Vincalis the Agitator Read Free

trouble for that.” The boy gave Wraith a speculative look, and then a tentative smile. “My name is Solander Artis,”
     he said.
    “I know. I heard you tell the guards.”
    “Now you’re supposed to tell me your name.”
    “It’s Wraith.”
    “Wraith what?”
    “Just Wraith.”
    “That’s a funny sort of name.”
    Wraith shrugged. “I liked it. That’s why I picked it.”
    “You picked your own name?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, that’s different. Wraith, I want you to show me how you got through our gate.”
    “All right.” The two of them rose, walked out into the yard together, and after Solander checked to see that no one who mattered
     was looking, Wraith walked through the gate. The lights played over him—and then he was on the other side. So he turned around
     and walked back.
    The boy frowned. “That can’t be. It looks like it’s working, but … Wait right here. I have to go get something. Don’t go
anywhere,
” he said, and raced to the big house.
    Wraith waited, and waited, and at long last the boy came racing back, carrying a small bag full of greenish lumpy balls.
    “You took long enough.”
    “It’s a big house,” the boy said, “and I had to get the testers out from under the watchman’s nose without him catching me.”
    “Testers?”
    “Gates only attack living human beings. Otherwise, they would have to be constantly raised and lowered for deliveries of supplies
     and other things that come via mage-carts. Pets and birds and other wildlife wouldn’t be able to pass through them, either,
     and the families do love their deer and peacocks and griffonelles. They’d be most upset to find their expensive pets roasted
     by a gate. So it used to be that the only way to test a gate was to shove a prisoner through it. Only now prisoners are used
     in work gangs, and they’re too valuable to just roast; so the wizards had to develop gate testers. You throw one through,
     and the gate thinks it’s a person who isn’t supposed to be there, and …” He pulled one out of the bag. “Here. I’ll show you.”
    He tossed the ball through the gate. The lights erupted again, but this time, along with the light, Wraith heard an eerie
     hum, and the ball stopped dead in midair, turned a brilliant glowing red, and exploded into dust with a crack so loud and
     sudden and emphatic it made both boys jump.
    Wraith closed his eyes. He’d seen the gates work on something other than testers before, and all because of his stupidity
     in thinking that if he could walk through them, anyone could.
    “It’s working,” the boy whispered.
    Wraith nodded. “They always are, I think. Gates just don’t work on
me
. The man in the market who sent his guards after me pointed his finger at me first, and the same sort of light came out of
     it. But that didn’t do anything, either, though I’m pretty sure he expected it to.”
    Solander leaned against a wall and closed his eyes. “Oh, dorfing hell-dogs! Master Faregan took a shot at you and it didn’t
     do anything?
Drowning
dorfing hell-dogs! No wonder he wanted his guards to grab you.” He stared at Wraith, his expression an eloquent testimony
     to awe. Without another word, he traced a short series of loops in the air. To Wraith’s amazement, a line of light glowed
     in the air in the wake of the boy’s finger. “Cover,” the boy said.
    The loops coalesced into a thin, wavering sphere of light that bobbled through the air to Wraith, touched him … and popped
     like a soap bubble, disappearing without a trace.
    “How did you
do
that?” Solander asked.
    Wraith said, “I didn’t do anything. I don’t do anything when I go through the gates, I didn’t do anything when that man pointed
     his finger at me and hit me with light. I don’t
ever
do anything.”
    “Would you walk through it for me one more time? I want you to carry a tester with you and see what happens.”
    Wraith nodded. Solander handed him a tester, and Wraith walked through the