by Garon Whited
“I think your offer is extremely generous,” I told him. “Thank you. I’m not sure when they can come, though—and I’m not sure Carrillon is the place for them. The Palace of Karvalen, maybe. I’ll have to think about it, and some things need to settle down and sort out. Right now, they’re safest there, I think.”
“Of course, Sire. Whenever and wherever you want them, say the word.”
“Thank you, Banler. Now I’ll go see about sorting out and settling down some of those things.”
“A pleasure to be of service.” He gestured and pretended to bow in his chair. “Happy hunting,” he told me, and we hung up.
At least that went well. Mostly. I made it a point to notify Seldar about the conversation. With luck, he would figure out what to do about Rialla and the spawn.
I stopped by the forges to see Kavel. All four of the great smithies in the Undermountain are, technically, “the King’s Forges,” but three of them run night and day, operated by a number of smiths and organized by the Kingsmith—their term for the master smith of the mountain. Karvalen produces what may be the finest steel in the world, and a lot of it. The Kingsmith is in charge of the overall production of those three forges.
Kavel and his family, however, have the fourth of the undermountain forges all to themselves. While the other three produced things, Kavel’s forge area ran more to research and development. That one is the Kingsforge.
I found it, with a little help from my escort of red sashes. The mountain moves things around, darn it, so even a map doesn’t work very well for long. I heard the singing and hammering a long way off, which helped me zero in on them. Lessons in magic or no, they still sang to the metal. It’s good to keep up family traditions.
Their singing to the steel was another example of magic I should study. I’m told it does impressive things to the metal, but I have no idea how it works. I’m not sure magicians do, either. It’s a bit of idiosyncratic, personal magic that may be incomprehensible to anyone not raised in the tradition.
My visit interrupted Kavel at his work, but I didn’t keep him long; the noise in the forge was dreadful. I wished for earplugs almost instantly and cast the sensory-reduction spell to tone down my ears. The hammering still hurt, but it was merely an earache instead of sharp spikes of pain. At least the family could sing. They were always on pitch and always on the beat.
Kavel was overjoyed to see me, pleased to know helping Flim was the right thing to do, delighted with his lot in life, and more than willing to help me in any way he could. He seemed disappointed all I wanted a selection of metal rings. He listened attentively, asked questions, made sure he knew what I wanted, and promptly got to work. It wasn’t long before they had several of the things in various sizes, from discs with holes barely big enough for string, to five-inch things you couldn’t keep on as a bracelet. I thanked him and let him get back to more important work.
I also got to meet the young Larel. He was only recently of age—call it fifteen—but his shoulders and forearms were like twisted metal. His work was amazing. He twisted hair-fine wire or scraped delicately at bits of gold to make things I wouldn’t have dreamed possible without magic. Then again, he was humming; maybe it was partly magic.
I spent the rest of the day in my wizard workroom. There were a bunch of things needing my attention. I needed a way to talk between universes, monitor time differential, and—possibly—distract anyone watching for interuniversal gates. Making dozens of tiny gates already proved useful—I hoped—and the rings would make it easier to make tiny gates. Making micro-gates for Mary wasn’t too bad, but having objects specifically dedicated and prepared to be mini-gates would make it so much easier. I should have done that first. Ah, well. Live and learn.
I also started some preliminary work on a second-generation Ring of Hiding from Magical Detection—call it a Ring of Obfuscation. Building Mary’s ring, as the first-generation model, gave me all sorts of insights into improving it. Hers worked perfectly, but, as with any enchantment, it’s generally a whole thing, not easily modified after the fact. The latest model ought to be even more efficient and effective when I get it done.
Hmm. Can I create a variation on a scrying spell to work between universes? Instead of opening a door and looking through, could I make something more like a window? Draw the curtain aside and look through without actually opening it?
Tricky. Very tricky. It might be worthwhile to look into the possibility, no pun intended. Unfortunately, I had other work to do and a projection spell to develop—something I could use to park an image in a distant temple. It would be similar in some respects to a reversed scrying spell, but it should work in a volume, not an area—a space instead of a plane. Instead of a window to a distant location, it should be a spatial reconstruction—a hologram. It would have to use some components of an illusion spell to reproduce the actual images, and then it had to cause air vibrations to reproduce sound…
This I felt I could do. Inter-universal scrying was only an idea. Illusions with sound? Those I’ve done before.
I got to work.
Thursday, February 26th
I was right. I’m a lousy king. I haven’t had time to sit quietly and catch up on my own thoughts in a while.
My days—well, my mornings—are now occupied with the cabinet, or council, or whatever they are. Currently, that’s Seldar, Dantos, Tianna, Beltar, Torvil, Nothar, Percel, and Liet. Mary is in another universe and Kammen is off to Carrillon on a diplomatic mission.
Seldar asked to send him via gate; I agreed when he offered helpers to cast the spell. They didn’t actually do anything besides exert themselves to provide more power. The gate is constantly charging itself, true, but he knows I don’t like running it off the battery if I can plug it in, so to speak.
I’m still a bit on the fence about this. Kammen is on a diplomatic mission. Next comes an angel with a trumpet and seas turning to blood.
Maybe I do him a disservice. He’s grown up a lot on the outside. Has he grown up a lot on the inside, too? He strikes me as a direct, forthright, upstanding individual. That might be unexpectedly effective in the political intrigues of the Palace, especially if he actually understands the place. He’s also the one who gets on best with Malana and Malena. Seldar says his plan will go much more easily if they agree to help. I’m not entirely sure what Seldar’s plan actually is, but I have zero doubts about him having one. And I trust him. I even trust him about using Kammen as a diplomat. Mostly.
“But Kammen,” I protested. “He’s not subtle. He’s not even as subtle as me. The closest I’ve ever seen him come to a diplomatic answer is silence.”
“Sire,” Seldar said, patiently, “he is unfailingly worthy of trust. While it is true he is not the most intelligent of men—and I may say so without insult; he is one of my best and oldest friends—he is far from stupid. He is also, I think, the most ruthlessly loyal of all your subjects.”
“Ruthlessly loyal?”
“I am not certain how to express it.”
“Oh, do please try.”
“Kammen will do anything necessary. He will give his life in service to the kingdom, and I cannot say such a thing, of my own knowledge, about anyone else. I believe I will, if it is necessary, but until the moment comes, how can I be completely, utterly certain? Kammen, I believe in. He will do whatever he feels is required to carry out your mission, to follow your orders, to do what needs to be done because he believes in an ideal of a kingdom you described to us in our youth. I believe he will do more than die for that ideal; he lives for it.”
“It bothers me to think I can inspire people like that,” I said. I did not add “unintentionally.”
“There are many powers in being a king,” Seldar pointed out.
“Yes, and I sometimes think there’s too much power involved. Great power and great responsibility go hand in hand. If you have great power, you have the responsibility to use it wisely.”
“This is why you have counselors, Dim Lord.�
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“Good thing. Hey! Did you just poke me in my lack of wisdom?”
Seldar said nothing. He did smile slightly. Jerk.
We also have a new head of the local wizard’s guild. Haran is another hefty wizard with a penchant for rings; they’re a good place to store spells. He seems less… I don’t know. Greasy? Weasel-y? He’s less diplomatic than Corran, certainly, and speaks his mind with a fine lack of respect. I don’t know if I like him or not.
Seldar and Haran agree we can probably trust the guild members still in Karvalen. I didn’t need them to tell me that, not after I looked over the ones trying to swear loyalty to the King.
My eyeball scan of a bunch of wizard souls the other night was very revealing. When I permitted them to swear their loyalty to me as the King, they all agreed and several lied. The liars are currently in a canal boat, headed north toward the Vathula Pass. They haven’t been banished, exactly, but they’re aware the King knows they lied. Their names are circulating through the Wizards’ Guild halls as oathbreakers who are not to be trusted.
Don’t lie to the thing that can look at your soul. It can ruin your reputation, among other things.
So, when Haran says the Wizards’ Guild in Karvalen is short on traitors and saboteurs, I believe him.
I hate meetings. I have other things I want to do. If I could turn it all over to Seldar, I would, but they insist on getting my approval, even my opinions, on what to do. It’s a responsibility, a big one, and I have no idea how badly I’m screwing up everything I touch. I’m doing my best, but I don’t like this job.
See? Terrible king.
On the other hand, I have dozens of portal rings with one-shot gate spells on them. They’re small, which really saves a bundle in terms of power, and they’re independent of the mountain, which makes it much happier. They’re also plain spells, not enchantments. Once they go off, that’s it—at least, if I don’t supply external power. For at least a few seconds, there should be a small hole from one place to another, big enough for a message spell or other communications. If Johann can detect gate openings—and he might—when I go through again, I intend to fire off all of them at once, to different locations, just as I did with Mary. Only this time, it won’t take quite so much effort. Then I’ll dive through with heavy cloaking spells and immediately move away, blend in. I’m nervous about repeating a trick, but what else can I do?
I really don’t want him to capture me again.
Speaking of cloaking spells, my Ring of Obfuscation is on my left hand. It’s a plain piece of steel with the usual enchantment of a magical ring—an over-powered cleaning spell to deal with scratches, rust, and similar damage. You can pound the ring flat and it’ll gradually come back into perfect condition, given lots and lots of time. Fitting my new cloaking spell into it along with the self-repair enchantment was tricky, but the two don’t have a lot that can interfere with each other.
I think it’s fantastic. I have a personal cloaking device against magical scanning. Now all I need is something to help with my hygiene and disguise spells and I’ll start to feel pampered and lazy.
Beltar keeps asking me to drop by the Temple of Shadow. I’m not sure I want to. I don’t really want to have anything to do with religion, these days. I tolerate Sparky because of my daughter and granddaughter. I don’t mind the Hunter, or Ssthitch, and I get on well with an anthropomorphic personification of Reason, but that’s about as far as I want to go with gods.
On the other hand, there are representatives of Justice and the Grey Lady on the council. I’m trying to be nice to them. They’re helping with the whole Church of Light problem. Apparently, since the Church of Light hates all other religions, we’re all in this together. While the enemy of my enemy might be my friend, how does it hold up when you get rid of the common enemy? Hopefully we can continue to be peaceful and nice even if we somehow rid ourselves of the Church of Light.
Speaking of enemies, the fleet has had some difficulties. The weather, uncooperative in the first place, became somewhat stormy. They’ve been badly delayed, even pushed back by the stormfront. We think they did some spell-work to break the storm, but we don’t have them under constant observation. The fleet survived intact, but they didn’t start making progress again until today. Seldar thinks they spent too much effort on a weather-working and needed to rest. I agree. The bad news is they’re still coming. The good news is it’s taking them much longer than they anticipated and they might not be in perfect shape when they get here.
Nothar assures me Karvalen is ready for an attack. He’s made all the preparations; all we have to do is sound the alarm. Haran agrees with him and has wizards taking turns putting reinforcement into the city’s shielding spells. I’ve done a little work on them myself, making sure I understand all the magical defenses and how they’re powered. The techniques I had to develop in a particularly low-magic world are very helpful in that regard. Tianna, speaking for Amber, tells me Mochara is also prepared for an attack, but most of their preparations are against what should be a sea assault.
If I thought Karvalen was about to be attacked, I would have to worry about whether or not there was a plot involving the Baron of Karvalen and Thomen. I still haven’t managed to meet the local baron. Should I force the issue and summon him? Or should I go visit? Or can I get away with continuing to, for the most part, ignore him? I’ll see how ignoring him works. It hasn’t been an issue thus far, what with Nothar filling the Baron’s shoes at the council table.
I kind of like Nothar. Maybe I’ll just keep him on the council and use him as liaison. It might be less trouble. It also seems to make Tianna happy, since she has another excuse to see him. It certainly meets with Nothar’s approval. He’s not an idiot.
I’m more concerned about Mochara. The weather hasn’t been helping the attack fleet, but they’re still on their way. Unless something drastic happens, we expect them to arrive at Mochara sometime tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.
I have a number of ideas for dealing with ships, all of which can be countered by competent wizards. I wonder what they have in store. I’m glad we’ve had more time to get ready.
There is one good thing about having a day jam-packed with meetings, briefings, and other stuff. At night, people sleep. The mountain never falls silent—the forges are always working, the waterfalls turn waterwheels, air whispers through the passages and vents, a few late-night people roam about, city guards patrol the corridors, and other noises drift through the undermountain. It’s a good time to do things without being interrupted or distracted. I like the night.
My initial Tort-detector continues to fail miserably. She’s either warded permanently or I’ve got a fundamental problem with my spell theory. So I decided to see if I could get a line on T’yl. I re-tuned the existing spell and used his imprint, instead. He was actually easier to tune for. There were a lot of things he left lying around in his quarters. While I didn’t have any body parts—hair, nail clippings, that sort of thing—I did have clothes and other personal effects to choose from.
It worked. My listening spell established a line to the west. Damn. So the spell works, but it’s useless for finding Tort. Well, T’yl is a consolation prize. I’ll take it.
I called Sir Sedrick and woke him up. He rubbed one eye while he tuned in his mirror.
“Ah, Your Majesty,” he yawned. “Good evening.”
“And good evening to you. Sorry to wake you.”
“When one serves a nightlord,” Sedrick observed, shrugging, “one must be prepared to keep odd hours. What do you have for me?”
“T’yl. I think. I got a bearing on his position and he’s somewhere to the west of me. I can’t tell exactly where, yet.”
“Interesting. It is my understanding T’yl is a magician of some repute?”
“He was one of the two magicians of Karvalen. He helped break me out of a mental prison and kick the Demon King out of my body.”
“I see,” he replied, nodding sagely. “Does he ha
ve any enemies among the others of his kind?”
“Magicians? Or Kamshasans?”
“He’s from Kamshasa?” Sedrick asked eyebrows climbing. “I did not know this.”
“Does it matter?”
“I am impressed. Most men of Kamshasa are unable to read, much less work with the stuff of magic. Aside from a few male slaves for clerks, it is punishable by death to teach a man his letters.”
“I did not know that.”
“Indeed.”
“I do know T’yl is an escapee from Kamshasa,” I went on, “but I never got the story out of him. Still, Kamshasa is to the south, not the west. Are there magicians to the west?”
“Yes. Arondael is in the southwest of the old kingdom of Rethven… oh, somewhere near Riverpool, I think. I was there, once, but it was in my youth. Since you say he is to the west, that is the place I would begin searching for him.”
I rubbed my temples and thought for a moment.
“Have you had any more luck with finding Tort?” I asked, finally.
“I regret that I have not.”
“Then… find T’yl. Maybe we can get him to help us find Tort.”
“As you wish. Do you wish me to ride across the kingdom? Or do you wish to send me through magic means?”
“Is that a request?” I asked, trying to smile.
“I merely point out it would be quicker to send me,” Sedrick replied, serenely. I actually chuckled.
“Very well. Get your things together while I get a gate ready.”
I cut the connection and headed down to my old gate room.
The mountain had refilled the pool with water, clean and fresh, tasting a bit of minerals. The archway T’yl destroyed when I left was gone, of course, but the wall had extruded a new one, free-standing, with crystals already embedded in the structure. It wasn’t magical, of course, but it was perfect for enchanting.