"He is my liege," Plenna said with quiet dignity. "I was required. You would demand the same from any of the mages of the East."
"Well...that is true."
"Will you not consider what we have said?" she pleaded.
"No, I won't give up power and you can stuff your arguments about making the peasants smarter in a place where a magic item won't fit. You're out of your mind asking something like that. And if Nokias has softened enough to say yes, he will regret it." Ferngal showed his teeth in a vicious grin. "I'll soon add the South to my domain. Chaumel, you ought to know better."
"High Mage, sometimes truth must overcome even common sense."
Abruptly, Ferngal lost interest in them.
"Go," he said, tossing a deceptively casual gesture toward the door behind him. "Go now before I lose my temper."
"Heretics!" screamed Lacia.
With what dignity he could muster, Chaumel led the small procession around Ferngal toward the doors. Keff gathered up the holo-table and opened his stride to catch up without running.
He heard a voice whisper very close to his ear. Not Carialle's: a man's.
"Some of us have honor," the voice said. "Tell your master to contact me later." Startled, Keff turned around. Whilashen nodded to him, his eyes intent.
In spite of Chaumel's pleas for confidentiality, word began to spread to the other mages before he had a chance to speak with them in person. Rumors began to spread that Chaumel and an unknown army of mages wanted to take over the rest by destroying their connection to the Core of Ozran. Chaumel spent a good deal of time on what Keff called "damage control," scotching the gossip, and reassuring the panic-stricken magifolk that he was not planning an Ozran-wide coup.
"No one will be compelled compelled to give up all power," Chaumel said, trying to calm an angry Zolaika. He sat in her study in a hovering chair with his head at the level of her knees to show respect. Keff and Plennafrey stood on the floor meters below them, silent and watching. "Each mage needs to be allowed free will in such an important matter. But I think you see, Zolaika, and everyone will see in the end, that inevitably we must be more judicious in our use of power. You, in your great wisdom, will have seen that the Core of Ozran is not infinite in its gifts." to give up all power," Chaumel said, trying to calm an angry Zolaika. He sat in her study in a hovering chair with his head at the level of her knees to show respect. Keff and Plennafrey stood on the floor meters below them, silent and watching. "Each mage needs to be allowed free will in such an important matter. But I think you see, Zolaika, and everyone will see in the end, that inevitably we must be more judicious in our use of power. You, in your great wisdom, will have seen that the Core of Ozran is not infinite in its gifts."
Zolaika was guarded. "Oh, I see the truth of what you say say, Chaumel, but so far, you have offered us no proof! Pictures, what are they? I make pretty illusions like those for my grandchildren."
"We are working on gathering solid proof," Chaumel said, "proof that will convince everyone that what we say about the Core of Ozran is the truth. But, in the meantime, it is necessary to soften the coming blow, don't you think?"
"I'm an old woman," Zolaika snapped. "I don't want words to 'soften the coming blow.' I want facts. I'm not blind or senile. I will be convinced by evidence." Her eyes lost their hard edge for a moment, and Keff fancied he saw a twinkle there for a moment. "You have never lied to me, Chaumel. You say a thousand words where one will do, but you are not a liar, nor an imaginative man. If you're convinced, so will I be. But bring proof!"
As they flew off Zolaika's balcony, Chaumel sat bolt upright in his chariot, a smug expression on his face. "That was most satisfactory."
"It was? She didn't say she'd support us," Keff said.
"But she believes us. Everyone respects her, even the ones who are spelling for her position." Chaumel made a cursory pass with one hand in the air to show what he meant. "Her belief in us will carry weight. Whether or not she actually says she supports us, she does by not saying she doesn't doesn't."
"There speaks a diplomat," Carialle said. "He makes pure black and white print into one of those awful moire paintings. Progress report: out of some two hundred and seventeen mages with multiple power items, I now have one hundred fifty-two frequency signatures. It is now theoretically possible for me to selectively intercept and deaden power emissions in each of those items."
"Good going. We might need it," Keff said, "but I hope not."
With Zolaika four of the high mages had given tentative agreement to stand down power at the risk of losing it, but meetings with some of the lesser magifolk had not gone well. Potria had heard the first few sentences of Chaumel's discourse and driven them out of her home with a miniature dust storm. Harvel, the next most junior mage above Plenna, had accused her of trying to climb the social ladder over his head. When Chaumel explained that their traditional structure for promotion was a perversion of the ancestors' system, the insulted Harvel had done his best to kill all of them with a bombardment of lightning. Carialle turned off his two magic items, a rod and a ring, and left him to stew as the others effected a hurried withdrawal. "I think that among the remaining mages we can concentrate on the potential troublemakers," Chaumel said as they materialized above his balcony. "Most of the others will not become involved. A hundred of them barely use their spells except to fetch and carry household items, or to power their flying chairs."
"They'll miss it the most," Keff said, "but at least they aren't the conspicuous consumers."
"Oh, well put!" Chaumel said, chortling, as he docketed the phrase. "The 'conspicuous consumers' have been making us do most of the work for them. I laughed when Howet said he'd agree if we talked to his farm workers for him-Verni, what are you doing out here?"
Below them, clinging to the parapet of Chaumel's landing pad, was his chief servant. As soon as the magiman angled in to touch down, Verni ran toward him, wringing his hands.
"Master, High Mage Nokias is here," he whispered as Chaumel rose from the chariot. "He is in the hall of antiquities. He has warded the ways in and out. I have been trapped out here for hours."
"Nokias?" Chaumel said, sharing a puzzled glance with Keff and Plennafrey. "What does he want here? And warded?"
"Yes, master," the servant said, winding his hands in his apron. "None of us can pass in or out until he lets down the barriers."
"How strange. What can frighten a high mage?"
Chaumel strode through the great hall. The servant, Keff, and Plennafrey hurried after him, having to scoot to avoid the tall glass doors closing on their heels.
The silver mage stood back a pace from the second set of doors and felt the air cautiously. Then he moved forward and pounded with the end of his wand.
"High Mage!" he shouted. "It is Chaumel. Open the door! I have warded the outside ways."
The door opened slightly, only wide enough for a human body to pass through. Chaumel beckoned to the others and slipped in. Keff let Plenna go first, then followed with the servant. No one was behind the door. It snapped shut as soon as they were all inside.
Nokias waited halfway down the hall, seated on the old hover-chair, his hands positioned and ready to activate his bracelet amulet. Even at a distance, Keff could see the taut skin around the mage's eyes.
"Old friend," Chaumel said, coming forward with his hands open and relaxed. "Why the secrecy?"
"I had to be discreet," Nokias said. "There's been an attempt on me at my citadel already. You've stirred up a fierce gale among the other mages, Chaumel. Many of them want your head. They're upset about your threats of destruction. Most of the others don't believe your data-they do not want to, that is all. I came to tell you that I cannot cannot consider giving up my power. Not now." consider giving up my power. Not now."
"Not now?" Keff echoed. "But you see the reasoning behind it. What's changed?"
"I do see the reasoning," the Mage of the South said, "but there's revolt brewing in my farm caverns. I can't let go with violence threatened. People will die. The harvest will be ruined."
"What has happened?" Chaumel asked.
Nokias clenched his big hands. "I have been speaking to village after village of my workers. Oh, many of them were not sure what I meant by my promises of freedom, but I saw sparks of intelligence there. The difficulties began only a day or so ago. My house servants report that, among the peasantry, there is fear and anger. They cry that they will not cooperate. It is stirring up the others. If I lose my ability to govern, there will be riots."
"It's only their fear of the unknown," Chaumel said smoothly. "They should rejoice in what you're offering them, the first high mage in twenty generations to change the way things are to the way things might be."
"They cannot understand abstract thinking," Nokias corrected him sternly.
"I will go and talk to them on your behalf, Nokias," Chaumel said. "I've done so for Zolaika. It's only right I should also do it for you."
"I would be grateful," Nokias said. "But I will not appear in person."
"You don't need to," Chaumel assured him. "I and my friends here will take care of it."
The farm village looked like any of the others Keff had seen, except that it also boasted an elderly but well cared for orchard as well as the usual fields of crops. A few lonely late fruit clung to the uppermost branches of the trees nearest the home cavern. Nokias's farmers were harvesting the next row's yield.
The Noble Primitives glanced warily at the three "magifolk" when they arrived, then went about their business with their heads averted, carefully keeping from making eye contact with them.
"Surely they are wondering what brings three mages here," Keff said.
"They dare not ask," Plenna said. "It isn't their place."
Chaumel looked at the sun above the horizon. "It's close enough to the end of the working day."
He flung his hands over his head and the air around him filled with lights of blue and red. Like will-o'-the-wisps the sparks scattered, surrounding the farmers, dancing at them to make them climb down from the trees, gathering them toward the three waiting by the cavern entrance. Keff, flanking Chaumel on the left, watched it all with the admiration due a consummate showman. Plennafrey stood demure and proud on Chaumel's right.
"Good friends!" Chaumel called out to them when the whole village was assembled. "I have news for you from your overlord Nokias!"
In slow, majestic phrases, Chaumel outlined the events to come when the workers would have greater capacity to think and to do. "You look forward to something unimaginable by your parents and grandparents. You workers will have greater scope than any since the ancestors came to Ozran."
"Uh-oh," Carialle said to Keff. "Someone out there is not at all happy to see you. I'm noting heightened blood pressure and heartbeat in someone in the crowd. Give me a sweep view and I'll try to spot them."
Not knowing quite what he was looking for, Keff gazed slowly around at the crowd. The children were open-mouthed, as usual, to be in the presence of one of the mighty overlords. Most of the older folk still refused to look up at Chaumel. It was the younger ones who were sneaking glances, and in a couple of cases, staring openly at them the way Brannel had.
". . . Nokias has sent me, Chaumel the Silver, to announce to you that you shall be given greater freedoms than ever in your lifetime!" Chaumel said, sweeping his sleeves up around his head. "We the mages will be more open to you on matters of education and responsibility. On your part, you must continue to do your duty to the magefolk, as your tasks serve all Ozran. These are the last harvests of the season. It is vital to get them in so you will not be hungry in the winter. In the spring, a new world order is coming, and it is for your benefit that changes will be taking place. Embrace them! Rejoice!"
Chaumel waved his arms and the illusion of a flock of small bluebirds fluttered up behind him. The audience gasped.
"No! It's a lie!" A deep male voice echoed over the plainlands. When everyone whirled right and left to see who was talking, a rock came whistling over the heads of the crowd toward Plenna.
With lightning-fast gestures, the magiwoman warded herself. The rock struck an invisible shield and fell to the ground with a heavy thud. thud. Keff saw the color drain from her shocked face. She was controlling herself to keep from crying. Keff pushed in front of the two magifolk and glared at the villagers. Some of them had recoiled in terror, wondering what punishment was in store for them, harboring an assailant. The male who had thrown the stone stood at the back, glaring and fists clenched. Keff hurtled through the crowd after him. Keff saw the color drain from her shocked face. She was controlling herself to keep from crying. Keff pushed in front of the two magifolk and glared at the villagers. Some of them had recoiled in terror, wondering what punishment was in store for them, harboring an assailant. The male who had thrown the stone stood at the back, glaring and fists clenched. Keff hurtled through the crowd after him.
The farmer was no match for the honed body of the spacer. Before the panicked worker could do more than turn away and take a couple of steps, Keff cannoned into him. He knocked the male flat with a body blow. The worker struggled, yelling, but Keff shoved a knee into his spine and bent his arms up behind his head.
"What do you want done with him, Chaumel?" Keff called out in the linga esoterka.
"Bring him here."
Using the male's joined wrists as a handle, Keff hauled upward. To avoid having his wrists break, the rest of the worker followed. Keff trotted him along the path that magically opened up among the rest of the workers.
"Who is in charge of this man?" Chaumel asked. A timid graybeard came forward and bowed deeply. "Even if there is to be change, respect toward one another must still be observed. Give him some extra work to do, to soak up this superfluous energy."
"Is this what the new world order will be like? If we allow the workers more freedom of thought, there will be no safe place for me to go," Plenna said to Keff in an undertone with a catch in her voice. He put an arm around her.
"We'd better get out of here," Keff said under his breath to Chaumel.
"It would have been better if you'd pretended nothing had happened," Chaumel said over Keff's shoulder. "We are supposed to be above such petty attacks. But never mind. Follow me." Though he was obviously shaken, too, the magiman negotiated a calm and impressive departure. The three of them flew hastily away from the village.
"I don't understand it," Chaumel said, when they were a hundred meters over the plain. "In every other village, they've been delighted with the idea of learning and being free. Could they enjoy being stupid? No, no," he chided himself.
Keff sighed. "I'm beginning to think I put my hand into a hornet's nest, Cari," he said under his breath. "Have I done wrong trying to set things straight here?"
"Not at all, Sir Galahad," Carialle reassured him. "Think of the frogs and the power blackouts. Not everyone will be delighted with global change, but never lose sight of the facts. The imbalances of power here, both social and physical, could prove fatal to Ozran. You're doing the right thing, whether or not anyone else thinks so."
When they returned to Chaumel's residence, another visitor awaited them. Ferngal, with a mighty entourage of lesser eastern Mages, did not even trouble to wait inside. The underlings covered the landing pad with wardings and minor spells of protection like a presidential security force. Chaumel picked his way carefully toward his own landing strip, passing a hand before him to make sure it wasn't booby-trapped. He set down lightly and approached the black chariot on foot.
"High Mage Ferngal! How nice to see you so soon," Chaumel said, arms wide with welcome. "Come in. Allow me to offer you my hospitality."
Ferngal was in no mood for chitchat. He cut off Chaumel's compliments with an angry sweep of his hand.
"How dare you go spreading sedition among my my workers? You dare to preach your nonsense in my farmsteads? You have overreached yourself." workers? You dare to preach your nonsense in my farmsteads? You have overreached yourself."
"High Mage, I have not been speaking to your farmers. That is for you to do, or not, as you you choose," Chaumel said, puzzled. " choose," Chaumel said, puzzled. "I would not presume upon your territories." would not presume upon your territories."
"Oh, no. It could only be you. You will cease this nonsense about the Core of Ozran at once, or it will be at your peril."
"It is not nonsense, High Mage," Chaumel said mildly but with steel apparent in his tone. "I tell you these things for your sake, not mine."
Ferngal leveled an angry finger at Chaumel's nose.
"If this is a petty attempt to gain power, you will pay heavily for your deceit," he said. "I hold domain over the East, and your stronghold falls within those boundaries. I order you to cease spreading your lies."
"I am not lying," Chaumel said. "And I cannot cease."
"Then so be it," the black-clad mage snarled.
He and his people lifted off from the balcony, and vanished. Chaumel shook his head, and turned toward Keff and Plenna with a "what can you do?" expression.
"Heads up, Keff!" Carialle said. "Power surge building in your general area-a heavy one. Focusing...building...Watch out!"
"Carialle says someone is sending a huge burst of power toward us!" Keff shouted.
"An attack," shrieked Plenna. The three of them converged in the center of the balcony. The magiwoman and Chaumel threw their hands up over their heads. A rose-colored shell formed around them like a gigantic soap bubble only a split second before the storm broke.
It was no ordinary storm. Their shield was assailed by forked staves of multicolored lightning and sheets of flaming rain. Hand-sized explosions rocked them, setting off clouds of smoke and shooting jagged debris against the shell. Torrents of clear acid and flame-red lava flowed down the edges and sank into the floor, the ruin separated from their feet only by a fingertip's width.
The deafening noises stopped abruptly. When the smoke cleared, Chaumel waited a moment before dissolving the bubble. He let it pop silently on the air and took a step forward. Part of the floor rocked under his feet. Keff grabbed him. Two paces beyond the place they were standing, the end of the balcony was gone, ripped away by the magical storm as if a giant had taken a bite out of it. The pieces were still crashing with dull echoes into the ravine far below. Plenna mounted her chair to go look. She returned, shaking her head.
"It is..." Chaumel began, and had to stop to clear his throat. "It is considered ill-mannered to notice when someone else is building a spell, especially if that person is of higher rank than oneself. I believe it has now become a matter of life and death for us to behave in an ill-mannered fashion."
"Ferngal," Carialle said. "Using two power objects at once. I have both their frequencies logged." Keff passed along the information.
"Sedition, he said." Chaumel was confused. He appealed to Keff. "What sedition was Ferngal talking about? I have talked to no one in his area. I would would not." not."
"Then someone else is talking to them," Keff said. "Nokias mentioned something similar. We'd better investigate."
A quick aerial reconnaissance of the two farmsteads from which Nokias and Ferngal's complaints came revealed that they were very close together, suggesting that whatever set off the riots was somewhere in the area, and on foot, not aloft. Chaumel asked help from a few of the mages who had tentatively given their promise to cooperate. They sent out spy-eyes to all the surrounding villages, looking for anything that seemed threatening.
Nothing appeared during the next day or so. On the third day, a light green spy-eye found Chaumel as he was leaving Carialle's ship.
"Here's your trouble," Kiyottal's mental voice announced.