Red Magic - Jean Rabe [1]
Maligor glanced past the spacious open-air market. The crude wooden stalls were being ritualistically boarded up for the evening to prevent vagrants from sleeping inside, the unsold goods packed onto wagons to be trekked home because the merchants feared to leave them here, wisely trusting no one. The morning would bring a different view, a vibrant, welcoming, bustling scene to delight the senses. The market would be crowded with retailers hawking all manner of exotic fruits, fresh vegetables, homespun and imported cloth, and shiny trinkets to catch the eyes of women with gold jingling in their bulging purses.
Likely there would be a slave dealer or two, despite the merchant guild's mandate that slaves must be sold in the stockyards so that the sellers would have to pay taxes on their illicit goods. Some of the best deals could be made purchasing flesh in the open-air market, though, because the sellers needed to move the stock quickly before the guild tried to close them down and claim its due. Maligor made a mental note to send one of his buyers there tomorrow. A Red Wizard's prestige was often measured by the size of his slave stable. And in this country, where two-thirds of the population were slaves, Maligor always strove to maintain far more than his share.
Just beyond the emptying stalls sat the fashionable alcazar of a young Red Wizard, a man who flagrantly displayed his wealth, which he had incomparably more of than common sense or magical might. The opulent abode appeared out of place in the old section of the Free City of Amruthar. Maligor smiled. Neighboring countries claimed this was the only independent city in Thay. However, Maligor and the other Red Wizards-in fact all those who lived in Thay-knew better. While the city fell under no one Red Wizard's jurisdiction and claimed decades ago to have seceded from Thay, many of the most powerful Red Wizards lived nearby and secretly directed the government by manipulating the strings of the puppet rulers. Some wizards, Maligor among them, were more obvious in their control, openly bribing and magically charming people in key positions and making Amruthar more closely influenced by the Red Wizards than perhaps any other city in Thay.
Maligor mused that the young Red Wizard ensconced in his perfect home never could be a power in the city. The newcomer likely lived here because of the closeness of the great teachers of the arcane, such as Maligor. But the young man would never climb above the rank of a simple fledgling. Maligor would see to that.
Maligor, on the other hand, had great bureaucratic and supernatural strength. He was a zulkir, the Zulkir of Alteration, one of a handful of Red Wizards who guided Thay's destiny through an all-powerful political council that directed the rulers of each city, created laws, both useful and obscure; detailed their enforcement; and described in massive volumes the punishments for lawbreakers. The zulkirs, however, only called upon Thay's courts to discipline people when it was convenient, and in fact often ordered those in their employ to commit every illegality that could be conceived. The zulkirs, who did not trust each other and did not cooperate beyond the council, could engage in whatever nefarious and heinous acts they desired. They were above the law. The council also dictated Thay's foreign policy, which at this point consisted of keeping every neighboring country unnerved and guessing.
Each zulkir personally controlled a magical discipline and oversaw all those who studied it. Maligor's specialty was transmuting objects, living and otherwise. If his current plan proved successful, he would control much more than that.
Maligor resumed watching the young sorcerer's mansion, curious about the young wizard. He closed his eyes