Vincalis the Agitator (38 page)

“I’m guessing at least some of the ‘dead results’ I ended up signing off on were successes that the discoverers didn’t dare
report.”

Wraith said, “I’m guessing that many of your colleagues are developing all sorts of fascinating technology at the Empire’s
expense, and then hiding the results to sell off the record.”

“That’s not a good thing to know,” Solander said softly.

“It would be a wise thing to forget,” Wraith agreed. “And it would be wise, also, to stop silencing our conversation. I have
a feeling you might not have much more time.”

Solander did not turn his head, but looked out of the corner of one eye at the front entry. He caught the movement of robes—an
upper-level Dragon, by the colors, one who would get his choice of tables.

Solander dissolved the shield with a whisper and said, “And then she told me that she wanted to have a dozen children, and
that was the end of
that
relationship. I could imagine fathering one. Maybe. But a dozen?”

Wraith laughed. “I’ve managed to avoid romance, too.”

“I don’t want to avoid romance,” Solander said. “But there aren’t very many women out there who are … who are Jess. You know?”

Wraith smiled. “Only the one, I should think. She seems to be doing quite well. The last I heard, she’d bought out her partner
and had gone on tour in Arim as manager for one of her orchestras.”

Solander said, “Oh. Maybe I shouldn’t even mention this, but I’ve heard some strange things about Velyn lately. About her
and Luercas, I mean. Things that … ah, drift up the stairs from the servants’ quarters, if you know what I mean.”

Wraith looked down at his hands and sighed heavily. “She came to see me today,” he said.

“Velyn? You jest.”

“No. Luercas had beaten her. Badly. Tried to kill her. I took her to see a judge friend of mine, and she gave spelled testimony,
and on the basis of it, my friend dissolved their contract with prejudice. Luercas is going to owe Velyn and her family major
reparations. I suspect it will get … ugly.”

“With the temper he has, I suspect you’re right.” Solander tried to figure out Wraith’s angle on all of this—Wraith still
sat there staring at his hands as if they’d suddenly done something fascinating, like twin themselves. It wasn’t like Wraith
to say anything without looking his listener in the eye, and Solander thought he kept his head down this time because he was
hiding something. But what? The fact that he still had feelings for Velyn? Anyone who truly knew him knew he still loved her.

“Considering your past history with her, I’m surprised you involved yourself.”

“I didn’t have much choice,” Wraith said, looking up and straight into his eyes. He looked hurt, but not evasive. Well … maybe
his hands really had been doing something interesting. “She was waiting for me in my office when I went in today. Rather like
you, actually, except she looked like a rag trampled by a mob. I couldn’t just turn her away, in spite of the fact that I
suspect Luercas will come looking for me.”

“I wouldn’t want to have him after me,” Borlen said. “I’ve heard some terribly nasty things about him lately.”

Wraith said, “I helped her, I paid for bodyguards and a room for her, and I sent her on her way. I don’t have a place for
her in my life; I have no wish to have my heart broken again, and that seems to be what she’s best at. So I gave her the help
I could.”

Solander didn’t believe what he was hearing. “And that’s it? She comes to you, surely hoping that she can correct the mistake
she made when she took vows with Luercas, and you give her a room and some protection and kick her out of your life?”

“Yes. It seems to me to be the best thing I can do, for her and me.” Softly, he added, “Especially for me.”

“And that’s why you were hiding your eyes. You feel guilty.” Solander leaned back in his padded chair and stared at his old
friend. “And you
should
feel guilty. Good gods! If Jess came to me and asked me to take her back, I would in a second. I wouldn’t have to think about
it. If you love someone—”

Wraith held up a hand. “You didn’t want to discuss my politics, I don’t want to discuss my love life. Not even a little bit.
She’s safe, she’s out of my life, and that’s the way I want it.”

Solander shrugged. The three of them sat at the table, looking everywhere but at each other, until the silence grew agonizing.
Finally, Solander said, “I suppose we should pay the bill and be on our way. Borlen and I have to check the work on our formulas
before we go in tomorrow to present our findings. I’m not at all comfortable with what we have—I’m suspecting errors. But
I got some strange readings on our equipment today, so I feel that I really must request observers.”

Wraith nodded. “If you must be going, I understand. I’m heading back to the playhouse. We’ve been working long hours on a
new production, and my set director, my score writer, my choreographer, and I have been staying at the theater nights to put
all the pieces together. I haven’t been home in days.”

“You’re headed back there?”

“We aren’t even close to finishing our work.” Wraith raised a finger, and one of the waiters hurried over to see what he needed.
“We’ll be leaving now.”

“Yes, Master Gellas. The owner has instructed me to tell you that you and your friends were our guests tonight. I hope you
will have a pleasant evening.”

Wraith rose. “Please tell Daymin that I cannot permit him to pick up every check. Next time, I’ll expect the bill. And in
the meantime, I’ll send him some good tickets to my newest work.”

The waiter smiled and bowed. “I’ll tell him.”

Jess had long given up listening to the wild rumors she heard about Wraith. He seemed to attract attention to himself the
way high places attracted lightning; she’d learned not to put much faith in any of the wild tales people whispered in her
ear about the eccentric Master Gellas. Yet something about this latest rumor set her teeth on edge, and sent little shudders
of apprehension scurrying down her spine.

She leaned against the park bench and stared out at the grassy glade; people walked arm in arm along the edge of an artificial
lake, their heads dipping and bobbing as they talked, as if they were somehow bound to the swans that swam in the lake’s center.
Her young assistant, Patr, paid no attention to her change in mood or her sudden cautious silence. In between bites of his
steaming benjor, a long hard roll filled with cooked pickled cabbage, three types of spiced meat, and a half dozen melted
cheeses, he continued his tale. “So then Buelin says that Gellas is supposed to have garnered this private army of his through
his theaters, where he’s using magic to control the patrons’ minds and seduce them into his clutches. And his actors are supposed
to be some sort of subhuman creatures who wear their costumes to hide their monstrous true natures.”

“Ridiculous,” Jess said.

“Isn’t it? But Buelin has heard several variations of the tale, and the main points that each version agree on are that he’s
raising his own private army to overthrow the Empire, that he’s hiring outcasts or freaks of some sort as his actors, and
that he’s controlling the minds of his audiences and making them do things they would not otherwise do.”

Jess laughed, but it came out sounding rather strangled. “Why would people say such things? Gellas is a …a treasure of the
Empire. I’ve heard he is to be given the Star of the Hars Ticlarim. He single-handedly revived interest in live theater—people
actually go to watch the plays now, which I don’t believe they’d done for a hundred years. He’s brought forth something wonderful,
and now there are a hundred playwrights working to emulate what his discovery of Vincalis has done—to create new, living forms
of theater instead of just copying over and over the static form that served for centuries.”

Around a huge bite of his meal, Patr laughed. “And there, I think, is your answer. Don’t you suppose the Masters of Literature—all
those vile old covil-ossets who held the field all to themselves for centuries, and who dictated what was and what was not
a play—are furious to find themselves shoved into a corner and relegated to a position of irrelevance? Don’t you think they
resent being shown up? Being made fools of?” Patr took a seat on the bench where she rested her foot, and balanced the remains
of his benjor on his knees while he tried to remove the stopper from the disposable flagon of beer he’d purchased from the
vendor. “If I were looking for creators of rumors, the jealous old Masters would be the first to whom I’d look.”

Which would have been good advice, Jess thought, and something that would have allowed her to put Patr’s recitation of the
rumors behind her as mere vengeful gossip—except that, last she had heard, Wraith
did
want to overthrow the government, or at least overthrow the way that it used magic; and he did hire outcasts as actors, even
if they were fully human; and he did try to change the way his audiences looked at their world, even if he didn’t cheat by
using magic. There was more truth to the rumor than she dared to discount; for all the trappings of hysteria and nonsense,
someone had gotten the core of the story right.

That suggested a traitor, to Jess.

She watched the Arimese men and women who had come out to enjoy the unseasonably lovely day; she watched the swans. She tried
to tell herself that Wraith would be fine, that rumors meant nothing, that his position as a beloved presenter of popular
entertainment created by the most reclusive genius in the Empire would save him from anyone who would want to hurt him. A
traitor, though, might know more about Wraith than his plans.

Jess considered her schedule, which would keep her out of Oel Artis for another five months, touring Arim, Tartura, and Benedicta.
Chances were good that these rumors would lead to nothing; if she returned to Oel Artis to talk with Wraith, she would be
inconveniencing herself and her plans, and probably inconveniencing Wraith as well, and with nothing to show for it but a
discussion of a story that both of them could easily dismiss as silliness.

She walked away from the bench, down to the water’s edge. The delicate spires of the heart of the city of Granorett rose before
her, reflecting in the lake like gold-tinged daggers. She had come on this tour to see the world; she’d spent so much of her
time working that she had almost forgotten about the wonders that existed beyond Oel Artis. She’d thought nothing could compare
to the grand old city with its magical Aboves and stunning, historic Belows. But she’d been wrong.

Every single place she’d gone had offered her something wonderful, a new world, a new way of looking at herself and the people
around her, new vistas, new customs, new languages. Music spoke to everyone, and she’d met people she would cherish for the
rest of her life. If, at that moment, someone told her that she could never go back to Oel Artis, she would have shrugged
and spread her hands in a gesture that encompassed the rest of Matrin. She’d seen almost nothing; she could not imagine what
wonders awaited her on each breaking morn.

If she went back to Oel Artis now, she would be walking away from … everything.

Yet she owed Wraith her life. She owed Wraith her ability to look at Granorett and wonder at its beauty. Without him, she
would have been a caged and insensate prisoner, living fuel without even the sanctity of a soul that she could call her own.
How could anyone ever repay a debt that great?

By going home, she thought. By making up some spurious excuse and returning to Oel Artis, and finding a reason to meet with
Wraith alone for a few minutes, and passing him the information that he might need to start looking for a traitor within his
own ranks. She owed him her soul—her chance at eternity in whatever form it might take. The vast and varied wonders of Matrin
would wait for her return.

A week, she thought. A week to return, create some business that would require her to sit down in conference with Wraith and
pass him a note that he could then destroy, cover that meeting with a flurry of other, seemingly equally important meetings
with other creative and business people, and then she could rejoin the Live Classics Orchestra. The orchestra, in a week,
would have traveled to Bastime, in the southern Arimese Islands. She’d miss two cities, Winehall and Saviay. They would still
be there when she was ready to revisit them—and when she did get the chance to tour them, she would do so with a clear conscience.

Two weeks. Sixteen days. She owed that to Wraith, for giving her the world.