Emperor Mage Read online

  “I have birds, sweetling,” teased one youth. “Would you care for them, if I asked you nicely?” He barely flinched when Kaddar jammed an elbow into his ribs.

  “Tortall—that’s where they have a female as King’s Champion,” remarked another.

  “Maybe Tortallan men are easily beaten,” said one. “No Carthaki men are bested by a woman.”

  Daine inspected her fingernails. Anger was a warm, comforting fizz under her cheekbones and along her spine, driving off the gloom she had felt since her visit to the chapels. “And are you willing to bet on that?” she asked gently.

  “Bet that we could beat your Lioness?” asked someone.

  “Oh, no—she’s busy. I can’t bother her to teach a lesson to boys. I’ll beat you. At archery.”

  They laughed, even Kaddar, and her blush spread. Kitten was muttering to herself, not at all happy with the way this talk was going.

  “Sorry, Daine,” said Kaddar, “but we have only men’s bows. You couldn’t draw one.”

  Her blue-gray eyes glittered up at him. “Oh?” She let herself into the yard. “You’d be surprised what I can do,” she told the grinning young men. “Have you longbows?”

  The young nobles laughed, or groaned. One of them teased, “Oh, I’m scared.”

  “Careful, Kaddar, she might be one of those Queen’s Riders, the ones that let females join!”

  “Or so they say. I’ve never seen one of these Rider maidens, have you?”

  Daine’s smile was sweeter than ever. “I work for the Rider Horsemistress. Trust me—there are females in the Riders, and they work for a living.” To Kaddar she said, patiently, “A bow?”

  The prince took her into a shed at the side of the yard. “They will be too strong for you,” he remarked as she checked the unstrung longbows placed in wooden racks on the wall. Much as she wanted to try the recurved bow they used, she felt she ought to stick to the weapon she knew best.

  “I’ll judge what’s too strong for me, thank you.” Running her fingers down two bow staves, she shook her head. The next felt better, but when she lifted it down she could tell that the balance was off.

  “We assumed those tales of women fighting among the Riders were only tales. No woman has ever asked to enter our armies.”

  “With you so open and welcoming of the idea, I’m not surprised.” She found one that might suit her and examined it carefully, warming the stave in her hands as she checked grain and texture. “This will do. Have you strings?”

  He stalked to a cabinet, reminding her of an offended cat, and opened a drawer to reveal coils of bowstring, each in oiled paper. She picked one out.

  “Women aren’t up to the discipline of military life.”

  Looking over quivers full of arrows, she chose a handful. “You must tell Lady Alanna that sometime. I’d do it from a distance.”

  “I hope you lose,” he muttered as she went outside.

  In the yard she backed up to the fence, since her bow had greater range than theirs. The targets were eighteen inches across, with two rings and a bull’s-eye—a difficult shot even for a good archer. The Carthakis watched as she stuck her arrows point-first into the ground, keeping two. These Kitten held as Daine looped the string around the foot of the bow and stood that end between her feet.

  “She’ll never bend that,” she heard someone mutter.

  If only she had her own bow, the one that even the Lioness had trouble bending! Holding the stave in one hand, the free end of her string in the other, she easily slid the loop over the top end of the bow. When she had taken her stance, left side toward the target, Kitten handed over the first arrow. Daine put it to the string, careful to keep the arrow pointed at the ground.

  “Stand back, or I’ll hurt you,” she warned her observers, then added, “Tortall and the Queen’s Riders!” She swung the bow up, and loosed. Bow down, second arrow from Kitten, to the string, up and loose. The target was in her mind, not her eyes; she didn’t have to take the time to aim that these males did. Now, pulling the arrows one by one from the ground, she fired until they were gone. Done, sweat gleaming on her forehead, she told the Carthakis, “You may check my aim.”

  At first nobody moved. Finally one of them went to look. Their judge carefully examined the arrows, by eye and by touch, where they were clustered in the center target. At last he called, “We must cut them loose from the bull’s-eye. They are too deeply embedded to be removed by hand.”

  The young nobles crowded around her. She was incredible, they told her; could all the Tortallan women shoot like that? When she mentioned she’d like to try the recurved bow, six of them were offered at once.

  SIX

  CARTHAKI MAGECRAFT

  Finally Daine and Kaddar returned to the palace, the prince carrying the dragon, Daine cradling Zek. They entered by the marble water stairs that led from the river to the guest quarters.

  On her arrival that first day, the girl had been too busy keeping Zek warm to notice the statues on either side of the stairs. She stopped now to look them over. The crowned images were both Ozorne: one simply dressed, with birds on his shoulders and a pile of scrolls and books at his feet; the other draped in robes, a jeweled scepter in one hand, a crystal orb that sparked with gold-and-green fire in the other.

  “In case you’d forgotten whose house this is.” Kaddar’s dry remark was made quietly, for her ears alone—the ambassador from Tusaine and his staff had come out to take the air. “You could say my uncle has two faces.” He smiled politely as the others approached.

  The ambassador shook his head. “It did not go as well today,” he remarked with a sigh. “Problems arose over fishing rights. One could have wished for a more flexible attitude from all parties. If only the strait between your lands were not so narrow—”

  The sky was bare of even the tiniest cloud. None of them expected a loud crack of thunder to interrupt the ambassador as it ripped through the air, drawing shrieks from Kitten and Zek. Lightning flashed down from above. Splitting in two above the stairs, it struck each of the imperial statues with a roar. When Daine’s vision cleared of spots, all that remained of Ozorne and his two faces were globules of molten gold and charred, shattered marble.

  No one moved for a long moment. Then, without speaking, they all rushed inside.

  Returning to her room to calm down, bathe, and change for supper, she discovered something was missing. Where was the king vulture? The desk where he’d settled was empty, but its top shimmered. Rising on tiptoe to look at its surface, Kitten squawked in outrage.

  Daine looked. There was a message scratched into the varnished wood, in writing that glowed.

  Dearie, I came to fix your room, but some mortal took care of it first. Very nice work on the vulture. I’m taking him with me, so don’t worry about him. We’ll talk soon, never you worry.

  Burned into the wood in silver was the print of a rat’s paw.

  “She is getting on my nerves,” Daine told Zek and Kitten. “The things I am going to tell her—”

  The writing vanished. Only the paw print remained. Furious, the girl shed her clothes, muttering about gods who hung around where they weren’t invited or wanted.

  That night’s banquet was held aboard a large boat kept for the emperor’s use. Once his guests took places at tables in the stern, the emperor—seated in lonely state on a deck raised above them—nodded to a nearby slave. The man lifted a silver pipe-whistle to his lips and blew a wavering string of notes. In the bow and in the stern, three men and a veiled woman, in the scarlet master-of-sorcery robe from the imperial university, clapped their hands and bowed their heads. The vessel shuddered, and began to move north on the river, slowly at first, then gaining speed. Soon they were moving faster than oars or sails could drive them, while other craft drew closer to the banks to get out of their way.

  What a waste of magic, Daine thought to Zek. We could have stayed at the palace.

  “Would you like to visit the university tomorrow?” asked Kaddar, of
fering her a bowl of olives. “Master Lindhall will be here, and he’s said he wants you to see his workroom.”

  “I’d like that. Kaddar, what did your uncle say when you told him about the lightning that—”

  She stopped, puzzled. The prince was shaking his head vigorously. “Don’t talk about it,” he ordered, lips barely moving.

  “Why? It happened, didn’t it? And he can’t have a listening spell on us, or Kit would’ve said something.” The dragon, sampling pumpkin slices stewed in cumin, and sea urchins in bay sauce, shook her head. “So why can’t we talk about it?” Daine asked reasonably.

  The prince took a deep breath, as if he were about to yell, then let it out slowly. Still hardly moving his lips, he said, “Among the servants, he has spies who read lips.”

  She digested that for a moment, and accepted the olive that Zek offered. “Are there many things you aren’t allowed to talk about?”

  Kaddar propped his chin on his hands. “You have no idea.”

  They had just finished their main course, stuffed goose, when Numair came over to their table. “May I join you?” he asked, and sat down. He leaned forward, smiling at the prince. “We haven’t really had a chance to chat. I understand you’re studying with my friend Lindhall Reed.”

  The prince nodded. Daine peeled an orange for Zek while Kitten munched on a goose bone.

  “What course of studies, may I ask?”

  “The relation of men, animals, and plants to one another, with a matching course in law. Next spring, if things permit, I hope to go south with Master Lindhall and a group from the university to look into the causes of the drought. We’re hoping—well, the masters are; I’ll just be there to carry things—we hope to find some way to end it. Five years is a long time.”

  “I see. Commendable. With regard to your position as his heir, has your uncle arranged a marriage for you?”

  Daine looked sharply at her teacher. What was he doing, asking such a personal question?

  Kaddar passed his goose bones to Kitten. “He is negotiating with the king of Galla for the hand of one of his daughters. There is also a princess in the Copper Isles who my uncle feels is a possibility.”

  “I see. But you are involved with girls, are you not? Students at the university, young noblewomen. Are they aware you are not permitted to marry to please yourself?”

  Daine, cheeks flaming, kicked Numair under the table.

  Kaddar stiffened. “No gentleman deceives a woman in that manner, sir.”

  “Indeed not. Stop kicking me, Daine. You understand, she is very important to a number of powerful nobles and mages in Tortall.” Numair’s voice was quiet, almost friendly; his eyes were hard. “Their majesties. Lady Alanna and her husband, the baron of Pirate’s Swoop. Me. All of us would take it amiss if we thought for one moment she was being trifled with, particularly by a young man who wasn’t free to do the right thing by her.”

  “Numair,” Daine growled. “Can I speak to you privately for a moment?”

  “No. Stepping on my foot won’t work, either. Do I make myself clear, Prince Kaddar?”

  The younger man sat up straight, eyes glinting. “I understand you well, Master Salmalín.”

  “Good.” Numair stood. It seemed to take him forever to rise. When he was up, he looked taller than ever, and faintly shadowy around the edges. “Lindhall tells me you also have an excellent memory. I hope so.”

  Daine covered her face with her hands as he returned to his own table and Varice. “I’m going to kill him,” she whispered, shamed almost to tears.

  Kaddar drained his cup of pomegranate juice. “Nonsense. He was just looking out for you.”

  “I can look after myself,” Daine retorted.

  Kaddar smiled. “You are lucky to have someone who cares so much about you. He knows we’re spending—”

  Drums began to hammer, on their boat and in the distance. Ozorne rose and walked to the bow, his guests following him. Moving under the power supplied by the master wizards, they had reached the imperial harbor in Thak’s Gate in little more than an hour, a voyage that normally took three hours. A lighthouse on the far side of the lock admitting vessels to the commercial harbor shone its beacon overhead. Even with its beam it was hard to tell what lay past the lock, but Daine could just make out a forest of masts.

  A horn call sounded from the harbormaster’s tower on the breakwater. Sparks of magical Gifts flared from a hundred sources just beyond the lock. Fiery ivy sprang from those sources to climb masts and twine around yardarms. More and more such “vines” sprouted, until Daine realized that each belonged to a single ship, docked or anchored in the commercial harbor.

  Another horn call: a shout went up from the assembled ships. The vines grew brighter, larger, until they burned like trees around the shadowy masts. Now the entire harbor was visible, as colored lights bounced off shield rims, armor, and spear points. They were looking not at civilian shipping vessels, but at war galleys with two or three banks of oars, fully manned.

  The whistle on the emperor’s barge trilled again. From among the guests, Master Chioké and three other mages, who’d been pointed out to Daine as the most powerful at the imperial university, stepped up to join the red-robed mages. Chioké and those wizards who had been with the guests lifted their arms to point upward. Magical fire stabbed into the cloudless night sky. The mages who had brought them downriver leaned over the rails, allowing their power to fall into the water.

  Timbers creaked; wooden joints popped. Fire ran from one red-robe’s hands to the next, until the hull lay in a disk of light. Chioké and the three mages in civilian dress cried a single word; the streams of light from their hands broadened. Slowly, its timbers groaning, the boat rose into the air.

  Kitten shrieked. “No, Kit, stop,” Daine whispered. “Be quiet, understand?” The thought of what might happen if any mage lost his or her concentration made her queasy.

  The dragon shifted from paw to paw, chattering angrily as she buried her face in Daine’s skirts.

  Kaddar knelt beside them, petting Kitten’s slender neck. “I can’t say that I blame her,” he growled softly. “I hate it when he does things like this. Why can’t he put such power to use against the drought, instead of staging idle dis—”

  “Hush,” Daine said gently. “It isn’t safe to talk, remember?”

  The boat continued to rise. Sweat gleamed on the faces of the mages who controlled its motion.

  At last the whistle shrieked again. The rising boat stopped, nearly eighty feet above the imperial harbor. The lighthouse beacon went out. From the harbormaster’s tower came another, different horn call, one that was picked up by horns in the ships below. Kitten, Daine, and Kaddar returned to the rail. Zek, seeing where they were, squeaked and tore Daine’s hair from its knot so that he could hide, trembling, in her curls. She didn’t have the heart to scold.

  More horns bellowed. New fires sparked past the white finger that was the lighthouse tower. Like those in the harbor, these new flames became vines growing up and along some dark trellis. They flared, magic piercing the night, to reveal hundreds of vessels lying at anchor past the harbor.

  There was a roar or shout of some kind. Torches were set to globes that burst into flame. They were balls of liquid fire, lit as they rested in the slings of catapults aboard the infamous Carthaki war barges. At one catapult per barge, Daine calculated, there were twenty outside the harbor, forming solid ranks between the breakwater and the naval vessels farther out.

  “Is he mad?” Kaddar whispered, appalled. “This isn’t just the northern fleet—he’s brought the western one up as well! Did he do it to—to brag—”

  A hand gripped his arm. “Shut up,” Varice said fiercely. “What’s the matter with you? Do you want to disappear like his last heir?”

  “But—”

  Daine elbowed him—hard. “She’s right—shut up!” Kitten closed her jaws lightly on the prince’s leg. “If I tell her, she’ll bite,” Daine said coldly. “And you ha
ven’t been bit till a dragon does it.”

  Kaddar’s hands clenched, but he shut his mouth and gritted his teeth; they could see his jaw muscles twitch. The emperor’s boat hung in the air for a few more moments, then descended slowly. Except for sailors passing on orders, no one aboard said a word. Only when they were safely in the River Zekoi again did Kitten release the prince’s leg.

  The red-robed mages who had brought them downriver were replaced by four new, fresh masters. They clapped in unison and were bowing their heads when a ringing sound, like a gong being struck, shattered the air. It was followed by another, and another, and another. It sounded, Daine realized, like a horse’s walk.

  The air around the harbormaster’s tower was glowing. From the emperor’s frown, this was not part of his planned entertainment.

  The clanging drew nearer. Around the tower’s side and down the shortest breakwater, enclosed in a loose ball of light, appeared a golden rider on a golden horse. The clanging sound came from the animal’s hooves as they struck the boulders. Together rider and mount were twice, nearly three times larger than normal. Both slumped, as if stricken with weariness or grief, the horse’s muzzle barely a foot off the ground. The sword and shield that the man held drooped from his hands.

  “Goddess bless,” whispered Kaddar. All around them hands made the Sign against evil.

  Do two-leggers grow so big? asked Zek, awed.

  “No,” Daine whispered. “That’s not a two-legger. Zek was asking,” she explained when Kaddar and Varice looked at them.

  “It’s a statue,” Varice replied softly. “Of—of Zernou, the first emperor. It stands in Market Square, in Carthak City, before the Temple of Mithros.”

  “I don’t think it’s standing there anymore,” Alanna commented from the shadows nearby.

  Horse and rider reached the lock between the imperial boat and the harbor, and stopped. The horse reared, pawing the air with his forelegs. The rider cried out a word in a voice like a giant gong. Again he cried out. The third time, he shouted words in a strange, guttural language. He pointed to their vessel with his sword. Instantly magical defenses went up, forming walls of light between those onboard and the statue, but no attack came.