Stealing Sorcery

by Andrew Rowe

  While stabling her horse at the local inn, Lydia asked a few questions of the other patrons, learning that Hartigan was well-liked in spite of his odd habits. He would respond quickly if the village faced any large problems, and often gave generous gifts with seemingly no concern for their value. And while he had a reputation for being fiercely dangerous, he had apparently never turned his dangerous powers against any of his own people – in fact, they felt safer when he was around.

  There didn’t appear to be any particular customs for greeting the local lord. While she absently considered bringing some live goats, Lydia settled for simply knocking on the tower’s wooden doors.

  I wonder if he can even hear me if he’s all the way up there, Lydia considered, looking upward at the dozen or more floors of the tower looming above her. Maybe if he marked the door with sound sorcery of some kind to project the noise from knocking—

  The door opened.

  Beyond the door stood a woman that looked to be in her forties, folding her arms over a lightly stained apron. “What you want, girl?”

  Lydia blinked. “I’m, um, looking for Lord Hartigan.”

  “’Course you are. Ain’t got anyone looking that fancy come calling for me. What you here for?”

  Lydia didn’t think her travel-worn outfit looked all that fancy, even with her Paladins of Tae’os tabard worn over it, but clearly this woman had different standards. “I’m Lydia Hastings, with the Paladins of Tae’os. I’d like to speak to the lord as part of an investigation.”

  The older woman sighed, turning around and facing toward a spiral stairway within the tower. “Blake! There’s a paladin here to see you!” The older woman turned back around, rubbing her hands on the apron. “Guess you’d better come on in, then.”

  “Thank you…miss…?”

  “Hartigan, dear. Sara Hartigan.” She waved a hand, beckoning for Lydia to come in. The paladin took the cue, stepping inside, and Sara closed the door behind them.

  “You must be Lord Hartigan’s…granddaughter?”

  The older woman made a scoffing noise. “You’re too kind, dear. I’m his wife. Spare him the judgments for marrying a woman a century his junior. Once you get past around thirty, the years mean less and less.”

  Lydia nodded uncertainly, doing her best not to show her embarrassment. A man descended the spiral stairway nearby a few moments later, and Lydia raised her head to examine him. A few strands of brown were still visible amongst his graying hair, and his face was deeply lined with the wrinkles of many years of mirth. He was barefoot, wearing plain trousers and a simple linen tunic. The only obvious signs of his wealth were the half-dozen rings on his hands. His age seemed similarly concealed – he walked with a straight back, and without the assistance of a cane. If she had not heard Sara call for Blake, she would have guessed she was seeing someone else entirely – a man in his fifties, perhaps, rather than a sorcerer of over a hundred.

  She hadn’t been certain what a man who had preserved his own life through sorcery would look like, but she hadn’t expected the answer to be “completely normal”.

  “What’s this all about, hm?” The man finally seemed to notice Lydia when he reached the bottom of the steps. “Oh, we have a guest. How can I help you, young lady?”

  Lydia glanced at Sara, who seemed to be watching her expectantly. Well, this is awkward. I’d rather talk to him alone, but I can hardly dismiss the woman in her own home.

  “Well, I suppose I should start by introducing myself. I’m Lydia Hastings, a Major for the Paladins of Tae’os.” She didn’t typically like to open a conversation with her rank, but when dealing with nobles, it often served to help them take her more seriously. This was especially true when dealing with the older nobles, who didn’t tend to give female paladins much respect.

  “Been awhile since I’ve had a visit from a paladin. Blake Hartigan.” He approached and extended a hand cordially, and she returned the gesture by clasping his wrist. The sorcerer froze for a moment as she did so, and as she pulled her hand away, he raised his own hand to his chin.

  “That ring you’re wearing. Are you one of Donovan’s students?”

  Oh, resh. Hartigan practically invented the process of enchanting rings. Of course he recognizes it.

  Better be honest. He’ll probably figure it out eventually one way or another.

  Lydia shook her head. “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “How’d you come about that ring, then?” He shook his head. “You’ll have to forgive me, I’ve been terribly rude. Please, come sit with me.”

  He turned around without another word, waving a hand for her to follow.

  “I suppose I’ll go make some tea,” Sara said, rolling her eyes.

  “Thank you, Miss Hartigan,” Lydia said. “Sorry to trouble you.”

  “Oh, you’re fine, dear.” The older woman disappeared into a smaller room on the left, humming to herself.

  Blake Hartigan led Lydia up the spiral stairway, passing a single door before stopping at the next and waving his hand across a sigil above the door knob. The sigil flickered and vanished, leading Lydia to quirk an eyebrow.

  Most ritual protections require a more complex action for deactivation. How did it detect his wave? Something with the Dominion of Sight, perhaps? Or maybe it isn’t actually seeing him – the ward could be triggered by proximity to him…or to one of the rings. It’s probably one of the rings.

  He turned the knob, leading Lydia into a sitting room. A single table sat in the center, littered with books and surrounded by plush chairs. A footstool accompanied each chair, an accoutrement that Lydia could appreciate. Tall bookshelves lined the walls, housing an impressive collection of tomes, scrolls, and what looked like vials of liquid on one of the shelves. A single window, sealed with heavy bars, let in light from the outside.

  Hartigan patted the back of one of the chairs. “Please, sit,” and moved on to sit in the opposite chair. Lydia dutifully followed his instructions. While she was still nervous that he could react poorly to an explanation about how she had obtained the ring – or about why she was there – she didn’t see any reason to be discourteous.

  Also, the chair was pretty comfortable.

  “So,” Hartigan began, propping up his feet on the stool next to his chair. “You’ve got quite an interesting object there, Miss Scryer.”

  Lydia noted that he had used the name “Scryer”, which was not the name she had given him. “Scryer” was the name she had used when she had attended the sorcery academy in Velthryn – it was her adoptive father’s surname. It was, notably, also the surname she had used in Orlyn when she had been investigating the local “gods” – one of whom was Donovan, the man Hartigan had mentioned.

  Okay, so he knows something about who I am, and he wants me to know that. Interesting, but not necessarily a threat. Not yet, anyway. He might just have heard my name sometime at the academy – he did teach classes there, even if I never took any of them.

  “Yes, thank you. You have some exceptionally fine rings yourself. Is one of those the legendary Hartigan’s Star? I’ve always wanted to see it.”

  The older man leaned his chin into the knuckles of his left hand, smirking slightly. “No, these are lesser trinkets, I’m afraid. Perhaps I can show you the ring later. Is that why you’re here?”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m afraid I have some official business to discuss.”

  Hartigan nodded, leaning back. “I suspected as much. Indulge my curiosity, however. How did you come upon Donovan’s ring?”

  Well, nothing to do but gamble at this point, one way or another.

  “Several months ago, Donovan Tailor was masquerading as a god in the city of Orlyn. I was involved in his arrest, and confiscated this ring in the process.”

  Hartigan chuckled lightly, shaking his head. “Oh, that boy. Too smart for his own good. I knew he’d get himself into trouble. I hoped the ring might help keep him out of it, but that was too much to hope for, I suppose.”

&nb
sp; Lydia wasn’t sure what to say next, so she remained silent and as still as possible.

  “Pretending to be a god. Such ridiculousness. He always had delusions of grandeur, but I had hoped I had taught him to have the sense not to act on them. He was an idealist, though. Still is, I imagine, if he’s alive. Did you kill him?”

  The sorceress shook her head. “No, I assisted in his arrest, and he was turned in to the queen for a trial. As far as I’m aware, he was not executed.”

  “How were you able to apprehend him? Donovan was no amateur sorcerer, and one of the most paranoid men I’ve ever met.”

  Lydia tensed her jaw, not sure how much to say. “I investigated his capabilities to the best of my ability. When an opportunity presented itself, I incapacitated him using sorcery. I also had help.”

  Hartigan scratched at his chin. “Interesting. Incapacitated him how? He was fairly good at protection sorcery, if I recall.”

  He’s trying to gauge my abilities, she realized. Which could mean he’s planning for a fight. It could just be honest curiosity, I suppose. Sorcerers do tend to love hearing about fights between other sorcerers. Still, I should be careful what I say.

  “One of my allies was able to disable Donovan’s barrier. From there, I knocked him out with a simple sleep spell.”

  After intercepting an attack on Taelien, hitting Donovan’s barrier repeatedly, faking my death when I was enveloped by one of Donovan’s spells, and enhancing one of Jonan’s illusions with a protective barrier to make it appear to be corporeal. But Hartigan doesn’t need to know about those little details.

  “A sleep spell.” Hartigan covered his mouth, laughing deeply into it. “That has to be the most ignominious way a deity – fake or not - has ever been defeated.” The man made a circular gesture with his hand, taking a tiny bow at the waist. “And you managed to walk off with his ring. ‘Confiscated for the paladins of Tae’os’, or somesuch, I imagine? You have my commendations, miss.”

  The sorceress wasn’t quite sure, but she was fairly confident she was blushing. “Thank you, sir.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know what happened after you…,” he snorted, “put Donovan to sleep, would you?”

  Lydia shrugged at that. “I don’t know much, to be honest. I doubt he’d be executed. He was the leader of the local ‘gods’ for years, after all – that might make too much of an uproar. As far as I’m aware, he’s still imprisoned.”

  “Imprisonment may be a harsher fate for a man such as him. I doubt he’ll ever stop searching for ways to escape – but never mind that.”

  He lifted a hand, pointing it at the ring. “I made that, you know. And no, that isn’t Hartigan’s Star, either, if you were wondering.” He smiled softly. “It was an earlier version. The seventeenth of them. I scrapped most of them, using the materials for the next copy, but a few I gave to especially promising apprentices – such as Donovan.”

  Lydia quirked a brow, genuinely surprised. “Donovan was your apprentice? I never read anything about that in his files.”

  “No, just like no one will read about this visit in your file, unless you choose to tell them about it.” She saw a hint of mirth in the older man’s eye. “Most people who come to me for training do so discretely, especially paladins and priests. I have a bit of a reputation, you see.”

  Lydia let herself chuckle at that remark, while playing over the implications in her head. So, he’s trained paladins and priests before? How many, aside from Donovan? And what does he teach them?

  Is he how Donovan learned how to extend his life?

  That was a loose end she had never completely tied up. She had figured out how Donovan was making his “miracles” and imbuing others with sorcery – but the man had also appeared too young for his physical age, much like Hartigan himself did. Powerful sorcerers like Edrick Theas and Blake Hartigan were so notoriously secretive that she had assumed that Donovan had found a new method.

  And Jonan hypothesized that Donovan was extending his life through sacrificing the Rethri, she recalled. But we determined that he wasn’t doing that – he was experimenting with Rethri dominion bonds. And I never investigated Donovan’s agelessness afterward; it just didn’t seem important, once we had the details of how he was doing everything else.

  Interesting.

  “Are you implying that you’d be willing to train me?” Lydia asked, intrigued in spite of herself. This wasn’t what she was there for, and her professional instincts were inwardly kicking her, but she had to ask.

  “I’d be willing to entertain the possibility. I could use an assistant around the lab, and good help is hard to come by. But I’ve already delayed your own inquires quite enough. I’ve been quite rude, forgive me. If you’re here on paladin business, please, tell me what it pertains to.”

  Resh, he was good. She already hadn’t wanted to antagonize him, since he was tremendously dangerous. Now she also wanted to stay on his good side so she could try to take advantage of the possibility of training under him. If anyone knew how to figure out how to make the ring work, it would be the man who made it – and Hartigan undoubtedly had far greater secrets. Like immortality, for example.

  His manipulations were impressive, but loyalty, unfortunately, came first.

  “I’m here as part of a murder investigation. Kalsiris Theas was killed six days ago. You are one of the possible suspects.”

  Hartigan’s expression darkened immediately.

  “Kae was murdered? The poor boy. His father must be crushed. How did this happen?”

  Lydia sat up in her chair. Hartigan’s use of the nickname ‘Kae’ certainly implies he knew the victim. And he didn’t even address the fact that I just mentioned he was a suspect.

  “I’m afraid I can’t give you too many details until I’ve ruled you out as a possible suspect. I apologize. I can say honestly that I find it unlikely that you were responsible, given your remote location, but—”

  “But I have a well-documented rivalry with Edrick, yes. Of course. When two men know each other for over a hundred years, there are bound to be conflicts of interest from time to time. I assure you that my disagreements with Edrick were – and still are – philosophical and academic in nature. I would never commit violence toward him, and certainly not to his family.”

  Lydia nodded. “Where were you on the evening of the seventh, around – no, let’s just say the whole evening.”

  The man shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t keep that close of track… I mean, I was here, that much is certain. I haven’t been out of the tower in a month. I don’t remember specifics. I could go check my alchemical notes, I suppose.”

  “Alchemical notes?”

  “As I’m sure you’re aware, I make potions, salves, and elixirs of all sorts. Many of them require adding ingredients at specific intervals. After singing off my eyebrows the first few times, I learned to take extensive notes.”

  “I would be interested in seeing those notes. If they include anything that occurred during the time of the attack, that could be some slim evidence in your favor, although obviously such notes could be easily faked if you had committed the attack and planned on being investigated.”

  Hartigan nodded. “Yes, of course. I’ll retrieve the notes. Please wait here.”

  He stood up and retreated from the room. Lydia absently felt for the comforting presence of her barrier spell, which remained intact.

  If he’s going to try to kill me, now would probably be the time to do it.

  The sorceress sat facing the doorway, glancing from side to side periodically, and keeping her hand near the hilt of her saber. She resisted the urge to search the room while Hartigan was absent – it would be somewhat rude if he wasn’t intending to murder her.

  The older man returned a few minutes later with a thick stack of parchment, setting it down on the table a moment later. “You’ll have to forgive me, I just grabbed a whole section. I haven’t had a chance to parse through it and find the night you spoke of yet. If you
wouldn’t mind...”

  “I’ll take half the stack,” she offered with only a slight grimace, taking his cue.

  Parsing through the notes was dull work. They were exhaustive, just as he had claimed, but not in any obvious order. Usually, two or three adjacent pages corresponded to the same date, but papers didn’t always sit next to the ones from the next date. By the time she found the night of the attack, she suspected that he organized the papers based on the components used in the potions, presumably so he could keep track of any unusual results or his current stocks of each.

  “I found something,” she noted, slipping out a few pieces from the pile. There were, in fact, notes that seemed to cover the entire evening of Kalsiris’ death – but with at least two notable gaps of a few hours.

  “It looks like you were not working on any potions for about three hours here,” she noted.

  “Hardly enough time to travel to Velthryn, wouldn’t you say?” The older man set down his stack of papers, shrugging. “I was probably having dinner.”

  “It could be enough time if you teleported,” Lydia pointed out.

  “Ah, was teleportation involved in the crime?” Hartigan scratched at his chin.

  Still prying for more information. “It might have been. I assume your wife would vouch for your presence, but frankly, that doesn’t amount to much, either.”

  “Well, it’s dreadfully hard to prove a negative, as I’m sure you know. What would you need to rule out my involvement?”

  What, indeed? It was an excellent question. She hadn’t been directly involved in a murder investigation before – her research on Donovan was probably the most similar situation, although she had also traced smaller crimes back to specific sorcerers in the past. She had a spell for identifying which specific dominions a sorcerer had access to, and that was typically quite useful, especially for finding obscure dominions.