The general looked briefly at Aetria, whose facial expression conveyed pleading denial, and then looked back to Corerilla's defiant glare. “Aetria told me she could detect stored Power in sorcerers,” Sonja said matter-of-factly. “I was able to use that skill to avoid the Hermanian sorcerers and their assassins."
"She told you she could detect stored Power?” Corerilla shouted, disbelief and joy in her face.
"That is what I said, Counselor. I am not in a habit of repeating myself to people. Do you have any more questions?"
The silence that followed Sonja's voice crashed down around the room as the Magi stared in shock at the general. Did she realize she had just proven the charges against her captain? Aetria had gone numb. Through the ringing in her ears she dimly heard Corerilla cough, then say, “Yes, I have several more. Were you aware Sorceress Aetria was using the source given to her?"
"How would I know that? I am not a sorcerer, so I couldn't sense a source being opened. I never saw her open the source or even get it out. I am aware that two sorcerers have said she did, but they are both believed dead."
Why is Sonja doing this to me? She condemns me, then defends me in the next breath?
"One last question for you, General. In the fight at the tavern, at whom was Pleates’ dagger thrown? If he was after General Mythrian, he could have killed Mythrian before being ‘kissed’ by him as you reported."
"That's true, he could have. He was throwing at Aetria. I stepped in front of her thinking I could deflect it. I couldn't."
"Thank you, General. I have no more questions."
"Well, I have a lot more statements I could make,” Sonja said, looking at Corerilla as if to challenge her into asking more questions.
"I will let my esteemed colleague Magess Trelana use those statements for her defense. You have been most helpful, General."
"I only seek the truth, Counselor, the whole truth."
The two women's eyes never broke contact during their last exchange.
Yes, a challenge has been delivered, but too late for me.
"Leader Meldoran, I have no more witnesses to call. I am prepared to give my summary."
"I would have a short recess before you do, Counselor. Some of our younger members need to stretch their legs after sitting for so long. We will reconvene in a half hour."
The Magi quickly filed out of the room, leaving Aetria sitting alone facing Sonja. Neither spoke for several minutes. Aetria daubed her eyes. She knew the general was on her side, at least she thought Sonja was.
"She was going to call you as a witness, Sorceress—” Sonja's voice was quiet; sounding almost lost in the now-deserted room. “And she would have asked you if you could sense stored Power. She would not be allowed to call you as a witness in the King's Code, as you cannot be made to incriminate yourself. Under your Council rules, she could have. You would have confessed, wouldn't you?"
Nodding her head, Aetria choked back a sob.
"You must reach down in yourself and find that sorceress who rode for three days straight with no rest, then threw a dagger into the throat of my most dangerous enemy. Ask her if she is the same woman about to be destroyed by Corerilla before her masters. I don't think she is. You must bide your time, allow the witch to take her cut at you, but do not worry that the wound will be fatal. It will be only if you let it. Now, where in this building can a woman relieve herself?"
* * * *
"I will start by reminding the Council of the three charges Adept Pleates has made against Sorceress Aetria: improper use of the Power, disregarding sanctions placed on her by the Council, and high treason. We have the testimony of General Borlock that Aetria confessed to her that she could sense stored Power in sorcerers and demonstrated that ability by avoiding capture from numerous sorcerer-led assassin units searching for them.
"We have the testimony from Magess Trelana that her student, Aetria, could sense an aura of Power after her first grid burnout. The belief was that it would fade. Aetria was warned to report any changes in her spell casting which Trelana said Aetria never did. Aetria lied to her mentor when she told Trelana the aura sensing had faded as she was told it would. I believe the first two charges have been proven to be valid by what we have heard from the witnesses."
Without hearing my view of the charges, I guess you are right, Aetria thought.
Corerilla had stopped to review her notes on that scroll. Aetria didn't think the Counselor needed that aid; she was just pausing for the dramatic effect.
"On the last charge, I took you back to Aetria's early childhood to prepare my case for her actions. You heard how Aetria was a persecuted little girl, shunned by her village, at odds with the people. I would suggest to you that she grew up hating her villagers and plotting revenge. She volunteered to join the Delmathian army and was, in fact, one of the earliest sorcerers to do so. She went out amongst the enemy without the permission of her commanding officer, and later, realizing her error, convinced her commander to continue to allow her to do so.
"This gave her the opportunity to establish contact with the enemy. We have heard from the Saphradean commander that he was expecting the elephant attack, having been warned by someone in the Delmathian army. If General Borlock had not saved the day with her usual brilliant tactics, the Royal Guard would have been crushed and Delmathia would probably have lost the day, if not the war."
Now I see where she was going with those questions, Aetria thought in astonishment. She looked at Sonja, hoping to see disbelief in her General's eyes. She saw intense interest.
Corerilla begin to pick up speed, the story building on itself. “Commander Pleates felt sorry for the girl, and risking his career, took responsibility for her ‘mistake’ which was not at all what it was. He sent her to Inhestia. She has developed an untested ability, and hides it, for four years. She gets turned down for candidacy for Adept and gets very angry and upset. She is sent back into the army. She thwarts the orders of her commander, opposes him before his staff, and by his own words, starts the assault on the Hermanian sorcerers too early.
"She tries to blame his project for the death of his Aggressors, a project that we all have seen in demonstration and find to be a stunning success. He orders her into the safest, most obscure job he can. Her hatred of him builds. He continues to try to salvage her, and believing her to be his best Illusionist, sends her with the general on a very critical mission. She betrays their position, draws the enemy to the general at the last moment, and when Adept Pleates shows up to stop her—which he would have done if the general had not stepped in the way—she kills him. The general believes her spy was Adept Pleates, when all along, it was the viper she had taken to her heart.
"On her way back to Inhestia, Sorceress Aetria has a fellow conspirator take her place with the general's staff, covering her absence from General Borlock's meetings while she rides to Hermania and meets with the commander of the Hermanian Sorcerer Corps—for what purpose we can only guess at. She did not know Adept Pleates had taken the time to document her foibles, and expected her powerful friend, General Borlock, to protect her.
"But there she sits, condemned by the very words of the general on two of the charges against her, and condemned by the witnesses whose testimony you have heard today. I ask for what Adept Pleates has already asked for, swift justice."
CHAPTER 13
Aetria sat on her favorite spot overlooking Inhestia on a small grassy knoll located halfway up the hill rising from the rear of the training lodge's protective walls. She could see over the front gate into the army encampment, watching the steady flow of riders in and out of the camp. Aetria traced the path of the road leading from the front gate, through the camp, and up the hill to the north. She scanned the crest of the hill, watching for the approach of the mystery witness Sonja had sent Lieutenant Valetti hurrying after a week ago. The late summer day's sun was setting; shadows were beginning to cover the training lodge. The air was cooling fast, and soon it would be chilly at night. Right now, it
was pleasant to just sit and think. She turned over in her mind the rush of activities that had occurred over the past week.
After Corerilla's impassioned plea for Aetria's head, Council Leader Meldoran was prepared to start Trelana's defense the very next day. Sonja had once again asserted her will over the Council. She had demanded and received a week's stay, pointing out that the charge of high treason had been made with no advance notice to Aetria's advocate. She said the Magess would need the time to develop a defense. The two of them next spent a day meeting alone in the general's quarters, telling Aetria to spend some time resting and not thinking of the progress of the hearing. A lot easier said than done.
She still saw no movement on the horizon. It had to be soon because the witness was due today. The hearing would reconvene in the morning. The mounting excitement made this waiting so hard. Aetria thought again with pride of the work Coleni and she had done over the last several days. Now Trelana knew of Aetria's new abilities, she had a Mage source of information about spell creation available to answer her questions.
But Trelana was as baffled by the new energy as they were! Aetria smiled when she remembered her despair of ever getting an answer. How easily deterred she was. Trelana, thank the Power, was not. She arranged for Aetria and her sister to secretly visit Engineer Aristes. Aetria could have done so openly, for other than generating a lot of interest by Corerilla in why she was doing so, she was not confined in any way by the general or the Council. Coleni was the problem. They were trying to conceal her identity until the time to reveal it came. They met with the engineer at night, in his home.
* * * *
"Lieutenant Maetria is here to ensure I don't run away, Engineer Aristes. Not that I would, but still..."
"I understand, Aetria. Now, Magess Trelana said you wanted to get some background on sources. Where do I start?"
They were seated in his workshop, perched on stools near a large table that held scattered bits of rock, sheets of soft metal, and several pick-like tools. Delica, Aristes’ lifemate of many years, had shown them into the workshop with the grace of a woman used to guests at all hours of the night.
Aetria picked up a piece of stone off the workbench, looking at it with interest.
"How about here? I have seen this kind of rock before but can't remember where."
Aristes glanced into her open hand, seeing the black stone resting in her palm. “You probably remember that from your student visit to our source mine. It is what we use to line your source boxes with. Here, let me show you."
He opened a small chest on the corner of the table and removed a small square box, no bigger than the length of a little finger across the edges. The box was very similar to the one that enclosed Pleates’ source. Aristes opened it and tipped the box so the two women could see inside.
"Here you see the shield stone, as we call it, that has been crushed and pressed into place inside the box. We glue the powder in place, then cover it with soft leather. The leather is what you normally see around the source. The shield stone is what keeps the Power from leaving the box unless you open it."
"How did you ever figure that out?” Aetria said in wonder.
"We didn't have to really.” Aristes reached into the chest again and removed a black stone about the size of an eye. He placed the stone in a small vise and locked it in. “Brace yourself, Aetria, I am going to chip off a piece of this raw source."
He picked up a small hammer from the table and struck the edge of the rock. A black chip flew off the stone, exposing the bright green of a source. Aristes noticed both women flinched with the Power that streamed from the source.
"Here.” Aristes picked up the flake from the table and handed it to Aetria. She turned it over and over in her fingers. There was a trace of green on the inside of the chip, and she could faintly feel the Power it gave off. She could also feel the new energy streaming from the chipped source in the vise. Catching Coleni's eye, she saw her sister also felt the new energy. Aetria handed the black chip to Coleni.
"More often than not we find sources completely covered by the shield material. We have to chip away the black stone to expose the source. We save the chips and crush them into powder. So you can see we didn't have to discover how the shield material works. Now, here is something even more interesting."
Aristes searched around the top of the workbench until he found the tool he needed. It looked like a small ax. He placed the blade on the rock, moving it back and forth until he had positioned it exactly where he wanted it. He then struck the back of the ax with a hammer. The rock split, the two pieces falling onto the table. The two women shrieked and fell backwards away from the table. Aristes looked on stunned.
The women rolled away and stood up almost simultaneously, looking at each other in total surprise.
"Are you all right?” Aristes asked anxiously.
Aetria laughed nervously, brushing the dust and dirt from her robe. She pointed at the source. “What is that?” Both women edged slowly in to see it better.
"Lieutenant Maetria is a sorceress, isn't she?” Aristes asked Aetria. She nodded.
"I saw her flinch when I exposed the source material, but I don't understand why you both reacted to splitting the source."
"Neither do I, Engineer. What is that red rock?” The new energy was streaming from the red rock. The red rock is the reason! Aetria thought. When the engineer split the source, the shock of the energy was what startled them so badly.
"We call it core material. It is always at the center of a source. It is softer than any of the three kinds of materials we have found with the sources. Let me put these away.” He put the split rock into the small chest and closed the lid. The women returned to their previous positions.
"We have found that, after splitting the source, if we heat the pieces in a furnace, the red stone melts and flows away from the source. We recover the source pieces and traditionally have thrown the red sludge away. We then break the source material up and glue it together in a solid ball. The bigger the source, the more source material we use to make the ball. All sources are made that way."
"All sources?” Aetria asked, remembering the strength of the new energy coming from student sources.
"No, I guess you are right. I don't consider student sources as real sources since their Power is so weak. For student sources we use the smallest source modules we find. We do not split the source and melt out the red stone. We just chip off the shield material to expose the source."
Glancing at Coleni, Aetria received a nod from her sister and looked back at Aristes. “Do you have a student source available? I'd like to see it if you do, Engineer."
Aristes got up from his stool and walked over to a larger chest by the far wall of his workshop. He opened the lid and rummaged around inside the deep chest. The two sisters could sense the Power when he opened a shielded box and pulled out a student source. He presented it to Aetria. She took it tentatively, as if it would bite her.
I could never wear one of these again with that new energy constantly buzzing in my mind.
She handed it over to Coleni, who gave it a quick glance and returned it to Aetria.
"Magess Trelana told me Pleates’ Adept spell was the destruction of sources. She said he exploded one for the Council, but that no other Aggressor could duplicate it. Do you have any reason why that is so?” Aetria asked the engineer.
"I, myself, saw him do it at least three times. He would give his Aggressor audience a long-winded explanation about speed of Power release, intensity of spell, paths between grid and natural senses—the usual sorcerer discussion, then he would put a source into a shallow hole in the ground and ask one of them try to explode the source. Nobody could. He would toss in a small fireball and the source would blow."
Aetria rubbed her forehead as if that would help make sense of what she had just heard. “I don't understand how he could do it and others couldn't. I have another question. You said ‘traditionally have thrown the red sludge away
.’ What has changed your mind about tossing it?"
"Adept Pleates wanted the red sludge for his projector weapons."
"Tell me about the projector. What is in that box at the end?"
Putting the piece of source back into the chest, Aristes hesitated to answer. Aetria wondered if she had pushed the engineer too far.
"The box is lined with shield material. In the center is a ball of red core material. There is a hole in the bottom of the box through which the Aggressor sends a spell. There is a hole in the top of the box where the spell exits. It is a very simple design."
"Trelana told me several months ago that Pleates had done something to the weapons after you had made them. Have you been able to figure out what it was?” Aetria asked the engineer.
The older man rubbed his eyes with one large hand. “Not until we got into the weapons brought back by the Novices. After the battle, I built several more projectors to Pleates’ original design. The Aggressor Novices he had trained then tried to make the new projectors work. They couldn't. They spelled in a fireball and nothing came out. I got permission to dismantle one of the projectors and discovered he had placed a thin sheet of source material across the inside of the bottom hole. He mixed in some of the red sludge with it. I guess I have not been able to make it in the correct proportions yet because the few projectors I tried to make using his modifications have exploded violently."
"Exploded—just like I said happened on the hill. Anyone hurt?"
"No. Lieutenant Fernonia was shielded by armor plating. She spelled in the fireball and ducked. A few moments later, it exploded."
"Yet her weapon still works?” Aetria asked.
"Both hers and my son's work fine."
"And how is Novice Belanar these days?"
"Lieutenant Belanar is doing very well. Like Fernonia, he has been promoted to lieutenant in the Sorcerer Guard. Unlike Fernonia, with the war ended, he is talking about leaving the guard and returning to work with me. She is going to stay in the guards."
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