I stared at that damn stone for hours before I got up enough courage to probe its arcane depths. I’d done what research I could first, of course. I am a Thaumaturge, after all, among other things, and I approached my investigation like a school project. It hadn’t taken me long to exhaust my tiny library for references on the subject. I had learned a little more than I thought I would, which only made me more afraid of what we were facing.
Jarik’s Metaphysical Reality had a small listing for irionite, and said it originated in the loamy meadows of mountain valleys of the Minden Range (where I was standing). Apart from a few minor pieces of folklore and obvious lies, the Sage of Sherbrook had little else to say on the manner.
Koval’s Talismans and Sigils had a more complete listing, and included an account from an even earlier epoch that declared that the Magocracy had stolen its powers from the gurvani and the Tree Folk when they came to this land. Koval made some astute speculation that the powers that they stole were in the form of irionite gems, and mentioned a few references that I wasn’t familiar with as back-up.
Lister’s Magical Miscellany described a little of the stone’s use in the Magocracy, including some theories about their origin. This last entry was by far the most helpful – and the most frightening.
Lister wrote of several accounts of the stones being used for phenomenal feats of magic, including the destruction of whole towns, freezing of rivers in the middle of summer, animating armies of the dead, that sort of thing. Lister’s theory about the origin of the stones was interesting and made a great deal of sense. Irionite was not a mineral, he contended; it was an organic substance. He theorized that it was a type of amber, possibly from the sap of the kellesarth tree.
Kellesarth, as Lister explained, is an evergreen shrub whose berries are rich in a substance that was named kellan by the sages of antiquity. Kellan has the effect of temporarily increasing the expression of potential magical talent in a mage, which is why a distillation of the berry is sometimes used in the early days of an apprentice’s training if he is having a hard time producing power.
Sometimes the distilled essence will allow the pathways used for magical work to open up more fully and less painfully than if left to develop on their own. It has been used to varying degrees of success to treat a few of the rare magical ailments that our profession is hazard to. The book also mentioned that some mountain peasants eat the raw berries before orgiastic fertility rituals, as it increases their awareness.
(That last one I doubted. I had been in the mountains for over six months, now, and if someone was having orgiastic fertility rituals they had failed to invite me.)
Prolonged use, however, can be addictive and toxic, causing madness, gradual degeneration of nerve control, and eventual death. That part wasn’t in dispute. There is even a fringe element of my profession that perpetually seeks to discover a way that kellan can be used safely. They haven’t had much luck, and you can find the poor, palsied bastards hanging around the Academies sometimes, begging their wiser colleagues for money for more “research.”
Kellesarth was not uncommon in the lowlands, where it often made a fragrant and decorative shrub around manor houses and old Imperial buildings. When found there, it usually isn’t potent enough to produce kellan in any quantity. And while it is a bit sappy, I couldn’t imagine a single bush producing enough sap to solidify the kind of volume I assumed it would take to form a witchstone. Botany is not my strong suit, but the kellesarth shrubs I had grown up around simply don’t get that big.
However, in the few months I had been in the mountains I had noticed that the kellesarth grew much larger at this altitude. Until now it had merely been a curious footnote of botanical lore for the book I would some day write in my dotage. If those more robust kellesarth trees produced a significant amount of sap, then it was only logical that the magical properties of the plant were present in stronger quantities – enough to produce a kind of amber, perhaps, over a few centuries.
It also explained why the rivers that were spawned from these hills produced a bumper crop of magi in the valleys below: particles of irionite or kellesarth sap would have washed away into creeks and streams with the rain. Water runs down hill. People drink water. Therefore, kellesarth particles became infused in the tissues of future magi. Like me.
The gurvani have inhabited these mountains for far longer than humans, and they must have come into contact with both the tree and the rock, I reasoned, the same way that people did. Despite prejudices to the contrary, the average gurvan is not any more or less stupid than your average human peasant. In fact, from what the Lore Masters taught us at the Academy, there is evidence that the gurvani once had a vibrant, if primitive, kind of nascent civilization in the lower valleys . . . before humans showed up and shoved them back up into the hills.
I knew that there were ruins of pre-Imperial structures that seemed to be of gurvani manufacture, not the Alka Alon’s. While their magic differed greatly in form from Imperial or Alkan styles, it has proven to be potent. It was almost a certainty, then, that the Mountain Folk had knowledge of irionite, and were now using it.
That begged a couple of pressing questions: Was this raid a fluke, a one-time occurrence by an opportunistic leader? Did this particular tribal shaman luck onto this mammoth chunk and decide to vent his rage on our village? That seemed the most plausible story. But why now and why here? Too many questions, not enough answers. But they had to be there, and I had to find them. Quickly.
So I stared at that little chunk of pretty rock and I tried to muster up the courage to delve deeper into its mysteries. I studied plenty of Thaumaturgy (“the science of magic”, technically) and knew how to begin, at least in theory.
After five hours, with sweat pouring off of me like rain, I gave up. There was just too much I didn’t know about it, and what I did learn was tantalizingly incomplete. As far as I knew, there were no magi who specialized in this field of magic – hard to do when it’s proscribed by law. In fact, as far as I knew I had in my possession more irionite than any single mage in the Five Duchies had ever had – me, a village spellmonger in a backward little mountain hamlet.
I needed help. Magical help, and Inrion Academy and all of my professional colleagues were leagues and leagues away. Not that they would have been any more help than my neighbors when it came to figuring out the mysteries of the shard. Indeed, there was only one place I knew of where I might get knowledgeable advice on such short notice. But that would mean a short journey, one I had been eagerly anticipating since I arrived in Boval Vale.
“Tyndal!” I hollered, not tearing my eyes away from the stone. I didn’t have long to wait – the boy was rarely out of earshot.
“Yes, Master?” he said, eagerly appearing at my elbow.
“Pack our things. Cloaks, supplies for six days, travel clothes, blankets. Then run over to the stables and have Karres saddle up Traveler and see if he’ll rent a horse for you, as well. Then find one of the village boys who wants to make a penny by running a message up to the castle. You got that?”
“Pack, horses, message. Got it!”
“Good lad,” I said, taking down a piece of parchment and an inkpot from the top shelf. Trying to remember my best court manners, I penned an ass-kissy letter to the local lord explaining what I was doing, out of courtesy.
To Sire Koucey, House of Brandmount,
Lord of Boval Vale, Liege of Brandmount,
I bid you greetings.
My Most Gracious and Puissant Lord:
After due and serious consideration concerning the Object which was discovered in the hands of the goblin shaman, I have come to the conclusion that, indeed, further research will be necessary to ascertain the nature of the Threat with which we are faced. To this end, I shall depart from the Village of Minden’s Hall this very morning with my apprentice on a journey that should last no less than six days and no more than nine. During my absence I beg that you station at least a brace of your good gentlemen here, lest
a similar misfortune befall the Village before my return. While I think such an attack is unlikely, it is nonetheless a prudent course of action under the circumstances.
I also urge you to continue your preparations as if for war, for I fear that this raid was but the beginning of a conflict that could embroil all the lands along the Western March. Drill the militia, make a good store of provisions and arrows against the necessity of siege, and take especial care to patrol the frontiers of your lands against a similar incursion. I will do my best to discover the nature and the extent of the Threat to our peace.
May Trygg and Luin Bless Your Reign,
Master Minalan the Spellmonger
By the time I had completed the message, sanded the ink dry, rolled it into a tube, and sealed it with my overly-gaudy-but-impressively-mystical-looking seal, Tyndal had returned with a boy of about nine in tow.
“Horses are saddled and ready, Master, your bags have been packed. This is Ulne. He will bear your message to the castle.”
I handed it to him gravely. “Do not show this to anyone,” I said, seriously, “and defend it with your life against goblins, do you hear, lad? Make certain that it finds its way into the hands of Sire Koucey, or one of his trusted ministers. Fail me, and I shall turn you into a chicken!”
The boy’s eyes became a big as dinner plates as I fixed him with my best serious stare. He nodded vigorously, took the tube and the penny I offered him, and ran off like demons were chasing him. As soon as he was out of earshot I had to laugh.
“Was it really that serious a message, Master?”
“No, Tyndal, or I would never have trusted it to a boy of his age. But if he thinks it’s that serious, he will make certain that it finds its way there. Now, while you load our baggage I’m going to get my some other items we might need.”
“Yes, Master. May I ask where we are going?”
I considered. My own masters, back at the Academy, would have scornfully reproved any apprentice who had the temerity to ask such a question.
I liked Tyndal’s native curiosity, however – it made for a good mage – and I never was much for pointless discipline, anyway. Pretending to be infallible just wasn’t my style. “I can’t figure this thing out, so we’re going to ask for help from the Alka Alon.”
“The Tree Folk?” he asked in an excited whisper.
“The very same. Now move quickly and we can camp on the other side of the Ro tonight.”
With a grin so wide it nearly split his head, he complied.
* * *
Let me tell you about where I lived. Boval Vale sits just behind the first ridge of the Great Minden Range, which runs north to south along the western edge of the Five Duchies.
It is a smallish valley, only fourteen miles long, north to south, and six miles wide at its widest point, but it is deep and sheltered and abundantlyfertile. The Ro River runs like a spine through its center, fed by innumerable mountain streams, and it eventually empties at the north end of the valley through the Mor Pass and into the Morifal River.
The sheltered nature of the place kept the vicious Minden winters from being prohibitive, and the fact it was so easily defensible from aggressive neighbors kept everyone secure and happy. Boval is a valley of beautiful green meadows and heaths, of pleasant groves and beautiful streamlets. And it has lots of cows.
That’s where it got its name. Boval means “Valley of Cows” in the ancient tongue of the pre-Duchy wild men of Alshar. The sweet grass, the altitude, and the particular mixture of molds in the air up here allow the Bovali to produce a very tasty and delicate cheese that is in high demand in the east. That’s the Valley’s chief export.
There were six villages or estates worthy of the name dotting the valley. Minden’s Hall is the second largest, next only to the small town of Hymas. The vale’s only real municipality sat on the shore of the small lake of the same name that the Ro turns into before it continues its northern journey.
Sire Koucey’s castle lies three miles from Minden Hall and four miles from Hymas, at the southern end of the valley. To the far south is the estate of Widakur, and to the north there was another smaller, older fortress called Brandmount (Sire Koucey’s family’s ancestral home) which protected and was served by the village of Malin. A tower guarding the Mor Pass called, of course, the Mor Tower.
Duke Joris II of Alshar granted his family the valley over a century ago as a reward for the Brandmounts’ service in his wars with the Duchy of Castal (where I’m from) and the Goblin Wars. Since that time, the Brandmounts have been virtual kings of this secluded little land, enjoying more power over their folk than most lowland barons do. Indeed, the Boval Vale was at least twice as large as most lowland domains, even if it didn’t have near the population. All told, there were only about six or seven thousand people making their living farming, hunting, fishing, and making cheese here.
Of course, they weren’t the first inhabitants of the Vale.
At the extreme northwest end of the valley, up a little hollow ringed on three sides by steep mountain cliffs, is a forest grove that is the home to a reclusive clan of Alka Alon, the Tree Folk. The Bovali had little interaction with this remnant of that once-great race – they settled in the more fertile cattle country in the southern end of the vale – but it was known to happen.
The diminutive arboreal race was nearly legendary to the local peasantry. Occasionally one or two would venture out of their forest enclave and wander across the fields, playing their tiny flutes or singing with voices like crystal bells as they hunted birds and small animals. It was considered a sign of extreme good fortune to spot one in your fields, and some farmers even went so far as to leave little offerings of milk (which I knew the Tree Folk did not drink) or cakes or such to lure them.
They seem so childlike, standing just above waist high on a grown man; yet their large eyes and pale skin make them seem wise beyond the abilities of mortal men. Legends about them interacting with humans eye-to-eye seem to be misplaced, because I’d never seen one over four-foot-ten. No doubt they were crafted by those so enamored of the species that they wished to grant them a larger stature.
The Alka Alon also have forgotten more about magic than any human ever will know. Including irionite.
To children they were granters of wishes and playful spirits. Tyndal, little more than a child himself, was eager to meet them for the first time. He asked me a hundred questions before dusk about my few brief encounters with them, and he dragged out of me every scrap of information I knew about their habits – which wasn’t a lot.
We know that the Alka Alon are related distantly to some of the other nonhumans: Mountain Folk (Gurvani), River Folk (Hoylbimi), and Iron Folk (Q’zahrai), Stone Folk (Karshaki) and others are all probably kin, but probably not the Sea Folk or the human-enough-looking-but-damned-strange Valley People. Yet apart from stature and build they resemble the other races very little.
They are purported, however unlikely, to be immortal extremely. They are certainly extremely long lived, by human standards. Their long, nimble fingers seem out of proportion to the rest of their bodies, and their greenish-black hair and slightly mottled skin makes them able to fade into the foliage and virtually disappear.
They are beings of innate mystery and wonder, their very presence inspiring a religious-like awe in most people. Magi are even more entranced, since the simplest Alka magics are elegant compared to the Imperial method of doing things. The Alkan enclave in the northernmost reaches of this valley was one of the things that initially attracted me to Boval.
Every wizard dreams of learning from the Alka Alon. The Tree Folk are unparalleled masters of magic, though their style is almost incomprehensible to an Imperially-trained mage, even though it is based on the non-human’s system. It is written that to the Tree People, every song is a spell and every spell is a song; considering how much they like to sing, it’s no wonder they enjoy this reputation.
It is also written that they knew everything there was to know
about witchstones, which is why I was very anxious to confer with them.
Their culture is elegantly primitive. They eschew the written word in favor of memorization and oral history. Their mastery over and fascination with trees is famous (hence, their name). They can do amazing things with wood, growing a tree into whatever shape they desire.
Their poetry is magnificent, what little we know of it. They are adept musicians, and though their style of music is utterly inhuman it is beautiful beyond mortal invention. No human could sing as sweet. They have a four-octave range, although it’s on the upper end of the scale, and they can sing for minutes at a time between breaths.
It is said that the Tree Folk have no separate word for music, story, history, or record. It’s all covered by a single word, kala, which just means “song.” They didn’t seem to use writing until they learned it from us, and then they only use it to humor us.
While generally peaceful, we know they war among themselves and with other races, using stone knives and small bows with stone arrowheads that look barely strong enough to prick the skin. Once they had a great civilization, the ruins of which still dot the Duchies, but now they have retreated to their treehouses and given up iron and steel. They don’t really need it. Their enclaves are nearly impossible to enter by force. If anyone has ever done it – Archmage, god, or demon – I’ve never heard about it. No sane person attacks a Tree Folk clan.
They use no gold or other precious metal – they abhor worked metal at all, preferring to shape their tools out of wood and stone – so they have nothing worth stealing. They use small bows and tiny arrows tipped with a wide variety of poisons that can either make you go into a peaceful sleep for a few hours or die horribly and painfully over days. Their skill at archery is legendary. Thirdly, you probably won’t get close enough for them to use their bows anyway.
They are sneaky buggers, and they use magic like we use pots and pans. They know you are coming long before you get there, and when you do show up they can make you blind, throw up illusions to perplex you, cause your horse to rear in confusion, make you lose direction, make you forget you were looking for them, or infest you so badly with biting insects that you would just rather go home.
The Spellmonger Series: Book 01 - Spellmonger Page 6