1 The Outstretched Shadow.3 (7 page)

 Straightening his robes, Lycaelon tapped the butt of his staff meaningfully on the paving. The servant stopped staring and scurried to open the gate. The Arch-Mage's escort peeled off to stand at strict attention on either side of the gate, while the Arch-Mage entered.

 Before Lycaelon had taken three steps up the walk, the door of the house was swinging open at the hand of an even more ornately uniformed personage than the footman who had guided him to the house. Correctly identifying this apparition as the Tasoaires' butler, Lycaelon surrendered his cloak, hat, gauntlets, and staff. He imagined the servant looked embarrassed to be seen in such an outfit—as well he ought, in such a hideously indecent household! Wealth, like power, belonged only in those hands suited to wield it properly.

 It occurred to Lycaelon that perhaps something could be done about the Tasoaires' improper good fortune. Some gradual readjustment of their affairs—for the good of the City, of course. He would look into it once he got back to the Council House. But at the moment, he had a more immediate problem to solve…

 "I am expected," he announced austerely.

 "Of course, Lord Arch-Mage. If you will accompany me?"

 Lycaelon followed the butler into the house, amusing himself by attempting to discern the bones of the original building beneath the veneer of its clownish makeover. It was like walking through a jackdaw's nest— there was no regard for taste and balance, only for vulgarity and expensive display. And he was certain that at least a few of these items had made it off the Selken ships without the Council's imprimatur.

 He was also interested to note that there seemed to be gaps—prominent, but irregular—in the overabundance of tawdry ornament, as if broken items had been hastily removed and the survivors had not yet been rearranged to hide the absence. Apparently the girl had indeed broken most of what was breakable in the Tasoaire household, for which he held himself much in her debt.

 But to Lycaelon's faint disappointment, the room to which he was led seemed to have suffered the least from the Tasoaires' new wealth. The heart-room of the house still displayed its timber and plaster walls unchanged, and the large tiled fireplaces at each end of the room were lovely and tasteful examples of merchant-class craftsmanship. Small-paned windows, open to the unusually warm spring day, showed glimpses of a small back garden that was very much as it ought to be. Carved oak settles, their wood honey-dark with years of beeswax polishing, flanked each hearth, and there was a small writing desk under one window, angled to catch the natural light. There was a sideboard on the wall facing the windows, and Lycaelon was interested to see that where he would have expected to see fiery cut-crystal, he saw instead a pewter jug and a collection of mismatched pewter cups, badly dented but polished to a satiny gleam.

 But the seemly and modest effect was spoiled by an enormous gilded chair with a scarlet velvet cushion that squatted in the middle of the room, obviously carried in for his benefit, with a painted and gilded table beside it that was undoubtedly more suitable to a whorehouse than a merchant's townhouse.

 The two people awaiting him arose from their seats on one of the settles as the door opened, and moved hesitantly forward to greet him.

 Lycaelon recognized loan Tasoaire from his many appearances before the Council, and the painfully overdressed woman beside him must be his wife, though Lycaelon didn't trouble himself to recall her name. Both were upholstered in so much satin, multicolored brocade, gold lace, and velvet piping that they looked like a pair of overstuffed chairs designed by a madman. Both of them looked worn and frightened. Lycaelon smiled, radiating charm—a simple enough cantrip, really, among the many every High Mage always kept in readiness for situations such as this.

 "Come, loan, you know me," Lycaelon said, injecting good humor and warmth into his voice. "I'm here to help. And who is this lovely young thing? Surely this isn't your daughter?" loan Tasoaire smiled, and Lycaelon could see that it cost him some effort. "Nay, Lord Arch-Mage, this is my wife, Yanalia."

 "You can help her, can't you, Lord Arch-Mage? Help our Darcy?" the woman burst out. "You do know what it is with her, don't you? Don't you?"

 "Hush now, Yana," loan said, pulling his wife back before she could approach Lycaelon. "I'm sure the Arch-Mage will do all he can."

 "Of course I will," Lycaelon said, settling himself in the garish throne-chair, inasmuch as seemed to be expected of him. "I came as soon as I heard there was trouble—in fact, I'm a little hurt, loan, that you didn't come to me sooner. What are friends for, if not to help one another?"

 Yanalia began to weep in harsh strangled sobs, clinging to her husband. Lycaelon forced himself to keep his face smooth, his expression benign. Puling and weeping with hysteria already, and he hadn't been in the house more than a few moments! How like a woman!

 "We were afraid," loan said slowly.

 Lycaelon composed his features into an expression of hurt regret and bowed his head. "If that is the case… if that is truly the case… then I have failed you, failed all the people of Armethalieh. How can I help you, if you won't come to me for help? Look at me, loan." He spread his hands, a sad smile on his face. "I'm a Mage. That's all I am. That's all I do. I don't plant crops, or spin cloth—or make gold out of thin air like you do, loan!" He allowed himself a rueful smile at the small joke, and was pleased to see loan smile in return. "All I do is help people. That's all any Mage does. That's all the Art Magickal is for. But when people won't come to me for help, then, well… I'm useless. I can't help you if I don't know that you need help, and my Gifts go to waste."

 He lowered his head again, as if meeting their eyes was too much for him. Had he overplayed his hand, laid it on too thick? But no. They were distracted, afraid, and from the looks of things hadn't been sleeping well at all. If he could get them feeling guilty as well, they should be supremely easy to manipulate.

 "It weren't—it wasn't that." loan had made his way up from the laboring classes and married a minor merchant's daughter, taking her name, as was customary when marrying into a higher-ranked family. When he was upset, his low-class origins showed in his speech.

 "We thought it would go away. It didn't, but then we thought she'd get better!" Yanalia burst out, her voice still thick with tears. "But it's only gotten worse, Arch-Mage. The fires, and the breaking things, well, at first we thought it might be a spirit or something, not her—we had a Light-Priest in to bless the house, and it stopped for a while, but then it started up again. Then I began thinking about old tales and when we realized it was her, not a spirit, we thought it would get better…" Her voice faltered, and for a moment Lycaelon thought she was finished speaking, but she composed herself with an effort and went on. "After all, don't all Apprentices have trouble when they start learning magick?"

 Only years of self-discipline and iron self-control kept Lycaelon's features composed in a benign mask. He even managed to smile at the witless creature. "Perhaps you had better begin at the beginning," he said smoothly. "Tell me everything. Leave nothing out."

 It was an old and not unfamiliar story, a mainstay of the romances so beloved of the lower classes. A child of humble parents—a merchant, a tavern-keeper, or perhaps even a farmer—begins to find bizarre things happening around him at the same time his body begins changing from child to adult. Things vanish, only to reappear in strange places. Stones rain down on his house. Plates, cups, and other small objects fly through the air around him as if thrown, though no one seems to have touched them. Mysterious voices are heard, music, odd sounds. Sometimes spontaneous fires start, or the boy sleepwalks, going into trances and speaking of things he has no way of knowing. And then, to provide the story with a happy ending, just as things seem darkest, a Mage comes, and recognizes the child's power, and takes him away for training in the Art Magickal, elevating him into a world of privilege, duty, and entitlement.

 These people had heard such stories a hundred times, and when the same things started happening in their home, and they eliminated the possibility that it was some spirit of mischief, doubtless had visions of the glory that having a Mage in the household would bring them.

 But it is always a boy of whom the storytellers write and sing. Because there never has been, and never would be, a female Mage in the Golden City of Armethalieh.

 "And you say there have been fires?" Lycaelon asked smoothly, when it became clear that the story loan and Yanalia had to tell was degenerating into a recital of a long series of boring incidents, and they had no more real details to give. Fires… well, that put the cap on it. If there were fires starting, it wouldn't be long before what was happening inside these walls would migrate outside, endangering far more than a few trinkets, no matter how strong the Protection Spells on the surrounding buildings were.

 "They started a day or two ago," loan said, sighing heavily. "And now Deglas says the fountain has stopped running as well, and where will we get the water to put out the next one? Lord Arch-Mage, what can we do? Protective amulets just shatter. Beating the girl does no good—it only makes matters worse!"

 "Broke all my best dishes after that," Yanalia said, dabbing at her eyes. "Oh, not her—but they flew around the kitchen like bats for half a bell, all smashed to flinders, and the cook left and both the scullery-maids; I haven't been able to keep a girl since! You must help us! Please! You must take her now!"

 "Take her now." The Light preserve us. The daft woman really does think we'll take the wretched creature and make a Mage of her!

 "Rest assured, Goodlady Tasoaire; your problems are at an end. You and your husband have done the right thing by coming to me." He kept his voice soothing, although his own emotions could best be described as "seething" rather than "soothing."

 "I will deal with this myself, here and now. Your Darcilla will never again be troubled by these strange and unwelcome visitations. I will see to it that her energies are redirected into some other activity that is more suited to her sex," Lycaelon told her, though in truth, he wanted to grab the idiot creature by the brocaded shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattled for being such a fool. "Obviously, since it is a girl-child involved, and not a boy, we will have to take action before she harms herself with this—unnatural power. Quite impossible for any girl to use such a thing, of course. Quite, quite impossible. Now, if you will send for the girl…"

 "But why aren't you going to take her and make her into a Mage?" Yanalia asked, taken aback. "I thought—the stories all say—she has such power…"

 Lycaelon stared at her, too stunned for a moment to retain his mask of avuncular calm. Was it actually possible that despite what he had just told her, this cretinous female was going to insist that her daughter be taken in and trained by the Mages?

 Clearly, she was not listening. And he was going to have to take a stronger stand. Much. In fact, he was going to have to be disagreeable with her. He got to his feet, frowning sternly. "My good woman, try not to be any more featherbrained than absolutely required by your female nature. Do think, will you? Have you ever seen a female Mage in this City?"

 Yanalia cowered back, aware that she had somehow offended the Arch-Mage but not quite sure what she'd done.

 "Well. no," she admitted. "But I don't see…"

 "Precisely. You don't see. Because, my good woman, you are not a Mage. But surely you have eyes." He waved his hand around. "Look at the shambles she's made of your house, and imagine what a disaster she could make of the City were she turned loose upon it. It's the simple truth that women lack the emotional detachment necessary to master the High Magick; a truth that has been proven time and time again, and sometimes with tragic results. Their gifts lie elsewhere—in the arts, in business, in the home. She is as unhappy now as you would be, madame, should I ask you to strap on sword and armor and patrol the City walls. Bring her to me and I shall heal her of this inconvenient fever, and you will all be more comfortable for it."

 "She'll be all right?" loan asked uncertainly.

 Lycaelon smiled at loan, man-to-man, allowing a faint undercurrent of magic to speak to him, silently. Your wife, as you have always thought, is a fool. You and I know better than any mere female. You must be the master in your house. Put your foot down with her, put her in her place, and your world will become infinitely more comfortable and harmonious. "It will be as if this last moonturn never happened. She'll be your own happy grateful child once more. Peace beneath your own roof, loan, what more could any man ask for, eh?" loan smiled, letting out a long sigh of relief. "Ah, that's that, then. Go and fetch the girl, Yana."

 Yanalia Tasoaire still looked doubtful, but not quite uncertain enough to be willing to argue with her husband in front of the Arch-Mage of Armethalieh. She bobbed a hasty curtsy and left the room.

 "She'll be a while," Iaon said, with the air of one who has had long experience with wives and daughters. Whatever he was like normally with his wife, he had drunk deeply of the spine-strengthener supplied by Lycaelon, and was acting accordingly. He stepped to the sideboard. "Care for a stiffener while you wait?"

 "Ah… no. My Art prevents, you will understand."

 While it was partly true—no Adept of the Art Magickal partook of senses-clouding substances lightly, least of all when about to perform magic—it would have been a simple matter for Lycaelon to change the contents of the cup until it was no more potent than spring water. Refusing to drink with his host was all part of a certain mystique the Mages wove about themselves, a dance of etiquette designed to set them apart from the average citizens whom they governed. The people of the Golden City must never be allowed to forget that their servant-Masters were woven of finer cloth than they themselves were.