Above His Proper Station (45 page)

Whatever was to happen, though, Anrel would not see it. He might never know how the confrontation ended.

There could be no doubt, though, that he had seen the last of Lord Allutar Hezir, landgrave of Aulix.

36

In Which Anrel Murau Departs the Capital

There was little conversation in the brief ride to the Morvanile Gate; Lord Blackfield was too occupied with preparing a seeming that would get the entire company safely past the guards, and the others were too stunned by the course of events.

The gates had indeed been closed, and the city sealed off; soldiers in red and gold stopped the coach and demanded Lord Blackfield identify himself before allowing Harban to approach the tunnel. No one inside dared say a word as the Quandishman presented his papers to the officers of the City Watch and attested to the entirely fictional identities of his passengers. Anrel was presented as a footman by the name of Lurdon Zuai, and names were likewise invented for the three housemaids, the cook, and the butler who had been Tazia, Perynis, Saria, Nivain, and Dorias. Lord Dorias stirred from his gloom briefly and seemed on the verge of protesting when Lord Blackfield called him a butler, but a glare from Anrel and a tug at his sleeve from Lady Saria silenced him.

Harban, of course, was presented in his true identity, though his duties were given as simply “driver,” with no mention of the various other services he had provided.

One of the guards seemed suspicious at the size of the household, particularly the number of females, but another told him, “I've heard of the Blackfields—they're great lords in Quand, very wealthy. Powerful sorcerers, as well. They can afford to travel with all the servants they want.”

“But three housemaids for a few rented rooms?”

The guard shrugged. “Sorcerers have uses for women, even more than other men. Haven't you heard about Lord Koril's harem? If this Blackfield wants to call all his women housemaids, it's no business of
ours.
”

Lady Saria flushed red at that, but said nothing.

In the end, the Quandishman's papers and words and sorcery were sufficient, and the coach was allowed to pass. The company remained silent as they rolled through the tunnel and emerged into the late-afternoon sun beyond. Indeed, even when they had successfully passed through the city wall and were on the road west, no one felt any need to speak for some time.

It was Perynis who first broke the silence. “I hadn't known—” she began. Then she stopped and cleared her throat.

“Known what?” Saria asked.

“That sorcerers—that they used …” Her voice trailed off.

“Sorcerers can draw power from sources other than earth and sky,” Lord Blackfield said. “Lord Allutar drew on blood and death, as you know—my people call that black magic. There are other sources, as well, and some magicians do indeed keep women available for that purpose.”

“Some witches use that,” Perynis said. “I didn't know sorcerers did.”

That led to a discussion of the technicalities of magic. Until then, it had not entirely registered with Anrel that everyone in the coach was a magician of some sort, but of the seven, three were witches, three were sorcerers, and he himself was … whatever he was.

They slept that night at an inn in the village of Varth, scarcely out of sight of the capital's towers, but made better time on subsequent days. Rumors of chaos and horror in the capital followed them, and sometimes ran ahead of them, so that whenever they were not traveling they spent much of their time professing to curious locals their honest ignorance of what had actually happened in Lume.

It seemed that the initial round of arrests had missed several of its intended targets—rumor had it that about half a dozen of those named in the Grand Council had not been apprehended. Orders to watch for fleeing traitors reached the watchmen of every town along their route. Only Lord Blackfield's sorcery and Anrel's quick tongue saw them safely through four encounters with sentries and authorities of various sorts.

By the time the coach reached Kallai the empire was ablaze with open rebellion; the Joint Committee had assumed full control of the entire country. The margrave of Kallai had closed his city's gates, accepting no authority but his own until matters were more settled, but Lord Blackfield was able to talk his way past the walls by asserting his status as a Quandish Gatherman, and, Anrel suspected, by the judicious use of both sorcerous persuasion and mundane bribery.

The homunculus-driven coaches that normally carried passengers across the Dragonlands from Kallai to Quand were not available, at the Margrave's direction, but that was of no matter; Harban knew the route, and Lord Blackfield's sorcery was able to keep the dragons at a safe distance. Guarding the coach against the great beasts required Lord Blackfield to ride atop the vehicle and left him exhausted, but another day saw them safely across the wasteland in Redcliff, on the Quandish border.

Lord Dorias and Lady Saria seemed utterly miserable to be outside the empire, but the rest of the party studied the foreign landscape with interest. For the most part, Anrel found it disappointingly similar to the terrain in Walasia; there was no sign of the infamous Quandish mists.

On the other hand, for the first time in his life he heard ordinary people speaking Quandish outside a classroom. He and Lord Blackfield began tutoring the others in the basics of the language, even while Anrel learned to correct his own pronunciation to match the tongue as it was actually spoken.

Two more days from Redcliff brought them to Ondine, the Quandish capital, and to Lord Blackfield's town house there.

It was there that Anrel found himself introduced to assorted Quandish dignitaries, all of them eager for news of the Walasian capital. He was also startled to also encounter other Walasian refugees; apparently his own adventures had not been as unique as he thought.

“What will you do now?” one young Quandish noblewoman asked him. “Now that you're safe.”

The question caught Anrel off guard; he had not given the matter much thought. Since receiving Delegate Gluth's warning in the Aldian Baths he had been too busy at first with simply staying alive, and then he had been caught up in the miniature society of the crowded coach, discussing the different varieties of magic and the intricacies of the Quandish language. That had left him no time or energy to make long-term plans.

He started to say he did not know what he intended; then he stopped. He looked across the room at Tazia, who was similarly beset, yet remained calm, polite, and to Anrel's eyes, radiantly beautiful.

“I am going to marry the woman I love,” he said. He smiled. “And after that, we shall see.”

Tor Books by Lawrence Watt-Evans

THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES

Dragon Weather

The Dragon Society

Dragon Venom

LEGENDS OF ETHSHAR

Night of Madness

Ithanalin's Restoration

Touched by the Gods

Split Heirs
(with Esther Friesner)

THE ANNALS OF THE CHOSEN

The Wizard Lord

The Ninth Talisman

The Summer Palace

THE FALL OF THE SORCERERS

A Young Man Without Magic

Above His Proper Station

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

ABOVE HIS PROPER STATION

Copyright © 2010 by Lawrence Watt-Evans

All rights reserved.

Map by Rhys Davies

A Tor
®
eBook
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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Tor
®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN 978-0-7653-2280-7

First Edition: November 2010

eISBN 978-1-4299-2527-3

First Tor eBook Edition: November 2010