The maid produced a fresh tablecloth from somewhere and spread it over the table in a single fluid, silent motion.
“Look around you, Mari dear,” his mother said.
Marek did as he was told. His eyes played across the ornate furniture, most of it upholstered in silk, some gilded, others with jewels inlaid into the polished, rare hardwoods. The walls were freshly painted every three months, and the art was replaced at the same interval. The floor was marble and so perfectly buffed he could see his reflection in it. The scent of the spilled tea had given way to the ever-present lavender. His mother liked lavender.
The maid replaced the tray on the table and scurried out.
“He stays away in Eltabbar,” Marek said, “so we can live here.”
His mother drew in a breath so big it made her seem taller, then she let it out over the course of ten heartbeats and said, “That’s right.”
Marek nodded, though he really didn’t understand.
They looked at each other for a while, then their eyes shifted to the big double doors when a gong sounded from beyond them.
His mother started breathing more shallowly and her eyes darted over his face and body, taking in every last detail in less than a second.
“Your lips,” she whispered, using the tip of her little finger to smooth the edge of his mouth, which she’d outlined herself that morning with a pleasing shade of red.
“Who’s here?” he asked, knowing full well what the gong signified.
She seemed afraid to answer but was trying, when the doors opened. A man stepped into the room before the butler, who had opened the doors, had a chance to finish saying, “The Zulkir Kavor, milady.”
The man who walked into the room looked at no one but Marek. That in itself was unsettlingMarek was only eleven, and his mother was standing right there but there was more. The man who’d been announced as Zulkir Kavor was the tallest man Marek had even seen. His gathered robes shimmered in the lamplit chamber and hung on the man’s broad, solid form in layer after layer of linen, silk, and leather. His forearms, wrapped in some kind of soft, thin hide fastened at the wrists with carved, jewel-encrusted gold bands, were thick and powerful. His heavy boots made sounds like thunder that echoed against the polished marble floor.
“Zulkir,” Marek’s mother said, “you honor us.”
The zulkir didn’t even glance at her. His eyesdark brown, almost blackbore into Marek’s and the boy felt a cool sheen of sweat break out on his neck and back. Gooseflesh rose on the undersides of his arms.
The zulkir’s eyes burned from under a pronounced brow and over equally defined cheekbones. His mouth was set in a stern frown that was neither sad nor disapproving. His head was shaved, and not a single speck of stubble was evident on its surface.
“Rymut,” the man said. His voice, like his footsteps, rumbled in the air like thunder. “The boy?”
Marek found himself nodding, though he knew the question was intended for his mother, who cleared her throat before saying, “Yes, Zulkir.”
Marek was dressed and made up like a girl. His skin crawled under the zulkir’s gaze.
“Will you…?” his mother whispered.
“The decision has already been made,” said Kavor. “I wanted but to stand in his presence once to be certain.”
“And are you?” Marek asked, knowing he risked much by speaking at all, but not sure what exactly it was he was risking. “Certain?”
The man didn’t smile, and Marek wasn’t even sure why he thought he might, but he did nod.
“What’s that on your head?” Marek asked.
“Mari!” his mother hissed.
The man almost smiled when he replied, “You will find out.”
On his bald head was a drawing that looked at first like a random scattering of squares and triangles. The more Marek stared at it, the zulkir not moving, the more the blue-black shapes took on the form of a dragon’s head, its jaws agape and its fangs dripping with deadly venom.
Without another word, Zulkir Kavor turned and walked out.
When the door closed behind him, Marek looked up at his mother. A tear traced a path down her right cheek.
“You’re going to be going away now,” she said, her voice breaking and tight. She smiled. “You’re going to honor our family by being a Red Wizard.”
Marek didn’t know what that was, but if it made him anything like Zulkir Kavor, he couldn’t wait to start.
2
7 Eleint, the Year of the Marching Moon (1330 DR) — Fourth Quarter,
Innarlith tlhe sound was meant to scare him, but it wasn’t work-i; iag. A constant, regular tap tap tap tap tap of steel on brick said, “I have a knife” and “I’m coming for you.”
Pristoleph had been chased by boys with knives before hmA had even been caught by them. Only twelve years old, he had been stabbed eight times, twice badly enough to nearly kill him He knew that the sound the point of a dull knife made as it entered his skin was louder than the sound a sharp knife made. The deeper the wound, the less it hurt. The rustier the blade, the longer it took to heal.
One of the boys who was chasing him whistled. It sounded like a signal, but Pristoleph didn’t know exactly what it meant. He looked up at the wall rising high into the sky next to him. Sounds echoed between the wall and the tightly packed cluster of falling-down buildings pressed almost right up to it. The alley between the wall and the abandoned houses was narrow enough that Pristoleph could have touched the wall with his left hand and the house with his right. On the other side of the towering wall was the outside. Pristoleph had imagined what the outside looked like but had never seen it. He’d never left the city, though he’d lived right at its very edge his entire short, miserable life.
Because of the echoes, Pristoleph couldn’t be certain exactly where his pursuers were, how close behind or in front of him. It seemed as if they were all around him, but it might have just been a trick of the narrow confines.
He kept moving, knowing that was one thing that might save him He could see in the dark better than a human, and if the footsteps that followed him was the human gang he thought they were he would be at an advantage. The night was clear and hot. Humans would find the temperature uncomfortable. Moving fast in tight places, in the dark, sweating, excited, they would make mistakes.
A loud crash came from behind him, then a dull thud and a whispered curse. It was a boy’s voice. He stumbled in the dark alley and knocked over a barrel. Scurrying noises must have been rats. Pristoleph didn’t stop to make sure.
“Mandalax!” someone whispered.
The sound pinged from city wall to house to city wall and back again, but Pristoleph was sure the voice had come from behind him. He stifled a smile at the sound of it. He knew the name. Mandalax’s gang was indeed a human one, notorious in the Fourth Quarterthe district closest to the great sweeping curtain wall that protected Innarlith from Pristoleph didn’t know whatas a pack of petty street thugs who’d recently taken to crawling into people’s houses through their chimneys. With the long, hot summers on the eastern shores of the balmy Lake of Steam, they had an ample season’s worth of warm nights with no fires. Pristoleph had heard that they’d even started crawling into the shops on the edge of the Third Quarter, hunting bigger game. Mandalax wanted him to join, expecting Pristoleph to strip naked and climb down one chimney after another, only to give the spoils to the gang leader. Pristoleph knew better than to get into that line of work and had no problem telling Mandalax where to go.
A shadow flickered in firelight from a cross-alley and Pristoleph slid to a stop. The figure paused, standing at the mouth of the alley. Pristoleph crept to the corner of the dark house on his right, half an inch at a time. The
