Rather than voice another disgruntled protest, he dispatched one of the concubines -- the redheaded one, not particularly his favorite -- Should he have her reconfigured? -- to fetch him a meal. He did not often have the opportunity to relax while he ate and no amount of urging -- he had tried on numerous occasions in several disparate event sequences -- would produce any greater efficiency in the monks' process.
As expected, the redhead returned before the discussion had begun to show any sign of waning and he began to eat. The kitchen staff knew better than to send him one of the monks' regular meals -- bland and unappetizing by design -- but still he found the food discouraging. Some fool had decided to use the same spices on the beef as had been used on the bean compote.
At length, Abbot Shyrln finally rapped on the tabletop to bring the chattering monks to order. "Regardless of parameters, the projections are clear. Without the removal of the woman and the child, there is no possibility that the Prime Effecter can be convinced to adhere to the framework."
Zso burped as he used his fork to flick unwanted gravy-smeared vegetables from his plate onto the tabletop. "Then we still have to kill them."
The Abbot, as was his nature, avoided direct reference to the murders of which they all were guilty. "They must be eliminated from the equation or our efforts will fail."
"And I still cannot kill them by my own hand?"
"Of the twelve most probable scenarios that we investigated, failure was certain in all twelve."
Zso grunted, shrugged away the concubines, and stood. "Very well. Leave this to me. I will employ a proxy to set things aright."
TWELVE
143rd Year of the Reign of the City
Eighthday, Waxing, Harvestmoon, 1645 After the Founding of the Empire
The Bunker
Wilhm leapt from his bed, bellowing.
When the lights came on, he became immediately ashamed and clamped his hands over his mouth to stifle the sound.
Dressed in a flower patterned night shirt big enough to serve as a tent for a quad of legionnaires, Lord Hhrahld rose from his own massive cot and lumbered towards him, concern on his face. "You have had another dream, Wilhm?"
The chaotic images still flashing through his head like cracks of lightning, Wilhm bobbed his head. Afraid to remove his hands from his mouth least the fear and the sound escape, he stood absolutely still.
With a frown and an accompanying growl, the ancient pirate moved to the side door that led into the barracks room and opened it. As he knew they would be, Wilhm could see that the lights were lit in there as well. All of the marines and legionnaires were awake, but unlike the first two nights when his dreams had driven him from his bed, none were rushing for weapons or standing ready to do battle. Most sat on the edge of their cots, looking about or rubbing their eyes or stretching. A legionnaire of the overnight watch, dressed in full kit, waited just without the doorway.
"Ceannaire Fihltch," Lord Hhrahld told the man, "fetch High-Captain Mhiskva, if you would,"
The underofficer saluted. "Bear has already run to get him, my lord. They'll be here in no more than a minute."
Lord Hhrahld nodded. "Thank you, Ceannaire."
Leaving the door open, the pirate came back to Wilhm, his great, hairy feet making no sound on the floor.
That was the magic of the Gaaelfharenii, Wilhm knew. All of them were better together. They were all stronger, faster, quieter, and smarter. The pirate's madness had been tamed, as had the rage that had so often overtaken Wilhm. Everyone said that the Captain was taller and bigger.
All of them were true giants, now. Aunt Whelsi had scolded him for using that word, stolen from childhood tales, but everyone knew that that was what the three of them were.
And Wilhm's dreams had stopped bringing terror in the night.
But the terror and the cause of it had returned. Even the close presence of the pirate, who had decided to share his room after the second dream, had not banished the images from Wilhm's mind.
In battledress and holding his axe ready in his hand, Captain Mhiskva arrived. As it always did, his presence immediately calmed Wilhm and he took his hands away from his mouth and tried to still the shiver in his hands.
The marines and legionnaires in the barracks made as if to return to sleep, going to their cots, fluffing blankets, removing boots, but Wilhm knew that most of them would not close their eyes once they had lain down. Like a fever that they had caught by being near him, they had begun to feel the danger that he saw in his dreams, just as the pirate and the Captain felt it. Ceannaire Fihltch and a quad of armsmen from the duty guard hovered just beyond the still open door. They could not stop Wilhm if he got started, but they would try.
"Was it the same dream?" Mhiskva asked him straightaway.
Wilhm shook his head. "It was the same, but the end was new."
He saw the captain exchange a look with the pirate. People were always doing that around Wilhm and Aunt Whelsi had told him that it meant that people were concerned about him.
"Tell me about the dream," Mhiskva said.
Wilhm had already told them both about the dream. Each night for the last five nights. But he did as he had been told. Aunt Whelsi had told him to always obey Captain Mhiskva.
"We are all there, with the king." That was what he always said first.
Mhiskva nodded. "Go on."
"The magic is flying and we are winning. The monks are running away or dying."
"Then what happens?" Lord Hhrahld asked, as he had each time before.
"The fire and the smoke stop the fighting."
"What causes the fire and smoke?" Mhiskva asked.
Wilhm had not been able to answer this question on the first five nights, but now he could. "The lost ones cause the fire and smoke. They have returned."
Both of the other giants frowned at this new detail. "Who are the lost ones, Wilhm?" Lord Hhrahld asked.
"They are the ones that burned and drowned the world before."
"Before what?" Mhiskva pressed.
"Before the world that is now."
Mhiskva's frown deepened. "Where do the lost ones come from?"
"They come down from the sky."
"What else do the lost ones do aside from make fire and smoke?"
"They fight with us and they burn the world."
As the Captain fell silent in thought, Wilhm told them the last thing that he had seen in his dream.
"And they kill the King."
THIRTEEN
There was a great notch in the side of the mountain, as if some colossal creature had taken a bite out of it.
A solitary spike in an otherwise uniform highland of fractured terrain, the mountain was in and of itself an oddity that very few -- if any -- other living men had seen. It lay at the dead end of a headland that was the most southern bit of the Szillarn mainland, projecting into a frigid, storm tossed sea that no sailor in his right mind would venture upon. The nearest road was three hundred leagues to the north. On its southern flank, unrelenting waves worked with single-minded determination to undermine vertical cliffs a hundred manheight high. A swamp ten leagues wide cut across the neck of the headland. This maze-like mire was home to carnivorous swimming lizards the size of large dogs, dozens of species of venomous snakes, and schools of saw toothed fishes that slaughtered anything that disturbed their murky pools.
Without magic, the notch was nigh inaccessible from both sea and land.
Of course, a skyship could have reached the spot without difficulty, but there were no skyships here and there would not be for more than a thousand years.
Mar had allowed his unease to direct him to the site. That happened quite frequently now: a need would arise and the flux would speak to him.
He stepped from undertime and began to survey the spot on which he would build the archer's abode.
The floor of the notch supported no soil, only moss-stained gravel, was uneven and crowded with boulders and smaller chucks of weathered stone, but was mo
re or less level. The basically triangular area was eighty-two steps at its widest dimension and seventy-one at its deepest. One side of the triangle was a broken cliff, the other an unforgiving slope that could not be climbed without rope, and the base the sheer rock face of the mountain itself.
He cleared the space by the simple expedients of infusing all the boulders and large chunks and flying them into the sea and then smashing the smaller chunks by bursting a powerful flux modulation at their hearts. Now able to walk about the triangle without hindrance, he contemplated his canvas.
His first tentative thought was of a roomy stone cottage, but he realized that he had no reason to be frugal and had considerable reason to be lavish. The quaestor's abode would be a villa -- no, a palace!
So, how did one build a palace that must last a millennium?
That answer was immediately obvious -- one built it inside the mountain itself.
Crafting a flux modulation that would hollow out the solid granite took a little more than an hour of methodical experimentation. He began with the sound-colors that he had discovered to relocate stone and derived a harmonizing caramel that would cleave granite as cleanly as if it had been sliced with a knife. When paired with a warbling brandywine that would rotate the cut precisely about any axis after but a single change in a small ethereal spiral, he created a spell Keyed by a twitch of his index finger that would make a perfect cube of any size with six simultaneous cuts. That cube could then be cast into undertime to leave a corresponding void. After successfully using this modulation to create a test cavity large enough to hold his fist in a random rock, he set to work.
It was a task of only minutes to fashion a dozen interconnected rooms of various sizes on either side of a central two storey stairwell. Each room had one wall contiguous with the exterior of the mountain and the twelve were arranged in two levels of six, one at the floor of the notch and one directly above. Cutting rectangular openings for windows in all of the rooms was another simple matter, but then he faced a quandary.
His intention was to create a splendid dwelling both luxurious and comfortable, not a rustic hovel, but all the magic in the world could not give him skills in woodworking, glazing, and joining that he had never learned. He could purchase or steal all the furnishings that the place would require, but the simple process of framing in and installing windows and doors and other such intrinsic building tasks was beyond him.
While the resuscitated armsmen at the Bunker were available to do the work -- their other preparations could be suspended as needed since they, like him, were no longer slaves to events -- and could likely perform passable carpentry, he wanted more than simple function.
He wanted exquisite artistry.
The quaestor's sacrifice deserved no less.
He had brought skilled men and women to the Bunker to manage particular chores, but those had all been willingly rescued from difficult situations -- most from episodes in his own past -- to which they had no desire to return. Many of those had been ill, frail, or lame and only after attention from the medic and many good meals had they been able to take up their duties.
The workers that he would need to complete Eishtren's palace would have to be fit enough to begin work immediately and to continue to work without interruption until all was completed. To get this done as quickly as possible -- an unavoidable imperative -- he needed real craftsmen such as might be hired from a guildhall, not life's castaways. Moreover, he had no desire to add yet more people to the Bunker's already considerable permanent population.
Gold could be had in any amount required, but it was not simply a matter of posting a hiring notice.
For one thing, the location of Eishtren's millennial sojourn must remain absolutely unknown to all the rest of the world. There was no other way to insure the solitude and associated ethereal isolation that was the purpose of the entire enterprise.
Still thinking, he waved a hand and passed into undertime, moved to the Bunker and stepped out into Waleck's rooms.
He found the old man napping in his chair and had to shake him awake.
"Oh...ah, yes, Mar? Did you need something?"
It was difficult at that moment, as he watched the old man become somewhat disoriented as he found his way back from sleep, for Mar to see the merciless plotter that had afflicted his life. When Waleck subtly but routinely began to shift his worn joints to work out the stiffness that came from being still, something that Mar had seen him do hundreds of times, he almost smiled. This seemed just the old scrapper that he had known in the Great Waste, an insightful, disciplined, but forever weary man.
But Mar would not believe that that transient spirit had returned. It was perhaps true that he owed the old man a debt for killing Zso, but the benign nature of his motivations was not yet proven. Waleck was a potential threat and would continue to be until shown to be trustworthy beyond a shadow of a doubt.
"I need to transport a group of people by wizardry to a certain place, but I don't want them to know that anything out of the ordinary has happened."
Waleck would likely deduce that Mar's problem involved Eishtren, but Mar still felt the need to be circumspect.
The old man put his hands to his eyes and rubbed them with his fingers. "Unless the members of the group are aware of the ether, which seems unlikely as long as they are native to this age, then they will not be able to detect the flux modulations that you use to transport them."
"Yes, I understand that, but I also want them to think that the location is somewhere other than where it actually is."
"If you intend simple deception, then the spells that you know as glamours will serve you to that end."
"How so?"
"Glamours cannot only conceal that which is there, but also display that which is not there. You could, as an example, hide a rock behind a glamour of a tree. I would recommend that you expand your simple glamour modulation so that it is configured as a hex, that is, a looped modulation with redundant branching to give it the appearance of spatial depth."
Mar thought a moment, considering the possibilities. He did not exactly understand the "looped modulation with redundant branching" suggestion, but knowing that a thing could be done was half the battle. "Thanks."
The old man grinned. "I am happy to be of service."
Mar turned about to go, but stopped and looked back. "Have your dreams told you anything new?"
"The quaestor is fond of wine with his evening meal. It is a small comfort and something that he could no doubt live without, but small comforts can often prevent the onset of despair. You should build a cellar."
Mar nodded and stepped through his portal.
Next, he went to a secluded cove on the eastern shore of Szillarn and stole a chest of gold coins from a snoring pirate, bought a new wardrobe at a market in the largest city in an eastern province without bothering to learn the name of either, and finally haggled for a well outfitted sorrel with excellent lines at a stable in a prosperous town in the southeast corner of Aehrfhaen.
Of course, he did all of these things more than two centuries before he had been born.
Or, rather, before he had been found in Khalar. The ancient epoch in which his birth mother had bore him was less than a fading dream. It was in the Imperial City that his life had truly begun.
Outside of the prosperous town, Mar rode the sorrel deep into a thick pine wood and dismounted at an otherwise nondescript spot carpeted with brown needles.
After checking the surroundings with his eyes and the background ether with his magical sense to make sure that he was unobserved, he opened a portal into undertime with a gesture.
The sorrel did not of course react to the magic or the invisible portal. When he had chosen the handsome animal, he had made his decision based on its apparent steadiness, easy obedience, and quick intelligence . It now stood quietly, but while he was confident that he could transport it without harm through undertime -- the flux modulations that he had developed to insulate people from the
worst effects of the passage should work just as well for an animal -- he had doubts that the dumb beast would react at all well to the chaotic environment.
As a test, he tied the reins to a sturdy, low-hanging branch, took several steps back out of the horse's view, then created and broke a strong flux modulation. The resulting flash of light and crack of sound were a bit more than half as potent as a near lightning strike.
The sorrel snorted, shifted its hooves, and bent its neck around to look for the source of the racket, but did not try to bolt.
Satisfied, he walked near and stroked its neck. "I think that I'll name you Horse, just for the sake of contrariness."
He thought a bit more, then for the sake of caution cast an inward facing glamour about its head to serve as a blinder. Horse tensed at the sudden constriction of its vision, but then relaxed. Taking a firm hold on its bridle, Mar led it forward through the portal.
The loss of the feel of the ground beneath its hooves made it go stiff-legged in panic, but Mar talked to it in reassuring tones and once again brushed its neck with his free hand. After a few more moments, it again settled down. Presently, it began to move its legs about and found, as Mar had, a nonexistent, perhaps not entirely imaginary, surface on which to stand in the raging ethereal torrent. This appearance of normalcy seemed to further calm its distress and as Mar began to draw it through the years, it raised its head and began to walk, though there was nothing there to walk upon. When they reached their destination and exited undertime, Horse responded to the change with hardly a shiver of its withers.
Mar cleared the glamour from its eyes and again patted its neck. "Good, Horse. You did good."
FOURTEEN
On a warm spring day in the Imperial year 1313 (After the Founding of the Empire) -- for some reason Aehrfhaen custom forbade the counting of the years -- Mar rode Horse up the main avenue of Lhorvhavhen and stopped at the shuttered iron gates of the massive edifice that was the Central Assembly Hall of the Most Honorable Order of Architects. After tying Horse to a bronze ring on a provided iron hitching post, he went through the process of dusting off his clothes (applying just the right amount of road dust to suggest a long ride had taken considerable experimentation). Reasonably clean, he then took two large satchels from behind Horse's saddle and looped the straps over his shoulders. Without the spells that he had added to the black leather, the loads would have staggered him. Moving with confidence, he walked up to the four keen-eyed guards that stood watching him. All were swordsmen, but all wore lightweight dark blue livery in the airy Aehrfhaen style rather than leathers. They idled in the shade of an awning to stay out of the beaming sun, but none looked slovenly, distracted, or bored.
Thief (The Key to Magic Book 7) Page 6