I prefer the term ‘lackey,’ I thought, amused. But you’re the Order’s Steward, remember?
And I prefer the term ‘wet nurse,’ but once again I wasn’t consulted. Will you just listen a moment? I’m getting to the important part! The Order of the Secret Tower has voted to form an alliance with our Order . . . whatever we end up calling it.
That’s great. Really, I appreciate their support.
If you succeed in Alshar and return alive, that is.
That sounds like a stunning vote of confidence, I thought back, sourly.
It’s better than it sounds, I promise. For one thing, Daddy is now our liaison with the Order, so anything we want, we just ask him. He’s swinging a mighty big stick in council now that he’s got glass.
I’m sure you both cut an impressive figure. I did, actually – Penny’s dad was a well-respected mage with a highly distinguished lineage even before he got irionite. Now that he was attuned to the stone and learning how to master its power, he was more powerful than every other mage in a room full of powerful magi. And so was his little girl. That sort of thing gets you a lot of respect in our profession. But what does that translate to, in practical terms?
Respect, for one thing. Influence, for another.
I’ve been hobnobbing with the nobility already.
Not the Remeran nobility, you haven’t. And Remere is one of the richest Duchies. What we do will probably influence Merwin and Vore more than Castal does. If most of the important magical families line up behind your proposal, then it won’t matter what title anyone calls themselves. Since the Remeran Ducal Court Mage was at the meeting last night – and horrendously jealous of me and Daddy – I’d say that whatever influence he can extend on our behalf to the ear of the Duke would be welcome. As long as he gets a shard of irionite someday.
And that helps me . . . how?
Well, you’re going to need some place to hide out, if you screw up Alshar and Castal, she offered. Look, it’s a long-term benefit, not a short-term one. But if you—when you do survive the war in Alshar, we’ll be in a lot better position to take advantage of it.
I know, I know, I just wish that it translated into something a little more concrete. I’m marching off to battle tomorrow – or at least toward battle – against a whole army of goblins. It would give me great pleasure to know that I had help coming for that.
Well, sorry about that – my days playing warmage are over. I’ll stick with politics, I think. More ladylike.
Well, I need more warmagi, I thought, bitterly, not more politics. I thought I was done with politics when I left Wilderhall.
I could ‘hear’ her chuckle in my head like she was whispering in my ear. You stupid, silly boy, she sighed. You’ll never be done with politics . . . not until the politics is done with you. Luckily, you have me in your corner. Now aren’t you glad I figured out the telepathy spell so I can do the hard thinking for you while you’re slaying goblins?
You mean the direct mind link to my ex-girlfriend that I can’t shut off so she can lecture me about my inadequacies any time a goddess has a mood swing? I asked her, my brain dripping with sarcasm. It’s lovely, yes. Brilliant of you.
Chapter Eight:
Breakfast With The Court Mage
Wilderhall, Midsummer
I was awakened just after dawn by liveried page – a lad of about nine, wearing a tabard with the stars-and-moons over the Ducal badge of antlers-and-roses that served as the Court Mage’s device. I opened the door groggily, the taste of good wine gone sour in my mouth, and stared at him almost in a stupor.
Apparently the boy was used to that kind of reaction. He bowed his neatly-combed head in my direction and announced that Master Dunselen requested my presence at breakfast in the Mage’s Tower, a small, crumbling structure attached to the Ducal residence. I blinked a couple of times before I realized he was awaiting a response. I told him I’d be along shortly, and that I would be most happy to dine with the Court Mage. I threw him my last penny as a tip, and then got ready.
I poured water in the basin and then indulged in using magic to heat it to the perfect temperature before splashing my face and shaving. I took care of a few other things, set the chamberpot beside the door, and took the time to dig the out traditional hat for certified magi.
It’s technically a four-pointed hat, popularized by renegade Wenshari magi before the Conquest, but somewhere along the line three of the points got sewn to the largest peak, which rose over a foot over the brim, so it was basically a one-pointed hat. Mine was very basic – I rarely wore it, since graduation, although some of my spellmonger associates took to wearing theirs all the time. Particularly the shorter ones.
The day was still fresh and damp and cool, and walking across the bailey, watching the churls and servants bustling about with the thousand daily errands it takes to keep a castle this large running smoothly. As I saw one poor fellow carrying not one, not two, but four full chamberpots, I was suddenly very gratified at my choice of trade. And it wasn’t just the lack of muck. Magi very rarely bustle. Some strut, some stride, some loom, and some fidget annoyingly, but with magic, there’s nary a reason to bustle.
I arrived at the private entrance to the Mage’s Tower, a pleasant-looking circular tower six stories tall that was attached to but separate from the Duke’s Tower. Thankfully Master Dunselen’s dining room was on the ground floor. I love towers – hate stairs.
There was a single bored-looking sentry almost holding a spear who took my name, searched his memory for a moment, and then admitted me. From there, an old woman with a castellan’s knot around her neck directed me into the dining room as she was bringing food from the kitchen in a big wicker basket: fresh baked biscuits, honey, a bowl of tiny sausages, some cheese, a smaller basket of fruit, and a bowl of boiled hen’s eggs peeled and sprinkled with salt and savory herbs.
A much better breakfast than I expected. I could see why you might want to consider life as a court mage. The food’s good.
She laid about the table with the ease of long practice, muttering to herself incomprehensively as she cut cheese, poured me a mug of weak beer, poured cups of hot tea for the two of us, and sliced up a couple of pieces of fruit. She disappeared just as Master Dunselen was making his way down the richly-carved wooden staircase.
“Good morning, Master Dunselen,” I said as I stood and bowed with my best court manners. Pentandra had made me practice protocol and proper forms of address for hours, damn her, and I found them coming to me easily now. The old man executed a stately bow just a bit higher than mine, after acting a little startled at seeing me there, as if he had forgotten the appointment. Then he noticed my hat and chuckled.
“I rarely wear mine,” he confessed. “I used to wear it all the time, but when I got this post, well, the hat that comes with it is pretty heavy.” I remembered it from graduation – a singularly tall affair in the Duchy’s colors, yellow and red, festooned with silver and gold symbols. “It’s beastly hot in the depths of summer, too. Hard to look mystically competent when you’re sweating like a pig.”
He took a seat at the table without further ceremony, and I followed suit. “Thank you for joining me this morning, Master Minalan,” he said, kindly. “I wanted a chance to speak with you before the others got their grubby hands on you. One mage to another.”
“The others?” I asked, intrigued, as I speared an egg on the point of my knife. “Am I in danger of being kidnapped?”
“Hardly!” chuckled the old wizard. “Indeed, I can’t imagine a person in the Five Duchies who could manage that . . . now that you have a witchstone.”
Ah! I knew there was a purpose to this early meeting: the old geezer wanted a piece of glass. Just as Pentandra had predicted. That made sense. He wanted his bribe. And that was something I could work with, once I got past the niceties.
“I wouldn’t advise abducting me,” I agreed. “It wouldn’t be prudent. So what ‘others’ are you speaking of?”
“The other
members of the Council,” he explained, sipping his tea while it was still piping hot. “The Ducal Court has many courtiers whose interests intersect with ours,” he said, conspiratorially. “You can expect several of them to try to ‘reason’ with you today – oh, always in the interests of the Duchy, as they perceive them.
“Most of them will be deeply troubled by your radical proposal. Attitudes at Court tend to run toward the conservative, I’m afraid. Even with this new threat on the horizon, most won’t see the advantages to it, not without a compelling reason. If I know them at all, I’d guess that they’ll try to persuade you to drop your demands and go fight the gurvani anyway.”
“Master, I’m not inclined to be persuaded,” I said, politely. “Although I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on the matter.” Best pin him down, now, establish where he stood. Would he back my plan out of his own – and his professional – self-interest? Or would he sit out and wait to see which way the winds were blowing before committing, one way or another? The problem with court magi, of whatever level, is that they know just how easy a job it is – and how easily they can be replaced.
The old man bit off an almost dainty piece of sausage and looked at me thoughtfully. “Minalan, I’ll be candid: the idea of the Dead God out there scares me a lot more than the prospect of mere invasion.”
“Then you are more wise than some in Court,” I said, thinking of Count Sago’s dismissal of the Dead God. “I do not have words for how truly powerful and malevolent he truly is. And his servants are nearly as bad.”
Dunselen shrugged. “I am not so concerned about them,” he admitted. “We can kill goblins by the thousands, but as long as that abomination remains, we cannot win this war.”
“We agree on that point, at least,” I nodded. “But do not dismiss his minions lightly. I’ve faced them in battle, and while they are unsophisticated, they are drunk with power and fanatically enthusiastic about their service. They will strike at us any way that they can, as long as they can. Their hate for us is palpable.”
“The gurvani have never been genocidal,” he said, shaking his head. “Warlike, yes, upon occasion. But even they have some measure of respect for life and the rules of war.”
“Had,” I corrected. “You underestimate the influence the Dead God has had on their culture. The gurvani in the Minden range are almost entirely under his sway.” I thought of Gurkarl, the gurvan I’d captured in battle and whose life I’d spared. He had been an exception, one of the gurvani who had been drafted into the hordes just as I had been drafted into the army for the Farisian campaign. He held to the older, simpler, more tribal ways of the pre-Sharuel gurvani.
It had turned out to be the right move, even if I’d been conflicted about it at the time. There was a century-old shamanic prophesy about the first gurvan to see the sacred cave, blah blah blah, and while the Dead God thought he had been the one to do so, the fact was that I’d allowed Gurkarl to see it first. He’d been smuggled out of Boval castle with the rest of the survivors, traveling through the sacred gurvani molopar swaddled in cloaks and cowls to keep him from being seen for what he was.
I’d had my second apprentice, the bookish Rondal, take charge of him. From what I understood, he and Gurkarl were secluded in the south at an ancient monastery devoted to Gorbarb, the old Imperial god of war. He was surrounded by some friends of mine, the Gobarba, mercenary monks whom I’d hired out of Tudry last spring. They were devoted to the archaic divinity, and they realized the potential importance of the prisoner, once I’d explained it to them. Hopefully he’d be safe there until I could find a more permanent place for him.
“What you say may be true,” he agreed, reluctantly. “Surely they can start some mischief. But primitive shamanic magic, against Imperially-trained magi?” he scoffed. “Even with irionite, without the power of this Dead God behind them, I can’t see them becoming much of a threat,” he said, convincingly.
Only I wasn’t convinced. Master Dunselen, despite his age, wisdom, and experience, didn’t know what he was talking about. Shamanic magic was nothing to dismiss lightly. Not if you wanted to survive the day.
“I don’t think the Council truly understands just how profound a danger there is,” I said, diplomatically – no need to correct the man if I didn’t have to. I remembered what Penny said about getting the Court on my side. “But if the gurvani aren’t countered, and quickly, then there won’t be much of a Duchy left to worry about the Dead God. It’s going to have to be a war on two fronts, one temporal, one magical.”
He nodded sagely – I’m sure he practiced that look in the mirror. “Indeed. I’ll admit your . . . proposal yesterday gave me food for thought last evening. I sat in front of my fireplace and meditated on the ramifications of relaxing the Bans . . .” he trailed off.
“And did you come to any conclusions?” I asked, eyebrows raised. This was the important part. This was the Ducal Court Mage of all of Castal. If Master Dunselen wouldn’t support the relaxation of the Bans, then I couldn’t see anyone else in Court doing so. No one important, at least.
“I did,” he sighed. “And after a long contemplation, I have to agree, we cannot win the magical war with the magi we have. Even warmagi. Not against the Dead God.”
“There are just too few, and even with irionite, there are too many restrictions on just what kind of magics can be practiced,” I agreed. That was one of my profession’s biggest complaints about the Bans, and the Censorate that enforced them: the harsh restrictions on research. There were whole fields of study that were considered off-limits or highly-restricted, and the Censors had a habit of broadly interpreting the statutes.
Sometimes it made sense – experimenting with deadly diseases, for example, or charms to compel a suicide or murder are dangerous. Other times, the restrictions didn’t seem to serve a purpose.
My own field of specialty, for example, the thaumaturgy of sex magic, had been discredited for years because of the prudish nature of my barbarian ancestors. There wasn’t even a particular regulation about sex magic, per se, just a few codes concerning using magic to abet rape or murder, or compel consent and such. But the Censorate just didn’t like that sort of thing, and so a promising field of research had been atrophying for years for no good reason.
“But to relax the Bans . . . that may well give us a valuable tool in this magical war. If the Duchy could add to the ranks of the magi without the Censorate breathing on the back of their necks, we could put far more warmagi in the field and have far more spellmongers and hedgemagi supporting them,” he declared.
Certification has always been an expensive prospect without a sponsor or patron to pick up the fees. That has forced many low-born, Talented students to either abandon the practice due to lack of funds, or develop their powers slowly, haphazardly, and without controls and become hedgemagi or foot wizards.
I nodded, as if he had brought up a powerful point that I had yet to think of. “If we were able to bring some of our clandestine brethren into the light, well, I’d count that as a good thing for our craft. Particularly if they were armed with irionite,” I said, wryly.
“Oh, yes,” the old wizard said, clearing his throat self-consciously. “There is that.” The pause afterward was pregnant enough to have puppies.
“You want a stone, don’t you, Master Dunselen,” I observed. It was a statement, not a question.
“I will not beg for one, nor will I betray my liege,” Dunselen declared, finally naming the price of his bribe. “And, technically, the simple possession of a stone violates the Bans, the way they have traditionally been interpreted. But I will not deny I am envious, Master Minalan. Jealous, even. I saw but a glimpse of their power, yesterday, and it was breathtaking. I have been able to think of little else, since. To have such forces at your command . . .” he trailed off, shaking his head while he ate a biscuit.
“It’s more invigorating than you can imagine,” I agreed, softly. “But there are other dangers you should know, before you
decide to commit. You can over-use a stone, become dependent upon it and crave it like a drug, if you are not careful. The power can drive you mad. As it did with Orril Pratt. And one poor spellmonger’s apprentice in Boval who allowed the power of the stone to overwhelm him. He killed his senior apprentice, and we had to destroy the stone . . . which ended his own life. I learned a tragic lesson about irionite that day. Which is why I have instituted the oaths I have, Master, so that there is some responsible oversight for their use.”
“Some would say that a commoner’s son who works as a village spellmonger is not the best warden of responsibility,” he pointed out, gravely.
“Let them say it to my face,” I suggested. “If they have a compelling argument, I’ll hear them out. I might challenge them to a duel, afterward, but I’ll hear their argument.”
“And you would win, no doubt, regardless of whether the contest was magical or martial in nature,” he observed with a chuckle. “You have suddenly come into a great deal of power, Master Minalan. And you refuse to be any man’s tool. That’s a dangerous combination.”
“I don’t refuse to be any man’s tool,” I pointed out, “I just want a fair price for my work. If the Duchy wants to contract me to go kill gurvani, then I’ll do it. If they meet my price. I want the Bans relaxed; I want magi to be able to purchase and inherit property, and to retain their noble titles. And I’ll distribute irionite as I see fit, to further the war effort,” I said, reasonably. At least it sounded reasonable to me.
“But the oath you require binds the recipient to you, personally,” Dunselen said, shaking his head. “Not the Duchy, nor even the Five Duchies of the Kingdom. Nor to the Censorate. You, Minalan the Spellmonger. That smacks of the tactics of the Archmagi of old. That kind of oath was foresworn after the Magocracy fell.”
“I thought it was a good institution,” I shrugged. “It used to be that the Archmage regulated the use of magic, and that if you had a stone, you were his man, in service of the Empire. That system worked well for centuries.”
The Spellmonger Series: Book 02 - Warmage Page 16