“I am here now,” Olybino said, appearing at Shandie’s side. Lith’rian sneered. “Not much of you.”
The image of a giant young warrior was transparent. Rain was falling through him. “I am disinclined to trust a man who seeks to overthrow the rule of law. The Protocol is our shield and you will destroy it!”
The elf looked nauseated. “You pompous mirage! I say that the Protocol was designed to protect the world from the political use of sorcery and that you have been abusing it by turning that spotty-faced prince of yours into a world conqueror! I say that the Protocol does not justify such criminal fakery as Exern, nor the massacre your royal hero plans for tomorrow. You seek to buy his friendship so that he will take your part in the council when he sits on the Opal Throne.”
Shandie drew breath as if to speak, then seemed to think better of it.
“Your elvish wits are muddled, as usual!” Olybino’s voice held strange echoes, like shouting in a cathedral. “You know that the wheels of history begin to turn and the knell of the millennium is sounding. And what of the Covin, Brother? Never has there been greater danger, greater need for us to stand together. Call off your worms!”
“Call off your legions!” Lith’rian cried, his elvish treble as plaintive as the rain song in the forest night.
“You imperil the Protocol itself at such a time?” East boomed. ”What folly is this, my brother of the south?”
“It is not I who imperils the Protocol, it is you who have perverted it! Your bronze bullies are a stain upon my landsclean it up or I will burn it off!”
“You are crazy! You destroy us all!”
“Then be it so!” Lith’rian folded his arms in defiance. What was going on here? Glancing around all the faces, Ylo could see nothing helpful in any of them. Sorcerers fought duels—according to the ancient tales—and the stronger destroyed or enslaved the weaker. They might call up armies of occult votaries and unleash hellfire and horror. The city of Ginlish was under a mountain now . . . But the principle behind the Protocol was that the four most powerful sorcerers in the world would regulate one another and together control all others. They had means to achieve consensus—why were they not being invoked?
And East seemed to be hinting at even greater dangers. There were unexplained mysteries here. Just as his thoughts had struggled that far, Shandie put the question into words.
“My Lords, what of your associates? In such a grave matter, should not the Four take counsel together?”
“Ah!” Lith’rian said, never taking his eyes from the ghostly shape of Olybino. “As of this morning, we are but Three.”
“The warden of the north is dead,” the other warlock added. Witch Bright Water had been centuries old, Ylo knew. Her departure was hardly surprising and probably not to be regretted, if half the stories about her were true.
Shandie whistled. “You have not yet appointed a successor?”
“Not yet.” South’s strange elvish eyes still watched East intently.
“Then the matter may be decided by a simple vote, surely? May I ask where the warden of the west is?”
“You presume far, Little Prince!” Lith’rian snapped, although he looked to be ten years younger than Shandie. “You are not yet imperor! ”
“I make no claim to have rights in this! I am only trying to help. ”
“The mundane is wiser than we are, Brother South.” Olybino’s tone was as magisterial as ever, yet Ylo thought it concealed a whine of appeal. ”Let us place our differences before our sister of the west.”
Lith’rian scowled, pulling his cloak tight about him. His anger was directed at Shandie, but on him anger seemed too much like juvenile petulance. ”Withdraw your legions, Princeling!”
“Your Omnipotence, I am sworn to obey my grandfather the imperor.”
“Flunky!” The warlock spat the word. “Accomplice!” Then he faded away and there was only falling rain where he had stood. The grass there did not seem displaced.
“This has been an evil night’s work!” Olybino said. “See what your foolish scruples have wrought?” Then he also was gone.
The four mundanes stood alone in the sodden clearing—but had the warlocks ever been truly present? Darkness had settled in utterly, so that nothing was visible beyond the lamps’ comforting glow, not even the treetops against the sky. Ylo had a strange sensation of awakening from a nightmare.
The sirdar made a wordless sound of relief. “Well!” She smiled grimly. “You chose a poor time to invade Ilrane, Prince!”
“Perhaps!” Shandie said. “I think Lith’rian is bluffing, though. Even if he is a match for the other two, he would be criminally stupid to abrogate the Protocol as he threatens. They will appoint a successor for Bright Water soon enough and restore the balance.”
She shrugged. “Tomorrow we shall see who is bluffing and who is not, Highness. Until then—farewell!”
“Farewell, Sirdar. I still hope that you will change your mind and seek to promote the Good.”
“And I hope the same of you, Proconsul.”
“Let us go, Signifer,” Shandie said.
The night was an opaque blackness, swallowing the lantern’s feeble glow. Stumbling and slipping, Ylo led the way up the track, worrying about straying off the feeble path, worrying about falling and extinguishing the lamp . . . just worrying in general. And shivering. And feeling horribly insignificant.
His dreams of taking part in historical events were bitter memories now. The Four always got what they wanted, his father had said. A humble signifer had never been important in the sweep of strategy, and apparently a prince was of little more account when the wardens intervened. Dragons?
But now the Four had become the Three and the balance was overthrown. Without the Protocol to ban political use of magic, the world would be plunged back into the Dark Times, before Emine. Three thousand years of civilization would be overturned. War would again be fought with sorcery, with fire and earthquake—and with dragons.
“East was correct,” Shandie said suddenly. “This has been an evil night’s work. Was I wrong to offer mercy, Ylo?”
Ylo stopped in astonishment and raised the lamp to see his legate’s face. ”You are asking my opinion, sir?”
Shandie had halted, also. He rubbed his face with his handswiping his eyes or else concealing his expression. “I suppose I am. Give it.”
“I . . .” Ylo almost panicked, trying to find words. “Better keep moving,” Shandie said, “else we freeze to death. Obviously you doubt.”
Ylo began to walk again. “I am not qualified to judge, sir. No one is. `Might have been’ is a game for the Gods.” Shandie followed. “I think perhaps I was wrong. Had I demanded surrender, they would have spurned it, but they might have broken before our charge tomorrow and run. Now they will not. Had I not parleyed at all, they might have tried to break out and I could have let them go. By seeking to save all of them, I have condemned them all. Stubborn, yellow crackpots! Elves are the most twisted thinkers in all Pandemia. And I have angered the warlock of the east.”
Ylo made a noncommittal noise and concentrated on finding the way. If Shandie needed to talk, then this was a safer place for him to unburden himself than in the camp, where ears abounded.
“Worse. I have made a bad enemy in South!”
Yes, that might be the nastiest wasp in the nest. History told of many imperors who had alienated wardens and paid dearly for it.
For a moment Shandie muttered inaudibly. Ylo walked on, watching the sparkle of reflections on the water that cascaded down the track in front of his boots.
“Sir? What’s the Covin?”
“No idea,” Shandie said absently. “Covin’s a legal term for conspiracy.”
“But . . .” Perhaps Ylo had misheard. He’d thought that Olybino had used the word. In fact, he’d even thought the warlock had used it as if it were the name of something frightening. Absurd! What could possibly frighten a warlock?
Shandie’s mind was on other things. “Lith’rian thinks straighter than most elves, I think, Ylo. I shall resign my commission.”
“Sir?”
“I don’t know what has gotten into my grandfather lately. He was never a warmonger. He prided himself on being a man of peace. And this last year . . . My place is in Hub.”
That was the most cheerful remark Ylo had heard for weeks. Yes, Hub would be a very pleasant change from this.
“The time for obeying orders may be past,” Shandie said. God of Mercy! What was he planning? That was not a good thought at all. Shandie had a daughter back in the capital, a daughter he had never seen. A daughter could carry on the dynasty if . . . if Shandie tried a rebellion and failed. Good be with us! Was he thinking of trying to usurp the throne? Ylo did not want to think such things. He did not want to hear such things. He had escaped the executioner’s ax once by an eyelash. “It’s stopped raining!” he said loudly. “That’s good!”