Oath of Swords

“Ah?” Bahzell cocked his ears.

“They raped her, Bahzell. Not physically, but inside her mind, and she’s a mage.” Wencit shook his head, face tight with anger. “She knew what they were doing, which made it still worse. She’s . . . open to them. Vulnerable. And if they get the chance to strike her again, it won’t be to control, but to kill.”

“Can you be stopping them?” the Horse Stealer demanded flatly.

“I can, but I’ll have to keep her under my eye to shield her. And all I can really do about the damage is hold it where it is-keep it from growing any worse-until we get her someplace safe and familiar, where I can use past associations to help her rebuild her defenses. That means either a mage academy or Jashan itself, and getting her to either of those places won’t be easy.”

“Why not?” Brandark asked across the fire.

“Carnadosa has more followers in Norfressa than most people dream is possible,” Wencit replied. “They dare not draw attention to themselves, but they’re always with us. The Dark Gods promise their followers a great deal, and the lust for power cuts deep . . . especially in wizards.” He smiled bleakly at the two hradani. “For those who can, the need-the hunger-to wield the art is too terrible to resist. In a sense, it’s our own Rage. It drives us with a power and passion I doubt anyone but a hradani could truly understand.”

Bahzell sat motionless for a long moment, then nodded slowly. He’d never considered it in those terms, yet it made sense, and Wencit nodded back as he saw the understanding on the Horse Stealer’s face.

“Ottovar and Gwynytha understood that when they forged the Strictures,” the wild wizard said. “A wizard must use his powers, for there’s a glory-a splendor-in the art no one can resist. You can kill a wizard, but you can no more forbid him the use of the art than you could forbid the winter, so Ottovar and Gwynytha channeled and confined it, instead. They created a code to prevent the abuse of the art, yet by its very nature that code is eternally in conflict with temptations every wizard faces. The mere fact that it forbids them the unbridled use of their powers would make many resent and hate it, but there’s more to it than that, for the study of sorcery is a perilous one, and the restrictions of the Strictures make it more so.”

“Why?” Brandark asked.

“Because a wizard becomes a nexus of power when he plies his art. What he can accomplish depends directly upon the amount of energy he applies to the task, and he must place himself at the focus of the energies he wields. It requires years of study to develop the technique and strength of will to handle truly powerful concentrations, especially of the types of energy the Strictures allow a wizard to tap. If a wizard’s attention wavers at a critical moment, the power will turn on him in an eyeblink, but blood magic and black sorcery are far easier to manipulate than the wizardry the Strictures allow. A white wizard must stretch to the limits of his ability to command the power for complex, high-level applications; a black wizard requires less strength of will because the nature of the power he uses makes it easer to control. That’s why the dark art is so seductive, and it gives black wizards certain advantages. They deny the Strictures and pervert the art, and most of them are weaker than white wizards in the sense that they seldom fully develop their potential. They can achieve less with a given amount of power because their technique is more, well, lazy . Yet because the energy they tap is more susceptible to control, they can hold their own against inherently more powerful wizards bound by the Strictures-and if a white wizard resorts to expediency to match them, he becomes the very thing he fights, just as a warrior who breaks Tomanak’s Code reduces himself to the level of a Churnazh or Harnak.”

Bahzell’s eyes narrowed at the fresh evidence that Wencit knew all too much about him, but Brandark leaned towards the wizard, eyes intent. “I’ve always wondered what wizardry truly is. You talk about kinds of energy and power, about ‘blood magic’ and ‘black wizards.’ How does what you do truly differ from what they do?”

“It doesn’t,” Wencit said simply, and smiled as both hradani stiffened. “How does a sword in your hand differ from the same sword in the hand of a Harnak?” he challenged. Brandark frowned, and Wencit snorted. “The art is a tool, my friends; the use to which it’s put determines whether it’s ‘white’ or ‘black.’ ”

“Even blood magic?” Brandark challenged in turn.

“Even blood magic, though blood magic is by far the easiest to pervert. Wizardry-any wizardry-is simply the application of energy, and everything has its own energy. You do, Bahzell does, this rock I’m sitting on does. Indeed, if you could but perceive it, the entire universe is composed solely of energy. What you think of as ‘solid matter’ is a blaze of energy, bound up in shape and form and substance.”

Bahzell frowned skeptically, then remembered who was speaking. If anyone living knew what sorcery was, Wencit of Rum was that anyone.

“The problem,” the wizard went on, “is that not all energy is equally accessible. For example, the energy latent in nonliving matter is hard to lay hands on or bend to your will. It’s . . . call it raw energy. It’s unregulated and dangerous, apt to backlash through a wizard if his concentration falters, so he learns specific manipulations, carefully limited ways to use it. But living creatures, especially intelligent ones, act like lenses. Their energy content is no different from any other energy, but it’s channeled and focused. It resonates in time with the wizard’s, which makes it far easier to grasp. There’s power in life, my friends, in blood, and some of the most delicate workings of the art permitted under the Strictures were made possible only by the willing surrender of that focused power into the wizard’s hands.

“But the Strictures require that that surrender be willing, and what you think of as blood magic isn’t. That’s what makes it ‘evil,’ just as a sword used to strike down the helpless is ‘evil.’ Which, unfortunately, doesn’t make it any less potent for anyone willing to seize it by force.”

“I’m thinking I’m not so very fond of anyone who dabbles in power such as that, be it willingly given or no,” Bahzell rumbled.

“Which is why the Strictures’ limitations are so specific,” Wencit replied. “And why the only sentence for violating those limits is death.”

Silence hovered, broken only by the background howl of the wind, for long, still moments. Then Brandark frowned.

“But there’s a third sort of power, isn’t there?” Wencit looked at him, and the Bloody Sword shrugged. “I mean, all the tales refer to you as a ‘wild wizard.’ Doesn’t that mean there’s some sort of energy that only you or wizards like you can tap?”

“No. It only means we tap it in a different way.” Brandark looked as perplexed as Bahzell felt, and Wencit smiled crookedly. “Wild wizardry’s hard come by-someday I may tell you the price it carries-but it uses the same energy. The difference-” the wildfire eyes glittered and danced at them “-is that a wild wizard can use all the energy of any object.”

It was Bahzell’s turn to frown, but then his eyes widened and his ears pricked forward. “You mean-?”

“Precisely.” Wencit nodded. “Most wizards are what we call ‘wand wizards.’ They can’t really touch the energy of the universe directly. They require techniques-call them tools-to manipulate it. A wild wizard doesn’t ‘manipulate’ it at all; he simply channels it. In theory, a wild wizard could seize the total energy of every ounce of matter in an entire universe and focus it all upon a single task, a single objective.”

“Gods!” Brandark breathed, staring at Wencit in something very like horror.

“I said ‘in theory,’” Wencit reminded him gently. “In fact, no mortal could channel a fraction of such energy. For that matter, I doubt a god could survive channeling all of it! But even the minute portion of it a wild wizard can touch is far greater than the most powerful wand wizard can wield. It . . . changes him, of course. These-” he gestured at his glowing eyes “-are only the most obvious of those changes; others are far deeper and more subtle. Yet it’s that ability to draw on an effectively infinite reservoir of power that makes wild wizards so feared by other wizards. No wand wizard can match it, and the younger and stronger a wild wizard, the more of it his body can endure.”

“That being the case,” Bahzell said dryly, gesturing to where Wencit had slain the two black wizards, “I’m thinking it’s not so strange those two weren’t so very happy to be seeing you.”

“I imagine you’re right,” Wencit agreed with a cold, thin smile, then shook himself. “But the nature of the art is of less immediate importance than its consequences,” he said more briskly. “And the consequences are that there are a great many more black wizards than there are of me, and at this moment, quite a few of them are no doubt working to determine exactly where I am. My touch is quite distinctive, I’m afraid. Even if it weren’t, they’d almost have to suspect who was behind what happened to ‘those two,’ as you put it. They won’t be eager to match themselves against me, but they don’t really have to. They’re like spiders, weaving webs of influence in the dark,