by Travis Kerr
“I do not take them as truth, Bloodheart, but I would be foolish to dismiss them entirely. That is why I am asking you now whether or not there is any truth to them.”
“Perhaps,” Bloodheart admitted, knowing it would be unwise to attempt lying to anyone in the council chambers. Many of the men present would have spells in place to warn them of falsehoods. That might very well be what Slyvax was hoping to get him to do. It wouldn’t be all that difficult for Slyvax to turn the rest of the council against them if they caught him in a lie.
“I would like to point out, however, that I had no evidence of that being the case when I sent the dragon after him. Now he has defeated my shadow dragon, so even if he’s not a battle mage, he at the very least must be a powerful mage of some sort.”
“That is not so great a feat,” Slyvax announced. “You put too much stock in your shadow puppets. You always have. Now your foolish pride has allowed Goldstone's son to escape your grasp once again. This would make three times now, by my count, that this one has escaped you, the first time when he was but a child. Perhaps you are not worthy of the lands and title you hold. Perhaps the council may need to consider appointing someone more worthy to control those lands.”
So that was his play, Bloodheart thought grimly.
Everyone knew that Slyvax had four sons that would soon reach an age where they would want land for themselves. His own land would go to his eldest boy, as well as his seat on the council, but for the other boys it was unlikely that they would get anything at all from their esteemed parentage.
If he could procure Bloodheart's lands for one of those boys, it would reduce much of the conflict between his sons. Slyvax himself had only been a second son, elevated to his position after a riding accident had removed his older brother from his path. While Slyvax would never admit it if he did have something to do with his brother’s fall, the crafty old man had little doubt that his sons would gladly kill each other for the position of power he held.
If he could procure a second major land to rule, particularly one that brought a seat in the council along with it, it would help alleviate matters. Not to mention the fact that, with two of the brothers in the council together, it would strengthen the position of both.
Bloodheart understood the man’s ambitions with startling clarity. Of course, he also realized how foolish they really were. The other mages would surely see the threat implied by such a strong position, and would never allow such a thing to happen. Someone else, less qualified perhaps but certainly someone less dangerous to their own positions within the council, would be appointed in Bloodheart's place. Not that Bloodheart had any intentions of allowing anyone, neither Slyvax nor any of the others who would likely be clamoring for his position, to wrestle from him what he had risked so much to attain.
Perhaps it’s time for me to consider taking a wife, or at least a concubine who can bear me a child.
With a son to take his place should something happen to him, the vultures like Slyvax would no longer see his lands and position as something they could obtain for themselves. He didn’t have time to court a woman of prominence, which he would have preferred to do when considering a wife. So yes, a concubine, one easily bent to his will with only a minor expenditure of magic or coin, to bear him a son would be ideal, for now. He could take time to find a proper wife later.
“Enough of this foolishness, Slyvax,” Wolfere bellowed.
Wolfere.
The very thought of the name sent a shudder down Bloodheart's spine. While Slyvax was powerful, his magic was nothing when compared to the awesome power of Wolfere. Now the undisputed leader of the mage's council, Wolfere had appeared almost out of nowhere about twenty years before. So great was the strength of his magic that when the one of the ruling mages died, of natural causes as far as anyone knew, Wolfere stepped into his place without anyone saying so much as a word against it.
He ruled his land wisely, the people of his land might truly be said to love him, and after ten years on the council had been voted into the role of the council’s leader. If anyone had said anything against it, Bloodheart knew nothing of it. He certainly wasn’t foolish enough to cross the dangerous man. Wolfere was considered to be a fair man, but no one was foolish enough to disagree with him without good reason. Bloodheart wasn’t going to make that mistake now.
“We are not here to chastise Bloodheart for his failures. Not yet at any rate,” Wolfere continued. Now that he had gotten their attention he spoke at a lower, calmer voice. “We are here to address the dangerous situation that has arisen. It could just as easily have sprouted from your own lands, Slyvax, and I am certain that you would not be so hard on yourself should you have failed to recognize that danger. Bloodheart did what he could with the knowledge he had been given.
“Now we are faced with another question. Bloodheart, you are now aware of what faces you. Can you say, in honesty, that you can defeat this enemy on your own? If not, I would recommend the council grants a portion of its power to you, just as they had to defeat the elder Goldstone thirty years ago. What say you?”
Bloodheart considered his answer carefully. The elder Goldstone, Fallon, had been one of the most powerful mages in living memory. Even Slyvax would not have dared to cross him on his own. They had needed the magic of nearly a dozen mages to control a dragon powerful enough to defeat that man.
Could it really be possible that his son is as dangerous as he was?
It seemed unlikely, but Bloodheart had to admit it was possible.
Still, he could not risk looking weak in front of the other mages on the council, especially not with hungry wolves like Slyvax clamoring for the slightest opportunity to take what he had risked his life to gain. Bloodheart might still need their assistance at some point, but he was not yet defeated. He still had other means at his disposal to deal with Fallon's son.
He wondered briefly if Wolfere had some other agenda in mind. He had not been in the council when Goldstone had been destroyed. No one had ever heard of Wolfere at that point in time. Surely he would have heard everything that had transpired though. He would know how dangerous Goldstone had been, to all of them.
He didn’t trust Wolfere, any more than he trusted any of the mages in the council. Still, he had no reason to actively distrust the man either. Certainly not like he distrusted Slyvax. So far Wolfere had always treated everyone fairly, though distantly. He never took sides for personal reasons, but instead always attempted to find solutions that would prove profitable to all.
He treated the people who lived in his lands the same way. All of his peasants reaped the benefits of his wise leadership. His method of leadership put him at odds with many of the other ruling mages, however his uncanny sense of business somehow allowed him to turn a greater profit, both for his subjects, and for himself. Fallon Goldstone had been destroyed by the council because he had put his people above the other mages. Wolfere was not like him in that aspect. He did not put his people first as Goldstone did, but profit instead. If his subjects profited as much from it as he did, so much the better, in his own mind at least.
With the money he gained from those profits he gained greater power than many of the other mages. Regardless of how powerful a mage's magic might be, the golden rule still applied; whoever has the gold, makes the rules. In the many years that Wolfere had control of his lands, he had gained for himself a good portion of that gold. Bloodheart, as rich and powerful as he was, had no other choice but to comply with the decisions of the vastly richer and far more dangerous Wolfere.
“I believe that I can still handle this upstart on my own,” Bloodheart answered at last. “I have other means at my disposal to deal with this situation. Should additional forces be needed, I will send word to the rest of the council. However, I would like to mention that, should this second attempt fail, then this Raiste Goldstone, or whoever is with him anyway, will have proven himself more dangerous than Fallon Goldstone was thirty years ago. No one man among us would be able to deal
with this man easily.”
“No one is questioning your ability Bloodheart,” Wolfere said seriously. “If this man is truly a battle mage, however, he could very well be, as you have stated, more dangerous than any one of us could handle safely. Are you certain that you wish to attempt to deal with this threat alone for a second time? You’ve already failed once.”
This last was meant clearly as an undisguised threat. Wolfere's meaning was clear. If Bloodheart did not believe he could handle Raiste Goldstone, he should say so now. Should he fail a second time, than Wolfere might not stand in the way of men like Slyvax, who hungered for his lands like greedy dogs. He would not only be on his own against Goldstone, he would be on his own in all things.
“The powers of a battle mage are almost impossible to predict,” Bloodheart answered, trying to think of a way to word things that wouldn’t cause him to appear weak. “If this one is as powerful as some of the battle mages in antiquity, than he might prove to be more than I can handle on my own, as has been suggested. That, however, has yet to be determined. He might have defeated my shadow dragon, but that is not the only weapon I can wield.”
Wolfere's eyes widened for a second as understanding dawned. “So you plan on sending them?” he asked, a sour look of disgust on his face.
Only a few of the mages knew of the mercenaries Bloodheart employed for some of his less pleasant work. The fact that Wolfere was aware of their existence did not surprise him, nor did the knowledge that the man found those creatures repulsive. Most men who learned of them felt so.
“They will accomplish the task,” Bloodheart replied in answer.
They most certainly would, he knew, or else he would not have said it. He was not so foolish as to tell a lie in the council meeting. Unfortunately, those he would send were as unpredictable as they were deadly. Bloodheart didn’t control them, not like he did the dragons. It was not magic that brought him their loyalty, but promise of coin; a lot of coin.
Still, as expensive as they were, their work, on the rare occasion he had employed it, spoke for itself. They would be able to find Goldstone, regardless of where he might be hiding. He felt confident that not even a battle mage would be able to stand against them.
“Do you believe you can control them long enough for them to defeat the battle mage?” Wolfere asked. “They have been unpredictable in the past.”
“Even if this Raiste Goldstone truly is a battle mage, they will succeed in destroying him,” he replied confidently, voicing the very thoughts he had had only moments before.
A high pitched cackle irrupted from one of the council seats. Mordock, one of the weaker mages on the council, was shaking under his cloak in uncontrolled laughter. Such actions didn’t surprise Bloodheart, he had grown used to them during the years that he had taken a seat of power. The man was completely insane, and often started laughing like that whenever he thought he had information that the rest of them did not.
Unfortunately, that was far more often than Bloodheart would have liked. While the mad mage's magic was weak, and the lands he controlled were little more than uninhabitable swamps with few towns and not a single major city, Mordock headed one of the greatest spy networks in the world. Little happened, anywhere, that his spies did not learn. All of that information eventually filtered its way back down to Mordock's ear.
As insane as the man had proven himself time after time to be, he had also proven himself to have a brilliant mind, when it was working. He was a great man to have as an ally, during those times when he was lucid anyway. The rest of the time Bloodheart felt like sending him on a long journey, off a very steep cliff.
“What do you know, Mordock?” Wolfere asked irritably. Mordock had a habit of holding back his knowledge, for no other reason than his own amusement as far as Bloodheart had been able to discern. On most occasions, Bloodheart could ignore the man. He even found him amusing sometimes, on those occasions when the information he had wasn’t being kept from Bloodheart himself. Bloodheart enjoyed watching the other mages squirm. Wolfere, on the other hand, had little patience with the madman most of the time. On this occasion, Bloodheart mirrored his ire.
“I know nothing at all about the battle mage,” Mordock stated in a high, cracking voice, the whiskers at either end of his thin mustache, the only feature on the mage that was plainly visible, twitching as he spoke. Mordock may be crazy, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew how dangerous it was to toy with Wolfere, and had no intentions of doing so. “I don’t know anything about the dragon that this battle mage has supposedly defeated, either. However, I may know something of this Raiste Goldstone that you seek.”
“Then tell us what you know, Mordock, and do not waste our time. I have other things that require my attention as well. I have no time for your games.”
“Very well,” Mordock replied, clearly disappointed. He would have preferred to let the anticipation linger for a little longer, especially when he wasn’t getting paid for the information he was giving. “Since I learned of the attack on Bloodheart's man, Sloan, I’ve had my people looking into the man who had called himself Raiste Goldstone. He may not be who he claimed to be. My spies have told me that someone fitting that description has been known by many names, and many faces. It is unclear who this man truly is. He may be a mercenary of some sort, a smuggler, or an assassin for hire. Whatever he is, there was no indication before the incident at Port Tam that he might also have been Goldstone's long lost son. Either he had hidden that fact before, or he simply made it all up, perhaps to gain access to Sloan's offices.”
“How is that supposed to help me defeat him?” Bloodheart asked hotly. Like Wolfere, he had no time for this man’s games. He had, in fact, already known that Goldstone had been going by several aliases; he already had his guards looking for quite a few of them. He also knew about his companions, the large, red haired man and the feral woman. He had not been planning on telling the council that information, however. He had to be the one to find Goldstone and his companions. Should Slyvax find them instead, for instance, it could cement his claims to Bloodheart's lands.
Perhaps I’ll have to reveal that little tidbit after all, he considered, though he hoped it wasn’t necessary.
“I am simply pointing out that we have no real evidence that this man is really Raiste Goldstone at all. The entire thing could have been a fabrication, that has taken on a life of its own. Whether he is Goldstone or not, it is unlikely that he planned on that name going any further than Sloan's offices. It has caused him nothing but trouble after all, regardless of its authenticity.”
“Your information is useless, as usual,” Melina said from across the table. As the only female in the mage's council, as well as one of its younger members, it was unknown what the full extent of her power might truly be. What was known, however, was that two years before her husband, the previous council member and ruler of the lands she now controlled, suddenly disappeared. Everything he had, his lands, his position, and his wealth, all went to her.
Bloodheart had not known him well, though the same really could be said about any of the mages that sat at the table around him, but he had thought that the man seemed powerful enough in his own right. Not powerful enough to give him a strong position in the council, but certainly worthy of being on it. If she had somehow been responsible for his mysterious disappearance, she was not someone to be underestimated. One man may already have done so, much to his folly.
Perhaps she was some fetching beauty, worthy of taking such a risk, but if so Bloodheart had no way of judging that. Like the other mages, her features were obscured under the black robes she wore. Melina, however, took it a step further than that. The small amount of her face that was visible, nothing more than her mouth and chin really, had been glamoured to appear a dark, vibrant blue.
Smooth skin and a slim figure was all that Bloodheart could glean of what she might look like underneath that cloak, and even that might have been nothing more than another aspect of her glamour. It was impossible
to know what illusions the mages might use to cloud themselves before appearing at the council. What was here in the chambers, after all, was nothing more than an image sent to appear before the rest of them.
In reality she’s probably fat and ugly, he surmised.
“If that was all the information that I had to offer, my dear, I would have to agree with you. Fortunately, I know a bit more than that. I know, for instance, that this man claiming to be Goldstone is not a battle mage. Some of my spies have known of him for some time, and there has never been any indication of a battle mage before now. According to my spies, he has fought and killed many men during that time. Never once has he used anything like the magic that a battle mage would possess.
“That being the case, it would seem that this battle mage is the man that reports say had been with him during that fight with Bloodheart's man in Port Tam. It would also explain, Bloodheart, why your men saw him running from your dragon into the swamps before he supposedly killed it. He did not have the power to defeat your beast. Instead, he was running to reach the man who did have such power.”
“Those I am sending to hunt him will not care what guise he puts himself in,” Bloodheart remarked. “Your information is useless. Unless you have something else to offer me, I have no use for you.”
“I do have one other little tidbit of information. This man that is calling himself Goldstone does not travel alone often. If he is who my spies believe him to be, and I’ve learned to trust their judgment, he normally travels with a female companion, a feral woman. He also has a dragonling that follows him. Ferals are rare enough in these lands that it would be much easier for your hunters to find her than it would be to look for a single human, regardless of what method of tracking they employ.”