“Fetch a healer!” he snapped over his shoulder. Tothas sagged in the doorway like a man who’d taken his death wound, and the petrified landlord gawked past the armsman. “Phrobus take you, fetch a healer before I gut your lard-swollen belly!” Bahzell roared, and the man vanished with a squeal.
The maid disappeared on his heels, and Brandark caught Tothas, easing him down to sit on the floor, horrified eyes locked on the empty bed.
“How?” The Bloody Sword’s tenor voice was hard with fury. “In the names of all the gods and demons how? And why didn’t we hear something?!”
Bahzell only shook his head, but Tothas shoved himself up from the floor. “Sorcery,” he groaned, crossing to Rekah like an old, old man. He touched her bloody face with trembling fingers, and his voice was riven and harrowed. “Sorcery-black, black sorcery!” he whispered, going back to his knees beside the maid, then laid his face on the bed and wept.
The healer was a stout, gray-haired matron with a gentle face, and she hissed in horror when she saw the room. She looked ridiculous with her clothing all askew and her hair all wild under the cloak she’d snatched over her head, but her hands were gently deft as she examined Rekah. She peered into the maid’s eyes and moved her head with infinite care, then sighed in relief.
“Eh, it’s bad!” she murmured. “Mortal bad, but her neck’s unbroken, praise Kontifrio.” She muttered to herself as she checked for other wounds and broken bones, then rounded on Tothas and the two hradani. “And which of you treated her so?!” she snapped furiously, but Bahzell shook his head.
“No, mother. I’ll swear whatever oath you’re wishing, we’d no hand in it. The door was barred from inside; we broke it down to find her.”
“What?!” The healer stared at him, then looked at the wrecked door and went almost as pale as the innkeeper had. “Lillinara preserve us!” she whispered, tracing the full-moon circle of the Mother with her right hand, then shook herself and glared back up at the Horse Stealer.
“Well, that’s as may be, but this lass is bad hurt-bad! She’s a crack in her skull like someone hit her with an axe, and it’s the gods’ own mercy she’s still alive. Out-out, all of you! I’ve work to do, so clear my way!”
Bahzell nodded and drew Tothas gently away. The landlord was nowhere in sight. His servants had copied his example, and Brandark dived into his personal pack for a carefully wrapped bottle of brandy as the three of them returned to their own room. Tothas coughed and tried to pull away when Brandark forced a huge swallow down him, but something like intelligence returned to his eyes, and Bahzell cleared his throat.
“Now, Tothas,” he said in a soft voice, “I’m thinking it’s time you told us what Lady Zarantha never did.”
“Why?” Tothas’ voice was hopeless, and he rocked in his chair, arms folded across his chest. “Oh, My Lady!”
“Hush, now, man!” Bahzell’s voice was harsh, and Tothas looked up. “There’s no body in yonder room, only Rekah. I’m thinking whoever-or whatever-it was left her for dead, and never a sound did it make while it was about it. If it was minded to kill Zarantha, why not kill her then and there? No, Tothas, she’s alive, or was, and if we’re to get her back, we’ve time for naught but the truth!”
“Alive?” Tothas blinked, and the horror retreated-a little-as his face recovered some of its normal determination. “Aye,” he said softly. “She would be. She is! They won’t kill her here-they’ll take her home for that!”
“Who, man? Who?! ”
“I don’t know-not for certain.” Tothas shook himself again, harder. “You’re right. Tomanāk knows we should have told you sooner, but My Lady was afraid that-” He drew a deep breath, then stood and faced the two hradani.
“I ask you to believe,” he said in a deep, formal voice, “that we kept it from you out of no distrust. It was My Lady’s decision, and she meant it for the best-for you, as well as for her.”
“Meant what?” Brandark asked flatly.
“My Lady . . . misled you. She is, indeed, the Lady Zarantha Hûrâka, and her father is Caswal of Hûrâka, but few know them by that name. Hûrâka is an all but dead clan-she, her father, and her sisters are its only members-but Lord Caswal is also lord of Clan Jashân, and most know him as Caswal of Jashân, Duke Jashân.”
“Duke?! ” Brandark blurted.
“Aye, the highest noble of the South Weald after Grand Duke Shâloan himself.”
“Phrobus!” the Bloody Sword whispered, and Bahzell’s eyes went flint hard as he stared into Tothas’ face.
“Are you after telling me the second noble of the South Weald sent his oldest daughter overland to the Empire of the Axe with naught but a single maid and three armsmen?!”
“No. Oh, he sent her overland, but we had an escort of sixty men for the trip. Rekah and I-and Arthan and Erdan, Isvaria keep them-stayed with her in Axe Hallow when the others returned home.”
“And what were you doing there?”
“My Lady is a mage,” Tothas said simply. Bahzell heard Brandark gasp and sat down abruptly, his ears flat in shock.
There’d been a time when “mage” and “wizard” meant one and the same thing, but those days were long past. Bahzell had never met a mage-so far as he knew, there’d never been any of hradani blood-yet he’d heard of them. They were said to have appeared only since the Fall, men and women gifted with strange powers of the mind. Some said they could heal with a touch, read thoughts a hundred leagues away, vanish in the blink of an eye, or any of a thousand other strange abilities, but they were trusted as much as wizards were hated, for they were sworn to use their powers only to help, never to harm except in self-defense. More, they were mortal enemies of black sorcery, pledged before their patron deity Semkirk to fight it wherever they found it.
“A mage,” Bahzell said finally, very softly, and Tothas nodded.
“Aye, and there was the problem, for we’ve never had a Spearman mage that lived to come into his powers. You see, when a mage’s powers first wake, he suffers something called a ‘mage crisis.’ I don’t know much about it-it’s only been in the last few years we even knew what to watch for-but no one has ever survived it in the empire. Or, if they have, someone else killed them.”
“Why?” Brandark asked, and Tothas turned to him.
“Because of the Oath of the Magi. Only the Axeman mage academies know how to train a mage. Give them their due, they’ve always offered the training to anyone, be they Axeman or not, but they require mage oath as the price of their help. Oh,” he waved a hand as both hradani stiffened, “My Lady had no objection! For the most part it’s no more than an oath never to abuse their powers-d’you think My Lady would refuse that? ” He glared fiercely at his listeners, and Bahzell shook his head.
“But it’s also a promise to seek out and destroy black sorcery. No mage can match a wizard unaided. None of them have more than three or four-at most six-of the mage talents, and they can draw only on their own energy, not steal it from the world about them. But every mage can sense wizardry, and a group of them has the power to do something about it.”
“Which wouldn’t make them so popular with wizards,” Bahzell murmured, eyes dark as he recalled the wreckage of Zarantha’s room.
“Exactly,” Tothas said grimly. “My Lady and her father believe that’s the true reason no Spearman mage has ever survived mage crisis. It’s not that severe for most magi, or so I’m told. The more talents a mage has-and the more powerful they are-the more severe the crisis, but surely at least one mage should have survived in a thousand years!”