by Karen Miller
Nothing. Nothing. Then a shiver in each crucible as the catalytic ingredients began to interact.
Morgan closed his eyes, feeling the ecstatic tremble in his blood, that caress of power more seductive than a woman’s touch. Trembling on his tongue, the harmonic syllables he’d devised to bridge the gap between dream and reality. To ignite creation.
“Ravak tokai,” he whispered, slowly dragging his fingertips through the quivering air above the crucibles. “Ravak hinmish. Ravak vant—”
A soundless boom. A flash of light. The catalytic inversion extinguished his glimfire, shattered the glass in the storm-lashed attic window and flung him into the far wall.
Sprawled on the floor with his dignity in tatters, blood trickling from his nose and his head ringing like a thousand hammered bells, he blinked into the attic’s storm-wracked darkness.
“So,” he said, sounding as wheezy as his afflicted father. “Not tilatantin. That’s useful to know.”
When he could trust that his bones wouldn’t splinter if he moved, he groped his way to sitting and conjured more glimfire. Even such a small burst of power flooded fresh blood from his nose. Relief gave way to anger.
I am Morgan Danfey. I am better than this.
He looked at his workbench, where all three crucibles lay in jagged pieces and his carefully hoarded supply of azafris smoked gently, perfuming the air.
Anger surrendered to despair.
I might as well have broken the damned horse’s neck.
He kept the attic well warded, so no hint of the disaster had been felt in the mansion below. And the servants knew better than to disturb him while he worked. It meant he could protest his latest failure as loudly as he liked for as long as he liked.
And he did.
By the time he’d recovered his composure the wild storm had passed too, dissolving into a steady, reasonable fall of rain. Before he left the attic, he saw his notes on the working updated, the window repaired and the floor dried.
The mansion’s discreet master servant greeted him at the foot of the central staircase. “Sir,” Rumm murmured, proffering a folded parchment. “This arrived while you were occupied above stairs.”
He knew what the message was, and who it was from, before he broke the plain wax seal and unfolded it.
“Lord Greve Danfey’s delicate condition notwithstanding, your presence is required in Council on the morrow.”
The curt missive was signed only with an elaborate “V.” Brice Varen, head of Dorana’s Council of Mages, disdained any signature more elaborate, confident that all the world would know who he was by a single inked flourish. Morgan felt his lip curl.
Such pretension.
But pretentious or not, he was answerable to the man. And in truth he’d been expecting such a summons. He’d not set foot in the Hall of Knowledge since Winsun, the rippled consequences of Brahn Sorvold’s untimely death handled without him. All of Dorana’s recent mage business handled without him. The neglect couldn’t continue. Any mage invited to sit on the Council accepted the appointment knowing full well that every other consideration must take a backwards step thereafter. In putting his father first for so many weeks he was trying not only Varen’s limited patience, but the goodwill of his fellow councillors.
And with one exception, he’d not had much of that to start with.
“Has his lordship stirred, Rumm?” he said, refolding the note.
“He has not, sir.”
“Be attentive. I would be informed the instant he does.”
Rumm bowed. “Sir.”
“I’ll be in the library.”
Another bow. “Shall I bring supper to you there?”
Morgan hesitated, then nodded. “Something light. With a jug of strong red wine.” Because his nerves were still unsettled from his mishap with the tilatantin. “In an hour.”
“One hour,” said Rumm, with a third and final punctilious bow. “Yes, sir.”
His attic and the library: the two rooms of the mansion where he felt truly at home. The rest might as well not exist, were needed only to satisfy base, begrudged human urges for sleep, food and bathing.
Only his mansion of the mind had real value.
Slouched deep in a leather chair, surrounded by the collection of books he was transforming into the greatest arcane library in Dorana, he studied again the inflammatory words of Rubin Cylte.
And if no way of doing a thing can be seen, still let the thing be attempted, that the way might be found. For many things done easily now were counted a challenge in their time. And many things done commonplace were once new and despised.
Not a popular arcane philosopher, Cylte. Every so often there was a call to gather his books and pamphlets and treatises and have done with them once and for all. Not bred in a First Family was one popular refrain. Unorthodox was another. Both accusations were true. Cylte had been common and outrageous and had paid the price for both crimes, eventually. But in the sixty-odd years that had passed since the controversial mage’s downfall, Morgan had found no greater voice lifted in praise of experimental magics. His father was unaware he’d purchased one of Cylte’s rare books. There was no need for him to know, especially since knowing might well hasten him into the family crypt.
It was Cylte’s ruminations on the reconfiguring of sigils that had inspired him to exchange dreaming for daring, and undertake a reworking of Hartigan’s transmutation incant.
For many things done easily now were counted a challenge in their time.
Words to provide comfort when the work was not going as planned.
Cheered a little by the dead mage’s encouragement, Morgan put that book aside and turned to his Compendium of Catalysts. Therein must lie the answer to his collapsing sigils. He had to find it. His was a First Family, but it wasn’t first amongst the First. There were more illustrious names in Dorana than his. To be recognised, to become one day head of the Council, Dorana’s most eminent mage, he had to make his mark. He had to be seen as the peerless mage he knew himself to be, no matter what more highly ranked mages hinted and winked at.
I must be known as the greatest innovator in our history… and protect it from the dangers I alone seem to see.
When Rumm brought him his supper he put aside the Compendium and ate, distracted, as he examined the question of the recalcitrant sigil. He remained convinced that azafris was the correct central catalyst. Very well, if oil of atlar was an incompatible counter-catalyst, and tilatantin was combustible, and urvil root wasn’t strong enough to be effective, what did that leave him? Frill root, perhaps. Or possibly susquinel. Though that was a dangerous notion. The wretched stuff was almost as bad as azafris. Mishandled, it could do a careless mage real harm.
“I should leave the problem aside until the morrow, sir,” said Rumm, abruptly at his elbow. “There’s very little a sound night’s sleep can’t solve or mend.”
The man prowled like a cat, curse him. It would be unforgivable if he weren’t indispensable. A Doranen like Rumm, born with little or no mage ability, was a sorry creature, forced into manual labours, farming and animal husbandry and cartering and the like, or to the serving of his betters. But by virtue of his dignity and wholly discreet efficiency, Rumm managed to serve yet still command a modicum of respect.
Morgan smiled at him. “Perhaps you’re right.”
“I have looked in on his lordship, sir,” said Rumm. “He’s sleeping comfortably enough. Though the hour advances, I am loath to wake him for a meal, most especially since his appetite today has been finicky. I expect it will be more robust come breakfast.”
“Do you?” he said, ready to rap the man’s knuckles for lecturing. But the reprimand withered when he saw the sympathy in his servant’s steady gaze. “Yes. Well, if it’s not, we must send to Ranmer for a remedy and let Lord Danfey kick as he will.”
Rumm collected the used plates and cutlery, the emptied wine jug and goblet. “A note for the pother is already written, sir. But I trust it will not be requir
ed. Shall I bring you a brandy nightcap, or do you now retire?”
“What time is it?” he said, glancing at the betrothal clock on the library fireplace mantel. A gift from Luzena, dainty and delicate, as she had been. “Not so very late. I have an hour’s more reading in me.”
“An hour’s extra rest would be more to the purpose,” said Rumm, blunter than usual. “Or when next I send to Ranmer he’ll be coming to tend you. Sir.”
“I see.” Prickled between amusement and offence, Morgan raised an eyebrow. “You presume to order my affairs, Rumm?”
“Sir, I presume to do my duty,” Rumm replied, unmoved. “I serve the Danfey family in all things.”
He waved a hand. “Then serve it now by bringing me a snifter of brandy.”
“Sir.”
But Rumm was right. With the brandy glowing in his belly, and the relentless anxiety for his father joining with his day’s arcane failures to brew a pain behind his eyes, Morgan found the words of the Compendium swimming like fish on the pages. Defeated, he closed the book. But before retiring, he stopped to check on his father. The old man’s wheezing filled his bedchamber with a bitter song of slow decay.
Stranded in the open doorway, summoned glimfire showing him the truth he’d pretended to accept and now couldn’t escape, Morgan felt a wave of grief crash over him, stripping him of years. He was a small boy again, losing his mother, adrift in a world grown cold and cruel. His heart boomed in his chest like a tolling funeral bell. Greve Danfey was yet a young man, as the mages of Dorana counted time. Brice Varen could give him ten years and he remained hale, hearty and spry. Why should that not be so for the sleeping man before him?
Lord Danfey wants a grandson? Very well. I shall give him one. Then he’ll have no reason to die.
On the morrow, leaving Rumm with strict instructions to keep a close eye on his lordship, who was yet to wake, he rode to Elvado. Of course he could have used a travel incant. Doubtless someone on the Council would say he should have, but the simple fact was that he enjoyed riding in the open air. His stallion was blood-bred and spirited, the sky brightly blue, the rain-washed fields beyond the estate’s woodland fragrant with hedge flowers. The country road he travelled was empty, save for himself, its sun-warmed solitude welcome. It was a glorious morning, and in its glory he could forget, for a short time, the shadow-filled mansion behind him, forget yesterday’s arcane disappointments, and think instead of the solemn vow that he’d taken. That he meant to keep, on his honour.
Only to give his father a grandson he must first take a wife, and quickly. But Luzena was the only wife he’d ever wanted. Could some other girl’s pretty face and pleasing body obliterate enough of her memory that he would stiffen, as his father crudely put it, to the purpose of making a son?
It will have to. Or else I will have to alchemy Luzena out of memory and into my bed even as my yet-unchosen wife lies beneath me.
A repugnant thought. Sullied by the prospect, he felt his spirits sink. His blood-bred stallion shied at shadows, feeling the shift in his temper. With an effort he banished misgivings. His father was right: the Danfey name must live on.
“Forgive me,” he said to the warm, fresh air, and touched fingertips to the gold locket he wore always, next to his skin. It contained his love’s portrait, her likeness to the life. “But I have a duty and an oath to uphold.”
He thought he heard her voice in the up-springing breeze. Thought he felt her lips in the sunlight kissing his face.
Luzena.
Elvado was an hour’s brisk ride from the Danfey mansion’s front door. Clattering along the bustling city’s wide, central thoroughfare, his stallion’s shod hooves cheerful on the cobbles, Morgan felt his mood lift again. Home to every brilliant mage ever born, Elvado was the gentle, genteel beating heart of magic. The safekeeping and pursuit of arcane knowledge was its purpose. Magic was soaked into the beautiful city’s bones. He loved it as passionately as ever he loved Luzena.
There was no stabling at the Hall of Knowledge, so he left his stallion in a private livery yard and completed his journey on foot. Every passerby who noticed the Council insignia pinned to his blue silk brocade lapel acknowledged his authority with a bow or a smile. He recognised them with a raised eyebrow, nothing more. Dignity and distance were the hallmarks of the Council. The insignia ensured no conversation occurred without he was the instigator, an arrangement that could be trusted to prevent any public unpleasantness.
Reaching the central plaza, he paused before its beautiful fountain and laughed without restraint at the day’s water-trickery, rainbowed dolphins leaping and dancing. Childishly entranced, he lingered longer than he should. But then the sonorous chiming of the city’s grand clock recalled him to his obligations.
“Morgan,” said Brice Varen, glancing up from the scattering of papers and unrolled parchment on the Council chamber’s table. “How does your father prosper?”
“Well enough, my lord,” he replied, waving the imposing door closed behind him. Councillor or not, he wasn’t free to make free with Varen’s given name. He was not yet a lord himself and was decades too young, besides. “My thanks to you for asking.”
Varen indicated the Council table’s last empty chair. “Sit. As you can see we have been waiting for you.”
The words were said mildly enough, but beneath them he felt the slap of censure. So he humbly took his seat beside Venette Martain, nodded to Sallis Arkley and Shari Frieden, and with his fellow councillors waited at Varen’s pleasure. Stained-glass light washed over table and floor, painting their faces motley and turning their soberly rich clothes garish.
“First order of business,” Varen said, his spine straight, his hands neatly folded, “is a matter referred to us by the General Council. Do we sanction the establishment of a second trade fair?”
“And the request comes from…?” said Shari, slender fingers idly playing with her long blonde plait.
As usual, she sat beside Sallis. Two mages, one thought… and never was it friendly. Not where Morgan Danfey was concerned.
“The Iringans,” said Varen. He half smiled, his seamed face wolfish. “They claim Brantone is too great a distance to travel for those not blessed with mage powers.”
“It is a goodly distance from Iringa to Brantone,” Sallis agreed. “And in principle I have no objection to the notion of further commerce. Any expansion of trade must benefit our coffers.”
Morgan hesitated, then raised a cautioning hand. “Unless there are those behind the request who would halve our profits by doubling the availability of what we sell. We should remember, Lord Arkley, that our neighbours love our magework. They do not love us.”
“How cynical you are, Morgan,” said Venette, slyly grinning. “Mind you, I’d trust my housemaid with the key to my treasury box before an Iringan with a small purse only part-full of cuicks.”
“Cynical or not, Morgan is correct,” said Shari, and looked unhappy admitting it. “Don’t forget that only last month the General Council had to impose sanctions on Feen for attempting to evade tariff collections. If we let them, these magickless nations will ride over us roughshod.”
“But if it can be shown that a second trade fair would benefit Dorana,” Sallis said, “then the General Council can tell the Iringans we’ll approve one in Manemli, say, provided certain fiscal conditions are met.”
Venette’s nose wrinkled. “Not Manemli. They have unsavoury practices.”
“So do others we truck with,” said Shari. “But I haven’t noticed any taint on their coin. Have you?”
At fifty-two, Venette was some nine years younger than Shari Frieden, but that never stopped her from standing her ground.
“If this is to be a unanimous decision, it won’t be reached with my vote if Manemli is not discarded.”
All eyes turned to Varen. He rubbed a finger across his age-pinched lips, in no hurry to offer an opinion. But at length he swept the table with his cool grey gaze.
“You bicker particulars
while o’erleaping the first hurdle. The question before us is whether a second trade fair is desirable at all. Brantone will not want it.”
Morgan sat back. “I don’t support a second trade fair, but nor do I think we can bend our knee to Brantone. We must not be trammelled by our inferiors.”
Varen’s stare was dispassionate. “Brantone is a loyal friend to Dorana. It hosts the summer trade fair to our great advantage. A second fair would trammel them, Morgan.”
“My lord, we speak of Dorana’s sovereignty. Nothing is more important than that.”
Beneath the table, Venette pressed her foot to his in warning. In the five months since his elevation to the Council she had more than once slipped a steadying hand beneath his elbow. Such a shame she had no daughter to tempt him. Her bloodline was exemplary, but she’d failed to produce children.
“I fear you betray your greenness, Morgan,” said Varen, disapproving. “To be magickless is not to be without value entirely. For myself, I have no interest in pandering to the Iringans. They spend nowhere near enough at the summer trade fair for us to risk slighting Brantone. Let them prove with plentiful coin their great need of Doranen magework, and then we might consider another fair. Agreed?”
One by one the others nodded. But did they truly agree or did they only pander to Varen? Looking at their faces, Morgan couldn’t tell. But, mindful of his precarious position, reluctantly he nodded too.
“Excellent,” said Varen. “I shall so inform Chief Councillor Lady Brislyn.” He glanced at his notes. “She also made mention of trouble brewing between Manemli and Ranoush. It seems the dispute is seeded in our trade route, which travels to Ranoush first, by way of Brantone. Manemli is claiming we give preference to both Brantone and Ranoush, meaning they are left to pick over the leavings. This is making them openly resentful. A handful of our trader-mages have reported Manemlin hostility.”