“That takes all the fun out of it, don’t you think?” Colleto said, as amiable as ever.
“Rules for our incursion. We are not invading Racellia. We are observing, only. I intend to spend two days in Racellia: one day in and one day out. Is your village within that range?”
“I think it is. I never visited Vinellia. It was outside my father’s district.
“Ah, yes. The Racellian concept of districts to keep people from mingling has its uses. Did you feel resentful you couldn’t spread your wings?”
“My father did. I was too young to care, although I think I was getting restive about the time I was taken into the wizard corps,” Quint said truthfully.
“How should an emperor think about districts?” Colleto asked.
“They are useful for controlling populations, but I surmise they end up generating resentment. My father couldn’t expand his trading area, and that affected our ability to have enough to cushion the slower times,” Quint said. “We almost starved a few times when I was growing up.”
“If there was a well-run food distribution system?” Colleto asked.
“The more the government does, the more it costs in taxes. In poor years, tradesmen don’t have the resources to buy food but still pay a lot in taxes,” Quint said. “My father constantly complained about taxes.”
“To the government?”
Quint laughed. “No. To his friends in the pub as long as there weren’t any willots around.”
“He didn’t trust willots?” Colleto asked.
“And they didn’t trust hubites. It’s an ancient rivalry.”
“With hubites on the losing end,” Colleto said.
“For now, that’s the case,” Quint said. “People and cultures ebb and flow through the ages. South Fenola was once occupied by hubites. Willots gained enough power to push the hubites out.”
“Where did you read that?”
“Doctor Danko, a professor at the Narukun university said history shows that it happens all the time.”
“But not at a very quick pace.”
“No. It takes centuries, I imagine,” Quint said.
“You don’t expect your little enclave of hubites will grow and retake South Fenola, do you?”
“Not at all,” Quint said. “Hubites have no power base.”
“Except for the hubite who became a master wizard.”
Quint laughed. “One wizard is not enough to change the world.”
Colleto gave Quint a funny look. “I certainly hope not.” He rose. “It’s time to softly invade Racellia for two days. I’m rewarding you with a visit to your parents. You may be able to do something about your father’s situation.”
“Within the Gussellian Empire?”
Colleto smiled and shrugged.
They broke camp and entered Racellia through the woods. The main road had a border crossing, but this was to be a clandestine affair.
“I’d ask you to lead, but you don’t know the area any better than I do. Let me know if we come to a familiar place.” Colleto pulled out a map where he asked Quint where his village was. Colleto’s intended path went in a different direction, but the would-be emperor changed his plans.
“That’s at the outer limit of our incursion,” Colleto said. “We will retreat when we reach that point.”
Quint rode in the middle of the entourage. He was hemmed in on all sides in a loose formation that could close at a moment.
The land was familiar in a sense. The layout of the villages they saw in the distance had the same look and the one town they skirted had the same feel as the town in Quint’s district, but something was wrong. There weren’t any people about.
Quint looked for cooking fires sending curls of smoke from the chimney’s but there was nothing. He told his guards he wanted to talk to Colleto, and they moved along with him to the front of the group.
“We should look in a village. I don’t see anyone around.”
“I suppose that is possible,” Colleto said.
In less than an hour they came to the next village and Colleto warned his people to be ready for anything. They drew swords and trotted into the village from the woods.
Quint gasped. There were a few bodies in the main street. Quint dismounted and ignored the shouts behind him as he ran into cottages. People were killed in their sleep. Whoever did the killing, murdered willots as well as hubites. No one was left except for the chickens and goats that roamed the streets.
“Less than a week ago, your excellency,” one of the riders reported to Colleto. “That was when we just left Nornotta,” Colleto said to Quint.
“Do you still want to see your cottage?”
Quint’s stomach was hollow and unsettled. “Yes.”
They rode at a faster pace since there was no opposition. Quint’s town hadn’t escaped the carnage. Pogi the hedge wizard who had sold him into the wizard corps lay dead across his threshold.
