Thaumaturge

by Terry Mancour

  When the mound was complete, with all due ceremony the fires were lit (after an invocation to Briga by the local priestess) and for four days they raged beneath the mound, belching black smoke into the sky. By using coal Master Suhi smelted at a much higher temperature than could be managed with wood, alone, he explained, and as a result they had far fewer impurities in the product. In addition, the clever way they had contrived the furnace mean that the purest of iron could be cast directly, without further purification under a hammer.

  That second foundry produced twice as much iron as the first, and of yet higher quality . . . yet the Dradrien were still not satisfied. Hundreds of dark ingots of pure iron were stacked at Yltedene, more than had ever been bloomed in the Wilderlands before, and but the smith was unhappy with the result.

  They poured the shiny liquid iron into thirty prepared molds, and then directed the rest to ingots – scores of them. Two days later the cooled molds were broken . . . and the Anvil now had thirty smaller anvils below it. Not simple blocks of iron, as had been made before, but the complex anvils a smith needed to construct the finer elements of his craft.

  That was important. Real anvils were expensive, and you needed real anvils to make anything really complicated. Before Master Suhi built Yltedene, they had to be cast by specialists, the nearest of which was in Gilmora, to my knowledge. The few that were in use in Vanador before the big pour were ancient things brought north by the original settlers, or imported at great cost by enterprising merchants. Anything else a blacksmith could make for himself, but he needed a good anvil if he was going to produce good ironwork.

  All thirty of those went into local use while a third, even more elaborate foundry was constructed. The rejected ingots were a massive bounty of metal for the people I was responsible for defending. Those ingots became knives, axes, mattocks, spades, scythes and the hundreds of other tools that, because of their essential nature, had always been precious in the north. Dozens of other craftsmen were employed in grinding and sharpening them, and fitting them with suitable handles. While Master Suhi brooded about his recipe, our smithies were busy turning the new stock into everything from swords to door hinges.

  Wood Dwarf smiths were eager to work under the least of the Dradrien, and brought an ingenuity of their own to the smithies of Iron Street. To the Dradrien’s amusement, one of the Malkas Alon smiths made an automatic hammer that allowed considerable improvement in how fast simple items could be fashioned.

  A mage further improved the device with enchantment, and went on to create an enchanted grinding wheel that saw much use. A host of human workers also learned the techniques the Iron Folk taught, even third hand, and soon the market was so filled with ironmongery that Gareth had to create a separate market specializing in such wares. The steel beaten from the Dradrien iron was incredible.

  But when the cranky little smith finally got his third furnace completed at Yledene just after Midsummer, he promised it would make steel directly. Master Suhi was still not satisfied. While the human smithies turned his bounty into arms and armor, the Dradrien master continued to fiddle with his metallurgic recipe. He consulted Master Cormoran and other magi frequently as he required their assistance for things like temperature control or oxygen release. But despite their improvements into the air blast furnace, a second bloom did not satisfy him. Only at the third did he declare that he was finally making progress.

  I was otherwise engaged when the big pour happened. I was coming back from an inspection of the armory and stopped by Cormoran’s forge on Iron Street. The old wizard was just sitting in the middle of his storeroom gazing around at ingot after ingot, his eyes wide.

  “Is there something amiss with the iron?” I asked, plainly, when he spared me only the smallest of his attention.

  “Iron?” he snorted, a little crazily. “This was delivered yesterday. I’ve been staring at it ever since. This isn’t iron,” he said, tenderly reaching out and touching a rough gray ingot with his calloused fingers.

  “What is it?” I asked, warily.

  “Steel!” Cormoran said, his voice in awe. He waved at the stacks of crude-looking ingots around him. The ironworks at Yltedene were tidy and organized, but the way the dark metal blocks were stacked they might have been gold. From the way Cormoran was acting, they might as well have been. “Real steel, good steel, perfect steel, and more of it than I’d ever dreamed of seeing in one place!” he said, reverently. “I’ve never seen anything like that crazy dwarf’s furnace before, but damn me if he didn’t turn twenty tons of pig iron into eighteen tons of beautiful steel!”

  “Calm down, calm down!” I urged, caught up in his enthusiasm. “Eighteen tons? This is all steel?” I asked, amazed.

  “Every ingot!” the old man said, blissfully. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t watched him pour it myself. After months, he’s produced more steel from pig iron than a legion of smiths could fashion in a lifetime. And it’s good, Minalan,” he assured me. “I worked with some, after it set. It’s really good. Works like a dream, like it wants you to forge it. With this, Minalan, I can give you spearpoints and swords unseen since ancient days. With this, I can craft armor so stout it will be virtually unbreakable!”

  “I look forward to not dying while wearing it,” I nodded.

  “I can give our men the finest panoply in the West, Min. I can build shields of steel that no bolt can penetrate. I can give them the best weapons we can make. But . . . not that can be made,” he muttered, cryptically.

  I was amazed. In one pour the Dradrien had produced more steel than had been made in the Wilderlands since the original settlement. Master Suhi began tinkering with the steel ingots, while the human smiths eagerly took his cast-off castings and began turning them into swords, spears, and helms for our men.

  That still took time. There were over a hundred smiths working the Street of Steel by autumn, and hundreds of more workers were hauling coal and charcoal, steel and iron ingots, and performing other errands for the smiths.

  To keep them on task I had the armorer I hired, Sir Angruff of Danzby, oversee the production and purchase of bows, arrows, axes, infantry swords, shields, helms, hauberks, and every other kind of gear an army needs. Every blade would be needed, we knew, when the Nemovorti came Our temporary armory was stacked with cast-offs and antiques, plunder from Enultramar’s anti-rebel efforts. A lot of it was overly decorative, old, and in need of repair and maintenance, but it was all we had until we could make more.

  I’d put the subject of steel out of mind, as I turned my attention to other priorities, but the wizards and smiths of Iron Street persisted in surprising me. Cormoran tracked me down, toward summer’s end, and informed me of Suhi’s progress beyond merely creating steel in quantity. He was doing things with it, now.

  “Master Suhi took the finest, highest-carbon heat he poured, and he alloyed it,” Cormoran explained, excitedly. “You recall those samples you provided me from the Vundel? When he saw I had some ainakurkas, he insisted he use it in alloy. What came out was . . . remarkable,” he said, reverently.

  “In what way?” I asked, intrigued.

  “In every way! It works like a dream, it takes an edge and keeps it . . . forever, like it was mage-hardened. It takes enchantment better than weirwood,” he declared. “It forms a kind of crystalized metallic matrix that just begs for enchantments. High-order enchantments, more than we’ve laid on any mageblade. The spell goes directly into the metal, not the stones in the blade. And it seems to be able to handle any kind of magic. Perhaps even enneagrams – the crystal matrix is that durable. I don’t know what ainakurkas is, Min, but he did things with that alloy . . .”

  “So we can make really good weapons,” I suggested, seeking details.

  “Min, we can make great weapons,” he assured me, solemnly. “I’m still running thaumaturgic assays on it, but if half of what the Dradrien say about it is true, these could be the kind of weapons that could drop Nemovorti by the legion. All we have to do is
come up with the proper enchantment. Theoretically, they could shatter Sheruel, once and for all. They could end Korbal,” he promised. “Destroy his enneagram utterly, forever.”

  “Now you have my attention!”.

  “I thought I might,” he smiled. “I’m serious, Min. All that great work in enchantment we did in Sevendor? That’s first-year work, compared to what we’re working with, here. We can implant enneagrams directly into the steel,” he said, intently. “No bridewell. No additional matrix. The steel itself – or whatever it is once you add ainakurkas. It’s . . . it’s almost as if it were thaumaturgically alive!”

  The special metal was called ainakurkas by the Dradrien, an Alkan name. They had their own name for it, but they wouldn’t share it with us for some religious reason. I didn’t care what they called it. I had but one pure sphere of the stuff in my horde. By the time Suhi showed Cormoran and his squadron of arcane smiths how to alloy it with finest steel, and then forge it and enchant it, I wanted as much of it as I could get.

  Master Suhi went back to his first, smallest foundry for the alloying. The first pour produced two thirty-kilogram ingots of the thaumaturgical steel. That was sixty pounds of the most magically powerful metal in the world, Cormoran assured me.

  The steel, once forged and activated through a process I don’t think even Cormoran truly understood, produced blades of surpassing quality that could directly accept spells of nearly any nature. When the smiths use powdered Ghost Rock as the flux, the results were even more amazing. Cormoran was in professional paradise, and spent days without rest as he experimented on the samples Master Suhi gave him.

  I was impressed, I realized as I walked home to Spellmonger’s Hall after Cormoran’s demonstration. The Dradrien smith lived up to his boasting. He had managed in six months to create more steel than was ever forged in the Wilderlands. Perhaps in all of Alshar.

  Perhaps we had a chance to win this war, yet, I reflected as I stared at the sample of thaumaturgical steel.

  ***

  If the issue of iron and the procurement of arms was of periodic concern in my anxieties over defending the Magelaw, no less a matter for attention was the continuing clearing of the manors and estates the Hundreds were ambitiously reclaiming. A good bit of my springtime affairs involved overseeing some of those efforts to encourage the vital resettlement. Particularly the establishment of Vanador’s Field Wizards.

  It was far from a matter of security, but in trying to order my realm, some attention to civil service was required of me. It came down to my vow to devote myself to planning. Wisdom, I knew, demonstrated that when you are beset with problems, often you can find ways to use your problems against each other. Indeed, I was seeking to solve a number of problems by establishing this small but important corps of arcane officials.

  A number of otherwise itinerant footwizards had made their way to Vanador, when word spread of what we were building, there. Some had visited Sevendor, and were eager to invest themselves in the Spellmonger’s newest experiment. Plenty hoped to secure witchstones by catching my eye with some spell or service. Others were just looking for jobs, and hoped that being in proximity of the Spellmonger would lead to that.

  Others came out of fear. Though the fear of the Censorate was now receding from my professional colleagues, it was becoming more well-known that the Nemovorti’s sinister agents sought Talented human bodies to feed their master’s plans. Indeed, rumor had it that their renegade human agents were beginning to pay a premium for any human with magical Talent, and kidnappings and raids had occurred in the Westlands as some bandits tried to take advantage of that dark bounty.

  Seeking safety from a foe that made the Censorate look like a minor annoyance, the wisest among the wizards of Gilmora and further made their way north to seek their fortune in the Magelaw. Alas, what fortune a footwizard has in a town full of High Magi is slight. As the year waxed, the Thaumaturge’s Quarter and the market nearest the Enchanter’s Quarter became haunted with unemployed footwizards and spellmongers unable to practice their traditional trade. Who needs to hire a common wizard in the City of Magic?

  So I put them to work. With Gareth’s assistance, Fondaras’ leadership, the Sevendor Bouleuterion and a generous amount of my coin, we equipped two-score footwizards with a suite of specialized wands and other arcane tools to assist in the transformation of Vanador from rustic wilderness to agricultural heartland. These tools were complements to the agricultural wands, designed to be used in clearing and defining new fields.

  That might seem like a simple matter, but it is not. The rapid deforestation had left a wasteland of stumps peppered with uncleared underbrush. Traditionally the peasants would burn a cleared field repeatedly to turn the stumps and cast-off boughs to ash to enrich their soil. But that was a labor-intensive and potentially dangerous process, without magic. Anyone who has spent a day hacking at underbrush or tending a bonfire will agree with me. Our deputy spellwarden, Fondaras, taught his new charges how to use the new wands to attack the problem, and saved thousands of hours of work as a result.

  The Stumping Wand desiccated and decomposed a stump to a carbon-rich black pulp in a matter of minutes, instead of the days of digging and hacking and burning usually involved. That simple arcane service alone earned the Field Wizards the respect of the peasantry.

  Another wand helped define future meadows and pastures by encouraging the boundaries between them to weave themselves into a hedge. An initial enchantment allowed the wizard to define the line to be followed, while a secondary spell partially slashed the existing underbrush and wove it into the beginnings of a hedge. It would take a few years for the boundaries to grow into true barriers strong enough to keep livestock out, but where the lines were drawn the brambles, thistles, vines and blackberry bushes entwined themselves through the hazel and beech saplings with magically-provided vigor, tying together both deadwood and living.

  A third wand allowed the location of local springs, and gave the field wizard the knowledge of its quality, always a useful thing for a peasant to know. Another could crack a boulder as large as a cart into pieces as large as a two-pound loaf. Another produced a two-foot deep hole suitable for implanting a fencepost. Another could flatten uneven ground to within inches. Another could sculpt a trench six inches deep, revealing every stone in its line.

  The wizardly wardens traveled from settlement to settlement, spending a week at a time improving each one before moving on. They did this at the expense of the Barony, which I was currently running. They became unique figures on the Vanador landscape and an important part of rural life. They became conduits for news, stories, and technical information for the enterprising peasants as they traveled between estates. And as baronial officers, they could relate official instructions and enforce certain edicts, if necessary. When I got the corps set up, I turned it over to the Lord Steward and let him administer it.

  Gareth’s agreement with the former footwizards ensured a long and lucrative government contract: the expensive wands were provided to them in exchange for three years of paid service. They each received an ounce of silver per week, plus the coin to hire up to two local assistants at five pennies a day. That was a generous stipend, designed to keep them at their work.

  But that wasn’t their only assignment. While they tramped between settlements and estates, they were also using enchantments to take a detailed survey of the land. They were required to submit records of everywhere they’d performed their services to Gareth’s office every quarter when they returned to Vanador. . . including the likely location of all manner of important minerals.

  The Vanadori plateau and the surrounding ridges were geologically rich in useful minerals. Chief among them were the seams of rich iron ore that streaked the land, but there were also veins of coal, limestone, and even a surprising amount of gold deposits. As our field wizards were walking between settlements, they were also using wands to search for as many of these lodes as they could find, noting their locations in their r
eports.

  They were also compiling simple reports on the economic state of each settlement they visited: basic estimations of population, agriculture, husbandry, and military preparedness. Over the summer they counted the number of pregnancies among cows and peasant wives, the number of huts versus halls in a community, and they noted any urgent needs a manor might have.

  Many of the upland regions, for example, lacked enough wetlands to produce reeds used for a number of household functions. Gareth had a cartload sent from the western marshes to relieve them. Another new village had a third of its seed eaten by wild geese before it could be harrowed. Gareth dispatched a specialist to provide a magical scarecrow that would discourage them. He also sent a fowler to fill the markets with fresh goose.

  After that first season of magical clearing, some of the Field Wizards began to specialize. One fellow was adept at wells, and was often used to bring better water supply to a community. Another found a means of directing sheep and cows from field to field along a predetermined path, without them going too often astray, which was a boon to the new haywards and the peasants, alike. Others had a knack of discovering harmful plants in new pastures, or knowing which areas would be best to search for mushrooms, come autumn.

  The Field Wizards were able to learn the intricacies of a region and its needs far better than a mere reeve. As they did their service at no cost to the village, save room and board, their arrival, complete with tall, single-pointed broad-brimmed hat and staff, was always welcomed.

  Most of them also sold additional services on the side, while they visited – traditional spellmonger stuff, like protections and wards. Fondaras ensured they were not extravagant with either their claims or their fees, and allowed the practice to prosper. It allowed the countryside peasants the advantages of enchantment they were usually denied, due to the dictates of the Censorate and the stinginess of my former colleagues.