Thrall

by E. William Brown

  A bigger challenge was the fact that the factory had to have an open space in the middle big enough to hold the vehicle it was making, and it was hard to get enchantment spells to work over any significant distance. That was one reason that I’d come up with a new, more compact skimmer design instead of just copying the ones I’d made by hand.

  The new skimmers were considerably smaller than the old ones, more like an armored car than a proper IFV. At the front there were seats for a driver and commander, with narrow windows giving them a view ahead and to the sides. A turret on top held the gunner’s position, and an open space at the back had room for four infantry or a couple of tons of supplies. The main way in and out was a large hatch in the rear, but the gunner and commander positions also had smaller hatches.

  The main weapon was a cannon in the turret, with a caliber I estimated at 40mm. There was a selector switch that controlled whether it conjured solid or explosive rounds, which was another mark of my increasing skill with enchantment factories. When I’d first started to build these things the indirection involved in making an enchantment factory that makes enchantment factories that make magic items would have been too much. But that was before I figured out how to translate some of my experience with computer programming into making more structured enchantments. Now that I could apply basic structured programming techniques to the design of an enchantment, I could manage effects that had a lot more complexity to them.

  I’d taken advantage of that to add some useful secondary features to the new design. The commander’s position had controls for a forward-facing flamer mounted on the hood, just behind the ram that would hopefully allow it to plow through light buildings or small trees if necessary. There was a secondary system that would engulf the whole vehicle in fire for a few seconds, to ward off swarming attacks by enemy infantry. It even had headlights, and a high-powered spotlight mounted coaxial with the cannon. The only thing it lacked compared to the armored vehicles I was used to was a good machine gun, and I figured the flamer and explosive cannon rounds would be a decent substitute.

  Well, it also needed a radio. That was next on my list of inventions to work on.

  Markus wanted to stuff seven men into each vehicle, and have the infantry dismount to fight. Demetrios was leaning towards a more mechanized setup, with just two infantry riding in the back to leave more room for supplies. I figured either approach would work well enough, so I wasn’t too concerned about the details. Just having an adequate number of armored vehicles would keep most fights from happening.

  A wizard might be willing to fight an unfamiliar ‘golem’, but most fighting men have a keen sense of self-preservation. No one was going to be eager to fight a giant mass of armor with swords and spears.

  “It’s sort of like a boat,” I told Alanna. “It’s enclosed to protect the crew from an enemy’s weapons. One of the men steers it, and the others use magic weapons to fight.”

  “That explains the flame enchantments,” she said. “What do you call these fearsome beasts of war?”

  I pulled the big lever that activated the factory, and stepped back to watch it work. What would you call these things? They’d end up about the length of a large van, although they were wider and a good bit taller than that. Still significantly smaller than the military vehicles I was familiar with, since they didn’t need to devote space to an engine or fuel tank. I suppose the Army would call it an IFV, but Varmland didn’t share America’s addiction to military acronyms.

  “An armored skimmer,” I decided. “I’ll let the men suggest a name for this particular design. I’m sure they’ll come up with something suitably military.”

  “You just don’t want to bother thinking up a name,” Cerise chuckled. “Seriously, Daniel, how can a wizard suck so bad at naming things?”

  “Hey! I named the Intrepid, didn’t I?”

  “Only because I pushed you. You’ve never named any of the smaller vehicles you made. The way I hear it, you weren’t even going to name Grinder until Avilla said you should.”

  I shrugged. “Well, I suppose it’s just not something I care about. Besides, by the time one project is finished and ready for that I’m usually off to the next one.”

  That prediction was proved accurate not half an hour later, when my first successful test run was interrupted by frantic knocking at the door. Cerise and Alanna were kissing again by that point, slowly working themselves up for another round. There weren’t too pleased at the interruption.

  “I suppose I should answer that,” I said. We were in the tower where I’d set up the other military enchantment factories, so it was probably a soldier or messenger rather than one of Avilla’s cute little maids.

  Instead of dressing, Cerise just sent a tendril of shadow snaking across the floor to grab the cloak that I’d discarded. She draped it around herself and Alanna, who seemed perfectly content with the arrangement.

  Well, I guess that was good enough. I was glad I’d gotten dressed again, though. I slid the bolt back, and opened the heavy door a bit. “Yes?”

  Sure enough, it was one of the garrison soldiers. “There’s an urgent message from the temple, milord. The high priest is asking you to come down as soon as you can.”

  I took the scroll he offered, noting that it was sealed with a wax seal. I suppose the messenger who delivered it had talked, then.

  “Did they say what this is about?” I asked as I checked the scroll for magic, and broke the seal.

  “No, milord. Something hush-hush, it sounds like, but the messenger was fair frantic over it.”

  The formal message wasn’t any more enlightening. An urgent request for my presence at the temple, with hints that there was some emergency only I could resolve. That was interesting. The temple had lost all of their senior leadership when Mara broke in during the Battle of the Docks, but they still had a lot of prestige. I’d half-expected one of the noble factions to use them as a go-between for secret meetings, since if they wanted a magical ally against the Conclave I was the obvious choice. But that sort of thing would hardly be an emergency.

  “I suppose I’d better see what they want,” I said. “Tell the messenger he can go ahead and return to the temple. I’ll be along shortly.”

  “As you say, milord.” The soldier bowed, and hurried off.

  “I don’t like this,” Cerise said as I closed the door. “They’ve re-sanctified the temple, so I can’t go in there with you. What if it’s some kind of trap?”

  “By who? The temple doesn’t have anyone powerful enough to be a threat to me, and neither do the nobles. The Conclave would be another story, but I can’t see the temple cooperating with them on something like that.”

  “Fear not, Cerise,” Alanna said, rising to her feet. “I shall guard our wizard from all manner of ambushes and knives in the dark.”

  I paused in the act of picking up my coat. “I don’t know if bringing a dryad into the temple is entirely safe either.”

  “Put that silly thing away, Daniel. I can be much better armor than a scrap of leather, and none will question my presence in that form.”

  Well, that was one of the reasons I’d ended up accepting her as a familiar. My own efforts to design a decent suit of plate armor hadn’t gone very well, and I was never going to have time to work out the kinks. So I set the coat aside.

  “Good point. Alright, Alanna. Let’s do this.”

  All of my nymphs had dryad companions, who turned into wooden armor to protect them. Alanna was happy enough to do the same thing for me, although the process was a bit disconcerting. She stepped into my embrace, molding herself against me with a happy sigh. Then her body turned soft and malleable, and engulfed me.

  The nymphs I’d seen in armor all affected a style like ancient Greek soldiers, but Alanna was familiar with other designs. We’d practiced this a few times, and the one we’d settled on was basically full plate armor. The helm had an open face, but aside from that I was covered from head to toe.

  The armor
was a snug fit, and the inside was still as warm and soft as Alanna’s bare skin. The outside was plates of hard wood, which ordinarily wouldn’t count for much as armor. But it was held in its current shape by Alanna’s magic, and the ancient dryad could hold enormous amounts of mana. Heavy blows would be a drain on her power, but nothing short of a giant was going to crack her open.

  Then she called on my earth sorcery, and clad her new shape in steel. I watched her layer structural reinforcement spells over the metal, deftly tying them to her own power reserves, and grinned.

  “That’s a new trick,” I said, moving my arms to check my range of motion. Still no problems there, not that I’d expected any. Unlike me, Alanna had plenty of experience designing armor to fit any wearer. “But didn’t you brag about being better than steel?”

  She didn’t have a mouth in this form, of course. But with our familiar bond fully established, she didn’t need one to talk to me.

  Layers of protection, Daniel, her voice whispered in my mind. There is a counter for every defense. But a weapon meant to pierce wards will fail against a dryad’s body, and a weapon meant to slay dryads will break its teeth on cold steel. Together, with your bottomless magic filling me, we are proof against all but the most fell of weapons.

  “I bet the metal is for stopping death weapons,” Cerise speculated, unable to hear Alanna’s telepathic explanation.

  “Sounds like it,” I told her. “I don’t think we have to worry much about assassins while we’re like this, and if there’s some kind of ambush we can just fly away. It should be safe enough.”

  She circled me, getting a good look at my armor, and rapped on the breastplate.

  “Good job, Alanna,” she said. “But this gives me an idea. When you get back I want us to make you a shadow cloak to wear when you’re armored up. If we do it right I’ll be able to lurk inside the cloak in shadow form, and jump out to murderize people by surprise. Plus, it will give you better stealth the next time we get into a night battle.”

  “That sounds intriguing,” I said. “Do you think we could duplicate that shadow step thing you do?”

  “Maybe. That’s a sacred mystery of Hecate’s cult, but since you’re her champion I guess she wouldn’t mind. Only, power like that is supposed to be earned. We don’t have time for you to speed a week fasting and meditating, so you might just have to win it by right of conquest.”

  “Wench. You just want to get chained up again.”

  “Who, me? No way!” She leaned in for a kiss.

  “Be careful out there, big guy,” she said. “You’ve got a lot of enemies.”

  “I will,” I promised. “Tell Demetrios where I went, just in case this is advance warning of another attack on the city or something. I’ll be back soon.”

  The tower I was in was mostly filled with military barracks, armories and parking space for skimmers. But there was also a giant freight elevator, big enough to lift a skimmer full of troops up to the top of the wall. So getting outside was as easy as flying up the elevator shaft, and then walking out through a guard post onto the wall.

  It was a clear day for once. My breath misted in the cold air, and the wind felt like knives of ice flaying the skin off my face. I nodded to the sentries, huddled in their coats and warmth cloaks, and stepped out into the arctic chill.

  My body remained comfortably warm, cradled in Alanna’s embrace. After a moment she spun together a warmth spell to protect my face as well. Unlike my own attempts in that direction it held together despite the wind, without either cutting off my air supply or roasting me. I had to stop and study the spell for a moment to see how she’d done it.

  “Thank you,” I told her. “That’s a neat little spell.”

  I do have some experience, she replied. But don’t let me distract you, Daniel. Focus on dealing with the work at hand, and trust me to guard you against all threats.

  “I will, Alanna.”

  I sent a burst of appreciation down our link, and lifted off.

  Being able to fly still gave me a thrill. I climbed a thousand feet into the air in seconds, and did a couple of loops just because I felt like it. Alanna shrieked with surprised glee, sounding more like a kid on a roller coaster than an ancient nature spirit.

  Next time we do this, don’t wear pants, she said breathlessly. I want to try fucking while we fly.

  “How?” I asked. “You’re a suit of armor right now.”

  Soft lips kissed the side of my neck.

  The armor is an extension of my tree, she said. I can reach out of it without fully manifesting, if I wish.

  “Sounds interesting. But let’s stay focused here. We can play later.”

  It was a short flight across the city, to the great plaza near its center where the temple stood. I circled the area once, taking in the situation. There was still a huge sinkhole in the middle of the plaza, where Cerise and I had tunneled our way to the surface after destroying an undead dragon in the catacombs. The bodies left by that evening’s battles had been carted away, and someone had made a few makeshift repairs to the temple. The broken windows were boarded over, and the leaves of the main door had been lashed together with rope and hung back in position.

  Big iron braziers full of burning logs had been set up outside the doors, where a squad of soldiers were standing guard. A line of ragged-looking women and children snaked into the temple through one open door, while smaller clumps of people emerged through the other at irregular intervals.

  I landed in the middle of the group of soldiers. They started, hands going to their swords.

  “Don’t bother, men. I’m the wizard, Daniel Black. Archpriest Edvin sent for me?”

  “I never heard of the black wizard wearing no armor,” one of them said suspiciously.

  “That’s not an accident. Now, are you going to tell the Archpriest that I’m here, or would you rather explain to him that I left because you thought I might be some other flying wizard?”

  The sergeant gave a snort at that. “Don’t mind him, lord wizard. He’s just an idiot. This way, if you please.”

  He led me into the main chamber of the temple, where a group of well-dressed men were sacrificing a sheep on the altar. The animal’s cries of pain echoed in the stone room, but the crowd of kneeling onlookers didn’t care. There were several more groups waiting for their turn, most with an animal of their own. I found myself eyeing the ones that didn’t have an obvious sacrifice as we passed. Were they just planning to make offerings of money instead of blood? Or was that boy who looked like a street urchin going to end up tied to the altar soon?

  I’d expected my escort to take me to an office somewhere, but instead he led me around the crowd of worshipers towards the sanctuary in the back. To my surprise, the line of women and children I’d noted before ended there. Several priests were busy giving instructions to each group as they reached the door, and there seemed to be a lot of tearful goodbyes being said. Several times as we approached I saw a young woman break away from her friends and family, square her shoulders, and march through the door.

  “What’s that all about?” I asked my escort.

  “Widows for the Door of Devotion,” the sergeant explained. “Or so they say. Odds are half of them just think being a serving wench in Valhalla is safer than being here.”

  How desperate would a woman have to be, to rush into the afterlife without waiting to die first? Especially since Asgard was going to be under siege by an army of dark gods and monsters soon. But then again, Kozalin probably didn’t look any safer to them. At least in Valhalla they wouldn’t have to worry about starving to death.

  “Probably,” I agreed as we reached the door. The junior priest who was playing door guard just waved us through.

  “I wonder how they match up the widows with their husbands?” I mused as we passed through. “That could be tricky, especially if you have a lot of women who don’t really have anyone waiting for them.”

  “Still prying into the affairs of the gods, after all
this time? Some men never learn.”

  The stranger’s voice was cold and grim, overflowing with an implacable determination. I turned my attention from the hopeful widows, and found myself facing an old man with a grey beard, and a patch of aging leather covering one eye. In one hand he held a long spear tipped with a jagged point of something my earth sorcery said wasn’t metal, and there were a pair of ravens perched on his shoulders.

  “Odin?!” I gasped, and took an involuntary step back. I ran into a wall of muscle, and an enormous hand came down to grip my shoulder.

  “None of that, little wizard. Father wants a word with you,” a deep voice rumbled from somewhere above and behind me.

  I glanced back to find a towering mountain of muscle with a shaggy red beard, and a massive hammer in his hand.

  Odin’s dry chuckle pulled my attention back to him.

  “We aren’t here to kill you, Daniel. Asgard never joined the Exterminatus, if you’ll recall. I judge that if you’ve lasted since the fall of Atlantis without overturning the natural order, you aren’t going to start now. Besides, Brand has been singing your praises since he returned to Asgard. I understand we have you to thank for that?”

  I took a deep breath, and tried to make my hands stop shaking. Gods. Two of them. Probably the worst pair imaginable, at that. Thor could smash any defense I could raise, and Odin probably knew more about magic than all the wizards in Europe put together.

  He was also waiting for an answer.

  “Possibly,” I temporized. “I’m sure he had a contingency of his own, and it might have worked. But I’m trying to keep word of that operation from getting back to the wrong ears.”

  There were more people here than just the two of them. Archpriest Edvin was hovering near Odin, ready to carry out any orders he might give. Behind them four huge men who could have been Brand’s brothers stood guard around a rainbow haze that was filled with intense magics I didn’t immediately recognize. Behind me a couple of priests were ushering the steady trickle of women off to a disk of rainbow light that had to be the Door of Devotion, and incidentally keeping them from bothering the gods. The portal and the exit were each guarded by a couple of men in temple livery.