The Outstretched Shadow ou(tom-1 Read online

  It didn't take long at all for Kellen to find what he was looking for, because the more he thought about his finds, the more convinced he became that they were books that were hiding their nature for a very good reason.

  Sure enough, he found the reference precisely where he'd begun to suspect it was, in the Ars Perfidorum, the Book of Forbidden Acts.

  Kellen wasn't even supposed to be aware that the Ars Perfidorum existed, much less have leafed through it. For that matter, he didn't even think his tutor was supposed to know about it; knowledge of this particular book was, if he recalled correctly, restricted to members of the Council and specific senior Mages. And the reason Kellen knew that was because Lycaelon had once allowed one of his fellow Council members to use the library, and the fellow had carelessly left the Ars Perfidorum and two other similarly restricted books out in the music room where he had been reading them. The resulting explosion when Lycaelon found them there had been memorable.

  Lycaelon had not been aware that Kellen was anywhere about, and the entertainment value of hearing his father swear and curse the stupidity of another adult—a High Mage at that!—had been so great that Kellen took his chances on being caught in order to eavesdrop. He made very sure to get back to his own rooms as soon as the coast was clear—but after that he'd been afire to find those books and see them for himself.

  He vividly recalled his disappointment at finding them to be deadly dull. It had seemed to him that a book with such an exciting title should have been full of horrors—bloodcurdling examples of Forbidden Acts, in excruciating detail, so that Mages down the centuries would know exactly how to recognize a Forbidden Act when they saw it. In fact, Ars Perfidorum was a mealymouthed prude of a book, more intent on outlining the punishments to be meted out for each perfidious deed than describing the deeds themselves. It was—it was a clerkly sort of book, and sent him off into a near-doze when he tried to read it.

  Maybe I thought that book was dull then, he thought, swiftly leafing through the text, but that was before anybody shoved the History of the City in Seven Volumes under my nose — hah!

  There they were—just as he remembered. His three books—titles and all.

  He leafed back a page.

  "The Foule and Invidious Practices of Wilde Magick." Now what in the name of the Light is that supposed to mean? Kellen wondered, frowning.

  The chapter in question didn't exactly answer any of his questions, although Ye Boke of Sunne, Ye Boke of Moone, and Ye Boke of Starres were named as the "prime texts of the heinous practitioners of those who seek anarchy and chaos." In fact, except for that single item of hard fact, the chapter was singularly unhelpful. It railed at great length against the "Wilde Mages," suggested any number of unpleasant means to deal with them, and attributed all manner of evils to them (always prefacing the accusation with the words "it is said") but it didn't say anything about what this "Wilde Magick" was, or why it should be so bad.

  In fact, the worst accusations that the author seemed to be able to come up with were that it was unpredictable, that it could not be controlled, and that some of the so-called lesser races such as Centaurs and fauns were known to practice it. "And well we knowe that these creatures are closer to the Beaste in nature than to Noble Manne—"

  Huh. "And in particular, Wilde Magick is the greatest seducer of Womyn, who are weak in Mind and Spirit and inclined to Corruption." Now what did that mean? That women could and did use it—or that it could be used to seduce women?

  Hmm… Now there was a possibility that had all manner of pleasant ramifications…

  Well, at least he knew now what the books were, and why they were passing themselves off as children's tales. He put the Ars Perfidorum back in its proper place, taking care that it fit exactly into the place where he'd pulled it down from, then moved the ladder back to where he'd found it. It looked as if the only place he was going to find any answers about the books was within their covers.

  He grinned to himself. And what good luck that he had the entire rest of the day free! I got just what I wished for, Kellen thought with glee, something new — something new —at last!

  NIGHT had fallen over the City while Kellen puzzled his way through the Books' peculiar crabbed handwriting in the safety of his room, although it was never really dark here. Lamps, magickal and otherwise, kept the darkness at bay all night long, in every season. Lamps illuminated the streets and decorated the gardens; lamps even lit alleyways to discourage the presence of thieves. Not that anyone would be foolish enough to attempt to rob the household of a Mage of any sort. Not twice, anyway. He'd skimmed through all three of the Books once quickly, finding little that made sense to him. The Book of Sun was composed partly of philosophy, partly of spells, but the spells were not of a kind that he recognized, and Kellen was doubtful that they could actually work. They seemed to verge on wondertale superstition. Burn this leaf. Say those rhymes. He could imagine nothing further from the abstruse disciplines of the High Magick.

  But at least The Book of Sun did contain things Kellen recognized as magick. The Book of Moon didn't even seem to contain any actual spells, just hints at spells—as far as he could tell from a quick skim, it was something halfway between an etiquette book and a philosophy text—and The Book of Stars made no sense to him at all. He had the odd feeling, though, that there was something there, if he could only figure it out.

  The house was utterly silent, with all of the household in bed, from which comfort no one would stir until they had to. That Lycaelon was a stern master was no secret; he did not approve of his servants "prowling," as he put it, during the bells of proper sleep. This included Kellen, of course, and after having been caught by Lycaelon once or twice, he kept to his own part of the mansion when restlessness kept him awake.

  Tonight was one of those nights.

  He had his shutters open on the small balcony that overlooked the gardens, and across the gardens he could see the lights of the other homes of the Mage elite. Soft globes of pastel colors lit their gardens—you could tell where one garden took over from the next by the color of the lamps. Only a few lights were burning in the homes themselves, and those were probably night-lights, not an indication that anyone was wakeful or working. In the distance he could see the Council House, facing the Delfier Gate that opened onto the forest road.

  The Council House stood symbolic guard over the gate and access into the City. Or was it more than merely symbolic?

  There were a few farming villages in that direction—the City claimed extensive lands outside itself. Certainly soldiers were sent out there, and tax collectors, the latter to feed the City's prosperity, and the former— perhaps to ensure the City's prosperity?

  But Kellen had never been there, and emigration between village and City was strongly discouraged, or so he'd been told, though never why.

  He could understand why the Council wouldn't want too many people trying to move into the City; conditions were crowded enough without adding more people. But why keep citizens from leaving if they wanted to?

  It was a puzzle for which he had no answer. Unless it was simply that City-dwellers had few, if any, skills that would be of use in a rural or agrarian society. Perhaps the idea was merely to save them from inevitable failure...

  Still, shouldn't people be allowed to learn this for themselves?

  If would-be City-folk-turned-rustics came trailing back with their tails between their legs after failing some bucolic experiment to the ridicule of their former neighbors, surely that would be more effective than any reprimand from the Council.

  The Council House itself was ablaze with light, for Mages worked there all night, every night, weaving spells for the good of the City. It was the only place in the City that never slept. Of course, all those lights so nearby meant that the stars were hard to see from the gardens of those living nearby.

  Someday Kellen would spend his nights there too, if his father's plans for his future went according to Lycaelon's oft-expressed wishes.


  A night owl by nature, that hadn't seemed so bad in the past, for he would be well out of Lycaelon's purview most of the time once he went to night duties—but for some reason now, the thought seemed stifling. As stifling as the High Magick itself had seemed of late, for it required a finicking obsession with detail that, applied to anything else, would be considered unhealthy. Kellen had come to realize of late that High Magick was boring, that—once certain tools of memory and power manipulation were mastered—it was entirely composed of written spells that were descriptions of the change in reality that the Mage would like to produce. Very exact descriptions, very minute descriptions, down to the smallest detail, written in a kind of mystical shorthand and forced into the face of reality-as-it-was by magickal power.

  Frankly, if the simple spells were enough to induce yawns, the advanced spells that he'd managed to glimpse looked to Kellen a very great deal like abstruse mathematical problems expressed in words and symbols of the sort that drove schoolboys mad—"If A leaves his house on the corner of Bodhran Street and approaches Taman Square at the same time B—"

  Learning how to read, write, and thoroughly comprehend this sigil-language and apply it to the world in the form of memorized spells was what the Mage-in-training first learned. Only then was he allowed to do anything with his knowledge.

  It was bloodless and terribly boring, when it came right down to it. There was so much preparation and memorization and detail required to do even the simplest thing that by the time you actually accomplished what you'd set out to do, you were probably so bored with the process that the accomplishment came as an anticlimax. And in any case, the tiny things Kellen was allowed to do now—and so far, all he'd managed to do successfully was light a candle once or twice—were so simple and so insignificant that he hardly knew why anyone had ever bothered to write down the spells for them.

  He looked out at the City, looked at what little he could see beyond the City walls from his third-floor balcony, and it gradually came over him that not only was he not happy, but for most of his life, save only a few stolen moments, he had never been happy. Other people were happy— why wasn't he? Why wasn't any Mage, really?

  He knew they weren't.

  His father wasn't, and his father was Arch-Mage, the highest and most powerful rank any Mage could attain. But Lycaelon was perpetually dissatisfied. When was the last time he'd ever seen his father enjoy anything? Other than finding an excuse to browbeat his son, that is…

  And none of Lycaelon's colleagues seemed any more content with their lives, even though they had wealth and power and the envy of everyone in the City who wasn't them. When was the last time he'd seen any of the Mages take pleasure in anything, other than humiliating one another?

  Being a Mage doesn't make you happy, Kellen realized with something very much like fear.

  He'd never thought about it before.

  He hated the lessons, was bored by the memorization, and didn't like his fellow Mage Students very much. But he'd always, well, sort of assumed that he'd get through all of it somehow, become a Mage, and things would get better.

  What if they didn't?

  Suddenly, staring out at the brightly-lit Council House, Kellen confronted his own life, and the prospects for the future, and he didn't like what he saw. And the more he pondered it, the less he liked it, and he began to come to some uncomfortable conclusions.

  One of which was that his studies were going to drive him mad before too long, all this obsession with pointless detail. He brooded on the view without seeing it, wondering why anyone would choose to be a Mage when a Mage had so little room in his life for life. If he did as Lycaelon wanted, Kellen would only trade the stultifying life of a Student-Apprentice for the tedious life of an Apprentice, and then for an even more restrictive and obsessive life of a Journeyman, and then what? Spend his entire life like his father, with a fantastic home he never saw, a garden he never went into, possessions he never used, and colleagues—not friends—he couldn't stand? Was he to live a life so measured, so controlled, that all the juice was sucked out of it?

  He shuddered, appalled by the prospect of becoming like one of them—with a dry little mummified excuse for a soul, spending his days contriving ways to control other people's lives for them, his evenings spent building baroque and convoluted spells, or equally baroque and convoluted schemes for the downfall of his political rivals. Where was the joy, the life, the pleasure in that?

  There had to be some other alternative…

  His mind turned naturally to the Books of the Wild Magic, which seemed, from the little he'd managed to understand so far, to be all that the High Magick was not.

  And if they were—if they were, in fact, the very opposite of High Magick—it would be very surprising indeed to find that Lycaelon looked upon them with favor… Furthermore, there might, there just might be something in them that would lead him to freedom.

  And that alone decided him. He got them from his hiding place, lit a single, well-shielded candle, and began to read The Book of Sun in earnest.

  Chapter Two

  Dark Lightning

  THE ARCH-MAGE Lycaelon Tavadon was a very busy man. Arch-Mage of the High Council of Mages that, in turn, governed all the lesser Mages who kept the Golden City running smoothly, his days were filled, not with spells and magicks as the commonfolk might think, but rather with the tedium of endless paperwork. A pile of unread reports sat now at his left elbow, teetering dangerously. A far smaller pile—read and annotated in his crabbed scholar's hand—waited for his secretary to come and bear them away. And at that, a day devoted to such tedium was a welcome change from the endless rounds of judgments and formal hearings that his rank demanded his attendance upon. Arch-Mage! The least of his Journeymen, it seemed, spent more of his time in practice of the Art than did Lycaelon these days.

  But we all serve the City, each doing his part in service to Armethalieh the Golden, the Arch-Mage reminded himself.

  He took a moment to indulge in a bit of pardonable pride in himself; not for him the plaints of lesser men, who bleated about the fettering of their great gifts to the rock of bureaucracy, the loss of their personal time, the sacrifice of their relationships and families on the altar of Duty. He had never once complained, and did not begrudge such sacrifice, though his late wife had shown her displeasure in no uncertain terms. But then even the best of women were lesser creatures, and could hardly be expected to understand when sacrifice for the greater good of all was required of a man. Which was only one more reason why they could never understand, nor be permitted to practice, High Magick, for they could never be depended upon to act selflessly when sacrifice was called for. Lycaelon often wondered why the Light had created them at all except as a vehicle for the perpetuation of a man's line.

  If only a man didn't need them for that purpose! How much easier, how much more serene and well tempered a man's life would be without the tears, the hysterics, the white, clinging arms that held him back even as they held him close…

  Not that females didn't have their uses, and their bodies certainly gave pleasure, but a well-made and finely crafted simulacrum would do as well, and could be left on a plinth or in a closet when not needed. Unlike a wife.

  He toyed with the notion for just a moment of finding a spell that would allow a Mage to reproduce himself without the intercession of a woman—say, perhaps from his own essence, making an exact duplicate of himself in infant form.

  But—no. That was forbidden magick. Only the Light could create life, and any attempt for a mortal to do so would invite in the Darkness. He gave up the idea with regret, and turned his attention back to the reports of the Mages of the Water-Works.

  He scribbled his recommendations on the last page, then paused for a moment to stand and stretch the kinks out of his back, looking down the length of his imposing work chamber.

  The Arch-Mage's private offices were in a wing of the Council House itself, so that he could be summoned at any moment to join the Co
uncil in its deliberations. No Magery had been spared in its construction; his desk, of a rare blood-red wood, was situated atop a dais elevated above the rest of the floor so that to reach it required ascending three steps of black marble. Few received such an invitation, least of all such supplicants who found their way to this office, but it was good to have that extra level of intimidation here in case it was required.

  The walls were of white alabaster, intricately carved in elaborate geometric patterns at the bidding of some long-dead Arch-Mage, giving the whole room the look of a chamber deep inside some enormous machine. The floor carried out the pattern begun upon the walls, only here the pattern was repeated in colored marbles, giving the illusion of texture and depth. Non-Mages had been known to trip upon that disorienting floor, to Lycaelon's private amusement. Fools of un-Gifted, not to be able to accurately see what their eyes presented them—it was fortunate for all concerned that they had the High Council to rule them!

  At the end of the chamber, the pattern repeated again upon the far wall, only this time in an enormous window of colored glass wrought of hues so piquant and intense that Magery must have played a hand in their crafting, for each pane was flawless and brilliant, a rainbow of colors framing the large disk of pure clear glass at its center, through which Lycaelon could see the Delfier Gate set into the City wall across the square from the Council House, and the Western Road beyond it. As always, the gate stood closed and barred: the only time it opened was to allow the entrance of City buyers bringing the fruits of trade caravans or the produce from the outlying villages that served the Golden City to the City warehouses.