Arcanist

by Terry Mancour

  “It’s a bridge,” Sandy observed. “But it doesn’t cross anything,” he pointed out, confused.

  “It’s a bridge designed to be stored within a hoxter pocket,” Mavone corrected. “Five sections, each thirty-feet long and twenty wide. Enough to carry their largest wains,” he predicted. “They come apart at these supporting posts,” he said, indicating tall structures that were the basis for the plan. “Each landing section is built wide, to ensure a solid anchor on the bank. Sudden Fortress, meet the Instant Bridge,” he said, with an annoyed snort.

  “Well, that dramatically expands the number of places they can cross the Wildwater, among other rivers,” Sandy said, somberly. “That will require an entire restructuring of my troop placements. Thanks, Mavone!” he said, sarcastically.

  “Would you prefer not knowing?” the Gilmoran challenged. “This does complicate things,” he admitted. “But knowing about it allows us to prepare a counter to it. Indeed, knowing that the enemy has this capability, we can assume they will deploy it to its best effect,” he proposed. “That should provide a better means of predicting his movements.”

  “There is that,” conceded Sandy, frowning as he turned to look at the campaign map.

  “Well, we can be certain that he will come against Megelin,” I suggested. “There is no stronger place betwixt Shakathet and Vanador. The only question is how many of his forces will he send against us, and from which direction?”

  “There are far, far more questions than that,” Sandy disagreed. “I can think of a score off the top of my head. But, yes, they will have to invest Megelin, else they will leave a powerful foe behind them as they advance.”

  “That does not preclude them attacking us with just enough force to keep us pinned, while the bulk of their armies march past and on toward Anguin’s Tower,” I pointed out, shaking my head. “Or wherever their route takes them.”

  “I know!” Sandy snapped. “We will need an army of at least ten thousand to deter them – and that’s just to slow them down. I have maybe eight thousand militia and guards to play with . . . to cover the entire Wildwater Vale!” he complained.

  From there, the discussion devolved into moving markers around the map in an attempt to determine what the best response would be to a number of different scenarios. Things occasionally got heated, as the council argued over the capabilities of each unit. Sandy did seem to have the best idea of what we had available – and what we didn’t – and I found myself backing his assessment more frequently. We were spread thin. We were fighting against a much larger force. This contest would be settled by how mobile and how deadly we could be.

  As good as Sandy and Mavone were at their jobs, Terleman held the hearts of my folk like no other officer in the Magelaw. Since his triumphant victory at Spellgate, Terleman had seen his status soar, in Vanador. His stratagems and overwhelming victory during the winter campaign had branded his glory in the minds of one and all within Vanador’s bounds. Though he’d been recognized for his importance by the military before the battle, he’d not enjoyed the kind of public recognition that was bestowed upon him afterward.

  Even more than Sandy, Terl has always been a soldier’s soldier. When we were both kids just out of War College, trudging down the impassable reaches of Farise, he’d been a stoic example of devotion to warcraft while our weaker colleagues succumbed to the tortuous dangers of that journey, or at least bitched to the heavens the entire way there.

  Terl understood warfare and armies like a whore knows cosmetics and flirtation. He was not just invested in the inspections and the drills that most commanders use to value a warrior – Terl made a point of learning the arts of command, strategy and tactics, and then employing them in his own missions.

  If Sandy understood soldiers, Terleman understood war. His success was his credential. Patrols he accompanied came back largely intact. Positions he was sent to infiltrate were eliminated. When everyone else was collapsed around the fire at the end of the day’s march, Terl would be sharpening his blade, tending his gear and quizzing our commanders about the route ahead.

  We’d both been through a lot, since then. While I’d ended up dabbling in thaumaturgy and politics, Terl had remained steadfast at his craft, whenever possible. The invasion, the Gilmoran Campaigns and the Battle of the Red Ice had nearly broken me, but they had tempered Terleman like the hottest of fires. When the great battle of Olum Seheri was launched, it was only natural that I turn to him to command.

  But after the Battle of Spellgate, Terleman changed, a bit. It wasn’t just the victory, which was profound enough, but how he’d accomplished it. The greatest warmagi in the world regularly touted his brilliance to one and all, and the common soldiers saw in him a dashing figure of quiet mastery. Those opinions quickly filtered down to the common folk, until the sight of the tall Marshal of Vanador regularly caused a respectful stir among the crowds in town.

  At first, I didn’t think it had affected my old friend. He’d seen victory celebrations before, more than most commanders. But after Yule there seemed a subtle change in how he responded to the acclaim he now enjoyed. He dressed more carefully – not like Astyral’s over-indulged sense of style, nor did he use Azar’s melodramatic sartorial choices. He began to wear a higher quality of cloth, and always in a military cut, and I noted that he was more conscious of the figure he struck when he traveled. He took more attention to how his beard and hair were cut by his barber. He began to carry an entourage, too, comprised of his aides and apprentice-squires, all of whom seemed to contend to be as superbly dashing as their master.

  That was helped by their propensity to be in armor at all times – the brightly polished, impossibly light Yltedene steel hauberks that our smithies were forging, now. Terleman spent his pay and his bonuses on the finest panoply his coin and influence could produce for his men. A half-dozen knights in armor is impressive. The same party dressed head to toe in burnished steel, lit by a flock of magelights, was wondrous.

  Terleman’s social life likewise took a turn. Once a man who seemed determined to pursue a simple, solitary life, dining alone and living in sparse quarters, his newfound position and fame saw him holding forth many nights with his gentlemen at one of the many inns and taverns of Vanador, or within the chambers of distinguished hosts – myself, included.

  I won’t say it went to his head, because Terleman just doesn’t have the capacity for that kind of weakness and self-delusion. But there was a sense of proud security that developed around him like a mantle, after the glories of Spellgate, and in some ways that translated to a new kind of confidence bordering on arrogance.

  I wasn’t complaining. Terleman had yet to lose a battle. I wasn’t eager to see the day when he did.

  While Sandy worked to cultivate and deploy his forces across the Magelaw, Terl quietly studied the maps and the reports and tried to formulate a strategy against the coming assault. He was receiving the same dispatches and reports at Spellgate as I enjoyed at Spellgarden, but while I weighed each new account as a fresh threat to my realm, Terl saw them as just one more factor he needed to integrate into his plans.

  I wasn’t much involved, apart from the occasional progress report. Terl relied heavily on his own staff, and I could not find much fault with their strategies. I approved the orders when they came to me. When Spellgate issued an order insisting some stronghold was more important than another, not only did it receive what reinforcement Terl recommended, it was frequently the beneficiary of a few wagonloads of additional supplies from Vorone or Vanador. I wasn’t second-guessing Terleman, but I didn’t want him scrimping unnecessarily on such an important front.

  In general, I was pleased with the progress. Thousands of men were marching south and west from Vanador. Thousands more were taking training on the plateau to take their place. And enough were left to return to their farms and begin the plowing and planting so that I didn’t worry about starvation. But that didn’t mean there weren’t problems I had to get involved in.

&n
bsp; The most pressing was the proposed location of the new hospital, of all things. While troops were marching and castles were preparing for siege, and tens of thousands were mobilizing for action, the matter that required my professional attention as a count the most was determining the location of the new permanent hospital Lilastien and the other physicians and surgeons insisted we needed.

  I wasn’t convinced of the necessity; we’d lost more men to frostbite and dysentery than to war wounds, after Gaja Katar’s winter attack. But Lilastien, in particular, insisted on the need for a larger, better facility to care for the wounded we anticipated would result from Shakathet’s assault. I wasn’t really arguing against it, but it didn’t seem a priority. I told her so, when she tracked me down at Spellgarden and insisted I address the issue.

  “It’s not about the present need,” Lilastien informed me. “We need to plan for the future. We have hundreds of patients now; this time, next year, we’ll have thousands,” she predicted.

  “If we are alive at all,” I pointed out.

  “It’s my job to prepare for that unlikely possibility,” she agreed, dryly. “Look, Minalan, I appreciate the importance of dying gloriously in defense of your clan or country – truly, I do,” she said, with exaggerated agreeableness. “But I am charged with the care and recovery of those who don’t manage that splendid destiny. As primitive as these conditions are, it is possible to manage at least minimal standards of care for the wounded,” she reasoned.

  “Lilastien, I never gave you that responsibility,” I reasoned. “Indeed, you were released into my care as an advisor in the war. Not as a surgeon.”

  “Silly mortal,” she scoffed, in that infuriating manner she adopted when she felt the need to demonstrate her longevity, age and wisdom. “I didn’t receive that charge from you. I got it from the Callidore Medical Association, almost seven hundred years ago!”

  “Surely, you don’t feel bound by that,” I countered.

  “I took an oath,” she declared, with more sincerity than I suspected she possessed. “A human oath, but an oath, nonetheless. One of the most ancient oaths your people ever concocted. One that requires me to assist the injured and sick.”

  “Which you are doing,” I reasoned.

  “Not nearly well enough!” she replied, hotly. “Most of my patients are in tents or warehouses turned into infirmaries. The little clinic in Vanador is woefully insufficient for the work we have . . . what happens when I have ten times the wounded?” she wondered. “We just aren’t prepared for that. And you don’t get prepared for that at the last minute. If you want these men you’re leading into battle to have a fighting chance to survive their wounds, you’ll listen to me!”

  “I am listening to you!” I pointed out, quietly amused at how insistent she was being.

  “Then designate some patch of ground for this hospital, now, and let me build it,” she pleaded. “Let me train your people in how to treat your people . . . without relying overmuch on prayers and superstition,” she added, with a sneer. “Not that there isn’t a place for that sort of thing.

  “Min, I have precious few pieces of advanced medical equipment left over from the old days. Your people used to be able to . . . I don’t even have the words,” she confessed, in exasperation. “Even I, the jaded Alka Alon spellsinger, was impressed by what your folk did without the benefit of magic, once upon a time. All of that is gone . . . but with Forseti and a chance to rebuild a little of it, I could make a real difference to the poor bastards you are marching to their doom. You’ve got some good people, here – Icorad, among others. I think I could teach them a lot,” she proposed.

  I winced, internally, but grinned to my friend. “I understand,” I soothed. “And I’m sympathetic. I’ve actually looked at a few sites, in anticipation of this request. I’ve settled on the old hamlet of Henga,” I proposed. “It’s in the eastern end of the plateau, on the eaves of the Kulines. There are a few freeholders nearby, but the settlement was largely wiped out in the invasion. It’s distant from the current war, near to Anas Yartharel, and protected from casual assault.”

  “Are there any facilities?” she asked, hesitantly.

  “Precious few. An old keep, a few halls,” I shrugged. “It will need a lot of work. But it’s better than a few warehouses in Vanador. I’ll designate a company of guards to garrison it, and I’ll hire a hundred to support it.”

  “That’s . . . that would be splendid, Minalan,” she said, graciously. “I know it doesn’t seem like much, but there is no real place for medicine, in this world. Not the way your ancestors practiced it. If I can reintroduce just a tithe of that knowledge, thousands could be saved. Or spared, altogether.”

  “Good,” I agreed. “Because I’m putting you in charge of Henga, not Icorad. If you do possess the medical lore of our ancestors, then I want you to teach as many of our people as much of it as possible. I’m guessing that our command of the art has fallen, in seven hundred years . . . “

  “Fallen?” she snorted. “It’s completely disintegrated. You barely know how blood circulation works, and that’s only because of magical observation. Same with the germ theory of disease. You people use leaches and herbs. You used to be able to regrow or reattach severed limbs.”

  “We’ve been busy surviving in a hostile world, with dubious guidance,” I offered. “Our attention was elsewhere.”

  “Well, now that I’m free, it’s back on good health and outstanding medicine!” she insisted. “Yes, I will take command of this Henga. And you will supply me with all that I need to teach your people how to care for your people.”

  “That’s what I just said,” I pointed out.

  “I can do wonders, if I have the proper tools,” she said. It seemed as if she was trying to convince herself more than me.

  “You’ll have them,” I agreed. “I just told you that you would.”

  “We’ll need to prevail on the Alka Alon council to release certain devices from the Hall of Memory,” she continued, ignoring me. “I’ve already gotten most of the obvious medical equipment out, but there are other things we could use. Things that will be useful.”

  “And I will use my influence, such as it is, to acquire them,” I agreed.

  She looked at me suspiciously. “What are you playing at, Minalan?” she asked, accusingly.

  “What? I’ve been nothing but helpful! I’ve agreed with your every demand,” I pointed out, defensively.

  “Exactly! And after seven hundred years of dealing with your people, I’ve gotten to know when you’re . . . up to something,” she accused, her eyes narrowing.

  “I’m up to a lot of things,” I countered. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

  “This wouldn’t have anything to do with the question before the council, would it?” she asked, after a thoughtful pause.

  “You mean, the one about the end of magic – and likely all life – on Callidore in three thousand years?” I asked casually. “The one that your people have consciously omitted from our discussions, over the centuries – or, if it did come up, the details were lost to history? The one which your folk seem strangely unconcerned by?” I continued, my voice becoming slightly less casual and more intent as I spoke. “How could the matter of a hospital have any bearing on that?”

  “I . . . I don’t know,” Lilastien admitted, guiltily. “Letharan and I advanced your question to the full council, who is considering it. We can do nothing until they decide,” she declared. “Buttering me up by letting me set up a clinic isn’t going to do much. I already favor your case, and the council doesn’t care a bit about whether or not humanity has decent medical care.”

  “Again, the two matters are entirely unrelated,” I insisted, with a bit too much fervor. “I certainly want humanity to have decent medical care. Is that not enough reason to authorize this? Not all acts are laden with ulterior motives,” I lectured her.

  “No, but that’s usually the safe way to bet,” she snapped back. “I’ll take th
e support, Minalan, but don’t think I’m not watching you . . . and wondering why you’re doing it.”

  “I’ve gotten some hint of the quality of life our colonial ancestors enjoyed,” I reasoned. “We used to live to a century, or more, and now most of die before we’re forty. Perhaps if we lived longer, we’d get more done. And get more respect from the immortals,” I ventured.

  “Don’t count on it,” she dismissed. “Unless you live for at least half a millennia, you’re just not particularly interesting, individually. At least, that’s what the Vundel believe. By their standards even the oldest Alka Alon are as ephemeral as our servants. We barely hold their attention.”

  “I’m sure that must be very annoying for you,” I said, dryly.

  “It also allows us to escape their notice in a lot of ways,” she countered. “That’s been convenient. Not everything that my people has done would be approved by the Vundel. They tend to be . . . conservative.”

  “Tell me,” I said, a sudden thought occurring. “Why did your people come to Callidore in the first place?”

  That question took Lilastien by surprise . . . and I learned a lot from her expression.

  “That happened so many years ago . . . longer than your own race took to drag itself out of the mud and aspire to the stars,” she sighed. “Why do you ask?”

  “I asked Forseti the same question of my people, hoping for some historical perspective. It occurred to me that it would be helpful if I got the same perspective from the Alka Alon.”

  “The two are not dissimilar,” she admitted. “But that was in my ancestors’ days. The accounts that we have of that time are sadly incomplete. Or inaccurate. Conflicting—”

  “Spare me an epic,” I suggested. “Just a summary would be nice.”

  “As I said, the two colonizations were not dissimilar: in each case, the homeworld was fatigued, worn by the rigors of civilization, and plagued by war, strife and natural catastrophe. The Alon colonization was, perhaps, more desperate, because our planet’s own Magosphere – which was far less potent and efficient than Callidore’s – was collapsing along with our biosphere and our society. That meant that our ability to counter the damage was impaired. Some chose to stay and try to repair the damage, but others – my ancestors – sought refuge in the rest of the universe.”