“Fulfill my requirement,” Ankennes said in a reasonable tone, “and there’s no reason you shouldn’t return to Kalches with perfect liberty and health. I may be a ruthless Lonne conspirator, but why should that matter to you? A Kalchesene bardic sorcerer surely hasn’t any deep concern for the well-being of the Seriantes, head or tail.”
The foreigner shrugged. “Perhaps I’ve little concern for the Seriantes, but less interest still in accommodating the murderous whim of a Lonne mage.”
Prince Tepres tilted his head to one side and said in a quick fierce voice, “Yes, Ankennes, do explain your odd whim to us all. I’m certain we are all passionately interested to know your purpose.”
Mage Ankennes completely ignored the prince. He said to the young sorcerer, “I would prefer to harness your peculiar magic to my ends, but, believe me, there are other ways. You’ll play death for the Dragon’s heir and return unharmed to Kalches, or you’ll die first and he’ll still follow. Well?”
“Taudde, you can’t,” Leilis said in a low, passionate voice to the sorcerer. Her tone was odd: She spoke to the foreigner as though she had not only an interest in the outcome of this decision but a right to dictate it. She said, “It doesn’t even matter whether Ankennes can really murder the prince without you or not, and I’m not so sure he can or why would he complicate everything by forcing you to do it? But it matters to you, just you—as well as to, well, everybody else. It would be worse if you murdered the prince than if Mage Ankennes does it.”
The sorcerer tilted his head toward Leilis and listened to her as though he really cared about her opinion.
Mage Ankennes said with exaggerated patience, “The romance of the young! I assure you, Lord Chontas, the prince will be just as dead whoever kills him. So why not live? Play his death for me.”
The young sorcerer gave Ankennes a look of disdain. “You’ve made pipes of your own, then? But even if I would play one set of pipes, do you believe the prince is so foolish as to play the other set? Under any compulsion?”
“Oh, I’m sure he wouldn’t,” Mage Ankennes said drily. “Fortunately, his cooperation isn’t required.”
“Aware or unaware, the cooperation of the one to be ensorcelled is always required,” the foreigner began, and then stopped.
Mage Ankennes was holding a thin white flute out to him. Nemienne knew, with a creeping horror even though she didn’t understand why she was so sure, that this flute had been made of bone. She guessed further that it had been made from old, brittle bone—from Seriantes bone, though how the mage would have come to possess such a bone she could not begin to guess.
“He went to the tomb on Kerre Taum,” Karah breathed next to her. She sounded sickened, at least as sickened as Nemienne felt. “He stole a bone from one of the Seriantes kings—from Tepres’s great-great-grandfather…”
Nemienne had not even known there was a tomb of kings on Kerre Taum, but the idea of Mage Ankennes slipping into a tomb to steal bones was horrible. But horribly believable. If Ankennes had stolen a bone from the first Dragon of Lirionne, that would be… well, besides horrible, the flute he’d made would probably be far too suitable to the mage’s current purpose.
“This,” Ankennes was saying, “is not an instrument that requires the cooperation of anyone but a bardic sorcerer. I might even be able to play it myself. But I would prefer to use my strength elsewhere. You will play it.”
“You made that?” The foreigner sounded appalled, as well as shocked. “You made it?”
“Did you assume Kalches had a monopoly on bardic sorcery?”
“We have a monopoly on bardic training.” The foreigner sounded dismayed. “Is that flute grounded? Did you obtain permission of the, the donor?”
“It was a little late to ask permission, don’t you think?” Now Ankennes sounded almost amused. “I’m not entirely untrained, however. I am acquainted with the limitations with which you Kalchesene sorcerers hedge yourselves about. Charming, to be sure, but unnecessary when you use sea magic and good solid magecraft to compensate for the inherent limitations of bardic sorcery. Take it!” He threw the bone flute through the circle of light that surrounded the foreigner.
The sorcerer, apparently quite by reflex, caught it. Then he quickly tried to snap it in two, arms and shoulders flexing, but he didn’t seem surprised when the slim flute resisted his effort. After a moment he looked back at Mage Ankennes. His expression was neutral, but Nemienne thought there was fury behind the neutrality. He said, “You think I’ll play this dead-bone pipe? For you?”