Wild Sorceress

by Margaret L. Carter

  "I could bring in dozens of villagers he has helped through the years, but I won't. I can tell you I have dealt with him for the past five years as a supplier of army provisions, and he is not a cheat, his prices are fair, and his goods are of excellent quality. He did not raise Aetria to hate her village, her king, or her Order. He may have been rejected by the Delmathian people, but he has never rejected them."

  Aetria eyes were now overflowing, and she joined Brusilla in wiping tears away. She glanced behind her and saw Chalinee was sitting taller than she had been.

  "Sorceress Brusilla, I believe you have been telling the truth, but you have not been allowed to tell the whole truth. Do you believe Aetria could betray her people?"

  Taking a calming breath, Brusilla, said, “No, and I am sorry if my jealousy led me to imply that she could."

  "Thank you, Brusilla. You may leave now."

  The smile on Corerilla's lips became a grim line across the bottom of her face. Score one for the general, Aetria thought.

  "I recall Sorceress Felora to give testimony before this hearing."

  Is Sonja going to rebut every one of Corerilla's witnesses? Aetria wondered, as Felora walked into the room and took the familiar chair.

  "Sorceress Felora, do you remember a classmate by the name of Alicia?” the general asked.

  "Alicia? Of course I do. We were in Novice Healer training together."

  "What happened to her?"

  Felora looked around, confused. “Why, I don't know. She disappeared in our final year."

  Sonja walked over to the first table and stood by the end where Novice Welendor stood guard. He glanced at her, wondering if she was going to rip the cloth off the table. She didn't.

  "Please tell what you observed of Alicia's mood prior to her departure from Inhestia."

  Why is the general using Corerilla's exact question from before, only using Alicia's name?

  "She was very happy. She had trouble paying attention to her meditations, and she was...” Felora hesitated.

  "Sneaking out?” Sonja asked.

  Felora nodded.

  "Did you know the true cause of Alicia's happiness?"

  Felora winced. Perhaps she was remembering a week before, Aetria thought.

  "She was in love with someone."

  "Who?"

  "I don't know. She refused to say who or even give hints the way we all did when we had our secret loves. She was very serious about him and protective."

  Leaning up against the table, Sonja crossed her arms across her breastplate. “Protective? Is it forbidden to have a lover at Inhestia?"

  The question brought a murmur of responses from the Magi. Felora flushed at the question.

  "It ... Well, it is not considered proper for students to divert their attention from their studies and is discouraged."

  "Good answer,” Aetria whispered to her friend.

  "But not forbidden, as in other Orders.” Sonja glanced at her two mystery witnesses.

  "No, it is not forbidden."

  "Then why was Alicia ‘protective’ of her lover?"

  "I am not sure. All I know is that she returned one time from visiting him and he had hurt himself in some way. The injury was far beyond what she could help with, but she could not bring him in for our instructors to help and couldn't take a Healer to where he was. She was frantic with concern, so frantic she did not know she had broken her left arm in trying to pull him into shelter. I fixed it as best I could, but she would not report it to the Mage because he would ask where it happened, and...” Felora looked guiltily at Kelristo.

  "What happened to her lover?"

  "He apparently healed, whether from her efforts or not, I don't know. Two months later, she disappeared. She did not take any of her things, so we don't think she ran away. The guards searched everywhere, but she was never found and we have never heard of her again."

  The general stood up and walked to the opposite end of the table. Reaching under the cloth, she pulled out a pendant and folded it into her hand. She approached Felora and dropped it out of her hand, holding the end with her forefinger and thumb.

  "Have you ever seen this, Sorceress?"

  "Power,” Felora cried. “This is Alicia's. She won it for her singing in the First Year spring fair. Where did you find it?"

  Sonja asked for the pendant, and Felora reluctantly returned it. The general put it back under the cloth. Aetria mentally thanked Sonja for not exposing Alicia's bones to Felora.

  "The pendant was found with the remains of a woman's body, dressed in an Inhestia student's robe, in a hole blown in the side of a Logathian mountain. According to Mage Kelristo, she was murdered, her throat cut. The woman had a broken left arm, recently healed. I believe Alicia has been found. The question is, why did she die?"

  "No, General, the question is who found her?” Corerilla cut in.

  "It is not time for your rebuttal, Counselor, but it is a good question and I will answer it. Sorceress Aetria found the remains and brought Alicia home.” Sonja held up her right palm and stopped Corerilla from talking. “You will have your chance later to protest, but I remind you this is a hearing, not a trial. A Court Counselor would object that the body could have come from anywhere, that the accused provided the evidence, and dozens of other legal concerns. Let them argue the fine points. I am gathering the pieces of this mystery together and trying to make sense of what has been presented. Any objections, Council Leader Meldoran?"

  He signaled none by waving the fingers of his right hand, which had been rubbing his eyes.

  "I call Engineer Aristes to give testimony before this hearing."

  As the tall older man walked up the aisle to take his seat, Aetria noticed the weariness in his face and the tired way he moved. She knew Aristes had been working night and day on the projector weapons, at her request.

  "Engineer Aristes, I have here a copy of Adept Pleates’ report to the Council concerning the ‘Battle of the Novices,’ as I call it in which five Aggressor Novices died—four by enemy fireballs and one by grid burnout. Have you read it?"

  "Yes, Ma'am, I have."

  "Did it in any way suggest a problem with the projector weapons?"

  "No, Ma'am, it did not. Pleates said the opposite, that before the counter-attack, the weapons were working extremely well."

  "Council Leader, to avoid digging through your archives and finding the notes of a certain Council meeting, I would like to ask Magess Trelana to summarize what she said to the Council concerning Sorceress Aetria's concern that the weapon's performance was misrepresented."

  Meldoran nodded at Trelana. The Magess stood. “I told the Council that Aetria had seen the explosions of the projector weapons and was sure the explosions were not caused by Hermanian Aggressor spells, but by the weapons themselves."

  "Thank you, Magess. Engineer Aristes, what were you tasked to do after the Council had heard Aetria's concern?"

  "Nothing, General. The existing weapons were working just fine. What I was asked to do was find out what Pleates had done to the weapons after I had made them to get them to work the way they did. I found he had added a piece of source material just behind the spell entry hole, but my attempts to duplicate his design only led to the weapon exploding. I reported my attempts to the Council and was instructed to keep trying."

  Sonja walked over to Welendor. “You were there. Did you see the explosions?"

  "No, Ma'am, I was covering the guard's charge."

  Sonja wheeled and looked toward the far end of the two tables at Jalista. “You were there. Did you see the explosions?"

  "No, Ma'am, I was covering Recanlin's fireballs."

  Sonja marched over to Corerilla, looked up at her and said, “You weren't there, but you know fireballs."

  Corerilla gave the general a frown in return. Sonja turned and walked to where Coleni sat. “You were there. Did you see the explosions?"

  Coleni silently shook her head. Whispering arose from the Council seats. Chalinee's hooded he
ad once again turned to look at her fellow mystery witness.

  "Well, the only one who was there and saw the explosions was Aetria, and she says they were not fireballs. Wait! Engineer Aristes, when the projector weapons you tried to duplicate exploded, did the explosions look like fireballs?"

  "No, Ma'am. The bursting fireball was too intense."

  "How did you know that? You are not a sorcerer."

  "You are correct there, General, but I have been around sorcerers for a long time and seen their work. I know it wasn't. However, a sorcerer told me that the explosion was too intense."

  "Who was that, Engineer?"

  "Lieutenant Novice Fernonia."

  Sonja wheeled back toward the Council table. “But she said, and I quote, ‘I am an Aggressor. We both know fireballs. Those were fireballs.’ Someone is lying, either Sorceress Aetria or Novice Fernonia. Engineer Aristes, how many projector weapons did you make for Adept Pleates?"

  "I made seven weapons for him."

  "Were all seven weapons made exactly the same?"

  "No, Ma'am. Four were made to his original requirements; three were not. He made a change because I was running out of shielding material."

  "You have two working weapons left, I believe. Are these weapons from the same group? If so, which one?"

  "They are both from the changed group."

  The general was pacing back and forth. Aetria knew this was not her normal behavior. Sonja was doing this for a reason. Perhaps the reason was that every person in the room had their eyes on her.

  "Now, I am a simple soldier, Engineer. I don't understand much of anything you do, neither do I understand anything these sorcerers do with the thing they call ‘The Power.’ I understand metal against metal. I understand blood flowing from wounds, and I know"—Sonja turned to look at Corerilla—"death. But it seems to me, Engineer, that four of those original weapons did not survive the ‘Battle of the Novices.’ You, yourself, have made additional weapons that matched the original design of Pleates, and they failed. Is it not reasonable to say that the four made first failed also?"

  "Yes, Ma'am, it does."

  "But why did they fail, Engineer? The Novices practiced with them for a week before the battle. They should have exploded the first time if the design were faulty. Why not?"

  Aristes rubbed his lips with the back of his hand, then took a deep breath before replying. “I think you understand more of my profession than you say, General. I won't try to make this explanation too simple, but if I begin to not make sense, stop me."

  "You can be sure I will, Engineer."

  "It all comes down to speed. The weapon only works with Aggressor spells of fireballs and lightning strokes. These spells are the closest spells to pure Power that exist. To make these spells, the sorcerers must draw Power from their grids as rapidly as they can, and do so as intensely as they can. You could say these are the fastest spells sorcerers do."

  Sonja stopped pacing and looked at the engineer. Aetria knew what the engineer was talking about, and she could see the Magi understood, but Sonja looked confused. This was for effect because Aetria had given Sonja the same explanation Verdilan had given the Novices that day so long ago, and she had understood perfectly. Sonja turned and looked at the Council members.

  "I can see you understand what he said, so I will take on faith that it is correct. Aggressor fireball spells are the most rapid expenditure of your ‘Power’ there is."

  Council Leader Meldoran nodded in agreement.

  "Very well, Engineer, what difference does that make?"

  "Spells that don't have a very rapid change in their production, and are not intense, don't seem to excite the core material in the projector box. Nothing happens. Yet, when the Aggressor spells in a fireball, the core material erupts with more Power, in the same form. The spell gets more powerful. Now here is the interesting part, General. The spell is trapped in the projector box by the shield material. It reflects back into the core, which erupts again! The spell builds even more. In a very short period of time, the spell becomes very powerful but has nowhere to go. I see it as bouncing around inside the box, getting bigger and bigger. At some point it escapes out the hole in the front of the box. If it doesn't, it builds up too fast and explodes."

  Frowning, Sonja made a tight, circular motion with her right forefinger in front of her chest, as if tracing the path of the spell in the box. “What controls the time of this bouncing around? It seems that you would be counting on luck to have the spell escape before it gets too big and explodes."

  "To be honest, I don't know exactly. I have been working with my son, Lieutenant Novice Belanar, who I have trained extensively in engineer principles, and who is an Aggressor. We made a copy of the original design weapon, and he spelled various sizes of fireballs into it, starting from the smallest he could make and increasing until the weapon exploded. It didn't take too many variations in the size of the spell going in before it exploded.

  "He told me when they were practicing before the battle, they had to be very careful in releasing the Power because they were near the Hermanian camp and the Power might be detected. Pleates had warned them repeatedly not to try to make the weapon do more than it could."

  "So, are you saying that both the group of four and the group of three weapons worked with small fireballs?"

  "Yes, Ma'am. The difference in the two weapons is the amount of shielding material and how it is placed in the box. The last three weapons were made with half the material of the first four. Since I did not have as much material to work with, I put slightly more in the back side, behind which is the sorcerer, and made all of the walls thinner than before. I think this causes the change in time. Not all of the Power that erupts from the core the first time gets reflected back into the core. It takes more time for the spell to build. It also seems the increased wall thickness in the back may cause the bouncing to go to the front faster. Thus, you can spell in a lot bigger fireball, and still get it out before the weapon explodes."

  "Thank you, Engineer. No, don't leave. I have a few more questions for you. Magess Trelana, at that same Council meeting I asked about earlier, you voiced Aetria's concern Pleates endangered the Novices by increasing their risk of grid burnout. Please summarize your remarks."

  The Magess said, “Aetria felt that the Novices were not ready for combat in any form and made her objections clear to Pleates. Aggressor Novice casualties had been so high over the last five years because the demand placed on them in the midst of a battle was such that they would lose control and suffer a fatal grid burnout. The army's approach was for them to gain experience slowly, building the Novices’ confidence and introducing them to the pressures of spell warfare gradually. This approach was not being followed by Pleates."

  "Adept Loreana has spent a lot of time trying to explain this grid burnout problem to me, Magess Trelana, since it is central to the charges against Aetria. I must confess it is very difficult to understand, but even I believe that the four Novices who died on that hill did not suffer grid burnout."

  "That is true."

  Sonja walked over by her own desk and looked down her notes. “According to Pleates in his Day 10 report, he said, ‘I told her they were not going to spell fireballs of any great size, so they were safe.’ That sounds reasonable to me, except for one thing. Engineer Aristes’ son Belanar said they were warned not to put too much Power into the projectors. There was a danger there."

  Leaving her table, the general walked slowly over by the evidence table, looking at Welendor first, then Jalista. She stopped briefly by the two mystery witnesses, passed by with a glance at Aetria, and stopped at her table again, staring at Novice Holendal for a moment, then finally at Meloses. She looked up at Meldoran.

  "It is ironic that the Mage Council, who have never served in the army or been in battle, believe they have the power to judge those that have. I speak for the eight of us in this room who have been in combat and faced death. We all know the surge of emotions that race
through your heart and mind when you close the enemy. We have experienced them, some more than others, but all can remember their first battle.

  "I remember being so scared that my knees were shaking and I thought I would fall down. When the enemy in front of me slashed downward with his sword, it hammered my shield back into my face and cut my lips. It hurt, and I got mad. I smashed him back with my shield and slashed at him. My sword cut off his ear, and he screamed in shock. I screamed back and knocked him to the ground, thrusting my sword into his exposed throat and killing him. My blood was hot. I jerked my sword clear and ran looking for another enemy."

  There was no sound in the room. Aetria snapped out of her own memory of her first fight and glanced quickly around the room. Her fellow army sorcerers were staring past Sonja in their own remembrances; the Magi looked shocked and uncomfortable.

  Sonja's voice startled everyone when she spoke loudly. “What is my point, you ask yourselves? Those Novices experienced their first battle on that hill. They fired in anger at the enemy, and the enemy took terrible casualties. They fired again and again. They sensed victory, and in their eagerness, they attacked with more vigor. Not enough to cause that dreaded grid burnout. Not like poor Recanlin who gave his all because he had nothing else to protect his friends with.

  "No, they spelled in bigger fireballs, and it killed them. Their weapons exploded in their faces. Pleates knew of the danger, but he forgot about emotions of war. Was he trying to blame his failure to see the risk Aetria had warned him of, or did he truly believe he was defeated by a superior force of enemy sorcerers? We may never know what he was thinking, but we may find out the truth anyway."

  CHAPTER 14

  Aetria looked over at Corerilla, whose hands were pale white from clutching the arms of her chair so hard. Score another one for the general, Aetria thought.