“That’s actually not a bad idea,” I mused. “Recruit craftsmen with useful skills, get them set up with workshops, and let them pay their rent with labor until they can get their businesses established and start making money. It certainly beats having Avilla try to juggle every detail of what needs doing. But for right now I’m just going to set up the military complex, and maybe an extra building for overflow in case the keep starts getting crowded.”
“So what are we going to be doing here that you don’t want people in town to know about?” Cerise asked.
I grinned. “Let’s just say that guns are only the beginning.”
Chapter 12
As a programmer I’d developed a habit of going head-down when I was working on a big project, shutting out everything else in favor of my work. It’s amazing how long you can function on fast food, lots of caffeine and five or six hours a night of sleep.
Amanda had always promised to be supportive when I had a crunch time coming up, but that never lasted more than a few days. Then she rapidly devolved into bitching and passive-aggressive digs at me, when she wasn’t taking advantage of my distraction to spend all our money on retail therapy. I can’t count the number of times I stumbled out of bed in the middle of an 80-hour work week to find that Amanda hadn’t bothered to do laundry or buy groceries - just because she didn’t work didn’t mean she was going to accept responsibility for anything else.
Yeah, in retrospect there were a lot of warning signs that our relationship hadn’t been going well.
Avilla’s response to my workaholic tendencies involved a lot more carrot than stick. In the mornings Tina or Cerise always woke me in time for breakfast, often with a bit of hanky-panky thrown in to start the day off right. If I was in danger of missing a meal she’d send one of her cute little maids to remind me, and it was a rare day that I’d miss out on her cooking on purpose. So there were almost always three meals a day worth of conversation to keep me connected to what was going on around me.
As for the late nights? Well, some nights Cerise and Avilla would show up at my workshop together wearing next to nothing, and drag me off to bed. When they were in the mood to be with each other they’d send Tina instead, and the busty redhead would quietly sit and watch me with eyes full of wonder as she waited for me to finish whatever I was doing. Either way, it would take a genuine emergency to make me reject that kind of invitation.
But at the same time, I somehow had far fewer interruptions than I would have expected. Avilla had taken over managing my appointment schedule so smoothly that I didn’t even notice until she’d been doing it for days, and she was good at it. I had meetings now and then, with Oskar or Marcus or various groups of refugees, but most of the minor crisis and organizational hand-holding got taken care of before it reached me.
She blushed prettily when I finally caught on, and thanked her.
“It’s nothing, Daniel,” she protested. “Just a little household magic, scaled up for the whole keep.”
“Well, I’m impressed,” I told her. “I was afraid I’d end up having to spend half my time just keeping things organized, but you’re doing an amazing job of that. I don’t know how you find the time to do all that and still cook.”
“Honeydew works hard,” Cerise put in, hugging her. “We should do something nice for her to thank her.”
“Have you seen my kitchen?” Avilla replied. “I think Daniel’s covered on thanks for the next twenty years. You, on the other hand…”
Not that Cerise was lazing around either. The dark witch was putting Beri through what sounded like a pretty brutal crash course in witchcraft, in addition to her own struggle to master the demonic power that had come so close to overwhelming her in Lanrest. She was often up late into the night working ritual magic in her little chapel, either alone or with Beri assisting. Then she’d rise early the next morning, throw on a long skirt to hide her tail, and head into town to spend half the day wheeling and dealing. She was the one who arranged most of our purchases, and without her charm and willingness to wheedle deals out of the local merchants I suspected we’d have a lot more trouble getting our people clothed and fed.
They were both working miracles, but there were still too many problems and not enough of us to go around. Oskar and Captain Rain were stepping up to handle our military affairs well enough, and old Hrodir was helping Oskar’s sons get some craftsmen set up on the island. But there were so many things that weren’t getting done, because no one had time to worry about them.
On the good side, I had hopes that Elin would be able to start making a contribution soon.
Her search for an alchemical solution to the disposal problem had been a bust, which didn’t really surprise me in retrospect. Mercury is pretty resistant to most chemical reactions, and the remaining enchantments would protect the fragments from whatever magical effects the local alchemists could create. I vaguely remembered something about mercury reacting with gold from my long-ago high school chemistry classes, but given the modest state of my treasury that didn’t sound like an especially promising avenue to explore.
But it was the magic that was the problem, and my meta-magic sorcery had eventually provided a solution to that. Elin was intrigued when I extracted a fresh sample from one of her hands, and carefully dropped it into an enchanted stone canister the size of a coffee urn.
“That’s a very odd-looking enchantment, sir. May I ask what its doing?”
One of these days I was going to convince her that she didn’t have to call me ‘sir’ all the time, but for now I was happy enough that she could bring herself to talk to me at all without cringing and stammering.
“What it’s supposed to do is gradually break down the enchantment on the mercury. It tries to drain all the magic out of anything that’s put inside, and there are wards on the stone to cut off access to any external source of power.”
She peered at the container in fascination. “Oh, how interesting. I see. An intact golem would probably just go into hibernation, but these fragments are so damaged it should be possible to draw out the magic through the breaks in the enchantment. You are a most formidable spellcrafter, sir.”
I chuckled. “Actually, I’m mostly cheating. I have mana sorcery.”
She turned to stare at me. “Sorcery… over the stuff of magic itself? Oh my, that’s… but then… oh. Oh!”
She flushed a little, and bit her lip. “That’s extraordinary, sir. No wonder your spells are so unconventional. I wish I could ask… but no, obviously that’s a secret.”
She might look like some kind of mutant hillbilly, but I was coming to realize there was an impressive mind hiding behind those deferential manners of hers.
“Yes, for now it needs to stay a secret,” I confirmed.
“Of course, sir. I do hope I get to hear the story someday, though. It must be amazing. I assume your, ah, ‘apprentices’ are part of it?”
“You don’t miss much, do you Elin?”
She ducked her head, hiding her face behind a curtain of limp hair. “Sorry, sir.”
“It’s fine, Elin. I actually like the fact that you’re so perceptive. Just don’t go around repeating the things you’ve noticed, alright? I don’t need that kind of trouble right now.”
“Of course, sir. My fate is in your hands now. I’d be a fool to do anything that might cause you trouble. Only… you are here to help the city, right? Not to destroy it?”
I put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I’m not here to destroy the city, Elin. I do have a patron, but it isn’t anyone in Loki’s faction. My main goal has to be protecting my own people, but I’ll do what I can for Kozalin.”
She sighed in relief. “Thank you, sir. I thought so, but I had to be sure. I… um… I’m sorry for doubting you.”
She shrunk in on herself a little at that. I frowned. The signs were getting hard to ignore.
“Elin, did they beat you?”
She flinched.
“A master is responsible for the discipline of his appr
entices,” she said tonelessly.
Damn.
“So I’ve been told. Who exactly was your master?”
Her gaze fell to the floor. “The Conclave as a whole, sir. I… I’m not complaining, sir. They were kind to take me in, before it was even known if I could control myself. I might have transformed and started eating the servants at any moment, for all they knew.”
“I see. Elin, how old are you?” Her appearance was strange enough that it was actually hard to tell.
“Twenty, probably. Father… didn’t keep track.”
So she’d been six when the faerie handed her over to the Conclave? Then she probably had memories of living with her rapist cannibal father before her mother was rescued, and I could barely imagine what that must have been like.
“Well, you’ve probably noticed that I’m not from around here, and in my own keep I mostly hold to my own customs instead of imitating the Varmlanders. So you may be interested to know that among my people being capricious about matters of discipline is considered evil.”
She folded her hands in her lap, and licked her lips nervously. “Sir? I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand.”
I sighed, and suppressed the urge to give the girl a hug. At this point she’d probably take that as a prelude to rape, and the last thing I wanted to do was give her more things to worry about.
“Elin, you’re a grown woman. You’ve promised to be helpful, and even if you hadn’t you’re old enough to understand that we all need to work together to survive right now. So if I want you to do something I’ll tell you. If I don’t want you to do something I’ll tell you that. If you screw up I’ll explain what you did wrong, and tell you not to do it again. If you make too many mistakes I’ll warn you that you’re trying my patience, and make sure you understand what’s expected of you and what will happen if you don’t do it.”
“What I won’t do, ever, is punish you out of the blue with no warning. In particular, I’m not going to strike you for saying something I don’t like. In my land men who behave like that are considered pathetic weaklings, and we do nasty things to them when they’re caught.”
She cautiously peered up at me through the curtain of hair that hid her face. “Really?”
“Really. You can relax, Elin. I’m not going to hurt you, and I won’t let anyone else do it either. If you ever have trouble with one of the men come tell me, and I’ll deal with it.”
“Even though I’m a monster?” She asked plaintively.
“I don’t care who or what your parents were, Elin. Your own actions are the only thing that matters to me.”
“I...” She paused, and wiped her eyes. “T-thank you, sir. I… I can hardly make myself believe it, but… you won’t regret this. You’ll see. I’ll do everything right, just like I’m supposed to, and you’ll never need to… to… discipline me.”
The last part came out in a whisper. I suppressed a sudden urge to go back to the lab and invent some way to reduce the Iron Citadel to a smoking hole in the ground.
“I’m sure you will, Elin,” I said gently.
She sniffed. “Sir? I… I’m starting to get a little magic back. Is there… what should I be doing? To earn my keep?”
“You’re still an invalid, Elin. Mostly I just want you to keep resting until we finish getting you healed. But it’s going to take a few hours to find out if my idea here is going to work. If you’re feeling up to it, maybe you can help me figure out a way to make that cistern on the roof fill itself?”
She smiled shyly. “I can do that.”
She did, too. She could conjure water as easily as I did earth, although her mana reserves were more limited. Filling the cistern with crystal-clear water only took her a minute, which was a hell of an improvement on my own approach of hauling up chunks of ice from the river. Probably a lot cleaner, too.
Elin smiled at the full cistern, and offered to make that a daily chore. But I had other ideas. She was trained in the basics of wizardry, and while she didn’t have any great skill at enchantment her ability to sense magic seemed unusually precise. With her input it wasn’t hard to rough out a design for an enchantment that would trigger when the water level inside the cistern dropped, and conjure more.
But actually casting it would be tricky. I didn’t have water sorcery, and learning to do the conjuration without that crutch would take more time than I could spare. Elin could create the conjuration enchantment, but she didn’t have the skill to build conditional triggers. Not to mention that it would need a power source, and I wasn’t about to tell her anything about how my matter to mana enchantment worked.
I was trying to figure out a way to enchant the different functions separately and then link them together when Elin diffidently suggested a more direct solution.
“Just lead me through it, sir,” she offered. “I’ve assisted with rituals a few times, and my part in this is simple. I know we don’t have a proper ritual chamber, but our magic is compatible enough. Your power is like steel, and I can easily flow around it and follow along without being hurt.”
“Hmm. Sounds worth a try.”
My only experience with group magic to date had been helping Avilla claim her kitchen as a sanctum, which was an entirely different sort of thing. But it was something I’d just as soon get some practice with anyway. So I had Elin wait while I built the self-powering part of the enchantment, and then invited her in for the rest.
Her magic was a warm presence that flowed through the rigid precision of my enchantment, seeking the proper place to do its work. I assembled the water level sensor and it swirled curiously through my awareness, before delicately applying a tiny thread of power to assist me.
It was almost like dancing. She followed my lead, weaving a trace of herself into my enchantment, following along with me as I worked. I’d expected joint casting to be a tricky bit of coordination, but she was remarkably good at compensating for my relative clumsiness.
Then we came to the actual conjuration, and I stumbled as I reached the edge of my sorcery. Our powers mingled, and for a moment I was intensely aware of the soft femininity of her magic.
Wow. Was that what coven rituals felt like?
I pulled away, and tried to signal Elin to take the lead. Her magic sort of fluttered uncertainly for a moment, before she delicately wove a bridge from the trigger point of the sensor spell. I lent a fraction of power to her efforts, helping to bind it to the structure we’d built together. Then she was off, racing through an elegant little vortex of magic while I did my best to keep up.
She finished quickly, and I opened my eyes to find her looking up at me with bright eyes and rosy cheeks. Well, apparently she wasn’t mad at me for the magical equivalent of accidentally copping a feel.
“I think it worked,” she said excitedly. She gestured, and a stream of water rose from the cistern to form a large blob floating in the air. Sure enough, the cistern immediately began to refill.
“Good job. Now I just need to put a lid on this thing to keep debris out and we’ll be all set.”
It was just in time, too. The population of my stronghold was rising quickly with all the recruiting we were doing, and with most of the harbor waters melted it was getting harder for the men to collect ice and snow. I wasn’t about to let anyone drink water from a medieval harbor - god only knows what all was draining into it from the city.
My work was also attracting attention, as Mara noted on her next visit.
“I swear, Adept Tova is going to sneak into your bed any day now and try to seduce your secrets out of you,” she told me.
I laughed. “She’s not bad, but Cerise has her beat.”
“Yeah, well, Cerise isn’t an enchantress with forty years of experience and twin daughters that are half succubus. Seriously, Daniel, that woman would be a High Adept if her magic could handle golems or crowds. Watch out for her.”
“I bet I’ve got more succubus in me than her girls do,” Cerise purred. I looked up to find her posing in the door
way of the little sitting room, with a bit of her aura leaking out.
Mara licked her lips. “Seriously?”
“Mmm hmmm. If she tries it I’ll tame these little girls of hers, and Daniel will make her beg for mercy. You wouldn’t believe the things he can do to a woman.”
“Yes, well, I also try not to be overconfident,” I interrupted. “Thanks for the warning, Mara. I’ll keep an eye out for her. Cerise, how about dialing it back a bit?”
“Okaaay,” Cerise said theatrically. “Sorry, Mara. My aura can get away from me when I get worked up. But you’re not going to freak out on me if I relax my disguise a little, are you?”
“Hardly. So that isn’t really what you look like?”
Cerise let her disguise spell unravel, and strutted across the room to drape herself across my lap. I wasn’t quite sure why she was putting on the show, but after a moment of hesitation I decided to roll with it. She was actually a pretty good judge of people, so she was bound to have a reason.
Mara studied her horns with surprised interest. “You didn’t get those by playing with some little succubus, Cerise. What are you?”
She grinned. “Promise not to tell? I’m a death witch.”
Mara’s eyebrows shot up. “I see. I guess Daniel bound you, then?”
“Not exactly,” I temporized.
“I got into a tight spot where I had to absorb way more demonic power than I could handle,” Cerise admitted. “Damned priests wanted to use me as a giant-killing weapon. Daniel here figured out how to bind me to be myself. That’s how I know I can trust him, no matter what. I was so far gone he could have done anything to me, but he didn’t.”
Mara frowned in confusion. “Why? That seems like a hell of a risk to take, Daniel. The Church would come down on you hard if they knew.”
I shrugged. “The church can blow me. Cerise and I have been through a lot together, and I’m not going to screw her over. Besides, real loyalty is stronger than any magic.”
“True,” she agreed. “Bindings can be broken. I’m not sure why you’re trusting me with this, though. I mean, I’m not going to turn you in, but how could you know that?”
Black Coven (Daniel Black Book 2) Page 18
