The Wandering Mage (Convergence Book 2)

by Melissa McShane

  Funny, that reminded me of some of my entries in the sixth book, where I was going to Cederic for everything and never realized I was falling in love with him. Not that I’m falling in love with Mattiak. I like talking to him, but I’m not attracted to him and he’s far too old for me. It’s just that we often end up talking about Cederic, so I come back from our dinners remembering things about my husband, especially memories that look different when I realize he was secretly in love with me. That trip by loenerel to Colosse, when he was always the one to come for me when it was mealtime, and I thought it was because he was trying to give me privacy to keep my book hidden, but it was actually because he was attracted to me and trying to work out how he felt.

  Damn it. Now I’m crying. I thought I was past doing that.

  My spies learned quickly from their first lesson and none of them were blinded last night. Rutika even managed to duck inside a wall when I “caught” her. Tonight I’m going to have them retrieve their first piece of “information”—a vase I borrowed from one of the sitting rooms and concealed in an unused bedroom. Oh! That reminds me, that bastard Norsselen claimed the best rooms for himself and his cronies, which is why we ended up in the old servants’ quarters. We’re not moving, of course, but it still makes me mad.

  27 Nevrine

  1. Forty-two mages with the fire pouvra, minimum range 155 yards, maximum 600.

  2. Thirty-nine mages with the mind-moving pouvra, range 729 yards (way to go, Saemon!), minimum weight 65 lbs. “maximum” 425 lbs. (This number increases every day.)

  3. Eight mages being trained as spies, minimum time insubstantial 1 min. 48 sec., maximum 3 min. 26 sec. Still working on the non-magical skills. Rutika continues to need greater challenges. I don’t know if she realizes how good she is.

  4. Two mages with the flitting pouvra. It’s incredible. It feels like flying.

  Dinner with Mattiak again. He wasn’t as excited about our progress as I thought he’d be, but then I learned he’d had an argument with King and Chamber today about moving the army toward Hasskian that had ended with the King accusing him of disloyalty and Mattiak storming out without being dismissed.

  I expressed my concern about what the King might do to him, and he said, “I’d have to attempt to assassinate him before he’d do anything truly punitive to me. They don’t have anyone else who can command the army. Not that it takes much skill to tell soldiers to sit on their asses and do nothing.”

  “Is there any more news of the G—the invading army’s progress?” I said.

  “Hasskian must have fallen by now,” he said. “I expect a messenger tomorrow. And there’s nothing I can do about it but continue to press my case and try to convince the King moving the army will do more to protect him than having it camp outside Venetry’s walls.”

  “It’s too bad there isn’t a way to get news instantaneously,” I said, remembering Lineta and her talk about the “Firtha thanest” communication.

  “Are you sure there’s not?” he said, and I laughed before I realized it was a serious question.

  “Sorry,” I said. “It’s like I’ve told you before, Mattiak: there could be pouvrin to do anything we can imagine, but nobody knows how to create one. We have to depend on people either spontaneously manifesting them when they become mages, or finding them in old books. And there’s just no time for study.”

  “I know,” he sighed. “I don’t want you to think I’m not grateful for what you can do, Sesskia. It’s hard for me to do nothing, and I start groping for anything to keep myself from feeling helpless.”

  “I understand that feeling,” I said.

  “It must be difficult for you, unable to continue your search for your husband,” he said.

  “Well, you made a good point about it being easier for him to find me if I stay put,” I said, “much as it makes me impatient.”

  “I’ll keep you informed about the situation to the east as I receive information,” he said, “which I realize isn’t much, but it’s all I can do at the moment. It’s dangerous out there right now.”

  “I appreciate it,” I said. I really do. If the God-Empress has captured Hasskian, and is on the move again, our communication with the east will be entirely cut off. And, as I told Mattiak, I am so impatient, all the time. I throw myself into training so I’ll be too exhausted to think about what might have happened to Cederic and my friends. I wonder if Terrael has come to terms with the loss of his magic. I wonder how he and Audryn are bearing up under what must be the terrible stress of her still having magic when he doesn’t. I wonder if anyone’s trying to fix the locator kathanas.

  Time to meet with my spies. Mattiak sent Nessan back with me after dinner. That strange uniform he wears? It means he’s a member of an elite military force, the White Squads, that are trained for infiltration and assassination. Nessan is going to put the spies through the training course his force uses. I’m afraid he might kill them by accident, but with the knowledge that the God-Empress is advancing, I think the time for coddling them is past.

  Chapter Seventeen

  28 Nevrine, dawn

  I didn’t realize, when Nessan said he’d be putting the spies through the training course, that he was including me in the group. I hadn’t even thought about it, hadn’t really thought about what I’d be doing when it comes time for combat, because so much of my efforts have been directed toward teaching the other mages. But the truth is I’m still a better thief than I am at any of the individual pouvrin; despite my range with the fire pouvra, my skill seems to be my ability to learn pouvrin quickly and, if the binding pouvra is any indication, I might be good at creating them from th’an. None of which is as useful to the military as my ability to sneak into places where people might try to kill me.

  And the course is brutal. Nessan believes in treating every exercise as if it’s the real thing—smart, I think, at least in principle. In reality, it makes for painful training. I had to use every trick I know and the flitting pouvra to keep from being caught by his traps. The pouvra surprised him, and I think he would have called it an unfair advantage if he believed in such things. He’s more suspicious and paranoid than I am, squeezes every ounce of advantage out of whatever situation he’s in, and I really like him, the sneaky bastard.

  My spies weren’t so lucky; all of them were caught at some point, though Nessan approves of Rutika, or at least that’s how I interpret his being harder on her than the others. They’ve all learned things, and what I’m happiest about is knowing they won’t ever be caught by those traps again. Other ones, that’s a different story. I’m satisfied with their ability to move quietly, though Nessan’s not going to let up until they can walk across five feet of dry leaves with hardly a crackle. (I wouldn’t bother doing it stealthily. I’d make it sound like I was a harmless squirrel.)

  When we were done, Nessan just grunted and walked away, saying over his shoulder, “Tonight again. Don’t eat so heavily, you were all moving like pigs in wallow.” I think that means he doesn’t completely despair of us, or he wouldn’t come back. So that’s something, anyway.

  I’m going to have to figure out a way to get more sleep, if I’m going to be training mages all day and training spies all night.

  28 Nevrine, night

  Mages doing very well. I wish the army would move out, because we’re getting to the point where they’re going to lose their edge if they don’t have some new challenges. Jeddan and I have been trying to figure something out. Asked Mattiak for suggestions, and he said maybe it was time for them to train with the regular army. Maybe not tomorrow, but the day after; tomorrow I have to get some sleep, even if it means staying behind while they all go practice.

  Dinner was tense. Mattiak still fighting with King and Chamber. Says Crossar is speaking in favor of Mattiak’s strategy, but Jakssar doesn’t want to interfere and the other two are as scared as the King. Hasskian fell on 25 Nevrine and the God-Empress’s army is on the move. I asked (obliquely) what would happen if Mattiak ordere
d the army to move out, and he said, “If I survived the conflict, I’d be executed for treason.”

  “That seems unfair, if you saved the country,” I said.

  “An army more loyal to its general than its King is Garran Clendessar’s worst nightmare,” he said. “With the control I have over the army, I could easily take the throne, and if I went against the King’s express command, it would be a sign that that’s exactly what I had in mind. It wouldn’t matter that I have no interest in ruling Balaen. The King would have to send a message to anyone else who might think to do the same thing.”

  “But he’s in more danger if we wait until the invading army is at our door,” I said. “Why doesn’t he see that?”

  “He doesn’t understand how warfare is conducted, and he is afraid,” Mattiak said. “And that’s all I can say on the subject, Sesskia.” I knew his abruptness covered his frustration at not being able to speak freely words that would also be considered treason, so I didn’t take offense, but it made everything awkward between us, and I was glad to escape early, with Nessan’s grueling instruction as my excuse.

  I have about twenty minutes before I have to join the others, so I’m going to talk to Jeddan for a few minutes about tomorrow’s training schedule, which I won’t be attending because I need to sleep eventually. I almost wish I had Cederic’s ability to survive on four hours a night, though I doubt he does that when the fate of the world isn’t in the balance. I hope not, anyway. I don’t think I’ll enjoy sleeping cold for half the night, once we’re finally reunited.

  30 Nevrine

  Nothing happened yesterday. I slept for a while, then practiced the flitting pouvra to go to the practice field and back. It’s disorienting. I can flit a few hundred yards, but then I have to pause to find a new point to aim at. Jerussa says it gets easier with practice, but for now I won’t be doing any flitting into enemy territory.

  Today we drilled with the army, though not for very long, all together, because the soldiers were all so fascinated with our magic they kept stopping to ask questions. I had some questions of my own for Mattiak, first of which was “why isn’t everyone terrified of us?” It’s starting to be common for me to have dinner with him, partly because I always report at the right time and also, I think, because Mattiak likes having someone to talk to who isn’t a subordinate or interested only in military matters. The story he told me was so long, I’ve only just now gotten back—it’s nearly nine-thirty in the evening, half an hour or so before Nessan arrives, so I’ll have to sum it up:

  The convergence hit Venetry hard, about as hard as Colosse was hit—physical shocks as well as the pulling everyone felt, and a lot of people thought the world was ending. Then the mages started appearing, and the manifestation of their pouvrin was taken by many to be a sign confirming the apocalypse. A few illogical people concluded if they killed the mages, the destruction would end, and others were just afraid of magic, and still others were victims of the pouvrin (don’t know if those were intentional attacks or not), and that’s how the slaughter began.

  More than three hundred mages were killed that first day. Some mages were sheltered by their families, and others fought their way to safety outside the walls, and the killing became more indiscriminate as society fell apart. It took three days for the city guard to pacify the mob, during which time any other mages who manifested did their best to hide. There weren’t any more mage killings, at any rate.

  It was several days later that the reports from the north, where the Castaviran city had appeared, started to arrive. The news that the invaders also had mages threatened to send Venetry into another cataclysm of violence against anyone suspected of being a mage. The explanation for what happened next was Mattiak’s supposition, because no one knew how it started, but the rumor went around Venetry that Balaen’s mages had been sent by the true God to defend the country against the enemy’s mages.

  Mattiak thinks the rumor was started by a group of people, maybe several mages, because it spread too quickly to have started in only one place, and it reached King and Chamber faster than could be explained even by the speed of gossip. The King latched onto the rumor and decreed mages were to be protected, and all mages were to come to Venetry to assist in Balaen’s defense.

  That was when the second rumor started, which was that the new mages had magic that was different from what everyone had feared, good magic that couldn’t harm anyone who didn’t have evil in their hearts. Not as many people believed that one, but between them, and families who couldn’t believe evil of their own relatives just because they were now mages, and the pragmatists in government who saw mages as a weapon, the majority of Venetrians either aren’t afraid of mages or hide their fear well. And the soldiers we trained with today have seen Castaviran mages in battle, so they see us and our magic as allies.

  I still think it’s odd. Maybe I’m just having trouble forgetting ten years of fear and secrecy, but I think that kind of change of heart is unlikely. Or maybe the city guard is cracking down on anti-mage sentiment harder than I realize, and the people are still afraid of mages but more afraid of what the military can do under martial law. Or maybe I’ve been wrong about the level of fear of mages in the country at large. I don’t know. What I do know is this doesn’t change anything as far as I’m concerned; I’m still not going to flaunt my magic in the city if I can help it. The soldiers do seem genuinely unafraid of us, though, so I could be wrong.

  Anyway, Mattiak set up a drill that was a lot of fun in addition to being a good new challenge. He handed out marked helmets to a bunch of soldiers, then set everyone to practicing swordplay outside the walls. Then he put our mind-movers on the wall and had them fling sponges soaked in paint at the marked targets. The idea is to learn to target specific individuals in a crowd and knock them out without hitting any of our soldiers who might be nearby.

  It was almost too fun, as the soldiers ducked and ran in ways they wouldn’t on the battlefield, and the mages were laughing so hard they sometimes couldn’t control the sponges at all. I wish we had enough colors of paint we could assign one to each mage, to more clearly see how each individual does, but I don’t think there are thirty-nine colors of paint in the world. We have enough to divide the mages into teams tomorrow. I still have reservations about treating this like a game, but Mattiak says there’ll be time enough for them to realize how serious it is.

  Nessan’s divided the spies into two groups; he does stealth training with one while I teach the concealment pouvra to the other, then we switch. He hasn’t had me go through the full course since the first time, which I hope means he doesn’t think I need it. He has had me demonstrate a few techniques, like memorizing the contents of a room to be recalled later, and doing that made me realize how much better my memory has gotten since I started writing all those conversations I had with Terrael and Audryn and Cederic and the others. Though I still think a memory pouvra would be useful.

  Time to join Nessan. I think Relania is close to mastering the concealment pouvra; she’s got the mental flexibility I think all the “old” mages have, or at least that Jeddan and I have as well. Rutika’s not as close, but she’s coming along so quickly in Nessan’s training it almost doesn’t matter. I wonder if I should give them all a talk about not using their new skills to steal things, but it’s possible I’d just be giving them ideas.

  31 Nevrine

  I met with King and Chamber this morning in what I think of as the audience room, the room Jeddan and I saw them in first. This time, I was escorted by a pair of armed soldiers, which would have reminded me uncomfortably of being taken to see the God-Empress all those times if I hadn’t known both of them from our drills. So we made conversation the whole way there, quietly so no one would think they were being unprofessional, and they handed me off to the guards outside the audience room with unsmiling faces.

  After a few minutes of mutual silence, the guards outside the door escorted me into the room and all the way to the black rug. One of them had
whispered, before we entered, “Go to the center of the rug and face the King. If you’re addressed by someone else, turn and bow your head briefly before answering. Don’t forget to address them as Honored.” I’m grateful for that guard. In fact, all the ones I’ve met, even Nessan, have been polite and respectful, and I don’t think it’s because they believe I can kill them with a thought. I’m sure there are venal and corrupt soldiers in the army and the city guard, I just haven’t met them, thank the true God.

  I did as I was instructed and went to face the King. He didn’t have the slightly vacuous smile I’d always seen him wear. Today he looked tense and restless, with his leg crossed over his knee and his fingers thrumming on the arm of his chair. “Sesskia,” he said, “are the mages prepared to fight?”

  I was about to give him an honest answer—they’re never going to be fully prepared, there’s a lot they can still learn—but realized in time he wanted reassurance, not facts. “They’re ready, Honored,” I said.

  “As I assured you, your Majesty,” Crossar said, sounding faintly exasperated, nothing the King could take offense at, but still a clear statement of disapproval.

  “They’re a slender thread to hang a strategy on,” Batekessar said. He was more querulous than usual. Even Crossar, beneath his exasperation, had sounded on edge.

  “You’ve opposed that strategy from the start,” Jakssar said. “Reactionary measures aren’t going to defeat this enemy.”

  “Don’t you call me a reactionary, woman,” Batekessar said. “Not placing our fates in the hands of magickers who’ll turn on us when it suits them is a sound strategy. Balaen’s survived worse than this without the help of magic.” He said “magic” like he might have said “filth.”