uncomfortable ride, don't you think? And there are certain issues lingering between your cousin and myself, as well.”

“But we're to be
married
!” Saria wailed.

“My dear, I think you would be most unwise to wed me at this point,” the landgrave replied.

“But … but …” Saria looked desperately around the room.

Nivain looked from one to the other, then said, “For your sake, Lady Saria, we would tolerate this man's presence.”

“Speak for yourself, Mother!” Perynis snapped.

Lord Allutar held up a hand. “Peace,” he said. “Let us wait and see what Lord Blackfield says before we commit ourselves. It may be he can accommodate no more than the four we have agreed upon.”

“Yes,” Anrel said. He might have said more, but just then Ollith returned with Lord Dorias's writing desk, interrupting the conversation.

A moment later, while Lord Dorias was carefully composing a document transferring his worldly goods to Master Ollith Tuir, Perynis suddenly said, “I hear horses.”

Anrel had been whispering with Tazia in the corner, discussing irrelevancies and carefully avoiding the subject of their possible escape; now he turned and bent to peer out the window, and saw the familiar blue and black carriage rolling into Wizard's Hill Court.

“It's Lord Blackfield,” he said. “He's here.”

“Then by all means, let us greet him,” Lord Allutar said, rising. The sword was still in his hand.

Lord Dorias looked up from his lap desk. He hastily scribbled a few more words, then signed his name with a flourish. “Everything in this house is now yours, Ollith,” he said. “I would give you the house itself if a commoner could own land, but I have granted you a lease in it, insofar as I may.”

Ollith bowed, and accepted the desk and document. “Thank you, my lord,” he said.

A moment later the party poured out the big front door—Anrel and Tazia, Nivain and Perynis, Lady Saria and Lord Dorias, and finally Lord Allutar—to find Harban holding the door of the coach, and Lord Blackfield stepping out.

“Ah, I see you
are
here,” the Quandishman said as his feet landed on the cobbles. “Excellent! And Lord Allutar! This
is
a surprise.”

“Barzal,” Allutar said, with a nod. “A pleasure to see you again.”

Lord Blackfield grimaced. “While I am pleased to see you as well, my lord, I regret to say that I cannot spare even a moment for casual conversation. I passed a large party comprised of watchmen, wardens, and deputies on the way here, and I believe their destination to be this very court. They cannot be more than five minutes behind me. I think it would be wise for all of you to board the coach immediately.”

Glances were exchanged, and Nivain and Perynis were herded aboard, followed by Lord Dorias. Lady Saria, though, paused with her foot on the step.

“Allutar,” she said, “you
are
coming?”

Lord Allutar looked at Lord Blackfield.

“I will need to ask that you put away that sword,” the Quandishman said.

Lord Allutar shook his head. “No, my lord,” he said. “I am not coming.”

“What?” Lady Saria stared at him. “But there's room!” She gestured at the coach's interior. “We can all fit!”

“We can all squeeze into the carriage, yes,” Allutar said, “but then what? I am deemed a traitor to the empire, my dear—indeed, my name was first on their list. They will not rest until I am found, and I
will
be found, whether here in Lume today, or in Ondine a season hence. They have my true name, Saria; they can find me whenever they please. With the aid of any competent magician, be he sorcerer or merely a witch, they can compel me to obedience, and send me to the scaffold of my own volition—as I did to this woman's sister, and to Master Murau's friend Amanir tel-Kabanim. I cannot possibly escape, not for long. Better to die here and now, with a sword in my hand, than in a noose a few days from now.”

“But … but, Allutar!” Saria cried.

“Go, my dear,” Allutar said gently. “I free you from your betrothal.”

“I don't
want
to be freed of it!”

“You will be free of it soon enough in any case, as death frees us all. Now, get aboard that carriage, lest you
all
perish.”

“But they know
our
true names, as well! If you can't escape, how can we?”

“Your crimes are trivial in comparison to my own, my dear,” Allutar said. He smiled wryly. “Ask Master Murau, and he will be glad to recount to you the full extent of my wickedness. I doubt these revolutionaries will trouble themselves to hunt you down. Were Lord Blackfield to take
me
back to Quand, though, that might well provoke yet another war between our nations.”

Saria turned hopefully to Lord Blackfield, but before she could speak, he shook his head.

“I can shield you against your true names to some degree, but only somewhat,” the big Quandishman said. “I fear that Lord Allutar is correct about his own dire reputation, not merely here, but in Quand, as well. While we care nothing about his politics, he is a black magician, by his own admission, and that is not something my people tolerate.”

Allutar gestured theatrically. “There, you see? I have wrought my own destruction.”

“I won't leave you!” Lady Saria wailed.

“Your father needs you,” Lord Allutar replied quietly. “Go with him, see him safe.”

“Get in, my lady,” Lord Blackfield said, giving Lady Saria a gentle push. Then he turned to Anrel. “And you, sir?”

Anrel looked at Tazia. “I will do as my beloved chooses,” he said. “If she stays, I will stay. If she goes, I will go.”

Tazia looked at the coach. “There is room for both of us?”

“I believe there is, yes.”

“Anrel? Shall we go?”

And now, at the final moment, Anrel hesitated. He glanced at Lord Allutar, with his bandaged head and bare blade. “I wish I could do more,” he said. “I wish there were some way to put everything back as it was.”

Lord Allutar laughed bitterly. “You are scarcely alone in
that
,” he said. “Everything I have done, I have done to maintain the old order and my place in it, and at every turn I have failed, and done more to harm my cause than to advance it. I sacrificed that baker's son to feed my people, and starved them instead. I murdered your friend, Lord Valin—yes, my lady, I confess, your cousin was right, I deliberately murdered your father's fosterling, and I did it so that his pernicious beliefs would not spread, and they spread all the more swiftly and effectively as a result. I hanged a witch in Beynos to maintain the dignity of my position, and instead you, Master Murau, convinced a thousand commoners that I was a coward and a bully. Had I truly believed completely in the rightness of my cause, had I been as utterly convinced of its inevitability as I claimed, I might not have striven so hard to defend it, and might not have damaged it so severely. The Father has seen fit to cast me down for my pride, and while I very much wish it were not so, I do not close my eyes to the truth. You, Anrel Murau, have been the implement the Mother and Father wielded to destroy me, and you have finished the task they set you. Go on to Quand, then, and see what new task they may set for you there!”

Anrel met the landgrave's gaze. “I pray, my lord,” he replied, “that if I have indeed been the tool of the divine pair, that they are now done with me entirely, and will cast me aside. I have had enough of unrest and anger.” He turned to his beloved. “Come, Tazia—let us both go to Quand.”

With that, the two clambered aboard, Lord Blackfield close behind, while Harban hurried to the front of the coach and mounted the driver's seat. A moment later the harness jingled, hooves clattered, and the carriage jerked into motion, turning tightly around the narrow confines of Wizard's Hill Court and proceeding out under the watchmen's arch onto the avenues of Old Heart.

They had scarcely made the turn when Anrel heard Harban shout a warning; then the horses broke into a trot, and the coach rattled forward at an alarming speed, bouncing wildly across the cobbles.

Anrel lowered a window and leaned out, peering through the dust and looking back the way they had come.

A mob was marching up the avenue toward Wizard's Hill Court, but not a mob of mere citizens. Anrel saw a dozen men in the red and gold livery of the City Watch, and half as many more in the black coats and hats of wardens. Others wore ordinary clothes, but sported red armbands. Several of them were shouting, though Anrel could not make out over the rattle of the carriage what they were saying.

At the head of this forbidding company marched Garras Lir, brandishing his wooden club.

Then out from the shadows of the watchmen's arch strode Lord Allutar, sword gleaming in the afternoon sun. He stopped in the center of the avenue and turned to face the advancing crowd.

The mob stopped, deterred for the moment by this one man, and again Anrel heard unintelligible shouts.

Then the carriage swung around a corner, and the entire scene was lost behind the stone facade of a candle-maker's shop.

Anrel hoped that Lord Allutar would receive the clean and glorious death he had wanted, and in a moment of spite he also hoped that Allutar would take Garras Lir down with him.