“Oh,” Hanner said. He was too tired to pursue the matter further and returned his attention to sleeping arrangements. In the end Alris and Rudhira took the chief guest room and Hanner took Faran’s own bed for himself, while the others were paired off more or less randomly in the other nine chambers.
Each room was tastefully lush and equipped with enough bedding for two-sometimes one large bed, sometimes more than one. No one complained about the accommodations; in fact, some rooms were greeted with awed silence. What delays did occur were the result of getting lamps or candles lit, locating chamber pots, and arguing over who would share which room.
Hanner was unspeakably weary, almost staggering, when Bern finally swung open the door of the master bedroom and led Hanner in.
Hanner stopped dead in his tracks and simply stared while Bern crossed to a bedside table to light the lamp there.
He had known that his uncle had a sybaritic streak, and had often heard Faran complain about the size, arrangement, and condition of their apartments in the Palace, but he had always assumed those complaints to be largely empty rhetoric. Hanner had seen the interiors of several other mansions in the New City and knew they were more luxurious than the rooms in the Palace, but he had always found Faran’s official quarters comfortable enough. Despite the grumbles, he had thought his uncle did, too.
Now he changed his mind.
It was not a matter of size; the grand bedchamber was large, but not outrageously so. It was, rather, the furnishings that impressed him.
The bed was thick and soft, mattresses piled waist-high within the carved ebony frame, and was wide enough that Hanner could have lain across the black silken coverlet with neither head nor feet hanging over the side. Lengthwise, he could not stretch far enough to reach both footboard and headboard simultaneously. Wine-red velvet curtains trimmed in black and gold hung from a silk and velvet canopy, tied back on either side with elaborate gold-braid rosettes.
At each corner of the bed stood a table. The two at the head held the usual appurtenances-lamps, basin, pitcher, mirrors, and so on. The two at the foot held bronze statues, each of a nude couple engaged in amorous play. Chests of drawers, trimmed with intricate carvings, stood against one wall, and two enormous wardrobes, their doors elaborately painted, occupied another. A marble statue of a woman stood in the center of the room. A small, extraordinarily fine shrine was built into the wall near the head of the bed. Two broad windows, shuttered and curtained, pierced the north side of the room. A large marble and gilt mantel topped a carved marble fireplace above an elegant tile hearth; a gold and ivory screen blocked the opening, since no one would want a fire for months. Half a dozen fine small carpets hid much of the polished parquet floor, and a dozen painted panels adorned the walls; the paintings mostly seemed to involve beautiful people in states of undress. Everywhere were detailed carvings, fine woods, rich textures and colors.
Hanner had seen the overlord’s own bedchamber once; it was not so lush and ornate as this.
“Gods,” he murmured.
Then he realized that Bern had been talking and had stopped. He had asked Hanner a question.
“What?” Hanner asked.
“Breakfast arrangements, my lord,” Bern said. “What shall I do?”
“Do you...” Hanner began, then he remembered some of what Bern had already said. He hadn’t really been listening, but some of it had registered anyway.
Bernwas merely the chief caretaker; other servants came in sometimes during the day to clean and maintain the place, and when Faran was in residence a full staff was on call.
Hanner had been about to ask about Bern ’s cooking skills, but now he thought better of it.
“Just something simple,” he said. “Cold salt ham and small beer, perhaps. Or fruit and bread, if any is on hand, but you needn’t light the oven.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Bern said. He bowed and departed— Hanner stepped into the room, out of Bern ’s way, when the servant reached the doorway.
Bernclosed the door softly behind him, leaving Hanner staring at his uncle’s private bedchamber.
Hanner had never realized that Faran wouldwant a place like this. He had known his uncle pursued women whenever he had the time free from his work, and affected expensive tastes, but somehow Hanner had still thought of Faran as a frugal and com-mon-sensical man, not the sort of sybarite who would maintain so elaborate a hideaway.
He wondered how, after a dozen years living with his uncle, he could have understood him so little. It was somehow the biggest surprise of the entire long, strange night.
And a very long, very strange night it had been. Walking Mavi home had been only very slightly out of the ordinary, a natural progression in a normal relationship, but from then on the night had grown ever more bizarre. Strange new magic erupting all over the city, people running amok with it, the magicians of the Wizards’ Quarter confounded, Hanner making himself the leader of a posse set upon restoring order, being refused admission to his home in the overlord’s palace, being sent here instead-and rinding that his uncle was not the man Hanner had thought him, all these years.
Hanner let out a long, shuddering sigh, then headed for the bed, pulling off his tunic.
Perhaps in the morning everything would be back to normal. Perhaps this strange new magic would pass with the dawn, perhaps the overlord’s orders would have changed, perhaps everyone could go back to their own proper homes...
But, Hanner realized, as he pulled off his boots, Uncle Faran would still be capable of having maintained this amazing secret retreat.That wasn’t going to go away.
But it might not seem to matter by daylight. Hanner crawled under the coverlet, straightened the pillow under his head, blew out the lamp, and fell instantly asleep.
Chapter Twelve
Ulpen of North Herris arose early from a night of troubled dreams, while the sun was still red in the east. Half-asleep, he stumbled to the kitchen to stir up the fire and get his master’s breakfast.
He felt strange and awkward as he moved through the familiar rooms of the wizard’s house in the slanting orange light, and the walls seemed almost to close in on him, suffocating him-an image he knew came from one particular nightmare that still haunted him.
He used the poker to spread out the banked coals in the bottom of the stove, then returned it to its hook and fetched wood and tinder from the bin. He threw a handful of tinder onto the coals, but when it flared up suddenly he started back involuntarily; the fire was too much like one of his dreams. He backed unthinkingly away from the stove, blinking mazily, rather than adding the sticks he held to the fire.
His foot hit an obstruction-Deathbringer, the wizard’s cat. Deathbringer yowled in protest. Trying desperately not to hurt the cat, trying not to drop the firewood, Ulpen lost his balance and began to fall backward. The sticks tumbled from his arms as he belatedly flung out his hands to catch himself.
“Augh!” he said as he and the wood stopped falling.
Then he realized that he hadn’t hit the plank floor, and that the sticks hadn’t, either. The little stack of wood had somehow reformed, balanced impossibly on his chest as he rested on one leg, one palm, and empty air.
Magic had broken his fall.
“Thank you, Master,” he said, carefully lowering himself and the wood to the floor and turning to the doorway. Since he had hardly been in a position to cast a spell even had he thought quickly enough, he assumed his master had stopped his fall.
Sure enough, the wizard Abdaran stood in the kitchen doorway, staring down at his apprentice and frowning. The frown deepened as he said, “It was none ofmy doing.” Ulpen blinked. He gathered up the wood and set it on the floor, then sat up, turning to face his master.
“Until you spoke I had intended to ask you what spell you used,” Abdaran said. “I didn’t recognize it and thought perhaps you had been meddling in things best left alone.”
