176

A WIZARD IN ABSENTIA

You mean it? That far in the backwoods, and he’s heard of Castlerock?”

“Heard enough about it to want to go there,” Gar confirmed. “After all, it’s the only place an escaped serf can go and be even halfway safe.”

“So even here, they’ve heard there’s an island off the north coast that serfs have been escaping to for the last dozen years! That campaign is taking very firm hold.”

“Word gets around,” Gar said, “especially among an oppressed population. When virtual slaves hear of an island in the Central Sea where serfs can actually hold off their masters’ armies, it captures the imagination.”

“Hope,” Master Oswald agreed. “Even if they can’t escape, they can hope—for themselves, but even more for their children.”

“Which plants the seed of unrest,” Gar noted,

“and which is why the masters have to stamp it out, as quickly as they can.”

“They may have better capabilities than we’ve seen so far,” Master Oswald growled. “If they have scanners, they may have blast-cannon, and fliers. Besides, there’s that slender, very well-contained off-planet trade. What’s to stop them from hiring a merchant captain to land on Castlerock, and burn everyone to cinders with his exhaust?”

“Nothing but his conscience,” Gar said grimly.

“Are our men working on the captains?”

“We’re making some progress there …” And Master Oswald was off into a sea of terms that lan didn’t 177

understand, words like “capital” and “interest” and

“extension of terms.”

Actually, there had been so many of those that he had only barely been able to grasp the gist of what they had said. What was a “scanner,” he wondered, and a “distress beacon” and a “machine gun”? He grasped the general idea, though: when he had acci-dentally pressed that circle on the table in the Stone Egg, it had somehow sent out a message that had called in Lord Murthren. Fortunately, though, Gar seemed to have heard it, too, and had come and saved him.

The nobles had magical things—everyone knew that…

Except, perhaps. Gar and Master Oswald? They had been talking as though these magical talismans were news to them, as though they had just discovered something that they had only suspected before.

And, since everyone in the kingdom knew about the talismans, these two men must be from a foreign country.

Spies!

lan’s blood chilled, sending a shiver through him.

He lay there wondering, dread pooling in him… .

Then he remembered—they had spoken of Castlerock, spoken of it as though they had something to do with it. They were helping Castlerock, then!

Helping serfs, like himself! They were on his side, to protect him against the lords, against Lord Murthren. He relaxed again, smiling—his judgement of Gar had been right—the man was good …

And Castlerock was real.