Feast of Souls (17 page)

It was one thing to throw all one’s Magisters out of the palace in theory, but it was another thing to actually have to do without them day after day. He was discovering that the hard way. If he wanted a letter sent to the far border of his kingdom these days he had to send the damn thing by mounted messenger, no matter how important it was, or how much speed mattered. Or he could try to use birds, stupid brainless things that they were, hoping they would deliver their messages to his agents and not to the enemies that surrounded them. So it was with all the other conveniences that Ramirus had offered and which Danton had taken for granted. He was a Dark Age king now in all but name, limited to the reach of his own flesh and the power of his voice, just like it had been in those barbaric days.

Which would have been all fine and good if all his rivals had to suffer the same deprivations, but of course they didn’t. The most pitiful domains on his border had their own Magisters Royal, and no matter how incompetent those men were as sorcerers, they were still better than what Danton had right now. He could not move against his enemies or discipline his vassals or even flex his royal fist in warning without knowing he was outpowered by the weakest of his rivals… and his subjects knew it, too. It was only a question of time before someone took advantage of that and moved against him.

Curse the gods of the First Age of Kings for this wretched luck, and all the damnable Magisters with them! Had ruling an empire been this complicated back then?

“Your Majesty?”

He looked up, dark brows scowling. “Yes? What is it?”

His servant bowed. “A visitor has arrived. He gives his name as Kostas. He says you will wish to see him.”

“Kostas? I don’t know the name.”

The servant said quietly, “He wears black, Majesty.”

“A Magister?”

“So it would appear.”

Interesting. Perhaps the storm had swept in something useful after all.

He nodded curtly. “Very well. Send him to my audience chamber. I will meet him there.”

He must be from far away, if Danton had never heard of him. The High King prided himself on knowing all the local Magisters and their peculiarities. Or perhaps Kostas was simply a new name taken by some sorcerer who was thinking of leaving his current master for better employ. If so, Danton would allow him the anonymity for the time being. A rival’s Magisters were always worth courting.

The audience chamber was a room that Danton maintained especially for such meetings. It was a cold and comfortless chamber walled in rough-hewn stone, whose dark floor and shadowy vaulted ceiling always gave off the impression of being damp, no matter how dry the day was. To mortals and Magisters alike it was a challenge, albeit in different ways. Mere humans were forced to present their petitions in the midst of that cold, unwelcoming space, while the High King peered at them from his throne like a hawk staring down its prey. It was amazing how much could be learned about a man in such a setting. As for Magisters, most of them worked their sorcery upon the space as soon as they entered, subtly or otherwise. One of them had actually dared to conjure himself a chair—a chair!—to mirror the High King’s own. In this manner they no doubt thought they would please him, or—in the case of the last—at least make a clear statement about what they perceived the proper relationship between king and Magister to be. Instead of missing the very obvious point about what manner of relationship
he
expected.

He had but a minute to settle onto his reception throne—a heavy wooden piece built at the start of the Second Age, now so heavy with paint and reapplied gilt that he sometimes wondered if any of the original wood still existed—before the wide doors opened and his servants ushered in his black-clothed visitor.

He was a curious-looking man, which sparked Dan-ton’s interest immediately. Magisters might reshape their flesh in accordance with any desire, and therefore one could learn much from the body they chose for themselves. Usually it was something dramatic, or at least memorable. Some chose young faces, unmarked by any human hardship; others, aged ones so wrinkled with experience that to gaze into their hooded eyes was to step into ages past. Some chose horrific forms, as a warning to others that access to limitless power had made them something other than human; others sculpted themselves masks of such beauty and perfection that the gods themselves must surely be jealous.

This one… this one was remarkably ordinary, Dan-ton thought. And that was an interesting choice.

He was a slender man, whippet-thin, and his black clothes fit close to his body, accentuating that slenderness. His frame was angular and everywhere that flesh showed, bone was plainly visible beneath it: in his face, where harshly angled cheekbones gave him a hungry aspect; in his neck, where lines of tendon and muscle stretched tautly from jawline to collarbone; in his hands, which had the aspect of coarse gloves fitted over a jagged armature. His face was weathered in the way that peasant skin became weathered after a lifetime of fighting the elements, the texture of it coarse and reddened. He reminded Danton of an arctic fisherman he had once seen, whose face had been scored by salt-laden winds and frigid ocean spray every day of his life. There were lines in this man’s face also, sharp lines, harsh lines, and it did not seem to Danton that they had been put there for any artistic purpose so much as earned through time, in a purely human manner.

Interesting.

The Magister took a few steps forward and spared a glance to take in the room. His eyes, Danton noted, were the gray of a storm-laden sky, and his hair a shade of brown so unremarkable it must have been natural. It was shoulder length, with ragged edges that said plainly he cared little for fashion. Most interesting of all were the scars that marked his face. That they were old scars was plain, and they had healed as much as scars ever did on their own: a few parallel sharp lines across one cheekbone, perhaps claw marks; a puckering below one side of his jaw. There was a scar right at his hairline from which the hair grew white and coarse, and he had braided it so that it hung down over his shoulder in a sharply defined streak. They all looked like natural scars, Danton noted, which was interesting; why would a man who was capable of healing any wound choose to bear the marks of past injury?

Then the gray eyes fixed upon him and for a moment they held him transfixed; he could sense the raw power behind them, and depths of an existence no single lifetime could contain.

“High King Danton.” The Magister bowed. “It has come to my ears that you seek a man of power for your court.”

“My last one displeased me,” Danton said bluntly. “I banished him.”

It was a challenge, plain and simple. Most kings lived in constant fear of displeasing one of the black-robed sorcerers, and spent as much time trying to keep their Magisters Royal content as they did ruling their kingdoms.

Which is why they were the weakling princes they were, Danton thought, and he was… something more.

Some of the others candidates he’d interviewed had dared to comment upon his actions. A few had not offered open response, but their eyes made clear their displeasure.

But this Magister nodded his acceptance of the order without hesitation or comment. The gesture was eloquent in its simplicity, and Danton did not fail to catch the message behind it:
This is your kingdom. Not even a Magister may tell you what to do in it
.

A good start.

“I have interviewed many,” he said curtly. “None pleased me.”

“The world is full of fools,” the Magister observed. “Having power does not make them otherwise.”

A faint smile quirked the corner of the High King’s mouth.

“I am called Kostas,” the Magister offered. “Though if it pleases you to call me something else, that can be arranged.”

“Humility is unusual in one of your calling.”

He shrugged. “Humility is when a man submits to those things which have value to him. Submitting to those things which do not have value is simply… expedience.”

“And your last royal position was…?”

“Alas, I have not held such a post before.” The gray eyes shimmered darkly, like thunderclouds before a storm. “Is that a requirement?”

“No. But it is… unusual.”

“I have felt no need.”

“And you do now?”

He shrugged. Like all things about him it was a sharp gesture, all bones and angles. “My interests change. The politics of this region intrigue me.” He smiled slightly; it was a cold and predatory expression. “I am told there is no better seat to observe them from than beside the throne of a great king.”

Danton ignored the flattery. “And is that all you wish to do? Observe?”

The stormy eyes glittered. “That is the custom, is it not?”

It was a good answer. The five who had come before him had tried other ones and had been dismissed. Three had attempted to pretend they had no interest in “morati” politics. Two had been honest. Neither had a place in his court.

Of course
any Magister who applied for this royal position had an interest in politics.
Of course
he hoped to manipulate the High King, and through him the fate of an empire. To pretend otherwise here, in this chamber, was to accuse Danton of being a fool. And that he was not. He was many things, many hateful things, things that men cursed and women wept over, but he was not a fool.

He was beginning to think this Magister might suit him.

“Tell me of my kingdom,” he challenged.

“Strong at its heart, as a lion’s heart is strong,” the man replied. He cocked his head slightly, like a bird regarding its prey. “But vast, and in its vastness, vulnerable. With a Magister’s art such a territory is easily maintained, but you have lacked that for a fortnight now, and the strain is showing.”

Danton’s dark brows gathered about their center like angry stormclouds. “Tell me about it.”

“What need I say that you do not already know, High King? It is no secret that the greater the size of an empire, the harder it is to safeguard its periphery. In times of prosperity it means little if there are mountains between one district and the next, or swampland that would hinder an army’s passage. The Magister’s art can overcome such obstacles with ease but without the hand of sorcery to ease passage, these are barriers that circumscribe armies. And nations.”

For a long, very cold minute Danton just stared at him. It was impossible to read the Magister’s expression, and that was a surprise; Danton was adept at reading men.

Finally he rose and strode to a sideboard. That he turned his back on the visitor was quite deliberate: I
do not fear you or your kind
. Beneath the narrow table, on the shelf beneath, handful of heavy scrolls lay waiting. He took one out, removed the ribbon that bound it, and unrolled it across the table.

The scroll unrolled fully and remained flat on the table afterward as if pinned down by weights; Kostas had not missed his cue.

Danton gazed down upon the map of his kingdom in all its vast, terrible glory. It was the single greatest empire since the Second Age of Kings had begun, or so his court historians had assured him. He had long since crossed barriers that his ancestors would have regarded as impassable, at least for armies; that was what the age of Magisters had brought to kings. Nations were unified under Danton Aurelius that had never been unified before, and if it took a strong and sometimes brutal hand to keep them unified, so be it.

There had been witches in the First Age, of course. But a witch only had so much life force to work with, and convincing one to part with all of his supply for a single military campaign was nigh impossible. Geographical features that were impassable in the First Age tended to stay impassable, unless you put knives to the throats of a hundred witches and forced them to serve your cause. Which might work for one project, but tended to leave you short of witches for the next one down the line.

Now things were different.

That was not to say that Magisters always applied their power as liberally as a royal patron might like. Apparently there was some sort of code governing how much they might exert themselves, and when, and more than once Danton had cursed a Magister who had refused to extend himself for a chosen project. They claimed it had something to do with the balance of spiritual forces in the heavens and the inherent stability of the universe… but rat piss to all that. He was sure there was something more to it, but apparently no mere morati king could get it out of them.

He watched as the lean Magister moved quietly to the table and gazed down at the map before him. How like a lizard’s visage the man’s profile was, Danton noted, not with displeasure so much as curiosity. One could almost imagine a forked tongue darting out of that narrow mouth, testing the air for sound as well as smell.

“Defreest stirs,” the Magister mused quietly, “and the provinces beyond. Corialanus to the south, but you know that, I am sure. These…” He swept a hand across the small row of provinces that edged the kingdom on the west, some of whom had negotiated semi-independent status long ago. “These are agitated, but it means little. Unless they unify they are no real threat.”

“My father put their cities to the torch last time they tried that.”

“I am sure they have not forgotten.”

Danton looked up at him sharply. “So what would you advise, that you should become my counselor? What would
you
do, if all this was yours?”

There was a double challenge in the words.

They gray eyes narrowed. For a moment the Magister was silent, studying the map. “Prepare an army against Corialanus,” he said at last. “It stands between you and the Free Lands and as such will hamper your expansion into that region unless it is securely controlled. They will start testing you soon, to learn your limits—”

“They have already begun,” Danton muttered.

Kostas nodded. “Then move against them before they are ready for it, and give them your answer. Without mercy.”

“And to the north?”

“Distract them. Give them something to focus their attention on that will not require an army, nor divide your supply lines.” The stormy gray eyes met his; their depths were so cold that Danton shivered despite himself. “I can do that for you, High King.”