Enchanter (Book 7)

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Enchanter (Book 7) Page 66

by Terry Mancour


  “A feint? For what purpose?” considered Dranus. “Merely to draw attention away from Sevendor?”

  “Battles have been fought for less,” Bendonal suggested. “There have been rumors that some elements inside the Penumbra grow anxious to finish the eradication of humani. It wouldn’t take much to convince them to try, for sport or training or loot, on the humans nearest them. Of course, they’re considerably tougher than they were four years ago. So yes, I’d say it’s a feint. The only real opposition was sent to the fortifications, and even they were more probing raids than serious attacks.”

  “It makes Duke Anguin look heroic, too,” Pentandra pointed out. “When we got back to Vorone, the entire city was mad for the way he dashed off at the head of the 3rd Commando. The folk feel like they have a real defender in him, for the first time.”

  “It sounds like your efforts are going well,” I observed, quietly.

  “At the moment, most of the fires are merely smoldering,” she smiled. “But it’s taken a long time and a lot of energy to get there.”

  “Any regrets?” I asked, concerned about her answer.

  “Actually? No,” she admitted. Pentandra sighed, and looked happy. “When I first got to Vorone I thought I’d be utterly miserable. And I was, for a few months. Arborn and I weren’t getting along, our apartment in the palace reeked with mildew and decay, and my job seemed hopeless. But as we worked at the problem of the criminal gangs, the corruption, and the court, and gradually we stopped fighting. That was nice. Then Ishi showed up, and that wasn’t so nice, but we worked through it,” she said, happily. “We’re talking about getting a place in the countryside, now, just to get away from the palace. Things are stable enough that I don’t feel like they’ll fall apart if I take a few days away.”

  “That’s excellent news,” I smiled in return. “I’m so glad it’s working out. I was worried you’d quit.”

  “I was very close, a number of times. But I’m not the sort to give up just because of a few setbacks and inconveniences. By this autumn, Vorone will almost be functioning like a real city again, instead of a refugee camp surrounding a bad neighborhood. We’re doing good work, there,” she said, with an air of satisfaction.

  “She’s done more than good work,” objected Bendonal. “Lady Pentandra is too modest. She has single-handedly dragged the court into functioning, instructed His Grace in the wise performance of his duties, turned the attention of the Duke’s magistrates on scofflaws and corrupt officials, and revitalized the city center through prudent policy and investment.”

  “It doesn’t sound like you’ve had time to do much actual magic,” Tyndal teased.

  She looked annoyed. “Have you every restored a functioning economy to a remote town of eighteen thousand with no real industry? Makes slaying siege worms and trolls seem like picking wildflowers!” she snorted. “What have you two been doing?”

  “Catching rats,” Rondal supplied, as he handed Tyndal a mug. “When we weren’t helping Lorcus knock over warder castles in Rolone. We’ve made two trips down to the Alshari coastlands, and left a bunch of very upset rats in our wake.”

  “Those still alive to be upset,” Tyndal agreed. “We’re planning a third trip this autumn, timed for when the fleet comes in. The Brotherhood has been slaving,” he added, darkly.

  “And the rebel barons permit it?” she asked, shocked.

  “They profit from it,” Rondal said, discouraged. “They turn a blind eye to the sales on the docks, then again when they get new serfs on their estates and plantations. The clergy call their attention to it, but then they either have an accident or receive a generous benefice. No one else dares stand up to the rebels.”

  “Duke Anguin could, if he had the reach,” sighed Pentandra. “I’m afraid such expeditions are many years in the future, if at all. We’ve had our own brushes with the Brotherhood in Vorone, where they once ruled the night. No longer. Perhaps we should consult, before you embark? I have some intelligence you might find intriguing.”

  I stopped listening to them try to impress each other, after a while, and concentrated on the preparations that Onranion and Dranus were making. If things went poorly, then we would have to count on their makeshift plan. I was hoping things didn’t go poorly. I hesitate to try my hand at dangerous, experimental magic when things are desperate.

  Who am I kidding? I do that sort of thing all the time.

  That was part of my confusion: I was supposed to be feeling contrite and guilty about all of this, but when I looked around I saw my friends and allies, comrades and colleagues, all gathered about me to perform in my interest without judgement. None had been commanded to (apart from Dranus, but he was more than willing), they had all just agreed. That made me feel good.

  And I wanted to feel bad about this. None of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for my indulgence, part of my mind whispered. None of this would have happened if not for my arrogance.

  My dark musings were dashed when Alya approached me from the other end of the chamber, where she had been dining and drinking with the Alshari warmagi.

  “Do you have a moment?” she asked, quietly. I nodded, and followed her when she led me outside to the quiet street. She pulled me over to the fountain under the municipal magelight, then turned to speak. “Are you all right?” she asked, concerned.

  “No,” I said, honestly. “I’m struggling with this. It’s not that I don’t agree, but—”

  “That’s why I’m doing it, and not you,” she answered, her eyes downcast. “It’s not that you cannot do it, Minalan, but that it is too difficult a thing to ask you to do. Your feelings conflict you. While that’s usually what I love about you, your mercy and your commitment to the right thing, in this case the two are at odds. But they can’t be. Min, you can’t let this stand. Not just personally, although for what she’s done she’s earned a feud as sure as any mountain harlot. But for what she’s done to your profession.”

  “My profession will be fine,” I said, sighing.

  “Not if you let this sort of thing go unanswered,” she said, firmly. “I’m no wizard, but I’m a Spellmonger’s wife. I’ve been around magic for years now, and I know what you’ve tried to build. If you let her act the rebel to your policies and do not bring her to bear, she will be among the first, not the last, to scoff at your authority.”

  “I never wanted the authority!”

  “Which is why you were best suited to accept it,” she countered. “I have spoken to your colleagues and I know what politics is. You have to do this, but your heart is too weak to commit to it. So let us do it. Let me do it. Stand and watch, and if you are needed, then join in. But let the Order help bring this criminal to answer. And let your wife help you with this difficult, difficult personal task.”

  “And when this is over?” I asked in a small voice. “What then?”

  “You mean your . . . Minalan, we can discuss that later. But I don’t hold you accountable for what you were compelled to do – who would?”

  “What about the things I chose to do?” I asked, hesitantly. That was the largest question looming over me. The one I most feared being answered.

  She looked at me, searchingly. “Am I hurt by it? Yes, Minalan. Yes, I am very hurt. But not so hurt that I will pull my hair and weep and threaten to throw myself from the battlements. I’m tough, Spellmonger. I was raised in the Mindens, not in some dainty Riverlands castle. You think I’m the first wife who had a husband who had a dalliance?”

  “No, but—“

  “Enugh. We will discuss this. And we will settle this. And we will do it soon, because the moment I can keep food down I’m going to be eating like a madwoman, and be big as a house. And I really want this left in the summer pastures, if you understand what I mean.”

  “I’m sorry I hurt you,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.

  “Later,” she ordered. “I want to hear every little thing that you have to tell me about what happened. But later. We have to get some
sleep, and there are still preparations to make. When this is all over, we can talk – perhaps with Sister Bemia to help. And I will listen. But not now. Now we have these two witches as our priority.”

  I kissed her again, embraced her, and felt much of my guilt and tension leave me. Oh, there was still a gracious plenty piled up on top of my soul, but I was truly hopeful that once Isily, Mask, and Dunselen were dealt with that things would get back to normal. Or near enough.

  Optimism has forever been my downfall.

  *

  *

  An hour before dawn, the next morn, my squadron and I were ready to begin our foray. I was armored, though I had cast my mantle over my armor, and I had Twilight sheathed on my back. I held my baculus, and when my men were ready I tapped into the Seven Stone I was using and opened the Ways.

  One thing that Lady Mask, a novice in the use of the Ways, was unfamiliar with was the magical apophylite gems I had mined from Rundeval, the ones called Waystones. They were portable waypoints, whereas most of the Alka Alon Ways are fixed. When we’d traced the route the raiders had taken to invade Sevendor, we had been relieved that they had not, as yet, used the Waypoints attached to our Waystones. They had used the waypoint on top of Matten’s Helm, the one that had been there since before humankind had come to the vale.

  That was good news. The fact that I could use the Ways was little-known, outside of my circle. The existence of the Waystones likely even less so.

  But when you have a lot of the things, you find useful ways to use them. For my part, in one of my earlier enchantments, before I really knew what I was doing in the art, I had attached a Waystone to the modillion of my battlestaff, Blizzard. The same one that Lady Mask had stolen.

  I was counting on the fact that she would not recognize the thing, as it looked like merely another pretty stone in the multi-colored modillion behind the head (called the metope, if you’re keeping track) of the staff. She’d be far more interested in the witchstone I’d put there, I was guessing, and ignore the minor stones.

  That was what I was counting on.

  “Ready, gentlemen?” I asked. Tyndal, Rondal, and Lanse of Bune all nodded. “Second squad?”

  “We’re ready,” Lorcus assured me, yawning. “Let’s get this over with so that I can get back to sleep.” Dara, Sir Festaran, and Bendonal would join Lorcus as our reserves. But I didn’t think we’d need them.

  “Places,” I called, and my three men gathered with their backs together. “And . . . now!” I activated the waypoint, and all four of us tumbled through. I don’t think I could have managed four additional people if they each hadn’t been helping me with power. But the spell caught, and we landed in soft, loamy soil, the smell and sounds of a forest at dawn around us.

  Blizzard was leaning against a small canopy, proudly displayed as a prize of war, which was the center of an encampment of about twenty bandits or mercenaries, however they identified. The only one awake was a sleepy sentry that a spell from Tyndal rendered completely unconscious. The boys spread out and began securing the remaining raiders, casting soporific spells liberally, while I reclaimed my property.

  I reached out and took my staff back. It seemed unmolested. She had not yet taken the time to start dismantling it.

  Bandits, Lanse told me with a mental sneer as he looked around. Or the worst sort of mercenary.

  This must be that raider outfit she inherited from Sir Ganulan, I offered. Shouldn’t her wards be going off about now?

  To answer my question, the flap of the tent opened and Lady Mask flew out, without her mask. She was actually a pretty girl, a little older than I’d thought, but with no trace of scar or pox on her face, as many had suspected. Her eyes were wide with surprise. I hit her with the butt of Blizzard right between them, hard enough to make an audible crack. She went down instantly.

  “That was easier than I expected,” Lanse said, sounding a little disappointed.

  “Apparently she’s not her best in the morning,” clucked Tyndal, joining us. “The rest of them are out cold Mas—Minalan.”

  “Search the camp, tie up the men, and get back to the castle when you’re done,” I ordered, as I hauled Mask limply to her feet. She didn’t weigh much at all. “I’ll meet you there. After this lady and I have a little chat.”

  I took her back through the Ways, but not back to my castle. Instead we went to a high ridge overlooking Sevendor, near a little cottage. Lesana was waiting for me, sipping tea and watching the sunrise.

  “Shall I put the amulet on?” she asked.

  “You can hear this, I think,” I decided. “She will wake up in a few moments. Let me pull her teeth.” I searched her person. She had slept in her armor, of course, as most warmagi on maneuvers do, and her witchstone was in an ornate leather pouch on her belt. She also carried a combat dagger, two warwands, a garrote behind her belt, three small spheres of thaumaturgical glass, and a small knife in her boot. I used magic to search her more thoroughly, and relieved her of two hidden enchantments. Then I cast a few spells on her to make her talkative.

  It didn’t take long for her to awaken, as I predicted. She was tough. She was also thoroughly tied up when her eyes finally fluttered open. She struggled against her bonds and realized her predicament . . . and who had put her there.

  “You!” she accused.

  “Me,” I agreed, a little smugly. “Did you really think I wouldn’t track you down?”

  “I figured you would be panicking about your deplorable lack of security,” she said. “I didn’t think you would recover this quickly. That’s not what Isily told me to expect.”

  “Isily is, perhaps, not the most reliable judge of my character,” I said, truthfully.

  “What are you going to do with me?”

  “I’m going to ask you questions, and you’re going to answer me. Truthfully.”

  “Or what?” she said, defiantly.

  “That’s all. For now. Then, when you’ve told me all I need to know, you’re going in a cold, dark cell for a while until I can figure out what to do with you.”

  “You should execute me,” she said, her eyes a little larger at her admission. “I’m too dangerous to you, alive.”

  “One step at a time, my lady,” I said, taking a seat on a stool near Lesana, who had kindly poured me tea. “Let’s begin with your name, and where you’re from.”

  “Nothoua,” she said, without realizing it until it was too late. Then she looked away. “Nothoua Venaren. Of no place in particular.”

  “Nothoua . . . Venaren? Are you related to—”

  “Yes,” she spat, glaring at me. “Next question?”

  I sighed, intrigued. Loiko Venaren was a legendary master warmage, one of the leaders of the Magical Corps during the Farisian campaign. Last time I had heard he was still in Farise, enjoying the fruits of his conquest. There had to be a story there, but I really didn’t have time to explore it.

  “All right, where are Isily and Dunselen keeping themselves?”

  She looked at me sullenly, but spoke. “The last I heard they were in a castle called Salaisus, in an outlying domain to the southwest of Greenflower,” she said, every word a struggle. ‘That’s where they have their laboratory. And nursery,” she added, her nose wrinkling.

  “To what purpose?”

  “To make snowstone. Only they haven’t been successful yet. But they think they’re getting close.” She grinned briefly at some private thought.

  “Of course they do. How many men guard them?”

  “The last time I was there they had twelve crossbowmen, seven warmagi, and a handful of men-at-arms,” she reported, looking defeated.

  “Wards?”

  “Standard,” she snorted, derisively. “I could shred them like parchment. On a bad day.”

  “They aren’t warmagi,” I reminded her. “And their warmagi aren’t High Magi.”

  “They’re lazy, all of them. Sloppy.”

  “No doubt. They are arrogant, too. So why are you entangled wi
th them?”

  “They are a means to an end,” she said, hesitantly. “I needed them, after you stole my staff.”

  “You put her in contact with the Enshadowed?”

  “Yes,” Nothoua said, proudly. “The Enshadowed approached me after my . . . failure against you, and promised to give me irionite if I could arrange to get them into your tower. Since our interests coincided, I didn’t see the harm. They taught me much, and promised to teach me more, if I helped them.”

  “So how did you get Isily involved?”

  “I knew her from Alar,” she admitted. “We were classmates. I visited her in that guise at the end of last summer, after my defeat. I made her a proposition: I could get her more irionite, if she could help me infiltrate Sevendor Castle. She leapt at the opportunity,” she added, spitefully. “I wasn’t aware of her goal at the time, just that it would imperil you.”

  “So how did you know the Enshadowed?”

  “Sheruel sent them to tutor us. And for us to learn humani warmagic. A few of them were looking for good candidates to further their aims. I wanted irionite, and couldn’t return to the gurvani. It seemed like a natural alliance.”

  “But an uneasy one. You wanted me dead. Isily wanted me alive. Why?”

  “She thinks you’re going to be the Archmage. She plans on being your consort. Idiot.”

  “What did the Enshadowed want?”

  “Your gems. And, eventually, your death. They have it in for you as much as I do, but they want to wait. I don’t have centuries to fulfill my vengeance. But they wanted that thaumaturgical stone of yours, the enneagrammatic stabilizer.”

  “Why?” I demanded.

  “Because they just got bloody Korbal out of the ground, and they need it! His pattern will degrade without it. He’ll need constant intervention, and eventually his pattern will start to decay. With that stone he can maintain his coherence. And probably build an army of undead. The Enshadowed think you have the knowledge and the power to prevent that.”

 

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