The antics of Minalan were, of course, a popular topic. Each of the magi owed the Spellmonger a debt, not just for elevating them to High Mage status by granting them each a shard of irionite, but by supporting them afterwards and keeping the magi, as a profession, somewhat united in the face of a changing world. The astonishing results of last autumn’s magical fare were still on everyone’s mind – the incredibly useful devices and artifacts that Sevendor was beginning to produce had implications that all of them could see.
Not all of them were positive.
“I’ve heard that the Duke of Castal – the new duke of Castal – isn’t as pleased with Min as one would imagine,” Astyral said, at one point. “Did he do something to piss the little brat off?”
“Showed him up at hawking,” Pentandra answered. “He took Lenodara – Dara – and that monster falcon of hers to a royal hunt. The Prince lost a bet to him over it. Then he got humiliated by Min at the frontier, which is why he’s on house arrest, now.”
“Considering every mage in the world wants to show up on his doorstep, I don’t know how much that will annoy Min,” Astyral noted. “Even that delicious little morsel from Timberwatch has been hanging around Sevendor . . .”
“Isily?” supplied Azar, surprised.
“Isily, that’s it – even she’s haunting Sevendor, I hear. And she’s a shadowmage!” he chuckled. “You’d never think they’d be that interested in base enchantment, but Min has really caught everyone’s attention over his advances.”
That was news that made Pentandra anxious, though Astyral delivered it casually enough. Not Minalan’s impressive talent for innovation and thaumaturgy – she was well aware of that.
But Isily was another story.
Isily was worrisome, for a number of reasons. For one thing she was firmly the tool of Queen Grendine, a trained assassin who plied her hidden dagger in the service of the Family. That made her dangerous enough. But she was also a shadowmage, elevated to High Mage status as a direct result of a bribe Minalan had paid the Queen. While Isily had been helpful in the fateful battle of Timberwatch, Pentandra also strongly suspected that it had been she who had cast the spell that ensured that Anguin would become an orphan.
The idea of such a dangerous creature in Minalan’s orbit made Pentandra worry for her friend. But she didn’t want to share her concerns with her colleagues, largely to protect Minalan’s privacy.
Few were aware of how intimate he and Isily were at Timberwatch, and before. Fewer still knew or even suspected that the pretty shadowmage had borne a child from that union, and raised her in secret, away off in Wenshar, to the east. Isily was a cunning and devious mage, as all shadowmagi tended to be, but she compounded that cunning with the authority she had indirectly from the queen and her recent marriage to the doltish wizard Master – no, he was a magelord, now, she reminded herself – Dunselen, former Castali Ducal Court Wizard.
It was a good match, on parchment. She was young, pretty, and well-connected, he was older, mature, and landed, thanks to a string of magically-enabled conquests. The King had even elevated them both to the peerage.
It was Baroness Isily who stalked Baron Minalan, now, and Pentandra had no doubt that Isily meant to cuckold her husband with Min. Minalan, Trygg bless his dopey masculine heart, would have little resistance to the attractive mage, despite his deep and abiding love for his wife. He was just that way. And it was in Isily’s nature to take advantage of a powerful man in a weakened state.
Pentandra had always been wary of the girl, even before she’d met Minalan. Even back at Alar she must have been working for Grendine, Pentandra realized. But she had become a power in her own right, after Timberwatch. Pentandra also suspected that Isily had an unhealthy obsession with Minalan.
She could understand wanting to bed a man in exchange for a witchstone – she’d do it herself, if she’d had to – but Isily’s fascination went far beyond simple self-interest. Or even political maneuvering – Pentandra couldn’t imagine Grendine being deep enough to arrange the kind of schemes that Isily was clearly a part of. The Queen might be ambitious to the extreme, but she did not have a wizard’s subtlety.
No, Pentandra was fairly certain that Isily had designs on her poor friend the Spellmonger. Ever since their last encounter at Sevendor’s Magic Fair the idea haunted her that Isily had plans for Minalan.
The very thought made Pentandra seethe silently while she listened to the news.
“Don’t sell her – or her idiot husband – short, Azar,” Astyral chided. “He’s an utter bore, and worse since he reclaimed his patrimony, but he’s brilliant, in his way. He’s trying to reconstruct the spell that Min used to make that beautiful white mountain of his. He wrote to me, a few months ago, asking for advice on the subject. Very intriguing theory, actually,” Astyral conceded. “ ‘Birth magic’. Not something you see every day. I read his thaumaturgical analysis, and I have to admit, it seems sound.”
“She’s the one I worry about, though,” Azar decided. “Everyone knows Dunselen is an idiot. But Isily? She’s smart – too smart to be doing anything than using the old coot for position,” he predicted, skeptically. “I know her sort.”
“Yes, and he’s using her for something else,” Astyral said, naughtily. “I can’t say I blame him – Isily is quite fair,” he said with an indulgent smile. “I’ve been considering taking a wife myself, and I had to admire his taste when I found out.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t want her – trust me,” Pentandra assured her friends. “I went to Alar with her. She’s pretty but she isn’t . . . particularly loyal,” she decided. “On a personal basis. The queen is another matter, of course.”
“In any case,” Astyral continued, blithely, “Min is doing some impressive work – as your pretty little stick attests. That is some powerful magic, there,” he nodded, reverently.
“It’s lovely,” Pentandra admitted, looking at the baculus with something akin to affection. “I call it Everkeen. It makes the simple spells so much easier. Min put a paracletion spell in it, and I don’t have to do more than think what I want before it’s done.”
“Amazing,” Astyral nodded. “Hopefully he’ll get around to make each of us one. Until then, I’ll have to get along with old fashioned irionite, charm and envy.”
“I’d prefer a mageblade, myself,” Azar sniffed. He found wands and staves effete, if Pentandra remembered correctly. “Hopefully Master Cormoran can adapt the enchantments to something more worthy for battle.”
“Everkeen isn’t a weapon,” Pentandra corrected. “It’s a powerful thaumaturgical baculus. The first of many, I hope.”
“I do, too,” Astyral agreed. “If we all had such tools, we wouldn’t need peasants for labor, and building castles would be easy.”
“Easy might be overstating the problem,” Arborn said, shaking his head. “I saw what went into the pele towers. Even with magic it still took time and many hands, not to mention a small mountain of stone.”
“Excuse me, Mistress,” came a young voice from the door. “Would you like for me to turn your bed down before I retire?”
Pentandra looked up, startled. It was starting to get late, she realized: the sky outside of the window was dark now. “Thank you, Alurra; I’ll see to it myself. Gentlemen, may I present my new apprentice, Alurra. Alurra, these are Astyral and Azar, two magelords of great power and supreme importance.”
“You forgot devilishly handsome,” reminded Astyral. “When did you get an apprentice, Pentandra? I was startled enough to learn you had a husband. A pleasure to meet you, Alurra,” he added, graciously.
Pentandra was pleased to see the girl execute a passable curtsey. “The pleasure is mine, Magelord. If there’s nothing else . . . uh, Mistress? Does that mean . . . ?”
“Yes, you can stay, Alurra,” Pentandra sighed. “At least until the end of the summer, long enough to decide whether I can teach you or not. It will be a lot of hard work, but if you’re willing so am I.”
The g
irl’s face brightened. “Really? Oh, thank you, Mistress!”
“Now off to bed,” Pentandra insisted. “We have a full day tomorrow. And many more after that.”
After Alurra left, Azar gave Pentandra a searching look. “Was it my mistake, or is that girl blind?”
“She is,” Pentandra agreed.
“And you’re planning to teach her magic? When she can’t read?”
“Plenty of illiterates managed to learn magic over the years, Azar,” chided Astyral. “Some even pass the exams.”
“Yes, wild magi,” snorted Azar. “I can’t imagine our Penny training one!”
“It will be a challenge,” agreed Pentandra. “But one worth attempting. The girl has already proven useful, and she has Talent in abundance. She’s already a passable brown mage,” she added.
“Ah, yes, that explains the raven,” nodded Azar. “That makes sense, actually. Where was I? Oh, there was one last thing I wanted to bring to your attention, while we were here,” the warmage said, casually refilling his wine glass. “Not to alarm you, but three of our patrols have come under attack on the edge of the Penumbra in the last few weeks since the thaw.”
“That’s not particularly unusual,” Arborn said, confused. “Doesn’t that happen often?”
“With gurvani, yes,” agreed Azar. “But thrice, now, our men have been beset by the undead. Walking corpses that keep fighting long after you’ve dealt them a killing blow. Yet they fight as well as the men they were, before some necromancer got a hold of them.”
“Well, making undead isn’t exactly novel,” Pentandra pointed out. The spells to raise a corpse to a semblance of life were just as complicated as, say, conjuring an elemental. The effect was temporary, and lasted only as long as the decomposing body maintained its integrity, but if a warmage needed spear fodder on the battlefield, it was a quick expediency.
“Normal undead, true,” Azar reflected. “But these were not normal thaumaturgical undead. They reacted with far more speed and cunning than I’ve ever seen in one before. Their eyes glow red. They are even capable of speech, though they don’t have much to say.”
“That is horrifying,” Pentandra agreed. “I take it the gurvani priests are refining their spells?”
“That’s what I thought, too,” Azar nodded. “But when I did a brief thaumaturgical assay, the signature wasn’t scrug magic. It was Alka Alon.”
“Alka Alon magic?” Pentandra asked, astonished. The Alka Alon were supposed to be the allies of the human race against the gurvani.
“Of a strange sort, but decidedly Alkan,” he agreed. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever encountered before. We captured a few of the vicious bastards, and while they proved unreliable for intelligence, the spells seem to last an obscenely long time compared to what we can manage. They call themselves ‘draugen’, and speak of the Necromancer, but that’s the extent of their conversation. Two of them are still active in my dungeons. The others expired over time, but in the course of weeks, not hours.”
Most undead couldn’t be sustained longer than half a day – before irionite. Even with irionite it was reportedly unusual for a necromancer to achieve the effect for more than a few hours.
“I didn’t think the Alka Alon used . . . necromancy,” Arborn said, concerned, as he tried the unusual word in his mouth.
“They don’t,” Pentandra agreed. “Or, at least the ones we deal with don’t. But there has been a rumor floating around that some old evil has been awakened in the Mindens. I have heard that Korbal the Demon God was freed from his prison. That myth has some credence, from what the Alka Alon have told me.”
“It does,” Arborn assured her, gravely. “And he has been, from what I can tell. Ill news,” he added, before continuing to puff on his pipe.
“Ah, that would explain it, then,” Azar grunted. “And it would also explain why those undead draugen were so insidiously tough. They are guided by some powerful dark force, that much is certain. It could very well be Alka Alon in nature. The draugen, they barely had the ability to speak or react to human beings when questioned, but they certainly reacted to the one they called Olum Danishan.”
“Who is that?” asked Pentandra, curious.
“Apparently it’s an old gurvani phrase,” Astyral answered, conversationally. “For The Necromancer.”
Chapter Twenty
Trouble Brewing
Pentandra had little time over the next few days to pay much attention to the aftermath of the Battle of the Dogs and Rats, as the street minstrels were calling the episode. With the opening of her office and the training of her staff she found herself with little time do much other than contend with her new duties. She had a new apprentice to introduce to her life, too, with little idea of how to accomplish that.
That was just as well, she decided - something about having Sir Vemas and Arborn in the same place, at the same time, concerned her. It was not as if she had encouraged Sir Vemas’ attentions, but neither had she discouraged them. The fact that Arborn did not seem a highly jealous man almost made the situation worse. Burying herself in work was preferable, Pentandra concluded, than wallowing in anxiety and uncertainty.
There was plenty to occupy her attention.
She spent a day apiece with each of her new officers, going over their duties and her expectations of them . . . and heard their list of requirements to perform those duties. In some cases it was as simple as authorizing purchase of parchment, ink and quills, while in other cases generations of custom and procedure better suited to brighter days had to be dealt with.
It was frustrating - far more frustrating than she let on to her subordinates or her new apprentice. Only in the quiet of her bedchamber, late at night, did she reveal her feelings to Arborn. Mostly he just stared back, helplessly, as she related all of her problems to him, though he occasionally offered unhelpful but entertaining suggestions involving ropes.
After his extended journey he had a few days in Vorone while he attended to his own official duties, and for a brief period that late winter they enjoyed a peaceful existence. Without his men living upstairs, their relationship was less strained. Better, Pentandra was relieved that their old passions, forged in the forests of Kasar, were still strong after her flirtation with Sir Vemas.
And better, she decided, now that her husband wasn’t nearly as nervous as he had been on their wedding night. Though he still lacked the subtle skill of a seasoned lover, his strength, need, and passion were more than sufficient to remind Pentandra of the joys of married life.
But in the morning, the stacks of parchment were still lurking there, on her desk.
Arborn was between missions, but they both knew that he would be sent off again, and soon, as the dictates of his office required. As Master of Wood he had duties he could not delegate, and as unofficial ambassador to the Kasari he had to show himself amongst the Narasi yeoman he ostensibly commanded, or they would be hard to govern.
While he was in Vorone, he had command over both his Kasari rangers and the more sinister “Wood Owls” who had joined the Woodsmen’s’ struggle against the remains of the Rat Crew. After Bloodfinger and Opilio died in the bloody street battle, the few thugs from either camp who’d escaped were being ruthlessly hunted down, something Arborn’s half-dozen odd Kasari seemed to delight in.
With Sir Vemas’ guidance the rangers were roaming the streets from twilight to dawn, garbed in long gray cloaks and feathered masks in the guise of owls, their great bows concealed underneath. Arborn had them shadowing the Woodsmen, who were patrolling the dark streets of Vorone at night, picking off the Rats they’d missed - and any enterprising independent operators who might have arisen in their absence. The Crew might have lost strength in the center of town, but there were still footpads and thieves aplenty.
The Duke was pleased, as were the folk of the Merchant and Docks wards. Having the Woodsmen visibly patrol in their strange gear served as both a warning to the Crew and a sign to the townsfolk that a new master ruled the n
ight.
But eventually Arborn would depart again. Likely for even longer, now that the roads were clear of snow. And then she would be alone again. She knew all of this . . . but it was still damn inconvenient that her husband disappeared for days at a time when she needed him here.
If her morning hours were spent untangling the business of her office, her afternoons were spent in service of the wider business of the court. Every day she seemed to have a meeting with a minister or a secretary or some other official who thought she could bring her powers to bear on their problems. Usually she had to politely say no. Few outside of her profession understood enough about how magic worked - and how it didn’t - to appreciate what it could and couldn’t do.
If it wasn’t a business occasion, it was a semi-social one in which business actually occurred. Her regular meetings with the Duke and Father Amus, for instance, were usually conducted over a game or some other social activity. While Father Amus preferred the dreadfully boring game of charges, the Duke preferred chess - her favorite. She enjoyed those meetings as much for Anguin’s boyish enthusiasm and Father Amus’ dry wit as she did for her exposure to her liege.
But too often she found herself at something like the Palace Maidens’ Weekly Tea . . . which had little tea and fewer maidens involved.
Ostensibly the Tea was supposed to inform and instruct the junior ladies of the court on their duties and matters of etiquette, but the event had long ago become the domain of the senior women in the court meeting without male intrusion to exchange gossip and information. The regular meeting was once a routine part of the late Duchess’ schedule, but as there was no Duchess at the moment, Viscountess Threanas had taken over administering the women-only affair.
All the noblewomen of the palace saw the weekly event as an opportunity to show off to their peers and gossip about their betters, and invitations to the event were highly coveted . . . by everyone but Pentandra. She had skipped the first few because of her distance from the palace and her other duties, but she could only delay her attendance so long. Eventually Threanas made a point of insisting she attend.
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