To Light A Candle

At sunset three days hence you will be set outside the Delfier Gate, garbed in the saffron cloak of Felony. From that moment, you are Outlaw, forbidden sanctuary anywhere within Armethaliehan lands. You will be provided with a day’s supply of bread and water; after that is gone you must find sustenance on your own. At dawn, the Outlaw Hunt will pass through those same gates, and if you are still within the bounds of Armethaliehan lands, they will rend you limb from limb, so you would be well advised to spend the night getting as far away from the City as you can. You may not go to the villages. By tomorrow’s dawn they will once more belong to the City. Do you understand?”

“Banished?” Cilarnen stared at Undermage Anigrel, stunned. “From the City? But… no one is Banished. Not any more. Not for centuries.”

It was a tale to frighten children with—like Demons. Surely…

Anigrel smiled. “Believe what you wish for as long as you can. In two days’ time, Rolfort will know the truth. In three, so will you.”

“But… where will I go?” Cilarnen asked blankly.

Undermage Anigrel shook his head in exasperation. “Boy, it does not matter to us. From the moment you don the Felon’s Cloak—from the moment you are set outside the City gates—you are no longer a citizen of Armethalieh. You are dead to the City and to everyone you ever knew, just as your father is. You will never return here. You are Banished. Now do you understand?”

—«♦»—

EVEN in the azure Magelight, Anigrel could see that the boy was deathly pale, his face sheened with the sweat of terror and growing despair. Anigrel felt a warm glow of satisfaction. Let the pampered highborn brat think his father was dead— he would never know otherwise.

“I understand,” Cilarnen said at last. His voice trembled.

“Very good. And since we cannot have Mages wandering around outside the City—especially rebellious, half- trained Mages—you would do well to heed me now.”

The key-phrase triggered the prepared spell, and Cilarnen’s eyelids fluttered closed as he slipped quickly into the spell-fed trance. He barely struggled: the stronger the Gift, the more susceptible the subject to certain forms of Magick.

Anigrel moved closer, catching Cilarnen as he slumped and laying him out on the stone bench. He felt the pulse of Cilarnen’s Magick, hot and strong, and when he entered Cilarnen’s mind, he could see that the parts of the boy’s brain that sensed and handled Mage-energy glowed as bright as a furnace. Cilarnen was a strong Mage, with a strong, well-trained Gift.

—«♦»—

IT took Anigrel nearly two bells to do what needed to be done—Lycaelon was quite right; his work was never less than perfection—and there were few other Mages in the City, of any rank, who could have equaled it.

And none who could have detected it.

When he had finished, Anigrel felt the weight of weariness pulling at him. Perhaps he should sleep and rest himself before dealing with young Rolfort, though the work he would do there would be much simpler. He considered the matter for a moment, and decided against it. No, to wait might raise questions— he could pass off the length of time he’d spent here by saying he was questioning the boys, but not the need to rest between Excisions. And if his work on Rolfort was less than elegant, well, the boy wasn’t going to live long enough to show evidence of the fact, now, was he?

Unlike young Lord Cilarnen.

Anigrel had plans for Cilarnen.

He gazed down at the sleeping Mageborn with the fondness of a craftsman for a tool that would yet give good service.

To anyone who might think to look, it would seem that Cilarnen’s Gift had been burned from his mind, just as was proper for any of the higher ranks of Magery who were Banished. It would seem that way to Cilarnen himself, for a time.

But Anigrel had other plans. Cilarnen Volpiril was far too valuable a pawn to cast away simply because he had been useful once. And if he were to be useful again, Anigrel wanted him intact and at the height of his powers.

It was possible, for the first time in recent memory, to survive the Hunt— enlarging the City’s boundaries to their old limits would be the work of moon-turns, and when Cilarnen was turned out of the Delfter Gate, the City Lands would only extend over the Central Valley. A determined man—a man who had the wit to steal a horse— might actually escape the City lands in a night.