The prince rocked with laughter. “Take your reward, wizard! Buy yourself a new arm!”
Mandes scooped up the purse and backed out of the sweltering room. As he was about to close the door, Nazramin said a word to the dogs, and they leaped for him.
Mandes shut the door just in time. The savage beasts hurled themselves against the oak panels time and again, howling like the cursed hounds of H’rar. Sweating and shaking, he beat a quick retreat. Out in the snowy streets, he clenched his fingers tightly around the prince’s gold.
Buy yourself a new arm. Nazramin had meant it as a cruel joke, but that’s exactly what Mandes planned to do. With a new arm, his campaign would start. Not for him the petty plans of Prince Nazramin.
His goal was nothing less than the magical conquest of Daltigoth.
Valaran let Tol’s letter fall from her hands.
On the sunny battlements of the Imperial Palace, she looked over the silent, gray city. Snow always stole the color from everything. All the poets said so, and for once, she saw the truth in their fanciful words.
“Duty demands that I remain here, to guard the borders of the empire,” Tol had written. “I cannot say when I will see you again. Our lives mean little compared to the glory of our nation… here I can serve the empire best, instead of rotting away as the crown prince’s lackey.”
She could hardly believe it. He had promised to come back-and now seemed in little hurry. The realization stung like a slap in the face. If he’d been ordered to stay, she might have accepted it-they both had their duties-but he didn’t want to come back! At first she couldn’t fathom it, then her eyes found the letter’s final sentence, and all was made dreadfully clear. That cheery postscript had stolen the breath from Valaran’s lungs and driven her, pale as a wraith, to this great height.
“The Dom-shu sisters have been of great worth to me. Kiya is an excellent warrior, though she still cannot cook. Miya has proven herself in other ways. Our child will be born in the spring.”
Valaran looked down in despair. It was a long way to the plaza. Unblemished by winter’s snow, the heroic mosaics sparkling in the sunlight seemed to mock her, ridiculing her pain. She could see every one of the thousands of stones in them. In a moment she would see them closer still.
Two women crossed the plaza slowly. From this height Valaran couldn’t recognize their faces, but their elaborate gowns and deliberate, stately tread marked them as imperial wives. How they and the rest of the Consorts’ Circle would coo and jabber over her fate! Poor Valaran the Wisp, the skinny, unfeminine scholar who had somehow caught the eye of the hero Tolandruth, and killed herself when he was unfaithful. Silly girl! Didn’t she know all men are unfaithful at some point in their lives?
Anger flooded her, sending hot blood to her face. No! Not for any man would she throw away her life-certainly not for an upstart, arrogant peasant who imagined himself a noble!
Upstart, arrogant, lying peasant! What a fool she had been to believe him!
The wind dried her tears. Valaran turned away from the parapet and made her way with firm steps down the winding stone stair into the palace. She went directly to the imperial library and filled her arms with books. Ignoring courtiers and servants, she moved purposefully through the halls, back to the corridor between the kitchens and the Consort Circle’s salon. She wanted nothing now but to seclude herself in her old hiding place, where she’d first met Tol.
She shook her head savagely, excising that event from her memory. It hadn’t happened. He hadn’t happened. How stupid she had been to order her life around such a ignorant, unfeeling farm boy!
Valaran closed the curtain and sat down to read.
Through the cold and achingly dull winter, rumors began to circulate among Daltigoth’s elite. People having problems with health, love, or business dealings could seek help from a man who could solve any problem, a wise and discreet man, said to be unknown to the college of sorcerers. Skilled in many magical arts, he was new to the city. For gold, or the right sort of favor, this clever wizard would unravel even the most difficult problems, no questions asked. Fortunes changed hands. Enemies disappeared, or succumbed to the worst “luck” imaginable.
When word of this dangerous freelancer reached Yoralyn’s ears, she attempted to find out more about him, but she had foresworn spies, and could find out little with her own resources. By the time the name of Mandes became better-known to the college, the rogue wizard was too entrenched, too popular, too protected by powerful patrons, for the White Robes or Red Robes to move against him. It was said that even Prince Amaltar consulted Mandes-most discreetly.
Emperor Pakin III took ill that winter and never left his bed again. Tough and stubborn still, Pakin III clung to life but gave up his power. No longer simply co-ruler, Prince Amaltar was proclaimed Imperial Regent by a conclave of warlords. Formerly a penniless outcast, Mandes now moved closer to the most powerful man in the empire.
The sorcerer settled into a sumptuous house only a short distance from the entrance to the Inner City, living there alone. The day Prince Amaltar was made Imperial Regent, Mandes stood in the center of his beautifully appointed, scroll-filled study and rubbed his hands thoughtfully. One hand was pale and soft, like the rest of Mandes’s flesh. The other was muscular and brown. Unable to grow a new arm, he’d found a suitable replacement. Its former owner had not given his limb willingly, but he was past protesting. His lifeless body had been consigned to the Dalti River before it froze over for the winter.
Too easy, too easy, some part of Mandes’s mind told him. His goals may have been too modest, for everything he wanted had seemed to fall into his hands within six months of his arrival in Daltigoth. Only two things still vexed him, in minor ways. Prince Nazramin, whose power behind the scenes had grown enormously, remained indifferent to Mandes and rarely sought his counsel. The other niggling problem was Lord Tolandruth. Consigned to the distant reaches of Hylo, the young warlord still lived. Even with half the nobles of Daltigoth on his side, the other half under his thumb (for he knew too much about their indiscretions), even with the patronage of the regent himself, Mandes could not contemplate Tolandruth without foreboding.
Days passed into months. New hordes arrived to bolster Tol’s army, but no word came with them-not from Prince Amaltar, Egrin, or Valaran. The silence was so troubling that Tol wrote new letters to Valaran and Egrin.
When the sun broke through on the first day of spring, sixteen new hordes arrived under the command of Lord Regobart. Many years Tol’s senior, Regobart bore orders from Regent Amaltar which named him commander of the northern army. Regobart had been charged to convey the prince’s appreciation to Tolandruth for keeping station through the winter, and his continued affection for his champion. That was all. No words of praise or gratitude for last autumn’s victories. No personal missive came from Valaran.
When a private message finally did arrive, it came in the form of Sanksa, one of Tol’s chosen retainers. The Karad-shu man had gone to Daltigoth with Egrin. He returned looking haggard and grave, and Tol’s heart fell. He feared the worst.
Muddy and trailworn, Sanksa gratefully accepted a flagon of warm grog.
“Egrin’s at the Bay of Ergoth. Been there since before the first snowfall,” he told Tol. Upon their arrival in Caergoth, Sanksa went on to say, they had been ordered to the south coast to train six hordes to fight the Kharland pirates, who plundered the empire’s coasts at the behest of Tarsis. The rest of the caravan, including Mandes, went on to Daltigoth.