The Madness Project (The Madness Method) (84 page)

Of course—I’d been arrested.  I’d nearly forgotten.  I’d
been arrested, so as far as any of the servants were concerned, I was already a
traitor.  And traitors didn’t get their doors opened for them.

Kor stepped out of the motorcar and opened my door for me,
while Zagger opened the door on his side for Rivano to get out.  As soon as
Rivano stepped into the daylight, the guard’s rifle shot up to his shoulder,
and Pont and the footman scuttled off to one side.

“Put that down,” Kor snapped.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the guard said stiffly.  “The palace is
not open to visitors at this time.  There is a diplomatic envoy present, and I
have orders to keep the premises clear.”

“We’re part of the diplomatic envoy,” I said, striding up
the steps.

“Your Highness, you were arrested,” he said.  “I don’t
understand.”

“Yes, that exercise was conducted very well.”  I stopped
beside him, raking a cold glance over him.  “You did realize that was just an
exercise, didn’t you?  Gad, I told you that information would get lost
somewhere along the way, but would anyone listen?” I said over my shoulder to
Kor.

“But none of us knew,” Pont exclaimed, red with distress. 
“Is it true?”

“I’m the one who had him arrested, aren’t I?” Zagger asked
with a terrible scowl.  “D’you think I’d be standing here with him now if he
were really a traitor?”

Pont’s eyes widened.  “Oh, Your Highness, I beg your
pardon…”

I waved a hand and headed straight for the closed palace
doors.  The footman jumped forward, pulling them open and holding them for us
to enter.

“Keep an eye on that one,” I said to Zagger, nodding at
Rivano.  “He’s too slippery for his own good.”

“Your Highness, I’m afraid your father is in a closed
meeting with the ambassador.  You’ll have to wait to talk to him.”

I racked my mind desperately, trying to recall what
ambassador was coming.  Then my blood chilled, because I remembered all at
once—it was Istia’s envoy, the first envoy to come since Istia had accused
Cavnal of Eyid’s assassination. 
Oh, stars
.

“Yes, I know.  I’m not here for a private conference,” I
said.  “They’re in the Leaf Hall, I take it?”

Pont made a formal bow.  “Yes, Your Highness.”

I snapped my fingers at the three men and strode into the
palace, trying not to walk too fast, because I knew that would only betray my
terror.  The Leaf Hall, the council chamber where the King always met with
diplomatic envoys, lay far at the end of the south ward of the palace.  It
stood behind massive, carved double doors, and when the room was occupied, no
fewer than eight royal guards lined the hallway outside.

When the first guard saw me, he started to drop his pike
across the corridor, but I held up my hand and didn’t even slow my pace.

“Stand down,” I said.  “I have a right to be present.”

And they knew that was true, because I was the Crown Prince,
and I was a man now, and taking part in diplomatic sessions was supposed to be
one of my responsibilities.  The guards watched Rivano warily, but somewhere
along the way Kor had put his hands in cuffs.  I knew as much as any mage that
cuffs worked as well as any kind of energy inhibitor the scientists might come
up with.  Most of us had to have our hands free to use our gifts.

The last pair of guards pounded the butt-ends of their pikes
against the double doors, then swung them slowly open.  I marched straight
through, taking in the scene before me in a glance.

The Leaf Hall was aptly named.  Every piece of wood adorning
the room was carved like foliage, and all the painted spaces were embellished
with gold leaf.  Floor-length windows stretched across the whole southern wall,
flooding the hall with clear, cold light.

No Ministers were present, but that rather didn’t surprise
me.  An envoy could request a session with four Ministers present, but it was
uncommon enough.  The Ministry might run domestic affairs, but the King was
still in charge of Cavnal’s foreign relations. 

So it was just Trabin and my mother, sitting in their
high-backed seats at the far end of the room.  That immediately put me on
guard.  A round table occupied the middle ground of the room—when diplomatic
sessions were friendly, that was where the participants would sit.  If the King
and Queen were on the dais with the envoy standing below them, the situation
was tense, even hostile.  And that made my task ten times more difficult than
I’d feared.

My mother caught sight of me first.  Her lips parted, but
she wouldn’t exclaim; that would be undignified.  But Trabin and then the envoy
noticed her attention and I felt seven gazes switch around to stare at us as we
made our way across the marble floor.  Even Trabin was tongue-tied.  I could
tell from the frown on his face that he had no idea what to make of my
presence, or of the fact that I was bringing Rivano into his presence—even in
cuffs.

“Your Majesty,” I said, when I reached the bottom of the
dais, and I gave Trabin a formal bow.  Then I turned to the Istian ambassador,
a tall, white-haired man with a wildness in his eyes that didn’t seem to fit
his role, and gave him a shallower bow.  “Ambassador Eskir.”

My mother’s mouth twitched; she must have been as surprised
as I was that I remembered the man’s name.

“Your Royal Highness,” Eskir said, dropping his hands
rigidly at his sides and bowing.  He had a low voice, all rounded consonants
and hardened vowels—Shade’s impression of the accent had been quite good.  “I
do not think we have had the pleasure of meeting.”

Eskir’s gaze flickered over the other three men, and his
eyes widened when he saw Rivano, but he said nothing else.

“I apologize for the interruption,” I told Trabin.

“What is the meaning of this?” he asked, his eyes darting
past my shoulder, fixing on Rivano.

I put on my most innocent expression and asked, “Have I
interrupted a disarmament negotiation?”

“No,” Eskir said, the word cold and hollow.

“No, you have interrupted a failed negotiation, unless you
would like to try to convince Eskir that war with Cavnal will be their ruin?”

Eskir opened his mouth to counter the claim, but I held up
my hand and even Eskir’s attendants stopped muttering.

“It will bring ruin,” I said, quietly.  “But it will bring
ruin to everyone.”

“We must be able to defend our customs, our life!” Eskir
said.  “We are not Cavnal.  We are not Meritac.  We are Istia.  Istia does not
want to be like Cavnal, chasing foolishly after the Bensalem dream.”

“But Bensalem has shown us that what we strive for is
possible,” Trabin said.  “Science can overcome the limitations of nature.  We
can proceed and advance and not be hamstrung by some fanciful and ignorant love
affair with the past.”

“Bensalem will crash down under her own weight soon enough,”
Eskir said.

This was going nowhere.  I held up my hands again, a little
stunned when both Trabin and Eskir fell silent.  Trabin?  Maybe he was just too
curious to see what I would do.

“Your Majesty, I am here to request—” (
Humbly?
I
thought. 
No, not really.
)—”that you cease pressuring Tulay and Istia to
sign the Accord.  And to ask that the citizens of this nation known as mages be
allowed to live in peace, or at least to leave and take up residence somewhere
they will not be harassed for a birthright they did not claim for themselves.”

I fell silent.  Everyone was staring at me.  The air hummed
with their shock…or maybe it was just the way my mind was humming, and the air
singing, driving sound like a splinter into the back of my thoughts…

Vaguely I saw the electrical lights flicker, the room
dimming just enough to be noticed.

Stop, stop, stop…I’m Tarik…I’m Tarik…I can’t be Shade
right now…

My mother’s gaze flickered toward the row of lights, then
fixed on me.  I wanted to smile, but with a smile the world once blistered and
the streets flowed with blood…

I winced, staggering a step forward before I could stop
myself.  Immediately Zagger was beside me, watching me anxiously.

Trabin shifted on his seat and said, “Your request has been
heard.  And denied.  Explain now why
he
is here.”

I tried to glance behind me but the room dazzled with so
much light…I couldn’t see anything, or I could see everything…everything so
clear… Too much, too much… I couldn’t quantify; I couldn’t define; everything
drawn and connected with snaking lines and words, words, words…words were
pointless, grasping and snatching at reality and…

“Tarik!”

That was my mother’s voice.  I blinked and glanced her way. 
Her face had blanched, terror in her eyes.  I tried to hold her gaze but
couldn’t.

“Did I say something?” I murmured to Zagger.

“No,” he said, voice low.  “But the lights blew out.”

“What was that?” Eskir asked.  “That could only be the work
of a mage!”

“It was me,” Rivano said, taking a step forward.  “I’m
sorry.  I wanted to get your attention.  I speak on behalf of the mages of
Cavnal, though not all of them are on my side.  The mages have been treated
like inhuman beasts for almost a century now.  The only way a mage can survive
in this city is by hiding his identity, pretending to be something he is not. 
We cannot hold a job of any dignity.  We are forced into the slums and then
mocked for our poverty.  And we have not risen up and fought back—as you well
know we could—because we believed that we were your brothers.  The tie of our
blood is even stronger than the bond that unites the mages. 

“We don’t want war.  We don’t want to revolt.  You are
Cavnal’s King, and we have no wish to change that.  But please, let us live in
peace.  You don’t have to exterminate us.  We are no threat to your science and
your inventions and your brilliant, mad machines.  We may stand back, but we do
not stand against.  Please just give us the liberty to stand back.”  The plea
in his voice vanished all at once and he took one more step forward, saying,
“Or by Wake we will have no choice but stand with Istia and Tulay, and end this
tyranny.”

“Is that a threat, Rivano?” Trabin asked, hands whitening on
the arms of his chair.

“It’s a statement of fact.”

“Is this true?” Eskir asked.  “You had some plan to
exterminate the mages under your rule?”

Trabin’s face grew very still.  I didn’t envy Rivano,
pinioned on the end of his glare.  Then, slowly, he shifted his gaze to me. 
Not so long ago, that stare would have made me retreat, surrender, cower in the
shadows, but not anymore.

“Was this your plan all along?” he asked.  “Have you decided
to walk down that road?”

I glanced at my mother.  Her face was pale, carved in stone,
but in her eyes I read sorrow, and hope, and a promise…I could almost hear her
thoughts in my mind, murmuring,
All will be well.  I am with you.  Now is
not the time to stand down.  Stand, darling.  Stand.  I am with you.

I swallowed hard and asked, “Which of you tried to have me assassinated?. 

The room had been silent before, but now the silence
thundered.  None of them had expected that question, it seemed.

I went on, addressing Rivano, “Derrin was your
second-in-command.  Did you make him attempt to kill me just so you could tell
me you’d saved my life?”  I turned to Trabin.  “Or did you plot it yourself,
trying to find a way to get rid your problem while turning the whole city
against the mages who murdered me?”  They both stared at me, and I heard myself
shouting, “
Which of you did it?
”

“Derrin?” Rivano asked softly.  “He had nothing to do with
that.”

“He’s the only Ghost in Brinmark,” I snapped.

Rivano’s eyes widened briefly, then grew dark with something
like sadness.  “I had nothing to do with it.  I came to save you because he
warned me of the plot,” he said, nodding at Kor.

I spun to face Kor.  “Is that true?”

Kor measured me in silence, as though he’d forgotten how to
speak.  Eskir and the Istian envoy just gaped at the lot of us, too bewildered
and confounded to ask permission to withdraw.

“You see how that man would do anything to involve us in a
war!” Trabin cried.  “And here is all the proof I need of the Clan’s guilt.”

“Dr. Kippler ordered it,” my mother said suddenly, staring
straight ahead.  “It was not Rivano.  It was Kippler.  Holding the strings of
Derrin’s mind, a master puppeteer.”

“He was keyed!” I hissed.  I glared at Trabin.  “So it
was
your doing.”

“Is this you turning your back on me, boy?  Whose word do
you trust?  Your king’s, or Rivano’s?”

I stared at him, so confused.  So weary.  I didn’t know who
to trust anymore.  I trusted myself least of all.  My gaze drifted back to
Zagger and Kor, then to Rivano.  None of them showed the slightest emotion. 
They just watched me, and waited.  What were they thinking?  What did they want
me to do?  Would Zagger still stand with me, no matter what I said?

You can’t betray Hayli.  What about the lads who’ve
risked their lives for you, so many times?

I don’t want to betray them.  But I don’t have to betray
them to turn in Rivano, for bringing this city to such chaos.

It was either that, or lose everything I’d ever known. 
Become an outcast.  Expose my mother’s life.

Zagger shifted his weight.  Oh God, I wished one of them
would just tell me what to do.

Suddenly I stopped, and my turbulent thoughts grew calm, and
I smiled at Trabin. 

“I don’t trust your word,” I said.  “And I don’t trust his
either.  But I trust
hers
.”  My gaze turned to my mother, sitting pale
and still beside Trabin.  “Kippler is a king’s man, through and through.  And I
saw enough of him today to know what he’s capable of.  Maybe you didn’t give
him the order.  Maybe you just muttered a wish in his hearing, and Kippler,
always so eager to please, forced his puppet Ghost to target me.  Only Kor
overheard the plot, and went to warn Rivano.  Have I got the story right?”