The Last Mage Guardian

by Sabrina Chase

  “I have no means of improving my wardrobe, but I know you have dresses that would suit the court,” he commented. “Why don’t you wear them?”

  Ardhuin widened her eyes. “I don’t want to be noticed—I was hoping I would look somewhat older in this.” She flicked at a fold of the dark blue dress. “Besides the obvious objections to my being female, I am considered far too young for the responsibility of being a Mage Guardian. They say I can’t possibly know mage-level spells at my age, so how could I have mastered the magics only Mage Guardians are permitted to know? No doubt that is causing at least half of the frenzied discussions taking place. The compact is quite explicit on the subject of heirs, and with everyone else dead or missing, they have little choice.” She frowned. “Perhaps I should have illusioned myself to look older? Or put some powder in my hair, as they did in olden days.”

  “It wouldn’t have worked,” Dominic said, grinning. “They would have found the illusion eventually, and powder would not make you look older. If you had mirrors about, you would know this. I don’t understand why you dislike them,” he added. “All the beautiful ladies I’ve met were incapable of staying away from a mirror for more than five minutes.”

  Ardhuin laughed, then choked, staring at him. She said nothing, remaining silent for so long he finally had to ask if something was wrong. She gave a curious half-smile, a little wistful, and said, “Until I find a mirror that sees what you see, I will retain my aversion to them.”

  The day dragged on, and still no word from the Council on any decision. Ardhuin was conscious of a terrible restlessness that only aggravated the tension of waiting. Since nobody would tell her anything, she stayed in her workroom the entire time, demonstrating various war magics for Dominic’s edification.

  She could not understand the man, could never predict his reactions. Somehow she had taken to thinking of him as being like her great-uncle, or as another magician. Then something would occur, such as her mention of fire shells, and his response would startle her. It forced her to remember that most of what he knew of magic she had taught him—and it might not be enough for what they faced.

  So she had suggested the demonstration, partly to address his lack of knowledge and partly, she had to admit, to introduce a less uncomfortable topic of conversation. Sometimes she thought it would be better to avoid Dominic Kermarec and his peculiar preference for her company—but when she did, it made her even more irritable.

  “Dieter used a kind of detector to find the stasis field,” Dominic commented as she got ready. “Can’t they do something like that for these spells, too?”

  Ardhuin concentrated on building the sticky magic-threads that formed the spell, then answered. “First, detectors like that are very crude and only exist for a small number of very common spells. Second, war magic like this is usually extremely powerful and...unstable. Introducing more magic to find it could set it off. Like this,” she said, and snapped the magic free from its constraints.

  “I hope that wasn’t valuable,” Dominic said, watching as a coy porcelain shepherdess disintegrated into a fine dust on the inlaid table where it had stood.

  Ardhuin scowled. “The King specifically told me I could do as I pleased with these rooms. I am quite certain he would prefer I demonstrate the Crystalline Polythrenode attack on a small ornament than the walls of the Imperial Palace.”

  Dominic grinned and gestured acknowledgment. “Put that way, it makes perfect sense. But why the figurine and not...oh, a wineglass?” He indicated the remains of their luncheon, brought to them when requested.

  “It doesn’t work on glass, for some reason. No one really knows why. It has best effect on stone, but brick and porcelain also are—”

  Pock. Pock. Pock.

  The comforting background vibration of the wards was disturbed sharply. A glance at Dominic’s startled face told her he had sensed it too, in his own way.

  He pointed. “The door. It didn’t look very strong, though.”

  Ardhuin gathered hard, dense power before her as a shield, and opened the door. Outside were two defensive magicians—one who had been with her earlier in the morning, and Markus Asgaya. Markus had an amused gleam in his eye as he turned to the other defensive magician, who sighed and gave him a gold coin, saying something resigned in Preusan before leaving.

  Markus bowed. Ardhuin felt a thick-headed cloud of confusion for a moment, seeing him, so clearly Yunwiyan yet also Aeropan, and her mind tried to see long black hair with clan insignia instead of a Preusan military crop. It disoriented her, but only temporarily. Markus was by far the most friendly of the Preusans she had met.

  “Good afternoon, Lady Magus. I merely wished to inform you that I had come on duty.” He smiled.

  Lady Magus? Somehow she doubted that was the official term.

  “What were you doing?” Dominic asked with a disapproving expression. “That was you disturbing the wards, wasn’t it?”

  Markus nodded and grinned. “A small matter of a wager only. My comrade did not believe I could get your attention from outside the wards. Just a few light probes,” he added.

  “You deliberately attacked the wards?” Ardhuin asked, anger building and overwhelming her initial shock. “What if I had set a response?”

  “And what if you had distracted her?” asked Dominic, folding his arms. “She was casting dangerous spells in there.” Markus raised a questioning eyebrow, and Dominic added, “Crystalline Polythrenode.”

  Markus paled. “My profound apologies. It did not occur to me—”

  “That I would know the spell?” Fury replaced her anger.

  “That you would have any cause to cast it here,” the defensive magician said, holding up his hands. “Perhaps there was a wall you wished removed?”

  “Just a figurine,” Dominic murmured, the corner of his lip twitching.

  Ardhuin scowled at him. “I thought it wise that Monsieur Kermarec be able to recognize any war magics we might encounter,” she told Markus. “I was merely demonstrating them.”

  “Ah.” Markus Asgaya rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You raise an important point,” he said, nodding to Dominic. “How are we to contact you inside the wards? They are...formidably powerful. We tried calling to you for five minutes before I made my attempt.”

  The wards did deaden sound, especially further away from the door, which was the only real contact point.

  “I’ll think of something. Do you have any news from the Council?” Ardhuin asked hopefully. If only they could do something. It was maddening to be kept in the dark as they were.

  Markus shook his head. “Nothing yet. I will be here or in one of the antechambers, if you should need me.” He smiled again and left.

  Ardhuin followed Dominic back inside and closed the door, looking at it thoughtfully.

  “We need more information,” she said. “I have the feeling he might tell us something.”

  “Perhaps.” Dominic did not look convinced. “I suspect they have been ordered to remain silent. My guard this morning barely spoke to me.”

  Now that was remarkable. Dominic could get anyone to talk to him, even her.

  “We could persuade him, I think, if the others couldn’t hear,” Ardhuin began.

  Dominic interrupted, looking shocked and angry. “You aren’t thinking of letting him in here, are you?”

  Ardhuin blinked. “No, of course not. I’d have to completely redo the wards.” Sometimes Dominic made absolutely no sense. “I have something that will disguise what we are saying. Would you find him and tell him we want to speak with him? I will join you shortly.”

  Dominic sighed, then nodded and left the workroom. Ardhuin rummaged through the equipment she had brought with her until she found what she was looking for—a small, leather-covered box with a handle that looked like an ordinary travel case. Until now she had not understood why the obscurer had been given such a bland container, especially given the maker’s predilection for ornate ornamentation. Now, however, she knew. If the o
bscurer was being used, it could not draw attention to itself.

  Then the small scrap of what appeared to be paper that she had been given earlier by the defensive magicians. The writing was familiar, and she wanted to question Markus about it.

  She left the workroom carrying the box. Dominic and Markus Asgaya sat at a table in an alcove off the main hallway. It was a good location. The other defensive magicians would be able to see them and would not be suspicious.

  Markus was relaxed and at ease, and stood courteously when she arrived. Dominic radiated a stiff prickliness that made her wonder if Markus had said something to offend him—or did Dominic object to Markus, to his Yunwiyan parentage? It seemed very unlike him.

  Ardhuin sat down and opened the case. “This will make our conversation private,” she said as she took out the ivory pedestal, decorated by a twining gold vine. The pendular came next— gold on one end, clouded crystal on the other, and a long, narrow pin that rested on a cupped crystal at the top of the ivory pedestal. She set it in motion, watching it sway and spin in a way that always seemed like it was going to fall, but never did.

  “What is that?” Markus asked, fascinated. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Ardhuin shrugged uncomfortably. “Schuyler Colfax made them for all the Mage Guardians. It was my great-uncle’s.”

  “And what does it do?”

  “Within a ten-foot radius, we cannot be overheard. Magic is blocked, and anyone listening by ordinary means would hear only murmured voices, with no words being distinguishable.”

  Markus leaned back and crossed his long legs. “One might wonder what the Lady Magus would wish to discuss with me that the others could not hear.” He looked at her blandly.

  How many times had she made the resolution to learn to tell convincing lies? Markus Asgaya was a magician at a major Aeropan court. Of course he would be suspicious.

  Perhaps she should just abandon any pretense and tell the truth. It usually surprised people so much they did the same.

  “They won’t tell me anything, and they won’t let me leave, either. If I’m supposed to uphold the compact all by myself, I need information.”

  Markus drew back a little at her vehemence and did not look so relaxed any more. Ardhuin was somewhat surprised that her face didn’t feel at all hot and flushed. Usually arguing with people made her red as a beet.

  “What do you want to know?” Markus said, raising his hands. “There’s quite a bit going on here, most of which is secret or confidential to some degree. I sympathize with your predicament, truly, but I am not in the Council’s confidence.”

  Dominic shifted. “The assassination attempt. When did it happen? Why is such an effort being made to cover it up? We already know it happened, so you may as well tell us the rest.”

  Markus glanced at Dominic and then at her, the lurking smile flitting over his face as if to appeal for mercy, but Ardhuin did not relent. He released a deep breath, then, and ran his hand over his chin.

  “At first, because it was damn near successful. Then we started finding out more about it, and nothing made sense. The attempt took place when the King was riding in the park. At the very instant the shot was fired, the King inclined his head to better hear what someone was saying, so the bullet missed its mark and instead grazed his cheek, as you saw.” He nodded to Dominic. “After assuring his Majesty's safety, the guard immediately sealed off and searched the park—and found a known anarchist hiding in the shrubbery with a pistol that had recently been fired.”

  He stopped and seemed to be at a loss how to proceed. “That sounds rather straightforward,” said Ardhuin. “Where was the difficulty?”

  “It simply didn't add up,” he said, striking the edge of one hand into the palm of the other to emphasize each word. “The pistol was a very cheap, poor quality weapon. It could not have been fired with any degree of accuracy, when you take into account the distance between the King and the nearest available hiding place. Some said perhaps he had just gotten lucky.” Markus grinned. “Then, we got lucky—after a lot of work. We searched the entire area, crawling over every centimeter of ground. Someone found the bullet that had hit the King. We knew it was the right one when we did the spell to test for wounding, but the pyrometric spells said it had been fired five hours before. The bullet had suffered very little damage, and it was easy to tell it was the wrong type for that gun.”

  Dominic leaned forward. He was curious now, and seemed to have forgotten his earlier unfriendliness. “How could you tell?”

  “It had a metal casing. The anarchist’s gun was cheap, as I said. A favorite weapon of the criminal class, and it is intended also for cheap ammunition, which uses cardboard or wax paper for casing instead of metal. The bullet that struck the King could not have been fired from that gun.”

  “Another gun, then.”

  Markus frowned. “Clearly there must have been one, but we found no trace of it there, and the anarchist was captured immediately. No one else in the park was even in range. And there is one thing more. When we did the wounding spell, we noticed some interference, and we cut the bullet open. We found grains of lodestone mixed in the lead.”

  Ardhuin drew a sharp breath. “That would only be useful in a magical field—it would not affect the firing of the weapon.”

  “Precisely.” He sighed and ran his fingers along the edge of the table. ”After a lot of work, we think we know what happened. Another gun was indeed fired earlier, by someone else, and into a specially prepared stasis field. The bullet was released from stasis when the King went by.”

  Ardhuin regarded him thoughtfully for a while. “You still aren't telling us everything. That would not have been enough. The bullet had to be aimed at one particular target, and he could have been anywhere on the path. They could not have known in advance. I think the release of the field, and the aim of the bullet, were linked to something on the King's person. Something planted there.” Markus' eyes narrowed, but he remained silent. “And the number of people who would have the necessary access is...not large. Probably politically sensitive, as well.”

  Markus still had said nothing, but he didn't need to. Confirmation of what she had said was written on his face.

  “What of your anarchist?” asked Dominic. “Did he have something to do with it, or was he just unfortunate?”

  “He did, and he didn't,” responded Markus, a puzzled and unquiet look in his eyes. “He had some magical ability, but it was barely enough to give him work as a lamplighter—and he wasn't very good at that. He was even worse after a philogiston explosion at the lampworks that employed him. He recovered to some extent, but the accident seemed to have addled his wits and he couldn't light lamps any more. Even before the accident he would not have been able to set up a highly complex stasis field. And when we tried to question him,” he continued slowly, “we could get nothing. Not even lies. He simply could not speak. After finding the lodestone we did some investigation and discovered he has a geas on him.”

  The word hit her like a blow. First she wondered, in horror, who would be casting geasi. Then she remembered she had. On Dominic.

  “What is a geas?” he asked, and she flinched.

  “A magical compulsion,” Markus answered.

  “It is forbidden,” she managed to say.

  “Yes, to all but a few extremely high-placed and trusted mages. The Mage Guardians, for example,” Markus said, bowing slightly in her direction. “It is even forbidden to teach it without permission.”

  So her great-uncle had broken the law to teach her, but Oron was beyond their reach now. A Mage Guardian was allowed to cast a geas, but was she a real Mage Guardian? Would they even consider her a magician? Even if what she had done wasn’t illegal, would Dominic understand?

  Talk of something else. Anything.

  “Does anyone know what has become of the Gaulan mages who were not executed? Have they been kept track of?”

  “Do you think they would have done it?” Markus looked h
orrified. “They had geasi on them, specifically to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Besides, most of them must be in their eighties, if they are even still alive.”

  “It was the older, senior mages who were executed at the end of the war. The younger ones had not committed the same crimes, but that doesn't mean they didn't have the knowledge.”

  “I still don’t understand why you called on the compact,” said Dominic. “Of course now you know someone has apparently been killing the Mage Guardians, but you didn’t know that at the time. Assassination is a serious thing, but you seem to be dealing with it well enough. How is it on the same level of the Mage War?”

  Markus looked grim again, but he said nothing.

  “They hinted at something more in the meetings I attended,” said Ardhuin. “He is right. If you have invoked the compact, I have a right to know the threat.”

  “They will have my head for this,” he muttered, then made a sharp gesture of resignation. “It isn’t just the assassination attempt. If we had not been obscenely lucky, we would be at war now.”

  “With Ostri?” asked Dominic, and Ardhuin remembered the newspaper accounts.

  “Yes.” Markus sighed and gave a sardonic smile. “Our interminable bureaucracy saved us. One incompetent clerk was all that was needed. A message was put in the wrong box in the central mail facility, and the person who received it in error was an unimaginative, stuffy martinet who wanted to make an example of the unfortunate mail clerk. So instead of sending it on to the intended recipient, he raised a hue and cry and had it delivered to the purported sender, along with a masterpiece of pompous self-righteous verbiage in his own hand.”

  “Something tells me you don't have a high opinion of this fellow,” observed Dominic.

  Markus grinned. “An opinion shared by everyone who has to deal with him. Or so I have heard,” he added hastily. “That's when things got interesting. If the original message had gone to the right place and the orders in it had been acted on, troops would have been mobilized and moved into a restricted area near the border. That may not sound like a matter of much importance, but it would have been a direct contravention of several important treaties—more than enough to start a war, especially when the Ostri government had been told in advance this movement would occur.”