The Prodigal Mage: Fisherman’s Children Book One (57 page)

His smile widened. “Yet.”

“Lord Garrick!”
said Jaffee, his shocked protest cutting through the Council’s babble. “That was uncalled for.”

Ignoring the old fool, and the rest of the Council, he kept his gaze on Rafel. “Speaker Shifrin, I stand before you seeking redress for a gross injustice. My father—”

“Arlin,”
said Rafel. Letting go of Orrick’s shoulder, he stepped out from behind the Speaker’s table. “Don’t do this. Don’t make a fool of yourself. Go home and mourn in private. Your father wasn’t murdered.”

“Of course you would say that, Rafel,” he replied, ruthlessly civil. “Being one of his murderers. But I prefer to—”

“Arlin, bloody accept it. Your father got himself killed,” Rafel retorted. “And he near got mine killed with him while he was at it. I’m sorry he’s dead, but—”

“Sorry?”
Astounded, he had to wait a moment for his breath to return. “You’re
sorry,
Rafel? That is a very—
small
—word. That is a word lacking weight, and meaning. It’s the word you use when you tread on someone’s foot, accidentally. Or when you interrupt them during polite conversation. It is
not
the word you use for stealing an innocent man’s life.”

“I didn’t steal anything!” Rafel shouted. “I didn’t
kill
anyone. I—”

“Be quiet,” said Pellen Orrick, his voice hoarse, weak, but full of authority nonetheless. “
Both
of you. We don’t have time for this. We have to—” And then he closed his eyes briefly, shaking his head. “Forgive me, Meister Speaker,” he said to Shifrin, then nodded to another ferrety Olken seated close by. “Mayor Stott. It’s not my intention to—”

Fernel Pintte’s replacement glanced at Shifrin, then raised a hand. “No need to apologise, Pellen. Your experience is undisputed. Please, go on.”

“Lord Garrick,” said Pellen Orrick, “there’s not a man or woman in this chamber who’d diminish the natural sorrow any son must feel on the loss of his father. But this is not Justice Hall. If you have a grievance, make representation to Lady Marnagh once our session here is concluded. As senior administrator of Justice Hall she will examine your complaint and—”

“Sarnia Marnagh is well known as Asher’s friend,” he replied, not bothering to look at the ageing Doranen woman who so failed to understand where her loyalty belonged. “I have no confidence in her judgement.”

“Be that as it may, Lord Garrick,” said frail Barlsman Jaffee, over the muttering Council. “Not one of us stands above the law. Now you must withdraw, so we might continue our urgent business undisturbed.”

They were
dismissing
him? As though he were a nobody, an Olken? “What business could you have more important than murder?” he demanded. “More important than the slaughter of one of Lur’s great mages?”

“This kingdom’s
survival!
” said Shifrin. “Lord Garrick—as Meister Orrick says, this Council grieves with you and mourns the kingdom’s loss of your father. But—”

“Platitudes!”
he spat at the fat fool. “I have not come here for
platitudes
. I want—”

“No-one here gives a
shit
what you want, Arlin!” said Rafel, his face savage. “So shift your arse out of this chamber before I—”

Pellen Orrick slapped his hand to the Speaker’s table.
“
Rafel
—
”

“No, Pellen!” said Rafel, half-turning. “I’m sick of this poxy little shit and his poison tongue. Him and Fernel Pintte and Sarle Baden, all three tarred with the same lying brush. I’m a murderer. My
father’s
a murderer. You call yourself Da’s friend? What you were saying before, did you even
mean
it? Or are you no better than this bloody Council, this leaky boatload of sinkin’ fools?”

Orrick lurched to his feet, unsteady on his one wooden leg. “
Shame
on you, Rafel. If your father was here—”

“Well, he’s
not,
” spat Rafel. “He’s lying three-quarters dead under his blankets with my mother—your friend—weeping over him. Because he risked his life for this kingdom,
again
.” His furious glare raked the chamber. “I don’t know how any of you look yourselves in the mirror.”

Forgotten for the moment, Arlin retreated almost to the chamber doors where he might continue to discreetly observe the proceedings. Rafel was invited here for a reason. Whatever that was, he wanted to know.

This murderer’s life is become my business. There is nothing too small about him that I would not learn. I will bring him down. I will lay him low. Before I am done with him, he shall weep at my feet.

“Rafel,” said Speaker Shifrin sternly. “Your anger is excusable—you fear for your father’s health. So do we. But you weren’t asked here to judge us. That’s not your place.”

Rafel scowled at the Speaker. “Then what
is
my place? Why am I here?”

Shifrin played his gaze over the murmuring Council until it fell silent. Glanced at Jaffee, and Sarnia Marnagh, and last of all at Pellen Orrick. Then he turned to Rafel. “You’re Asher’s son.”

Warily, Rafel stared back at him. “I know.”

“Levity, Rafel?” said Shifrin, his expression tightening. “With Lur facing its darkest days, you’d—”

“Shifrin,” Pellen Orrick said, touching his arm. “It’s a tense time.”

“What I mean,” said Shifrin, through gritted teeth, “is that like your father, you can feel the earth the way other Olken mages can’t?”

“So?” said Rafel, still wary.

“And like your father, you have the touch for Doranen magic?”

Arlin, closely watching, saw Rafel’s fear, imperfectly concealed. Was thrilled by it. Fear was a weakness—and weakness could be exploited.

“You know I do,” Rafel said. “What’s going on? You ain’t saying what’s happened is
my
fault? Or Da’s fault? Because we didn’t cause this, we were—”

“No,”
said Shifrin, curt with impatience. “Rafel, nobody’s blaming you—or your father. We know how much we owe him.”

“Then tell me what you want,” said Rafel, so arrogant. His father’s son, indeed. “Or I’m going back to the Tower. My mother needs me.”

“And so does Lur,” said Shifrin, with an uneasy sideways glance at Pellen Orrick. “Rafel, with your father—” He hesitated. “—unwell, it could be you’re our kingdom’s only chance of survival.”

“I’m not,” said Rafel, taken aback. Arrogance abruptly subdued. Interesting. “It’s the weather that’s gone wrong, and I ain’t a WeatherWorker.”

“We know that,” said Speaker Shifrin. “But you have power. There has to be something you can do to stop Lur falling apart.”

The councilors leaned forward, all of them, even the Doranen, waiting to hear what Rafel had to say. Waiting for him to
save
them.
Rafel
. They were pathetic.

Rafel looked at them, still uncertain. “If that’s true, I don’t know what it is.”

“When Lur faced its first great crisis, Doranen and Olken magics were melded,” said Barlsman Jaffee. “And Weather Magic was born to keep us safe. Now Lur faces destruction once more, and this Council believes—”

“What?” said Rafel, incredulous. “That we should make our own Weather Magic? Or something like it? Don’t be mad. It’s more likely we’d make things worse, not better. Those magics—” A memory, unpleasant, shifted behind his eyes. There was fear again.
What did he know?
“You don’t want to muck about with them.”

Arlin bit his tongue. It galled him, but he agreed with Rafel. These Doranen were milk-and-water mages. Not a one of them was strong enough to wield that kind of power. It didn’t exist here, anyway. Barl had seen to that. The magic they were after could only be found over the mountains, in Lost Dorana.

“Nothing’s been decided, Rafel,” said Jaffee, frowning. “Nothing
can
be decided until the meaning of every shiver and twist in this kingdom, no matter how subtle, is understood. You are the strongest Olken mage we have. Will you seek the answers for us? Will you bind yourself to Lur’s suffering earth and tell us what we need to know so we might cure what ails our poor, beleaguered home?”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Rafel stared at the floor. Paced a few steps. Paced back again, saying nothing. Then he looked up. Arlin, catching his hard stare full-face, felt himself flinch. A thought rose, unbidden:
Don’t get on his bad side.
Disturbed, angered, he pushed it away.
The Olken’s not been born that I will ever fear
.

“We’re seeking a way to save the kingdom, so that no more tragic sacrifices are made,” said Jaffee, sounding almost humble. “But we can’t save it without you, Rafel. Please. Please, help us.”

The council chamber was utterly silent. Every breath held, every body still as stone. Every hopeful, harrowed gaze trained on Asher’s murdering son.

“All right,” Rafel said at last. “I’ll ride out tomorrow—
if
you promise me two things.”

“Rafel…” Pellen Orrick shook his head. “You’d bargain?
Now?
With so much at stake? Your father—”

“Is a fool,” Rafel said fiercely. “And d’you know why, Pellen? ’Cause whenever anyone asked him—
asks
him—for something, he gives it. No matter what it might cost him, he gives it and never once stops to think of himself. Well, that ain’t me.”

An uncomfortable stirring round the chamber. “What is it you want?” Shifrin asked at last.

Arms belligerently folded, Rafel treated them all to his most arrogant stare. “First off, you don’t argue with me when I tell you what I find. You don’t throw your hands up and say I must be mistaken. You don’t ignore me, like you always ignore my da. ’Cause I know this much, what you’re asking me to do? It’s going to
hurt
. A lot. And I’m not much interested in being called a liar afterwards.”

Shifrin took a moment to look at his fellow-councilors. Not a one of them spoke. Not a single face showed any objection.

“Agreed,” said the Speaker. “Whatever you find, we will accept as the truth without argument. What’s your second—request?”

Arlin swallowed his contempt. Request? Demand, more like it. Asher’s thuggish son was browbeating them, twisting their weak arms—and they were letting him.

No wonder the kingdom is come to such a parlous place, with weaklings like this in charge. What use is a Council that begs, instead of leads?

Stirring from thought, Rafel turned and flung out a pointing finger. “You tell
him
to stop calling me and my father murderers. You make Lord Arlin bloody Garrick swear on oath before this Council, here and now, that he knows what happened down in Westwailing
wasn’t murder
.”

Aching with rage and the urgent desire to destroy, Arlin strode out of the shadows and back into the chamber’s light. Halted face to face with Rafel, and let his enemy see him, really
see
him, for the first time in his life. He watched Rafel absorb the blow. Watched the Olken upstart blink. Swallow.

That’s right, Rafel. I’m something else to fear.

And then he slid behind his mask again, and shifted his gaze past his father’s murderer to Shifrin. “I will do no such thing, Speaker! I’ll not betray my father for
him
. And that he would stand here, flouting my right to justice, my right to be publicly heard, that he’d hold a knife to this kingdom’s
throat
—he proves me right in everything I’ve ever said.” He laughed, and looked again at Rafel. “So which of us has the poison tongue now?”

Rafel turned away. A small defeat, and he relished it.

The first of many, Rafel. My word on it. The first of many.

“Rafel…” Slowly, painfully, each halting step an effort, Pellen Orrick abandoned the Speaker’s table and confronted Asher’s son. Rested one hand on his shoulder. “Rafel, I’m sorry. You can’t ask for that. Lord Garrick may be wrong, he may be blinded by grief, disordered by it, even, but he is entitled to his challenge. Asking us to deny him justice
is
putting a knife to Lur’s throat. And when your father learns of it…” He shook his head. “Do you
want
to break his heart?”

Rafel walked out.

“Lord Garrick,” said Speaker Shifrin, when the hubbub at last was died down and Pellen Orrick was seated again, more grey-faced than ever. “As you can see, this Council cannot—will not—take sides in this matter. If you wish to pursue the question of your father’s death, you
must
petition Justice Hall. Now kindly withdraw, my lord. This Council has business that must take precedence over your grief.”

With the weight of the entire Council against him, he had no choice but to obey. So he bowed to the blind fools who’d trust Lur’s fate to a murderer and withdrew from the Council chamber into its antechamber, to consider his next move.

Rafel was nowhere in sight. Which was lucky for him.

“And if I begged you not to go, Rafel? Would that make any difference?”

Not looking up, Rafel shoved a second spare shirt into his almost-full pack.
Mama, please, enough. How bad do you want me to feel?
“It’s only for three days. Four at the most.”

“Three days—or four—might be all your father has left to him!” his mother retorted. “You heard what Kerril said. It’s a wonder he’s still breathing. He could stop breathing before you’ve reached the City gates. Is that what you want, Rafel? To be wandering around the countryside while your father breathes his last?”