1 The Outstretched Shadow.3 (8 page)

 "But do go ahead," Lycaelon said generously. "I imagine this has all been quite a strain for you and your good lady." loan laughed raggedly. "Like a wondertale come to life—and not one of Perulan's, where you know all will end well!" He poured himself a full cup and drank, and Lycaelon smelled the rich scent of good brandy.

 "I must admit, I was never convinced that Darcy was ever going to control this—"

 "Inconvenient fever," Lycaelon supplied smoothly.

 "Cursed inconvenient. It just kept getting worse, not better. But my wife—" He coughed. "You know how women are. They get harebrained notions and nothing will shake them loose of it."

 Lycaelon judged it time to change the subject. "Tell me, loan, this Darcilla of yours, what are her interests? Will she be following you into the business?"

 "Nay, not she—that's for her older sister; Mora's been mad for the counting-house ever since she could hold a string of tally-beads. No, for Darcilla it's always been the music." The man looked bemused. "Even before she could walk or talk, it was the music."

 Ah. Lycaelon felt a small spark of satisfaction. So the girl had some small spark of talent for music, did she? All to the good. It would make what he was about to do that much easier; music required some of the same abilities and talents as the Art Magickal, so redirecting the girl's interests wouldn't be as painful or difficult as it could have been.

 "Conservatory isn't cheap," loan went on, "but what's money for if not to spend, says I?"

 "Indeed," Lycaelon agreed smoothly. And you will have every opportunity to spend a great deal of your money on this daughter of yours. I shall see to that.

 The door opened again and Yanalia entered with her daughter. Though barely out of childhood, Darcilla Tasoaire was already taller than her mother, with something of her father's dark good looks. She was clean, though slatternly dressed; a worn pink house-tunic, several sizes too big for her, dragged, unbelted, on the floor, and her long dark hair hung lank and uncombed down her back. Darcilla's cheeks were flushed, and her eyes flashed dangerously; she and her mother had obviously been fighting over how she should appear before this important guest, and the lightnings of uncontrolled Mage-potential crackled around her like the warnings of a storm to Lycaelon's finely attuned senses.

 For a moment he felt a flash of pity for the young victim. Who knew what would happen if things were allowed to go on as they were? Powers such as the girl now possessed didn't simply go away, and no mere female could possibly learn to control such subtle and powerful energies. She could only be led down the paths of madness and chaos, dragging the Light knew how many innocents in her wake. Curse her parents for letting this go on as long as they had out of foolish pride and misplaced pity! It only proved once again how unfit ordinary folk were to involve themselves in any dealings with High Magick.

 And females. Most especially females.

 "Now I must ask you to leave us alone together for a short time," Lycaelon said, rising to his feet.

 He saw Yanalia brace herself to argue, but loan was already moving toward her, detaching his wife from his daughter and moving her briskly through the open door. The door shut behind them, and the Arch-Mage was alone with Darcilla Tasoaire.

 "You would do well to heed me," Lycaelon said in a slow, deep resonant voice quite unlike the one he had used with her parents. The words themselves were unimportant; he actually had no interest in speaking with the girl. Speaking was only a way of catching her attention, to key the prepared cantrip that would place her into a trance so that he could do the work that must be done.

 He saw the girl's lashes flutter as she fell quickly into trance—those with the Gift were far more susceptible to it than those with no talent whatsoever, oddly enough—and he moved to catch her before she fell. Under his guidance, she walked over to the enormous gilded chair and seated herself docilely in it.

 He took a moment to prepare himself, just as a surgeon does before making the first incision. Like a master surgeon, this was an operation the High Mage had performed hundreds of times, for not all of those born with the ability to learn the High Art, despite what the talespinners said, were suited to practice it, either for reasons of temperament or birth—or sex. For the good of the City, it was often the unpleasant duty of a Mage to protect both the Art and the people by removing the Gift from an ill-suited practitioner, as well as to perform other delicate operations on the mind. Armethalieh had no prisons. There was no need of them, in a city ruled by the Mages who wielded this most delicate and subtle of all the High Art's Gifts.

 With quick deftness Lycaelon entered the girl's mind. To his Mage-sight, the parts of her brain that sensed and handled Mage-energy glowed brightly, as brightly as a diseased organ beneath a surgical spell. He drew upon his Talisman, focusing its stored Mage-energy upon each of those centers in turn, burning and destroying them until they were cold and dark.

 It would not affect her normal functioning. No one but Mages used those parts of their brain, after all. With Magesight he watched carefully as their glow faded like the embers of a dying fire, vanishing away into darkness. And when all the glow was gone, there was nothing left but a perfectly ordinary girl, like hundreds of others throughout the City.

 Now that part of his task was done, Darcilla could no longer sense, evoke, or work with any of the energies called magick.

 But her memories of doing so remained, and to leave them in place would be to leave his task half-finished. The desires that had turned her toward magick in the first place were still there, and if they weren't attached to some new interest, they would fester and lead to anger and discontent. She would be angry with her parents for turning her over to the Arch-Mage and "robbing" her of what she undoubtedly considered her "rightful" powers. She would be even angrier with the Arch-Mage, and it was truly said that there was no creature more dangerous than a woman bent on avenging a personal grudge; she was young, and she would have a long, long time to plan her revenge. He could not leave such a dangerous creature loose and unfettered—what if she decided that the way to repay the "wrong" was to ruin Anigrel or subvert Kellen?

 He was here in the first place because her father was a powerful man, with a seat on the Trade Council. He could not allow an embittered child to jeopardize that delicate political balance, either. Let loan be grateful for this day's work, and the City would run that much more smoothly… best for everyone if the girl was subtly molded into a shape more pleasing for all concerned.

 Slowly, carefully, like riffling through the pages of a book, Lycaelon sought through Darcilla's memories. Each time he found one attached to magick—even one so seemingly innocuous as listening to a song, attending a play, reading a book—he reached in and changed it, erasing some parts, changing others, connecting all of them with music. Slowly he rebuilt her personality, making only tiny individual changes, but attaching all her interests, her drive, her will, to music. She would, without a shadow of a doubt, become as great a musician as he had promised her father—she now had the dedication and the drive, as well as the talent. He'd made sure of that. And if she seemed a little obsessed with it for the next few moonturns, well, that would pass as the spell settled into place, and what silly young girl wasn't obsessed with something or other at this age? Her parents should thank him for ensuring that she wouldn't be climbing out of her window every night to keep a rendezvous with some pimply young laborer intent upon marrying into wealth, just as her father had! No indeed, if—no, when, for Lycaelon would see to it that an invitation to audition came from the Conservatory by the next Sennday—she entered the Conservatory as a student, that single-minded obsession alone would guarantee her success. In the practice of music, like the practice of magick, success went to the single-minded, those who devoted the most time to practice.

 He had done her the greatest favor possible. She might have become just one more featherwitted girl of wealth, unfocused, bored, and restless, with no other prospects than marriage. Now she would become a rising star in the Conservatory, and eventually a great artist. Eventually, she would be as great, in her own sphere, as any Mage. She would certainly have more public acclaim.

 His task complete, Lycaelon withdrew from her mind, and sent her from a trance into a deep sleep. She'd awaken in a day or so unable to remember her part in any of what had happened, feeling that she was just as she had always been, her memories an unbroken line from her earliest days till now. The Tasoaires would engage a new flock of servants who had not been around during the recent unpleasantness, and all would be well.

 The Arch-Mage stepped back, gazing down at the sleeping girl with a certain satisfaction. Everything had been set right. Things were now as they were meant to be. Trouble had been avoided for the good of the City, what was wrong had been set right, and in fact, the world would be a better place for his actions. Thanks to him, the City would now nurture a budding artist of exceptional ability, who would one day bring pleasure to thousands.

 Straightening his robes, he went to give final instructions to her parents.

The Books of the Wild Magic

 KELLEN, YOU'RE NOT attending."

 Three mornings a week, Kellen went off to private lessons with his tutor in one of the heavily warded private workrooms at the Mage College of Armethalieh.

 The Mage College was a complex of buildings set among beautifully landscaped grounds in the heart of the Mage Quarter. It was surrounded by the homes of the Mages, and no one who was not himself a Mage or a Mage-to-be had ever set foot upon its grounds. Many of the wondertales circulating about the City dealt at great length with a young Apprentice's first sight of the College. All were completely inaccurate, as none of the fabulists had ever actually seen it.

 Kellen regarded the fables with a mixture of disgust and amusement. The reality was nothing like they imagined: no talking fountains, no trees bearing every kind of fruit out of season, no herds of animated statuary in every conceivable shape and color wandering over the lawns, no beds of jeweled flowers wafting jets of strange perfumes into the air, no kindly elderly Mages wandering the grounds, trailing clouds of rainbows and Magelights…

 No kindly elderly Mages at all. Crotchety, arrogant Mages in plenty, though.

 ... and no circles of eager Apprentices standing about chattering among themselves as they worked on great spells…

 Lots of Apprentices scurrying from class to class, but that's about it.

 And certainly no strange collections of Other Races, kept here out of sight of the common run of Armethaliehans.

 Everything was just ordinary. And boring.

 The only statues that might possibly be animated were the two lions that flanked the main gate, and Kellen had never actually seen them move, though rumor had it that if a non-Mageborn ever tried to pass between them, they would leap down and rend him to bits. It was unlikely that a non-Mageborn would ever get that far, though. Not only would custom and common sense—and the Constabulary—keep ordinary citizens away, there were simple wards all around the grounds, to turn back the drunk, the sick, and the mad.

 Unfortunately, no matter how hard he'd tried, Kellen had never been sick enough to be turned back.

 He stared blankly at his tutor, Undermage Anigrel. He stared blankly because he knew better than to stare with challenge in his gaze. Anigrel looked like a younger—and blond—version of Kellen's father; tall, lean, and saturnine, with just a hint of pointed beard and a pencil line of moustache. All the Mageborn were slender and fine-boned, their bodies shaped by no physical labor more arduous than lifting a wand or a pen. Their coloration was vivid; black, blond, or red hair running strongly in particular Mage families. They were elegant.

 Kellen… wasn't.

 His classmates called him "farmer" and "laborer" behind his back, and in truth, he did tower over most of them, especially since his last growth-spurt. Muscles meant for use, and honed by climbing walls and trees, and simply walking for miles through the City, bulked the fabric of his tunic and the loose-fitting trousers he preferred to the fashionable hose worn by some of his more daring classmates. He bet Anigrel wore hose—not that he'd ever seen his tutor without his grey Journeyman robes, or was likely to. Or wanted to, come to that.

 Chired Anigrel wasn't from a prominent enough family to have family colors, and as a Journeyman-Undermage he wasn't yet entitled to colors of his own, so he wore the universal uniform of the Mages of the City, the long grey robes and sleeveless, floor-length vest that would someday— if he was fortunate and worked hard—bear the colors of a full-fledged High Mage. Anigrel was in high favor with Lycaelon, however, which meant that his personal fortune stretched to a finer style of clothing than most—soft grey linen in this weather, with a discreet trimming of darker grey and equally discreet silver-grey geometric motifs in fine embroidery on the front and back panels of the vest.

 It occurred to Kellen at that moment that he hadn't ever really noticed the way that the differences between those who were in favor with someone of high position and those who were not were subtly displayed despite the plain grey "uniform" that was supposed to be identical for every Mage, regardless of class or social background. Once again—as usual—fine words fell short of reality where the Mages were concerned.