Salamander

by David D. Friedman

  "To follow your suggestion would amount to a public declaration that I consider myself and my servants free of the restrictions that, by very ancient custom, bind all mages. I am not sure that it is in the interest of the kingdom for us to act in that way, and I am quite certain it is not in the interest of the kingdom for us to say that we do. I do not know how the kingdom's mages would respond to such an announcement. And I do not intend to find out."

  He paused a moment. "I do know what the response of one mage would be—he told me almost twenty years ago. In his final lecture Magister Hal explained that the present system of dealing with violations of the bounds supplemented, but did not replace, the traditional system. He then asked what should occur if the royal authorities became corrupt and refused to convict mages clearly guilty of violations. His answer was that the mages ought to act outside of the royal authority, in the traditional manner.

  "So, if a jury of local mages found you guilty, you would be banned forever from all use of magery. You would be subject to be killed, by any mage, for first violation of that ban. Not an attractive outcome."

  "Would anyone outside the college take such a procedure seriously? So far as I know, nothing of the sort has occurred in my lifetime."

  "That is because the mages have, on the whole, trusted the verdicts of the courts that I and my predecessors have established. The longer this is true, the less likely it is that anyone will revive the older procedure. But considering that Magister Hal is the leading authority in the kingdom on the law and custom of magery and that quite a large fraction of the more important mages have, like me, sat in his classroom, I think that if it did happen it would be taken seriously. That is why I intend to make sure that it does not.

  "You will be tried as charged, I expect convicted and banned from any future use of magic within the bounds of the kingdom. If you wish to remain in the royal service, His Majesty should be able find a use for a mage outside the kingdom. Now go pack. The trial will be held back at the capital, as quietly as I can manage it. We already have the testimony of the complainant and the witnesses."

  Fieras, for once speechless, left the room. The Prince turned to Alayn at his side: “Playing loose with the rules was a mistake. I cannot trust my servants either to refrain from breaking the bounds when it is not necessary, nor to take reasonable care not to be caught when it is. My fault. I should have known Fieras better."

  Alayn nodded. "Fieras was the only earth mage available, your Highness, and it seemed a good way of keeping an eye on things. I should have warned your Highness that he was inclined to arrogance. I have heard complaints before about his treatment of anyone not a mage, but I hardly thought it a problem in a college of mages."

  The Prince shook his head. "My fault. Arrogance would not have been so bad had he not also been a fool.

  "At least we now have the young lady in the next room, although the circumstances considerably limit what I can do. Carrying her off to the capital by force or magery would make a bad situation a great deal worse."

  The Prince paused, struck by an idea. "I wonder … ."

  "If she planned this result? It hardly seems likely, Highness. She's only a girl."

  "One who has just succeeded in twice outwitting a trained mage twice her age. And she seems to have made a considerable impression on Lady Mari, whose judgment I am inclined to trust. I look forward to meeting her."

  "Shall I bring her in, Highness?"

  The Prince nodded. There was a brief conversation at the door before Alayn escorted Ellen in.

  "As the complainant in this case,” the Prince began, “you are entitled to know how I intend to treat it. I am convinced by the evidence you have offered that Fieras should be tried on both of your charges, the former by a jury of mages, the latter in an ordinary court; if you are willing to put your testimony in writing with the usual safeguards, your presence in court should not be necessary. While I cannot, of course, guarantee a verdict, I will be very much surprised if the former procedure does not find him guilty, making the temporary ban on him permanent, or at least of a decade or more. As to the criminal procedure, if convicted, as seems likely, I intend to recommend limiting his punishment to a fine, on the grounds that his acts, while illegal, did no actual harm.

  "As the complainant and the intended victim, would you find that outcome satisfactory?"

  Ellen thought a moment. "So far as Fieras is concerned, I would. But I would be better satisfied if I had reason to believe that your servants would not continue to act as if the bounds did not apply to them."

  "I apologize. Do you have any reason, beyond this incident, to believe that they do?"

  She nodded. "Joshua was brought here by a compulsion spell applied by three of your mages. If you doubt my account, you may ask Magister Coelus. He was a witness. So was the guard who accompanied them." She nodded in the direction of Alayn.

  "And yet no charges were brought in that case?"

  "I had no proof. Neither Coelus nor Joshua chose to act. Perhaps they had not so recently heard Magister Henryk lecture on the limits of royal authority."

  The Prince remained silent for a moment, thoughtful.

  "I remember the lecture and I concede the justice of your point. The King is not above the law. Nonetheless, I will not promise never to violate bounds or law myself, nor will I promise to instruct my servants never to do so. Law-breaking is a bad thing, whether by the King's servants or anyone else, but there are worse things, some of which it is my responsibility to deal with. I will promise not to violate bounds or law save in the most extreme circumstances, and to do my best to see that my servants will not, so that incidents such as the two you have described do not occur again. If my people are charged, as Fieras was, I will do my best to see that they get an honest trial.

  "I am sorry, but that is the most I can offer. As to the worth of my promises you may consult with your friend Lady Mari. Her father and I move in the same circles and she has known me, off and on, since she was seven or eight."

  Ellen considered the matter for a while before responding. "Does Your Highness accept the same principle applied to others? If I, or some other mage, concludes that your Highness has become a peril to the kingdom or to the world, do you agree that it would then be proper to use magic to compel you to act as we believe you should, or if necessary to destroy you?"

  "I see no flaw in the argument. Yes. Of course, should such a situation arise, I would no doubt think myself entitled to defend myself."

  He paused and said, "Will you do me a favor?"

  "That depends what it is."

  "Drop your veiling spell. I want to know what I’m dealing with."

  A long silence before he spoke again. "I see. Fieras was indeed fighting out of his class. I am only surprised that he survived the experience."

  Ellen looked puzzled. "Before I freed myself, I could not have killed him. After I freed myself, I had no right to."

  * * *

  "He let you go?" There was both surprise and relief in Coelus's voice.

  She nodded. "Yes. He asked me to tell no one about your Cascade project, I gave my word, and he accepted it. You expected him to try to hold me prisoner?"

  "I was afraid he might, and worse, ever since I heard you had gone to him. That was why I sent you that message, to warn you."

  "Why would the Prince want to do anything to me?"

  "To assure your silence,” he said. “If word of the Cascade gets out, someone else might work out how to do it and use it against the Kingdom or the King. His Highness thinks that was what Maridon intended, to make himself into a second mage king using the power of the Cascade."

  "Very likely. Do you think the Prince will be able to keep the Cascade a secret?"

  Coelus nodded. "The only people who know about it are the two of us, the Prince, and the three mages who helped with the experiment that killed Maridon. I believe the Prince intends to destroy or at least lock up the memories of those mages. It is not that hard a spell to do, w
ith competent people and the consent of the targets."

  "Would they consent? Having part of your memory missing is, must be, very odd."

  "They will if the alternative is being killed—which it probably is. The Prince will do whatever he thinks necessary to keep the secret from getting out. He wants the Cascade to use on behalf of the Kingdom, but he wants even more to make sure it doesn't get used by anyone else against the kingdom. That's why …"

  "…why you thought I would be at risk when he sent mages to fetch me. Because I know about it. I might have been, then. But this time I went to him as a complainant, accusing one of his people of criminal use of magery, backed by three magisters of the college. Everyone in the college knew I was studying with you. All the magisters knew you were the first person he spoke to when he arrived. If he had done anything to me, he could not have done it quietly. He might as well have made a public announcement that Magister Coelus was engaged in work the Royal Master of Mages wanted to keep secret."

  She paused a moment. "That explains why he didn't kill me. But he could have asked me to testify against Fieras at the capital. Once gone from the college … I might never have come back. Yet he didn't. I wonder why."

  Coelus looked at her carefully before he answered. "Because he believed you. Because you are you. Also, perhaps, for the same reason he let me come back to the College."

  "He let you come back to continue your work on the Cascade."

  Coelus shook his head. "No. I told him I wouldn't."

  She looked up at him in surprise. "Why not? It's what you want."

  He shook his head again. "What I did want. I was wrong. You were right. Between you and His Highness I am now persuaded of that."

  She was silent, waiting.

  "You showed me that even if I used the Cascade as I intended, to do good things, there was still a cost—everything the people I drew power from could no longer do.

  "The Prince showed me my other mistake. Forced me to face what Maridon had done—encouraged me to develop the Cascade in order to gain control of my magery, and yours and everyone's, for his own power. Maridon is dead. But once the Cascade schema is known, once it is known that such a thing can be done, someone else will see the same opportunity and try to take it. All the power of mages and common folk will be drained away. Not to stop a flood or cure a plague, like that which killed my parents, but only for power.

  "I was wrong; you were right. I told the Prince I would give him no aid in developing the Cascade. When I got back to my office I burned everything I had written that might contain a clue to how to do it."

  There was a long silence. At last Ellen broke it. "Why did the Prince let you come back if you were no longer of use to him? Just to avoid calling attention to what you had been doing?"

  "Perhaps, but there was another reason as well. He was afraid that the Cascade might be used against the king by traitors or foreign enemies. It had occurred to him, as it had not to me, that the royal mages could not defend against it, since their power would be drawn into the Cascade to be used against them.

  "I offered to try to design a defense, like the containment sphere, to be formed around His Majesty and a group of his mages. I have been working on it for the past several days. I hoped that this project was one you would be willing to help me with."

  She considered the matter for a while before responding. "I am willing to help you design defenses against the Cascade, but there is one condition. The Cascade is a secret of yours I agree to keep. I have other secrets. I will not lie to you, but there are things I cannot tell you. I am sorry, but if you wish me to work with you, you will have to trust me."

  Coelus looked back at her, spoke slowly. "There is nobody I would more willingly trust. I accept your terms."

  * * *

  "The first step,” Coelus said, “is to figure out the containment sphere, how it works and how to create something similar. You were working on that problem. Perhaps together we can solve it."

  "That will not be necessary. I already know the equations of the sphere and the schema for creating it."

  He gave her an astonished look.

  "You figured all of that out in the month since we last discussed it?"

  Ellen shook her head. "I did not figure it out. I was able to obtain an account by one of the mages who created the sphere."

  "In the library? I would have sworn I had searched it."

  She shook her head. "Not in the library."

  "Where then?"

  She said nothing. He gave her a puzzled look, paused, spoke. "This is one of your secrets?"

  "Part of one, yes. I did warn you."

  "Was I right? Was it done by pooling fire and weaving, by two mages?"

  She nodded. "Yes. The schema was mostly designed by Olver, but it was implemented by a fire mage and a weaving mage working together."

  "So in order to do it we must find a weaving mage. Perhaps someone here knows of a healer who will do. When Dag comes back I can ask him if he came across any—it won't be easy. Weavers are mostly women, so of course there isn't one on the faculty, not even one of the tutors. We’ve never had a woman on the faculty. I was hoping you would be the first."

  "I did not realize you were planning my future for me."

  Coelus looked embarrassed. "I don't want to lose you; you are the first person I have found who I can work with. I can't ask you to stay as a student for three years. We don't have three years worth of knowledge here to teach you. After your second year you will surely have accomplished enough to make it clear, even to my colleagues, that you should be on the faculty."

  "I do not know what I will want then. What I want now is to devise a defense against the Cascade. And you will not have to search for a weaving mage."

  "I won't? I thought you said ..."

  She looked at him bemusedly. "Have I ever commented that you are not very observant?"

  "Not that I can remember. You did describe me as very stupid on one notable occasion. What have I failed to observe?"

  "For the past several months I have been creating, and several times told you I was creating, spells of woven fire. You were so confident in your first guess about me …"

  "Of course; I should have seen it the first day."

  "The first day?"

  "The first day I saw you, when you had let down the veil. Fire, a lot of fire, but you didn't look like other fire mages. I had never observed a weaving mage before. So you pool both fire and weaving. Meaning you can build the thing by yourself?"

  "I can build a sphere. I have built one. But it was only about a foot across so I do not think you can fit His Majesty and a troop of mages into it."

  "What limits the size?"

  "Weaving provides structure, fire provides power. It is the power that determines the size. I might manage two feet across if I wasn’t planning to do anything else for the next day or two, but that is about the limit."

  Coelus looked puzzled. "Then how was the containment sphere built? Durilil was stronger than you are, but not a hundred times stronger. How did he manage a sphere almost three hundred feet across?"

  "You can expand it over time, especially with several fire mages. You just keep pumping in fire. It does not all have to come from the mages so long as there are fire mages to control it. When you have the sphere as bright as it can be without bursting, you expand it. Keep repeating the process and you can get it as big as you want—if you have enough time and enough fire. Big enough to hold the royal palace won't be easy, though. And at that size it will take quite a lot of fire to maintain it."

  Coelus nodded agreement. "That was the problem we started with; how the containment sphere maintained itself all these years. You thought it might be drawing power from the mages inside of it."

  "I was wrong. The answer is much simpler. The creators of the sphere made arrangements for additional fire to be added from the outside from time to time to make up for the losses."

  "And kept doing it for forty years. How in the w
orld did they manage it?"

  Ellen said nothing.

  "I see. And you cannot tell me more."

  "I cannot tell you more. But it did occur to me …"

  Coelus broke in. "That the containment sphere is more than we actually need."

  She nodded. "The sphere blocks physical force, sight, and a wide range of magic. All we need is something the Cascade won't penetrate. I thought, since you devised the Cascade, that you should be able to work out the least protection that would block it."

  Coelus thought a moment, then shook his head.

  "It is not that simple, I'm afraid. We have to defend against any cascade that might be invented. Mine was based on the elemental star. Someone else's might not be.

  "Still you are correct that it should not take something as powerful as the sphere. How much less ..."

  He closed his eyes, thought a minute, opened them and his wax tablet, and began to scribble.

  * * *

  Coelus stopped pacing, turned to Ellen. "His Majesty can be protected, but …"

  She finished the sentence: "Not very well."

  He nodded agreement. "We have a schema that will enclose a building of significant size in a sphere sufficient to block expansion of a cascade. But defending it from the power of a cascade in the hands of an outside enemy won’t be easy. It might defend against another Maridon, with magery and nothing else. But it won’t slow down an invading army with both the Cascade and a substantial team of battle mages very much." Coelus' face, usually bright with enthusiasm, grew grim.

  "We’ve exhausted that line, we need to try another tack,” said Ellen. “You know more about the Cascade than anyone else. What were the hardest problems in making it work? Is there any way we could make them harder?"

  "Telling you more about the Cascade makes you more of a risk for the Prince. It might be dangerous."

  "Not as dangerous as leaving the problem unsolved. What we have so far is a paper solution—we have to do better. Tell me."

  He hesitated, thinking. "There were about half a dozen hard problems, ones that looked as though they would make it impossible. I don't see how any of them will help us, but I suppose the most likely is the efficiency ratio."