VIII

Professor Freggel, Royal Representative of the Institute for Wizardry, hunched forward and clenched his fists. King Lyron looked distractedly at his wedding ring.


"Your Highness, this is a very...delicate situation we are in." Freggel hissed, "We have no protocol for replacing a   Head Wizard in the absence of a trained apprentice. It may take a great deal of time to obtain and adequately train someone new."


King Lyron did not care in the slightest, and did not understand why this concerned him at all. He said as much.


"You see, Your Highness, while we are training this apprentice, whomever they may be, we will not be at our usual professions...."


"You want money, Professor." King Lyron sighed.


"We absolutely require it, Your Highness! I cannot stress the blow we have taken by this unfortunate turn of events, nor the depths of our grief."


"Who is your apprentice?"


"None has been chosen, Your Highness."


"It shall be Princess Valora, Professor. I can quite easily justify helping her through schooling." Lyron said this not commandingly, merely a statement of fact. Freggel's blood boiled, but he bit his tongue.


"Of course, Your Highness."

VII

Magic had been dying out in the provinces for some time; beginning approximately 80 years prior, when the Wizard’s Institute was formed. All the very best wizards from all Xanara gathered to the capital city. This had lead to a dramatic fall in magical education throughout the provinces. About 40 years later, a few went back, and most found work in the institute as opposed to mentoring for the public. This had hurt the capital city itself :The only people who had any access to magical training were the rich, and the poor could not alleviate their suffering magically, as they had insufficient education in it. 


The Institute had been, unknown to the public, rocked with political struggles. It was early on decided that written records of magical knowledge were beyond dangerous, as any novice or power-hungry member may irreparably injure themselves, the Institute, or the world.

It was understandably crippling then, when H. Flezier, the head of the institute, died of internal hemorrhaging in his sleep. He had trained no successor, and untold volumes of magical knowledge were lost to the world forever.
                                    Xanara: Social Dynamics Preceding the Fall
                                                                                   S. Velzetti


Rane looked wildly about him for any sign of Koram, and found none. He was terribly frightened, and had no idea how to get back to the Palace. They had wound and weaved through a dizzying array of side streets and little walkways. He clenched his fists, and decided that the only reasonable thing to do was to ask someone where to go.


He stopped a little elf woman and said:


"Excuse me, miss, do you know how to get to the Palace?"


She looked him up and down suspiciously, and only pointed towards Old Xanara before scuttling off. He sighed, and walked back over the little hill.


He could see a tower that he thought must be part of the Palace, and reasoned that if he walked towards it whenever possible, he would eventually get there. Just then, he heard a band playing-very close by-and turned to see a funeral procession.


Wizards. Hundreds of wizards with solemn faces surrounded a hovering casket, and they marched very slowly down a main street. The music was sourceless, apparently made by magic. It was indescribably sorrowful-with long, impassioned crescendos and minor plagal  cadences. Rane stood transfixed. A beggar (probably from the other side of hill) had stopped beside him to watch.


"Who has died?" Rane asked.


"I dunno, but someone mighty important! That group in the front there is the High Council," the beggar moved his fingers in an imitation of the rich and educated as he gave them their title, "You don't see them out much."


"Do you know the way to the Palace?" 


"Sure! Just follow them. That's where they're going, no doubt." And with that, the man strolled back over the little hill.


Rane jogged to catch up with them and fell into the slow pace of the procession: the music from nowhere played on.

VI

Princess Valora sat in the back gardens looking out over the water. This was her favourite place, and her favourite weather, too: overcast, with a slight nipping breeze on her face. There was a perfect peace here, alone for a while and surrounded by flowers. She loved flowers-- she understood them much better than people. They made no demands, questioned nothing, and cast no spells (nor asked her to cast any). It was in this serene quiet  that the queerest of events happened in rapid succession.


Behind her she heard a clang and, spinning round, saw Mrako lurching forward and holding his left elbow. In the next instant he had darted out of sight. 


Not twenty moments later he dashed back past her view wielding what appeared to be her father's luncheon. Indeed it was, she surmised, as her father's manservant angrily followed him soon after.


Then her mother, weeping, ran past and up the back staircase, slamming the door behind her.


Stunned, and utterly confused, she decided to see what was upsetting her mother, and followed after her.


Once inside, she could see her mother huddling in a pile on the floor-weeping softly. She had never seen her mother (nor father, nor servant, nor anyone for that matter) cry.


"Mama...what is it?" 


Allendre shot up and all her weeping ceased. She seemed to be battling for control over herself. She took and released a long, ragged breath before standing with perfect queenly grace. She turned to face Valora.


She looked awful: her skin had an odd papery quality, and dark circles clung under her eyes. 


"I am tired, dear, very tired. And ill, I am sure. A doctor is coming tomorrow, but for today I must endure. I am tired, and ill and...cold." Her voice was thin, and she wrapped her arms around herself and sighed deeply.


Valora was horrified. She ran up to her mother and held her, and squeezed very softly. 
She could not think of anything to say.

V

The capital city of Xanara is a motley place, with something for every kind and creed. The architecture is of the Old kind-spires and towers and garish facades on most buildings, and with a few more modest huts sprinkled around the edges. The Royal Family's Palace is situated on the south end of the city, facing the water. The area immediately surrounding the Palace is called Old Xanara, and this was the first district through which Rane and Koram wandered.

It was clean-shockingly clean, with gleaming glass and stone and wood. They passed a family of dwarves so obviously wealthy it was almost amusing. They were dressed in fine silk drapery, imitative of the fashions up in the palace, and they spoke in a refined dialect. The shops were almost exclusively speciality ones for rich patrons: one for tea cups, another for tea trays; one for silver spoons, another for golden.

Rane and Koram said nothing as they passed through this opulence. Glancing over at Koram's face, Rane noted for the first time a break in his neutral expression. There was a trace of revulsion there, very faint, and very much apparent. They wound through a labrynth of backstreets and alleyways.

It was garishly evident where Old Xanara ended and New Xanara began. Upon cresting a little  hill, one could see the cleanliness flee, the high fashions fall, and the wages freeze. There were beggar-elves and pickpocket children and sham witches on pratically every corner, and the shops-dingy-were anything but specialty.

"Why is it so much poorer here?" Rane asked, turning to face Koram.

But Koram was not there.

IV

"Your Highness, I hope I step not outside my bounds, but you look weary-- even ill." said Mrako, noting the lines that peppered Allendre's face.


"I think I am. Ill. I've been..." the colour left her face, "Mrako, would you leave me? And send a guard to the door, I will take no guests." She said with the lack of tact particular to the very ill. Mrako did as he was told.


She stared into nothing and thought. She thought of Lyron, and could feel nothing but contempt, and then guilt and then sorrow, and then contempt, and all over again. She did not understand this, and these feelings tried the very edges of her rationality. She twisted her ring. She decided to put her thoughts in order as best she could.


What she felt was love, unmistakable, purest, irrational love...and not for her Husband. No, she felt it for Rane. She slapped her wrist in frustration. She did not know Rane, she had no possible cause to love him, none. And that was useless to note, because she did.


Every dinner, every moment with Lyron made her hate him more. (Hate?) Yes....hate him. Hate the distracted way he looked at her, the intensity with which he looked at Rane-as though he knew.


She stopped. Still. Did he know? Did he feel her hate? Her love? What did he know? What would he do if he knew? Would he confront her? No, no he would hide it, yes...he would....


No.


He would have her killed. It would be simple enough, he could find a wife that did love him, or at the very least someone who didn't hate him. The sense of this, and it's logical course of action was utterly inescapable. Allendre felt for the first time in what seemed an eternity to reach a firm, rational decision.


She would kill him first.