“What do you mean?” I asked, not liking the direction this was going.
“The Enshadowed, you see, claim descent from a long-disbanded cadre whose purpose was fulfilled long ago. That’s where the quaint uniform comes from. But the faction was most recently revived by the followers of . . . well, it was one of the most shameful episodes from our history. The Enshadowed serve no less than Korbal the Necromancer.”
“Korbal? The Demon God? I know he has awakened, but—
“He has more than awakened, he has the support of loyal followers. They can only want the restoration of their faction to power, replacing the Council with their own foul doctrines, ruthlessly enforced. The Enshadowed would do anything their master bid them, and strengthening and preparing him for future conquests would be their first priority, after security.”
“So why did they come here?”
“Their presence here can only mean he seeks the key to immortality and necromantic dominion. And that, my boy, we can never, ever let him achieve.”
Chapter Thirty Seven
The Menace Of The Enshadowed
Korbal, the Demon God of the Mindens. The legendary evil that haunted the passes and remote vales of the westernmost mountain range, according to the Wilderlands peasantry, stole out in the depths of winter to take his fell tribute. Supposedly he could drive a village mad and infect the people with maladies from sexual perversion to cannibalism. According to legend, he could send the bodies of your dead loved ones to slay you in your bed at night if he took notice of you.
Only Korbal the legendary Demon God was a myth, the fragment of ancient tales cast against the ferocious and primal wilderness of the treacherous Mindens. In reality, as I’d discovered, Korbal was an ancient Alka Alon songmaster who had gone bad.
His crimes in the pursuit of his magical arts were so dire that he was censured and exiled to the Land of Scars. Eventually his ambitions and his pride, not to mention his antipathy toward the Council, stoked his fury until he went to war with them. Unable to convince more than a few of his most devoted followers to join his cause, he turned to the undead and other arcane methods to build his soldiery.
Following a terrible war he was defeated; but he had so altered his own enneagram that mere execution was just not practical, lest he rise again in a non-corporeal form. Stuff like that happened, from time to time, when go around messing with the laws of nature. Occupational hazard.
Instead of execution, the Council had sentenced him to eternal imprisonment. They had delegated a company to excavate the pit in some hidden region of the Land of Scars, and then concealed it by magical and mundane means until they were satisfied that Korbal’s fanatical followers wouldn’t be able to find him. That had been successful for several peaceful centuries.
But apparently, from what Onranion and the other Alka had inferred, the Enshadowed had aligned with Sheruel’s rising dominion to provide technical aid in return for assistance in locating the impossible-to-locate tomb.
Unfortunately, the answer to their dilemma had been my ten-year-old new apprentice, who sees enneagrams as easy as other people hear music. Once his talent had been discovered by the gurvani’s confederates in the Brotherhood of the Rat, poor Ruderal had been forced to help them find the tomb by peering through the rock to see the dormant enneagram of the imprisoned Alkan.
It wasn’t his fault, though he felt truly sorrowful for helping. He knew, perhaps better than anyone, just how evil Korbal was. But regardless how he had been discovered, the Enshadowed had been able to revive their ancient master.
“That’s why the fixative stone is so important,” Onranion explained to me and the emergency war council that had convened at the breakfast table in the Great Hall that morning. “Korbal’s obsession is with necromancy, which is basic enneagramatic magic. Being able to stabilize his minions – or even his own pattern, I suppose – would be essential to his recovery. The same power that you used to keep that darling water elemental frolicking in your pond can be used to permanently sustain the powerful entities he creates. Between his obsession with death and undeath and his political ambitions, he’s quite the controversial figure.”
“So what are his political ambitions?” I asked, afraid to know the answer.
“He wants to rule the world,” he shrugged. “He’s goatshit crazy, Min. My people tend to be unreasonably sane—”
“Present company excepted,” Dranus said, quietly, as he sipped his morning tea. There was food in plenty on the table, but the idea of eating revolted me after my busy night. My stomach just couldn’t take it.
“Thank you. But when we go mad, we don’t do it by half measures. The petty megalomania of your warrior-princes is nothing compared to an Alkan lord whose obsession has driven him beyond reason. This subcontinent was once laid to waste because of such a thing.”
“I still don’t see what the advantage of an alliance between the gurvani and the Enshadowed would be,” Dranus opined. “They would seem to be at cross-purposes.”
“Not entirely,” Onranion countered. “They both hate the humani, for different reasons. And they both hate the Alka Council, for other different reasons. Great alliances have been forged over less. The gurvani got technical assistance with their magic. They have little experience with irionite, and their spellcraft is crude and unsophisticated. The Enshadowed could provide immense help in guiding his shamans and priests to control their power more effectively. They could facilitate in the breeding of his horrors. Though they are few in number, their faction includes some highly talented songmasters,” he admitted, with a hint of admiration.
“And now they have their dark lord back,” I said, discouraged, “and he’s developed an unhealthy interest in me.”
“Master, I believe it’s more than that,” Dara said, from the end of the table. Her cheek was still red with the scratch she’d taken the night before, but Dranus had applied a healing charm that was mending it nicely. She’d bear only a faint scar from it. “As I was fighting them, they spoke. They were not only interested in stealing from you, they seemed to be pursuing some vendetta. Specifically against you.”
“Me?” I asked, surprised. “Are you certain?”
She nodded, as did Gareth. “They spoke of you as a villain. They were punishing you, in part, for some crime they think you’ve committed.”
“Not all the Alka Alon are happy about the power you’ve been allowed to accumulate,” Onranion reminded us. “The Enshadowed, in particular, have a deep-seated prejudice against magic-using humans. They see it as worse than magic-using gurvani.”
“It wasn’t that,” Dara said, shaking her head. “They seemed a lot more personally offended. They mentioned a brother. I don’t know,” she said, with a sigh, “I was busy guiding my birds and not dying.”
“Perhaps I can shed some light, Master,” Gareth offered. “Before I was knocked out I heard them refer to you as the ‘fratricide’. And they were, indeed, looking for a particular stone. But they had no instruction as to which stone it was, or what distinguished it. So they were taking everything they could carry. But they were clearly angry and vengeful against the Spellmonger over a death.”
“But I’ve never killed an Alkan in my life!” I protested. “I’ve been tempted a few times, but I’ve always resisted.”
“Clearly they bear you some enmity,” Master Ulin suggested, quietly. “Regardless, they have taken from us a great prize, though not the one they sought. Allowing such a powerful tool as one of the pocketstones to be in the hands of necromancers and renegades is untenable. They must be recovered.”
“Agreed,” I nodded. “The pocketstone is bad enough. The unknown stones they took could do anything. They, themselves, could be equivalent to the fixative stone, for all we know. Or worse. We just don’t know. But we must reclaim them, if we can, and that means discovering why the Enshadowed are so eager to see me wounded.”
“I got the distinct impression they wanted you dead, Master,” Dara declared.
“I stand corrected. But I don’t usually generate that kind of antipathy without a reason. And I don’t believe I’ve given them one. But how did they get involved with Isily? And Mask?”
“The only ones who know that are, alas, Baroness Isily, Lady Mask, and these Enshadowed,” Dranus concluded. “One can assume that the Enshadowed and Mask had some previous acquaintance, from their time in service to the Dead God.”
“And it’s possible that Isily knows Mask, whatever her real name and face are,” Gareth pointed out. “She’s clearly a warmage with Imperial training. There are not that many female warmagi to begin with, And fewer still who perform combat magic. If what you say about Isily’s . . . vocation is true, Master, then it’s likely that she met her at some point, perhaps at Alar Academy. Or perhaps when she was in her prime as a . . . companion. She would make a formidable assassin.”
“Perhaps,” I nodded. “If she and Isily knew each other in the past, then once Mask fell out of favor with the gurvani – okay, I’ll admit, I pushed her out of favor – then she might just go to an old friend in civilized parts, who just happens to be powerful now, if she needed refuge and assistance. Especially if she had made a deal with these Enshadowed Alka before she left the Penumbra.
“If they were aware of my treasury, then they’d want a human spy to investigate it. With no Alka around to speak of, they couldn’t do it themselves. Of course with no Alka around to speak of, they’d have a hard time doing it themselves. They’d need her help.”
“That’s probably who got her the new witchstone,” Gareth snapped. “I was wondering where she got one so quickly!”
“Oh, easily,” Onranion nodded. “The Enshadowed would have access to a gracious plenty. But I fail to see where Isily enters into the conspiracy.”
“I do,” Dranus said, quietly. “She covets this holding, for one thing. I noted that at the Magic Fair. And she is . . . familiar with the Magelord.”
“We served together at Timberwatch,” I reminded them all. “She was my liaison with Ducal Intelligence. I’ve established that she was not working on the orders of the Royal Family. She’s considered semi-retired, now, her marriage, position, and freedom a reward for past services. And yes, she does covet the snowstone mine. Among other things.”
“Enough to betray you so bitterly?” Master Ulin asked, his eyes wide. He was an academic, not a politician, warrior or spy.
“Easily,” Dara nodded, condemningly. “I never liked her. She’s the kind of woman who would sell her own child if it got her what she wanted.”
“She’s capable of great mischief,” I said, simply. “And her motivations she keeps to herself. But her position gave her access to Sevendor during the Fair,” I reminded them. “That would be when they inserted Lady Mask here, in disguise.”
“In disguise?” Onranion asked, intrigued. “What kind of disguise?” The Alka Alon didn’t go in for that sort of thing, culturally. They don’t see espionage and skullduggery as valid means of warfare, the way humans do. Therefore it fascinated Onranion.
“She wears a mask,” Dara snorted. “All she has to do to not be recognized is take it off!”
“Does she?” Gareth asked, suddenly. “If she was around then, we’d remember her. Even if we didn’t note her at the time.”
“The memory is a deep thing,” Ulin nodded sagely.
“But how would we know who we’re supposed to remember, if we don’t know what her face looks like?” Dranus asked, an eyebrow raised.
“We don’t need to know her face,” Gareth said, suddenly sitting upright. “We just need to know what her eyes look like. Which we do,” he added.
“That’s true,” I nodded. “I’ve seen her eyes. They’re memorable. But how . . .”
“The Memory Stone,” the young thaumaturge supplied. “Review the last few months, since the Fair, and see if you can recall seeing those eyes anywhere. When you do, you’ll remember what she was disguised as. And when you remember that, you’ll know at least how she got around and where she was staying. That might give you some information.”
“That’s bloody brilliant,” Dranus said, approvingly. “Well done, lad. It seems to me that if she was here one of her missions had to be identifying waypoints to allow her confederates into Sevendor. Pardon me for saying, Baron, but we have not considered the Ways a point of entry by unfriendly forces. Now that the Alka Alon – albeit a radical faction – are at odds with us, we should consider ways of taking precautions against this happening again.”
“That’s going to be hard, with half a mountain full of waystones,” Gareth said, sourly. “And you’ve been sprinkling them everywhere, Master,” he reminded me.
“I know,” I said, miserably. “That’s going to take some thought. They are just too damn useful to abandon.”
“We will address it at a later time,” Dranus agreed. “Until then, Excellency, I counsel you to station more guards around the castle. Warmagi,” he emphasized. “It will be expensive, but how much was the least of the three pocketstones worth?”
“Find me some,” I ordered. “Get them from Tudry or Megelin or hire them off the street. If they’re any good, there might be glass in it, for them. Until then, give them the advanced Sentry Wands we built. Pay them forty ounces of silver a week, plus livery. But get them on duty as soon as possible. One in the tower, one on my hall, and one guarding the entrance of the new castle. Yes?” I asked, as I saw Sir Festaran approaching with a sheaf of parchment in hand and an exhausted look on his face. He had taken the attack on the keep and the hall as personal failures, and he had yet to go to sleep since they’d occurred.
“Excellency, a messenger came bearing these this morning from the chapterhouse,” he said, handing me four separate sheets. “I felt they were important enough to inform you at once. Well, some of them, at least.” I took the parchment and spread it out while the others watched.
The first message was from Arathanial, informing me that he had defeated the first contingent of Sashtali in the field. Two thousand men had been routed at some ford I’d never heard of, and he was moving south to attack their retreat positions. Good for him. I could really care less at the moment.
The second message was from Duke Lenguin, from the Mirror array at Vorone. It was a dispatch thanking me for the quick and unexpected return of the warmagi to Alshar. Thanks to my quick action and the bravery of my men, he reported, most of the nearby raiders had been met and defeated or repulsed on the field. They were planning on rallying and pursuing the more far-flung elements as soon as Vorone was secure. He particularly commended Lady Pentandra’s skillful coordination in defense of the realm. That was good news. But not really my most pressing concern. For good or ill, Alshar was in other people’s hands for the moment.
The third message was a surprise: His Highness, Prince Tavard, had graciously lifted my house arrest, granting me free permission to travel as I pleased. It was short, almost terse, but it was all the authorization I needed. I’d have to send a nice gift to Princess Rardine as a thank you for her intervention. She was kind of a bitch, but I felt sorry for her. She didn’t have to help me out, but she had, for no particularly good reason. I appreciated that, in an abstract sort of way. But I had more important issues to deal with than royal politics.
The fourth message was from Baron and Baroness Greenflower. Announcing the birth of their son and heir, Istlan of Greenflower. Mother and child were healthy and hale.
“This meeting is adjourned,” I said, hoarsely, ignoring their confused faces.
I needed to think.
I stumbled outside into the morning sun, my tired brain steering my body while my mind burned to the ground. It was too much. Mask. Isily. The Enshadowed. And now Korbal the Demon God.
It was nearly enough to make me think nostalgically of Sheruel.
My feet were moving, but I wasn’t headed anyplace in particular. Alya and the kids were still sleeping off the effects of the spell (it was better to let it run its course than try t
o waken them magically). The castle was going through its busy morning routine around me, but I was barely aware of it all.
Isily had the baby. A son. My son. Istlan. While my first son was nearly murdered in his bed in front of his mother, had it not been for a pregnant Tal. The message she sent was no mere courtesy, or the preening of proud new parents. It was a direct challenge to me, a hollow laugh at my expense during a moment of turmoil. Turmoil she had authored. Betrayal she had plotted. She had taken me like an idiot boy behind a haystack his first time, and she had done it knowing that a child would result. Now that child was a reality.
I felt a sick rage in my stomach as I wandered across the yard. I still didn’t know where I was going. I had no idea what I was going to do. I didn’t really want to talk to anyone. And I desperately wanted to talk to someone. But I was afraid of what I might say.
But then Olmeg the Green strode up to me, his big bare feet clutching the earth like roots and his tall pointed green hat looming over me like a shadow. He cleared his throat and made a graceful little bow, for such a big man, his mantle thrown back. One just cannot ignore or dismiss Olmeg the Green.
“Lord Olmeg,” I said, bowing curtly in return. “What can I do for you this morning?” I realized he had likely come to ask about the Tal Alon servants. They were in his purview, and no doubt they were still terrified of their late night battle. He was the kind of man who would see to his responsibilities to the River Folk as quickly as possible, he cared for them so much.
But the big Magelord surprised me.
“Minalan, come with me,” he said, firmly. It wasn’t a request. Nor did he wait to see my response. He turned and started striding away toward the outer bailey. My feet just naturally followed, although they had to struggle to catch up with him.
“What’s the problem?” I asked, when I was next to his shoulder. And slightly under.
“The Baron is sick,” he said, matter-of-factly. “He’s sick, and the whole vale feels it.”
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