Penny’s servants had come ahead and gotten the place cleaned up for us, and we were able to pack just about our entire entourage in the sparsely-furnished rooms. Most of the warmagi were housed in the old noviate cells, which utterly lacked charm, but they weren’t complaining. Most had been in the field around the Penumbra, or in harm’s way in Gilmora, and a clean, dry monk’s cell was far better than what they’d been accustomed to. Penny put me in the old Abbot’s room, so I didn’t have too much to complain about. Avital wasn’t one of those pesky deities who demanded poverty.
“There is one thing,” I decided, once I’d taken off my robe-of-office and other regalia and joined everyone for a light lunch in the main temple. “We need a magelight at the top of the spire this evening. Irionite green. And bright enough to out-shine every other light in the city.”
“I like that,” Penny smiled, and my fellow magi agreed when the proposal floated around. I suppose after our triumphant procession into the city, we were all feeling pretty cocky. “I’ll get someone on it. Speaking of impressive magic,” she said, digging in a pouch at her side, “I had this made for you. For your sphere of irionite, actually,” she said, presenting me with a golden ring about ten centimeters in diameter. Then she took her palm away, and it floated in midair.
“It’s laced with the finest yellow knot-coral,” she explained. “As well as some snowstone sand you sent me. And enchanted to float on command. I figured it would be more impressive and less burdensome than hiding it in your tunic.”
“Expensive,” I nodded, impressed. Knot coral of any variety is expensive, but yellow is by far the most dear. Only the Sea Folk could get it, and they prized it for their own reasons. “And pretty. But why?”
“Put your sphere on it,” she prompted me. I looked at her for a moment, reluctant to do anything with my sphere I wouldn’t do with one of my own limbs. But this was Penny. If I couldn’t trust her – within reason – then I couldn’t trust anyone. I took my sphere out of the silk bag around my neck and gingerly placed it on the floating ring. It adhered with a tiny ‘click’, and then my sphere bobbed pleasantly in front of me.
“So . . . it floats. Why?”
“Because it’s impressive, and intimidating, and it tells everyone who you are. More than the flashy staff. More than the silly hat, even. The ring will follow you, and respond to your commands. It even has some separate enchantments I’ll introduce you to later, but for now it will just follow you around like a puppy.”
“Well, that will keep it from getting in the way, I guess, but I can’t help but feel . . . exposed this way.”
“Your hand or mine are the only ones who could remove it from the ring,” she explained. “And woe to anyone else who tries to touch it. Trust me, it’s well-protected. More importantly, it will make you look impressive, and that’s the goal. I thought about mounting it on the staff, like the Archmagi did, but that seemed too . . . impolitic. We aren’t re-establishing the Magocracy, we’re just reorganizing the administrative infrastructure without the Censorate,” she said, almost as if she was trying to convince herself. “But leave the mageblade behind when we go to the palace. This is a civil matter, not a military one.”
“I see your point,” I admitted, watching my sphere float by. “I guess I should play around with it a while, see how to use it.”
She shook her head. “We don’t have time. Everyone else can refresh themselves, but you, me and a few others need to head to the palace, to the Court. Today is the first meeting of the Coronet Council, remember. There isn’t even an official ‘coronation’ scheduled. This is Rard’s opportunity to make his case to the other dukes that he should be crowned.”
“So why do we need to be there?”
“Because we will be called upon to witness about the Dead God and the invasion, which is the pretext upon which Rard bases his claim for the crown,” she reminded me. “With us, he is sagely taking command in an emergency. Without us, he’s a greedy monarch looking to invent a higher position. That’s why we need to be there.”
I resigned myself to that, put my sweaty dark blue robes back on, put my funny hat on my head, and got back into the carriage, my sphere floating obligingly nearby the entire way. I practiced commanding it for a little while under Penny’s direction, but soon grew bored with it, thanks to the length of the journey. It took nearly as long to cross the city from one hill to the other as it had to ride there from Fairoaks, but late afternoon found us being greeted by an old friend at the Noble’s Gate of the massive Ducal palace complex.
“Count Salgo!” I cried, as I stepped out of the carriage at the gate to the Spire. The mustached Warlord was dressed in finery, as was everyone, but despite the silks and satins and clever embroidery you couldn’t disguise a soldier like that. Especially not the way he carried his well-worn sword. That he looked as comfortable in silks as he did armor was a testament to the man’s adaptability.
“Master Spellmonger, welcome!” smiled the warlord, with a nod of his head. “I had heard you would be joining us at Council.”
“Not by preference,” I said, which had him nodding in sympathy.
“I’d rather take a charge by a legion of goblins, myself, if you ask me . . . but no one asks me,” he observed, as he offered Pentandra a hand. “Lady Pentandra . . . All this fuss about coronets . . . this has to be the most secure Coronet Council in history. But if you will do an old soldier a courtesy and be wary of any esoteric foul play, I would appreciate it. Master Dunselen was here earlier, just arrived from accepting his latest surrender, and assured us that the palace was free from sorcery. But it never hurts to be sure,” he said, which was a diplomatic way for him to suggest that Dunselen was, perhaps, not as loyal as he wished. I agreed to look – no harm in it – and he expressed his gratitude. “This is the first Coronet Council I’ve been in charge of securing,” he admitted.
“Well, if all goes to plan, it should also be the last,” I pointed out. Salgo hadn’t considered that.
“I suppose it will – they’ll be ‘royal councils’ after this, won’t they?”
“With far fewer feathers to ruffle,” Penny added. “Good Count, have there been any . . . incidents?”
“None yet, milady,” he said, leading us through the gate and into the bowels of the citadel. “All five – sorry, all four Dukes and the heir-apparent of Alshar are here, already. They’ve had the ceremonial introductions and so-forth, so we’re at the point of serious business of this emergency council. Namely, the goblin incursion.”
We traded small-talk and intelligence about the war and the court with each other until he brought us outside of the Ducal Court chamber. There were five sets of guards at the door, which made things a little crowded, but Count Salgo’s appearance sent them stepping aside with alacrity.
“Just wait here,” he whispered, when he had brought us into an alcove just off the main chamber. “I will tell Their Graces you are here.”
We waited in silence and in gloom – there was a tapestry obscuring our view of the chamber, proper. But that didn’t mean we couldn’t hear anything.
One of the enchantments Penny had insisted be included in the rim of my new silly hat was one sometimes known as “the long ear” or sometimes the Wandering Ear. It allows you to hear all sorts of things you aren’t supposed to. I used it quietly to penetrate the tapestry and “listen” for a few moments. But before I could learn anything useful, the curtain parted again and Salgo motioned us in.
“PRESENTING HIS WISDOM, SIRE MINALAN THE SPELLMONGER OF SEVENDOR, KNIGHT MAGI, MARSHAL OF THE WILDERLANDS, LORD COMMANDER OF THE ORDER OF HORKA, MASTER ADEPT OF THE ORDER OF HESIA, AMBASSADOR-SELECT OF THE ORDER OF THE SECRET TOWER, AND HEAD OF THE COMBINED ARCANE ORDERS!” the herald bellowed. I was in such a daze about how damn impressive I sounded, I missed hearing him recite Pentandra’s long list of freshly minted titles, which was a pity because she’d added a few I wasn’t familiar with.
Don’t worry, she soothed me, mind-to-mind. I w
rote the whole thing down for them so they wouldn’t get it wrong.
Who would know if they did? I replied.
That’s the point. We sound important. Silly hat. Regal robes. Shiny staves. Dignified expressions. Impressive. We aren’t trying to re-found the Magocracy, but we are trying to evoke the power of the ancients here. Just relax, this is just a debriefing. The really tense stuff is still ahead of you.
While we were debating in our heads Count Salgo escorted us around the room to face the great table where the five most powerful men on Callidore were waiting impatiently.
They were an intriguing bunch. Penny had briefed me on each of them several times.
To the far right sat Duke Clofalin of Remere, a middle-aged man in a splendid gold-and-scarlet doublet, his wide forehead proudly displaying the cap-of-maintenance coronet of his rank. He looked bored and tired, but certainly used to long, boring meetings. His vote on the issue wasn’t in doubt – the Family, Castal’s clandestine service, had made Clofalin their puppet long ago.
Next to him was young Count Enguin, the stripling son of the late Duke Lenguin II of Alshar, and his designated – and very well looked-after – heir to the throne. He looked bored and pensive, unused to long, boring meetings. He wore a green doublet chased with gold, his house colors, and a pouty expression. Apparently the subject of his investiture as Duke had yet to come before the Council.
Of course Duke Rard, as host, took the center position. He already looked the part of a king, one of the older members of the Council and by far the most Narasi-looking of the bunch. He could have been one of King Kamalavan’s original sons, grown mature and wise.
Next to him on the left was Duke Medfar III, only twenty-five but already cultivating a reputation for debauchery worthy of his illustrious house. Vore had always had shaky politics at the top, and from what Penny said Medfar was deeply in debt to many parties to fund his infamous excesses – including the Duke of Merwin. Sitting next to Rard he could have passed as pure old Imperial, dark hair and dark complexion. The House of Vargars had been among the first to intermarry with Imperial families after the Conquest, and they had continued the tradition to the present day.
And at the far right hulked Duke Andrastal of Merwin. He was portly but tall, clearly towering over Rard and the others; yet there was a savage intelligence in his eyes that told me he was no man’s puppet. Some symptoms of ego are easy to see, and Duke Andrastal looked impatient for the world to move, with himself at the center. A dangerous man, Penny had warned me, who was already deeply at odds with the rumors of Rard’s plan. If anyone should wear a crown, was his thinking, it should be Andrastal.
“Sire Minalan,” Rard began formally as we bowed to the most august of bodies. “I have informed my brother-dukes of the incursions of the creature known as the Dead God, who leads the invasion against Alshar and now Castal. You were instrumental in defeating his forces at Timberwatch last year, and escaped from his very clutches yourself. Please elaborate the dangers to this Council, that we may assess the threat to the Realm.”
So I did.
I did it with more grace and practice than I had a year before, in front of Rard and his sinister wife and the Summer Court of Castal, in Wilderhall. But then I was a renegade warmage and spellmonger-between-assignments. Now I was the head of several orders of powerful magi and a magelord in my own right. I spoke with determination, nuance, and emotion as I recounted the essentials. I invited Penny to intervene at various points to explain or elaborate about the esoteric nature of the threat. And then I told them about the goblins’ most recent advances, not but five hundred leagues from here.
Barrowbell was threatened, I observed, and the rich Gilmoran baronies, from which Merwin got most of its cotton, were in peril. Dragons raided deep behind our lines. Gurvani shamans devastated defenses with their crude but effective spells. And the Dead God’s power was being fueled by every human life that expired on his sacrificial stone, in blood-soaked Boval.
The longer I went on, the more intently the dukes all listened. A little too intently, I noted. Young Count Enguin could not seem to keep his eyes off my sphere, which floated lazily behind my head, from one shoulder to the other.
“. . . which is why Their Graces, Rard and Lenguin, saw fit to relax the Bans on Magic in the face of this threat. When Censor General Hartarian was forced to agree, my Orders were free to defend the Duchies against the invasion of Sheruel,” I concluded.
“Yet you were not terribly successful, were you?” Duke Andrastal asked, bluntly.
“That depends upon how one measures such things, Your Grace,” Penny said with a courtesy. “Had the Arcane Orders not been at Timberwatch, then the shamans and dragons would have laid waste to all the north, and perhaps found their way to this very keep by now.”
“These shamans of the mountain folk are really that powerful?” he asked, skeptically. “We have them in Merwin too, you know. Casaldalain. Ugly beasts. They’re pests, not villains.”
“With respect, Your Grace,” Enguin, the young count who would be a duke said, unbidden, “perhaps in long-settled lands where they cling to what wilderness is left that is true – but I can attest to their power when they are gathered in numbers. Everyone in Alshar can,” he said, bitterly.
“It is not our concern if you cannot keep your scrugs in line,” Medfar said, snidely.
“Not at present – but they tear through the countryside like lice,” complained the lad. “Alshar is decimated.”
“Alshar is all but destroyed,” retorted Medfar. “If Castal hadn’t intervened—”
“But Castal did,” reminded Duke Clofalin in a slightly wheezy voice. “Duke Rard sent his finest warmagi, and troops besides.”
“To protect their frontier, nothing more,” dismissed the young duke from Vore. “That’s hardly a reason to re-arrange the Duchies!”
“Your Graces,” I said, taking a chance on interrupting and reminding them that there was more than their petty grievances to deal with here. “It is not you who seek to ‘re-arrange’ the Duchies. Sheruel intends to do that to his own liking, and has piled up a hundred thousand human skulls as a token of his desire. If this threat is not met, it cannot be stopped. And Sheruel the Dead God has no less a purpose than the extinction of our race.”
“Which rumor has it you, yourself, stirred up from some hidden lair in the Mindens,” Duke Medfar pointed out. “I’ve heard plenty about you, Master Spellmonger. You are a renegade and a scofflaw, who uses forbidden magics. By all rights you should be facing the noose, not addressing this august body.”
“Things change,” Duke Rard said, before I could speak. “I was skeptical of the reports myself, yet I was there to see the hordes pour out of the west and slaughter our people. Have you ever seen a troll, my brothers? A troll in battle, with a club the size of a tree, sweeping our heaviest lancers away like flies? Your poor father,” he said, addressing Count Enguin, “he made the mistake of thinking mere steel and valor could tame such beasts, and he paid for it with his life. And dragons? The goblins we may stop at our frontier, should we persist in a defense, but what is to stop dragons from dropping out of the skies over Merwin? Or Vore?”
That thought did disturb the two defiant dukes. The reports of dragons could not be dismissed as lightly as the gurvani. Too many seasoned and trusted mercenaries had seen the winged beast reap knights like ripe corn . . . and be stopped only by Horka’s magic at the cost of his life. Too many had fled from the Gilmoran lands after the Day of the Dragons, terrorized by the horrific sight, and spread the account of that dark day to dismiss it.
“So how is allowing the Bans to slip away going to keep our skies clean from these pests?” asked Medfar. “Does this Spellmonger have a weapon that can keep the worms at bay?”
“Does His Grace?” I countered, sharply. Medfar sat up indignantly, unused to being addressed thus. “Can all of his lances put together even discomfit the beast who slew our best at Timberwatch? Can his meager court mage fight aga
inst such a beast . . . and win? Without the benefit of High Magic? How about more than one dragon? There are at least three in the service of Sheruel, and the Arcane Orders have a suspicion he is breeding many more. Many, many more. Does His Grace have a remedy for such ‘pests’?” I asked, scornfully.
“You are insolent, Spellmonger,” Medfar said, his lip curling. “Remember whom you serve.”
“I am fighting for the survival of the Duchies,” I countered, darkly. “Not the dukes.”
“And you fight well, and the people support you,” observed Duke Clofalin. “You have yet to misuse this great power, as the Mad Mage of Farise did. Indeed you stand before us today pledging your aid to the Realm, not leading forces against it.” Undoubtedly he’d been coached to bring up that point. This was high political theater after all.
“Yet my Censor tells me such magics are dangerous, and proved so alluring to the ancients that they destroyed Perwyn and nearly all the Magocracy with them. Power such as that . . .” Duke Andrastal said, shaking his head, “we cannot allow such a thing to stand outside of the control of the Dukes. Nor under the control of a single Duke,” he added, looking pointedly at Rard.
“It wouldn’t,” I said, clearing my throat, “if it was under the purview of the king, as it was of old.”
That was the first time the term had been used, apparently . . . and from the look Rard shot me, he wasn’t ready yet to broach the subject.
The Spellmonger Series: Book 03 - Magelord Page 66