Magician (89 page)

One herder, a man named Xanothis, came
to the top of the once-famous hill to be greeted by the sight of the
black-robed magician he had seen earlier, standing upon the crest.
Where the run-down great house had stood moments before, a large
patch of smoking land was laid bare, several feet below the level of
the grass that surrounded it. Fearing he had intruded upon some
business of a Great One, Xanothis started to back away, hoping to
avoid detection, for the Great One’s back was to the herder and
his cowl was drawn over his head. As he took the first step backward,
the magician turned to face him, fixing him with a pair of
unsettlingly deep brown deep eyes.

The herder lowered himself as custom
demanded, on his knees, eyes cast downward. He did not fully abase
himself, for he was a freeman, and while not a noble, he was head of
his family.

“Stand up,” the magician
ordered.

Slightly confused, Xanothis rose, eyes
still cast downward.

“Look at me.”

He looked up and found the face in the
cowl regarding him closely. A beard as dark as the eyes framed a fair
face, a fact that added to Xanothis’s discomfort, as only
slaves wore beards. The magician smiled at this obvious confusion and
walked around the herder, inspecting him.

The magician saw a man tall for a
Tsurani, an inch or two taller than his own five feet eight. His skin
was dark, like unclouded chocha or coffee. His eyes were black, and
his hair was black as well, save where it was shot with white. The
herder’s short green robe revealed the powerful build of a
former soldier, a fact the magician gleaned from the man’s
erect posture and several scars. Past fifty he looked, but still
capable of the strenuous life of a herder. Though shorter, this man
resembled Gardan of Crydee slightly.

“Your name?” asked the
magician, as he came round to stand before the herder. Xanothis
answered, his voice betraying his unease. The magician then startled
him by asking, “Would you agree that this is a good place for a
home, herdsman?”

Confused, Xanothis stammered, “If
. . . if it . . . is your will, Great One.”

The magician snapped, “Ask not
what I think! I ask your thoughts!”

Xanothis could barely hide his anger at
his own shame. Great Ones were sacrosanct, and to be false with one
was to do a dishonor. “Forgive me, Great One. It is said this
spot is ill favored by the gods.”

“And who is it that says so?”

The sharpness in the magician’s
voice caused the older man’s head to snap up as if he had been
struck. His eyes hid little of his anger, but his voice remained calm
as he said, “Those who live in the city, Great One, and others
about the countryside.” The herdsman met the magician’s
gaze and held it.

The corners of the magician’s
eyes wrinkled in mirth, and his mouth turned up a little, but his
voice still rang out. “But not you, herder?”

“I was fifteen years a soldier,
Great One. I have found it often the case that the gods favor those
who take care of their own welfare.”

The magician smiled at this, though it
was not an entirely warm expression. “A man of self-reliance.
Good. I am glad we are of a like mind, for I plan to build my estate
here, as I have a taste for the view of the sea.”

A certain stiffness of posture in the
herder’s stance at this remark caught the magician’s
notice, and he said, “Have I your approval, Xanothis of
Ontoset?”

Xanothis shifted his weight from one
foot to the other, then said, “The Great One jests with me. My
approval or disapproval is of no consequence, I am certain.”

“True, but you still avoid my
question Have I your approval?”

Xanothis’s shoulders sagged a
little as he said, “I will have to move my herds, Great One
That is all. I mean no disrespect.”

“Tell me of this house, Xanothis,
that stood here before this day.”

“It was the home of the Lord of
the Almach, Great One. He backed the wrong cousin against Almecho
when the office of Warlord was contested.” He shrugged. “I
was once a Patrol Leader of that house I was a prideful man, which
limited my advancement as a soldier. My lord gave me permission to
leave his service and marry, so I took over my wife’s father’s
herds. Had I stayed a soldier, I would now be a slave, dead, or a
grey warrior.” He glanced out toward the sea. “What more
would you know, Great One?”

The magician said, “You may keep
your herds upon this hill, Xanothis. The grazers keep the grass neat,
and I have no liking for unkempt grounds. Just keep them away from
the main house where I will be working, else I cook one for my supper
now and again.”

Without another word, the magician
pulled a device from within his robe and activated it. A strange hum
was emitted for a moment; then the black-robed figure disappeared
with a small popping sound. Xanothis stood quietly for a few minutes,
then resumed his search of his lost animals.

Later that night, around a campfire, he
told his family and the other herders of his meeting with the Great
One. None doubted his word, for whatever his other faults might be,
Xanothis was not one to expand upon the truth, but they were amazed.
And they never quite got used to one other thing: over the following
months while a new great house was being built, one or another of the
herdsmen would occasionally catch sight of Xanothis engaged in
conversation with a Great One, atop the hill while kula grazed below
them.

Now a new and strange house stood atop
the hill. It was the source of both some speculation and a little
envy. The speculation was about its owner, the strange Great One. The
envy was over its design and construction, something of a revolution
in Tsurani architecture. Gone was the traditional three-story,
open-center building. In its place was a long, single-story building,
with several smaller ones attached to it by covered walkways. It was
a rambling affair, with many small gardens and waterways winding
between the structures. Its construction was as much a sensation as
its design, for it consisted mainly of stone, with fired brick tiles
upon the roof. Some speculated that it offered cool protection during
the heat of summer.

Two other facts added to the
fascination evidenced over the house and its owner. First was the
manner in which the project had been commissioned. The magician had
first appeared in Ontoset one day, at the home of Tumacel, the
richest moneylender in the city. He appropriated over thirty thousand
imperials in funds and left the moneylender stricken over his loss of
liquidity. This was Milamber’s method of dealing with the
Tsurani passion for bureaucracy. Any merchant or tradesman commanded
to render service to a Great One was forced to petition the imperial
treasury for repayment. This resulted in slow delivery of ordered
materials, less than enthusiastic service, and resentment Milamber
simply paid in advance and left it to the moneylender—-who was
better able to account for his losses than most other merchants, by
nature of his bookkeeping—to recover from the treasury. The
second fact was the style of decoration. Instead of the garishly bold
wall paintings, the building was left mostly unpainted, except for an
occasional landscape in muted, natural colors. Many fine young
artists were employed on this project, and when it was done, the
demand for their services was phenomenal. Within a month a new wave
in Tsurani art was in progress.

Fifty slaves now worked the outlying
fields, all free to come and go as they wished, dressed in the garb
of their homeworld, Midkemia. All had been taken from the slave
market one day, without payment, by the Great One.

Many travelers to Ontoset would make an
afternoon of climbing the hills nearby to see the house. From a
respectable distance, of course. The herder, Xanothis, was questioned
many times about the strange Great One who lived in that house, but
the former soldier said nothing, only smiling a great deal.

“The belief that the current
great rift to Midkemia is controllable is only partially correct.”
Milamber paused, allowing his scribe to finish copying the dictation.
“It can be stated that rifts may be established without the
release of destructive energies associated with their accidental
creation, either through poorly effected magic spells or by the
proximity of too many unstable magic devices.”

Milamber’s research into the
special aspects of rift energies would be added to the Assembly’s
archives when completed Like other projects he had read of in the
archives, research into rifts had shown what Milamber took to be a
grievous flaw in most of his brother magicians’ work. In
general, projects were not carried through to completion, showing a
lack of thoroughness. Once the procedure to establish rifts safely
had been developed, further research into their nature had been
halted.

Continuing, he dictated: “What is
lacking in the concept of control is the ability to select the
terminus of contact, the ability to ‘target’ the rift. It
has been shown by the appearance of the ship carrying Fanatha on the
shores of Crydee, on the world of Midkemia, that a certain affinity
between a newly forming rift and an existing one is probable.
However, as shown by further testing, this affinity is limited, such
limits being as yet not fully understood. While there is increased
probability of a second rift appearing within a regional proximity to
the first, it is by no means a certainty.”

When the scribe was caught up, Milamber
added, “Also, there is a question of why rifts show certain
inconsistencies. Size appears relative to the energy employed in
their formation, but other characteristics seem without pattern. Some
rifts are single direction”—Milamber had lost several
valuable devices discovering this fact—“while others
allow movement in two directions. And then there are ‘bonded
pairs,’ two single-direction rifts that appear simultaneously,
both allowing one-way travel between origin and terminus. Though they
may appear miles apart, they are related—”

Milamber’s narration was
interrupted by the sound of the chimes announcing the arrival of
someone from the Assembly. He dismissed his scribe and made his way
to the pattern room. As he walked, he mused on the real reason for
his submersion in research over the last two months. He was avoiding
the decision he must soon make, whether or not to return to the
Shinzawai estate for Katala.

Milamber knew there was a chance she
had become the wife of another, for their separation had been nearly
five years, and she would have no reason to think he’d ever be
returning. But time and training had done nothing to dull his
feelings toward her. As he reached the transporting room with its
tiled pattern, he made his decision: tomorrow he would go to see her.

As he entered the room, he saw
Hochopepa step off the pattern in the tile floor. “Ah,”
said the plump magician, “there you are. Since it has been two
weeks since I last saw you, I decided to pay a visit.”

“I am glad to see you I have been
deeply involved in study and could do with a short respite.”

They walked from the room into one of
the several gardens nearby Hochopepa said, “I have been meaning
to ask you: what is the significance of the pattern you chose? I
don’t recognize it.”

Milamber said, “It is a stylized
recreation of a pattern I once saw in a fountain. Three dolphins.”

“Dolphins?”

Milamber explained about the Midkemian
sea mammals, while they seated themselves upon cushions between a
pair of dwarf fruit trees.

“Why the dolphins from that
fountain?”

“I don’t know. A
compulsion, perhaps. Also, when I underwent my final testing on the
tower, I saw something that didn’t register for a month or two
after.”

“What does one have to do with
the other?”

“In the representation of the
final challenge to the Stranger, do you remember a single brown-robed
magician, who bent the rift to keep Kelewan from entering the Enemy’s
universe?”

Hochopepa looked thoughtful. “I
can’t say as I do, Milamber. But then the spell used to create
that image affects each of us differently. If you compare visions
with others, you’ll discover a great deal of variation. But at
the time of the Stranger, we were all black robes. Who could this odd
brown-robed magician be?”

Milamber said, “A man I have met,
years ago.”

“Impossible. That scene took
place centuries ago.”

Milamber smiled and said,
“Nevertheless, I have met him. I made my pattern of three
dolphins as something of a commemorative to our meeting.”

“How very strange. There has been
some speculation on time travel, which would have to be the answer in
this case, unless your barbaric mind played false with you upon the
tower.” He said the last with a smile.

Milamber clapped his hands, and a
servant arrived with a platter of refreshments. The servant, Netoha,
at one time had been hadonra for the family that resided there
previously. Milamber had found him while securing someone to plant
the varieties of vegetation he wanted in his gardens. The man was
bold enough to approach, something that singled him out from the
common Tsurani. Unable to find the work he was trained for since the
demise of his employer’s estate, Netoha had scratched out a
meager living over the years. Milamber had taken him on as much out
of sympathy as out of any real need. He had quickly made himself
useful in a hundred ways the young magician had never dreamed of, and
the relationship was mutually satisfactory.

Hochopepa took the offered sweets and
drink “I have come to tell you some news. There is to be an
Imperial Festival in two months’ time, with games. Will you
come?”

Milamber found his curiosity piqued.
With a wave he dismissed Netoha. “And what makes this festival
so special? I can’t remember having seen you so animated
before.”