To Light A Candle

Golems.

“Cilarnen Volpiril. You are in a great deal of trouble,” the stranger said pleasantly. “I am Undermage Anigrel. I am here to explain matters to you.”

Anigrel? But… the Arch-Mage’s private secretary? Here?

One of the stone golems stepped into the cell and set down a large basket beside the door.

“The necessities of your imprisonment,” Undermage Anigrel said.

Cilarnen did not bother to glance toward the basket. His whole being was focused on the Undermage. Imprisonment? For how long? Forever?

“What… what about the others?” It was the hardest thing Cilarnen had ever done to get the sentence out. His mouth was dry, and his tongue seemed to have grown unbearably clumsy. He stumbled over the words as if he had forgotten how to speak.

Undermage Anigrel raised his eyebrows in mild reproof. “The other traitors? They will be dealt with appropriately. You should consider your own fate.”

“They—It was my idea. All of it.” Words came easier now, and it seemed terribly important to make Undermage Anigrel believe him.

“Oh, we know that. All a plot of House Volpiril to seize power in the City for itself. But you have failed.”

Cilarnen stared at the Undermage in dawning horror. It had never occurred to him—never!—that no matter what he did, anyone would think his father was involved in it.

“No! He— my father— Lord Volpiril— No—” He took a step forward, though he had no idea why. The ingrained habit of submission to lawful authority held, even now.

Undermage Anigrel raised a slender hand. “Do not try to protect him. He has already confessed everything, and resigned his seat on the High Council, preparing to await his fate. Now there is only your fate to consider.”

Cilarnen staggered backward again, leaning now against the wall of the cell for support. The cell seemed suddenly airless, its atmosphere stifling. His father had confessed?

To what?

“I don’t understand,” Cilarnen whispered. “I told him nothing.”

“But it was he who first planted these ideas in your mind, then erased the memory of the conversation— though not the seeds of treason—by Magecraft,” Undermage Anigrel said kindly. “How else could you have come by such foolish notions? What could you have been thinking of?”

“I don’t know—I don’t know—” Cilarnen moaned. He staggered the few steps to the stone bench and flung himself down, covering his face with his hands. Could that truly be what had happened?

He didn’t know. He didn’t remember.

“I want to talk to my father,” Cilarnen said, raising his face from his hands. He would confront Lord Volpiril, demand an explanation—or at least the truth.

“Alas, that is no longer possible,” Undermage Anigrel said. He did not sound sorry at all. “It will never be possible again. And now you must pay for your part in these events as well, for even if your father planted the compulsions in your mind, had you been a true son of the City and loyal first to her welfare, you would have thrown off those compulsions, recognizing them as treasonable.” He shook his head, sadly. “No, I fear that the fruit does not fall far from the tree, and treasonous blood breeds treasonous blood.”

Cilarnen simply stared at Anigrel, stunned now to numbness. He’d thought the plan was all his own idea. Now the Undermage was saying that it wasn’t—but he was saying that Cilarnen was still to be punished for it.

“Oh, come, Master Cilarnen,” Anigrel said chidingly, sounding in that moment so much like one of Cilarnen’s Mage-College tutors that for a moment he had the surreal feeling he was back in school. But Anigrel’s next words returned him to reality with a chilling jolt. “It does not matter where the foul notion of overthrowing the High Council came from. You were still free to reject it—to go about the lawful business of serving the City. But you did not.”

“But we—but I—but we never… we only wanted the Council to listen to us,” Cilarnen said in a very small voice.

“And so you chose to create a weapon that destroys magick. What an odd way to make someone listen, to be sure,” Undermage Anigrel answered caustically. “You dabbled in the Proscribed Arts, Master Cilarnen, and for that crime you are to be stripped of your Gift and Banished from the City, just as soon as her Bounds are restored.