The Awakened Mage (32 page)

She stepped forward, barring Asher’s progress. “Nothing. It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter. We were just talking.”

He didn’t believe her. Gently he pushed her aside and came closer. Matt made himself meet his friend’s unforgiving eyes. “I asked you once if you had feelings for Dathne,” said Asher. “You said no. Seems to me you lied, Matt.”

He turned to her. “For Barl’s sake, Dathne—”

“I’m sorry, Matt,” she said, and threaded her arm through Asher’s. Her eyes were pitiless. “I wish I could care the way you want me to, but it’s Asher I love. Not you.”

“Dathne!”

“Look, Matt,” said Asher, voice and face thawing slightly, “I’ll make this easy on you. You’re dismissed.”

He stared, stupid as a scarecrow. “I’m what?”

“Dismissed,” said Asher. “Let go. Relieved of your duties. I’m reassigning you to His Majesty’s stud farm down the Dingles. I’ll get Ganfel from over the palace stables to step in for now. He’s a good man with horses, he’ll see the place don’t fall apart till I can decide who’ll take over here.”

He shook his head. “You can’t—”

“I can,” said Asher. “I have. It’s done.” Still, he couldn’t believe it. “But… but…”

“
It’s done.”

There was no fellowship in Asher’s face now. No amusement or warm understanding. Matt wasn’t sure he knew this man at all. “I thought we were friends.”

Asher smiled. Stepped closer and lowered his voice. “We are. Which is why you’re walkin’ out of here on your own two legs.” The smile vanished. “You put your hand on her in anger, Matt. Ain’t another man in all this
₍
kingdom who’d do that and walk away.” He stepped back again. “Now, why don’t you go see to them pesky sightseein’ three year olds, eh? After that you can report to

Darran. He’ll help you with the particulars of gettin’ resettled down to the farm.”

Matt turned again to Dathne. “You’re just going to stand there and let him—”

“I’m sorry, Matthias,” she said. She never called him Matthias. “I do believe it’s best this way.”

Her denial of him hurt worse than Asher’s anger. Almost, he opened his mouth and blurted out the truth and Jervale’s Heir be damned. But he couldn’t do it. He’d sworn a sacred oath to obey her… and he’d keep it, no matter what that cost.

“What if I fight you?” he said to Asher in a strangled whisper. “I could fight you.”

Asher shrugged. “You’d lose. I never came to this dratted City lookin’ for power, Matt, but it seems I ended up with it anyways. Ordinarily I ain’t one for throwin’ my weight around but for this I’ll make an exception. Dath’s right, even if you don’t see it now. And you’ll do fine down in the Dingles. Maybe you’ll not be as high up the ladder there as you are here, but you’re young yet. You’ll manage.”

You ‘re young yet,
from a man six years his junior. Feeling like he’d been turned to solid wood, he nodded again. “Yes, sir.” He allowed himself a pinch of sarcasm. ‘Thank you, sir.”

Asher’s eyes narrowed. “Off you go then.” Without looking back, without saying another word, he went.

Darran and Willer were already at work in their office when Asher returned to the Tower, his hopes of a morning ride dashed to pieces. Cluny and her housemaid friends bustled about the foyer, putting fresh flowers in the vases, straightening the paintings on the walls. They dimpled and curtseyed as he strode in. It wasn’t their fault he was in a killing mood, so he smiled and nodded and pretended not to notice the wary surprise in their eyes.

“Asher!” Darran called as he pounded up the stairs on his way to change clothes. “A moment, please!”

“I’m busy,” he called back without stopping. “I’ll be down directly.”

A scuttling of footsteps behind him. A plump hand, plucking at his sleeve. “Darran says it’s urgent,” Willer gasped. “It’s about the weather.”

He pulled his arm free. “What about it?” There was definitely something .. . furtive … about Willer these days. He smiled too much, and in the wrong way. His familiar belligerence was drowned in sugar syrup

and yet somewhere beneath the sticky sweetness a sharpened knife blade glinted, waiting. These days Willer put his teeth on edge in a whole new and unpleasant way.

“Please come,” the sea slug said, his eyes wide and earnest. “Darran needs you.”

And thanks to yet another promise to Gar, what Darran wanted Darran got, all in the name of nauseating bloody unity. Swallowing a string of curses, Asher followed Willer back down the stairs and into the secretary’s office. “What?’

Darran looked up from his desk. The sun had barely started its long slow crawl up the sky and there he was, crisp and shaven and immaculate in black, distressingly healthy, surrounded by ink pots and parchments and piles of important papers.

“As a matter of urgency I require the new Weather Schedule,” he said. No “good morning,” or “sorry to interrupt you,” or any such common-and-garden pleasantries. Bloody ole crow. “And a firm idea of how often His Majesty intends to prepare one. The palace informs me the late king drafted the weather patterns some six weeks in advance. Does His Majesty intend to maintain the same routine? Or does he anticipate an alteration? If so, I must know. I’m getting messages from all over the kingdom wondering when the next schedule will appear. People are agitating, Asher. I would much prefer they didn’t.”

“Ask Gar. It’s weather business, that is,” said Asher. “Ain’t none of my nevermind.”

“I’m making it your nevermind,” said Darran, and not without a gleam of malicious pleasure either, the miserable geezer.

“Sink me bloody sideways,” he muttered. His head was aching already and dawn was only five minutes ago. “All right. When I get a minute I’ll—”

“Now,” said Darran. “If you please.”

Clearly, there was no escape. And anyways the ole crow was right, drat him: the last thing Gar needed was widespread agitation over a delayed Weather Schedule. That’d suit Conroyd bloody Jarralt right down to the ground, that would.

Willer was goggling at him, fat lips pursed in a smile. He scowled. “What are you bloody lookin’ at, eh?”

Willer’s smile widened. “Why, nothing at all, Asher. I promise.”

“Well, go look at it someplace else. You’re makin’ me seasick!” And on that mildly satisfying note he headed for the door… only to turn back halfway, remembering. “Matt’s transferrin’ down to the Dingles stud farm, Darran, Draft me a letter of recommendation to sign, would you? Lots of compliments. And send a runner to the Treasury so’s he can take his money with him, and one to the palace for Ganfel to take over just now.”

Darran exchanged a surprised look with Willer. “Matt is leaving? Why?”

“Personal reasons. Nobody’s business but his own. I’ll tell the king. No need for you to bother him about it. He don’t need to be fratched with anythin’ else just now. Right? That means you too, Willer. Not a bloody word.”

Frowning, Darran said, “Willer knows the meaning of discretion as well as I do, Asher. Matt’s departure shall not be mentioned outside this room” He sighed. “But I think it a great pity. His Majesty’s very fond of him.”

Asher felt a stab of pain.
And so was I fond of him, before he laid hands on Dathne…
Then he shrugged, and continued to the door. “Folk move on, Darran. You can’t hold onto ‘em.”

He overtook Cluny on the last flight of stairs up to Gar’s suite. She was carrying the king’s breakfast tray, and dimpled when she saw him.

“Morning, Asher.”

The wafting aromas of bacon, fried potato, scrambled eggs and hot bread teased his empty stomach and doused his mouth with saliva. “Morning. Want me to take that up for you?”

“Oh, would you?” said Cluny, pink-cheeked and grateful. “Only we’ve a maid with the collywobbles and there’s ever so much to do.” She thrust the covered breakfast tray into his hands, dimpled again, enchantingly, and flew back down the stairs. Despite all his aggravations, he smiled after her. He liked Cluny. A lot. If it hadn’t been for Dathne …

His blood stirred, thinking of her.
We’re married… we’re married!
Thinking of all they’d done the night before and soon would do again, he hoped. With that warm pleasure to sustain him, crowding out all dark thoughts of Matt, he headed on up the stairs.

Gar was in his library, barricaded behind towers of books. Asher kicked the door shut behind him and wandered over to stand in front of the desk.

“Breakfast.”

Gar grunted and kept on working. Asher sat down, tray in his lap, uncovered a plate and filched a crispy slice of bacon. Kicking his boot heels onto a handy table he sat back with a sigh, crunching. Then noticed what was different about Gar’s crowded, chaotic library.

There was a new painting on the far wall.

Well. Not new new. But new to the Tower. Sucking bacon grease from his fingers he studied the enormous portrait. The royal family stood beside a spreading djelba in full bloom; the velvet pink petals looked real enough to touch. Behind them the pristine white walls of the palace, jeweled windows glinting in the sunshine. And behind the palace Barl’s Wall, soaring triumphantly into the cloudless sky. It was a masterful painting, commissioned from one of the kingdom’s finest Doranen artists. Lord Someone-or-other. Short, skinny, busy fingers, temper like a sex-starved tomcat.
Bracan.

He’d caught his subjects seemingly between breaths. Borne was smiling, Dana seemed ready to laugh. Fane looked so beautiful it broke a man’s heart. Remembering them, he felt his throat close hard and tight Painted Gar stood beside his sister, one hand resting on her shoulder. Posed by Bracan, doubtless. You’d never catch them touching on purpose, unless it was to slap or stab. Gar was smiling too, but his eyes were sad. As though he knew something the others didn’t As though he could see the future, and was sorry.

“We were a handsome family, weren’t we?” said Gar.

Asher nodded, melancholy settling like a mist. “Aye.”

Gar turned away from the painting. “I miss them so much,” he said, his voice low. Unsteady. “Even Fane.”

“I know.”

“I just received word from Nix,” Gar said, and flicked a discarded note with one fingertip. “Durm is awake again and much improved. He’s asking to see me.”

Damn. Unsettled, Asher drank some of Gar’s teshoe juice. “You goin’?”

“Of course.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

He chewed his lip. “Durm know about your family yet?”

“No.” Gar examined an ink stain on his finger. “When I tell him, and he learns I’m now the king, he’ll ask about my magic. The WeatherWorking. And if he senses something’s wrong—if my lies don’t fool him—well. It doesn’t bear thinking about.” Then he frowned. “Is that my breakfast you’re eating?”

“Aye.” He held out the tray. “You want it?”

“Not anymore.” Elbows resting on the desk, Gar considered him. “You all right? You had me worried last night.”

He helped himself to a slice of toast. Bit. Chewed. Swallowed. “I’m fine.”

“Really? You look… angry. Are you having second thoughts? I wouldn’t blame you if you were. Last night’s Working was hard.”

Asher scowled at the breakfast tray. He had bigger problems than the WeatherWorking just now. If he told Gar about Matt, things would get very messy very fast. Doubtless Gar would order his stable meister’s reinstatement, and Matt needed putting in his place. Deserved some punishment for so distressing Dathne. A month or two in the Dingles would serve him right. He could come back after that. After he’d had time to cool his heels and accept the fact that Dathne would never be his.

None of which he could tell Gar. Far better to let Matt slip away quietly and then tell Gar after the event. He shook his head. “Darran’s been jawin’ at me, is all. Wants the new Weather Schedule. Today.”

“I don’t have time today.”

‘Then make time” he said, scowling. “You said you’d fix things so the WeatherWorkin’d go a bit easier on me. Here’s your chance.”

Gar waved a hand at the books on his desk. Waved again at the books piled on the carpet beside his chair. “I know what I said. But Asher, I can do the Weather Schedule or I can keep on plowing through Durm’s library in search of the solution to our problems. I can’t do both, and you’re the one complaining I’m not reading fast enough.”

With a rattle of plates and cutlery Asher dumped the breakfast tray on the floor. “Gar—”

“I’m serious!” said Gar. “With Durm awake again we could have less time than we planned. If his recovery proceeds swiftly—if he’s able to return to his own apartments before our month is up—”

All the books would have to go back. And Durm, learning of then removal, might suspect something was wrong. Questions could be asked—secrets revealed—

Abruptly his pilfered breakfast curdled in his belly and hot fear rose in his throat. “Then we’ll be in the shit, won’t we?”

Gar sat back, regarding him steadily with narrowed eyes. “You
are
having second thoughts.”

“One of us has to!” Restless in his chair, he stared through the nearest window. “With your da gone Durm’s the strongest magician in the kingdom now, ain’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Pity you can’t declare him king.” Gar shook his head. “It’s against the law. No one can be WeatherWorker and Master Magician both.”

“Then give him the crown and find another Master Magician.”

“It would have to be Jarralt,” Gar pointed out. “Which doesn’t help us much. Anyway, Conroyd would never accept the lesser prize. Not in favor of Durm. And Durm’s not married, he’s childless and has no prospect of an heir It’s grounds for a challenge, Conroyd knows it, and we’re back to schism again.”

Damn. It seemed every way they turned there was Conroyd bloody Jarralt standing in the way. He scowled at his boots, thinking. “Look,” he said at last, “I know you don’t want to hear this, Gar, but I don’t reckon you go much choice. With Durm awake it’s too dangerous for us to keep on the way we’ve been. Go to him today. Tell him what’s happened, that your magic’s failed.”

“I can’t tell him about you!”

“Of course you bloody can’t!” he said, alarmed. “You’ll have to he, won’t you? Say your magic failed last night. And if he can’t fix you and Jarralt has to be named king, at least he’ll be there as Master Magician to keep him in line.”