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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2013 by Robert Hood
Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidebooks.com
DEDICATION
For my father and mother,
Bob and Nora,
for their unconditional love
and gentle humanity.
OPENING QUOTATION
“…The Eternal Man is seal’d, never to be deliver’d.
I roll my floods over his body, my billows & waves
pass over him,
The sea encompasses him & monsters of the deep are
his companions.
Dreamer of furious oceans, cold sleeper of weeds &
shells,
Thy Eternal form shall never renew, my uncertain
prevails against thee.”
William Blake, Vala, or the Four Zoas, 4.132–136
“The true existential struggle is not between Good and Evil, but between Form and Chaos. The one makes Society possible, the other shapes Existence itself. Yet the desirable outcome of this conflict is not dominance. In the struggle between Form and Chaos neither can conquer, for if either does so, Life is distorted into a monstrous parody of itself and its continuity rendered problematic.”
Hugo Drakenswode, An Existential Exploration
of the Physiognomy of the Monstrous,
Ergo Press, 1927, p. 59
CHAPTER ONE
ALIEN PLACES
i.
Remis felt soiled just being in this rat’s nest. Its patrons were as loud as the poorly embroidered hanging that dominated the barroom wall. The wood of the table, stained and pitted, mimicked its owner’s complexion. Remis even fancied she could see tiny creatures in her wine glass. It was a foul place, yet it was here in The Night Binge that the representative of Lanaris Commercial House had insisted on meeting her.
“Lady! Ya want another drink…or ya just gonna take up table space, eh?” The landlord leaned over her, his face scowling. It wasn’t personal. He carried an air of resentment with him from table to table and inflicted it on all his customers.
Remis thrust her glass at him. “I haven’t finished this one, as you can see. There’s rather too much body in it for my liking.” The man glanced at the specks floating—even swimming—in the wine.
“What’d you want of me?” he managed at last.
She pushed the glass into his hand. “A replacement, please.”
“Replacement?” He frowned. “You must be joking.”
Remis stared at him coldly.
Muttering to himself, the barman shuffled toward the bar. He paused to talk to a thin, raggedly bearded man, who looked at Remis and laughed.
Choices are rarely free—that was what Remis Sarsdarl had come to realize. The spilt beer on the floor, the ambient smell of sweat and sickness, swearing voices—she resented all these things as she would a personal slight. Nevertheless she sat there enduring it, a martyr to her sense of the inevitable. Lanaris House was an important force in City-life—and since it also controlled a significant proportion of the world’s traffic in magical artifacts, it was in her interest as a novice spellbinder to listen to its proposals. That she knew what was wanted, and had no intention of working for Lanaris whatever was offered, didn’t matter to her. Humility was all part of her initiation into the world of commerce and had to be endured. Newly graduated from the Aram-Halas Seminary—the largest and most prestigious magic-training college in Vesuula—Remis wanted to be accepted as a colleague, not an underling. Advancement in the commercial environment of Vesuula’s political capital, Koerpel-Na, demanded such gamesmanship.
When at last Lanaris’ lackey arrived, he didn’t utter one word of apology. Remis had pictured him just as he turned out to be: a neat man, officious and slightly sinister, squatting like a toad over his glass. “So you see, my dear,” he croaked condescendingly, “without us you will flounder in poverty, struggling vainly for a mandate. Neither the House Lanaris nor its insignificant rivals will aid you. The manufacture and sale of magical artifacts is no frivolous venture—”
“I know about magical artifacts.”
“So you do. But what will that avail? You have only recently come from the Seminary, where you did tolerably well in your studies. But you have no friends, and it is these who will help you thrive. Put your talents to the best use. To work for my Lord Deern Lanaris is no degradation. He would make a useful ally.”
“I worked for your House under acolyte bond, but the apprenticeship is over. I want to remain free of direct ties, thanks just the same.”
“Such freedom is illusory. You’re too vulnerable.”
“Is that a threat?”
He smiled and the bend of his lips told Remis the truth of it.
“Surely there’s room for everyone,” she said.
The little man smiled again, more tightly this time. “Idealism is an admirable trait…in the young.” He leaned toward her and his voice lowered. “May I speak frankly?” Remis shrugged, as he clearly had no intention of remaining silent. “Your acquiescence is inevitable, because the alternative is not to work at all…and hence not to live. You have surpassed all your peers in the development of spellbinding arts and this fact alone is enough to bind you to Family service.” His head cocked arrogantly before continuing his lecture. “Profits are the key to political power in the Merchant State—and as Vesuula is the world’s commercial center, it little tolerates either the idealist or the democrat. Should you work in opposition to us, for yourself or another Family, you will be draining Lanaris’ custom and influence, however minutely. My Lord Deern would not readily condone such a thing.”
Remis stared at him. It was unbelievable that her simple wish to be self-dependent should lead into conflict with the rulers of Koerpel-Na. But she saw that that was where her training had consistently been taking her. Magic studies bore on how the world was fashioned, not on the vagaries of society. Now she felt alone and abandoned, no longer part of a vast supportive family. She had no friends and was acquiring enemies quickly.
“I see you understand our position.” The man glanced away, as though hearing something that interested him much more than Remis. Tension along his jaw line, however, told her he was waiting more keenly for a response than he was letting on.
“I understand that you think I can be influenced by threats,” Remis said, drawing his attention back to her.
“We never threaten. Commercial intimidation is forbidden by Ruling Council guidelines.”
Remis leaned forward slightly. The man half-turned from her, as though sensing something that repulsed him. “What if I said I could wither your heart as easily as I could spit on the floor at your feet?” She glared at him, intending to convey a delicate instability. “The Deep Power is more primal than your bureaucracies.” The man cleared his throat, pushing his chair away from her.
“You dare threaten me?” he said shakily.
“Of course not. As you yourself pointed out, it’s forbidden.” Remis sat back. “But I won’t sell myself to you either. There’s no law says I have to. Having commercial power over me doesn’t make you right.”
Suddenly the little man rose. His scornful superiority had returned. “Sooner or later we all must choose to whom we will sell ourselves. Look around you. Learn the lesson of this place. Would you be slave to such a life, or would you be its master?” He bowed minutely. “I take my