Into Vushaar

by Robert M Kerns

  “Ah, yes. That’s an excellent point. I have a goodly sum in the Bank of Tel back home, but it never occurred to me that I might require more than the traveling funds I brought with me.”

  “Milord, you should have no problem, then. Most banks have agreements in place to extend lines of credit for their more well-to-do patrons. I’m sure the Royal Bank of Vushaar has such an agreement with the Bank of Tel already in place.”

  Gavin’s eyebrows lifted just a bit. “That is rather handy, and I’m sure you’d have no problem directing me to the local branch of the Royal Bank of Vushaar?”

  “Local branch?” the agent asked, amusement curling his lips as he pointed to one wall without hesitation. “Milord, the headquarters for the Royal Bank is three blocks that way.”

  The Elven embassy to Vushaar occupied an entire city block five streets north of the entrance to the palace complex, and anyone other than an elf who saw it would’ve sworn it was one of the city’s parks. Tall hedges formed what would’ve been walls on any other property, and the gates were archways of woven hedge and vines. Scores of trees filled the space within the hedge-walls whose canopies somehow failed to restrict the sunlight from streaming in.

  The actual embassy building itself was much smaller than a corresponding structure built by humans would be and showcased the elves’ commitment to living in harmony with nature, rather than bending her to their will. It was a small structure, formed from a large, still-living tree. In addition to office space, the structure provided living quarters for the ambassador and four staff.

  “Yes? How may I help you?” the elf inside the entrance asked as Elayna led Sarres into the embassy.

  “Is the ambassador in?” Elayna asked. “I know she travels back and forth to Arundel.”

  “Ambassador Telanna is indeed in residence at the moment,” the elf said. “Who may I say is calling?”

  “Her sister, Elayna, and Sarres of the Sentinels of Nature.”

  A short time later, Telanna received Elayna and Sarres in her residence. Telanna was on the tall side for an Elven female, her build lithe even for an elf, and her wavy brown hair cascaded past her shoulders. She wore robes of the finest silk the elves produced without any jewelry or other adornments.

  “Elayna, dear sister, it has been too long,” Telanna said, sweeping Elayna into her arms. Upon releasing her sister from the embrace, Telanna directed her attention to Sarres and nodded once in respectful acknowledgement. “Sarres, it is good to see you again. Please, both of you, sit and be welcome. Refreshments are already on the way.”

  “Our gratitude, sister,” Elayna said, as she assumed a seat near Telanna and Sarres sat in a chair across from her. “How is it with you?”

  “I must confess that life has been a bit boring since Ivarson began his siege. No one seems too interested in pursuing trade or entry permits for the High Forest at the present.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Elayna said.

  “Well, it certainly seems like you made good time reaching the city. I honestly didn’t expect you for another couple of weeks, at best.”

  Elayna and Sarres looked at one another before Elayna said, “Yes…well, we really didn’t have much choice in the matter. We were standing around the remains of a slaver camp, which Gavin had just laid waste, with the outriders of a conscription army from Ivarson minutes away, and Gavin apparently decided to bring us straight here, though how he did it still boggles my mind. I would’ve sworn he’d never been to the capital before.”

  “I don’t think he has,” Sarres said. “If you recall, he had Kiri focus all her thoughts on home and someplace large enough to receive all of us. Somehow, he tapped into that to direct the teleportation.”

  “That,” Telanna said, “is impressive. I’ve not heard of any wizards capable of that for several thousand years.”

  “Well,” Sarres said, “he was trained by Kirloth himself. I’m sure that counts for quite a bit.”

  “And what of your primary task?” Telanna asked. “Do you think he would be amenable to assisting us with our…problem?”

  “Problem?” Elayna said, her lips almost curling into a grin. “I’d call having a dark elf on the throne of the High Forest a bit more than a problem, sister. You never did tell me how the Sylvan Synod allowed that to happen.”

  “Yes,” Telanna said, drawing out the word almost to a hiss. “Not one of our finer moments, I’ll admit, and the worst part of it is, he’s so popular that it would spark a civil war if we moved against him directly. None of the Synod has managed to put forth a proposal for removing him that the rest of us didn’t think would lead to civil war. That’s why I asked you find Gavin Cross when I learned of him; I fear it will require an outsider to provoke the dark elf into revealing himself.”

  “I still say the simplest solution is just to have someone put an arrow in him,” Sarres said. “There are so many of us who could make the shot from outside the palace compound that it would be almost impossible to determine who was responsible. Oh, yes…there would be a bit of an uproar for a time, but nothing even remotely close to the upheaval we’d have with a civil war.”

  “And what would you have us do when it finally came out that the Synod had him killed, Sarres?” Telanna asked. “Don’t think that possibility wasn’t discussed, and there wasn’t a one of us who wanted to see what kind of storm that action would precipitate.”

  “Getting back to your original question, sister,” Elayna said, “I do believe Gavin would be agreeable to assisting us…if we approached him in the right way. There isn’t any point to approaching him until he’s dealt with everything that brought him to Vushaar, but it shouldn’t be a problem to introduce you once he’s nearing preparations to leave.”

  “That’s good,” Telanna replied. “I’ve had the sense there’s a great storm brewing for quite some time now, and the thought of a dark elf ruling the High Forest when that storm arrives gives me nightmares.”

  Chapter 25

  Gavin watched the work crew break down the wine racks and casks in the basement of his new property. In all truth, Gavin knew he didn’t need to be here for this part of it, but the fact was that he didn’t know where else to be. Elayna and Sarres disappeared into the Elven embassy the day before, and Lillian was spending most of her time not on rotation with Kiri. Wynn and Braden seemed to be enjoying their first time outside of Tel; during their off-rotation times, they traveled the capital city, visiting taprooms and markets, savoring everything the city offered.

  “You’re welcome to visit her, too,” a voice said just behind Gavin’s left shoulder.

  Gavin glanced and half-smiled at Declan in greeting. “I suppose so, but I don’t see how I could be anything other than a reminder of these last few years. Yes, I’ve tried to ensure her time with me was better than…well…before, but I don’t want to do anything that jeopardizes settling back into her old life.”

  Declan scoffed. “For all your knowledge and learning, you can be such a damn fool sometimes. The only constant is that everything changes. Nothing—and I mean nothing—ever remains the same. Besides, I don’t think this has anything to do you with thinking you’ll just remind her of all she endured. I think this has everything to do with you being afraid.”

  “Is that so? If you’re right, just for the sake of conversation, what has me so afraid?”

  “It could be a few different things. In other circumstances, I would include inexperience on the list, but the fact you have a daughter somewhere eliminates that one. No…out of everything it could be, I’d say it’s fear, fear of everything you don’t know about yourself. If you have a daughter, does that mean you’re married? What happens if you allow yourself to build something here, only to regain everything you were to learn you were a happy family man with someone else?”

  Gavin turned to regard Declan in silence as the bard looked out over the basement from their position on the outsized landing, mid-way down the stairs. Gavin had no intention of letting Declan know just
how close he’d come, but at the same time, Gavin suspected he knew already.

  “Yes, well…whatever the reason, I have many things to do, Declan, and only so much time. I have to prioritize.”

  Declan nodded and turned away from the workmen to look Gavin right in his eyes. “Yes, we all must prioritize our time, but are you certain your priorities are right?”

  “You know what I plan to do here, Declan. Yes, I feel it’s right for this to be my focus.” Gavin turned and snapped his fingers. One wouldn’t think the snap of a man’s fingers—no matter how loud—would carry across the brick-enclosed space filled with noise of hammers, prybars, and cracking wood…but it did.

  The foreman pivoted on his heel and approached the staircase from the floor, saying, “Yes, sir?”

  “You and your people are making excellent progress,” Gavin said. “Once you clear out the space, have someone remove and empty the sconces as your final task. You can leave them on the counter upstairs, and I’ll see to them later. Close the outer door behind you when you leave.”

  “Do you want me to put a locking latch on the outer doors? I noticed they had only the basic latch when we arrived.”

  Gavin shook his head. “There’s nothing in here worth anyone’s time, and by the time there is, I’ll have dealt with the doors myself. Good day, sir!”

  In many ways, the position of Court Wizard for the Vushaari Throne was an artifact of a much earlier age, almost an anachronism really, and Fallon suspected the only reason it still existed to provide him a job was Terris didn’t want to break with tradition. Fallon didn’t really see why he had a job in all truth. Oh, he didn’t mind the income or his quarters, but the most contribution he’d ever made was to stand a few steps behind the King’s left shoulder during his time holding court. And his inability to protect his employer’s city from Ivarson’s arcanists left a sour taste in his mouth. He knew exactly who these ‘Apprentices’ were, and what’s more, he had no doubts as to their mentor. Members of the Society of the Arcane rarely ascribed to such banalities as hero worship, but if arcanists at large had anything approaching celebrities or figurative demigods, people who carried such names as Mivar, Roshan, Wygoth, Cothos or…Kirloth…certainly deserved the status, especially when there were many witnesses to Kirloth reducing the stone mansion at the Sivas estate to a puddle of molten rock.

  The quarters and workspace for the Court Wizard of Vushaar occupied the upper two floors of the tower on the opposite side of the palace complex from the ancient keep that had been renovated and refurbished many times down through the millennia…and with good reason. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that one of his experiments could rather explosively fail; goodness knows, the annals recording the tenures of the Court Wizard chronicled more than one case where the position was suddenly vacated without warning…or much in the way of earthly remains. All that remained of one poor sod who held the post about fifteen hundred years ago was a small splotch of red goo on the north wall that no cleaner yet devised could remove, not even a disintegration spell.

  The current work occupying Fallon’s attention was the construction of a baton that would put a target to sleep with one touch. The major impediment to his success was finding some way to key it to the town guard and Cavaliers, so that when they inevitably fell into the wrong hands, the batons would just be simple sticks.

  “Master Fallon!” Fallon recognized the voice of his assistant, pulling him from his concentration. That’s odd; he only usually used that tone for a royal summons, Fallon thought as he marked his place in the grimoire and swiveled his stool to face the laboratory’s door.

  “Yes, Jasper?”

  “You have a…a…you have a visitor!” Jasper’s pallor was not quite as white as talc, and his eyes looked wide enough to drive a wagon through, while all the sweat was starting to make him look as if he’d been slow-dancing in a torrential downpour.

  Fallon couldn’t remember ever seeing the lad so keyed up. Oh, certainly; Jasper was a bit excitable, and that incident with the fireballs last month hadn’t helped at all…but not even the arrival of Roth Thatcherson produced this.

  “Honestly, Jasper,” Fallon said with a sigh as he pushed himself off his stool and the seat swiveled back to its home position, “you have to learn to get control of your nerves. Do you think initiates at the College allow their nerves to run away with them? Now, who is this visitor, and what does he or she want?”

  “Master…it’s K-Kirloth!”

  Claws of ice surrounded Fallon’s heart, and he licked his lips, trying for all the world to understand why his mouth was full of parched sand all of a sudden.

  What could he possibly want with me? A small voice quailed in the dark recesses of Fallon’s mind, as his consciousness realized how long they had been standing there. “Oh, by the gods…is he still waiting? Move, damn you; move!”

  Jasper just managed to step aside as he watched his mentor charge through the doorway faster than he’d ever seen him move before.

  Fallon managed to slow both his gait and his heart somewhere between dashing out of his office and approaching the sitting room that doubled as a reception area. His living quarters occupied most of the first of his two floors, with his laboratory and library occupying the second. This Kirloth was just a man, the same as he, and it wasn’t like he didn’t deserve his own share of respect. After all, he was a graduate with honors from the College of the Arcane and one of the youngest in history to achieve Magus within the Society for his scholarly works. And let’s not forget he was the Court Wizard of the oldest, most respected dynasty in the world…

  The man turned as Fallon entered the room, and Fallon couldn’t believe how young he was. True, actual wizards tended to age slower than ‘normal’ people, but this man looked to be barely out of his teens! And then, Fallon looked into his eyes and just…stopped. Every piece of his mental pep talk the last few moments evaporated at the sight of those eyes. This young man possessed the knowledge and power to level the city if he so chose, and what’s more, he knew it. The act might very well kill him, but one more corpse in whatever remained of the capital wouldn’t make much difference at that point. As Fallon gazed into those bright, green eyes, he knew he stood before a soul that bore more than its share of choices.

  “I apologize for my unannounced arrival, Master Fallon,” the young man said, and Fallon was surprised yet again by the kindness and respect in his voice. “My name is Gavin Cross, and I’m glad to make your acquaintance. I have no wish to take you away from anything; perhaps, we could discuss making an appointment?”

  Fallon saw a number of paths stretching out from him in that instant. He could be the insecure mage and feel threatened by the man who had brought the Council of Magisters to heel on not one but at least two separate occasions. He could be the pompous mage, the man Terris Muran asked to serve as Court Wizard. He knew one of those would be the choice of far too many of his counterparts throughout the Society, especially if they—like Fallon—were born the youngest child of a subsistence farmer in the hinterlands of Roshan Province. In the end, Fallon chose a different path.

  “Think nothing of it,” Fallon said, striding across the room and extending his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you as well. I have no idea why you visited today, but the more I consider it, I have a puzzle upstairs you might enjoy.”

  Gavin smiled as he shook Fallon’s hand. “I never could resist a puzzle.”

  Chapter 26

  A few moments later, Gavin and Fallon stood in a room on the second floor that served many roles. A large, round table made of centuries-old oak occupied the center of the room, and chairs of equal age surrounded it. Windows looked out onto the palace compound and the city. In its time, the room had served as everything from a dining room, meeting room, even a sleeping room…and several roles in between. Jasper had just finished laying out all of his master’s notes for his current project on the table and retreated to a corner of the room, not wanting to draw attention
but not about to miss the conversation that would soon occur.

  “Thank you, Jasper, for moving all this over from the lab,” Fallon said as he led Gavin to the table. “When the unrest in the kingdom started taking a nasty edge to it, His Majesty came to me and asked if there was any way to put a violent someone to sleep that did not require any magical ability to use. In and of itself, constructing an item to deliver a sleep effect isn’t a significant challenge. It was when I decided to find a way to make it so that only Town Guardsmen or Cavaliers in good standing could use these items that I encountered problems.”

  Gavin nodded. “Yes, of course. Even though it’s not especially destructive or powerful, the world doesn’t need a rash of rogue sleep items. Imagine the field day the Guild of Shadows would have with something like this.”

  “Yes, of course…or killers or really anyone of ill intent. Everything on the table represents all my work, and I was hoping you might be able to point out something I’ve missed.”

  Gavin turned to the table and leaned over it, studying the notes and diagrams before him. The diagram of the Enchantment effect—the sleep spell being part of the Enchantment School—was well drawn and annotated, as well as all of Fallon’s work to tie the item to the Town Guard and Cavaliers.

  “If I’m reading these notes correctly,” Gavin said, “you’re trying to tie the working state of the item to the people themselves.”

  “Yes, that’s correct. It didn’t take me long to realize, though, that each of these items would have to be crafted for a specific person, and if they left the Guard or Cavaliers, the item would still work for them.”

  “Everyone who works for the Town Guard and the Cavaliers takes an oath when they join, right?” Gavin asked.