Robert Hughes - The Wizard in Waiting

“Naturally you hold me responsible!” Jagd screamed. “You always hold me responsible for all your misfortunes!”

“This is not a misfortune!” Flayh screamed back. “It’s en impossible situation deliberately created by your complicity with this strumpet of a Queen!”

“The entire ruling Council agreed to our plan to place Ligne on the throne! Can I help it if you and some of the other houses so overplayed your power that she’s come to favor Uda alone?”

“Yes, you can help it! You were the representative of the whole Council in the court, not just of your own organization! You’ve demonstrated your disloyalty to your brethren here by siding against us. Your very absence from this meeting indicates your true loyalties!”

“That’s a lie, Flayh, and you know it! You think I take pleasure in sitting around this castle doing nothing? It’s your assassins who have imprisoned me here, dooming me to interminable games of Drax with a vain Queen and her stuttering young warrior! You think I ”

“What!” roared a female voice from one side of the dais. The assembled merchants tore their eyes from the mesmerizing crystals to see Admon Faye holding a kicking, screaming Bronwynn in the air. He’d been holding onto her since early in the conversation, for in the exchange between Jagd and Flayh she’d learned more about her own kidnapping than in all the months since it happened. She’d known, of course, that she’d been ripped from the Imperial House with Ligne’s aid. But the cold-blooded ness of it had enraged her anew.

Now that rage exploded into new dimensions. “What did he say?” she shrilled. “I want to know what he said!”

“What’s going on there?” Jagd asked, holding his head.

“Don’t distract us!” Flayh ordered. “You’ll make us break the link!”

“Oh, my head…”

“Shut up, Pezi!”

Bronwynn broke loose and rushed over to crowd between Pezi and his uncle. “I want to know what he said!”

“Said about what?” Jagd asked, as a disembodied woman’s voice lanced painfully through his head.

Admon Faye suddenly understood, and a grin spread from one ugly ear to the other. He stalked up behind Bronwynn and spoke to Flayh, “Ask what he means by a stuttering warrior.”

The object’s lock on Flayh’s mind made these other voices intolerable.

It seemed a thousand people clamored for his attention at once. Pezi, feeling the pressure too, moaned aloud. Flayh relayed Admon Faye’s question to Jagd, hoping to end this bitter interruption.

“Some young bruiser from the north is all I know!” Jagd shot back.

“Name is Rosha, and he stutters. He’s the Queen’s latest paramour! Can we get back to business? My head wants to explode!”

“Yours isn’t the only one,” Pezi added mournfully.

Admon Faye, still grinning, led Bronwynn back to her chair. There she sat, stunned and shaken, throughout the chaotic events that followed.

Perhaps it had been only an interruption to the others in the room, but this news crashed in on Bronwynn with the suddenness of a death message. It took much the same toll on her heart They talk about pain! the Imperial House roared. This is painl A strong wind whistled through the subterranean passageways, the only audible evidence of the castle’s screaming in these caverns.

Powershaper! Wake up! the Imperial House pleaded.

Pelmen jerked to awareness. The dream was gone, but not the blue light. He identified it instantly, for he’d heard these three way conversations before. “Of course,” he Whispered aloud. “Jagd has his pyramid with him he rel He wondered momentarily why he’d not heard Jagd using it before then he recalled for the first time the bright blue dreams that had plagued his sleep and understood. Pelmen thrust all thoughts from his mind except those he heard issuing from the bright azure ball behind his eyelids.

“Wait!” Jagd yelped. “Someone is listening!”

“Of course someone is listening!” Flayh bellowed. “There’s a room full of people here!”

“This is someone else!” Jagd said anxiously. He felt a pair of eyes fixed on his back, and longed to turn around to see if one of his cloaks had fallen from its peg.

“I feel it too!” Pezi wailed. “Someone powerful is listening! Ohhb…” he moaned, his head spinning. “I can’t take any more of this…” Pezi reeled, rocked forward, banged his forehead noisily on the table, and passed out beneath it

The link broke immediately, with a flare of light and a loud snap.

Flayh cried out in anguish, then ordered Pezi: “Get up from there, you dolt!” The fat merchant didn’t budge. “You swine! Can’t you manage to do anything right?”

“Of course he can’t,” Tahli-Damen said as he leaped from his chair and swiftly circled behind Flayh to seat himself over Pezi. “He isn’t qualified! Jagd! Jagd!” Tahli-Damen peered into the pyramid as he’d seen the others do. “What are you doing?” Flayh shouted hoarsely.

With a vicious shove, he pushed Tahli-Damen off the seat and onto the floor. Or rather, onto Pezi, who didn’t seem to notice.

“I’m claiming what’s rightfully mine!” Tahli-Damen yelled back, jumping nimbly to his feet “You’ve been so busy manipulating people that you haven’t been keeping up your business! Uda has just this month edged Ognadzu in total Mari sales, so this pyramid is mine!”

Klaph started to suggest that since his house was now dominant in Lamath, he should get one, too. He never got the sentence out.

Suddenly a savage dog leaped out of nowhere for Tahli-Damen’s throat The young man threw up his arm in shock. With a snarl, the dog ripped his sleeve to tatters, taking with it a strip of flesh. The dais emptied immediately, save for Pezi, who smilingly slept on, and Bronwynn, who continued to stare dully into space. Tahli-Damen clubbed the ferocious beast with his free hand and tried to scramble over the table, but the dog caught his leg in its jaws. Tahli-Damen’s purple pants turned the color of his crimson tunic; but despite his wounds, he kicked the beast off and rolled on across the head table, dropping onto the dais floor. He kept on rolling until he dropped off the dais, into the waiting arms of family members who’d rushed past the scattering merchants to his aid.

As quickly as it had appeared, the dog was gone. Flayh stood on the table in its place but this was a different Flayh from the bald Elder these merchants had traded with through the years. The figure who stood astride the two pyramids was awesome. Gone were his blue and lime garments. Gowned in gleaming white, with a red cape flowing from his shoulders, Flayh the power shaper tossed multicolored balls of energy at his enemies as they all plunged wildly for the doors.

“By the dragon!” Klaph swore, using an outdated La-math ian oath.

“He’s become a power shaper Then a ball struck Klaph in the chest, and he raced down the line of emptying tables and grabbed a pitcher of ale to douse the sudden flames.

Tahli-Damen’s cousins bore him rapidly from the hall, ducking the burning missies and shoving other merchants aside. As they passed through the door, Tahli-Damen turned his head to gaze back at Flayh, He watched the power shaper lips move, and saw how a pointed finger could snuff out fires created by a thought mere seconds before. Tahli-Damen was bleeding, but it wasn’t his wounds that concerned him. His heart wanted to pound its way out from between his ribs. Tahii-Damen was terrified.

PELMEN GROANED and grabbed his head. “I wish they wouldn’t do that…” he muttered to himself.

You think you do! the Imperial House replied.

Pelmen didn’t hear it. He only felt a chilly breeze. From where he stood, he could see a bit of sunlight sneaking in through the grating on the far side of the pool. That meant he was on the dungeon side of the cistern, and he sighed with relief. He felt as if he’d been sleeping for years he wondered if it was still the same day that he’d dropped into this netherworld. He turned away from the water to peer into the passage he could feel wind blowing through it. He hoped that meant it led somewhere, or else he’d fallen a long way for nothing. He stared into it, wishing he had a torch. Then he remembered: “I’m a powershaper.”