Thaumaturge
By Terry Mancour
Book Eleven Of The Spellmonger Series
Copyright © 2019. All Rights Reserved.
To Jeffryn Stephens, of the
Young People’s Performing Company
For showing me that all the world is a stage,
And every stage is a world.
The Spellmonger Series
Spellmonger
Warmage
The Spellmonger’s Wedding Novella
The Spellmonger’s Honeymoon Novella
Magelord
The Road To Sevendor Anthology
Knight’s Magi
High Mage
Journeymage
Enchanter
Court Wizard
Shadowmage
Necromancer
The Spellmonger’s Yule Novella
Thaumaturge
Spellmonger Cadet Series
Hawkmaiden
Hawklady
Sky Rider
Part One
Vanador Spring
“Though it is oft reported that Prince Tavard’s enmity toward Minalan the Spellmonger sent him into a gloomy exile, in truth when the Count Palatine of the Magelaw arrived in Vanador’s nascent, frozen districts in late winter, his manner was cheerful, even jovial. A long trip overland with his father mayhap provided the time necessary to cool his resentment toward the prince, some said. Others contended that Minalan accepted his exile as a political necessity to avoid the possibility of rebellion and civil war within the kingdom. As that trip was where I encountered Minalan for the first time and agreed to take his service, I find myself in a position to bring light to the question. From my observations neither was wholly true. Minalan arrived in Vanador with the aspect of a prisoner suddenly pardoned, a man relieved of great responsibilities, eager to begin a new life. If the Spellmonger’s exile was gloomy, one can only count the wintery weather of the Wilderlands to blame.”
From the Scrolls of Lawbrother Bryte the Wiser
Chapter One
Arrival In Vanador
The wagon came to a halt under the looming mass of the Anvil, the horses grateful that their long journey had come to an end. They had brought us and our big wagon all the way from Vorone. They were magnificent beasts; I had always admired these big, strong, Wilderlands draught horses whose big haunches and sturdy limbs could pull a load up the endless inclines of the rocky province.
My rocky province, it suddenly occurred to me.
Oh, I knew, intellectually, that I was now Count of all I surveyed – Count Palatine, in fact, senior in rank to all but dukes and kings. I’d known that for months, about the same amount of time I’d known I’d have to leave the home in the Riverlands I painstakingly carved out of nothing to endure three years of exile. Indeed, I’d spent a good portion of my journey attending to the details of my new position by hiring, through magical communication and intercessory agents, the people I knew I’d need to run it.
But staring up at that massive rock leaning protectively over the village – no, I corrected, that was a town hiding under the overhanging stone – the words finally became a reality, in my mind. I was here. This was my responsibility, now. I had lands, and more importantly people and property to protect, here in the Magelaw.
It wasn’t a novel feeling, of course. That kind of personal sovereignty is felt by most men when they become fathers, or purchase a piece of land, or build a home. But like a cart following after a horse, with that heady feeling comes anxiety, the understanding that something you value can be lost or taken from you, if you fail. Thankfully, most men never have to contend with how that anxiety becomes even more burdensome when your responsibility extends beyond your family to include responsibility for other families.
As Magelord of Sevendor I had felt it acutely for years. Those who mistake it for a pride of ownership or mere greed do not understand the brutal reality of the feeling. There are those who do mistake their responsibility for possession, but in my experience, those sorts of men rarely have the capacity to manage their bounty, in the long run. The aristocracy is filled with men who own and profit from bountiful estates without ever setting foot on them.
But I’m not that kind of man, and this was not that kind of land. There would be no revenues from the Magelaw for the foreseeable future. There were no lush agricultural estates here, as there were in the Riverlands. Even at its most prosperous the Wilderlands had only been marginal, agriculturally. Vanador’s tribute payments to me would be dwarfed by the amount of coin I would have to spend to give her people a future.
The Magelaw was comprised of the Alshari Wilderlands north of Vorone and east of the Kulines; the western frontier reached at least to the Wildwater river, but beyond that was in much dispute. It was a vast country of forests and meadows, rocky outcroppings and unnavigable rivers. Flat lands suitable for large-scale agriculture were rare and coveted. Most farms were isolated freeholds scraped out of the wilderness by small communities, usually only large enough to feed a few families.
That had been years ago. Though there had once been a rustic civilization here, only remnants of it remained after the goblin invasion.
But that didn’t mean the Magelaw was unpeopled. Indeed, last year I had orchestrated a daring raid into the Penumbra and liberated around a hundred thousand human slaves from the great slave farms the gurvani had established in the Penumbra. Those folk were now clumped in three great camps safely east of the Wildwater, protected by a few doughty warriors and fed by supplies brought in by magic. One of them was in the sight of the Anvil.
I had helped free them from bondage. It was my job to protect them, now. And it was my goal to elevate them and advance them to the point where they could protect and defend themselves. With a terrible foe holding an intractable grudge on our frontier, that would prove daunting, and absolutely vital.
This would be different from developing Sevendor. Perhaps worse. Sevendor, at least, had been proximate to bounteous estates and came complete with well-run manors. In Vanador I had abandoned fields and unarmed freedmen enduring a subsistence diet on imported aid to work with. Help, either materially or militarily, was distant and expensive. My new folk were vulnerable. At any moment a horde of goblins could rush through the tepid defenses and wipe them out to a man. It was my job to keep that from happening.
Vanador, the tiny town huddled under the protective rock of the Anvil, was the one hope I had to do so. Pentandra had founded it last year, along with her husband, Arborn, and had become the baroness of the nascent region . . . which technically made her my vassal. When I burned the town of Tudry last year, most of the town’s inhabitants had relocated to the remote, rustic fief to begin their lives anew. Vanador was the seed of possibility for the Magelaw. If I could quietly and quickly raise its estate and improve its defenses, I hoped I could provide a stout refuge for the . . . Vanadori, I suppose my folk would be called, from such a dire future.
“Are you done staring at the big rock like a peasant from the sticks?” my father asked, helpfully, as he tied the reigns to a simple hitching post in front of the inn. Some of the baggage was destined for them, as well. Supplies and gifts destined for other wizards who’d relocated to Vanador, or to be sent into storage.
We’d elected to stop here at the edge of town and meet a few of my retainers for a brief discussion of the situation before I finally went home to my family, as desperately as I wanted to see them. I felt torn between business and pleasure, and I recognized that regardless of which I was engaged in, I’d be plagued with guilt about what was going undone. I’d resolved to handle business, first. Responsibility is a bitch, that way.
“This wagon isn’t going to unload itself,” Dad continued to complain, “and I’m too old to
do it when I have a perfectly good son sitting on his arse right here.”
“I’m just getting my mind prepared,” I sighed. I didn’t bother chiding the master baker for treating a count in such a disrespectful manner. He was my dad, no matter his rank or mine. I got no special privileges due my rank. That had never changed, nor would it. “It’s a big responsibility I’m taking on. I am trying to approach it with the proper sense of gravity,” I said, nodding toward the town ahead.
“So it is,” he murmured. “I am glad you appreciate that. Shouldn’t take you more than a thin moment to get your mind set for that. More than that just looks like laziness. Now get down, unload the wagon, and get to it – I need a pint of ale in me like the breath of life,” he said, hauling his rickety old body down from the seat.
“Dad, I don’t need to unload the wagon,” I pointed out, gathering my things from my seat. “I have people for that.”
“One of the things you need to unload is ‘your people’,” he grunted, nodding toward the back of the wagon.
I sighed. Getting out of the wagon seat was painful, after yet-another full day riding. My magically improved and thoroughly enchanted wain could not remove that burden from travel. Human beings just were not meant to sit for that long without moving. Though we had made incredible time overland, it had still taken weeks for us to get here. If I didn’t ride in a wagon again for a few more weeks, I was fine with that. Hells, if I didn’t sit for that long, I’d be agreeable.
Our passenger, denied a seat, had made his leg of the journey prone, lying atop the baggage in the wagon bed.
“I should probably just leave him there,” I pointed out, skeptically, at the back of the wain. “If he didn’t realize we’ve stopped, then . . .”
“He’s probably insensibly drunk?” Dad supplied. “At least he’s been quiet, for a change. Let him out,” he commanded. “I don’t want him to piss himself in his sleep and ruin the baggage.”
With a sigh I snapped my fingers, activated a spell, and the gate at the tail of the wain sprung open. A figure in a black monk’s habit spilled out onto the cold hard ground, inspiring an instant string of profanity that would have shamed a mariner.
“Gods . . . damn you, Minalan!” he finally sputtered, when he ran out of obscene scenarios amongst the gods. “Why did you do that?”
“We’re here,” I said, simply. “I thought you’d like to know.”
“We’re . . . where?” the monk asked, confused.
“We’re here,” I repeated, patiently. “Vanador. That rustic little village I spoke of? We’re here.”
The long-faced monk stared at me, bleary-eyed. “We’re here? There? Vanador?” Then his eyes got wider. “Wait, you were serious about that? I didn’t just dream it all?”
My father snorted derisively. “No, you’re still tied up to a tree by the side of the road, covered with bruises and shit,” he said, with biting paternal sarcasm. “Did you think we were trundling off into the mountains for the clean air and beautiful scenery?”
“Well, I knew you were . . . you said . . . we agreed . . . but we were drinking a lot, so I assumed . . .”
“Lawbrother Bryte, drunk or not, you offered your services and I accepted them,” I reminded the monk. “Indeed, I believe you said you were in my debt, after I saved you. Now that we’re here I can start to collect upon that debt. We’re going to meet some friends at this little inn, over here, before we get settled in, and you are welcome to join us. I encourage you to do so. Consider it your introduction to the rest of my new staff.”
“You are also welcome to puke yourself empty in the bushes, take a piss, scratch your arse, or do anything else you like,” my dad added, gruffly. “But I need real ale, and a little food I didn’t cook myself might be welcome, too.”
“All right, all right, give me a moment to collect myself and I’ll join you gentlemen,” Brother Bryte said, his faculties starting to return. I’ll say this for the lanky monk – he takes a drunk fast, but he sobers up fast, too. That was likely a helpful talent in his profession. I watched him stretch his long arms wide and shiver to work the kinks out. “By the Staff, I need a proper outhouse more than anything else. Order an ale for me – just ale,” he emphasized. “If I’m going to be working, I’ll need a clear head.”
That earned another snort from Dad, but I left it alone. I had more experience with the clergy than he did, even within the temple of Briga in which he was a deacon. While he enjoyed his ale as much as any man he frowned upon drinking to excess. Dad had gotten up two hours before dawn every day for more than thirty years to stoke the fires, proof the yeast, and mix and knead the dough. It was rare that he had more than three stiff drinks in one night, else it might interrupt the sacred routine that kept his village fed.
But you can’t apply a baker’s work ethic to a lawbrother. They have different vocational requirements. Lawbrothers drink like fish and debate endlessly, existing in the immaterial realms of precedent and theory. Few courts began before noon, and late nights were preferred for negotiation and argument. They’re often just getting started with their work by the time Dad goes to bed. They’re two different professions, as different as they each were to mine.
Whatever that was, exactly.
I wasn’t a spellmonger anymore, even though I was The Spellmonger. I wasn’t precisely a warmage, a thaumaturge, a magelord, or any other neat little category of profession. Once again, I was in novel territory. I considered conjuring a term to describe me in my new position, but I honestly didn’t need another name to add to my growing list of titles to try to simply explain what I did. Sovereign Count of a desolate province just doesn’t have much of a ring to it. That’s one of the reasons I needed a lawbrother.
“I still don’t see why you brought him,” Dad murmured. “He’s more trouble than he’s worth. You just wait: he’ll have you all tied in knots. That’s what lawbrothers do,” he reminded me.
“I hired him because you don’t build a city with just masons and carpenters. And bakers and smiths. You can’t build a city without lawbrothers.”
“Briga! Wasn’t it worth a try?” he asked, with a scornful snort. Dad didn’t like lawbrothers. Riding in a wagon in the dead of winter for two hundred miles with Brother Bryte had not improved his opinion.
“You need laws and regulations, and good people to oversee them,” I reasoned. “Otherwise you get crappy cities.”
Dad’s objections were largely ceremonial, at this point. After we picked up the monk, we’d had a week-long discussion about Vanador’s future, and though they disagreed on much even Dad was forced to admit that Bryte was a scholar on the subject of civic order.
We left Bryte to his ablutions and went inside the The Anvil Inn. The sign was recently made and included both the symbol for the inn and its name in Narasi letters, which was also a bit of a novelty in the largely-illiterate Wilderlands. Vanador was already becoming exceptional.
We found the interior of the new inn warm and inviting, with a cozy fire on the hearth and a few stools and benches around the walls. A trestle had been laid with supper for the evening for paying guests and visitors. The place had a musty smell to it, the kind you get when the clay of the walls hasn’t quite cured yet under the whitewash. But the amount of garlic in the stew in the kettle over the fire quickly overpowered it.
Two other trestles were set up behind the serving table, and our party was waiting at the one closest to the fire. My new staff, I reminded myself, not merely old friends. There was still enough chill in the late winter air to warrant such position near the flame. As soon as they saw me, Sandoval and Mavone embraced me as old comrades and shook my father’s hand respectfully before settling in.
“It’s about time you got here,” Sandy complained as he waved to the innkeeper for another pitcher of ale. “We’ve been here two weeks, already, waiting for you. And you are shattering my expectations already. The Spellmonger arrives to his command of the Magelaw . . . by horse and wain? Really, Minalan?�
� he asked, skeptically. “You’re losing your flair for the dramatic.”
“I needed the time to plan,” I explained as I enjoyed the radiant heat of the fire on my back for a moment. “And there was thought put into the means of my leaving Sevendor. I didn’t want to attract too much attention. People needed to see me leave Sevendor the regular way, not just pop out through the Ways. It’s a political thing,” I shrugged.
“It was the wise thing to do,” Mavone agreed. “If Prince Tavard wanted to make a public example of you with this exile, then best you be public about accepting it, if you don’t favor rebellion.”
“I didn’t want Sevendor to suffer because I had a snit when I left,” I explained. “I think I’ve successfully done that. Sire Cei and the Hawkmaiden won’t let anything happen to it while I’m gone. Now that it’s more or less secure, I can focus on the task at hand: my new realm. That includes receiving reports from two of my officers who have had two weeks without me to take stock of things. Just how are we situated, gentlemen?” I asked as the barman placed a mug of ale before my father and myself.
“Things are quiet on the frontier,” Mavone replied, first. I’d hired him officially as my Constable, in charge of securing the frontiers against the gurvani, as well as enforcing my edicts. Mavone was masterful at military intelligence, both the normal and magical kinds. “The gurvani squabble among themselves in interesting ways, and I have a folio of reports about that for your review. But apart from reinforcing some of the stronger fortresses in the Penumbra, they seem to be making no move toward a great invasion just yet. But they’ll likely attack us, at least, within the year. I could be wrong,” he admitted.
“I don’t think you are,” Sandoval concurred, as he poured more ale into my cup. “After Olum Seheri, there’s going to be a lot of readjustment to the new order of things. We may have a little time before the gurvani and the Enshadowed are ready to come kill us again,” he suggested, hopefully.
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