The Awakened Mage (40 page)

Jarralt’s face spasmed with rage. “Need I
again
remind you, Captain, that I am—”

“With due respect, the Master Magician has no jurisdiction over criminal investigation,” said Orrick, unflinching. “Only sentencing, once guilt is established.”

Asher stared. Master Magician? Since when? “You’re gettin’ ahead of yourself, Jarralt. Durm ain’t even cold yet, and Gar—”

“Silence,”
hissed Jarralt. He glared at Orrick. “Captain, I commend your diligence. But we deal with matters beyond mere law-breaking. This business strikes at the very heart of our kingdom and touches upon questions of magic, which are of no concern to you.”

Orrick hesitated. Asher, fear flaring, pressed his face to the prison’s bars. “Don’t go, Pellen. Captain Orrick. Don’t leave me alone with him.
Please.”

“Fear not, Captain,” said Jarralt expansively. “I have no intention of cheating the axeman of his fee.”

“Very well, my lord,” said Orrick. “But I shall hold you to your word.” The door closed behind him.

Jarralt smiled. The malice in him stepped Asher back three paces. “I ain’t sayin’ nowt till Gar gets here.”

“Really?” Something deep in the Doranen lord’s eyes flared scarlet.
“Pain,”
he whispered.

And pain cut through Asher like a scythe. Doubled him over and stole his breath. “Barl rot your entrails, Jarralt,” he grunted, still bent in half. “I ain’t tellin’ you
nowt.”

“Wrong, filth,” said Jarralt. “You’ll tell me everything.”

And he did, in the end. Once he’d finished screaming. He couldn’t stop himself. Jarralt’s mind winnowed his like a grain thresher, reducing all thoughts of resistance to chaff.

Eventually, emptied of words, he fainted.

For the fifth time since his early arrival at the Tower that morning, Darran got up from his desk and poked his head through his open office doorway. Looked down. Strained his hearing for any sign of his tardy assistant. But no,
still
no Willer. Where could the wretched man be? They had
oceans
of work to swim through…

And then he heard the Tower’s front doors open and Willer’s imperious voice demanding, “Berta! Is Darran arrived yet? We have urgent business!”

We?

As the maid replied he caught a glimpse of Willer, and the man he ushered up the staircase before him. Lord Jarralt.

He returned to his desk. When Willer flounced into the room on Lord Jarralt’s heels he was busily reading the day’s schedule. He stood and bowed. “My lord.” Then he fixed his attention on his assistant. “You are fearsome tardy this morning, sir. Might I ask where—”

“At the guardhouse,” said Willer. “Engaged on matters of state.”

“At my behest,” added Lord Jarralt. “I presume you have no objection?”

Matters of state?
Willer?
Darran bowed again. “Of course not, my lord.” He cleared his throat. “Did you require something of me, my—”

“Asher of Restharven is arrested,” said Lord Jarralt. Anyone would think the announcement was unexciting to him, provided they weren’t looking at his eyes.

“Arrested?” Darran said faintly. “On what charge?”

“No charge, but proven treason!” said Willer. “His guilt is beyond all doubt! He—”

“Willer,” said Lord Jarralt mildly.

Willer’s mouth sprang shut like a mousetrap. “I must see the king,” Jarralt continued. “Take me to him.”

Darran shifted uneasily. “My lord, His Majesty called snow last night. The WeatherWorking taxes him, he often remains late abed the following—”

“Now,” said Lord Jarralt.

Clearly, argument was out of the question. “My lord,” he said, then turned to eye Willer quellingly. “I shan’t be long. Kindly prepare for me the notes for today’s session with—”

“No,” said Willer. He was grinning. “I don’t work for you any more. I’ve accepted Lord Jarralt’s offer of a position on his staff.”

“You’ve done
what?’

“You’re a fool, Darran,” Willer said spitefully. “Asher took you in along with everybody else. Even the king. But not me. I saw through him. I stayed loyal to Barl—and Lord Jarralt knows it. You’ll have to find yourself another errand boy.”

His hand itched to slap the insolent smile from Willer’s face. “I see,” he said thinly. “Congratulations. Make sure you remove any personal items from your desk before you depart.”

Willer looked around the room, his gaze sticky with distaste. “There’s nothing I want from here.”

“Then repair to my townhouse,” said Lord Jarralt, “and await my return.”

“My lord,” said Willer with an extravagant bow, and withdrew.

The pompous, ungrateful little—little
turd.
Darran

watched him go with ill-concealed loathing, then stepped from behind his desk. “My lord? If you would follow me?”

Heart pounding, head awhirl with shock and speculation and a burning desire to know what Asher had done, he led Lord Jarralt up the spiral staircase to the door of His Majesty’s suite.

Gar was woken from slumber by a rough hand shaking him and a dazzling assault of sunlight.

“Stir yourself, boy,” said a curt, unwelcome voice. “Your sins have found you out.”

He sat up, incredulous.
“Conroyd?
What is the meaning of this? How did you get
in
here?”

Outlined in sunlight Conroyd Jarralt stood beside the bed, his golden head a glowing nimbus. “Your secretary admitted me.”

“Then he’s dismissed. Darran, do you hear me? You’re dismissed!” He screwed up his eyes and squinted round the room. “Where are you, you damned interfering old woman?”

“Not here,” said Conroyd. “What I have to say is for your ears alone.”

Sliding back under his blankets, he rested a forearm across his face. It felt as though he’d fallen asleep mere moments ago. Hours and hours spent searching through Durm’s borrowed books, and not even a sign of Barl’s diary.

“I’m not interested. Now get out.” When Conroyd made no move, he sat up and shouted. “Are you deaf? Your king just gave you a command!
Get out!”

Conroyd smiled. “Your tame Olken is arrested and sitting in a cell, and you are called upon to clarify certain matters arising from his apprehension.”

He half climbed, half fell out of bed. Reached for his dressing-gown and covered his nakedness.
“Arrested?
On whose authority? Yours? How
dare
you? Free him!
Immediately]
And then take his place in the guardhouse!”

Conroyd considered him, unmoved. “You don’t ask why he’s arrested. Can it be you already know?”

Barl save them… Barl save them
... “I don’t care why! All that matters is you’ve laid hands on a fellow councilor without recourse to your king! You’d never have done this while my father was alive and you won’t do it now that he’s dead!”

“Asher has broken Barl’s First Law,” said Conroyd. “Where else should he be if not in prison?”

Conroyd knew.
Stunned into silence, he felt his blood turn to ice.
Somehow, he knew.

Conroyd sneered. “You puling cripple. Did you truly think you could succeed? Against
me”?
Did you actually believe you could deny me my destiny? My rightful possession of this land? You’re just like your father, a weakling and a—”

“Don’t you speak of my father!”

Conroyd ignored him. “Criminal. Asher has confessed, boy. Magic has failed you and your complicity in his crimes is beyond doubt.”

“Do you
hear
yourself, Conroyd?” he said, his voice low and shaking. His empty stomach roiled and bile burned his throat, his mouth. _Asher was arrested. _” ‘Your rightful possession of this land?’ You arrogant bastard. Father was right: given the chance you and your heirs would elevate the Doranen to godhood and reduce the Olken to slaves! Is it any wonder I’d do anything, risk anything, to keep House Jarralt away from the throne?”

“You pathetic earth-sodden worm!” Conroyd screamed in a whisper, backing him into the wall. “Are you truly this blind, this
stupid?
You’ve given an Olken magic! Given a subhuman race of cattle
powerV

“Let go of me, Conroyd,” Gar said as fingers twisted in the brocade of his dressing-gown. “Let go and get out.”

“How did you do it? Who was it helped you?” Conroyd hissed. ‘The filth didn’t know. Was it one of my so-called
friends!
Is that how you did it? Did you promise Daltrie power, or Boqur? Sorvold? Hafar? Promise them riches in return for—”

“I promised nothing to no one!” he shouted, and wrenched himself free. “And that was assault upon your king—so now
you ‘re
the traitor.”

But Conroyd wasn’t listening. Motionless, the hectic color fading from his face, comprehension dawned behind his eyes. “It was
in
him?” he said slowly. Almost disbelieving. “The Olken has magic of his
own!”

Heart thumping, Gar pushed past him. Stumbled against the corner of the bed and nearly fell. “Go home, my lord. Consider it house arrest. I will—”

“Do nothing!” said Conroyd, and laughed. “Little crippled king, do you not understand? It is
over.
Your secret is revealed, your failure discovered. Asher of Restharven is destined to die … and you are powerless to save him.”

But I promised him … I promised…
Fighting nausea, he made himself look into Conroyd’s hateful, hating face. “Anything Asher did was because I asked it. Because he is my friend.”

Conroyd smiled. “Then he is a fool. And his lack of discrimination will kill him.”

Gar wondered if this was how his father had felt when the carriage hurtled over the edge of Salbert’s Eyrie. “I’ll make you a bargain, Conroyd.” His voice sounded thread-thin and distant. “Release Asher and I’ll give you the crown.”

Conroyd laughed. “The crown is mine already, boy, and all the kingdom with it! Instead of bargaining you should get on your knees and
beg!”

“For what? Asher’s life?” he dropped to the carpet. “Very well, then. I beg.” He winced as strong fingers, heavy with rings, imprisoned his face.

“Too late,” said Conroyd.

Something dreadful was burning in the man’s eyes. Gar forced himself not to quail before it. Made himself meet that incendiary gaze. “If you kill him, Conroyd, I’ll shout from coast to coast that the Olken are as magic as we. I’ll destroy the lie our people have lived here these past six hundred years. I’ll tell the truth and let it cost me my life.”

Conroyd’s cruel fingers tightened to gasping point. “Breathe one word of Olken magic, cripple, just one, and I’ll bring House Torvig down on your magickless head. By the time I’m done history will remember your father as an ignorant, impotent, cuckolded king. And your mother? Your mother will be known as the Strumpet Queen who sullied her marriage bed with some rutting Olken farmhand, your true father, and then foisted her blasphemous spawn upon an unsuspecting kingdom. Your house will be reviled, its crypt will be struck open and the corpses of your family cast into the wilderness. And your sister?

I’ll erase her from Doranen memory as though precious, precocious Fane never lived. When I am done with it all that will remain of House Torvig is the cuckold, the strumpet and the half-breed cripple. Is that the legacy you want to leave, boy? Shall that be the sum of your dynastic achievements?”

“You wouldn’t,” he choked, fighting the urge to retch. “You loved my mother!”

“Loved
her?” echoed Conroyd. “Your mother was a bitch, a slut, a treacherous whore!”

Guts heaving, Gar knocked the grasping fingers aside and stood. “I promised Asher I’d protect him. To break that oath would be to destroy House Torvig myself. So do your worst, Conroyd. But be warned: my house stands stronger than you know … and you’re not as loved as you think.”

Conroyd’s face twisted. “I could kill you, worm, before you had the chance to open your mouth.” ‘

“You could, but you won’t,” he retorted. “Without me to endorse your succession there will be a schism, Conroyd, with no guarantee you’d emerge victorious or even alive at the end of it. Be sensible. Spare Asher and I’ll abdicate in your favor and keep secret his use of magic. Kill him …”

A moment of blazing silence. “Well, well, well,” said Conroyd softly. “So the worm has a spine.”

“How often must I tell you? I am my father’s son.”

Conroyd’s eyebrows lifted. “And as your father’s son how will you react, I wonder, when I declare a purge upon the Olken?”

“What?”

Now Conroyd was smiling. “Unless you abdicate
and
sign a proclamation publicly condemning Asher of Restharven to death as a criminal, a traitor and a breaker of Barl’s Law, I promise he’ll be but the first Olken to die. For the sake of the kingdom, and to uphold our sacred laws, I shall launch a purge the likes of which this land has never seen, and when I’m done if there are enough Olken left living to fill a single village then I’ll say that I
havefailed!
”

Bludgeoned to a disbelieving silence, Gar stared at Conroyd. “You’re mad,” he said at last. “The General Council would never let you.
Holze
would never—”

“Stop deluding yourself!” Conroyd said brutally. “Do you think there’s a Doranen breathing who wants to see an Olken with magic? And if you think Holze would try to stop me, you’ve sadly mistaken the depth of his devotion to his precious Barl and her Laws!”

Abruptly, his legs would no longer bear his weight. Collapsing onto his bed Gar turned his head away so Conroyd wouldn’t see his despair. His defeat.

“Is there no human feeling in you?” he whispered. “Does a king’s word mean nothing? Asher
trusted
me. Trusted my promise I’d keep him safe.”

“Then he is twice a fool. It was a bargain you had no business making. A promise you knew full well you could never keep, didn’t you?”

No.
No.
At least… not a promise he thought he’d have to keep. Damn it, they’d been so
careful.

“The choice is a simple one,” said Conroyd, relentless. “Do as I say or drown in a flood of Olken blood.”

Gar made himself look at his tormentor. “You’d truly do it, wouldn’t you? You’d kill them all.”