“It won’t hurt to look,” I said, grinning wryly. There was no reason that the molopar wouldn’t react poorly to our examination and fry us in the process, but I was becoming so accustomed to fatalistic despair that I was unconcerned with the possibility – considering our situation, accidental death suddenly looked pretty appealing.
I turned back to the molopar and reflected on this force of nature that was neither matter nor energy, but mere potential. In magesight it barely registered. It didn’t glow with the brightness of magic, it merely glowered darkly, a faint, dark purple disc hovering in space.
But the tracery of spells around the perimeter, which I assumed were designed to control the manner and type of magical force employed, made a brilliant and elaborate spiderweb that stretched the length of the cavern. I tried to trace the lines of control that emanated from the rim of the stone, and gave up it up as futile a moment later. Gurvani magic was just too strange.
Finding the device was significant, I knew – but how could I turn this to my advantage? I could try to open the portal myself, and by force of will alone have it transport me someplace safe, like under my parent’s bed back home. Without the supporting enchantments the gurvani had used to refine its use, however, I doubted I would have the strength or the control to undertake such a potent spell.
Most likely I would be killed in the attempt. The forces involved were titanic, and if I was already casting spells without conscious thought, then I wasn’t focused enough to give it a try.
But perhaps one of the others would. True, most of the warmagi were young and experienced only in war spells, but many of them had studied particularly arcane areas. Terleman might have some thoughts on it. A meeting of the minds might produce a better answer, I reasoned.
My thoughts were interrupted by Penny. “Min, you mentioned something about kirsieth, that tree?”
“Yeah. My research shows strong support for the theory that kirsieth sap is the building block for irionite. Why do you ask?”
“Um, don’t quote me on this,” she said, carefully, “but I think I can design a spell that will activate this thing. And control it. That’s the good news.”
“Uh, that’s bloody great news,” I answered cautiously. “If we had the power to . . . oh . . . I think I see what you . . . oh . . . well? . . . I guess . . .” I stumbled as my questions answered themselves.
“What seems to be the problem?” asked Sire Koucey. “Can’t . . . do whatever it is without sacrificing babies?” he asked, curiously.
“That would be one way to do it,” admitted Penny. “But it wouldn’t be my first choice.”
“Then what?” Koucey asked, insistently. Penny and I looked at each other, a long and searching look.
I heaved a great sigh. This was going to take some serious explanation . . .
Chapter Fourteen
A Plan To Escape
“Now tell me again how nailing your old girlfriend is going to save all our lives?” asked Alya, with a sarcastic toss of her head. There was a blaze behind her eyes that made me uncomfortable. Hell, it scared me. I’d rather fight a squad of Black Skulls than face a wronged woman.
“It has to do with the nature of magical power,” I tried to explain for the fourth or fifth time. “In order to open one of these portals, you need a truly massive amount of energy, more than even a highly trained group of magi could generate on their own. The irionite gives us a way of amplifying that power, certainly – I wouldn’t even make the attempt without it. But even when we are using the stones they are not producing energy, merely amplifying the energy we send through them. If we want to open this portal, and keep it open long enough to do any good, then it will require every shred of power that we can muster.
“Now I could lecture you for hours about the various ways to raise power. Drugs can be used, when you have the right ones in the right dosage and you know what you are doing. Chanting works if you have a few weeks and a devout enough group, and we just don’t have the time for that. A lot of tribes use dancing, but that takes years of practice to do effectively. No, there are only two ways that I know of to generate a tremendous amount of raw power in a short period of time.
“Blood sacrifice works terrifically well, and is possibly how the gurvani who found this cave did it at first. But I don’t see anyone volunteering, and, to be honest, I’m just not the kind of mage that can handle the ethical questions involved, never mind the fact that it’s been banned since Imperial times. Death magic is a potent and dangerous realm, but it’s one way to achieve our means.
“The other is by tapping into the opposite realm, the realm of creation and procreation – from the sacred fount of Life itself. Enormous amounts of power are available there, if you know how to capture it and make use of it. And sexual magic has other advantages, as well,” I said, enthusiastically. “It can be sustained over time, whereas blood sacrifice is over pretty quickly. It can be more gently manipulated, making it easier to focus. Luckily, Penny has spent most of her professional career studying that particular branch of the Art.”
“Yes,” she hissed acidly, “aren’t we lucky?”
“We are, when you think about it,” I tried to sound nonchalant and matter-of-fact and reasonable. I don’t think I was selling it. I noticed my voice was a little higher and squeakier than normal. “Of all the magi who could have come here, one of the top five experts in her specialty landed in our laps. With her expertise there to support us, the rest of the group can deal with weaving the power to activate the portal.”
“I just can’t understand why you can’t do that part. Why can’t she slut around with one of the other guys? I know for a fact that she has slept with at least four of them!”
“Because for three years I was her partner. And to be honest, we were a great team. She knows me, how I act and react, how to wheedle every last nuance of energy from a run. And I know her. Together we can build more power than any two other magi present. And, if I do say so myself, we can keep it up as long as we need to.”
“I’m sure you can,” she said, icily. She stared at me for a moment, then, and sighed, her mask of the scorned woman crumbling to reveal for a moment the image of a scared young girl. “Look, are you sure there is no other way?”
“If there was, I would have thought of it by now. Hells, I’m not even guaranteeing that this will work. It’s just our best shot of getting out of here alive. Whatever else we tried, the bubble that the Old God has put up around us would keep it from working. But the portal works in proportion to the proximity of the mage, and right now we are closer to it than he is. In three or four more days, though, it won’t matter. He will be close enough to kill us a thousand other horrible ways. Probably by sacrifice.”
“So you really do need to nail your old girlfriend to save us.”
It was my turn to sigh. “I won’t enjoy it, okay? Look, we need to do this, we really do. I’m sorry if you are upset by it – and I can’t really blame you for that – but it needs to be done whether you like it or not. I don’t expect you to stand next to us and cheer us on, but I had hoped that you would trust me enough to know that I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t have to. I just wish you would understand.” Her eyes flashed.
“I guess it’s just too much for a poor little ignorant peasant girl like me would understand. You’ve already taken over the castle – I hear Koucey is confined to his apartments – and so I guess pushing aside some country wench that was warming your bed is pretty small game in the scheme of things.”
“I am not pushing you aside!” I said, raising my voice. “I don’t lust after power, and don’t pull that ‘poor little peasant girl’ routine on me, OK? I – l love you, Alya. I’m awfully fond of Penny, and she’s a wonderful friend and a great colleague, but I love you. This is just business. I want to spend my life with you, not her. I want you to continue to warm my bed, among other places, assuming that we don’t burn out our brains in the process of doing this.”
“That so
unds like a load of --”
“Enough! Woman, I just pled my undying love for you, and you can’t retract your claws long enough to listen to me? We are going to be dead in week unless I do this! I’ve already risked my neck a thousand times for you and your people, and only survived because it amuses some capricious god or goddess to play with my fate like a toy. Well, fine. I can put up with all that, because I’ve found you in the bargain.
“Of course, you are too busy indulging in a jealous fit to realize that I’m doing everything I can – including nailing my ex-girlfriend! – to preserve what we have, and what we might have, together.”
There were tears in her eyes. She walked sullenly over to me and I prepared myself for a slap. Instead I found her entwined in my arms.
“Just don’t enjoy it, OK?” she whispered through her tears.
“I will do my best,” I promised, holding her tightly. “I really wished you two liked each other. That would make all of this a lot easier.”
“I guess that we would have run into each other eventually. She’s a part of your life. But the whole ‘I’m an Imperial Noble and a Mighty Sorceress’ thing of hers really gets me, sometimes.”
I had to chuckle. “Yeah, it does, doesn’t it? Me, too. She really is a nice person, when you get beyond that. Remember, she grew up in a crumbly old villa, raised by servants, schooled by the best tutors. She didn’t have the advantages we did growing up – chasing each other with sticks, playing in the mud in the commons, making each other eat dog poop.” That brought a ragged smile to her face, like a ray of sun through a thunderhead. “So feel sorry for her. But don’t hate her.”
“I’ll try,” she said, sniffling.
“I hope you will. Because you are right: she will always be a part of my life. I fully expect her to dance at my wedding.”
“Minalan?” Alya asked, looking me in the face.
“What?”
“Uh, assuming we aren’t dead any time soon, that may occur sooner than you planned. If you really did plan it, that is, and aren’t just saying what a silly farm girl wants to hear.”
“Uh, what do you mean?” I asked, troubled.
“I think I’m pregnant. I should have bled two weeks ago.”
“Are . . . are you sure?” I asked. The whole world stopped while I waited for her answer.
“Hey, aren’t you a spellmonger? Usually you lot can check on this kind of thing?”
“Right! Yes, it’s a pretty simple spell, a mere scrying technique, really, and--”
“Well, quit babbling and do it!” she snapped, frustrated. “I’ve been worried about this for weeks, and haven’t been able to tell you. If I have to go one more day – one more hour! – I think I’m going to scream.”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” I said in a daze, fetching my sphere from its pouch on my weapons belt. She stood there expectantly (no pun intended) while I did the preliminaries. When I realized I was stalling I went ahead and did it, before she realized I was stalling.
In moments an image of her innards entered my mind. I was pretty familiar with anatomy, and though I wasn’t adept at the type of magics worked by hedgewitches and midwives, finding the swollen uterus proved easy. In magesight all of her body’s energies centered on it. It took only a little more probing, a slight focus to my attention. And there it was. A tiny, wormlike grub that would all too soon be the size of a standard-issue baby.
“Uh,” I said, eloquently.
“What does that mean? Professionally speaking?” she asked wryly.
“Uh,” I said again. “Uh, you are really, definitely pregnant.”
“With your child,” she added.
“Apparently,” I said, my world spinning around me.
“If you have doubts as to the paternity I invite you to investigate them. But whatever the princess says about me to the contrary, I haven’t been with anyone but you since my husband died. The little bastard is yours.”
“You sound pretty happy about it,” I commented, stonefaced.
“I am! I wanted a child so badly. When my husband died, I never thought I’d get another chance. Until I met you. But I can see by the look on your face that this is not automatically a happy thing for you. Look, if this is a problem, then I can go my own way. Assuming that we live to the next full moon, that is.”
“No! No, that isn’t what I meant. I’m just stunned. And confused.”
“And a daddy.”
“Yeah, that’s the part that is stunning and confusing me. Goddess!”
“I didn’t want to distract you from your work, so I didn’t even mention the possibility before. But I vomited twice since yesterday, and I can suddenly smell like a bloodhound. This morning I broke down into tears for no good reason. So it seemed like a good time to bring it up.”
“I’m glad you did,” I said, not really even hearing my own words.
My entire personal universe had just altered significantly. Everything, from my recent usurpation of power to my long-shot scheme for rescuing us to my relationships with both Alya and Penny, was in flux; all of that shifted in perspective. Evil dark lords and goblin hordes and magic portals and traitorous wizards all faded into unimportance as the weight of the idea started to bear on me.
I suppose every man, when confronted with this situation, finds himself at a crossroad where one way leads towards acceptance, where you embrace the idea of fatherhood. The other way also beckons, that almost irresistible urge to put as many leagues between you and the mother as possible. And then, like a legal case, you are shown evidence for making that decision.
Perhaps it is a judge of your deepest character; perhaps it is a primitive reaction to an inherent biological condition, but every man, no matter how much he thinks he knows the answer before the question is asked, I think, has to go to the deepest corner of his soul to make that choice.
Interestingly enough, my arguments against embracing the pregnancy were mostly based on the normally sane fear of the unknown. I really liked, no, loved Alya; there was no doubt in my mind, based on my short but intense acquaintance with her, that she would be a superlative mother to any child. What would this do to our relationship? Pregnancy and motherhood change a woman. My own role as a father I doubted more; after all, who was I to be a father? I felt as if I had only recently stopped being a child myself.
What decided the matter, actually, was the briefest flash of memory from my own childhood.
I must have been about two, maybe a little older, sitting in the kitchen with Mama and getting in the way of her skinning some river tubers that I never liked. My youngest sister was also there, maybe helping a little more than she was destroying.
Suddenly, the door to the bakery burst open and my father was standing there, covered from head to toe with flour. He had wetted it into his hair, spiking it up in a grotesque mockery of horns, and twirled his beard into little floury ringlets like a white-gray thorn bush. It took me a frightened moment to realize that it was Pa, and when I did I squealed. His eyes wide and maniacal, he began chasing me around the kitchen making growely noises every time I screamed. I remembered this moment vividly; I could smell the bread baking, the fresh green smell of the tubers, the taste of flour in the air. And I saw the ecstatic look on my father’s face as he played Flour Monster with his only son.
And then for a frozen instant I saw my face under the flour instead of Dad’s. I saw the same expression, same look of enchantment in my eyes. I could imagine perhaps what it was like to chase a two-year-old around, and then tickling them to death while your wife looks on with a smile warm enough to proof dough.
I took the road that I hoped led to that.
* * *
Alya’s news had not stopped the world nearly as long as I would have liked it to. Around us the castle bustled with people going about under my orders.
While it was true that I had officially confined Koucey to his quarters, the rumor that I was going to have him executed the following dawn was not. Indeed, once he was made to r
ealize that our position was untenable he had become very cooperative.
While he was in his quarters a stream of messengers ran to and fro, conveying his bidding to his men. He had given his unconditional parole, agreed to cooperate fully, and to be honest I think he was happy to be relieved of the responsibility of over-all command. The little rat Garkesku was nowhere to be found.
Everyone else was as busy. I had three dozen peasant women stuffing and sewing a pile of cast-off clothes into a small army of dummies, which began filling up the guard positions on the battlements. A few of the younger warmagi were giving them slight magical dweomers to make them seem alive, at least to casual scrying.
I put the Castellan, good ol’ grumpy Sir Cei, to work judging which personal items would be approved for travel. That caused a lot of squawking, especially among the peasants, some of whom thought of chickens and piglets as “irreplaceable goods.” Sir Cei was perfect for the job. It took a fanatic to argue with the man once his mind was set. Only a dozen or so cases were appealed to my judgment, and with two exceptions I backed the crusty castellan’s ruling.
The mercenaries were also grumbling over leaving behind horses and weapons that they had grown fond of. I gave them a little more leeway, but was still strict. I, myself, was not happy with the prospect of leaving Traveler here to become the main course at a gurvani luncheon, but as much as I loved that horse he was still just a horse.
The Crinroc, too, were unruly about abandoning their possessions, though more pragmatic than the peasantry. They left their wagons and livestock, but were defiantly unwilling to leave behind about two hundred two-foot tall totem statues that had some religious significance. In the end I acquiesced.
I continued the routine terror raids by the warmagi. While the remaining shamans had tightened up operations and security, they were ultimately unable to stop my men from pillaging another four or five witchstones. I even allowed two brief sorties by the regular cavalry, a kind of last glorious run with their steeds before we left.
The Spellmonger Series: Book 01 - Spellmonger Page 36