Free Feast of Souls by C. S. Friedman Page B

had been asked to do, of course; the whole kingdom knew. They surrounded me like vultures about a corpse, watching… waiting… hungering…”
    He shook his head as if to banish the memories.
    “And so the festivities began. The sun set and it was a dark night with no moons; the king had scheduled it thus deliberately. There were so many drunk revelers in the great plaza and beyond you could become intoxicated just by breathing in the air that wafted up from them, bright spirits in parti-colored costumes that flitted in and around the visiting Magisters like drunken moths, and the king beside me, drunk on his own power, on anticipation of the spectacle to come, and all the glory that his reputation would accrue from it.
    “And then it began. The morati explosions first, bursting upon the twilight sky. How magnificent they were! Yet still not enough for this king, who wanted men not only to celebrate his military victories, but to be awed by his sorcerous connections as well. And so after I had let the crowd grow accustomed to that spectacle, I lent my assistance to the efforts and increased the display tenfold in brilliance, in color, in motion… I conjured a thin mist throughout the heavens that reflected back the light of each explosion, so that color filled the skies as in the grandest of lightning storms. I wove the streamers of light into patterns that became something else, and then something else again… a woman’s smile, a soldier’s halberd, the coat of arms of the king. Night became day beneath my ministrations, yet even the most glorious sunset would have been hard pressed to compete with my spectacle, and even the drunken moths below stopped beating their wings, their beer and ale forgotten, as they gazed up in wonder at what their king had provided for them.
    “And then… it happened. As I had known it would. You cannot redesign the heavens without great price, and even with a young and healthy consort such a thing would have been risky at best. As it was I was calling upon more athra than my consort could spare, and his death shot through me like a spear of ice, shattering my concentration.
    “It is not normally such a sudden thing, or so disarming, but when one is in the middle of a major undertaking, it is quite terrifying. So much so that Magisters will go out of their way to drain an exhausted consort in privacy, in advance, rather than risk a new Transition in the middle of an enchantment. But that kind of murder had never been to my taste, and now I was paying the price.
    “The light in the heavens was lost to me. My life nearly was as well. In desperation my soul struck out into the night—now made dark as my conjurations faded—seeking a new source of soulfire. In that instant, that terrible instant, all my rivals knew what had hap-pened. Of course. They had been waiting for it, holding their breath with each new display, hoping that such a moment would come. It is the only moment a Magister is truly vulnerable, in which a man might take his life… or attempt something worse.
    “I do not know the name of the sorceries that were launched at me then. Perhaps subtle things, that would only have left barbed hooks in my soul to answer to another’s power in the future; perhaps less subtle things, meant to cripple or maim on levels no morati would ever see. We are a cruel people at heart, and nothing inspires cruelty more than a rival’s helplessness. Meanwhile the morati world was blind to our drama, wondering only why the pretty lights had ceased, and when they would begin again.
    “At last, gasping, I succeeded in claiming a new consort, drank in its athra like a desert traveler might gulp down fresh water, and drove back all those forces that were accosting me in the darkness. I think I won. Who knows? Maybe there is something still left in me from that time. Maybe some tie between myself and some rival remains… how can I ever know for sure? There is a reason we fear being around other