Thrall

by E. William Brown

  “Yeah, that’s the kicker,” I agreed. “Between the earthquake and the andregi attacks the city defenses are in sorry shape, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. We’re going to have monsters infiltrating to prey on the civilians soon, and who knows what the next big threat will be. The question is, what do we do about it?”

  “The main threat to us would be a Great Beast,” Demetrios said. “I don’t think we have anything that can kill a monster like that. The cannons aren’t powerful enough, and the mortars would have trouble hitting a moving target.”

  “Desperate mobs will eventually be an issue,” Tavrin added. “We need more manpower to ensure we can deal with them appropriately. Some measures to limit the number of outsiders visiting the island would also be wise. Perhaps we could set up a market at the other end of the causeway?”

  “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. What about recruiting opportunities? There are so many troops in the city, there’s bound to be a company or two who’ve gotten orphaned.”

  “I have a few contacts among the officers,” Captain Rain said. “I can put the word out, if you want to make an offer. But the nobles will all be thinking the same thing, and most men feel a bit nervous about working for a wizard. It could be expensive.”

  “We have money,” I pointed out. “Actually, that’s something I wanted to mention. Since we’ve got plenty of gold in the treasury I want to give everyone a raise. The best way to keep ships coming into the harbor is to make sure they make a fat profit, so I want to give our people enough money to afford the inflated prices they’re charging.”

  That was a popular idea.

  The meeting dragged on for longer than I would have liked. There were endless details to arrange, and a lot of decisions the men wanted my approval on. Understandable, since we hadn’t been working together very long, but it all took time.

  Demetrios was a bit surprised at my plan to take over the Harbor District, although he seemed to understand my reasoning.

  “We need a recruiting pool, and a place to put uncertain allies,” I explained. “The only people I’m going to let live on the island are the ones we can trust to fight on our side if the city turns against us. But it takes time for people to make up their minds about things like that, and more time for us to recruit them. So we can’t just close our doors and let the city go to hell.

  “I’m thinking I’ll put up some fortified buildings around the district, and put one of the local big shots in charge of each of them. They can move the local businesses that are still running inside them, and organize militias to defend them the next time the city is attacked. With some basic defensive enchantments they’ll be proof against earthquakes, frost wraiths and monster raids.”

  “That will certainly reduce their casualties,” Demetrios agreed. “Assaulting a district dotted with little fortresses like that would be a nightmare. But I’d suggest repairing the breaches in the wall as well. It will help control movement in and out of the district, and limit the number of monsters that can sneak in. Not to mention that it’s a clear way to mark the limits of your territory.”

  What I wanted to do was repair the city’s outer wall, and maybe melt the moat while I was at it. But if I did that the nobles would think I was staking claim to the entire city, and that would only cause more trouble. Besides, I didn’t have time to rebuild the whole city. I had too many other urgent projects on my plate.

  Chapter 3

  Making more wolfen turned out to be a tricky problem. Originally I’d hoped that my flesh sorcery would be up to the job, provided I could get a decent look at the magic involved. Cerise had helpfully bent her power-stealing abilities to the task of collecting a sample of felwolf magic, which we’d picked up a bit over a week ago while we were testing out our new flight abilities. So I sent for a couple of wolfen volunteers, and settled in to spend an evening comparing their physiology to the magic in Cerise’s sample.

  Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Thanks to my mana sorcery it was easy enough to figure out what was in the sample, but the important parts were more mystical than biological. My flesh sorcery was good at moving atoms around, but not so great at inventing new forms of innate magic. If I wanted to duplicate the enchantment that made the wolfen I’d have to start by turning some poor sap into a miniature felwolf, and then spend a few months experimenting on him.

  Yeah, not going there. People already thought I was an evil wizard. No need to prove them right.

  It was Cerise who finally pointed out that we already had a way to bypass that problem. The next morning we pooled our efforts to render a sample of felwolf essence into physical form, and then headed down to the kitchen.

  Avilla examined the vial full of dark, syrupy liquid dubiously. “This doesn’t look very appetizing.”

  “You don’t need very much,” Cerise said. “A teaspoon of that stuff is about what you’d get from a felwolf heart with your normal ritual.”

  “Oh, so it’s concentrated? That might work, then. Give me a moment.”

  She carefully measured out a few drops of liquid, and diluted it with a cup of milk. Then she sniffed it like a wine snob sampling some exotic vintage, and tasted a tiny sip.

  “Strong, but not unpleasant,” she declared. “There’s a bit of an aftertaste, but I can fix that. Use it in a sauce over red meat, or as seasoning for a hearty stew. I suppose I could serve feasts to make more wolfen now and then, if you can supply me with enough essence. Will that take a lot of hunting?”

  “Oh, I can make more,” I explained. “My mana sorcery is good enough for that. I just couldn’t quite make the jump from creating felwolf essence to transforming people safely. So we figured I’ll just make you a bottle of the stuff that refills itself automatically, and then you can make us as many wolfen as we want.”

  She stared at me incredulously for a moment. Then she giggled, and shook her head.

  “Only you, Daniel. Do you realize how precious an ingredient like that is for me? An unlimited supply of even one essence will make me the most powerful hearth witch in Europe.”

  “I think you were already there, honeydew,” Cerise told her. “Have you shown Daniel your new trick?”

  “Nope,” I answered for her. “I haven’t been around much. Have you started animating the utensils or something?”

  “Better,” Cerise said. “Come on, show him already!”

  “Alright, alright, if you insist. Really, it’s not that impressive. I’ve just been deepening my claim on our home.”

  Avilla took a step back into the cabinets that lined the wall behind her, and vanished. Just like a dryad stepping into her tree.

  “That’s pretty cool,” I observed. “Can you still hear us like that?”

  “Yes,” came Avilla’s voice from out in the dining room. I turned to find her standing on the other side of the breakfast bar, with a proud little smile on her lips.

  “Traveling, too? How far can you go?”

  “This is my limit right now. But my reach grows a little further every day. Give me a few weeks, and I’ll be stepping across the palace and back whenever I like.”

  “Normally that takes about twenty years of daily rituals, and it doesn’t reach more than a dozen paces from the hearth,” Cerise pointed out. “My girl’s already stronger than her granny ever was.”

  Avilla blushed prettily. “Thank you, kitten. Just remember that raw power isn’t everything. I have a long way to go before I can match granny’s subtle hand with enchantments, and I have no one to learn from. A few more hearth witches have turned up among the refugees as they trickle in, but so far they’ve all been young apprentices like Mari.”

  “At least you’ve still got your recipe book,” Cerise pointed out. “Hey, Daniel, think we could swing back north to pick up honeydew’s implements sometime soon?”

  I winced. “Ouch. I’d love to, but that would probably take three days with the Intrepid. I’ve got some ideas for a faster flying machine, but I need to come up with a way to
supply our troops with skimmers before I can take time for that.”

  “It’s alright, Daniel,” Avilla assured me. “To be honest, when we left the house I didn’t think we’d ever be back. I’ve already started to make replacements, and with the power you’ve given me it won’t take nearly as long as when granny made hers. I’m sure rescuing villages is a much better use of the airship’s time.”

  “I guess there’s no telling where we might find an old granny who’s really an experienced witch,” Cerise pointed out. “Just don’t hesitate to tell us if you realize you’re missing something you can’t replace, okay? We’ll make sure you’re taken care of, sweetie.”

  Avilla walked through the bar like it wasn’t there, and pulled Cerise and I both into a group hug.

  “You’re too good to me, both of you,” she said. “Thank you. That means a lot to me. But really, I’m fine. In fact, I’m going to have some fun surprises for the Yule feast.”

  “The what?”

  “Do they not have that where you’re from?” Cerise asked. “It’s the biggest holiday of the year, and it’s only a few weeks away. Come to think of it, we should arrange something for the troops too. It would be good for morale.”

  “My to-do list never seems to get any shorter,” I said. “At this rate I’ll have to invent time travel just to keep up.”

  “Maybe Elin can help with that,” Cerise joked. “The dryad groves are practically turning into faerie realms with all the power we’re feeding them, and I’m sure you’ve heard the stories about how strange time can be in faerie. Of course, knowing Pelagia I doubt you’d ever get any work done there.”

  “Yeah, somehow I don’t think that would turn out very well,” I agreed.

  “Then again, I could go for a few years of banging hot nature spirits in between our weekly disasters.”

  “Slut,” Avilla said affectionately. “You’d spend your whole life in bed if you could get away with it.”

  “You complaining?” Cerise pulled her lover into a kiss. Avilla squeaked in surprise, but didn’t put up much resistance until Cerise’s tail started to snake up her thigh. Then she pulled away, and swatted Cerise on the butt.

  “Stop that! I have work to do, kitten. Go play with your dryads if you’re so worked up.”

  Cerise pulled away with a giggle. “Nah, I think I’ll seduce Elin. She’s been getting wrapped up in her books again, so someone needs to remind her that she’s not alone anymore. You’re done with me for now, right Daniel?”

  “I don’t know, I’m tempted to get in on this Elin seduction business.”

  “You’d better save your strength for tonight,” she advised. “You don’t want to disappoint Pelagia.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right. Go on and have your fun, then. I can take this from here. Avilla, I’ll have Gronir handle all the organizing for wolfen recruits, so you won’t need to do anything but the cooking. I’m sure you two can work out a schedule, and you can add in some of the maids if you want.”

  “Alright, Daniel. With a large essence supply I can make a much stronger recipe, so it won’t take long to start seeing results.”

  That was one problem out of the way. Could I do something about the other transformations and enhancements I’d been thinking of while I was at it? There was an interesting personal enchantment I’d never used, that would make the subject a lot stronger and more durable than a normal human. But laying enchantments on people is a more delicate process than burning them into a piece of equipment, and I’d never had the luxury of spending a whole day on something like that.

  A day of work just to make a single soldier twice as strong wasn’t worth it, but maybe I could make a device that would do the work for me? Something like the factory enchantments I’d been building to make guns and mortar shells? That might work, but the idea of using it on people made me a little nervous. I’d never done anything quite like that before, and a mistake could have nasty side effects.

  So I decided to start out with something a lot less complicated. Could I make a device that would apply a simple cosmetic change to the wearer? There were a lot of those I could do with my flesh magic.

  An amulet that changed the wearer’s hair color was trivial, but that was just a magical dye job. Making it change their natural color was more complicated, and I found that it was best to give the magic some time to work instead of trying to make the change instant. There were also some interesting complications, like making it smart enough to realize when it was done instead of just re-running the transformation forever. Making it recognize when the wearer already had the desired hair color also seemed like a good idea. Stuff like that turned out to be the hardest part of the exercise, but even so it barely took me an hour.

  What would be a good step up from that? Something involving more tissue, and maybe a mass change, but not a full-body effect?

  I snickered at the first idea that came to mind. Why not? Avilla had already told me there was a demand for it.

  My kitchen goddess was rather bemused when I stopped by her domain again late in the afternoon to present her with a collection of little gold amulets.

  “Ask, and ye shall receive,” I said grandly. “But I want you to keep these under lock and key, and be careful about how they get used. Some of them could cause problems if the girls get careless.”

  She eyed the handful of amulets cautiously. “How mysterious. What do they do?”

  “They’re transformation amulets. Each one has a different effect, but they’re pretty simple to use. Here, let’s start with this one. See the little glowing crystal? It changes the wearer’s hair color to match whatever is showing.”

  “Oh, my! That will be very useful,” she exclaimed, taking the amulet and studying it intently. “How do you set the color? Some sort of intent control?”

  “Yes, but you have to feed it a little magic while you’re setting it. I did it that way so you can have the maids use it, and they won’t accidentally change the settings. It takes about ten minutes to work, but once it’s done that’s their natural color.”

  “Marvelous. I’m surprised you had time to make something so frivolous, though.”

  “I’m working my way up to more complicated things,” I told her. “I just figured I might as well make the test pieces something you can use. This next one does the same thing, only with skin tone. Notice it’s got a little ‘S’ engraved on the back, and the other one has an ‘H’? It takes a little longer to work, and you don’t want to take it off before it’s done or the color might not come out even. If you keep it on after it’s finished with the basic change it’ll go on to remove freckles, moles and small scars, so if you’ve got someone who likes her freckles you’ll want to be careful with that.”

  “Alright, that will be handy for making some of the girls look exotic. What about the other three?”

  I grinned, and held up one of the amulets. “This one makes the wearer’s breasts bigger.”

  She giggled. “I knew it!”

  “Yeah, I had to go there, didn’t I? It’ll also fix some common problems, like removing stretch marks and making them match if they aren’t quite the same size. It’s a lot slower than the color change amulets, though. It takes about half an hour to make a noticeable difference, but it just keeps working for as long as you wear it. Don’t let anyone wear it to bed, or they’ll end up way too big.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Daniel. We wouldn’t want to upset Tina.”

  “We also don’t want anyone to get suffocated by her own breasts,” I said dryly. “Seriously, most people aren’t going to need more than a couple of hours. But I know women can be picky about these things, and it could take some experimenting to get it just right, so this amulet does the opposite. Notice the engraving says ‘B-’, and the growth amulet says ‘B+’. That way the ones who get carried away can get back down to a reasonable size without having to bother me.”

  “How thoughtful. You know, Daniel, that’s one of the things I love about y
ou. You always try to think these things through, and make them work out right for everyone.”

  “Um, thanks, I guess? What else would I do?”

  “Most wizards would say that people are cheaper than magic,” she pointed out. “Letting a few fools die in mishaps is a lot easier than trying to make your enchantments flawless. But we all know you don’t think that way.”

  “No, I have this strange idea that lives are actually valuable,” I replied.

  It really got to me sometimes, how little anyone else around here seemed to care about that. I know life is cheap in preindustrial societies, but I don’t have to like it.

  “Anyway, this last one is going to need special handling. It turns the wearer into a catgirl.”

  A breathless squeak from the other side of the kitchen informed me that we had an audience. A couple of the maids were putting away a load of groceries, and the pantry was easily within earshot.

  Avilla smiled indulgently, and raised her voice. “Did you see a mouse, Cami? I hope so, otherwise I’ll have to punish you for eavesdropping again.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Avilla!” One of the maids exclaimed. “I didn’t mean it! I just, I mean, I couldn’t help myself.”

  “I know how much you want to be like Tina,” Avilla said. “But you still overstepped. Finish your work, and then go to the training room and wait for me.”

  “Yes, Miss Avilla!”

  I thought about intervening, but the breathless anticipation in the girl’s reply changed my mind. Instead I raised a sound barrier around the two of us.

  “Must not be much of a punishment if she’s looking forward to it that much,” I said.

  “Ten swats with the paddle,” Avilla admitted. “Slow, with lots of attention in between, and I usually can’t resist playing with them a little afterwards. I know, I’m a softie.”

  “It seems to be working out for you,” I said with a chuckle. “So, anyway. I tuned the catgirl transformation to go with your idea of making exotic maids, so it still leaves them looking pretty close to human. They’ll have the ears and tail, but no fur to speak of. It’s also going to give them better hearing, a much better sense of smell, faster reflexes and enough strength to arm wrestle your average soldier. But it takes most of a day to finish the transformation, and it’s important to keep the amulet on the whole time. If the process ever gets interrupted somehow don’t let them put the amulet back on, and get them to me as soon as you can.”