Nature's Master (The Nature Mage Series Book 4)

by Duncan Pile

  “I don’t like it but you’re right,” Voltan said. “We didn’t go all the way to Pell only to rush in unprepared, but there is much we can do in the meantime. We can get on with fusing the fragments straight away.”

  “Will you take charge of that?” Hephistole asked.

  “Are you sure you want me to?” Voltan said with a wry smile. “My enchantments are not exactly sought-after.”

  Hephistole let out a bark of a laugh. “Don’t worry – I just need you to coordinate the process. Recruit every able enchanter you can find, starting with Antonius. We’ll need as many demon-bane weapons as possible when battle is joined.”

  “I’ll get right onto it,” Voltan said.

  …

  Ferast stood at Namert’s gate, fuming at having to wait in line. It was more of a scrum than a line if truth be told, with everyone jostling for position. The grunting, sweating peasants surrounded him, letting off a collective odour that stung his nostrils. He could use his power to brush them aside, but that would undermine his carefully-thought-out plan. To raise an army he first of all needed to acquire influence. His plan was to identify the most ruthless and powerful councillor from among Namert’s ruling elite, known as the Eleven, and make that person his ally. Some things were better accomplished by stealth than by force.

  Ferast had more on his mind than fulfilling Sestin’s commission. When living as Sestin’s apprentice, Ferast had learned that the arch-mage had many agents, spread out across the continent. Some were in positions of power and others lived quite ordinary lives, but all of them relayed information to Sestin when he asked for it. It was one of those agents – an associate of Hephistole’s called Stragos – who’d informed Sestin of Gaspi’s enrolment in the Measure. Later, he had reported that Hephistole was travelling north on some kind of quest. Sestin had pushed for further information but Stragos had nothing more to offer and had suffered his master’s displeasure. He didn’t know how lucky he’d been; Sestin had already set the Darkman in motion and didn’t consider Stragos’ information to be important. The renegade had tortured him but not for long, and had sent him back to his post in one piece.

  Ferast had no illusions about his master; Sestin didn’t want or need company. Ferast had been permitted to stay in Elmera while his training lasted, or perhaps until his will had been thoroughly broken, but Sestin had finally let him off the leash, which meant that his time as a house-guest was at an end. From what he’d heard about Namert, it was exactly the sort of place he’d thrive in. He intended to lay the foundations of his influence carefully in order that they endure long into the future.

  Slowly, Ferast progressed towards the front of the line as one individual after another was allowed into the city. The guards were louts in mismatched armour, which told him much about how the city militia operated – if they used mercenaries to guard the gate, they used mercenaries for everything, which meant that Namert was for sale.

  The guards lounged about the gateway, extorting bribes from everyone seeking to enter the city. Coins shamelessly changed hands, and when a man had no money, other forms of payment were exacted. One man looked on while the guards groped his wife and another let them do the same to his daughter, watching in obvious agitation until they let her go.

  Even as Ferast moved another step forward, a man lacking the necessary coinage was dragged aside by one of the mercenaries while another reached for the man’s wife.

  “Get away from her!” the man cried, throwing himself against the burly guard.

  “Botha, be quiet!” his wife urged.

  “You know what happens if you can’t pay,” the second guard said, his eyes glued to the rounded bosom in front of him.

  “I’ll kill you, I swear!” Botha cried.

  The guard’s hands stopped scant inches from the woman’s bosom. “Did you hear that Parker? He just threatened an officer of the watch.”

  “I believe he did, Knowles,” Parker responded with a slow smile. Botha fought to break free, but Parker held him fast.

  Botha ceased to struggle. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it!”

  “Get over here!” Knowles barked. Parker gave Botha an almighty shove and sent him stumbling towards Knowles.

  “Please, leave him alone,” Botha’s wife said.

  “Kellith, restrain her!” Knowles said to a third guard, who was lounging nearby. The young, sallow-looking mercenary sauntered over and took hold of Botha’s wife, restraining her by the arms.

  “Please!” Botha’s wife said. Knowles drew a long dagger from a sheath at his hip. “No!” she cried. Knowles took a swift step towards Botha and pressed the point of his knife into the soft flesh beneath his chin. Botha rose to his tiptoes, straining to pull away from the blade, but Knowles kept it tight against his skin.

  “I’ll do anything you want! Just don’t hurt him!” Botha’s wife pleaded.

  Knowles turned to look at her. “That’s a bit more like it.” He let Botha go, reversed his blade and hit him hard on the back of the head with the hilt. Botha’s eyes rolled back into his skull and he collapsed in a boneless heap.

  “Parker, throw him in the dungeons,” Knowles said, spitting noisily in the dirt. “As for you, my dear, Kellith will tie you up in the gatehouse. I daresay I’ll be wanting a bit of sport later on.”

  A smile crept over Ferast’s face as he watched the sobbing woman be dragged away. He was definitely going to like Namert.

  …

  It took every last drop of Ferast’s patience to stand in line and shuffle forward like one of the herd, but at long last he reached the front of the queue and came face to face with Knowles. He was the ugliest person Ferast had ever seen. He was grossly fat, thick sausage-flesh leaking out from every gap in his ill-fitting armour. His face looked like it had been beaten out of shape with a skillet and he stank like an open sewer.

  “What’s your business here?” the guard asked, releasing a cloud of foul breath.

  “Visiting a relative,” Ferast said, feeding a trickle of power into his words. It was just a nudge – enough to make the man lose interest and let him pass, but the commoner was surprisingly resistant to the suggestion.

  “Who’s the relative?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “Just let ’im through Knowles,” Parker said. “As long as ’e pays the price, who cares?”

  In other circumstances, Ferast would have been angry – why should he pay an unwashed commoner for the right to go through a gate when he could knock it down with a single thought? – but he was playing a longer game and wasn’t yet ready to draw attention to himself.

  “I s’pose you’re right,” Knowles said, wrinkling his nose. “I jus’ don’ like the runty ones.”

  Any good feeling Ferast had towards Knowles evaporated in a heartbeat.

  “Make ’im pay double then,” Parker said with a shrug.

  Ferast felt a dangerous flash of anger. They were going to make him pay double because he was runty? The word made his blood boil, awakening memories he’d buried long ago; recollections of cruel mockery on account of his slight build. The youngest of six, Ferast had always had to fight for the meagrest scraps of food. His mother had died when he was little and his father had turned sour after her death, leaving them to fend for themselves. His sisters had tormented Ferast for as long as he could remember, making him perform tasks that were much too difficult for him and laughing when he fell, cut and bruised to the ground.

  His oldest sister Narine had never called him by name – he had just been “the runt” to her from his first living memory. And now these unwashed oafs were throwing it in his face. Ferast’s fingertips tingled with power, summoned without conscious thought. He was going to hit this fool with a pain strike to end all pain strikes. But then he remembered the Measure. Killing Everand had been a catastrophic act of ill-discipline. Sestin had sent him to kill the Nature Mage, but Ferast’s thirst for revenge had won out over good sense, and he’d made the gravest mistake of his life. He’d paid a heavy
price for his lack of judgement, day after day, week after week, and he wasn’t about to give his master cause to repeat the lesson. Releasing a steadying breath, he let go of his power.

  “Look at him, all red in the face. Are you crapping your pants, runt? Or maybe you want to hit me?” Knowles said, his expression shrewd, but Ferast’s temper was back under control.

  Knowles seemed to lose interest. “Pay double and yer through. Two silvers,” he said, holding out his grubby hand.

  Ferast reached into his cloak and took out a purse, from which he withdrew a pair of small silver coins and placed them in Knowles’ sweaty palm. He stood there for a moment, committing the guard’s features to memory. He did the same for Parker, who was just as guilty as far as he was concerned.

  “What’re you staring at?” Knowles spat. “Move along if you don’t want trouble.”

  Wordlessly, Ferast stepped past the two guards and passed through Namert’s gates. He’d achieved his first objective and gained entry to the city without revealing his magical powers, but before he moved on to the second stage of his plan there was something he had to attend to. He might have restrained himself in public, but what happened behind closed doors was another matter. That night, he was going to pay a visit to Knowles and Parker.

  …

  Ferast stood in a small, wooden enclosure at the rear of the Hall of Audience; the largest and most opulent of Namert’s Grand Chambers. Five supplicants waited alongside him in various degrees of agitation, with the exception of a petite, modestly dressed woman, who bided her time without a hint of nervousness. Officially Ferast was a supplicant too, but that was about to change. He glanced at the guards stationed at the hall’s main entrance and smiled to himself. Parker hadn’t moved from his position, standing loosely with glazed eyes and slack hands. He remained firmly under Ferast’s control.

  Once a week, the citizens of Namert were permitted to bring a dispute before the Eleven, hoping to obtain their favour, or to seek their support in some other matter. As they waited, Ferast found himself wondering why the line was so short. In a city of this size, he’d have expected dozens of supplicants. Six people was a peculiarly thin slice of the population. In contrast, the circumference of the hall was lined with benches, packed with hundreds of Namert’s citizens. Ferast noticed with distaste that most of them were commoners, wearing simple smocks or work clothes and staring at the supplicants with smudged, eager faces.

  A dozen rows of finer, more comfortable chairs had been positioned near the front of the hall. These too were filling up, presumably reserved for people who enjoyed the council’s favour. Some of those finding their seats carried themselves like royalty and wore a fortune in jewels and soft cloth – wealthy businessmen and women perhaps – but others were harder to pigeon-hole. A muscular, stocky man with a heavily scarred face was clearly no man of commerce. He wore simple clothes of unadorned black and bore a wickedly curved dagger on his hip. He wasn’t the only person among the privileged few bearing arms, but Ferast was willing to bet he was the only one whose blade had ever tasted blood. Something about the way he carried himself reminded Ferast of Bork. He smiled tightly, remembering the mercenary’s lust for blood. The man had been lethal but he’d known his place. If Ferast missed anyone in this life, it was Bork.

  At the front of the hall was a dais, serving as a platform for eleven elaborate chairs. Not chairs…thrones, Ferast corrected himself. Each was unique, commissioned perhaps by the council members themselves, and varying from the understated to the ostentatious. The largest throne took pride of place in the centre of the dais; a great black edifice in ebony that would tower over any would-be-occupant. That had to be Stringfellow’s chair – the unofficial head of the council and the most powerful man in Namert.

  A chime sounded from the front of the hall and the hum of conversation dropped to a murmur. A door swung open to the side of the dais and a man strode out, tall and straight-backed despite his advancing years. Stringfellow. His face was craggy and narrow, and he wore a grey satin doublet beneath a fine black cloak. Behind him came the rest of the Eleven, each dressed in exquisite finery, greeted by the expectant hush of the crowd.

  Ferast scrutinised them with his eyes and with his senses as they took their seats. He took in everything, from their attire to their choice of throne to the twisting pathways of their minds. He peered intently at their faces, reading the wealth of information evident in their expressions. Each displayed a certain kind of strength, as might be expected among the ruling class in a city such as Namert, but he was looking for more than that: he was looking for someone ruthless, cunning and ambitious; someone with bottomless guile who served themselves above all others; someone very much like himself.

  First of all he considered Stringfellow; a natural choice as the most powerful person in the room. For the last dozen years he had maintained his position, which spoke of his strength of will, but Ferast quickly discounted him as a potential ally. Stringfellow had an obvious kind of strength, but it was the strength of iron – inflexible and, if tested to its limit, brittle. His gaze shifted to the woman on Stringfellow’s right. Her real name had passed from knowledge long ago, along with her murky past, and the people of Namert knew her only as the Nettle. She was beautiful in an icy kind of way; tall with raven hair, emerald eyes and pale, sculpted features.

  He discounted her too – she was just like Stringfellow, wielding power as an ogre wields a club. By all accounts she was one of two councillors most likely to take over from Stringfellow when the old man’s grip loosened.

  The other heir apparent was on Stringfellow’s left; Elijah, a jeweller who had risen to power through the extraordinary success of his businesses. He’d been a member of the council for less than three years, but in that short time he had gathered unusual influence and was considered a person to be reckoned with. Unlike Stringfellow and the Nettle, whose backs were as rigid as the chairs they sat on, Elijah sprawled comfortably on his throne with an easy smile on his face. His clothes were rumpled and his hair unkempt, but his eyes were shrewd and his expression shrewd. Ferast’s curiosity was piqued. Perhaps this was the ally he was looking for.

  Stringfellow gestured to a functionary, who walked over to a bronze gong, hanging from a finely carved stand. He struck it with a small metal hammer, and a sharp chime rang throughout the room. Stringfellow rose from his seat to address the assembled crowd.

  “The Eleven have gathered to hear the pleas of Namert’s people,” he started, speaking in ritualised tones. “Let those who seek our wisdom speak, that we may deliver judgement.” With that, he retook his seat and waited while another aide approached the supplicants’ enclosure and swung open a section of the railing. “Come!” the aide said, gesturing to the foremost man – a short, skinny individual in a threadbare cloak with a taut expression on his face.

  The aide led him the length of the hall, stopping only a few yards short of the dais.

  “Name?” Stringfellow said.

  “Darmet Smithson,” the man said.

  “Louder!” Stringfellow said. The aide jabbed Darmet in the side with a thrusting finger.

  “Darmet Smithson,” the man repeated, biting off each syllable.

  “And what brings you before us today?” Stringfellow asked, leaning forward hawkishly.

  Darmet squared his shoulders. “I have spoken at this assembly twice before, my Lord. My workshop is under threat from neighbouring businesses – on one side, an armoury; on the other, a weapon-smith. They are run by two brothers, Eldor and Eldod, who have constructed a second story above my property without seeking consent. I fear they mean to drive me out!”

  “Where are these brothers?” another of the Eleven asked – a horse-faced woman with a pinched expression.

  “They’re not here.”

  Horse-face sniffed. “Their actions are being brought before the Eleven. They should at least attend to defend their reputation.”

  “They came the first time, and the second too,” D
armet said. “The first time, you told them to negotiate with me and work out a compromise. The second, you did the same, but they have ignored your edict. I imagine that the council’s inaction has been taken as permission to do whatever they wish.”

  “Are you’re saying this is the council’s fault?” horse-face said, a distinct threat in her tone.

  Darmet froze, poised to respond, but Elijah spoke in his stead. “Now, now, Calista,” he drawled, waving a limp wrist. “Darmet is speaking out of concern for his livelihood. I’m sure no offence was intended.”

  “None at all,” Darmet mumbled.

  “Then let’s not dwell on it,” Elijah said, smiling indulgently. “Now, as to your problem, have these brothers threatened you in any way?”

  “Isn’t building over my shop threat enough?” Darmet said.

  “A minor infraction, unworthy of the council’s attention,” Elijah said. “Have they attempted to force you out of your property or overtly threatened your person?”

  Darmet looked increasingly exasperated. “They’re too clever for that, but their intent is obvious.”

  Elijah shared a look with horse-face. “Your neighbours have trespassed, of that there is no doubt,” he said, in the tones of one delivering judgment, “but unrestrained ambition and free commerce are two of our great city’s founding principles, and cannot be quenched. Competition drives us to improve ourselves, after all, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Competition?” Darmet said with naked incredulity. “Competing for custom is one thing, but violating property rights is another. Why can’t you see the difference?”

  Ferast licked his lips. If he read the mood of the room right, Darmet had just overstepped the mark.