The Windrose Chronicles 1 - The Silent Tower Read Online Free Page A

look, but Skipfrag merely gazed down at his own broad white hands. She shrugged. “Good health is no gift to him. Without a mind, the man is better dead. After four years, it is scarcely likely he will reawaken one morning sane.”
    “He may surprise us all one day,” Skipfrag remarked. “I daresay his son thinks as you do.”
    At the mention of the Prince Regent, Lady Rosamund's chilly green eyes narrowed.
    “It is about his son, in a way,” Salteris cut in softly, “that I asked you here, Narwahl. The man who was killed was a mage.”
    The physician was silent. Salteris leaned back in his chair, the glow of the witchlight gleaming above his head and haloing the silver flow of his long hair. For a time he, too, said nothing, his folded hands propped before his mouth, forefingers extended and resting against his lips. “My grandson says that he heard Thirle cry `No!' at the sight of a man standing in the shadows on this side of the court-the man who shot him, fleeing to the alley across the yard. Caris did not see which house the killer stood near, but I suspect it was this one.”
    The bright blue eyes turned grave. “Sent by the Regent Pharos, you mean?”
    “Pharos has never made any secret of his hatred for the mageborn.”
    “No,” Dr. Skipfrag agreed and thoughtfully stared into the witchlight that hung above the tabletop for a moment. He reached out absentmindedly toward it and pinched it, like a man pinching out a candle-his forefinger and thumb went straight through the white seed of light in the glowing ball's heart, the black shadows of his fingers swinging in vast, dark bars across the low rafters of the ceiling and the book-lined walls. “Interesting,” he murmured. “Not even a change in temperature.” His blue eyes returned to Salteris. “And that's odd in itself, isn't it?”
    Salteris nodded, understanding. Caris, standing quietly in a corner, as was the place of a sasennan, was very glad when Lady Rosamund demanded, “Why? Few believe in our powers these days.” There was bitter contempt in her voice. “They work in their factories or their shops and they would rather believe that magic did not exist, if they can't use it to tamper with the workings of the universe for their personal convenience.”
    Softly, the Archmage murmured, “That is as it should be.”
    The deep lines around Skipfrag's eyes darkened and moved with his smile. “No,” he said. "Most of them don't even believe in the dog wizards, you know. Or they half believe them, or go to them in secret-the dog wizards, the charlatans, the quacks, who never learned true magic because they would not take Council vows, so all they can do is brew love-philters and cast runes in some crowded shop that stinks of incense, or at most be like Magister Magus, hanging around the fringes of the Court and hoping to get funding to turn lead into gold. Why do you think the Church's Witchfinders don't arrest them for working magic outside the Council vows? They only serve to feed the people's disbelief, and that is what the Witchfinders want.
    “But the Regent . . .” He shook his head.
    Through the tall, narrow windows at the far end of the room, standing open in the murky summer heat, the sounds of the awakening city could now be heard. Caris identified automatically the brisk tap of butchers' and poulterers' wagons hastening to their early rounds, the dismal singsong of an itinerant noodle vendor, and the clatter of farm carts coming to the city markets with the morning's produce. Dawn was coming, high and far off over the massive granite city; the smell of the river and the salt scent of the harbor came to him, with the distant mewing of the harbor birds. At the other end of the table, Salteris was listening in ophidian silence. Aunt Min had every appearance of having fallen asleep.
    Skipfrag sighed, and his oak chair creaked a little as he stirred his bulk. “I was his Majesty's friend for many years,” he said quietly. “You know,