Knights Magi (Book 4)

by Terry Mancour

  “Says the mage who spent three days trying to encapsulate his own farts last fall,” remarked Rondal, amusedly.

  “It was an interesting personal course of study,” Tyndal defended. “And if I recall you did want to learn the spell, after I figured it out.”

  “Tyndal, you have access to more books on magic than most magi get in a lifetime,” Rondal reminded, “you really should take advantage of that.”

  “But we’re only here for a few more weeks!” Tyndal protested, as he collapsed into his bed. “Even if I read constantly, I could only manage a few!”

  “Then read faster,” Rondal insisted. “And quit letting a little female tail-wagging distract you. Yes, there are girls here. No, they will not make you a better knight mage.”

  “But they would make me a happier one. Perhaps if you aren’t an Andrusine, you should have considered the life of a celibate monk,” Tyndal said, sourly.

  “Perhaps you should have considered life as a stableboy, if magic is too cumbersome for you!” Rondal shot back with a bit of venom that surprised Tyndal.

  “The gods didn’t really give me much choice in the matter!” snapped Tyndal in return. “Suddenly, I’m not so tired. I’m going to the library!”

  “That,” Rondal said, “is the single most unlikely thing I think I’ve ever heard you say!”

  Tyndal suppressed the urge to throw his fellow apprentice out of a window and escaped, instead.

  The Manciple’s Library was usually locked when not in use, but Tyndal had made friends with the Manciple’s assistant by letting him see his witchstone, and now he had open access to the place. At this time of night it should be deserted, and he could study without distraction.

  Only along the way he spied a distraction: one of the female students.

  The Bovali boys had not mixed much with the regular students at the Academy, since they were there under special provision, so other than meal times or the occasional lecture they were directed to attend they had not gotten to know very many of the two-hundred or so nascent professional magi enrolled at the prestigious Inarion Academy.

  While the students were overwhelmingly male, there were a number of bright young women whose position, Talent or the whims of fate had brought to the institution. Some chose to spend their afternoons and their evenings outdoors, studying among the many scattered benches that littered the campus. The benches weren’t quite reserved for the girls, but they seemed to flock to them like crows to a fencepost.

  This one, if Tyndal was any judge, was at least sixteen or seventeen. She had the longest, darkest hair he had ever seen, and when she looked up from the book she was reading, her brown eyes glistened like well-polished jewels. An Imperial girl. Like Lady Pentandra.

  And she was absolutely gorgeous. He didn’t care who she was, he suddenly had an inclination to start a conversation with this girl.

  “Why, hello,” he said, automatically. “Is it interesting?”

  “What?” the girl asked, taken off-guard and alarmed at the interruption.

  “The book. Is it interesting?”

  She glanced at the book and then back at him – big, gorgeous brown eyes. “It’s advanced biological alchemy, so no.”

  “I hate alchemy,” Tyndal agreed. In truth he had barely studied it, not much more than the parts of it that led from lesser elemental theory. But he did not mind the deception: it wasn’t untrue. He did hate alchemy, what little he knew of it. But he had to give her something to respond to. “Although I’m getting better at it here,” he admitted.

  “I just seem to get worse. Your name, my lord? I haven’t seen you in class . . .”

  “I happen to be a special student,” Tyndal said, shrugging nonchalantly. “My master sent me . . . and another fellow . . . here for special evaluation.”

  “Oh. That explains it then.” She went back to her book.

  Tyndal blinked. He wasn’t used to being so casually dismissed by girls. He knew he was handsome and charming, because dozens of girls had told him so. Hells, plenty of grown and married women had told him so. Add in his title, position, and who he was apprenticed to, and he realized that the girl might just not realize who he was.

  Of course, he didn’t know who she was, either. That didn’t deter him.

  “I’m Tyndal,” he said, making her look up again. “Sir Tyndal of Sevendor. Knight Mage of the Realm,” he added, with a bit of relish.

  “I’m Estasia,” she said, and went back to her book without further comment.

  Tyndal wasn’t about to be rebuffed. “Hello, Estasia. So what do you want to specialize in when you graduate?” he asked, taking a seat next to her on the bench.

  “Silence spells,” she said, sourly, looking at him pointedly.

  “I’m partial to love spells, myself.”

  She looked him up and down. “No doubt you’d need to be.”

  “Hey!” he objected. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean that it is my intention to become a professional mage in my own right,” she answered, matter-of-factly, “and that does not include becoming the doting wife and brood mare of some puffed-up magelord.”

  “Hey! I’m not puffed-up!” He flexed his bicep. “That’s all solid!” he teased, knocking on it with his other hand like it was made of wood.

  “And I’m not going to be your wife. So we’ve reached an understanding.” She bent back to her book.

  Despite her objection, Tyndal could tell that she wasn’t entirely un-interested . . . otherwise she would not have insulted him. Quite the contrary. The opposite of attraction isn’t disgust, Lady Pentandra had told him one time, it is disinterest. And the way she kept cutting her eyes toward him indicated that she was, at least at some level, intrigued by him.

  It wasn’t rejection. It was riposte.

  He considered what to do while he stared at those pretty eyes darting across the page. He could have pressed the issue and forced her to make a decision on the matter – and if she had been a peasant girl, he might have considered doing just that. Plenty of village girls developed round heels and generous natures with just a hint of potential in a man.

  But an educated woman pursuing her own career was a different type of girl altogether, and called for a different approach, he reasoned. Lady Pentandra had been coaching him in such things, mind-to-mind, as a kind of unofficial project of hers. They were lessons he did not discuss with anyone, but the wisdom she’d led him to regarding affairs of the heart had been invaluable.

  “Just as well,” he said. “I would prefer a far, far friendlier woman to be my bride. And I would have to carefully consider the value of pursuing a mere sporting relationship,” He dismissed. Lady Pentandra had been clear about that: beautiful women get told they are beautiful all the time. They only take notice of a man if he voices a flaw in their beauty. As soon as a woman feels a man has rejected her, Pentandra had repeatedly told him, she finds him more attractive. It seemed counterintuitive to Tyndal, but – once again – Pentandra’s instruction bore fruit.

  She looked up sharply. “Oh, really?” she asked, her nostrils flaring a bit. “And why is that? Am I so ugly to your sight, Sir?”

  “You are, without a doubt,” he said, slowly and solemnly, “possibly the third or fourth prettiest girl I’ve seen today,” he said, sincerely. He considered a moment. “Fourth,” he said, decisively.

  She gave him a startled and not terribly charitable look.

  “But pretty face is no assurance of a warm disposition, and in affairs of the heart I prize such a thing beyond mere transitory comeliness. Well, I’ll let you get back to your studies, then,” he said with an exaggerated yawn.

  “I would be happy if you would!” Estasia said, her eyes flashing angrily at him.

  “You know,” he added, “if you smiled once in a while then folks might get the idea that you were friendly.” With that he got up and jaunted off. She had her lips pursed out hard in a pout.

  “I don’t want to be friendly!” she ins
isted.

  “I didn’t say you were,” he shot back. “But you might want to fool someone, sometime. You’d have to smile to do that.”

  He only glanced back over his shoulder for a moment – but she was smiling.

  Now that’s how you do real magic, he thought to himself with a smirk as he headed for the library.

  As helpful as Pentandra’s coaching had been, he had to credit his recent interest in Psychomancy for the idea. Once he realized that the discipline could be used in love as well as war, he found it even more alluring. He knew from his studies that to let her assume that she was not all that terribly interesting to him would flatter her sense of self while at the same time challenging the value of her heart. It was a maddeningly sophisticated and subtle approach, but it was also (apparently) highly effective.

  There were entire treatises on persuasion, argument, discussion and seduction in the Blue Magic archives. A few had been quite revealing on the subject, and he had committed them to memory for later study. Seduction was an art, and there were many masters in antiquity. And every maiden aunt and tipsy priestess had hours of advice about how a young man should pay court to a lady. He had listened to all of them with a healthy dose of skeptism.

  Tyndal was wise enough to know when he did not have mastery of a subject, and astute enough to enlist the aid of those that did, so when it came to learning how to court and woo a woman, he had appealed to his best living authority on the subject: Lady Pentandra Benuvrial, one of the few living masters – mistresses – of sex magic.

  Pentandra, of course, had given him far more useful instruction than he’d received from the other women who had offered their counsel. Lady Alya and Lady Estret, for instance, had been replete with advice about women. But their counsel relied heavily on flattery and proper treatment, and that was easily learned. What Tyndal had needed help with was navigating the dangerous territory of introduction and seduction – preferably without involving jealous husbands or irate fathers.

  He felt a little deceitful applying base science to what, according to poets and minstrels and the priestesses of Ishi, should properly be a matter of fate, fortune or divine will, depending upon which theory one favored. But in matters of the heart, he had learned, one could not go into conflict unprepared any more than one could go into battle unarmed.

  So he had solicited Pentandra’s advice. Amused, she took the challenge and pointed him toward the proper texts. Among the scrolls on the nature of seduction, one was known to be short but highly informative for a young man. She’d even told him where he might find it in the library.

  Penned by some obscure courtier or rogue in the Later Magocracy, under the ridiculous pseudonym of Sire Rose, Master of Castle Heart, the Meditations on the Sixteen Laws of Love purported to be a divine revelation from Tharis, Ishi’s illegitimate son with the god Luin. Tharis was known for his lusty and capricious nature. He was a divinity after Tyndal’s own heart.

  Tyndal had read the scroll eagerly, with great humor, and found the Meditations to be wonderfully applicable in such matters.

  The Tenth Law, for instance: If she be truly fair, ignore thee her beauty and treat her as a common-looking woman; treat her not as a great beauty, or she will despise you for it.

  If he’d told Estasia she was the prettiest girl he’d seen, it was unlikely she would be as interested. Pretty girls hear how pretty they are often, said the Sage of Castle Heart. Appearing as if they are not challenges their sense of self.

  Of course, that was difficult. Estasia was, indeed, gorgeous. And while Estasia might be fuming and fussing about the slightly rude remark all night . . . she’d be fuming and fussing about Tyndal’s slightly rude remark all night.

  And interest, as Pentandra would say, is far more valuable than apathy in the arena of love.

  Perhaps he had been too aggressive, too forward; but then the Thirteenth Law stated Boldness, not timidity, clears the path to a maiden’s heart. He was confident that she’d remember him, now, and remember him with some interest for his boldness.

  He didn’t know why, but his interaction with her had somehow relaxed him. By the time he got to the darkened Manciple’s Library, he was actually whistling. It might have been a bit irrational of him to feel so confident about Estasia, but that was recommended, too: Law Eleven said Stride the Path of Love boldly and without apology, acting as confident as a king though you be but the lowliest villein.

  And Tyndal had irrational confidence in wainloads.

  * * *

  Even with two feast days to study, his appearance for his Symbology examination was problematic. Not because he hadn’t read the texts – thanks to the memory spell, he now knew the technical descriptions and invocations for hundreds of common arcane symbols – but because he hadn’t actually used a tithe of them in his short career. Symbology was one area in which the masters expected a practical knowledge, no matter how erudite the student.

  Still, Tyndal struggled through, and when asked he was able to produce eight basic glyphs to his examiner’s satisfaction. And six that were utter failures.

  “You have a good knowledge of the academics,” admitted Master Donrain, after the final failure, “but you need to work on the practical side.”

  “If you’d like to quiz me on warmagic symbols,” Tyndal offered, “I could show you a few . . .”

  “No, no, not what we’re here for,” the man dismissed. “You have demonstrated your abilities, young man. I have a proper appreciation for your level of knowledge. You are dismissed.”

  The even tone told Tyndal nothing of how well or poorly he’d done, but he’d given as complete answers as he could. Indeed, he had rattled of dozens of symbols. So many that he was feeling unusually cocky when he got to his afternoon examination, the one on Thermomantics and Photomantics.

  He was prepared for that one – the ability to manipulate matter with energy to produce heat and light were pretty basic fundamentals. And just to be sure, he had read Alstod’s short but thorough treatise on the subject, as close to a reference manual as one could ask.

  But when he had quietly called it into memory to answer a question about thermodynamics, Master Yndrain gave a casual wave with a wand . . . and the spell failed.

  “Let’s try it without the memory charm, shall we?” he asked, amused. “Young man, do you think this is the first time someone has tried to evade a fair and proper examination of their abilities? Perhaps some of the other instructors are willing to let you depend upon that sort of thing, but I am not that lenient. Pray, tell me again, what is the Second Sacred Law Of Thermodynamics?”

  Tyndal paled, swallowed hard, but he answered the question from memory. After that, his sessions with the masters got a lot more difficult again.

  “Serves you right for trying to cheat,” Rondal chuckled, when Tyndal confessed his discovery that night after dinner.

  “I wasn’t cheating! I was just . . . using a resource!”

  “Well, now you won’t be able to use it. Still, that wasn’t a bad idea. I’d love to learn the spell,” he said, almost grudgingly.

  “It is handy,” agreed Tyndal. “In fact, there’s a lot of interesting things in Blue Magic I never thought of. Most of the theory is way beyond me, but the some of the spells are quite practical.”

  “Like what?” Rondal asked, absently.

  Tyndal enjoyed being an authority for once. “Well, did you know you can compel someone to tell the truth? Or to forget a day of their lives? Or forget they ever even knew you?”

  “Sounds dangerous,” Rondal said, after considering it a moment.

  “The Censorate thought so,” Tyndal agreed. “They almost banned it. Except for their use. Immoral Use of Psychomancy is a serious crime. Or it used to be.”

  “It should still be,” Rondal said, quickly. “Spells of forgetfulness are one thing. What about a spell of compulsion?”

  Tyndal thought about the possibilities. “Ethically? I don’t know . . . that could be a lot of fun . . .”
>
  “. . . until someone used it on you. Like that innkeeper’s daughter who wants to get married so badly?” Tyndal blushed, despite himself. Before he was even knighted, back in Master Minalan’s home village of Talry-on-Burine, he had been nearly stalked and captured by a husband-hungry innkeeper’s daughter. While he still had fond memories of the girl, she was not the sort Tyndal found truly appealing. Still, he felt a bit defensive about her – she’d helped him out, she’d been very sweet, and she’d been one of the first girls to kiss him properly.

  “She’s not a mage,” Tyndal said, quickly. “And she wasn’t so bad.” He had a fond spot for the girl, and had decided to pay a call on her again one day, should he have the chance.

  “Just an example. Besides, I’ve always heard that Psychomancy was highly unpredictable. The human mind just isn’t as neat and tidy as the Holy Periodic Table.”

  “I’m just saying it could be useful. Hells, a third of the warmagic combat spells are psychomantic.”

  “You saw what Lady Pentandra did to those two Censors at Master Min’s wedding,” Rondal recalled. “That was Pscyhomancy. Had to be. Those Imperials all have all sorts of forbidden magic,” he said, a little suspiciously.

  “Lady Pentandra was acting to protect Master Min,” Tyndal said, defensively.

  “Sure, sure,” Rondal dismissed. “I’m not criticizing. But about that spell . . .”

  Tyndal looked at Rondal questioningly. After all the acrimony the two had been through, all of the rivalry, to have his better-educated junior apprentice ask for him to teach him a spell touched Tyndal’s pride.

  “All right,” he sighed. “It’s actually not that hard . . . “

  * * *

  * * *

  Eventually, after the holiday, the two apprentices were called into the presence of the highest ranking faculty for a report on their findings – thus far. Tyndal found himself anxiously biting his lip while he stood in front of the long table in the faculty hall and listened.

  “My lords,” Head Master Alwyn of Terone began in his creaky old voice, “it gives me a certain degree of pleasure to be able to inform your master that your skills are . . . adequate for your age and experience.” He made the pronouncement almost reluctantly. Or it could just be his great age, Tyndal reasoned. He tried not to take it personally. Master Alwyn continued.