“It’s something worthy of fear,” I agreed. “You speak our tongue well,” I added.
“I go frequently to the market for my clan,” he said, proudly. “The priests there helped me learn. And my letters,” he added, smugly. “I can read, write and figure. My father is the leader of my clan,” he added. “He thinks it good for us to learn Narasi, to keep them from cheating us. But they never do.”
“Well, you are very welcome, Borage,” I assured him. “I have many Tal Alon subjects, both in the Magelaw and in my home in Sevendor. Most have learned Narasi. You will be welcome among them.”
“You spoke of giving lands to them?” he asked, interestedly, as he sipped from his gourd. “How many are there?”
“Well, I haven’t taken count of them yet, but there are already several thousands who are settling the vale. It’s good land for vegetables and roots,” I informed him. “And I will have no lord over them save for me. They are free to rule themselves, as long as they keep to my laws.”
“As we do, here,” he nodded. “Will they have room for us, then?”
“They will, or I will grant more land if not,” I promised. I looked at him thoughtfully. He seemed a very bright fellow. “I think your clans will do well, there, actually. They have no llama races, nor fishing, nor beet rum,” I said, as he passed the flask back to me. “Indeed, I think you will be a good influence on them.”
“I am looking forward to that,” he nodded. “My father, though, he will resist giving up all we have here.”
“Tell him that I will do whatever I can to ease the transition, and ensure your people are provided for. I respect my Tal Alon subjects as much as I do my humani ones. But there is magic, in the Magelaw,” I reminded him. “Things are done a bit differently there, you will find.”
“It’s an opportunity, my lord,” he said, regarding me carefully. “In truth, our lands are getting crowded. It’s hard to find good plots, anymore, and they get smaller for each of us with each generation. Good times bring abundance to Tal.”
“There is plenty of room, Borage. An entire realm far, far greater than this little valley. An entire realm that has never tasted beet rum. Thousands of new customers,” I said, figuring that was his motivation.
He went away after another couple of toasts to my health, longevity, and the new opportunities. He was immediately replaced by three dwarves: Master Suhi, Master Azhguri, and Prince Husadri.
“So, our exile is to come to an end, regardless of what the other clans would wish,” the golden-haired prince said, smugly, glancing at the two commissioned to make that report. “Your word that we will have leave to settle in your lands?”
“Vanador lies within the foothills of the Kulines. We have many lands available that might suit your purpose. You may have your choice of them for your halls.”
“That is not to say that you will return to your kingship,” warned Master Azhguri. “We would not condemn you to death from the eruption, but that does not restore you to your offices.”
“You must tread carefully, Prince,” agreed Master Suhi. “The Alon Dradrien will not be happy with your return. Especially if you try to reclaim your rulership. Nor will you have any authority over my clan in Vanador. We have grown accustomed to ruling over our own affairs. Interfere with that at your peril.”
“We need not rule you,” Prince Husadri boasted, “but we will outshine you. Your clan are masters of iron, and yours of stone. We will best your skills in both. We have had a generation to hone our craft, and we are eager to show you.”
“Arrogant bastard,” Azhguri said, as Prince Husadri strutted off. Suhi muttered something in his own language. “Watch him, Minalan,” Azhguri warned. “He’s ambitious beyond all reason. All the Kilnusk are. It’s in their nature.”
“Well, that went better than expected,” Lilastien said, from behind me, as the dwarves departed.
“It was your presentation that did it. Did Forseti make it that brutal, or did you embellish a bit?”
She looked at me, surprised. “If anything, I left out the most gruesome parts of his prediction. Total loss. You know it’s going to take a titanic effort to get this done. Is Gareth up to it?”
“I can’t think of anyone better,” I decided. “And we can spare him for a year. If he and Forseti can’t do it together, it can’t be done. What of Ameras?” I asked, knowing the two of them had been talking for days, now.
“She will linger here for now,” Lilastien said. “She and Rolof, both, to help with the evacuation. They are, uh, involved,” she added.
“I figured, from the way they talk and behave,” I nodded. “He said as much to me in private. How scandalous,” I said, sarcastically. “A high-born Avalanti maiden and a back-woods humani wizard? What will the Council think?”
“The Council is going to be shitting siege beasts when they find out the vault can’t be opened. Judging Ameras’ kinky sex life will be far lower on their priorities. Without the knowledge in that vault, they cannot escape Callidore when the time comes. Or even search for a new home. They will either have to beg the other realms for assistance, which would be humiliating, or they will have to stay here and suffer with the rest of you. In some ways, that would be more just,” she decided.
“More immediately, we’ll not have the weapons we need to end this war decisively,” I pointed out. “Taren is right: we were looking to that vault to solve the problem of Korbal and Sheruel.”
“We tried to exterminate the Enshadowed once, already, and it didn’t work out well. They just hide, wait, and then rise again someplace else.”
“This time they’ve pissed off the humani,” I reminded her.
“They have,” she agreed. “You’ve fared far better against them than they expected. I wish the vault was open, too, just to arm you with proper weaponry. But unless Taren’s idea to contact the Aronin in the Otherworld works, you may just have to keep fighting for a few generations.”
I looked around the room for a moment, where members of many races were discussing their fate and their salvation. Gareth was making the rounds and introducing himself to those who hadn’t met him, and he was already making plans and organizing the various delegations. I felt a wave of intense despair wash over me.
“But to what purpose?” I sighed. “I’m rescuing all these people from one danger, just to bring them into another. And even if we win, our descendants are doomed to a cruel extermination. The entire world is. It’s hard to get excited about victory when you know that defeat is inevitable.”
“Yet we persist,” she nodded. “You and I will be long dead, by then. Perhaps our people will already be extinct,” she offered.
“That’s encouraging,” I frowned. “The lizard people have managed to cling to their existence here for tens of thousands of years. Humans are no less tenacious. And your folk seem to have a knack for survival. There has to be some way to prevent this doom.”
“No more than you can prevent the eruption,” Lilastien said, shaking her head. “The fading of magic will be a lot more gradual, but just as inevitable. And just as catastrophic.”
There was a pause in our conversation as we both contemplated the same thing. I finally spoke.
“There is clearly some means, else the Grandfather Tree would not have said what it did,” I said, in a low tone of voice.
“He also told you the price of that knowledge,” she reminded me. “Honestly, I don’t know what he was talking about. Nor do I think it bodes well for me and my people. But the Met Sakinsa have never been known to be dishonest. The Grandfather Tree is revered as a source of wisdom even among my people. Even above the Vundel. But that doesn’t mean he’s right,” she considered.
“It doesn’t mean he’s wrong, either. And there is only one way to find out,” I said, my throat swelling.
“Minalan, that’s not a decision that should be made lightly,” she cautioned.
“And I haven’t made it, yet. Have you?” I inquired.
“No,” she s
aid, pursing her lips guiltily. “But the temptation is there. If it leads to just the chance . . .”
“That’s the rub. It might be just a chance. With no guarantee that it will work out. Where does that leave us? Right where we are,” I said, answering my own question.
“What do we do if we don’t try?” she challenged. “We win the war, and then spend the rest of our lives knowing we eschewed the opportunity to save the world.”
“I know,” I said, shaking my head in irritation. I was starting to wish I’d indulged in more beet rum. “It’s not really in my nature to give up on something like that. But I don’t know if I’m willing to pay the price. It’s a steep one,” I reminded her.
“But the payoff could be big,” she countered. “Perhaps even worth the sacrifice.”
“I’m still thinking about it,” I said, defensively. “I haven’t made up my mind. I do have free will, you know.”
“Else you were fated to say that,” she chuckled. “Gods, I love the humani. Perhaps too much. Your antics distract me from the sins of my people. You’re clinging to stupid, irrational hope when you are all but powerless is continuously surprising. Come what may, I don’t regret a moment I’ve spent studying you.”
That was an odd thing to hear, I suppose, but I did feel flattered on behalf of my species. I guess stupid, irrational hope was a natural outgrowth of self-importance. When the entire universe seemed designed to kill you, hope was really the only weapon you had.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Three Pairs of Hearts
For a land utterly lacking in magic, Anghysbel seems to have an enchanting power over the hearts of those who visit. Perhaps it’s merely the romance of summer, or its exotic nature, or some strange pollen drifting out of the Leshwood, but there is something in the air in the valley that seems to compel the hearts of the youth to look toward love.
from the Expedition Book of Anghysbel,
Recorded by Alya of Spellgarden
“Now that your quest is over, when will we leave?” Alya asked, the next morning at breakfast in the common room of the station.
“You’re missing the children?” I asked, surprised.
“I did give birth to them,” she reminded me. “I’ve grown somewhat fond of them since. But I know that the time of departure is drawing near,” she reasoned. “If we’re done with our business, here, we should probably think about when we’re leaving.”
“Well,” I considered, “I’d like to spend a little more time here just to get an update from Forseti. He, uh, he may have discovered some of the Forsaken,” I revealed.
“He did what?” she asked, her eyes wide in disbelief.
“There is a . . . manor farm, in the sky,” I tried to explain. “One of several set there by the Ancients, to help them settle Callidore. Well, there appears to be a sky ship attached to one of them that might contain a number of the Forsaken. It’s not the New Horizon, but I’m hoping he discovers that before we leave.”
“That’s . . . do you know how crazy you sound?” she asked, bluntly. “‘Manor farm in the sky’ . . .” she said mockingly, shaking her head.
I sighed. “Alas, you are not just a wizard’s wife, but you’re the Spellmonger’s wife. This is the kind of thing I get involved with. Forseti thinks that, with enough time, he can free the ship. I’d like to hear about his progress before we go. Besides,” I soothed, “I wanted to make this a proper holiday, too. You seem . . . you seem more whole than any time since Greenflower. I’d like to take advantage of that.”
“You know, I feel more . . . whole,” she admitted, after a moment’s consideration. “Since I’ve been here. I don’t know why, but it’s . . . it’s refreshing. I feel like a real woman again, like I’m not just pretending. I still don’t feel like myself, exactly, but I feel more like myself than I have since we lost the baby,” she said. Her tone was casual, but what she said struck me to the core.
“You remember that?” I asked, quietly.
“Of course I remember that,” she said, her tone near to chiding. “Even when I was completely mad, you don’t forget that sort of thing. It’s part of your body,” she explained, thoughtfully. “It’s as real as the babies I delivered. That was always there, when I was . . . shattered. I always knew about Minalyan and Almina. And . . . the one that didn’t make it. That was always there.”
“I never knew,” I confessed.
“It wasn’t your body,” she shrugged. “No reason for you to know. But that’s how I feel.”
My issue wasn’t with my ignorance, but in her use of the miscarriage as a significant marker of time. I would have credited her fight with Isily, at that time. But I suppose all of us have our own milestones of life in our heads. At least, that’s what Fondaras the Wise would have told me.
“I’m just worried that when we get back to Vanador, I’m going to regress,” she admitted. “I don’t want that to happen.”
“I’m hoping it won’t. Lilastien seems to think you’ll be fine.”
“You two have been talking about me?” she asked, surprised.
“For years, now. She’s probably the best physician on Callidore,” I reminded her. “Before we go, I’d like her to give you an examination with the medical equipment, here. It might be that you won’t have to have any more treatments from the Handmaiden, when we get back.”
That seemed to mollify her, but it was clear she didn’t care for Lilastien’s attention now that she was in her right mind.
Lilastien was actually too busy to see Alya that day. Once word got out about the Lord of Anferny’s amazing recovery at her hands, there was a steady stream of people with various ailments coming up the slope to see her. Most had conditions beyond her ability to heal, but she managed to do several procedures that were life-changing for the patients. There was nothing she could do for an amputated arm, for instance, but she was able to diagnose and treat at least a dozen folk from Anferny and the Kasari encampment for illnesses or conditions that belied the local folk doctors.
“It’s a little exhausting, but it’s good practice to use the equipment again,” she told me at the end of one particularly long day. “If I had these things back in Henga, I could treat thousands with it.”
“Can we relocate it?” I asked.
“Sadly, no. Most of it requires power – electrical power, not arcane power. And it requires the assistance of a Constructed Intelligence, for most purposes. Oh, I’ll be taking a couple of medical tablets, and that will help significantly just in medical education and pharmaceuticals. But the remote surgery suite will have to stay here, as will the big scanner and a lot of other equipment.”
“That’s too bad,” I frowned. “Forseti showed me some of the things we used to be able to do. Like that poor girl this morning who was missing a foot. My ancestors could have built her one, it seems, rather than force her to use a peg and a crutch.”
“Yes, the prosthetics were elegantly effective,” she agreed. “But that’s just scratching the surface. The drugs, the medical devices, the surgery, the laboratories . . . New Leiden Medical Center was a miraculous place, back during the Colonization. I’d like to re-create it as much as possible, in Henga.”
“We can do a lot with magical healing,” I pointed out.
“True,” she admitted. “But it’s nowhere near standardized, and sometimes it can be dangerously erratic. Perhaps we can fix that, at Henga. But it would be helpful to have real equipment,” she sighed, wistfully.
“I’m curious . . . why did you become a doctor, of all things, when you were on Perwyn?” I asked.
“That’s a good question,” she said, thoughtfully. “My residency board asked me the same thing. The truth is, I did it originally because I was fascinated with the science, from your people’s perspective, and I wanted to study humanity down to its cellular structure. It seemed the most expedient route, after university.
“But then I actually started to enjoy the clinical practice more than the science,” she recalled. �
��I rotated through all the specialties in order to get as much experience as possible. That’s why they stuck me in administration, eventually, until I left. That was an entirely different experience, which was valuable in other ways. But I did enjoy practicing. And meeting the patients.”
“It sounds a little like being a spellmonger,” I suggested.
“Well, we didn’t argue about our fees with our patients, but the practice part was the same,” she agreed. “And helping people.”
“I miss it,” I admitted. “Being an actual spellmonger, that is. You’re right, the people were the fun part. You just don’t get that being a warmage. Well, you meet people, but then you try to kill them half the time. But I think some of my happiest professional memories were of the six months I spent building my practice in Minden’s Hall. Until Goodman Tilleb paid me in cider one day, I got drunk, and the goblin’s invaded that night.”
“I had to leave because I was recalled by the Alka Alon Council for trial,” she countered. “I went back a few times during the proceedings, but that was the end of my clinical practice, except for a little at the Tower of Refuge.”
“All good things must end,” I sighed.
“That’s not one of my favorite cliches,” she said, making a face.
“It’s a stock phrase in wizardry,” I explained. “A little wisdom that soothes an upset client when you can’t do what they want you to do.”
“Like ‘we’ve done all we can, it’s in the hands of the gods, now,’ in medicine. And every time you say it to a patient, you’ve failed. Which is why it is also one of my least-favorite cliches.”
We spent the next several days near the Cave of the Ancients, resting, reading, and meeting with visitors from the various districts. Gareth handled many of those, as they concerned the evacuation, but a few wanted a word with the Spellmonger on various subjects. It was mostly reassurance that the eruption was coming and I could provide an adequate place for them, issues beyond mere organization.
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