The Palace Job (12 page)

"When, exactly, did he die?" Hessler asked approximately two hours later.

"More than a week, young wizard," the steward said with sad weariness. "He wished to retire here to Ros-Sesuf to spend his last days. He went peacefully, though, in his sleep. A great man. He shall be missed."

"But... he didn't
look
sick!" Hessler said insistently. "He looked fine! He told us that he was just leaving to see his home once more. He didn't say—"

"I doubt," the steward said firmly, "that he wished to alarm his students. And as for his appearance, the master always looked as he wished." With a faint smile, he added, "I am certain you understand."

"Yes, of course," Hessler said irritably, "but you have to understand, I needed him to... I... he was supposed to..." He trailed off.

"Good day, young wizard," the steward said with faint asperity. "I shall let the mistress know that you offered your condolences." He shut the door.

"Yes. Thank you," Hessler said to the door. "I'll just... find someone else, then."

Several hours later, having exhausted the five coins on bad drink and bad food, he did indeed find someone else in a darkened street outside a cheap sailor's tavern. Namely, the guards from the caravan.

"There he is!" one of them shouted. "There's the bastard now! Get him!"

Hessler could have conjured figments to terrify them into fleeing or summoned an illusion to cover his retreat, but he was drunk enough to have trouble concentrating, and he only got as far as raising his hands and declaring, "You have no id—" before a small pouch filled with pebbles crunched down on his arm, and then his back, and then his head.

He awoke in the dockside jail with shackles at his wrists and ankles and a racking collar chained to his throat. The shackles had an
yvkefer
alloy in them to prevent his escape. They had to be expensive. He didn't see how cheating at cards really made it worthwhile.

"I'm sorry, Mister Hessler," came a voice from the cell beside him. Hessler turned.

"Dairy, what are you doing here?"

"The caravan master became very angry after you left," the kid said to the floor. "He was complaining about the cargo."

"What about the cargo?" Hessler looked at the shackles. As far as non-illusion classes, he'd taken a course in wards against demons and an introductory conjuring seminar, but that was about it. Most of the students didn't fulfill the non-specialist requirements until their fourth or fifth year.

"He said you'd cursed it, and then he went to the city's magical hall and had them cast a spell, and then he said that you'd never graduated from the university."

Hessler winced. He hadn't thought that the verification lists would have been updated so quickly. "What happened to the cargo?"

"The dye went bad and moths got into the silks."

Hessler winced again. Those were both common problems with shipping in these areas. His father had been a merchant, and he'd told Hessler about such things. Dye from arid climates could spoil if not properly sealed against humid salt air, and anyone who didn't pack the silks in wormweed to keep the moths away had nobody but themselves to blame.

Unless, of course, a wizard who didn't actually have a license to practice magic had been heard to utter what could be construed as a curse. Then you
definitely
had somebody else to blame.

Had Hessler actually had the power to do that sort of thing, he would have laughed.

"What are
you
doing in here, Dairy?" he finally asked instead.

"The guards went to find you," the kid said, still talking to the floor. "They said they were going to hurt you. I followed, and they didn't stop hitting you once you were down. So I tried to help. I knocked two of them down, and they say I broke another guard's arm."

"What, with a club?"

"Er... with my fist, Mister Hessler." Dairy sighed. "I'm really sorry I didn't stop them before the town constables arrived."

"Me too, lad." After a moment, Hessler generously added, "Thank you for trying. I didn't curse that cargo, and I appreciate your help."

"They said you cheated at cards, too," Dairy added from his cell.

"Well, people say many things." Hessler's shackles weren't coming off. "Did they say what the punishment for using magic without a license is? If they find me guilty of cursing the cargo?"

"They don't have the magic they need to bind you," Dairy said quietly, his shackles clinking. "They said that without that, there was only one way to keep the town safe from you. They didn't say what it was."

Hessler took a guess. "And you? They can't charge you, can they?"

"They, er, said that I hurt those men more than I could have. Since I joined the guards when you did, they're saying I'm a demon conjured by you."

"Oh. Crap."

"I'm really sorry, Mister Hessler."

"You and me both, lad."

Time passed. The night got deeper and darker. They'd come for him in the morning. People taking care of wizards liked to do so by daylight, preferably with priests around to bless the event.

This shouldn't have happened. Ros-Sesuf was a
port
city, a
cultured
city! There should have been someone to talk to, someone who could explain this misunderstanding.

Professor Cestran would have been ideal. Failing that, the university would have vouched for him, had that day on the steps gone a bit differently...

Hessler tried to summon his magic. It came, fitfully, but there nonetheless. He was warded against cloaking or altering himself, but the
yvkefer
bonds only blocked magic affecting the self and powerful magic directed outward. Illusion was often said to be the weakest of the magical branches, as it used the least magical energy...

"Dairy," Hessler said quietly, "I want you to do something." "What's that, Mister Hessler?"

"I'm going to make you invisible. In the morning, when they come for me, I'll say that you were a demon, and the bonds kept me from binding you any longer. They'll come in and unlock the shackles to check, and then you can escape. Do you understand?"

"Wouldn't that be lying, though, Mister Hessler?"

Hessler lowered his head. "It's not really a lie if it's said to counter a lie that someone else told," he improvised. "Like that caravan master. He lied about you, so I have to lie about you to counter it."

There was a thoughtful silence. "I don't think I understand, Mister Hessler."

"You're a good lad, Dairy."

"But what about you? Maybe... maybe when they unlock my shackles, I can—"

"Just run," Hessler said impatiently. "Run as fast as you can and get out of town. I'll..." He stared into a dark abyss of truth, then deliberately looked away and said in a tone Professor Cestran would have admired, "I'll be fine. I have a trick to escape, but I can't take you with me, so I'm going to let you escape that way. It's only fair."

"Oh. Okay, Mister Hessler."

"Right, then. Here we go." Hessler summoned his energies again, constrained as they were by the shackles, and sent out a small spell to render Dairy invisible.

Nothing happened. Maybe the collar, maybe Hessler being tired and aching from the beating the vengeful guards had given him.

"Damn," Hessler said very quietly.

"Is there a problem, Mister Hessler?"

"I... I think I should wait until morning. I want to preserve my strength. We'll do it later."

"Okay, Mister Hessler," the kid said, smiling. "I'll try to get some sleep, then. So I'm rested when it comes time to escape." "Good. Good plan."

"Thank you, Mister Hessler," the kid added. "I was really scared, but I'm not scared anymore."

"That's... good, lad. That's good to hear."

The wizard Kail had been touting for the past several days turned out to have died peacefully in his sleep.

"You said he was the
best,"
Loch complained as she trudged through the night streets of Ros-Sesuf with Kail beside her. The others—the tinker and her acrobatic Imperial friend, the unicorn, and the death priestess with her enthusiastic warhammer—were set to meet them in Ros-Uitosuf in a few days.

"Being the best doesn't mean you don't die," Kail pointed out. "And we knew he was old."

"If he's that old, why did he still have his name out for jobs?" Loch was not precisely in the mood to be reasonable. They'd ridden hard to get to Ros-Sesuf, and they had nothing to show for it.

"Got me," Kail said. "Nothing to do for it now, though."

"You don't think the death priestess could—"

"No, Loch, I really don't. I really profoundly don't."

"Let's hit the taverns."

In the dockside taverns, drink was cheap, and people didn't watch what they said too closely. Still, nobody talked. In fact, they clammed up as soon as she and Kail came into the room. Loch figured that Jyelle had been passing the word.

"Do we really
need
a wizard?" Kail murmured a few hours later as they left. "We've got the tinker. We've got the death priestess. Hell, I bet the unicorn could do in a pinch."

"You don't take a hill without cavalry," Loch said. "You don't guard a pass without archers. And you sure as
hell
don't take Heaven's Spire without a wizard."

"See, you say that like it's an aphorism, but I've never heard that before."

"There's a lot you've never heard before, Kail."

They kept listening. Around midnight, an angry guard told them his story about a wizard who'd cursed some caravan's cargo. The wizard was slated for a quick death in the morning. He was shackled in the dockside jail.

Loch and Kail wandered over. The jailhouse door had only a single lock, and Kail had them inside in moments. The lone guard was asleep at his desk. Loch thoughtfully woke him up by prodding his throat with her sword, and it was agreed that the guard would spend the night peacefully and quietly bound and gagged in the broom closet.

There were only two occupied cells. A sandy-haired kid was asleep in one of them. A squinting dark-haired guy was crouched in the other, wearing all kinds of shackles. "You the wizard?" Kail asked.

The wizard looked up and glowered. "No, I'm just wearing these robes because they're so comfortable."

"We've got a job," Kail said. "We need a wizard."

"What kind of job?" the wizard asked.

"The kind where we unlock that cell and all those shackles," Loch put in.

"I think I'd be interested in that kind of job," said the wizard.

"Glad to hear it. Kail, help the man." Kail dropped to one knee, leaned in, and got to work on the cell door, humming to himself, and Loch added, "What's your specialty?"

The wizard squinted. "What would you
like
my specialty to be?"

"The truth," Loch said as Kail snickered and twisted open the cell door. "Look, we've got a schedule, and that Cestran guy is dead, so you're our wizard. I just want to know what I'm dealing with."

"Cestran was..." The wizard looked dumbfounded. Kail snapped open the lock to his foot-shackles.

"Oh, he was good," Kail said. "You ever need a helpful little demon or a gout of fire, Cestran was your man. There wasn't a safe in the country that man couldn't burn through... well, except for the dwarven-made ones. But that's because of the stuff they put in the sides."

"Yvkefer,"
the wizard said to no one in particular. "He was supposed to get me back into the university. He was a thief? I do illusions."

"Illusions?" Kail got another shackle undone. "But you can still, like, throw gouts of fire when you have to, right?"

"Illusionary ones, yes," said the wizard irritably.

"Oh. Well, we'll figure out something for you to do."

"Listen," said the wizard, "the kid has to come too." He gestured at the boy in the next cell.

Loch looked at the boy, who showed no particular talent save the ability to sleep through a jailbreak. "No."

"That's the deal. He comes, or I... so help me, I'll stay in this cell!"

The noise woke up the kid. "Mister Hessler, are you all right?" he asked, blinking and getting up. "Are these people hurting you?" His arms were bare, and in the flickering candlelight, Loch saw something on his arm.