“If I make a recommendation to Anguin about you, can I invoke your discretion about something?”
That caught his attention. “Uh, sure! What’s on your mind?”
“There have been some recent incursions of undead into Alshar,” she explained, slowly. “Not the simple and stupid variety, either. One of Korbal’s lieutenants – his herald, if he is to be believed – infiltrated Vorone a few weeks ago. Arborn and I and . . . some other agents managed to drive it off, but before it went we learned that we’ll likely be facing a lot more of these undead – they call themselves Nemovorti – before long.”
“Undead? Smart undead?” The big warmage looked worried, as he stroked his clean-shaven chin.
“Well, smart enough to talk. And use magic,” she added.
Terleman frowned. “Magic? Oh, that’s not good. That’s not good at all! It’s bad enough when they’re slow and stupid . . .”
“Well, these aren’t. Nor are they merely human corpses raised and commanded. They are autonomous, and they have tremendous power.”
“Where the hells did they come from? It sounds like Sheruel is getting creative.”
“Not really – they’re allies, not vassals, apparently. Minions of Korbal the Demon God. They appear to be ancient Alka Alon souls whose spirits were captured by Korbal, before he was entombed, and they shared his fate. And they appear to have some living Alka Alon assistance, too,” she added. “If they are giving aid to the gurvani, we have a problem. If they’re leading the gurvani, we have a huge problem. They aren’t easy to kill, either. It took Arborn and an entire squad of Kasari to decapitate one of them. And it took a goddess getting really pissed off to banish another.”
“A . . . goddess?” Terleman asked, skeptically. “Ishi’s tits, Pen, what the hells have you been doing here?”
“Long story,” she said, shaking her head. “But at the end of it, we’re going to be playing a much tighter game up here in Alshar, now. This raid has clinched it. This Nemovort is subtle, devious and powerful. He’s also in the body of an incredibly muscular Wilderlord, minus the mustache, and can pass at a distance as human. He and his kin were tracking something – someone – here to Vorone, but didn’t find them. I doubt they’ve stopped looking. If what the abomination said was true, then there are going to be a lot more of the active on the field, too.
“But for a variety of reasons, I don’t want to alarm Minalan about that, yet. He’s got a lot on his mind.”
“You’re telling me!” Terleman snorted. “For the last year he’s been like a mopey boy, boy, not the half-decent warmage I knew I Farise. I thought it was just marriage and property getting to him, but when I saw him at the Conclave, I knew there was more to it than that.”
“There’s a lot going on with him right now,” she agreed. “I’d rather not make this his problem until we need to.”
“Agreed. But at what point do you think he should know?”
“When we have to tell him,” she shrugged. “To quote the Spellmonger, ‘I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go along!’.”
“Well, it’s not like we’re not watching out for them, now. If we need him, we can call him. Hells, we can call any of the High Magi who have Seven Stones, now, and that’s a lot of powerful friends to have. Besides, there isn’t much more Minalan could do about it than the rest of us could. Don’t worry, I can keep it quiet. Especially if it’s part of my job,” he added with a wink.
Pentandra felt relief at securing the big man’s concession. The last thing she needed was Minalan thinking he needed to come to Alshar to save her. With Terleman on her side here, Min wouldn’t have any reason to think she needed help. And she had no compunctions about recommending him for a post to the Duke. He had taken over her responsibilities as head of the military Magical Corps better than she ever could.
“Oh, I meant to mention,” he added, “while you were asleep some non-military messages came through the Mirror array. I saw one that might interest you. Your old friend Isily and her dotard husband are apparently delivered of a baby boy. Mother and child are doing fine at home in Greenflower.”
Suddenly so much made sense about Minalan and his moods that she felt her world wobble a little as all the details clicked into place.
Of course she’d heard about Isily’s pregnancy. That was the sort of mundane gossip about the nobility that everyone was interested in. But despite the novelty of a magelord and lady producing an heir to a mageland, there wasn’t much else of interest in it.
Except when Pentandra’s mind went to work on the problem, everything made perfect sense . . . if you assumed that Minalan, not Dunselen, was the father of Isily’s child. If you postulated that, then everything – his attitude, his fearful demeanor, his melancholia – all of it made sense in that perspective. It explained his reluctance to cause political waves, his insular attitude of late, and even his nervousness at the Conclave.
Pentandra was already aware of the first child – a daughter – that Isily had contrived to have from Minalan. To compound her betrayal by forcing him to sire a second child, when he was well-established and she was newlywed, not only made Pentandra’s soul burn in bright disgust for her former friend, it gave her new sympathy for Minalan.
She started to do the math in her head. That would place it around last autumn . . . about the same time as the Magic Fair in Sevendor. Pentandra had been too busy with the novelty of her new husband and the prospect of changing positions that she hadn’t really been paying much attention, but of course she remembered seeing Isily there. And Minalan.
And that’s about when Minalan’s melancholy began.
The more she thought about it, the more astute guesses she could make. Such as Ishi’s involvement – how could the sex goddess fail to notice such an important infidelity? Despite her claim to being a goddess of “love”, Ishi’s dedication was to the erotic moment, not the long-term consequences of the act. Or to commitment. Hells, Ishi hated commitment. That was Trygg’s domain. Ishi was all about passion and immediacy.
Suddenly Pentandra became that much more pissed off with her goddess. Regardless of her sphere, to brazenly manipulate her friend like that . . . that violated nearly every rule of sophisticated sexual ethics. She could just imagine Ishi hovering to the side, cheering on Minalan as he betrayed his wife with his former mistress.
Bitch!
“That . . . oh, gods,” she shuddered. “That explains a lot. Hells, that explains everything!”
Terleman didn’t understand. Of course, she didn’t expect him to.
“What does? What the hells are you talking about, Penny?” he demanded.
“Just putting the pieces together,” she admitted. “Be happy you hate politics, my friend. Even those of us who do play that horrific game have a hard time facing the results. Minalan is going to need us – need us all – before long, I fear, and depending on what he does, it may make this unfortunate raid look like a children’s picnic in comparison!”
Chapter Thirty-Six
The Magewar
The palace was surprisingly quiet when she finally used the Alkan Ways to arrive back in the crypt, despite its horrific associations, long past midnight. She hurried through the town as quickly as she could, thankful she did not meet any of Vorone’s indigent nightlife. Even though she had Everkeen with her, ready to strike at need, she did not have the time. The Wilderlands were burning, and she had to see to their defense. By the time she came to alert guards at the palace gate, her cloth slippers were nearly destroyed and she was out of breath.
Most of the court was asleep, blissfully unaware of the scattered attacks on settlements throughout the Wilderlands. Only her office and Count Salgo’s seemed to have any measure of activity around them, with magelights beaming from the former and tapers flickering from the latter. But there was little activity elsewhere at this hour.
Terleman was already sitting in the examination room, his witchstone on the table among dozens of slips of parchment as he wa
s trying to construct what was happening on an old map of the region Pentandra had found in her office when she moved in. Three other warmagi were also assisting, she saw, two by scrying and scribbling down their results, one by contacting High Magi mind-to-mind to coordinate a strong defense. As all four men were contributing information, they had selected a parchment model to a magemap.
She glanced at the thing as she came in, long enough to notice the widespread nature of the attack against various points in the north . . . and, perhaps more telling, the points which were not being attacked.
When Pentandra summoned Everkeen to assist, she was amazed as the baculus took her desire to understand the attack and manifested an impressive magemap filled with the positions on the parchment map on the table. Both knots of known enemies and concentrations of allies were displayed on the magical representation, and as she viewed the result with magesight she noted something else: no settlement large enough to mount an effective response was attacked.
Tudry, Megelin, some of the other baronial castles left in the north had all been spared the raid. Plenty of large villages or small towns had been hit, as had several pele towers and older manors now held by the Iron Band, but nothing that would change their strategic disposition in the north.
When Everkeen had provided as comprehensive assessment of the situation as it could, it surprised Pentandra even further when it began making suggestions about how to respond to the incursions.
In moments she began suggesting troop dispositions to Terleman as she figured out which points were actually in danger, and which were being used as feints. Sending a platoon of Tudry infantry to the village of Gael, for instance, or a contingent of mounted Iron Band troopers against a squadron of Fell Hound-mounted gurvani who were holding a ford against them.
But just as soon as she’d determined one solution to a problem, new information would arrive that forced her to change her plans. Goblin units appeared and disappeared across the map, seemingly by magic . . . when usually it was an error in observation at fault. Using the adepts’ scrying reports and cross-referencing them with eye-witness accounts being forwarded by High Magi across the Wilderlands kept her from sending their limited forces chasing shadows.
Everkeen helped her keep up with the diverse field reports and troop dispositions better than any map. At one point she went down to the Mirror array herself to send explicit instructions to Tudry, when all the High Magi there had been deployed. But her quick action led to a decisive victory at a nearby village that Everkeen suggested was the real target of the goblins. That was but one of many close calls that evening.
By dawn’s twilight it was clear that the goblins had predicated their attacks on the idea that the High Magi would be gone. If they were merely testing defenses, Terleman reasoned, then they’d learned a valuable lesson: Alshari magi were not to be trifled with.
The field report of Azar’s skirmish with a legion of hobgoblins bore this out when he determined that not one in a hundred had escaped his arcane wrath. It helped that his old comrade Baron Wenek, one of the warmagi who specialized in destructive combat magic, was riding with him and was able to unleash some spectacularly deadly spells; but even when the relatively restrained warmagi, like Bendonal the Outlaw or Sandoval, encountered the foe they were likewise victorious.
“It was like they were trying to lose on purpose,” Pentandra said, an hour into the new day, wiping the sleep from her eyes. She was about to ask Alurra for another cup of strong tea, but she saw her exhausted apprentice was asleep in a corner, huddled against her maid, her crow between them with its beak under its wing. A dog she didn’t recognize was sprawled under their skirts.
“No,” Terleman said, thoughtfully, “but whatever their objective was, it clearly was tied to the magi being gone from here. We could theorize that this is because they are weak, and thus ripe for a strong reprisal or resumption of general hostilities.”
“But you don’t think that’s correct,” Pentandra ventured.
“No, I really don’t,” Terleman yawned. “As much as I’d like to believe it, that isn’t corroborated by what we know about their forces inside the Umbra. You saw what their column looked like at the Poros,” he reminded her.
“Yes, it was horrific,” she agreed, recalling the hideous black ice and the stain the gurvani left behind upon it.
“Now look at what attacked us: Fell Hounds, light infantry, skirmishers, a few heavy infantry units in tougher spots, some general raiding by their tribals, a few dedicated raids, like those at Salik Tower, Anguin’s Tower and Traveler’s Tower, and that’s it. No trolls, No dragons. No siege worms. No nightsails. In fact, from the reports there were damn few shaman involved at all. And no Black Skulls,” he said, naming the dark priesthood of Sheruel who had overseen his troops thus far. “That, itself, is telling.”
“So what is it telling you?” she demanded. “My brain is asleep, my mouth just doesn’t realize it yet.”
He grinned. “Welcome to guard duty! It’s telling because it suggests that this little midnight garden party was not sanctioned by the Big Green Marble. Which indicates a bit of a power struggle amongst our foes.”
“Well, you might be right about that,” Pentandra agreed.
As Pentandra mulled over the weighty news of Isily’s birthing and Minalan’s shame, she tried to get back to work. There was plenty to do, especially in terms of tidying up the duchy after the abortive raids across the country.
As she filed through the morning’s dispatches, ignoring Terleman snoring in the corner, she saw that most of the incursions had been defeated or forced to withdraw. The damage reports were still being assembled, but the news from Tudry, Megelin, and most of the pele towers was good. The magi at Traveler’s Tower even succeeded with a spell that had proven effective against undead – which Pentandra found splendid news.
Even better, politically speaking, was the news that Duke Anguin and three hundred 3rd Commandos, as well as fifty gentlemen of his court, had ridden to relieve SalikTower successfully.
The 3rd had formed up into two divisions, one cavalry and one infantry, and managed to drive the gurvani between them. After a brief but bloody battle the remnants withdrew in chaos and the tower was relieved. Anguin was still there, helping with the damage and celebrating the victory with Carmella. Hopefully that would help sell him on the idea of her building him a great fortress in the north.
Alurra brought her tea and biscuits while she worked, uncharacteristically quiet. The third time she checked on her to see what she needed, Pentandra looked up sharply.
“What seems to be the matter, Alurra?”
“Uh . . . sorry, Mistress,” she said, contritely. “I’ve just never experienced war before. Hearing tales of battles fought hundreds of miles away, hearing about casualties and such . . . it’s just a bit overwhelming.”
“I understand,” Pentandra said, sympathetically. “This is not what I went to the Academy for. But let it instruct you: as magi, we are often called upon to deal with challenges outside of where we are comfortable. As powerful as magic is, our ability to think and adapt is more powerful. You aren’t training to be a hedgewitch anymore, Alurra, you’re learning how to be a real wizard. Which means that you often will find yourself doing things you never imagined you could do.”
“What if . . . what if that . . . that thing comes back?” she asked, in a voice just above a whisper. Her sightless eyes looked stricken with anxiety. Lucky, on her shoulder, was looking away pointedly.
“Then we, as wizards, will deal with it,” Pentandra said, firmly. “Why was it pursuing you? Old Antimei’s . . . book?” she ventured.
Alurra bit her lip nervously, then nodded. “It has all her stories in it,” she answered, hoarsely. “All the stories she’s known for all the years she’s lived there.”
A book of prophecy . . . from a prophet with thirty years of experience.
Despite her terror at regarding such a thing and the dangers it posed, Pentandra could not
help feel a hungry curiosity about what was within. Would Old Antimei’s tale of the future show the magi triumphant? Or would it see the gurvani devour all of humanity? And would Pentandra be able to resist her own curiosity if she was ever faced with the temptation to look upon the pages of that book?
Prophecy was dangerous, she reminded herself. And then reminded herself again a few moments later, when she found her mind asking the same question.
“So . . . why would an evil undead want to know the future?” Alurra asked.
“The same reason anyone else would,” Pentandra shrugged. “To see what happens. To avoid tragedy and folly, and pursue that which is rewarding. To cheat fate of the burden of free will,” she said, feeling philosophic.
“Then we definitely don’t want to give it to them,” Alurra vowed. “My head is spinning from just a few months of stories. Knowing about the undead, the rats, the riots, the undead, the goddess, Greenflower, all before it happened . . . it’s more than my poor mind can take!”
“What, Greenflower? What do you know about Greenflower?” Pentandra demanded.
“That I shouldn’t have said it!” she said, slapping both hands over her mouth. “Damn it to bloody hell!”
She left her office with all the drama a teenage girl could muster. Pentandra stifled a smile, then let it happen anyway. It wasn’t as if Alurra could see it.
An hour later there was another visitor at the door. The attendant who oversaw the Mirror array appeared at her office and told her that she had an urgent personal communication waiting for her . . . from the Baroness of Sevendor.
Pentandra almost ran to the array. If something had happened to Minalan . . .
But when she arrived, the sealed message bearing her name didn’t inform her of the Spellmonger’s death. But what it relayed was almost as bad.
Court Wizard: Book Eight Of The Spellmonger Series Page 76