The Politics of Wizards
Chapter One
“I need you to rescue my son,” the Wixit said.
Indrajit nodded. He sat drinking lang-lang berry tea, sweetened with lemon and honey and thickened with cream, with his partner Fix. The tea shop was owned by the Wixit, whose name was Hector Thoat. Outside, the late-morning sun spilled down on the traffic along the Crooked Mile, steadily building toward noon. Over the scent of his tea, Indrajit smelled camel and Drogger musk.
Indrajit and Fix sat on stools around an upended barrel serving as a table. On a third stool, Thoat stood. Like all Wixits, Thoat was two cubits tall and furry. Indrajit and Fix wore kilts alone, given the summer heat. Their weapons hung on their belts, other than Fix’s spear, which leaned against the wall. The Wixit was naked and unarmed.
“We sort of specialize in princesses,” Indrajit said.
“We do not specialize,” Fix said. “We don’t specialize in princesses, or in kidnappings, or in anything else. We’re broadly skilled generalists. And we’re happy to rescue your son.”
“We can certainly extend our activities to recover the stray prince.” Indrajit smiled.
“He wasn’t kidnapped,” Thoat said.
Fix frowned. “Then why does he need rescuing?”
“He won’t come home,” Thoat said.
“Ah.” Indrajit folded his arms across his chest. “This is a different matter.”
“A different kettle of fish, you might say?” Fix smiled mildly.
“Fish have nothing to do with it,” Indrajit said.
“Hmm.”
“I can pay.” Thoat unslung a small purse from around his shoulder and poured coins onto the barrel. Without counting, Indrajit estimated that the pile contained some thirty Imperials. Bright, yellow, gold coins. “Consider this a deposit,” Thoat said. “A retainer. Call it half, shall we?”
“A child who has run away is a lot like a child who has been kidnapped,” Fix said. “In some ways, the dangers are greater.”
“A child who has been kidnapped usually has a roof over his head,” Indrajit pointed out. “And food.”
Out of the corner of his wide peripheral vision, he saw Munahim’s back. The third member of the jobber company, and in theory the only one who wasn’t a partner, stood with his back to the tea shop’s window. Indrajit saw his long sword slung there, beside the bow that snapped into a taut copper bracket. He saw the black fur along the back of Munahim’s head, and his doglike ears as he looked from side to side, standing watch.
Munahim hadn’t been paid in weeks. None of them had eaten for two days.
“Do you ever take biscuits with your tea?” he asked Thoat. “Or a nice bit of cake?”
“Sometimes.” The Wixit wasn’t taking the hint. “When you say ‘child,’ though . . . you understand that my son is an adult.”
“Finding and reconnecting with a long-lost loved one can be a trial,” Fix said. “Sometimes it’s as fraught with challenges as rescuing a kidnap victim.”
“I know exactly where to find him,” Thoat said.
“Perhaps you’d better explain exactly where your son is,” Indrajit suggested.
“Also, help us understand why you can’t just get him yourself,” Fix added.
“He’s at the Collegium Arcanum,” Thoat said.
Indrajit fell silent.
Fix sipped his tea.
“Maybe you’d like a little cake,” Thoat said.
Indrajit frowned. The Collegium Arcanum was a secret organization of wizards. Did it train new wizards? Did it regulate magicians? Did it serve as a cartel of wizardry to keep the prices of magic high? No one could say for certain, because there was no building such as, for instance, the Hall of Charters occupied, where a person could make inquiries. The Collegium was completely secret.
If it existed at all.
The Wixit brought two little seed cakes on a silver tray.
“How do you know he’s at the Collegium?” Fix asked.
Indrajit ate a cake quickly, before Thoat could take it back. He had a terrible feeling that the job offer was going to evaporate and the coins on the barrelhead disappear, but at least if he had a nice little cake, he wouldn’t have come here completely in vain.
It wasn’t a nice little cake. It was heavy and oily and he gagged choking it down, but Indrajit was hungry. He ate the cake and tried not to stare at its mate, sitting innocently on the tray.
“He asked for his inheritance early.” Thoat scratched his belly and shifted from paw to paw. “We’d quarreled, you see.”
“Go on,” Fix said.
“Did he spend it on magical tools?” Indrajit asked. “A ceremonial dagger? An alembic?”
“Are those in the Epic?” Fix asked.
Indrajit shrugged. “Common knowledge.”
“No,” Thoat admitted. “Or maybe. I don’t know what he spent it on.”
“Perhaps the Collegium requires the payment of tuition,” Indrajit said. “Or a licensing fee.”
“The point is that he cut me off,” Thoat said, “so I wouldn’t know where he went. But he’d always dreamed of becoming a sorcerer.”
“Any particular kind of sorcery?” Indrajit asked.
“The magical kind,” Thoat said.
“So no preference for, say, necromancy? Or scrying?”
“Druvash spellcraft?” Fix piled on. “Temple thaumaturgy? Bonean stargazing? Yuchak spiritwalking? Alchemy?”
“He liked the idea of getting rich,” Thoat said. “He despised the tea business. He never could tell his mint from his marmalade, and perhaps I drove the boy too far.”
“So he took the money,” Indrajit said, “and he always dreamed of being a wizard, and can we help you find him now. Is that about the size of it?” He eyed the pile of coins, afraid it was still liable to slip away. “Is there nothing more to go on?”
“I received a note last night.” Thoat cleared his throat.
“Sounds fishy,” Fix said.
As an act of revenge, Indrajit ate the second cake. He instantly regretted it; his hunger had sufficiently sauced the first cake to make it palatable, but wasn’t enough to make the second go down. It lodged in his throat like a beam turned sideways. He sucked at his tea, trying to sluice it down his gullet.
“It wasn’t signed,” Thoat added.
Indrajit swallowed. The cake stayed where it was, an awkward lump, but he could breathe and talk around it. “That’s the problem with writing. If I say something to you face-to-face, you know who spoke the words. You can look at me and judge whether I’m trustworthy and whether I know what I’m talking about. But a written message—pfagh! You have no idea who made it, when it’s not signed.”
“Even when it is signed you might not know,” Fix admitted. “Signatures can be faked.”
“I don’t know why you hold with the practice.” Indrajit snorted.
“So I was saying,” Thoat continued, “I received an unsigned note. It was there, on the floor behind the door. Someone had pushed it under the door in the night.”
He held up a scrap of parchment, offering it to Indrajit. Fix reached over and took the note.
“What’s on the back, there?” Indrajit asked.
Fix examined both sides of the scrap. “There’s a note on one side. On the other, more writing, but it’s in a language I can’t identify. And it accompanies drawings.”
“Art?” Indrajit asked.
“It looks more like technical schematics,” Fix said.
“I couldn’t read that side, either,” Thoat admitted. “Maybe your Kyone could give it a look.”
“Munahim is an honest Kyone, unsullied by the greasy art of ciphering letters.” Indrajit sniffed.
Thoat looked dismayed.
“Don’t worry,” Fix said. “Someone is just reusing a scrap of parchment. Parchment and paper and all other writing materials are expensive, so a prudent writer never lets any go to waste.”
Indrajit snorted. “A prudent writer.”
“The note,” Thoat said.
Fix held up the scrap of parchment. “It’s written in ink.”
“What else would it be written in?” the Wixit asked.
“There are many possibilities,” Fix said. “Paint. Pencil lead.”
“Charcoal,” Indrajit suggested, embarrassed that the idea occurred to him.
“The fact that the note is written in ink suggests that the writer is preparing the note in a study or a library,” Fix reasoned. “No one carries a bottle of ink with him to, say, the wharf, or to the market.”
Thoat nodded, eyes gleaming. “Yes, I see.”
“‘I know your son, Adakles,’” Fix read. “‘He is a disciple of the third degree in the Collegium Arcanum.’”
“What’s a disciple of the third degree?” Thoat asked.
“I don’t know anything about the Collegium’s structure, as such,” Fix said.
“But a disciple is a student,” Indrajit added. “It probably just means a student. Since he just started, presumably the ‘third degree’ part means he’s just a beginner.”
Thoat nodded. “Adakles would be new there. It makes sense that he would be a lesser disciple.”
“Unless he used his inheritance to buy a greater station,” Indrajit pointed. “So . . . he didn’t do that.”
“Is that how it works among the Blaatshi?” Fix asked. “Would an aspiring apprentice Recital Thane, for instance, give the old Recital Thane a large cash gift to be advanced in her studies?”
“I’m not an old Recital Thane,” Indrajit said.
“But you know what I mean.”
“And no, a Recital Thane would do no such thing. In the first instance, an apprentice doesn’t buy his position, he is admitted to it by the Recital Thane after careful examination.” Indrajit shuddered at the thought of bribery. “Indeed, he’s adopted by the old . . . by the incumbent Recital Thane as a son.”
“The family of the apprentice never gives gifts?” Fix asked.
“The family might give gifts,” Indrajit acknowledged, “but only because these would ultimately be bestowed on the apprentice himself, in the form of food, lodging, tuition, and other kinds of support. But a Blaatshi could never buy rank as a Recital Thane with money or any other payment. A Recital Thane must above all be able to perform, so it’s imperative that apprentices and thanes alike have actual ability, that they meet all requisite standards.”
“Yes, yes,” Thoat said. “A disciple of the third degree. But the other part is more important.”
Fix looked back at the parchment. “‘Adakles has failed his examination to become a disciple of the second degree. He believes that he will be allowed to continue as a disciple, and retake his examination. He is mistaken. Tomorrow, he’ll be killed.’”
“Not technically kidnapped,” Indrajit said. “But now we see what the problem actually is.”
Thoast shifted from paw to paw and made a whimpering noise in his throat. “It’s not finished yet.”
“‘I cannot tell him,’” Fix read, “‘so I am telling you. I will meet you at sunset tonight at Headless Took. I will wear red so that you recognize me. I’ll tell you where to find your son tonight so you can bring him home. You will want to have prepared a fast way to get him out of the city.’”
“That wasn’t a note,” Indrajit said, “it was a novel.”
Fix frowned.
“I don’t even know where Headless Took is.” Thoat’s voice was strained and squeaky.
“Headless Took is a statue in the Crown,” Indrajit said. “Some people worship it as a god.”
Fix shook his head. “Some people believe that the Took represents the spirit that descended upon Imperial Kish’s emperors upon coronation. And that the statue’s headlessness represents . . . or relates to . . . the fact that Kish is no longer an empire. And that the reappearance of the statue’s head will be a prophetic sign of the imminent return of the empire.”
“Reappearance?” Indrajit asked. “Does that mean that the head used to be there and disappeared? As in, vanished? Not knocked off the statue, but just ceased to be visible?”
Fix shrugged. “I’m more troubled by the fact that this would-be helper is unable to notify Adakles himself. What does that mean?”
Indrajit shook his head. “They’re separated somehow. In a different order or dormitory. Surely the person will tell us tonight.”
“Does that mean you’ll help?” Thoat asked.
Indrajit scooped the coins off the barrelhead. “Yes.”