Vincalis the Agitator (25 page)

She reached out. Rang the chime. When the servant answered, she said, “This is Velyn Artis-Tanquin. Please tell my mother
and father that I will be dining with them tonight.”

Wraith returned to the theater by the first light of dawn. Frost glittered on the streets, on the buildings, on the plants,
and the pink pale light turned the city into rose diamonds, fairy crystals grown enormous in some madman’s happy dream. Though
they kept their voices soft, still Wraith and his new friends, all talking at once, all wondrously excited about their new
friendship, their discovery of each other, could hear the sudden sharp echoes of their laughter though the nearly silent streets.

When they burst into the theater, Wraith was so excited to show them all what he had accomplished, he sent poor sleeping Solander
into a graceless, panicked tumble from the bench he’d stretched out on.

And Wraith realized what a worry his disappearance must have been to his friends. Poor Solander. Poor Jess. Jess, who worried
about the tiniest of things, must have spent the night frantic. Solander at least had managed to get some sleep, though he
looked much the worse for a night spent on a bench made only for sitting.

Solander, bleary-eyed and still confused, scrambled to his feet and stared at the strangers, and then looked to Wraith for
explanation. “You’re all right? You weren’t hurt or … anything … last night?”

“I got lost,” Wraith told him. “Ended up in a village way at the northern perimeter of the city.”

“Bakangaardsvan,” Wraith’s new friend Rionvyeers said.

Solander nodded. “I’ve never heard of it. But …” He looked down at the floor, clearly annoyed, and said, “You could have let
someone know where you were. Jess and I spent most of the night messaging each other, checking to see if you’d shown up anywhere
yet.”

“I couldn’t,” Wraith said.

“It takes a minute.”

“It takes a minute if you have a speaker. Bakangaardsvan doesn’t have speakers. Doesn’t have anything that uses any form of
magic anywhere in it.”

Solander looked disbelieving—and then he gave Wraith’s companions a second and much closer study. He looked at the clothes,
at the shoes, at the hairstyles—and when he’d finished staring, he turned to Wraith. “They’re Kaan,” he said, as if that were
an indictment.

“I know.”

“Wraith. You can’t associate with Kaan. They’re one of the proscribed peoples. They’re tolerated within the borders of the
Hars Ticlarim only so long as they follow special laws given to them. They must keep themselves and their kind apart from
the general population—they are not permitted to proselytize, nor are they permitted to gather outside of the confines of
their villages in numbers greater than twenty-five.” He glanced at the group accompanying Wraith, and Wraith could see him
counting. “They must, when they are not within their villages, wear clothing that marks them as being from one of the proscribed
peoples.” He seemed to be drawing away from the Kaan, even though he stood still. “You can’t associate with them, Wraith.
You’re stolti. You’re a student of one of the finest academies in the Hars. You’re … you’re on your way to being someone of
importance in the Empire, and if you allow yourself to associate with Kaan, you’ll carry a taint that won’t wash away with
time, with explanations, with … anything. Just by being with them, they’ll ruin you.”

Wraith crossed his arms over his chest, leaned against the wall, and smiled just the tiniest bit. “Sol. You’re nearly apoplectic.
Take a deep breath, and then I want to ask you a simple question.”

“I’m fine,” Solander snapped. “I’m just praying that no one who matters will come through those doors before we have a chance
to get these … these
people
out of sight. My … gods … I could lose any chance I had of making it onto the Council if I were seen with them.”

The Kaan looked at each other, their expressions ranging from uncertainty to distaste to outright horror. “He’s a … wizard?”
the woman Bleytaarn said to Wraith.

Wraith nodded. “He intends to change the Council from the inside. To find a way to do away with the forms of magic that require
sacrifice. He’s on our side.”

“He doesn’t sound like he is. He sounds like he’s one of them, through and through.”

“He hasn’t thought yet,” Wraith told her. “Patience.” And he turned to Solander. “They’re proscribed. Fine. Why are they proscribed,
Solander?”

“They have disgusting religious beliefs. They practice bizarre and totally unacceptable sexual practices—”

“Like the festival?” Wraith asked.

“And they maintain a belief system that is treasonous to the aims of the Empire, and that, if it were to spread outside of
their little groups, could lead to the downfall of the Hars.”

Wraith nodded and smiled. “And what belief system do the Kaan maintain?”

“What?” Solander frowned at him. “Treasonous beliefs.”

“
What sort
of treasonous beliefs?”

“I don’t know,” Solander said. “What difference could that possibly make?”

“They believe that magic as used by the Dragons of the Hars Ticlarim is an evil tool that permits the Dragons to have control
over the lives of the people who accept its use, and thus they eschew magic in any form. They do not use magic to power their
homes or their vehicles, they do not permit magical communication, magical observation tools, or any forms of magic to make
their own lives easier or to aid them in achieving their goals or needs.” He watched Solander’s expression begin to change,
and he said, “No medical magic, no educational magic, no industrial magic, no agricultural magic, no architectural magic,
no infrastructural magic.”

“What about overthrow of the government, beliefs in anarchy … cannibalism … ?” Solander had lost some of his air of assumed
superiority.

The Kaan shook their heads. “No,” Rionvyeers said. “None of those. Just the personal conviction to live lives untouched by
magic. That in itself was enough for the Empire to proscribe us.”

Solander looked bewildered. “But … why?”

Guyeneevin, a lean blond girl with a darkly tanned face, said, “Because the Masters of the Hars truly do use magic—and people’s
dependence on magic—to control them. That which you cannot live without you must pay the price to live with—and the price
of magic in the Empire of the Hars Ticlarim is the enslavement of each magic-dependent human.”

“Your father paid for his dependence on magic with his life,” Wraith said. “And you are dedicating your life to the same pursuit.”

“But I’m not. I’m going to reform the system from the inside.”

“They’re living outside the system. It doesn’t touch them, except in the government’s oppression of laws.” Wraith hooked his
thumbs into the catch-rings on his tunic and said, “And the New Brinch Theater is going to help them escape some of the oppression
of those laws.”

Solander paled. “You’re going to … employ them?”

Wraith nodded. “The theater will use no magic. I have a grant for its … its aberrations from the norm, if you will, from the
Master of Literary Application at Materan. I’m granted the right to demonstrate works experimental in form and method of production,
beyond and beside the normal scope and scale of the classical repertory, for the enlargement of the arts community and the
expansion of the public good.”

Solander took a seat on one of the benches and rested his head in his hands. “Oh, Wraith—do you realize what will happen if
you’re found to have the Kaan working in your production?”

“They aren’t just going to be working in the production, Sol. They’re going to be my actors,” Wraith said.

“But you could be shipped off to the mines. Gods all, you could be tried and executed for treason. Well … not as long as you’re
thought to be stolti, you’re immune from major prosecution so long as everyone believes you’re stolti, but if they ever find
out who you are, Wraith—”

“If they ever find out who I am, I’m guilty of treason anyway. My existence as a conscious being, my entire
life,
is an act of treason. That I compound the treason of knowing that I breathe and thinking my own thoughts by trying to free
my people from hell … well, what of that? Imprisoned is imprisoned. Enslaved is enslaved. And dead is dead.”

Solander looked at the Kaan. “I can respect their decisions. Their beliefs. In a way, I suspect they’re right. They are overlooking
beneficial magic, and the sort of magic that I’ve been working on, which doesn’t require the sacrifice of others to function—but
in their assessment of the Dragons, of the Hars, I suspect that they are more on the side of the gods than the devils.” He
took a deep and shaky breath and continued. “And I am sure that you will dress them as citizens. I’m sure you will have the
sense to make them appear acceptable. Still … I cannot come here in any capacity other than as an interested patron once your
work is finished. I can’t help you anymore, Wraith. I can’t allow myself to destroy by carelessness and thoughtless actions
the future I have planned for myself since I was a child—the career that will be the vindication of my father’s life, and
atonement for his death. I cannot lose my chance to change the Dragons, Wraith. If I can first join them, if I can become
one of their colleagues, then I can show them that the Hars could be better than it is. I won’t put that dream aside.”

Wraith nodded. “I had thought you would not be able to keep coming here anyway. We’ve hidden your underwriting of the theater,
but if you’re seen here as people begin to notice what we’re doing, our dummy financiers will be easy enough to spot for what
they are—and then, for better or worse, your name will be linked with the theater and its productions. And our mysterious
playwright, Vincalis the Agitator. And me.”

“My name is already linked with
yours
.”

“At this point, we are friends. Distant relatives—at least by our papers. Two young men whose paths traveled for a while together
and then diverged, as such paths often do. If I were you, I would play heavily on that divergence.”

Solander looked almost crushed. “And what of our work together?”

“Your experiments on me to see why I’m so different?”

Solander nodded.

“Those can continue in secret. We’ll find a safe meeting place and establish times when we can meet. You won’t lose your opportunity
to find out why I’m … broken.” Wraith smiled a little.

J
ess thought she had come to terms with loving Wraith as a friend. She came to accept the fact that Wraith would never love
her while he was with Velyn. Then he sent Velyn away, but Jess had Solander, and Wraith had been … distant. But now he was
building a wall between his old life, which had at least included her as a friend, and his new life, in which she was supposed
to go on her way and not think about him or see him again.

This final separation had done more than hurt her; it had forced her to look at her life with Solander and without Wraith
and ask herself if she had any reason to be with Solander if time spent with Wraith was no longer part of the equation. Jess
cared for Solander. She’d convinced herself that she loved him. But she didn’t love him enough. If Solander told her that
he needed space, that he needed to be apart from her, she would have been understanding. Maybe even supportive. She wouldn’t
have been devastated the way she was devastated by this same news from Wraith.

So what did that make her? Did it make her someone like Velyn—was she using Solander for her own convenience? Because Solander
offered security, a place in the world that no one questioned? Because as long as she was Solander’s lover, no one questioned
who she was in her own right?

Finally, lost between confusion and self-loathing, she went to the theater, where she knew Wraith would be. She still had
her key; when he and Solander told her that visiting would be a bad idea and that she should get rid of any evidence that
she had been associated with Wraith or the theater, she had kept it, claiming that she didn’t have it with her at the time,
and later saying that she had lost it.

She found the doors locked, but she heard faint strains of music emanating from the heart of the building. She entered the
anteroom, and stepped into a new and wondrous world. Someone had painted the walls in brilliant colors and patterns, and had
hung silk and beads and feathers in arrangements that came to life when she moved. She could hear the music more clearly once
the door to the street had closed. Strong, masculine singing, the heavy beat of a drum, and then a voice saying, “You missed
your entrance, Talamar. Again, from … ah, the third verse. And this time, come out with more … with more
emphasis
.”

Wraith’s voice. Her heart constricted, and for a moment she couldn’t catch her breath. Her eyes filled with tears, but she
blinked them back and bit her lip—hard—until the pain drove away the urge to cry.

The anteroom split, and the passages to both the left and right banks of seats were dark. This suited her. She wanted to be
able to go all the way around, enter from the back, and watch for a while without being seen. She needed to know in her gut
instead of just her head why Wraith had pulled himself apart from her and Solander and his old life; she hoped that by seeing
what he was doing, she would get a feel for this obsession—this madness—that drove him.