Rise Of Empire (13 page)

Royce entered the dorm as she finished her work. He was wearing his cloak with the hood up. It dripped a puddle on the floor.

“We’ll be leaving well before dawn,” he pronounced.

“Is something wrong?” Hadrian asked.

“I found a few students snooping around the carriage house when I made my rounds.”

“He does that,” Hadrian explained to Arista. “Sort of an obsession he has. Can’t sleep otherwise.”

“You were there?” she asked.

Royce nodded. “They won’t be troubling us anymore.”

Arista felt the blood drain from her face. “You … you killed them?” she asked in a whisper. As she said it, she felt sick. A few minutes earlier, listening to their horrible discussion, she had found herself wishing them harm, but she had not meant it. They were little more than children. She knew, however, that Royce might not see it that way. She had come to realize that for him, a threat was a threat no matter the package.

“I considered it.” No tone of sarcasm tempered his words. “If they had turned left toward the chancellor’s residence, instead of right toward the dormitories … But they didn’t. They went straight to their rooms. Nevertheless, we’ll not be
waiting until morning. We’ll be leaving in a few hours. That way even if they do start a rumor about horses from Melengar, we’ll be long gone by the time it reaches the right ears. The empire’s spies will assume we’re heading to Trent to beg their aid. We’ll need to get you a new mount, though, before heading to Colnora.”

“If we’re leaving as soon as that, I should go see Arcadius about that meal he promised,” Hadrian said.

“No!” Arista told him hastily. They looked at her, surprised. She smiled, embarrassed by her outburst. “I’ll go. It will give you two a chance to change out of your wet things without me here.” Before they could say anything, she slipped out and down the hallway to the stairs.

It had been nearly a year since that morning on the bank of the Nidwalden River when Esrahaddon had put a question in her head. The wizard had admitted using her to orchestrate the murder of her father to facilitate his escape, but he had also suggested there was more to the story. This could be her only chance to speak with Arcadius. She took a right at the bottom of the stairs and hurried to his study.

Arcadius sat on a stool at a small wooden desk on the far side of the room, studying a page of a massive tome. Beside him was a brazier of hot coals and an odd contraption she had never seen before—a brown liquid hung suspended above the heat of the brazier in a glass vial as a steady stream of bubbles rose from a small stone immersed in the liquid. The steamy vapors rose through a series of glass tubes and passed through another glass container, filled with salt crystals. From the end of that tube, a clear fluid slowly dripped into a small flask. A yellow liquid also hung suspended above the flask, and through a valve one yellow drop fell for each clear one. As these two liquids mixed, white smoke silently rose into the air. Occasionally he adjusted a valve, added salt, or pumped
bellows, causing the charcoal to glow red hot. At her entrance, Arcadius looked up.

He removed his glasses, wiped them with a rag from the desk, and put them back on. He peered at her through squinting eyes.

“Ah, my dear, come in.” Then, as if remembering something important, he hastily twisted one of the valves. A large puff of smoke billowed up, causing several of the animals in the room to chatter. The stone fell to the bottom of the vial, where it lay quietly. The animals calmed down, and the elderly master of lore turned and smiled at Arista, motioning for her to join him.

This was no easy feat. Arista searched for open floor to step on and, finding little, grabbed the hem of her robe and opted to step on the sturdiest-looking objects in the shortest path to the desk.

The wizard waited patiently with a cheery smile, his high rosy cheeks causing the edges of his eyes to wrinkle like a bed-sheet held in a fist.

“You know,” he began as she made the perilous crossing, “I always find it interesting what paths my students take to reach me. Some are direct, while others take more of a roundabout approach. Some end up getting lost in the clutter and others find the journey too much trouble and give up altogether without even reaching me.”

Arista was certain he implied more than he said, but she had neither the time nor the inclination to explore it further. Instead, she replied, “Perhaps if you straightened up a bit, you wouldn’t lose so many students.”

The wizard tilted his head. “I suppose you’re right, but where would be the fun in that?”

Arista stepped over the rabbit cage, around the large pestle
and mortar, and stood before the desk on a closed cover of a book no less than three feet in height and two in width.

The lore master looked down at her feet, pursed his lips, and nodded his approval. “That’s Glenmorgan the Second’s biography, easily seven hundred years old.”

Arista looked alarmed.

“Not to worry, not to worry,” he told her, chuckling to himself. “It’s a terrible book written by church propagandists. The perfect platform for you to stand on, don’t you think?”

Arista opened her mouth, thought about what she was going to say, and then closed it again.

The wizard chuckled once more. “Ah yes, they’ve gone and made an ambassador out of you, haven’t they? You’ve learned to think before you speak. I suppose that’s good. Now tell me, what brings you to my office at this hour? If it’s about dinner, I apologize for the delay, but the stoves were out and I needed to fetch a boy to get them fired again. I also had to drag the cook away from a card game, which he wasn’t at all pleased about. But a meal is being prepared as we speak and I’ll have it brought up the moment it is finished.”

“It’s not that, Master—”

He put up a hand to stop her. “You are no longer a student here. You are a princess and Ambassador of Melengar. If you call me Arcadius, I won’t call you Your Highness, agreed?” The grin of his was just too infectious to fight. She nodded and smiled in return.

“Arcadius,” she began again, “I’ve had something on my mind and I’ve been meaning to visit you for some time, but so much has been happening. First there was Fanen’s funeral. Then, of course, Tomas arrived in Melengar.”

“Oh yes, the Wandering Deacon of Dahlgren. He came here as well, preaching that a young girl named Thrace is the
Heir of Novron. He sounded very sincere. Even I was inclined to believe him.”

“A lot of people did and that’s part of the reason Melengar’s fate is so precarious now.”

Arista stopped. There was someone at the door—a pretty girl, perhaps six years old. Long dark hair spilled over her shoulders, and her hands were clasped together, holding a length of thin rope that she played with, spinning it in circles.

“Ah, there you are. Good,” the wizard told the girl, who stared apprehensively at Arista. “I was hoping you’d turn up soon. He’s starting to cause a fuss. It’s as if he can tell time.” Arcadius glanced at Arista. “Oh, forgive me. I neglected to introduce you. Arista, this is Mercy.”

“How do you do?” Arista asked.

The little girl said nothing.

“You must forgive her. She’s a bit shy with strangers.”

“A bit young for Sheridan, isn’t she?”

Arcadius smiled. “Mercy is my ward. Her mother asked me to watch over her for a while until her situation improved. Until then I try my best to educate her, but as I learned with you, young ladies can be most willful.” He turned to the girl. “Go right ahead, dear. Take Mr. Rings outside with you before he rips up his cage again.”

The girl moved across the room’s debris as nimbly as a cat and removed a thin raccoon from his cage. He was a baby by the look of it, and she carried him out the door, giggling as Mr. Rings sniffed her ear.

“She’s cute,” Arista said.

“Indeed she is. Now, you said you had something on your mind?”

Arista nodded and considered her words. The question Esrahaddon had planted she now presented to her old teacher. “Arcadius, who approved my entrance into Sheridan?”

The lore master raised a bristled eyebrow. “Ah,” he said. “You know, I always wondered why you never asked before. You are perhaps the only female to attend Sheridan University in its seven-hundred-year history, and certainly the only one to study the arcane arts at all, but you never questioned it once.”

Arista’s posture tightened. “I’m questioning it now.”

“Indeed … indeed,” the wizard replied. He sat back, removed his glasses, and rubbed his nose briefly. “I was visited by Chancellor Ignatius Lambert, and asked if I would be willing to accept a gifted young lady into my instructions on arcane theory. This surprised me. You see, I didn’t teach a class on arcane theory. I had wanted to, and I requested to have it added to the curriculum on many occasions, but I was always turned down by the school’s patrons. It seemed they didn’t feel that teaching magic was a respectable pursuit. Magic uses power not connected to a spiritual devotion to Maribor and Novron. At best, it was subversive and possibly outright evil in their minds. The fact that I practiced the arcane arts at all has always been an embarrassment.”

“Why haven’t they replaced you?”

“It could be that my reputation as the most learned wizard in Avryn lends such prestige to this school that they allow me my hobbies. Or it may be that anyone who has tried to force my resignation has been turned into the various toads, squirrels, and rabbits you see about you.”

He appeared so serious that Arista looked around the room at the various cages and aquariums, at which point the wizard began to chuckle.

She scowled at him—which only made him laugh harder.

“As I was saying,” Arcadius went on once he regained control of himself, “Ignatius was in one sentence offering me my desire to teach magic if I was willing to accept you as a student.
Perhaps he thought I would refuse. Little did he know that unlike the rest of them, I harbor no prejudices concerning women. Knowledge is knowledge, and the chance to instruct and enlighten a princess—a potential leader—with the power to help shape the world around us was not a deterrent at all. On the contrary, I saw it as a bonus.”

“So you’re saying I was allowed entrance because of a plan of the school’s headmaster that backfired?”

“Not at all. That is merely how it happened, not why.
Why
is a much more important question. You see, School Chancellor Ignatius Lambert was not alone in my office that morning. With him was another man. He remained silent and stood over there, just behind and to the left of you, where the birdcage is now. The cage wasn’t there then, of course. Instead, he chose to stand on a discarded old coat and a dagger. As I mentioned, it’s always interesting to see the paths people take when they enter this office, and where they choose to stand.”

“Who was he?”

“Percy Braga, the Archduke of Melengar.”

“So it
was
Uncle Percy.”

“He certainly was involved, but even an archduke of Melengar wasn’t likely to have influence over those running Sheridan University, especially on a matter as volatile as teaching magic to young noble ladies. Sheridan is in the ecclesiastical realm of Ghent, where secular lords have no sway. There was, however, another man with them. He never entered my office but stood in the doorway, in the shadows.”

“Could you tell who it was?”

“Oh yes.” Arcadius smiled. “These are reading glasses, my dear. I can see long distances just fine, but then, I can see that is a common mistake people make.”

“Who was it, then?”

“A close friend of your family, I believe. Bishop Maurice Saldur of Medford’s Mares Cathedral, but you probably already knew that, didn’t you?”

Good to his word, Arcadius sent steaming meat pies and red wine. Arista recalled the pies from her days as a student. They were never very good, even when fresh. Usually they were made from the worst cuts of pork, because the school saved lamb for the holidays. The pies were heavy on onions and carrots and thin on gravy and meat. Students actually gambled on how many paltry shreds of pork they would find in their pies—a mere five stood as the record. Despite their complaints, the other students wolfed down their meals, but she never had. Most of the other students’ indignation she guessed was only bluster—they likely ate no better at home. Arista, however, was accustomed to three or four different meats roasted on the bone, several varieties of cheese, freshly baked breads, and whatever fruits were in season. To get her through the week, she had servants bring deliveries from home, which she had kept in her room.