The Spellmonger Series: Book 01 - Spellmonger

by Terry Mancour

  That fact had caused a lot of discussion. As brave and public spirited as my team was, none of us wanted to volunteer for a suicide mission, especially since we just got ahold of the irionite.

  So when the gate vanished, that left us with few options. We had discussed it far into the night, and the result was our second phase plan: cutting our way out of the Valley. While a thousand people may have a hard time sneaking past a quarter of a million goblins, twenty-odd highly trained and newly augmented warmagi shouldn’t have too much problem.

  Oh, it would be difficult, no doubt. But we were counting a number of factors in our favor, and this was one of them: after we let the gate collapse, we still had a full circle crackling with power to play with. Penny and I kept at it, but Delman and the others shifted focus.

  I had had the diorama we built of the castle brought down from my tower, and the moment the gate was gone several magi converged on it and started throwing around a lot of spells.

  Most were simply nasty war spells the type we had been using so liberally in the last few weeks. Those were designed to put fear and discomfort into the enemy camp, which is always fun. Others were longer term, subtle spells that would be difficult to detect and remove, but would make life in Boval Castle less than pleasant for the new owners. Still others were specifically designed to cut a weak spot in our enemy’s defenses, something devastating enough that a dozen of us could exploit it to escape the immediate siege and cut out across the Valley.

  The team was like a bunch of teenagers settling down to their first dice game. It was the most fun they had ever had professionally. Being able to use warspells without having to consider civilian casualties allowed the most talented of them to try out the truly outrageous spells that had always been interesting theory around the campfire, but were seen as impractical in reality.

  Chains of explosions erupted from every fire. Distractions and annoyances like dancing lights and foul odors hid truly lethal spells. Waves of terror and despair would be rocking the enemy camp. Giants made out of smoke, uttering horrible curses. Supplies would rot, and bundles of firewood would ignite, and water supplies would spring leaks. Whole encampments would suddenly faint, or vomit, or have amnesia. Fleas, molds, and fungus multiplied at an increased rate. Sandstorms of pebbles. Wild animals. Sudden bursts of lightning and thunder. Rusty weapons and rotting leather. Gouts of green fire jumping from soldier to soldier. We spared no indignity, no injury, no ingenuity to trouble the gurvani.

  Of course, this also let the enemy know that something unusual was happening inside Boval Castle. While we were running the molopor gate, all of our power was directed within. Now everyone in the Valley with the magical sensitivity of a rabbit would know that we were throwing our mystical weight around. It would only be a matter of time before the enemy would act.

  “Time for the big finish,” Delman called with a grin. “If you two have had enough, now, you can, uh, do what you need to. A big burst would help, ramp it up all you can!”

  “Position Two?” I asked, with a grin.

  “Just what I was thinking. Want a pillow?”

  I won’t bore you with the details, which would be of interest only to the aficionado and the vulgar. Suffice it to say that in another five minutes we culminated at a masterful peak, dwarfing the amount of energy that we had produced before. It was . . . indescribable. I think we both went unconscious for a while, because the next coherent moment I remember was Carmella shaking me awake, a worried expression on her face.

  “Minalan?” she said, more of a statement than a question. “Come on, boy, wake up. It’s over. It’s over. Minalan?”

  The pale green magical glow that had permeated my mind softly faded, and reality reasserted itself. Penny lay next to me, a dreamy, unearthly expression of absolute bliss on her face. I could still feel the hum of every cell in her body, hear their quiet whisper as they went about their metabolic business. She still blazed by magesight, and I had little doubt that we both stood out like a beacon in the Otherworld. She rolled over slowly, and her unfocused eyes stared in my direction.

  “Damn,” she whispered. “You are good!” I smiled.

  As much as I wanted to bask in the compliment and the attendant afterglow, my brain stubbornly refused to let go of the number of crises that would have to be dealt with to effect my eventual survival. I spared one last moment for pure appreciation and awe, and then sat up.

  “I need some food, and some water, soon,” I said, swinging my shaky legs over the side of the makeshift bed.

  Penny groaned and turned over. “Just like a damn man,” she muttered. “I need a towel.”

  Carmella sighed and put a water skin into my hands. While I drank she fished a sausage and a hunk of Boval cheese out of a hamper. “Take it easy,” she said gently. “You were out for at least five minutes. The mountain folk are still reacting to our mayhem, so we probably have a little while.”

  “Every second is precious,” I grimaced. “Is everything ready?”

  “As ready as it’s going to get,” Delman called. “There is a fifty foot high wall of green flame around the keep, and the fuzzies seem to be keeping their distance. Every now and then someone will shoot an arrow at it, but that’s about it. They have their own problems right now,” he grinned.

  “Not for long,” I countered. As much as my body wanted me to relax, as much as I wanted to enjoy the brief respite before an attack began in earnest, my soldier’s instinct was telling me it was time for action.

  “Get dressed,” I said to Penny, who was curled up in a delicious-looking fetal position. “It’s time to go.”

  “Just leave the money on the dresser,” she said dreamily. “I’m going to take a bubblebath.”

  “Woman,” I warned, “play time is over.”

  “Oh, you are so frustrating.” She struggled half-heartedly into her robe. I stood, and reached for my own clothes. “Just like a damn man,” she muttered.

  Fifteen minutes later we were gathering in the Inner Bailey, checking our packs and taking care of a few last-minute surprises before we moved out. There was, indeed, a green wall of flame that blocked out the horizon in all directions around the keep. It was impressive. I was saddling up Traveler – the revised plan had included a speedy retreat, and I was overjoyed that we wouldn’t be parted yet -- when I felt a presence and heard a voice I wasn’t prepared to.

  “My congratulations, Master Minalan,” said the quiet, tired voice of Sire Koucey. “You have saved my people. A small victory, but one I am pleased to have witnessed.”

  I jumped, still a little shaky from the ritual. “Sire?”

  The old man stood there in his full armor, helmet on and visor raised. He looked worn and tired and . . . resigned, somehow.

  “Sire, why didn’t you go with them? Why didn’t you escape? I mean, you can come with us—”

  “I shall not abandon my seat,” he declared, softly. “While the honor of my House may be questioned, my personal honor is my own to deal with. I shall stay and be the last defender of my lands.”

  I started to call him a fool, and then realized that choosing death with honor was his only way out of the situation. Should he return to the Five Duchies as a refugee lord, a knight without lands and folk, he would be a laughingstock and an outcast and die in obscurity. This way, his brother could continue the title and the family line without the blemish of dishonor on the House. Nobility works in weird ways.

  Instead of rebuking him, I drew my sword and saluted him. He bowed in return, a slight smile on his face. “I also wanted to thank you for . . . doing what you did. I acted on the advice of poor counsel, I see now. Had I listened to Garkesku . . .”

  We both knew what would have happened. I nodded. “Where is the little weasel, anyway? Did he escape with the others?”

  “No one saw him go through the portal. But he may have gone in disguise. Somehow I can’t imagine that he’d stick around here all by himself.”

  “It would serve him right if
he did.”

  “To business,” Koucey said, changing the subject without comment. “We don’t have much time. Here,” he said, proffering a velvet sack, “are the jewels of my House. Rather than let the goblins make toys of them, I bid you to take them, sell them, and make provision for my people. My brother has already taken what gold was in my treasury, but I trust you to look after my folk and him to see to my Household.”

  “It shall be done, you have my promise,” I said, taking the sack.

  “It also has a parcel of some of the more interesting artifacts that we took from the caves. Perhaps they will be of use in the coming war.”

  “They might at that.” The basket he handed me had all manner of odd junk in it. I looked forward to peeling it apart someday when my life wasn’t in peril.

  “Next, I bid you to carry this letter to the Coronet Council. After Boval falls, it will not be long until the blight spreads throughout the Five Duchies. This is my report, and my recommendation, as well as a truthful accounting of my House’s acquisition of this land.”

  “I shall deliver it.”

  “Finally, here is a letter and a token to be delivered to Count Olode, Head of House Rieran. My wife’s family,” he explained. “A last farewell, is all, and the return of an heirloom they count as precious.”

  “I shall see it done.”

  “Thank you, Master Minalan. I shall die easier knowing these things are attended to.”

  I rested a hand on the old warrior’s shoulder. Words were unnecessary.

  “You had best mount,” he said, at last, tears in his eyes. “I must see to my fate, and you to yours.”

  I nodded and began to do just that, securing the bag to my saddle-horn, when I felt it. A rumble. The ground began moving, as if an earthquake was thinking about happening. Traveler neighed in protest, and started to stamp, and I couldn’t blame him. It’s disconcerting when the ground refuses to behave like it should.

  “Uh oh,” I said sagely, and looked around. I settled on the west for a direction to look at, because that is where the rumble originated. Above the green flames, above the peaks beyond, I could feel, more than hear, the disturbance.

  From the west, the direction of the Old God’s approach, I could see a dark cloud, blacker than any stormcloud. And there was a noticeable change in its signature. Something had changed. Something knew that it was being thwarted. Something had decided to expedite its journey.

  The Old God was coming, quickly.

  And I could tell he was pissed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Dead God’s Judgement

  Everyone froze for just a moment, while we figured out what was happening.

  Part of it was obvious – at least to me, and I wasn’t the smartest one there. It was clear that the great gurvani shaman, the one who had been secretly been building an army for a century, the one who had planned and plotted the recapture of Boval Vale, the one who had been journeying through far mountain passes for weeks, now, with an entourage and an army, had suddenly left them behind and was now speeding – through the air, probably – straight toward us.

  Everyone froze, and then everyone moved at once. Some tried to mount, some tried to hurry their preparations, some came to the conclusion that there was no way to flee in time. That thing would mow us down before we crossed our own ward of flames.

  That’s the conclusion I came to, and so I calmly led Traveler back to a post and tied him up, then retrieved my warstaff and sword from my kit and walked back to the center of the deserted bailey. If I was going to die, it would be on my feet, fighting. I tried to put on my best defiant sneer. I wasn’t surprised to feel Sire Koucey at my shoulder, sword in hand. He couldn’t feel the approaching malevolence, but he could read a crowd.

  My team assembled around me, each one of them preparing spells and clutching witchstones, some drawing swords or doing feats of martial magic. Irionite flashed all around me. Penny joined us late; she had figured out what was going on before she came out. I realized that her hair was wet and smelled of aromatic Eastern soap – the evil witch had found time to bathe. I still smelled like a wharfside bordello the day after the fleet came in. I felt her fall in on the other side of me, and for two solid minutes we all just stared at the sky and cast preparatory spells and waited.

  One of the kids was starting to make jokes after the pregnant pause stretched on uncomfortably. That’s when I saw it.

  I wasn’t sure exactly what it was, so I hung five or so nasty offensive spells and three good defensive spells that I had prepared. Mine were pretty straightforward. Some of the others, I could feel, were pretty elaborate.

  “So, our Fate approaches,” Koucey murmured fatalistically.

  “I hope it ate its biscuits this morning,” one of the young punks said, dismissively. “I’m feeling rowdy.” I ignored it. We all knew what was going to happen.

  “Talk first, or hit it with something?” asked Penny, quietly.

  “You’re asking me?”

  “You’re the Captain, my Captain.”

  Crap. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about.

  “Let’s talk.”

  “Why?”

  “I thought I was Captain? Because it might give me time to think of something. Right now, I can’t remember my own name.”

  “It’s Minalan. Captain Minalan. Captain Minalan the Great.”

  “Now you’re just getting silly.”

  Someone was offering prayers to some divinity. We could have used the help. Or it could have been an incantation. I wasn’t really paying attention. I was looking up.

  You could see it far off, at first, a speck of bright green in the absolute center of the cloud. It illuminated the clouds around it with the pale green glow of irionite as it descended with all the speed of a shooting star. It was a terrible thing to behold, an unnatural thing, and I again debated myself whether making a stand was a better idea than blind flight. That thing was moving fast, and was heading right for us. I feared a collision.

  As it approached the bailey it slowed down rapidly. It floated down like a hawk preparing to catch a hare – not a pleasing mental image when you are feeling very much like a hare. The glow intensified, until it overshone the light from our own protective wall. It snapped our wards like threads, and came to a stop about four feet above the ground, twenty paces ahead of us.

  It wasn’t a goblin – at least not all of it.

  It was a sphere, as wide as a large pumpkin. A sphere of clear, flawless irionite. It was a sphere so translucent that you could see the mummified skull within. The mouth was open in an eternal rictus of pain and rage, and the eyes were sunken and dead – but there was no mistaking the feeling of intelligence that it radiated. The skull was alive. There was a being inside that aberration of nature.

  Aberration it was – I could feel just how deep an impression on reality it made. As it Kouceybed slowly, it sent sheering waves of distortion just by its very existence.

  The Dead God. It was dead, no doubt about it. And it had all the power a god could ever dream of.

  I would have wet myself if I hadn’t been so dehydrated.

  I understood a lot, now. This was the head of Shereul, the great shaman slain by Koucey’s ancestors in an act of treachery. Shereul, whose head was removed from the pike they had staked it on and spirited away – I could see the exit wound in the top of the skull. His shamanic disciples had apparently taken it deep into the mountains, far away from humans, and somehow had embedded it in the largest chunk of irionite that had ever been.

  And then somehow it had woken up from the dead. And it wanted revenge.

  What were you doing in the sacred cave? Came a thought in my head, in a hideous parody of my own voice. Spooky.

  “We were allowing the people to escape,” I said, bravely.

  You defiled the cave.

  “It was like that when I got here.”

  You used the artifact. You call it a molopor.

  “Yeah, well, you kind
of gave us no choice. You put up barriers around the Valley.”

  Such is my right. I am reclaiming the valley for the Targa gurvani.

  “I’m not disputing that,” This was not going exactly as planned. I expected to be dead by now, killed in a powerful magical attack. The fact that I was not – yet – gave me a certain confidence in what I was saying. What did I have to lose? “I acknowledge that the men who took this vale did so by treachery, committed acts of murder and pillage, and destroyed a valuable religious center. But the people who live here now are not the ones who did that. Those men are dead. Take back your valley, your cave. Keep the castle, if you want. But leave us in peace.”

  These are the descendants of those people. Their line bears the stain of their ancestors’ crimes.

  “Then leave that for their own gods to deal with.”

  I am a god.

  “A subject for another time. But even if you are a god, you are the god of the gurvani, not of men.”

  The gods of men seem slow to respond.

  “I’ve noticed that myself, recently. But the fact remains: you are not the god of men.” I was on shaky theological ground here, I’m sure. Theurgy is a fascinating subject, in its way, but not my specialty. It occurred to me that I might be able to ask the gods shortly in person, after I was dead, but for the moment I wasn’t. I didn’t know what I was doing, but what I was doing was working. Perhaps there was a faint, faint hope that we could reason with it.

  I am the god of the Valley. These defilers need to be punished.

  Now we were in dangerous territory.

  “They have lost their homes. They have lost their families. Their lives will be chaos for the rest of their days. They will suffer nightly the dreams of their experience. There will be hunger, and suffering. Killing them would have ended their pain.” Not a good time to talk about the resiliency of the human spirit.

  They are beyond my reach now. Let them suffer. But you are still here. And you, he said, turning the globe incrementally so that the dead eyes stared at Koucey, are the descendant of Sir Brandmount. It was a statement, not a question.