The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic

by Emily Croy Barker

  “Were they happy together?”

  “Not particularly.” His mouth hardened for a moment. “But I am digressing again. My sister had just been married when I learned that I would not be going away to Lord Boena or even Lord Inos. My father had determined that he could not afford to send me anywhere at all.

  “He felt I should stay home and manage the estate. I was smaller than my brothers had been at that age—they used to call me the piece of string, because I was so thin. It would be a waste, my father said, to train me as a knight.

  “My mother did not disagree outright. But she said, ‘Aruendiel has a good mind. He has always been quicker than his brothers. He would benefit, I think, from further study.’ She was thinking of wizardry school. There were quite a few, in those days. A wizard in need of funds would board pupils in his house and undertake to beat some spells into their heads in exchange for a dozen beetles or so. ‘It is always useful to have a wizard in the family,’ my mother said. One of her great-uncles had been a wizard, although rather an indifferent one.

  “My father was not convinced, at first. Wizardry was not altogether respectable. Anyone could be a wizard, if he was clever enough. I myself thought it was a terrible idea. My own thought was that I could go to sea as a cabin boy on a warship.

  “My mother prevailed, however. The only thing that made it palatable in the smallest way was knowing that I was to be prepared to do something my brothers could not do. So I went away to wizardry school at Norus-on-the-Lok, three days’ ride from here. It was run by a wizard named Odl Naxt out of his house—not a large house, either. Only one of the boys came from any kind of noble family—the youngest son of Lord Evarnou. The other pupils were the sons of merchants or manor-farm tenants, and one was just a peasant boy whose father brought over some vegetables every week for his tuition. I was pained to think that I would be trained for the same calling as these clods.

  “The first weeks of school we did nothing but memorize and recite. Odl Naxt used to mumble, and coming from his mouth, even the geography of hell sounded as dull as the cow pasture outside. I had just about decided that I had had enough of this experiment when our teacher finally felt that that we might work one small spell.

  “It was an elementary levitation spell—”

  “Which one?” Nora asked.

  Aruendiel gave a quick half nod, as though the question pleased him. “One of Morkin’s. The invocation was to a spirit called Blood-Streaked Appalling Vermiform Putrescence. An apt description, according to my friend Abuka Lier, who once saw it materialize.

  “At any rate, I tried the spell four times and failed, and then, the fifth time, a stone that I would have had trouble shifting with my own hands rose into the air and rested there as solidly as though it were still lying on the ground. I felt a sort of joy at this new power, and I thought then that perhaps the study of magic might be worth my time and attention after all.”

  “Five tries?” Nora asked, all innocence.

  “In the practice of wizardry—which you are spared,” Aruendiel said, with a lift of his eyebrows, “it is not just the words that matter, it is how you say them. The tone, the pronunciation, the rhythm. There is a whole series of spells that must be sung to be effective—I had a terrible time with them at school, until my boy’s voice had finished turning into a man’s.”

  “Was this one of those spells?”

  “It was not. Have you heard enough of this story, then?”

  “No! Go on. You decided to stay at the school—” she prompted.

  “Yes, I stayed. As it turned out, Naxt was not as great a hack as some of the wizards who go into teaching. He had worked for Baron Brodre, so he knew something of how magic is practiced at a great lord’s court. We learned our share of the kind of simple, utilitarian spells that even a village wizard would know—how to keep milk from souring and the like—but also we also learned more complex magic as well. Some military spells, illusions, basic transformations, spells of influence and dissimulation. Naxt had a library of a dozen books or so, which was not bad for a school like that, and he corresponded with one or two wizards around the kingdom, so he had some knowledge of the latest developments in the practice of magic.

  “Naxt was the sort of wizard who, without being very successful himself, had known many wizards who were, and he had some little story to tell about each of the prominent wizards of the time—how Firga Bearsnout had a charm against poisoning tattooed over his liver or how he, Naxt, had watched Jhonin the Drunk turn back a flooding river with his handkerchief. So we green boys learning spells to cure gout could think ourselves connected to that community of great wizards who shaped the destiny of kingdoms or did magic that no one had ever done before.

  “I stayed there for almost four years. At that point, I could have set myself up as a fairly competent general wizard in some town like Stone Top, as most of Naxt’s other pupils planned to do. That prospect chilled me. My brother Dies was by now a seasoned warrior who had helped capture Quouth the year before and won a commendation from the king. Even more galling, Aruendic had been in battle twice and acquitted himself well. I had no interest in living in ignoble obscurity while my brothers went on to win honor and renown.

  “But something had happened that changed my family’s situation dramatically. My father’s last living brother died of a fever, leaving only a daughter, my cousin Yirnosila, a child of ten, who was quickly betrothed to my brother Dies.”

  “That’s worse than what they did to your sister,” Nora said.

  “Dies and Yirnosila were not married until some years later,” Aruendiel said, a little stiffly. “But what I am getting at is that my family’s fortunes were suddenly much improved. My brother Dies would now have the estate in Sar Lith, which would leave my mother’s estate, the Uland, for my brother Aruendic. My own expectations were not changed, but now there was more money to pay for my education.

  “I was wild to become a knight. My father could now afford to send me to Lord Boena’s court—and I was no longer the undersized boy that I had been at thirteen. I was as tall as my father. But he was skeptical. ‘Do you mean to abandon your magical training?’ he asked. I think he was aggrieved to think that the gold he had spent at Naxt’s school might have been wasted.

  “Then Odl Naxt came to my father with a proposition. He told my father that he had taken the liberty of writing to another wizard on my behalf. From time to time, Naxt said, his correspondent would take on a young wizard for a sort of advanced apprenticeship—choosing only candidates of exceptional magical talent and excellent birth. I was certainly Naxt’s star pupil, except perhaps for the peasant boy, who was obviously unfitted for a position close to a high-ranking nobleman. Naxt had described my rank and my abilities and the fact that I had trained under him, Odl Naxt, and the other wizard was willing to grant me an audience.

  “My father was not entirely pleased to hear that Naxt had taken it upon himself to tout my capabilities to an unknown wizard. ‘Who is this man?’ he asked.

  “Naxt was clearly very proud of himself. ‘It is my old colleague Lord Burs,’ he said. Of all the wizards that Naxt could have mentioned, Lord Burs was perhaps the only one whose name would carry weight with my father. He came from an old family—not quite as old as ours, but old enough—and was one of the king’s best-trusted advisers. Yet he was also independent-minded enough so that when King Tern launched an idiotic feud with the duke of Cliem, Burs refused to enter the hostilities. After the king’s defeat, Burs brokered the peace and returned to royal favor. My father respected him, even if Burs was a wizard, because he was neither a lackey nor a bearer of grudges. Burs was also considered one of the three most powerful men in the kingdom, including the king—and some put Burs ahead of him.

  “So my father consented for me to travel to Blesn, Burs’s seat, for an audience. When I arrived at his castle, Lord Burs quizzed me for a few minutes—how would I counter the Deesk silencing curse; how would I compose a spell to appeal to a spirit of th
e Scabrous house; how would I move an army across a river in the shortest possible time? And then when I had answered his questions, which were simple enough, he said, ‘Let us see how you sit on a horse.’ He ordered me a fresh mount, and we set off and did not stop until we pulled up in front of the king’s tent the next morning, just before the battle of Raitornikan.”

  “How do you counter the Deesk silencing curse?” Nora asked.

  “You write the counterspell on a piece of paper and burn it,” Aruendiel said. “And there are a hundred ways of moving an army across a river—I think I told him I would raise the river out of its bed and let the army march under it. In practice,” he added, “I found later that the mud on the river bottom can slow the men down considerably.”

  “What about the Scabrous spirit?”

  “Fornication,” Aruendiel said detachedly. “Scabrous demons are attracted by the sight and sounds of fornication. I was still very young. I told Lord Burs I would use a couple of cats.”

  He took a sip of wine and cleared his throat. “I was extremely fortunate to become Lord Burs’s assistant. There was no better education in wizardry. During campaigning season we traveled with the king’s army, so I had a matchless opportunity to see Lord Burs in action. He was a master at tactical magic. I learned from him the overlooked value of subtlety in war.”

  Seeing that Nora looked blank, he went on, “Commanders often assume that a magic-worker can win the battle for them. They tell their magician or wizard, ‘Turn the enemy into frogs,’ or some such thing, and then they are disappointed and angry when the spell does not work—because the wizard or magician on the other side has already put into place a counterhex to ward off the transformation spell. This is one reason why generals have a strong distrust of wizards and magicians. In fact, most military magic is essentially defensive in nature—a good practitioner will anticipate the big magical attacks that the other side launches, and will defend against them, allowing his soldiers to fight without interference.

  “Lord Burs was very good at that sort of thing, but his real genius was in casting smaller, less predictable spells that threw the enemy off balance or otherwise gave our side an advantage. At that first battle I saw, Raitornikan, he rendered some—not all—of the enemy’s runners deaf and mute so that they could not deliver orders to the front lines. The wizard on the other side did not even realize what had happened until after the battle was lost. At the battle of Barrel Hill, Lord Burs moved the tower that Lord Diven was trying to take—moved it to the enemy’s rear, so that Diven’s troops, after breaking through our lines, had to turn around and fight back through them.

  “When we were not on campaign, we were at Blesn, which was another sort of education. Lord Burs kept a rather grand court, second only to Semr. I learned something of the polish that one normally picks up as a knight in training. Swordplay, dancing, how to speak in company—how to speak to women,” he added. Then, more briskly: “I never went in for poetry, although it was all the rage, or for playing the gensling—I had neither talent nor interest. I did learn how to drink and gamble like a gentleman, and then, more slowly, how to do neither to excess.

  “The other thing that I learned from Lord Burs—he was one of the few wizards who still composed some of his own spells. Most spells had been written generations before. Good wizards made it their business to collect as many as possible. But from Lord Burs I also learned how to conjure up spirits and bind them to do my will in spells of my own writing. Demons, mostly. Sometimes human ghosts.

  “I stayed with Lord Burs for almost five years. By the time I was twenty-two I had come into my full powers as a wizard, and I was ready to make my own way in the world. I began by working for one of my old master’s allies as house wizard, and then I moved to Semr and set myself up as an independent practitioner. I worked mostly for a small group of noblemen close to the king, going to war at their side or handling other assignments.” He laughed suddenly. “Curing their gout, if need be.

  “Occasionally I worked for the king. Usually he relied on Lord Burs, his old friend—but I could see the day was coming when Lord Burs, who was over sixty, would be less interested in riding all night to fight a battle the next day, and then it would be me going to war under the royal standard. Wizards do not live any longer than ordinary men, you know,” he added.

  “Unlike magicians,” Nora said.

  “Unlike magicians,” Aruendiel echoed moodily. After a moment, with a twitch of his shoulders, he continued: “I came to know all the other wizards of the kingdom, those of my generation and those older, and none of them was any better than I was. The most powerful men in the kingdom sought me out—I had my pick of interesting magical problems. My purse was heavy. I bought horses and books and fine armor. One day, I thought, the king would award me a great estate, or I would marry an heiress, but for the moment I was content enough. There were plenty—well, you would not know it now,” he said, a little awkwardly, “but I was considered a handsome man then. Women found me pleasing. I fell in love and out of love and made sport with them as often as I could.”

  Aruendiel coughed, bemused to find himself saying these things to her.

  Nora was nodding. “Mmm, I can imagine,” she said in so knowing a tone that Aruendiel looked at her in mild surprise. She flushed. “Well, I found a letter of yours in one of those notebooks. I don’t think it was ever sent. You were going to send some money to a friend of yours to pay a gambling debt, and there was also a discussion of some ladies named Lark and Frishi. It was very—candid.”

  “You read one of my private letters?” Aruendiel said.

  “I read everything in those notebooks,” she said virtuously, “looking for the spells you wanted.”

  He grunted. After a moment he shook his head. “Lark and Frishi—I cannot recall them. Whom was the letter addressed to?”

  “Someone named Goffil. You talked about a battle near the Pir River, and you said that you would be back in Semr as soon as you finished off the old ox.”

  “The old ox?” Aruendiel repeated, sitting upright. Nora looked at him: There was something wary in his gray eyes, a startled animal dodging away into cold mist. “The letter was never sent?”

  “I don’t think so. Why, what happened? Did the old ox win the battle?”

  “He lost it.”

  “Oh. And he was—?”

  “Lord Els of Haarevl—his family crest was a crowned ox.” With Nora looking at him expectantly, Aruendiel frowned and made himself go on, stacking up facts like bricks: “He had allied himself with the Pernish pretender. I was advising Prince Totl and his allies. We pursued Els along the Pir for some days, and yes, he lost the battle.”

  “But you never sent the letter,” Nora said.

  “It’s possible,” he offered, “that I realized I would return to Semr before the letter would arrive there.”

  Nora nodded. “Go on,” she urged. “I interrupted again. Anyway, it sounds as though you were having a wonderful time back then.” She could not quite rinse a shade of sarcasm from her voice.

  “Those were heady days,” he agreed. It was pleasant to recall them, even while reflecting what a blind and cocksure fool he had been. “The only thing that clouded those years was the death of my father. My brothers divided his titles and estates. There was nothing for me, but I had already achieved a greater position than either of them.” He added: “I would see Dies and Aruendic at Semr when they came to sit in the Assembly. Normally they would take precedence over me, a landless younger brother—I had no seat myself—but I was usually up on the dais with the king and the highest lords of the kingdom.”

  “How did they like that, your brothers?”

  “Dies and I were always on the best of terms. Aruendic—well, if he ever tried to hide his resentment, he did a poor job of it. I did not help, particularly.” Aruendiel laughed quietly. “I was brash, I baited him when I could, and he did likewise. We brawled on the quay in Semr in broad daylight once, after Aruendic made a gibe a
bout the cowardice of wizards.

  “There is always this idea among the knights,” he added with some warmth, “that wizards and magicians are not real warriors, because they rely on magic, because they do not fight with steel. But I carried a sword into battle, and most of the time, I had occasion to use it.”

  “Mmm. What about your sister? What was she doing?”

  “My sister? Busy with her children. I visited her at Forel a few times.”

  He was quiet for a moment, curling his fingers around the empty goblet, tilting it back and forth against the table. “Gradually, though, I became aware that something was not quite right.”

  Another pause. “Something not quite right with your sister?” Nora prompted.

  “Oh, that—but no, I was thinking about magic. It had become a sort of open secret among magic-workers that wizardry was in decline. No one was writing spells as complicated or powerful as those from the distant past. Some famous spells had stopped working altogether. You remember passing through Old Semr?”

  “The ruined city.”

  “That was a city built with magic. When I was young, people were still talking about rebuilding Old Semr. It was one of those perennial topics at court—what would the rebuilt city look like, how would the king pay for it, what sort of defenses should it have? The real question, though, was how the city would be rebuilt, and that was discussed only among wizards. No one was powerful enough to re-create the charms that had held Old Semr’s stones together.

  “We had lost some essential knowledge of how to deal with the spirits that powered our spells. The wizards of my day could not command spirits the way the wizards of the distant past had. The more powerful demons had stopped responding to our calls at all. They broke their old covenants, and we could not punish them, and so our spells—some of them—became worthless.

  “It was not something that I thought about very often. I was too busy, too happy, and most of the time, my powers were more than ample for the tasks I set them to. But occasionally I was aware that—for all the victories that I won, the ingenious and powerful spells that I worked, the fame that I earned—I had become preeminent in an art that might be dying.”