Free The Windrose Chronicles 2 - The Silicon Mage by Barbara Hambly

reception room for the better class of petitioners, a sort of long drawing room in oak and red velvet, whose French windows looked out on a vista of wet, brown garden, shivering in             the wind-blown restlessness of the sunlight. The room boasted several          life-sized bronze statues in velvet-draped wall niches, a marble fireplace in which a fire had been newly made up, and not another living soul.          “His Grace is rather occupied this morning,” the majordomo said, with a chilly bow, a statement which Joanna interpreted as a warning that she was in for a long wait. “I will inform him of your presence.” And he departed, bearing her letter of introduction and the sizable tip the Magus had advised would insure its prompt delivery.
    At least, Joanna thought, there was a fire in the fireplace, not at all a usual consideration, according to Magister Magus, in the rooms where       the humble waited to present their petitions to the great. Thinking back   on it later, she knew that it should have alerted her that someone else was   on it later, she knew that it should have alerted her that someone else was
    Thus the first warning she had was the sound of voices approaching in the garden beyond the French doors. She looked up, startled, in time to    see through the glass Prince Cerdic himself coming up the steps of the    small terrace just outside, looking back over his shoulder to talk to a man behind him.
    The second man was Gary.
    Joanna was so shocked, so disoriented at seeing Gary—possessed by Suraklin or not, her first impression was that it was Gary—in the context          of this world that Prince Cerdic was actually starting to open the door    before she moved. Her mind was staggering under the realization of what    Suraklin's presence here implied, the collapsing hurt of her last hope and then it was far too late to make it across the room to the inner door.
    Her only refuge was in the velvet-draped niche beside the fireplace which housed a heroic bronze of some ancient warrior who bore a startling      resemblance to Tom Selleck, close enough to have reached out and       touched either of the two men as they came to warm their hands at the fire.
         “My dear Gaire, of course he's mad, but why should the nobles care about that?” Cerdic was asking. “As long as he doesn't offend the         Church, retains a favorable trade balance with Saarieque, and keeps the            peasants in line, they wouldn't care if he slept with sheep and pigs, never mind boys.” The young Prince had put on a little weight since Joanna             had last seen him, his round cheeks somewhat rounder against the artful clusters of dark brown curls. But he still had the same pleasant expression in his painted hazel eyes and the same open brow and air of clean,             healthy good looks. Against Cerdic's resplendent mauve satin and clouds     of rose-point lace, Suraklin's dust-colored velvet seemed almost severe.
        
     “So far.” The Dark Mage had discarded all of Gary's old mannerisms.
         Even the voice sounded different, though its pitch and timbre were the same. “Nobles favor any man under whose rule they prosper. When they    feel the pinch of lost revenues and when they come to you for money, you'll find yourself a good deal more popular.”
    Cerdic nodded in eager agreement. “Of course your investment advice is superb, as all advice from one in touch with the Ancient Powers of   Magic must be.” Suraklin nodded in deprecating agreement. Joanna, in her hiding place and half-suffocated by the heat trapped between the            fireplace wall and the crimson velvet draperies, remembered the young   Prince's slavish adherence to anything Antryg had said, too, and won     dered how she could possibly have considered that kind of unthinking championship