It took time to assess the idea. It was big! Ylo felt a sense of history stirring. The Conference of . . . of whatever this stinking hulk was called. Umpily was rubbing his pudgy hands in delight.
Ropes and spars creaked, waves rushed along the hull, and no one spoke for quite a while. Young Maya methodically hammered a wooden block on the floor, unaware that her entire future was being planned over her head.
“What new protocol?” Shandie demanded eventually.
The faun had been waiting for the invitation. “First,” he said, holding up a thumb, “we’ll outlaw votarism! No more loyalty spells! Not even the wardens will be allowed to enslave other sorcerers.”
The imperor smiled for the first time. “Carried. That one was easy!”
Forefinger. “Second, sorcery will be declared a weapon. We’ll outlaw not only the political use of magic, but any harmful use of it.”
“Won’t that be hard to define?”
“Is an ax hard to define?” Rap demanded, starting to sound excited. ”In Krasnegar the queen’s subjects may use axes to chop wood, but not to chop one another.”
The imperor nodded. “Fair enough. Third?”
“We’ll still need the wardens, to supervise all this. We also need a Court of Sorcery! When I cut off the supply of magic, I left West without a prerogative, so maybe West can be authorized to keep the peace and discipline transgressors. Or something.”
“And fourth?”
“Well . . . That’s about as far as we got.” The king flashed a sheepish and oddly appealing smile, as if ashamed of his enthusiasm.
Shandie looked to the dwarf, who was swinging his little legs on the bench, his pebbly teeth showing.
“It’s got promise,” the little man growled. “Grunth will like it. Don’t know about East, ‘cause he needs his votaries to tie shoelaces for him. Hate to say this, but I think even Old Yellowbelly may support the idea.”
Sagorn had been rubbing his chin, displaying little of his usual scom. ”Can you do something about the wardens themselves? I wish there were some way of keeping them honest!”
The dwarf bristled menacingly.
“They won’t have votaries to back them up,” King Rap said. “If they breach the peace, they’ll be vulnerable to prosecution like other sorcerers.”
Ylo thought that sounded like the wildest sort of hare-brained optimism he had ever heard. He could imagine his father’s contempt. Consul Ylopingo had been a crafty, cynical politician, and he would have dismissed such wishful dreaming out of hand.
And yet . . . There were crafty politicians here in this stuffy, shabby deckhouse, and they were not laughing. Shandie was being his usual inscrutable self, but Acopulo looked impressed, and so did Umpily. The old count was beaming.
Abruptly the imperor rose and stalked over to a pile of discarded cloaks on a chair near the door. All eyes followed him. He rummaged for a moment, then pulled out a roll of vellum. “Lucky I brought this along, then, isn’t it?”
Old Sagorn straightened in his chair with remarkable agility. “That’s it?” he barked.
“This is it,” Shandie agreed, holding up the roll. “The Protocol itself.”
“An authentic copy?”
“I think it’s the original. It has Emine’s seal on it.”
King Rap was squinting. “There’s sorcery on it, certainly.”
“Preservation spell,” the dwarf rumbled. “There’s one like it in the White Palace.”
Shandie smiled. He walked over to Sagorn and passed him the scroll. The old man grabbed it, began unrolling hastily. Acopulo jumped up and hurried across to read over his shoulder.
“Ylo?”
“Sire?”
“Remember some of the dreadful things Warlock Lith’rian said last year? About the Protocol?”
Ylo thought back to that rainy night in the forest of Nefer Moor and shivered at the memory. “Vaguely.”
The imperor frowned. “He was quite right! The Protocol has been perverted. It doesn’t give East a free hand with the legions. It says that only East may use sorcery on them, but the context is that he must use it to restrain the legions. That is his duty!”
“Then the dragons . . .” Ylo said.
“Yes! South is supposed to restrain the dragons. Lith’rian was equally at fault. And North is supposed to restrain the jotnar—you don’t see much of that in history!”
The two scholars were engrossed in reading the Protocol. Umpily was on his way to join them, but everyone else automatically looked at Raspnex. He scratched his beard, then shrugged like a boy caught in mischief. “They haven’t been misbehaving too badly lately, have they?” Inasmuch as dwarves ever smiled though, he was smiling.
“Did you ever read that copy in your palace, your Omnipotence?” Shandie asked, and his eyes had found their old brilliance.
“No. . . your Majesty.”
“Obviously the wording needs to be made more explicit,” the faun said, and chuckled. “The wardens’ responsibilities will have to be defined more strictly. Well, your Imperial Majesty? What do you think of our proposal?”
“Your New Order?” Shandie said dryly. “Your plan to reform the world?” He glanced around. “Lord Ionfeu?”
“It is a staggering concept, Sire,” the old man said. He exchanged smiles with his wife. “But a worthy one!”
“Do I understand correctly, though?” Eigaze said. “This new protocol would prohibit only evil use of power? Well-meaning sorcerers could practice healing, or build bridges, or banish famine? Sorcerers need no longer hide? Sorcery could become a source of positive good in the world?” Her plump face bulged in an excited smile.
The imperor turned to the king of Krasnegar, who shrugged and nodded at the same time. “Why not?”
Shandie smiled. “Doctor Sagorn?”
The jotunn did not take his gaze from the ancient scroll he was studying. ”Brilliant!”
“I agree, Sire,” Acopulo said without waiting to be asked. He pointed at some wording on the vellum, and his two companions nodded excitedly.
“Ylo?”
Ylo nodded—what choice was there?
“It appears to be unanimous!” the imperor said. “Ma’am?” the faun asked, rising to his feet.
Eshiala had apparently been engrossed in entertaining Maya, but she looked up at the king. “A just cause is a nobler purpose than mere survival,” she said hesitantly, and blushed.
Shandie drew a long breath. “Well put, my dear. So, my sorcerous friend! My own view is that it’s a mirage of absurd idealism. It’s the most impractical, visionary, utopian dream I ever heard of. But, as my wife says, it is worth fighting for!”
“It’s also the only chance we’ve got!” Rap said.
“That, too!” Smiling, the imperor walked across to him and shook his hand.
“Certainly!” Inos said. “Of course there are some things worth fighting for.”
Could a thirty-five-year-old mother and a fourteen-year-old son ever agree on what those things were?
Gath was in his bed, and she was seated on the edge of it. Despite her thick fur robe, she was chilled. Her breath hung in the air like steam. Ice coated the leading between the black little casement panes. Yet many bedchambers in Krasnegar were colder. Peat glowed brightly in the hearth here, but few citizens could afford that princely luxury, especially this winter, when peat was scarce.
Only the tip of Gath’s nose protruded between his woolly nightcap and a huge drift of downy quilts. Even in the tiny candlelight, the tip of it was visibly pink, but at least it was undamaged. Hostile and suspicious, one gray eye peered up at her out of nests of many-colored swellings. The other was covered with a slab of steak. The broken tooth annoyed her most, though, and he was keeping that out of sight.
“Like Dad,” he said stubbornly. “Dad’s worth fighting for!” She sighed, searching for reasons that would make sense to him.
Downstairs, the dinner party continued. It was turning out to be very subdued for an affair attended by twenty-five adolescents, lacking its host and one guest. The medics said Brak would be all right, but no one could mend a boy’s broken tooth except a sorcerer, and the one sorcerer she knew almost certainly wouldn’t. Most likely it would abscess and have to come out. All her life, she was going to recall this day every time her son opened his mouth.
“Your father is worth fighting for, of course. But you weren’t fighting for him, Gath! He wasn’t there. If he was in danger from a bear, or goblins, or a gang of raiders, then you would be right to go to his aid and fight for him. That wasn’t what happened. You were fighting because someone called him names, and that’s not the same thing at all.”
He stared at her stubbornly, saying nothing. This lecture was a father’s duty, not a mother’s. He probably knew exactly how long it was going to continue, and every word she was going to say. He was hurting, inside and out, his doubts worse than his wounds. Doubts about himself, doubts about her, doubts about his father.
“What exactly did Brak say?”