A Young Man Without Magic (38 page)

Reva did hand the homunculus her woolen cloak; she had no need to conceal her identity. It seemed unlikely that anyone in this gathering would recognize her as a witch, or make anything of it if they did.

They joined the line to enter the ballroom, Reva standing straight, Anrel crouching in his scarf and hat. When at last the herald announced “Reva Lir and Dyssan Lir!” and let Anrel and Reva pass, no one paid much attention; there was no title to draw interest, no famous name. What was more, back at the inn Anrel had done his best to place a ward of his own—nothing serious, just something that would make the casual passerby uninterested in him. Whether it was working or was unnecessary he wasn't entirely sure, but no one bothered to look at him very closely.

The ballroom glittered, the brilliant glow of the chandeliers sparkling from jewelry and silk. Anrel wished the chandeliers had not been there; they provided all too much light. He was accustomed to darker rooms, where one could easily stay half hidden in the shadows; had he known just how bright the landgrave's salon and ballroom were, he might have been even more reluctant to accompany Reva.

Still, the only one who appeared to notice their arrival or pay them any attention was Mimmin li-Dargalleis. She was already in the ballroom, and looked up when the names were announced; she hurried over to greet Reva, then cast a puzzled look at Anrel, his broad-brimmed hat, and the white scarf wrapped around his neck.

“He's prone to chills,” Reva explained.

“This is your brother? He looks different, somehow.”

Reva glanced at Anrel, then shrugged. “It's just Dyssan,” she said.

Anrel admired her calm. “Off with you two,” he said. “I can see to myself.” Then he turned and moved to one side, slipping past a knot of people.

Mimmin promptly seemed to forget his existence; the ward might be working, he thought, or she might just be oblivious.

He found a place by the wall, and looked out at the room. He estimated there were at least forty people there—enough to make even a
room as large as this one seem a trifle crowded. Lord Allutar had not yet made his entrance, but a harpist was playing in one corner, and servants were carrying wine and trays of tidbits around to the guests.

Anrel was relieved to see no familiar faces—at first. Then he noticed Hollem tel-Guriel on the far side of the room, where he appeared to be directing the servants. At the sight of him, Anrel slid farther back toward the corner.

Reva and Mimmin were working their way across the room, talking quietly as they went. Anrel watched them closely.

Then a stir ran through the room, and Anrel saw heads turn. He turned himself, to see a herald in the far doorway straighten and announce, “In the name of the emperor, may the Father and the Mother bless him, I present Lord Allutar Hezir, landgrave of Aulix!”

The herald stepped aside, then two footmen marched in and took up positions on either side of the doorway. A heartbeat later their master appeared, and Anrel watched as Lord Allutar walked in.

He had to admit that the landgrave looked good. He was wearing court finery, rather than the more ordinary attire Anrel had usually seen him wear back in Alzur or the landgrave's regalia he had worn when he killed Valin. These garments were in traditional style, not at all like the modern monochrome fashion. His cuffs dripped with lace, his hair gleamed with pomade, and his frock coat was fine purple silk. He wore an expression of dignified amusement, quite unlike the slightly annoyed frown that Anrel was accustomed to seeing.

The host stood just inside the doorway for a moment, surveying his guests, then bowed to the company. Most of the people near him bowed in reply; those farther away did not bother, but for a moment Anrel had a clearer view of Lord Allutar—clearer than he was entirely comfortable with. He stepped back, farther into the inadequate shadows.

Then heads bobbed back up, and people began clustering around Lord Allutar—mostly, Anrel noticed, women.

He had not given that a great deal of thought, despite what he knew of Lady Saria and Mimmin, but obviously Lord Allutar was considered more than a little attractive. This was hardly surprising. Allutar was
wealthy, powerful, handsome, a man in the prime of life—of course women would take an interest in him. Anrel's own cousin certainly had.

One of the women crowding around the landgrave was Mimmin; Anrel recognized her elaborately styled hair. She was trying to speak to him, but at least for the moment he seemed more interested in a small man in a silver-gray frock coat.

Anrel looked around for Reva and spotted her a few feet to one side, not part of the group surrounding Lord Allutar. She was watching her client and their host intently.

The little man in the gray coat nodded, then turned and hurried away; whatever business he had had with Lord Allutar was obviously concluded. Allutar smiled at the company as a whole, then turned his attention to the closest, most persistent of the women around him.

Mimmin li-Dargalleis.

Anrel could not hear what was being said over the babble in the room, but he saw Lord Allutar smile broadly at Mimmin, and say something to her. She tilted her head coquettishly, one hand to her mouth.

Anrel turned his attention to Reva, and as he had expected she had raised her hands to chest height, preparing to channel the magic of her binding spell. She was trying to make the gesture look innocent, perhaps like an attempt to fend off someone backing into her, but Anrel could see it for what it was.

He did not feel the spell itself at all—but Lord Allutar obviously did. His smile vanished and his head whipped around to stare directly at Reva.

“Seize her!” he shouted, pointing. “Bring her to me!”

For a moment a stunned silence descended over the room as all conversation died, and the astonished harpist stopped playing, her fingers striking a final cascade of false notes from the strings. Most of the guests turned to stare at Lord Allutar, clearly astonished. Almost no one moved; they seemed rooted in place.

Almost
no one; Reva herself had turned the instant the words left Lord Allutar's lips, and was now trying to push her way through the crowd.

Anrel raised his own hands, trying to think what he could do to help
Reva. He was no sorcerer, though; he was barely even a witch. Still, this situation was exactly what he had feared, and exactly why Reva had brought him; surely he could do
something
. He tried to draw magic into himself, to be ready, but could not feel any flow, whether because of wards or some other impediment he could not be sure. Only tiny wisps of power came to him.

The two footmen who had been standing beside the door were the first others to move; they charged forward into the crowd in pursuit of the fleeing witch. Anrel knew his magic was not strong enough to stop and hold them—certainly not without giving away his presence to Lord Allutar! But even with just the feeble trace he held, there were obstacles he could put in their path . . .

A young woman, turning to watch Reva run, suddenly felt something pull at her ankle; she stumbled directly into the path of one of the footmen, and she and the footman both toppled to the floor, sending three or four other people tumbling, as well.

The second footman avoided this collision, and was almost out of the main body of people; Anrel raised his hands again as Reva reached the door to the foyer.

But then Lord Allutar spread his own hands and said something that might or might not have been words in a strange language. The power seemed to vanish completely from Anrel's body; he slumped and almost fell himself. The wards that had been in place all along had closed down completely, blocking all other magic.

Reva stumbled, but kept moving; no one else in the room seemed to notice anything. She made it out the door into the foyer, and Anrel relaxed—too soon. She screamed, and Anrel pushed past the nearest guests, trying to reach the door himself.

Then he stopped, as the homunculus from the cloakroom marched stolidly into the room, Reva slung over its shoulder, pinned in place by the creature's arm. Anrel could do nothing but watch helplessly as it carried her across the ballroom to Lord Allutar, the crowd parting before it—no one wanted to be in the thing's way. When it reached its master it stopped and set Reva back on her feet, but it kept one hand around her neck.

She squirmed briefly, but then Lord Allutar reached out and grabbed her chin, turning her face toward his own. The room seemed to freeze anew; no one moved, and a silence so complete that Anrel thought he could hear his own heart beating fell.

“Who are you?” Allutar demanded, shattering the momentary stillness. “Who sent you?”

Anrel glanced at Mimmin li-Dargalleis, but she was standing silently at Lord Allutar's side, showing no sign she knew anything more about the situation that anyone else.

Reva, he noticed, did
not
glance at her. The fifty guilders Mimmin had paid had bought Reva's loyalty.

The footman who had fallen was once again on his feet; he and his compatriot were moving back toward their master.

“Were you trying to kill me?” the landgrave asked, still holding Reva's chin.

“
No
, my lord!” Reva said, speaking for the first time. “No, no! Nothing like that.”

“Then what
were
you doing?”

“A harmless spell, my lord, to influence your vote when the Grand Council reconvenes.”

Lord Allutar did not look convinced. “Influence my vote in what manner?”

“I don't know, my lord. My employer was to speak a certain phrase, and you would then be inclined to vote as he suggested, nothing more than that, I swear by the Mother of Us All!”

“
What
phrase?”

“It . . . the phrase is, ‘With weather like this we might as well be in Quand,' my lord.”

Anrel admired Reva's quick invention; it sounded believable to him, and he hoped that Lord Allutar would find it equally convincing—but he doubted they would be that fortunate. Sorcerers of Lord Allutar's abilities could probably force people to tell the truth. Anrel hadn't happened to hear any lessons from his uncle that addressed that subject directly, but it certainly seemed likely.

“And is your employer here tonight, woman?” He released her chin
and instead grabbed her shoulder, turning her in the homunculus's grip. The two footmen, now standing one on either side, grabbed her arms to help.

“I don't know, my lord!” Reva cried. “I don't see him!”

“What's your name?”

“Arissa Palineir, my lord!”

“That name was not on my guest list; how did you get in here?”

“I . . . I was invited,” Reva said.

“Not under
that
name. Do you think I don't know who I invited into my home? Do you think I don't know how to set a ward against intruders?” He turned her around to face him again.

“I don't—” Reva didn't finish the sentence; her invention, or perhaps her nerve, had finally failed her.

“You aren't a sorceress, are you? You're a witch.”

Reva just stared blankly at him.

Anrel thought desperately, trying to come up with something he could do to help Reva, but every idea he came up with would simply get them both killed. He couldn't attempt any magic while the wards were in place, and any more direct action would be stopped by those footmen, or by the homunculus, or perhaps by the other guests at the reception—he was hopelessly outnumbered. Perhaps if he had brought his sword—but of course, he couldn't have brought such a weapon to an event like this, even if it were not still being held as collateral by Dorrin Kabrig, the doorkeeper at the Boar's Head Inn.

Then Lord Allutar released his captive's shoulder, and instead pressed his hand to her forehead. She slumped in the homunculus's arms, and Anrel knew there was nothing he could do. Any chance he might have had of rescuing her would have depended on her being conscious and able to help.

“Take her to my study and bind her securely,” Lord Allutar ordered.

His
study
? That caught Anrel by surprise. But then, this was Lord Allutar's home, not a courthouse; there would be no prison cells here, no dungeons.

On the other hand, Lord Allutar was a sorcerer familiar with black
magic; his study was probably equipped with a variety of restraints. It would be even more heavily warded than the rest of the house, as well.

The homunculus hoisted Reva's limp form back onto its shoulder and trudged out of the room, the two footmen following close behind. For a moment there was a shocked silence, broken only by the receding footsteps; then a murmur of voices began and built quickly to a resounding hubbub.

“My lord!” someone called—a woman. “Who was that? What's to become of her?”

“That, my dear, is a witch,” Allutar replied, “and a very foolish one. She attempted to place a spell on me—whether the sort she claimed or something else entirely, I cannot say, but I sensed it immediately.”

“What will you do with her?”

“Imperial law is very clear,” the landgrave replied solemnly. “Any attempt to perform magic by any citizen of the empire whose name is not on the Great List is witchcraft, and witchcraft is to be considered treason. The witch will hang.”

“How do you know she's a citizen?” a man asked. “She might be an Ermetian spy.”

Lord Allutar paused; clearly, he had not thought of that. The solution was obvious, though.

“The penalty for espionage is also death by hanging,” he pointed out. “If she has diplomatic letters from the Ermetian king, or from one of their councils, then I will turn her over to the emperor's court and let them deal with her, but I doubt that will be the case.” He looked out at his guests, standing motionless on all sides, staring at him. “Come now, friends—I know this incident has been upsetting, but please, it's done now, and the evening is still young. I welcome you all to my home, and I ask you all to enjoy yourselves.” He spread his arms to gesture expansively, and the harpist took that as her cue to play a quick arpeggio and begin a new tune.