Emperor Mage (17 page)

CHAPTER 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
nights banquet was held aboard a large boat kept for the emperors 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, offering 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." Numairs 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
Salmalin."

"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 harbormasters 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
Chioke 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.
Chioke 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. Chioke 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 Kittens 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 harbormasters
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 \rrag—"

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 princes leg. "If I tell her, she'll bite," Daine said
coldly. "And you haven't been bit till a dragon does it."