Lotan’s grip tightened on Will’s arm. ‘You transformed yourself! I felt you do it. I sensed it all from where I stood in the shadows. Nor was that any spell of seeming. You have powerful magic in you, powerful enough to shift shape, powerful enough to give me back my eyesight – if only you would decide to use it!’
‘You’re right—’Will said, pulling away, overawed by the bodily presence of the man.
‘I knew it!’
Will’s disguise was quickly reverting now, and he felt uncomfortably exposed. ‘What I mean is, you’re right that it’s no simple thing to make transformations. It takes powerful magic, but it’s a thousand times harder to unpick the spells of another – especially when the original change is one that was agreed upon freely. For that very reason, such magic as I am able to call upon cannot so much as remove a tattoo – not unless it was printed in the flesh by force.’
‘Please help me!’
‘Listen to me, Lotan! You gave yourself under oath to the Sighdess Ones. That was your given word. Such an oath is binding. It is not within the scope of my powers to reverse that change.’
The other slumped, like a great brazen statue being melted down in a crucible. ‘The gold I saved while I was a soldier, I buried it in a meadow near Verlamion before the battle. Even after all this time I could help you to find it—’
As Will shook his head more grey vanished into thin air. ‘Magic does not work through payment. The rede says, “Magic may be neither boughten nor sold.”’
‘Then I am going down into the fires of Hell…’
Lotan’s head collapsed into his hands and he rocked back and forth in silence. For a moment he seemed to be sobbing soundlessly, and Will considered the full misery into which this man had sunk. It was frightful.
What he had said to Lotan had hurt because, as the rede said, ‘Refusals disappoint, and great refusals disappoint greatly.’ And Will knew he would have to hurt Lotan even more.
Unable to wait any longer, Will stood up and began to unravel the transformation that had disguised him. He stepped out the gestures that helped the magic to unwind and restore him to his true condition and at last grew still.
‘You move with elegance,’ Lotan said emptily. ‘I could feel it. I think you must be a very handsome young man.’
Will knew he must check himself. In too short a space of time he had been placed under a tremendous obligation. His feelings had been slammed from pillar to post, and now he felt an overwhelming desire to do something that he might regret.
I can’t so easily walk away from a man who has just saved my skin, he thought. I can’t leave him in this alley and tell him there is no hope, when I know a man who might just be able to set everything to rights.
He tried not to think of Gwydion, but it was no good. The part of him that wanted to see the world become what it ought to be overflowed like a fountain. Of course, it was horribly wrong to presume upon a wizard’s powers – he had learned that lesson only too well at Delamprey. And it would be cruel to offer false hope to Lotan. But how could he just cut a man’s hopes adrift?
What shall I do? he asked himself. It would compromise Gwydion greatly if I were to tell any stranger that an Ogdoad wizard had entered Trinovant recently.
He scratched his head, but no better idea came into it. ‘There is a man I know who is far wiser than I. He may have some advice for you. Only advice, I say. But I will ask.’
‘I knew you would help me!’
Will felt a wave of gratitude break over him. ‘I make no promises,’ he cautioned. ‘And now I must go. Shall I look for you again in this place?’
‘Yes!’ Lotan’s empty eye sockets gazed towards the narrow patch of sky that opened above the alley. He threw himself to his knees and clasped his hands together in an attitude of such rapture that Will was embarrassed. ‘Have I your word of honour that you will come back?’
‘You may count that as a promise.’
‘I do not know why, young sorcerer,’ Lotan said fervently, ‘but I believe you.’
Will looked sharply around as Lotan seized his hand again. ‘You must not call me “sorcerer”, “enchanter”, “warlock” or “magician” – these words are easily misunderstood and lead to trouble. I’ll look for you again here about midnight, though I can’t say which midnight it will be.’
‘Then I will wait for you here every night.’
Will turned and looked down the alley. ‘Which way should I go if I’m to find the White Hall?’
Lotan drew back. ‘You have business at the royal palace?’
‘If I do, it’s my own business.’
‘Then you should avoid the Spire and go out of the City by the Luddsgate and along the roads they call the Fleete and the West Strande.’
‘You mean the White Hall lies outside the City?’
‘Didn’t you know? It’s on the north bank of the river, maybe half a league from here. To find it keep the warmth of the setting sun on your face, but always follow the stink of the river as it bends south. You will not mistake the place for the walls are high and the echoes carry there like the ghosts of the past.’
As Will emerged from the alley he found the small street deserted. The overhangs of the houses closed in above him, and in the quiet he was aware of cooking smells and the distant sounds of commerce on a busy street. The way out of the maze was easier to find than he expected.
On the main street there were crowds of people hurrying this way and that, occupied, but seldom speaking to one another. A few, Will saw, were born to indulgence, rich merchants who rode upon horses and had men to clear a way for them and their well-adorned ladies. But there were many others aimless and rat-like: cut-throats, pick-pockets, dirty-faced women, some wanton, some carrying babes-in-arms the better to further their trade in pity. He melted into the crowds, meeting very few inquiring looks but following his feelings as best he could. He took bearings from glimpses of the Spire and noted the colours of the robes the Fellows wore. Grey signified the chapter house of Farring-withoutthe-Wall, the Black Robes were Fellows of Hollbourne-bythe-Spire, but others robed in white were heading westward in large numbers, as if they were required to leave the City before the curfew bells tolled.
By following the White Robes Will soon came in sight of a gate and found it was the one they called the Luddsgate. There he supposed he would meet with more unhappy dragonets, but there was a paupers’ footway that led out, just a simple passage for those carrying no goods. It stank in the heat, but a different smell assailed him once outside, for the road ran across a stout bridge, and below it stretched brown mud banks between which the waters of a tributary ran. When Will looked down it towards the Iesis he was amazed to see that the level of the river had dropped right down. He hurried on, and soon he saw serjeants-at-law by the dozen sitting around the Inns at Linton Greene. They all wore gowns of dark green, and they had long, green-dyed feathers in their caps, which Will knew showed the number of their successes. Gwydion had told him how all lawyers had been compelled by a king of old to dress in this fashion in order that common men might know the greatest of villains on sight.
Will went on again, leaving behind the steeples of the Inns, then past the lordly houses of Arandel, Mells and Southfolk, until an almost unseen figure passed close by and crossed his path, pulling him suddenly into a doorway.
His aura flared green and he threw up a self-protective hand, but immediately he felt it seized and bent down hard in a grasp that forced him to his knees.
‘Agh!’
‘You fool!’
‘Master