You’ve been collecting magic.”
“Exactly.” Faran smiled crookedly. “And if I’m an outlaw now anyway, through no fault of my own, and must either renounce my title or put an end to the Guild’s prohibition on the nobility’s use of magic, there’s no point in concealing it anymore. Using a spell to contact Guildmaster Ithinia should demonstrate that we are indeed her fellow magicians, and not merely rabble.”
Hanner was not sure his uncle, in his anger, had thought this through properly-possession of illegal magic other than warlockry might merely demonstrate that Faran was even more dangerous than the overlord believed.
“I don’t understand,” Mavi said. “What are you talking about?”
“You explain it, Hanner,” Faran said as he turned toward the stairs. “I have matters to attend to.”
Hanner sighed and explained.
“My uncle has been interested in magic for years,” he said. “So have I, for that matter, and when he’s too busy with other city business I’ve taken charge of handling the magical stuff. It really annoys him that the Wizards’ Guild forbids any reigning triumvir or monarch, or any hereditary official of any government, to learn magic or to use magic for direct personal benefit. The limits do seem arbitrary sometimes-for example, we can use magic in the city courts to determine what’s true, but we can’t use it as punishment. The magistrates can’t sentence a murderer to be turned to stone or order a thief to spend a year as a cat, no matter how appropriate that might be. And a hereditary lord can decorate his mansion with, say, talking statuary or seal his strongbox with a rune, because those just enhance possessions he’d have anyway, but he can’t hire a magician to cure his warts, because that enhanceshim. Uncle Faran can hire a seer to spy on a traitor, because that benefits the entire city, but not on one of Azrad’s other advisors, because that would be to his own political benefit. The exact rules are complex, and sometimes they don’t seem entirely consistent— the Guild judges some cases individually, and sometimes it seems as if the ruling depends more on how annoying the wizards find the person asking than on what’s actually asked.”
“I knew part of that,” Mavi said. “Not the details, since I’m neither a lady nor a wizard, but I knew the overlord couldn’t just order the wizards to do whatever he wants.”
“Oh, he can’torder them to doanything,” Hanner said. “He has to pay them, just like anyone else does, and they’re always free to refuse a job, even if it’s something the Guild has approved.”
“Oh,” Mavi said.
“Tell her about mixing magic,” Alris said.
“That’s another thing that annoys our uncle,” Hanner said. “The Wizards’ Guild insists that each magician should only learn one kind of magic. Witches aren’t allowed to learn wizardry, sorcerers aren’t allowed to learn theurgy, and so on. The Guild hasn’t always managed to make that one go-I’ve seen witches and ’wizards use a little sorcery, and demonologists and theurgists have been known to trade invocations occasionally. Mostly, though, that’s accepted-you won’t find wizards summoning demons, or witches turning people into newts.” He sighed. “Sometimes I think they don’t allow the nobility to use anything else because they consider political power a sort of magic itself, and it would be mixing magic.”
“I didn’t know it was arule, that no one could learn two kinds of magic,” Mavi said. “I thought it was just too hard, learning more than one.”
“It may be that, too,” Hanner admitted. “Uncle Faran doesn’t believe it, but I’m the one who’s talked to dozens and dozens of magicians, and most of them are far too busy learning more of their regular arts to worry about other disciplines. I’ve never heard of the Wizards’ Guild really enforcing that one-they don’t need to.”
“All right,” Mavi said, “but what does that have to do with Lord Faran going upstairs?”
Hanner sighed. “This house has four floors,” he said. “The first two are where Uncle Faran brings women he doesn’t want in the Palace, for one reason or another. He may do other things here as well, I don’t know-for all I know he could meet with a secret cult of assassins every sixnight.Bern, here, takes care of the two lower floors when Uncle Faran isn’t using them.”
Bernacknowledged the mention of his name with a quick bow.
“But the top two floors are kept locked up,” Hanner continued. “Bernisn’t allowed up there. Faran’s women don’t go up there. Nobody does but Uncle Faran. So what could he possibly have that he needs to keep secret? He’sLord Faran, chief advisor to the overlord of Ethshar of the Spices-he can do pretty much anything he wants...”
“Except magic,” Mavi said.
“Right. So he’s been secretly collecting magical stuff, I would guess, and hiding it up there, and now he’s going to go use something up there to contact the Wizards’ Guild and talk to them about warlockry.”
“He said something about someone named Ithinia?”
“That’s our local Guildmaster. At least, the one we know about.”
“What’s a Guildmaster?” Rudhira asked.
Hanner was getting tired of explaining things that everyone he ordinarily dealt with had known since childhood, but he carried on. After all, some of these people might be magicians of a sort, but they hadn’t had any training, and there was no reason for anyone but an aristocrat or a magician to have learned any of this.
“All wizards are members of the Wizards’ Guild,” he said. “They kill anyone who practices wizardry without joining, or who breaks other Guild rules-the rulers of Old Ethshar gave them that authority hundreds of years ago, maybe thousands, and nobody argues with it. Most of them are just ordinary members, though, the same way most people are just ordinary citizens of Ethshar. A few wizards are chosen as Guildmasters-we don’t know who does the choosing, or how, and apparently anyone who told us would be put to death. The Guildmasters have more authority. We don’t know how much-maybe the Guildmasters run everything, but there are rumors that there’s some secret higher rank. We don’t even know whether there are different levels of Guildmaster, or how many Guildmasters there are in the city, or who they are — again, that’s all kept secret. But we do know the names of a few, so that we know who to talk to if we need to consult the Wizards’ Guild and don’t want to work our way up from the bottom. The highest-ranking Guildmaster we know of in Ethshar of the Spices-and really, we’re justassuming she’s ranked higher than the other two we know about-is named Ithinia, and she has a mansion on Lower Street, near Arena.”
Rudhira said, “That’s less than half a mile from here.” “I know,” Manner said. “Much less. That’s why I offered to take a message.”
“Uncle Faran would rather do it himself,” Alris said. “He likes showing off.”
“It sounds dangerous to me,” Mavi said. “If he has magical things up there and he uses them to send a message to Ithinia, isn’t he admitting he’s broken their rules?”
“Yes,” Hanner said. He glanced uncomfortably up the stairs; Faran was long since out of sight. “I hope he knows what he’s doing.”
Hanner thought it all too likely that his uncle didnot know— that after being cast out by the overlord he had lost his temper so thoroughly that he wasn’t thinking clearly, and was more concerned with demonstrating that he still had power than with the best long-term strategy.
Or maybe he had simply gotten fed up with keeping so many secrets.
Or maybe he did know what he was doing, after all. He had far more experience than Hanner in these matters.
“Ireally hope so,” Hanner said.
Chapter Twenty
Ithinia of the Isle was not happy. She was short on sleep, having been rousted out earlier than her wont by panicky messages from various lords, magistrates, and magicians, and she had spent the entire day dealing with people who expected her to know far more than she did, which she always found wearing.
Furthermore, she didn’t approve of changes in the normal routine of Ethsharitic life. Whatever had happened the night before had disrupted any number of things, and Ithinia resented that.
And finally, she had spent the whole day talking to people instead of doing magic. She hadn’t cast a single decent spell. Oh, she had used a few simple tricks and applied some existing artifacts, but she hadn’t worked
