Larry Niven - N-Space 02 by Playgrounds Of The Mind

Author:Playgrounds Of The Mind [Mind, Playgrounds Of The]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 2011-01-31T18:07:48.531000+00:00

“What do you know about mana, Aran? You know that it’s the power behind magic, and you know it can be used up. What else?”

“I’m not a magician. I sell rugs.”

“Manacan be used for good or evil; it can be drained, or transferred from one object to another, or from one man to another. Some men seem to carry mana with them. You can find concentrations in oddly shaped stones, or in objects of reverence, or in meteoroids.

“There is much mans associated with murder,” said the Warlock. “Too much for safety, in my day. My teacher used to warn us against working near the site of a murder, or the corpse of a murdered man, or murder weapons—as opposed to weapons of war, I might add. War and murder are different in intent.

“Necromancy uses murder as a source of magic. It’s the most powerful form of magic—so powerful that it could never have developed until now, when the mana level everywhere in the world is so low.

“I think Wavyhill is a necromancer,” said the Warlock. And he turned to the troll. “We’ll know in a moment.”

The troll stood passive, its long arms relaxed at its sides, watching the Warlock with strangely human brown eyes and with a human dignity that contrasted oddly with its low animal brow and hairy body. It did not flinch as the Warlock dropped a kind of necklace over its head.

The change came instantly. Aran backed away, sucking air. The Warlock’s necklace hung around a man’s neck—a man in his middle thirties, blond-haired and bearded, wearing a porter’s kilt—and that man’s belly had been cut wide open by one clean swing of a sword or scimitar. Aran caught the smell of him: he had been dead for three or four days, plus whatever time the preserving effects of magic had been at work on him. Yet he stood, passively waiting, and his expression had not changed.

“Wavyhill has invented a kind of perpetual motion,” the Warlock said dryly; but he backed away hastily from the smell of the dead man. “There’s enough power in a murdered man to make him an obedient slave, and plenty left over to cast on him the seeming of a troll. He takes more mans from the environment, but what of that? When the mana runs out in Gath, Wavyhifi’s trolls kill their masters. Then twice as many trolls move on to Shiskabil. In Hathzoril they probably used strangling cords; they wouldn’t spill any blood that way, and they wouldn’t bleed themselves. I wonder where he’ll go after Rynildissen?”

“Nowhere! We’ll tell the Council!”

“And Wavyhill a Councilman? No. And you can’t spread the word to individual members, because eventually one of them would tip Wavyhill that you’re slandering him.”

“They’d believe you.”

“All it takes is one who doesn’t. Then he tells Wavyhill, and Wavyhill turns loose the trolls. No. You’ll do three things,” said the Warlock in tones not of command but of prophecy. “You’ll go home. You’ll spend the next week getting your wives and children out of Rynidisen City.

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