accept an oathbond, and would spend the rest of his life toiling as a common farmhand.”
“And then he would be required to pay proper respect when brought before his betters.” Hazoth reached under his veil and stroked his chin. “It would require a certain ritual to send him thence, however, and such operations take time. Far quicker, I think, to simply ensure that he does not talk out of turn again.” He brought his free hand up in the air and made a complex gesture.
Malden felt as if an iron pincer had gripped his throat. He tried to open his mouth and felt the invisible force constrict until he could barely breathe. It was much like the barrier outside that had held him aloft in the air, but worse-the barrier had been unpleasant, but this was actually painful. He had no doubt that if Hazoth so chose, he could cause the force to squeeze until his windpipe were crushed.
“There,” Hazoth said, and moved back to his chair. “Much better. I hadn’t finished speaking, boy. I had more to say, and now I can. I was going to say how impressed I was with you. Cythera has spoken quite highly of your abilities as a thief, but that is a subject I find uninteresting. I am far more admiring of your willingness to overcome your-quite natural-fear of anyone more powerful than you. Coming here today was an act of uncommon valor in a lowborn not-quite-peasant such as yourself. And valor is commendable, even in its cruder forms. Rudeness, however, is always unacceptable, and I will not have it in my house. Had you not impressed me so much, I would extinguish your life like that of a rodent I found in my larder, do you understand? But I have chosen to be merciful.” He waved his hand. “You may now say, ‘Thank you, Magus.’ ”
The hold on Malden’s wind was gone, as if it had never been there.
“Thank you, Magus,” he said.
“You are most welcome. There. Not so hard to be polite, is it? You may speak.”
“I apologize,” Malden said, his heart burning in his chest, “for my rudeness.”
“Quite all right. I believe you had a message for me. Say it now.”
Malden cleared his throat. “I’ve come to tell you that you are in danger. Anselm Vry, the bailiff of this city, is searching you out even now. He knows the crown has been stolen, and he intends to recover it regardless of who might be inconvenienced.”
“That’s all you came to say?”
Malden nodded. The sorcerer had not told him he could speak.
“Very good. It is ever so kind of you to come and tell me this. It shows good business sense as well. You were hired to perform a task and you were paid handsomely. I take it your coming here to offer me warning was all part of the service, hmm? You are acting out of pure altruism, and want nothing further as recompense. Surely you didn’t think this would earn you some more coin. After all, the gold I gave you already should last a lifetime for one of such humble aspirations of yourself. That is, if you haven’t already drank it all, or spent it on some shiny but worthless bauble. You may speak.”
Malden chose his words carefully. “I admit, Magus, that my intentions were not unalloyed with self-interest. Vry intends to torture anyone connected with the theft until they provide the crown’s location. I fear he has some way of discovering my involvement, and that he will put me to the ordeal. It had occurred to me that you might be able to offer me some protection from that fate. It would be in our mutual self-interest, as then I could not reveal-”
“You and I have no mutual interests of any sort,” Hazoth told him. “Tell me something-you may answer me this-do you know why I wear this veil?”
Malden lowered his eyes. He thought of Anselm Vry’s hedge wizard, and what came from peering into his shew-stone. “It is my understanding that magic is never free. That power comes from the demons a magician treats with. So as his power grows, his body is twisted and deformed to resemble the creatures of the pit. I assume you wear the veil to hide some disfigurement.” An eye out of place, a face turned the texture of tree bark, a beard of writhing flesh…
“Oh, very good! And yes, that is the reason for the tradition. I don’t suppose your brain is capable of understanding what happens when one siphons power through the flaws in the underpinnings of our fractured cosmos, but you have the gist down pat. Perhaps you will brace yourself to take a look at what is beneath my veil.”
Malden’s stomach tightened as Hazoth reached up to lift the black crape away from his face. For a sorcerer as powerful as Hazoth, the price of magic must have been exceeding steep. Would the uncovering reveal skin as scaly and shiny as an asp’s? Would there be pus, and open sores that never closed, or even wounds so deep the skull would be visible? Would the face look human at all?
Then the veil was rolled back and Malden saw Hazoth’s face and he gasped in surprise. For the countenance thus exposed was perfect.
It was the face of a demigod. The cheekbones were high, the limpid blue eyes set perfectly far apart, the nose powerful without being over prominent. The skin was as clear as milk, with no blemish visible anywhere. It was a face of youth, of compassion, of inherent goodness and decency-except for the eyes, which were as hard as iron.
“I wear this veil,” Hazoth told Malden, “because if I did not, no one would take me seriously. They would think my power slight, my magic untested. Whereas in fact the opposite is true. When one becomes powerful enough, one is able to shape one’s appearance to fit one’s fancy. And I am quite powerful indeed. Let Anselm Vry come to my door, as you did. I will welcome him inside, and if he troubles me, I will dispatch him like an obnoxious fly.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Hazoth rose from his chair and went over to one of his bookshelves. He ran his finger along a number of spines before selecting a slim volume and pulling it free. “It was good of you to come here and give me your warning, boy. However little it was needed. Do you have anything else to say before you leave? You may speak.”
Malden bit his lip. Circumspection was everything now. “I can only plead with you then, Magus. Beg, if I must. I’m in a great deal of trouble, trouble I earned in your service. Does that not entitle me to some consideration? It would be a trifle for you to offer me some protection under your roof. If nothing else I could come work for you, in whatever capacity you saw fit.”
“A job? You want a job? But you already had one, dear boy. If there were risks involved, you knew them when you took it. Or perhaps you will claim you didn’t understand the magnitude of your crime. Well, considering your limited resources, I suppose that’s understandable. Come here.”
Malden’s legs started walking toward the sorcerer before he thought to move them. He’d had every intention of doing as he was bid, but it seemed the sorcerer wanted to compel him anyway. When he was standing only a few feet away-inside knife range, he thought bitterly-his legs stopped and froze in place.
Hazoth gestured with the book he held in his hands. “If I needed a table boy, or someone to muck out my stables, I could have you with a thought. I could render you mindless and servile. Bind you to my service for the remainder of your life, and do it in such a way you would be unutterably happy, thrilled every morning to rise from your pile of straw and spend another day working for me until your fingers bled. If I wanted that, it would already have begun.”
Malden swallowed carefully. His heart was racing.
“Such a waste that would be, though. You can read. Do you understand how rare that is? Reading is the difference, the mark, of a being capable of thinking beyond its own petty concerns. It is the one thing that truly separates humanity from the beasts. Somehow you have managed the art, and like a trained dog that can count with its paws, you amuse me. So no, I won’t give you a job. Or my protection. But you may have this instead: the greatest treasure I can convey, or at least the greatest that you will be able to comprehend.” Hazoth pressed the book into Malden’s hands.
It was bound in calf’s leather and was duodecimo in size. Gold characters were printed on the spine but in an alphabet Malden did not know.
“Read it at your leisure. I’m sure you’ll find it most edifying.” Hazoth smiled, revealing a double row of perfect white teeth. “You may thank me.”
