The Outstretched Shadow ou(tom-1 Read online

  And die.

  Not that anyone would ever notice. Possibly the old Mage himself might not notice.

  But he was very good at teaching Maths. It probably was the only thing he was good at. And even if Lycaelon wasn't impressed by Kellen's high marks in the subject, the old man seemed to revive just a little whenever his eyes fell on his prize pupil.

  Kellen had thrown himself into work on the hardest problem they'd ever been set the moment he had arrived in class—because while he was working on the pure lightness of the puzzle, he didn't have to think about anything that had been happening to him. He could forget his father, forget the Wild Magic and the three Books, forget what had happened to poor Perulan. Everything between the covers of his workbook was a matter of figures, line, and angle, and there was only ever one right answer.

  But his concentration was interrupted when he was only halfway through the complex calculation by a heavy hand falling on his shoulder.

  Startled, he looked up, for the old Mage had never gripped his shoulder like that before.

  It wasn't his instructor.

  The burly, sallow-faced fellow in the uniform tabard of a servant of the Council looked down at him with an unreadable face.

  Kellen clamped down on his jolt of fear.

  It wasn't just the lack of expression in the man's face that made him unreadable, it was the feeling that this man had only a trifle more life and thought in him than one of the Council's stone golems…

  "Kellen Tavadon?" the man asked, completely without inflection except for the slight rise at the end of the two words that made it a question instead of a statement.

  Kellen wondered what the man would do if he denied being himself; considered doing just that for one fleeting moment, then nodded, reluctantly.

  "You are summoned to attend the High Council at the third bell of afternoon."

  By now the rest of his class was staring at him—and at the stony-faced apparition that had delivered the Council's message. It was the most attention he'd gotten from his fellow Students in moonturns. Some of them were whispering to each other. The poor old Mage just looked confused.

  "The third bell," the man repeated.

  "I—understand," Kellen managed to say.

  A cold hand closed around his heart, and a cold finger traced its way down his spine. The Council! This could only be Lycaelon's work. So he was to be punished for last night's rebellion after all.

  "The third bell." With a thud, the messenger let fall something on Kellen's workbook. Kellen picked it up; it was a heavy brass plate engraved with the Council sigil, the sign that he had been called before them. Having said his piece and delivered his burden, the Council's retainer turned on his heel and left. Kellen picked up the little brass plate and shoved it into his pocket, then tried to go back to his Maths problem, but he had completely lost the ability to concentrate.

  What do they want? Surely my having an argument with Father is no matter for the Council?

  Unless Father makes it one…

  The rest of the members of the class murmured to each other as he bent his head over his paper.

  The sound of the voices, though—there was nothing in their tone to warn him that they had any notion why he was being summoned.

  But he did. Oh, yes, he did. He just didn't want to even consider it.

  But he had to; even if you were the Arch-Mage of Armethalieh, you didn't hail your son in front of the High Council just to deliver a lecture on filial duty. Besides, for Lycaelon that would be tantamount to admitting that he was a failure at bringing his offspring to heel, and Lycaelon could not bear admit he was a failure at anything.

  No, there was only one thing that Kellen could think of that would cause the High Council to haul him in for a confrontation.

  Wild Magic.

  The Books.

  Father found the Books.

  After all, Lycaelon had known he'd been talking to Perulan, and that meant the Arch-Mage was keeping a watch on Kellen somehow. If he'd learned that, he surely would have learned other things.

  Or he decided to search my room.

  He knew he shouldn't have left early this morning! If he'd been there, surely Lycaelon wouldn't even have thought of searching the room—or if he had, he'd have left it to the servants, who would, as usual, have found nothing.

  And though the three Books could disguise their nature from ordinary servants, they probably couldn't hold up their glamourie against the magic of the Arch-Mage of Armethalieh.

  So Lycaelon knew about the Books, and if he knew, the whole High Council knew. Lycaelon would never keep something so illegal, so potentially scandalous, secret.

  But if anyone here at the Mage College had any idea why Kellen was being called up before the High Council, they wouldn't be whispering, they'd be getting out of their seats and trying to get out of the room before the dangerous criminal noticed them.

  So no one here knows, and the High Council has decided not to say anything yet, Kellen thought with a faint pang of relief. Rumors usually spread through the Mage College like wildfire, so there wasn't a rumor. Yet.

  Which doesn't mean a thing. The High Council was perfectly capable of being closemouthed when it suited them.

  Kellen gave up on trying to concentrate, or even pretend to, shoved away from his desk, and stood up to leave. The whispering stopped, and every eye in the room was riveted on him. Even though the appointed time was bells away—probably calculated that way by Lycaelon, to allow his son to stew and fret until the appointed time—everyone knew that a summons before the High Council had to be answered immediately. In fact, they were probably wondering why he hadn't gone already.

  Kellen stalked out of the classroom, keeping his back rigid and his head held high with a bravado that was entirely feigned.

  THE other Students and his teacher would probably assume that he would go straight to the Council House to cool his heels in one of the waiting rooms and reflect upon his sins. That, however, was not what Kellen had in mind.

  He stopped at his locker—probably for the last time—to deposit his books and his robes. He spared a moment of thanks that today he was dressed in his best clothes beneath the all-concealing Student blues: to think that only this morning he'd been planning to start afresh, to impress his father and Anigrel with his devotion to the ways of the Mage life, to study and conform and be a good son of House Tavadon!

  He'd been so stupid.

  For the first time ever, he went openly to the harbor, glaring defiance at the Watch as he crossed the street into the harbor district.

  The Constables didn't try to stop him, but perhaps because he was dressed as ostentatiously as any City noble, they thought he was there on some legitimate business. The more fools they.

  He stalked across the street and plunged in among the offices of the various shipping companies and merchants, giving the Constables about as much attention as he would a piece of statuary. His pencase and coin pouch bounced against his thigh as he strode angrily along—oh, he looked a proper son of House Tavadon today. All he lacked was a cloak and sword, and a pair of ornamental gloves thrust through his belt to be the image of a proper petty lordling. And who cared?

  He did. If there was something Kellen knew he didn't want to be, it was that.

  When he reached the wharves themselves, Kellen took a moment to simply breathe in the fresh salt air and get his bearings. He wanted to remember this day clearly—every sight, every sound, every smell. After all, this might well be the last time he would be able to come here.

  Might? That's a virtual certainty. If I'm lucky, I'll only be confined to my room for the rest of the year. If I'm not, it'll be the rest of my life…

  There were several ships in today, and more waiting outside the harbor to come in; their sails tacking back and forth just over the horizon. It was a busy day, one that usually meant a lot of work for the High Council… which meant that the High Council considered his situation to be a serious one, worth interruptin
g their day over.

  Not good.

  Kellen picked a spot out of the way of anyone working around the ships, and watched a new vessel sail in and tie up. He was full of restless energy, discontent, and a sick undercurrent of fear that he tried hard to ignore. Never had he felt so much raw envy for the Selken-folk, or for the few nameless Armethaliehans who managed to escape on their ships. He watched the half-naked sailors bringing a ship skillfully in to its mooring, scrambling up into the rigging and furling the sails, heaving ropes over the side and tying up to the piers. Wood creaked; the wood of the dock, and of the ship. Men called to each other, up in the rigging, and a group of them, hauling on a rope wrapped around a capstan, chanted in unison. Their captain shouted orders at them, punctuated by strange, wild oaths, and waves splashed against the pilings and the sides of the ship. The air smelled of fish, tar, sunbaked wood, and salt, with an undercurrent of strange scents too faint to be identified.

  On another ship, a little farther down the dock, another crew was unloading their ship's cargo. They traded insults with the crew of the new arrival while Kellen watched and listened, and tried not to think too hard about how much he wished he could just saunter aboard and sail away with them when they left.

  I don't suppose there's a chance that Father would disinherit me and let me go with them… Kellen thought wistfully.

  No. Not Lycaelon. The Arch-Mage's motto should have been, "What I have, I hold." No matter what Kellen did, Lycaelon would never let him go—

  The anger and discontent swelled in him until he thought he would burst from it. Probably the only thing that did keep him from bursting was the fear he felt inside… for he knew now that there was no place for him in the City unless he conformed to every one of his father's wishes. He could never escape what Lycaelon wanted, not even if he tried to renounce his own Magebom talents and turn common laborer. No matter what he did, Lycaelon would have him followed and brought back, and once again, there would be the edict: Obey. If he didn't do so of his own free will, he'd be forced into it.

  Conform — or —

  Well, he'd butted heads with the "or" many times in his seventeen years, but this time the "or" had more than just his father behind it. This time he was going to face the entire High Council. And although he had no doubt that whatever they decided to do with him would be what Lycaelon had already decided, their edict would be enforced by Constables, Council retainers, and if necessary, other means. And the High Council had a great many options under that last category.

  One of the farther ships pulled away from the dock even as he watched, and began its slow, graceful tack toward the harbor mouth. Its sails filled with a Mage-conjured breeze, belling out like great white wings, carrying its crew away from Armethalieh and out to freedom.

  Freedom that he was never going to taste.

  The ship passed through the shimmering curtain of magick, its own outline shivering a little as if seen through a heat haze. And at that moment, Noontide Bells rang out. Kellen felt a surge of guilty nausea. He just had time to get to the Council House before the appointed hour.

  Glumly, he trudged out to meet his fate.

  THE Council House was at the opposite side of the City from the docks, facing the Delfier Gate in the west, and Kellen realized, as he trudged up the almost-empty avenue that led to the Council House and the gate beyond, that he had never actually seen the Delfier Gate open. Citizens were not encouraged to linger near the gates when the farm carts and trade caravans were moving in and out—not that citizens were encouraged to linger in the Mage Quarter in the first place.

  Not for the first time, Kellen wondered what it would be like to go through those gates and take the road that led into the forest and what lay beyond.

  Perulan had said that no citizen had, that none could. But Perulan had been referring to trying to take shelter with the villagers out there. What if someone decided to live out in the forest itself? Could anyone be found who really wanted to hide out there?

  Don't be an idiot, he scolded himself. You aren't exactly a woods-wise forester out of a wondertale. How, exactly, would you live out there? What would you eat? Roots and berries? Have you ever even seen a berry that wasn't already picked and in a basket?

  Crumbs, he hadn't even ever cooked for himself. Just how did he think he was going to survive in a forest?

  But, oh, the idea was so tempting…

  Anywhere but here, Kellen thought to himself. Anywhere has GOT to be better than here!

  THE Council House was a tall, round white marble building with a domed and gilded roof, and it was much bigger on the inside than it appeared on the outside. Magick, of course. A little glamourie to let it look important and imposing, but not too important or imposing, of course. Kellen's teachers had explained that this was to ensure that every citizen felt free to come before the Council, whether of his own will or if summoned. Now Kellen wondered if there was another reason for the spells entirely.

  To keep the ordinary citizen from knowing just how little freedom he truly has? Or to keep him from realizing just how much power over him the Mages have?

  Both, probably.

  It was as if—now, when it was too late to do him any good—fear suddenly made Kellen able to think of the questions he'd never been able to even think of before.

  The gleaming bronze doors, ornamented with the portraits of the greatest Arch-Mages of the past, were guarded by two stone golems, seven feet tall and looking just like the animated polished black granite statues that they were.

  The Mages of the High Council preferred golems as guardians. Any jumped-up merchant could hire a small army of human guards and spear-carriers, but no one but a Mage could have a golem to guard his door.

  And besides, nothing short of being shattered into a hundred thousand bits would stop a golem in the course of its duty. If that duty was to rend interlopers into component parts, well, too bad for the interlopers if they hadn't hired a Mage who'd come prepared with counterspells (assuming anyone could find a Mage who would work against his fellow Mages) or brought a big contingent of followers with stone-breaking hammers.

  The golems allowed Kellen to pass unmolested when he held up the Council sigil he was sent with his summons. If passing between the stone mastiffs at Tavadon House made his flesh creep, walking between the two utterly silent human-shaped statues, their eyes glittering malevolently at him as he entered the gilded door, made every hair on his body stand up.

  Once inside, the door swung shut behind him with a thunderous boom. It had been dark and shadowy when the door opened, but now the place was flooded with light, and he blinked in surprise.

  He was standing inside the Council chamber.

  How had he gotten into the Council chamber from the main door? When he'd been here before, at the age of twelve, when he was first made a full citizen, he'd come with a gaggle of his Mageborn year-mates. Then they'd passed by the door of the Council chamber, and the Council chamber had been at the end of a long corridor, not right inside the main door. This time, magick had brought him straight to this room, without passing through any of the intervening spaces. Why? Did his father not want anyone to see him but the High Council? Then why go to the trouble of tracking him down at his lesson and presenting the summons in public in front of all his classmates?

  To overawe me, Kellen thought sourly, unimpressed. To make sure I know what they're capable of—as if I didn't know that already.

  He looked around. White marble walls, a black and white marble floor; facing him at the far end of the room was the High Council sitting at a high horseshoe-shaped black marble table, their aides standing behind their chairs.

  High up so they can look down upon their victims, he thought. And he shuddered, frightened in spite of all of his attempts at bravado. Was this what poor Perulan had faced, in defense of his book? He was braver than I thought…

  Arch-Mage Lycaelon, tall, saturnine, and imposing in his robes of state, stared down at his son, his face as expressi
onless as those of the stone golems outside, but his eyes glittering just as dangerously.

  "Kellen Tavadon!" he said, his voice echoing hollowly in the vast chamber. "You have been summoned here by the High Council on a matter of gravest concern to all good citizens of the City. Step forward!"