“Majesty!” he cried. “The fault is mine! I commanded the army. Kill me, but spare the others! They fought well! They did not dishonor the empire!”
Ackal V sneered. “You lost. That’s dishonor enough.” Smiling, he added, “Still, since you accept the fault of failure, I shall give you this dispensation: you will be the one who dies last.”
The Wolves guffawed at their master’s clever joke. What he called a favor was of course the worst of punishments. Lord Relfas must watch his subordinates executed, one by one, before the mercy of death blotted out his horror for good.
Relfas’s face went ashen. Two Wolves yanked him to his feet and dragged him to one side.
No specially trained executioner was called. No broad headsman’s blade was used to cleanly behead the captives. The Wolves simply drew their swords and slashed the ten warlords to pieces. When they were done, Ackal V turned and beheaded Relfas with a single sidelong blow. The Wolves raised a cheer for his keen eye and steady hand.
Ackal V returned to the group of wizards. “Remember what I said. Impede the bakali-now.”
He wiped his blade with a hood that had once covered a captive’s head. Relfas’s blood ran down the back of the emperor’s hand.
Dismissed at last, Winath led her colleagues across the great plaza and through the line of torch-bearing guardsmen. As they entered the grove that surrounded the Tower of High Sorcery, one of the Red Robes would have spoken, but Winath’s upraised hand silenced her.
With the setting of the white moon, the great tower’s usual brilliant halo had dimmed and the lofty structure glowed only softly, like foxfire in the forest. Alabaster walls appeared seamless and translucent by starlight. Small minarets sprouted from its sides at regular intervals all along its height. Their crystal peaks gave off a faintly pinkish light.
Winath always allowed herself at least a brief moment to drink in the sight of the tower. It never failed to steady her. For her predecessor, the unfortunate Oropash, the tower had been a hiding place. He hated every moment he was outside its enclosing safety. Winath did not share that feeling. There was too much she wanted to accomplish, goals that could be attained only through the concerted efforts of herself and her colleagues. For her, then, the Tower of High Sorcery was the rational center of her being, an unchanging certainty amidst the maelstrom of the uncertain world.
Enclosing the tower on three sides was the wizards’ college. Each of its four floors was faced by a colonnade. Although the columned walkways were deserted just now, lights burned in several of the building’s many windows. Few were the nights that found no lights burning in the wizards’ college, and sleep had become even more rare since the invading bakali had pushed closer to the capital.
The wizards quickly traversed the white marble courtyard surrounding the tower. The instant they crossed the threshold of the tower’s only entrance, silence could be maintained no longer.
“Beast!” exclaimed a Red Robe. “He murdered Oropash!”
The deaths of the dishonored warlords meant little to her, but Oropash had been one of their own. Other Red Robes echoed her sentiments.
“Remember where you are!” Winath snapped. All knew she referred not to the sanctity of their surroundings, but to the prevalence of imperial spies. The emperor could have eyes and ears even in their ranks, and any number of spies might be hiding behind the alabaster columns of the two levels of galleries overhead.
“We should all have left with Helbin,” another Red Robe despaired.
“No!”
Winath stamped her sandaled foot. The movement made little noise in the vast, circular chamber, yet the tower quivered from foundation to pinnacle. Already the power that had been Oropash’s was beginning to flow within her.
“Helbin betrayed us all!” she said, her voice ringing off the chamber’s domed ceiling. “For three hundred years we slaved to establish this sanctuary in the heart of the empire. In my lifetime I have seen a living tower rise where nothing but a dream once stood. I will not endanger the gains we have made by running afoul of the emperor!”
“He’s a madman!”
This came from one of her own order, but Winath folded her arms and directed her words to the entire assembly. “Read your chronicles. Many cruel tyrants have worn the crown of Ackal Ergot. We have survived them, and we will survive this one-if we keep our heads!”
Her unfortunate phrasing reminded them of poor Oropash, being hung in disgrace from the Inner City wall. On that somber note they dispersed to their private chambers.
Winath climbed the stairs to her former master’s rooms, which opened onto the second level of galleries overlooking the main chamber. His quarters still smelled of berry jam, for which Oropash had had a well-known weakness. She uttered an illumination spell. Every lamp ignited at once.
On the table in his study were several manuscripts, a brass censer, and a shard of pottery covered with figures scrawled in Oropash’s distinctive hand. Winath studied the scrolls. They were notes on tele-clairvoyance-it appeared this had been Oropash’s last conjuration. He had summoned an image of the future, but not for himself. Winath frowned. To whom had he sent it? And why?
She took the pottery shard back to her own room, on the opposite side of the tower. The writing was a cipher of Oropash’s own devising. Knowing him well, it took her only one mark to discern who he had gifted with a glimpse of the future. The name surprised her.
Winath rubbed away the letters with a piece of cloth. If anyone in the emperor’s pay saw that name, the life of every White Robe in Daltigoth would be forfeit.
“Down! Down!”
Zala grabbed Tylocost by the hem of his tunic and dragged him to the ground. A band of mounted nomads galloped past, brandishing firebrands and screaming. Although the stars and moons were shrouded by clouds, Zala feared discovery. The blazing town cast a great deal of illumination.
Juramona was in flames. Mounted nomads filled the streets, battling the few townspeople still trying to fight. Zala and Tylocost lay next to a gutted tavern, in the cover provided by a jumble of broken wheelbarrows and crockery.
“We waited too long,” she murmured.
“The actions of savages are notoriously difficult to predict,” Tylocost answered. His pedantic tone was at odds with his disheveled appearance. Free of its confining band, his hair hung loose about his shoulders, and soot stained his face and clothing.
“I heard that some townsmen thought they could save their own lives and property by arranging for Juramona to fall without a fight. They opened the south gate for the nomads.” Zala shook her head. “I hope they were among the first to die!”
“Humans. They’re never so foolish as when they think they’re being clever.”
The last of the mounted nomads passed. In the lull, Zala and the elf sprang to their feet and ran for the open gate. Away from the dying town. Away from the flames and screaming.
Tylocost might be ill-favored in some ways, but he was by no means awkward physically. He easily outpaced his companion during the dash across the open ground beyond the city gate. He reached a line of cedars and pushed through, promptly colliding with a fiercely painted nomad.
Elf and man both were shocked at the unexpected encounter. While they gaped at each other-for no more than a few heartbeats-Zala sprinted by, ran the man through, and kept going. Tylocost stepped over the falling body and raced after her.
Near a dry creekbed, they found horses tethered to a stand of saplings. Zala dropped to the ground. With commendable silence, her companion fell into place beside her. She glanced his way and almost cried out. Tylocost’s face and chest were covered in blood. She quickly realized the gore had come from the nomad she’d slain, but the elf resembled a ghastly specter, come back from the dead.