The War of the Pyromancer

by P D Ceanneir

  ‘The Battle of the Single Survivor was where your father, and my best friend, died,’ he continued. ‘There is not a second that goes by when I don’t regret my actions on that day. I just wish I could remember it!’ he said, slapping the side of his head with the palm of his charcoal stained hand.

  ‘I know,’ I whispered and he pauses to look at me. ‘I understand, Shanks, I really do. Some of the dreams I have had have proved that to me, but it does not let me sleep any easier.’

  I look towards the tall oak tree and watch a red squirrel climb down the rough bark of the trunk; it stares at us for a few seconds, and then scarpers back up. Birds increase their tempo of song to the dawn chorus and a warm breeze slips over the garden walls from the west, yet I shiver because, strangely, amongst the calm of the garden I cannot get the image of the Door out of my mind.

  ‘Tell me about the Door?’ I ask Shanks, and I afford myself a little smile as he stiffens beside me. He reaches into his pile of sketches, pulls out one from the centre, handing it to me. It is the Door, drawn to perfection.

  ‘That’s it,’ I said, ‘that’s exactly how I described it earlier on.’

  ‘Described it?’

  ‘I tend to write down your memories when they wake me up,’ I said with a little sarcasm. ‘So what can you tell me about it?’

  He is silent for a while then smiles, ‘do you remember old Master Roswell?’

  I frown at his offhand way of changing the subject, but he always had a reason in the past for doing so.

  ‘The Academy’s Head of Maths, what about him?’

  ‘He always said that I was an “Intuitive Mathematician”. No matter how difficult an equation or a theorem actually was, I was always able to see the flaw inside the formula.’ He turned to me, his face set into serious neutrality, ‘the Door is perfect. It has no flaws; it is mathematically precise in every way. It seems to follow my old theories of Cosmic Laws in every detail. And, because of that, I know it is wrong.’

  ‘How is it wrong?’ I ask him.

  ‘I cannot put my finger in it. I once thought it was a figment of my madness, though now I know it exists. However, my proof is my memories which are trapped inside your head.’

  I chuckle. ‘More fool me.’

  ‘I do know that whatever is beyond the Door is terrifying,’ he said in a low voice, ‘and I did all that I could to make sure it never got out.’

  ‘What was it?’

  He shakes his head as he frowns, ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘I expect I will have to remember for you,’ I said.

  We sit in silence for a while.

  ‘Tell me,’ he enquires, ‘why do you write down your dreams?’

  I shrug, ‘I foolishly think your life is of historic significance. Due to the threat of the Brethac Ziggurat, it is important to me to understand that what you did in the past was justified at all and hope it can help with the present.’

  ‘I would not have given them to you if I had not thought they were important. Yet, how do you feel after you write them down?’

  I frown at the question. ‘Relieved, I think. When I awake with them I have a headache which disappears after I finish writing, why?’

  ‘Because it strikes me that I would not have put them there without a way of getting them out again, it seems that writing them down is the answer.’

  I stare at him with a look of surprise on my face. He is annoyingly correct. I understand it all now. He would not have intentionally made me suffer at his hands if there was not a way to cure me. Still, I am a little apprehensive.

  ‘You want me to write your story?’ I ask incredulously.

  He nods, ‘what better person to do it, and what better time than now? Your brother looms large, but immobile, on your borders, Havoc has gone this past year on the quest for the Gredligg Orrinn and we sit in a stalemate of peace for however long it lasts. This is the time, your highness.’

  4

  My wife, Queen Molna, arrives to do her morning chores in the garden and I make my excuses to leave them both alone. Molna has a fondness for Shanks that does not equate to anything that she and I share, though we are very much lovers at heart, she sees a side of Shanks that appeals to her intellect while I nourish her humour.

  Shanks can see none of the friction his being here causes between us, at least not at first. He now ignores any affection Molna shows towards him when I am there, yet I know he loves her as much as I and, for that, I respect him enormously.

  I quickly walk back through the corridors of the palace and into the library grounds through its south entrance. The clerk at the reception counter stands up straight when I walk in and he greats me cordially, I am not a frequent visitor to this area of the library, though I do have tea on the mezzanine area on occasion when I meet with my Consul, Lord Ness.

  I ask the clerk for an empty ledger. If he is wondering why I would want a five hundred-page tomb used for cataloguing he does not show it, and gives me a black leather-bound book from the shelves under the counter.

  Back in my study, with the curtains billowing because of the still open window, I open the ledger, ink my quill, and write this introduction.

  The Keveni-Marinet Debacle

  “As disasters go, this was by far the most unfortunate for all involved.”

  King Criab III: excerpt from his speech at the annual Winter Wake

  1

  It would be presumptuous of me to tell you of the first time I met Telmar without first of all explaining to you the history of the time before his birth. To do so would require facts from memory and a thorough search through historical documentation in the library.

  I begin in the year 1773 YOA. The first of the Cromme Kings, Hagan the First,[1] has sat on the Rogun throne for two hundred and fifty two years; his longevity is down to his Rawn powers. On the opposite side of the continent Ronal, the Second King of the Vallkytes, has ruled for fifty years, although he is not a well man and is disabled by a constant sickness he has had since birth. It was also in that year that Telmar’s great great grandfather, Varriet, Barron of Tressel, a distant cousin of Lord Soneros, marries the thirteen year old Lady Albrin, the youngest daughter of the Count and Countess of Dulan. Her pedigree is such that her uncle is the Count of Farness and she belongs to the House of Duli; at one time in the distant past, the lords of Duli were royalty under their liege lord, Moncar the First. With the death of the unmarried Moncar, the Vallkyte crown passed to his nephew, Ronal becoming the first king of the House of Solan.

  The royal House of Solan now rules for a lengthy time, but at one point it wavers in doubt when the rule comes under the control of regents because of the minority of its younger kings. In 1948 YOA Ronal the Second dies and leaves his throne to his fifteen year old son, who now becomes Ronal the Third. Due to a sickness, possibly passed on by his father, he does not live to see the year’s end and the crown passes to his six-year-old brother Criab, the third of that name. His regent is the powerful magnate Beltane, Duke of Keveni, a proud and ambitious man who holds the power of the nobles in the palm of his hands and manipulates the young king to his own needs. Criab soon becomes a Rawn Master, thereby curing the mysterious disease of his father and prolonging his life and his reign. [2]

  By the time King Criab reaches the age of eighteen, Barron Varriet and Baroness Albrin’s son, Efron, marries Lady Namwi Cromme. Namwi is the youngest daughter of two famous Rawn Masters, Princess Elta and Warlord Norin “Caphil” Cromme. Norin and Elta have four children, the first, Hagan Lorne, Father of Hagan the First of the Roguns, and the last, Namwi, are born over three hundred years apart. Such is the way when both parents are Rawn Masters with increased longevity.

  It is always a trait of my family that we produce powerful Rawn Masters, male and female. Lady Namwi and Efron both met as teachers at the academy and married twenty years later. However, many years before their love blossomed, a crisis within the Halls of the Vallkyte Parliament occurred.

  2

  S
cholars of the age recorded many historical documents about the Barons of the Assembly controlling the trade of Tattoium-Tarridun.

  Product controls trade, landowners owned the product and most landowners belong to the Ancient Order of the Barony Charter. The Vallkyte Barony Charter differs slightly from the Roguns. The twenty-four barons of the Vallkyte Assembly are mostly hereditary lords, that is, lords of land passed from father to heir and come under the vassalage of their local counts, earls or dukes, and have no direct line of fealty towards the Vallkyte king. Only seven out of the twenty-four are actual royal appointments, this means, due to Vallkyte taxation laws, the royal coffers increase directly from their Civic Tax. In Rogun hierarchy, all nobles give their fealty directly to the crown and any coinage given in tax is fed back into the civic system that is designed to improve the lives of the people.[3]

  Such low amounts of royal barons were proving to be a burdensome problem for King Criab when he took control of the throne in 1964 YOA. The Royal Coffers were empty and, because of the debts accrued in the years before his reign, were not likely to be filled quickly. It was the previous Regent, Duke Beltane, now the king’s advisor and Royal Judiciary Lawgiver, who formulated a plan to increase the kingdom’s wealth.

  That plan was the highly popular Rite of Ancarryn.

  The Ancarryn, or the Bout of Champions, was an annual event where warrior champions from all over the island would come to settle old scores in a fight to the death. The king built a huge arena to house this special event, and the income from the spectators went a long way to paying for its construction and the king’s creditors.

  He also ordered taxation on trade profits at the city’s local markets to sell their wares on his royal soil. At first this idea became popular with the Market Traders Guilds due to the huge profits they collected at such events, but a problem arose when the Barony Charter realised that the Ancarryn was causing their own domestic profits to fall considerably shorter than was first projected. The king and Duke Beltane met the Barony Charter in parliament to hear their complaints.[4]

  However, the barons lost their fight against the king’s taxation laws[5] and were forced to accept an annual profit fall once a year. Fortunately, the landowner’s saving grace arrived in the form of Telmar’s ancestor, Varriet, Barron of Tressel, who discovered a loophole in the law. If the king was making a substantial percentage from the local populace at the Ancarryn then, by law, he must set aside a “Marked Amount” to be handed back to the local banks and public establishments for “the betterment of the people”.

  King Criab was said to be furious at this development, but royal seals set the laws by his own grandsires and he had no real influence within the parliament to change them at short notice. Duke Beltane urged patience, the barons may have won this cause but, at some point in time, they would need the power of the king to patronise their trading ventures.

  Soon, the duke and the king would have their victory.

  Efron and Namwi became husband and wife in 1994 YOA. They were to have two children, Kellerane, Telmar’s grandfather, and Efron the younger, who took a naval rank as a lieutenant in the merchant navy and was to die on board the Merchant Prince in winter 2164 YOA[6].

  The death of his younger brother hit Kellerane hard. Subsequently he became one of those barons who were instrumental in forming the trading group called the Farness Bond. The Farness Bond came into being to combat two things; the winter weather and the necessity to make up the profits lost during the Ancarryn. The latter I have already explained, as to the former I would ask you to remember the start of this story and my description of the warm waters of the Banding Sea that are brought from the north by the currents.

  As the seasons change, so too do the currents. As they swirl around the northern tip of the island and into the deeper waters around the east coast, it then sinks when winter strikes. Most of the colder weather on our continent is at the whim of the winter winds from the massive landmass on our south pole called Erndall, and even though the east stays mild and dry throughout the winter, the seas freeze for a few months of the year as colder currents push icebergs and glacial debris north.

  The frozen waters proved to be a hindrance to trading vessels as they tried to make the dangerous crossing over the Mariners Sea in the midst of these ice flows. For most of the winter the seaports of Dulan-Tiss and Gazzen-Sel close until the weather breaks, but in the Bay of Keveni the waters are deeper and the warmer currents still have a hold there. This causes a break in the ice sheets leading from the Keveni harbour to a string of uninhabited islands called the Marinets, some twenty miles away to the east.

  The Marinets marks the furthest end of the Keveni Bay and the start of the open waters of the Mariners Sea. It was whilst sailing through the Keveni-Marinet Gap that the Merchant Prince struck an iceberg and sank with all hands, taking Kellerne’s brother to the deep. Baron Kellerane made it his mission to find a way safely through this treacherous gap so that trading to the far continents could continue throughout the year; however, they were incurring large transport costs by carting their goods north and having it shipped from Sonora. With the Farness Bond making headway in the legal shipping of exotic goods, Kellerane sought out a shipwright and businessman called Lachlan of Praxis to build a fleet designed to smash through the ice sheet, and so the famous metal clad ships called Ironprows were built in Keveni Harbour[7].

  The idea of the Ironprows was a sound one. It would cost a great deal to have them built, but in the long run the money made from the winter trading turnaround would more than make up for the cost of the fleet build, the problem was in raising the initial funds. Most of the Vallkyte nobility got behind the Farness Bond and Lachlan’s own business, The Mariner Sea Trading Company, as well. Public acceptance of the plan even reached the king and his advisors. Criab turned to Duke Beltane’s son, Cormack, who had taken over from his late father as Royal Advisor and who also stood to make a profit in the venture because he owned Keveni Harbour, the only harbour open in winter on the east coast. Duke Cormack either liked the idea, or sought to gain power over the Baronial Charter. Like his father, he always made political inroads for personal gain and if this helped his standing with the king then it was all for the better. Although there are also vague references to him funding much of the king’s credit towards the venture, these were undisclosed at the time, due to the records of transaction mysteriously disappearing. Duke Cormack knew money was the issue. The ships needed funding and he and the king had the collateral and coinage to get the venture off the ground. The sixteen barons of the Farness Bond paid their last coin of note to start building six of the fifty ships planned, but most of the barons were only rich in land, not money. When Duke Cormack approached them with an offer of coinage towards the project, most placed their titles and land leases on the table as collateral.

  Baron Kellerane did not trust the new duke and was one of the few who took loans from local banks to fund his part in the build. This act would prove to be fortunate in the coming catastrophe for the Farness Bond and one that would haunt Telmar’s future.

  3

  Two hundred and fifty nine bushels of corn, three thousand yards of Ferrington Woade, six hundred pots of spices, nine hundred fur bundles, one hundred kegs of Keveni rice wine and brandy, salted pork and fish by the ton, bolts of linen, silks and cotton to weigh down the largest boat. All these and more were loaded onto the forty-three completed Ironprows just in time for the worst of the winter weather that closed in from the south[8].

  The excitement of the venture was rife, few noticed the winter had come early and strong winds battered the eastern coast. Kellerane was one of those that urged the others of the Farness Bond to wait until the storm winds broke, but most argued that the worst had come and gone.

  They were wrong. The winter of 2215 YOA was to be the worst in living memory.

  Whatever reservations Kellerane had about the venture he still loaded his cargo on board his fleet, though only half of what he promised,
and sent the rest via Sonora. This seemed peculiar, though common practice in those days as most customers pre-ordered goods and shipped them to a timescale. It did, however, place scorn upon his name from his fellow businessmen.

  On the morning of the fleet’s departure, the weather calmed enough for the ships to ease out of the harbour and sail the Keveni-Marinet Gap. On that day, the gap had thinned to a few hundred yards in places. The narrowness of the gap was a concern for the ships captains and they ordered the flotilla to form up in line astern. This order may well have saved some lives as the days rolled on and the weather changed.

  On the third day, the gap closed. Strong southern winds, called Inassis, whipped up and shifted the ice sheet to such an extent that it shut off the exit at the Marinet Isles. For ten tortuous days the fleet suffered an intense barrage of gales and snow, while at the same time large icebergs crushed the hulls of the Ironprows.

  Because the fleet had sailed in line astern those at the rear found themselves cut off from the main flotilla when the gap closed. Three were able to sail back and tell the world of the catastrophe. When the weather broke those three vessels, and the other seven newly completed Ironprows, launched a rescue bid to aid the trapped fleet.

  The ten rescue ships proved that their design worked as they smashed through the thinning ice, but they were too late to save the others trapped in the closing ice flow. The sea claimed them and took over a thousand lives to the deep.

  It was to be the worst maritime disaster in recorded history and referred to as the Keveni-Marinet Debacle. The loss of life and trade astonished and shocked the world of commerce and the Halls of Parliament sobered as more details of the disaster unfolded.