To Light A Candle

Light. A little gentle pressure from Lycaelon would gain his resignation—for health reasons, of course.

And if Vilmos would not see reason, it would be a simple matter some night, when he and Anigrel stood together in the Circle, to see that some Great Working went just wrong enough to cripple the old dodderer, or perhaps even kill him. Vilmos had been excused from the Circle lately on account of his age, but it would be easy enough to goad him into returning.

Perhaps that would even be for the best. There had been too many resignations from the Council recently. A death in service would be more fitting—and uplifting to the Commons.

Arance and Perizel were another matter. Both men were in their prime— both stood in the way of Anigrel’s plans—and neither was susceptible to pressure—on themselves, or their sons.

A man who had begun his rise to power by murdering his own father—as Anigrel had—certainly did not blink at a little more blood on his hands. But the High Mages were well guarded—and difficult to kill.

But at the moment, a more pleasant task awaited him.

From its small casket, Anigrel removed the iron bowl, and set it on the desk that now occupied the center of what had once been his sitting room. Now that there were visitors to his rooms, the casket shimmered with Spells of Warding, and would open only to his touch. But that in itself attracted no attention—the High Mage Anigrel Tavadon was known to have many secrets, all of which he kept for the good of the City.

From the pencase at his belt he took the knife he would use, and set it beside the bowl.

Now he opened the bag and lifted out a large grey cat.

No doubt it had been some Mageborn miss’s pampered pet, but Anigrel had seen it walking along the top of a garden wall, and the opportunity had been too good to pass up. It had been the work of an instant to enchant the creature into Sleep and tuck it into his bag. No one had seen him.

Now, before the animal could rouse fully into wakefulness again, he lifted the cat over the iron bowl and slit its throat with a quick deft motion. Blood spurted into the bowl with a ringing sound, filling it to the brim—cats held so much more blood than the pigeons he had been forced to employ for so many years.

And a child… a child would be even better. But he must be careful. His dominion over the City was not yet complete.

A mist of power formed over the steaming surface of the blood. Anigrel leaned forward, dropping the lifeless body of the cat carelessly and opening his mind to his Dark Lady, as he had each Dark Moon for almost his entire life.

“What do you have to tell me, my slave, my love?”

Her darkness filled his mind and his soul, completing him in a way that nothing else ever had and ever could. From the moment he had first seen her reflection in a mirror in his father’s house when he had been a child of eight, he had been hers utterly. She had been his first and best teacher. He would do anything to be with her always.

Quickly he told her everything.

“And soon they will be yours entirely, Mistress,” Anigrel said humbly.

“Yet something troubles you, my pet. I sense it.”

“Two inconvenient Mages. They must be removed.”

He felt the rich glow of his Dark Lady’s amusement.

“Umbrastone is what you need, my jewel, my slave. It will poison a Mage-man and send him to his bed. Mixed with another poison, it will render that poison undetectible by magic.”

Anigrel felt a thrill of delight. Two members of the High Council poisoned in their beds! With only a little care, he could make it look as if their own families were responsible…

“Now that I have done something for you, you must do something for me. It is so hard for me to come to you, sweet Anigrel. You must change the Wards that bind the City. You have the power now …”

“Yesss…” Only let him remove three more members of the Council, and it would be a simple enough matter to suggest that the Mage Council was now stretched too thin for its members to stand in the Circle for every Great Working. To suggest that maintaining the City-Wards be turned over to a specific trusted body of Mages who performed no other task.

Anigrel would select them. Anigrel would lead them.