Vincalis the Agitator (3 page)

Wraith, whose hard life had taught him that the time to be most suspicious was when anything looked too good, asked, “Why
would you have us come here? Why offer rooms or food to people you don’t know?”

“I could use some friends. My cousins are creeps or dullards, and if you can walk through gates, you can do things they could
never do. Your friends will have a good place to live, and you can take classes with me, and I can figure out why gates don’t
work on you. I’m going to specialize in magical research,” he added. “You’d make a perfect case study.”

Wraith stared through the door of the little house up to the big house, and tried to imagine walking through those grand front
doors as if he belonged there. He tried to imagine never going back to the hollow, chilling silence of the Warrens. All of
his life so far had been a dare—a strange, lonely challenge. This next step made an odd sort of sense to him. He’d been leaving
the Warrens a little at a time since he was born.

“We’ll do it,” he said.

“Bring them with you tomorrow, then,” Solander said, but Wraith was already shaking his head in disagreement. “No? You won’t
bring your friends?”

“
I
can go through the gates.
They
can’t.”

Solander looked startled. “Oh. I forgot about that.” He frowned thoughtfully and said, “And you and your two friends live
in the Warrens.”

“Yes.”

“Then I have to figure out some way to get an aircar with universal clearance into the Warrens. That might take a day or two.
Going through gates like that—well, that isn’t the sort of thing you want to make a mistake about.”

Solander thought for another minute, then said, “I’ll figure something out. In the meantime, we’re going to steal some food
for you and your friends.”

Wraith and Solander stood in one of the pantries of the house’s enormous kitchen, loading food into a box. Wraith had a hard
time believing his eyes—he could not begin to guess the purpose of all the equipment in the huge outer room, nor what most
of the many people out there were doing. Cooking, obviously—the smells alone whispered every wonderful promise possible about
the food being prepared—but none of them did anything that looked like drawing Way-fare out of the wall-tube. Wraith knew
of no other method of food preparation, so he kept peeking over his shoulder to see just what they did.

That was how Wraith saw a hard-faced older boy coming toward the pantry where he and Solander picked out supplies for him,
Smoke, and Jess. “Solander,” he said, keeping his voice low, “someone’s coming.”

Solander looked toward the door and groaned. “Luercas—he’s a distant cousin.” Solander hid the box in with other boxes on
the floor behind him and turned quickly, several small pies in hand. He passed one to Wraith and started chewing on the other
one. “He’s … awful.”

Wraith said, “Oh,” and then took a bite of the pie. It tasted so impossibly good, tears started in the corners of his eyes—and
at that moment Luercas sauntered into the pantry.

“You,” he said, looking past Wraith to Solander. “What are you doing in here, you little rodent? Your parents should keep
a tighter leash on you.”

“I have as much right to be in the pantry as you do.” He muttered something the tone of which sounded insulting to Wraith,
though he couldn’t make out the words.

Apparently neither could Luercas, because he glared at Solander. “Not if I tell you that you don’t, worm.” Luercas then looked
at Wraith, and his eyes narrowed. “And what in all the hells is this thing?”

“A … distant cousin from … Ynjarval,” Wraith lied. “Here on temporaries.”

“Looks like something you found in the street. You, street-dirt. Disgusting black-haired stick. All by yourself in the real
city, eh? Let me see you bow to your superiors.” He smiled at Wraith, a most unpleasant smile.

Wraith felt sick to his stomach. But he looked Luercas in the eyes and said, “I don’t think so.”

“Don’t you, street-dirt? With Mama and Papa back in Ynjarval, they’re not going to be able to do much to help you. Better
get used to bowing if you’re planning on transferring here.”

“No,” Wraith said, shaking his head. He felt pretty certain if he’d had more than that single bite of pie in his stomach over
the last day, he would have thrown up right there, but he tried not to let it show in his face or in his voice.

Luercas pointed at Wraith, and Wraith heard Solander gasp. “I said bow,” Luercas said, and a pale line of fire sketched itself
from Luercas to Wraith … and promptly died.

Wraith crossed his arms over his chest and tried to look confident. He said nothing. His heart was racing, and his knees were
so weak he could feel them trembling. He leaned back against the shelving for support, but it apparently had the effect of
making him look self-assured.

“I said
bow
!” Luercas snarled. The second bolt of radiance that leaped toward Wraith looked big.

“No, Luercas!” Solander said, but he need not have protested. This attack, too, died before it reached Wraith.

Luercas’s face went red. “Think you’re clever, do you? Think your little trick is amusing. Let’s see how funny you think real
magic is.
BOW,
you filthy bastard!” Luercas bellowed, as outside Wraith heard running feet. Two adults burst into the pantry just as Luercas’s
third—huge—attack blasted toward Wraith and died.

Both adults grabbed Luercas and dragged him out, and Wraith heard them shouting about him bothering children, about using
magic attacks large enough to set off alarms all over the house to try to hurt children— about how he was suspended from his
sessions and how this incident was going before the reviewers and certainly going to go on his records, and how he’d find
it difficult to get any sort of good posting with the Dragons after demonstrating such poor judgment and poor self-control.
The adults, dragging Luercas with them, moved out of earshot then, and Wraith turned to Solander.

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

“He’s going to hate you forever for that,” Solander said, awed. “I can’t believe you didn’t just … bow.”

“I looked in his eyes. If I’d given him what he wanted that time, the next time we met, he would have tried to make me do
something worse. He’s … I don’t like him at all.”

Solander dragged the box out from under the shelves and sighed. “I don’t think anybody likes him. Most people don’t manage
to get so completely on his bad side so fast, though.” He handed the box to Wraith. “You’d better get out of here. I’ll walk
you to the gate. Will you be all right getting home?”

“I’ll be fine. Nobody ever pays me much attention. I’m good at not being noticed.”

Solander looked at him sadly. “Not good enough, apparently. When we move you back here, we’re going to have to make sure you
look different.”

Wraith took the box of food, and followed Solander out the door and out of the house. Maybe I should have bowed, he thought.
Maybe it would have worked out better that way.

But he didn’t think so. He’d seen something in Luercas’s eyes that hunted for weakness, that took pleasure in pain.

Wraith decided to make avoiding Luercas one of his big objectives in the future.

Solander sat in his room after Wraith left, idly balancing the three gold balls in the air, and wondered what his father would
make of the boy. Wraith showed every sign of being impervious to magic. Yet Solander’s father had told him many times that
magic affected everyone—that magic was the sixth force of physics, and that one might as well look for a man who wasn’t affected
by gravity as a man who wasn’t affected by magic.

The balls spun in a neat little circle before Solander, swimming through the air like trained fish. Light from the window
gleamed off of them. They were solid gold and terribly heavy; without magic, Solander wasn’t strong enough to lift one of
them off the floor. But, as he’d told Wraith, he had a remarkable aptitude for magic. And, he thought, a remarkable aptitude
for spotting what might be the biggest flaw in theoretical magic in the last two thousand years when it presented itself to
him.

I probably should tell my father about Wraith, Solander thought. He’d want to know that such a person could exist.

But visions of unveiling Wraith on his own—and with him a new theory of magic that included proofs for Laws of Exclusion,
those heretofore mythical and much yearned-after laws that would permit wizards to create spells without any rebound effects,
or
rewhah
—sang to him like the Temptresses of Calare. He wanted to earn his place in the Academy. No. He wanted to earn the
highest
place in the Academy, and he only had four more years to do something that would place him above all the other applicants.
His father had said Solander was on his own in gaining admission—that the elder Artis would not use his influence or his position
on the Council of Dragons to gain a place for his son. And his reasons seemed valid—that if Solander did not earn his way
into the Academy without parental assistance, men who stood against him in later years would question his qualifications for
any worthwhile position on the Council of Dragons, or for any worthwhile appointment within the sphere of influence of the
Empire of the Hars Ticlarim.

If Solander could disprove one of the central tenets of current magical theory, though, and take not just a stack of papers
into the exam room but physical demonstrations of his theory, no one would ever be able to question his right to stand among
the Masters—to lead the Empire—to become head of the Dragons and eventually Landimyn of the Hars. He balanced the three gold
balls in the air and smiled, imagining himself carried through the underwater streets of Oel Maritias, dressed in glorious
robes of state, cheered on by the thousands who lined the Triumph Road beneath the glittering arch of the ocean above. He
would smile slightly. Wave his hand just … so … to let the people know that he had once been like them. One of them. Once—but
not anymore.

He sent the balls spiraling to the floor, then pulled his knees up to his chest and stared out the window by his bedside,
which overlooked one of the many hidden courtyards in the grand old house. In that courtyard, three young girls played a game
of skippers, laughing at the patterns the skipper-stones created in the floating fountain. Watching them, Solander was reminded
that he would have to create identities for Wraith and his friends if they were to be successfully hidden in plain sight within
the household. He might, he thought, create them as the children of distant relatives from across the Bregian Ocean. He liked
Ynjarval. It was distant and poor, and adults seemed to mostly ignore anyone from there.

Better than Benedicta—relatives there were always sending their children to Oel Artis to get a real education and to meet
the right people to further their careers. But they were the sort of relatives who called their children home for holidays
and made surprise visits, which wouldn’t work well for Solander’s needs. Or Wraith’s.

Solander would have to create a couple letters of introduction and forge necessary identification papers. He’d heard Luercas
bragging about doing that so that he could get into adults-only taverns and theaters down in the Belows. If Luercas could
find a way, then Solander thought he could find a way, too. But any chance Solander had of asking Luercas how he did it was
now gone. If Luercas were to get wind of Solander’s searching after forged papers, he would find out why and Solander would
spend the rest of his natural life paying blackmail to the bastard. And Wraith … Solander didn’t even want to think about
what would happen to Wraith.

He flopped back on the bed and closed his eyes. Letters. Forged papers. A means of transporting three people from the Warrens
to the Aboves, and some sort of excuse for going into the Warrens that wouldn’t raise suspicion. A foolproof, questionproof
reason for three Warreners to be in Oel Artis and staying in Artis House more or less permanently. A good change of appearance
for Wraith, so that Luercas wouldn’t recognize him.