A Blight of Mages

by Karen Miller

  But I will have a pointed word with his lordship. If he wants to know something, let him ask me. I’ll not be the fodder for a servant’s speculation… no, not even for Rumm.

  Chapter Twelve

  Morgan returned to the College amidst a confusion of feelings. His years spent studying within its ivy-clad walls hadn’t been a misery… but they’d not been an undiluted delight, either. As ever, ranking counted. The fact that in raw talent he’d outstripped nearly every son and daughter from the more prestigious First Families could not make up for his less illustrious name.

  In many ways, his talent had only made things worse.

  The other boys from Dorana’s lower-ranked families had formed a little herd that kept them safe from the worst of the subtle sneering by those students, like Brahn Sorvold, who were born to greater privilege. They’d made a few tentative overtures in his direction, but he’d spurned them. The thought of hiding amongst that mediocre gaggle had sickened him.

  And so his years in the College were spent mostly solitary. He was noticed, of course. The quality of his magework couldn’t be denied. But when it came down to choices, to the tutors favouring this student and not that one, he’d spent four years more often than not being that one.

  The sting had never quite faded. Which was why he took Sallis and Shari’s disparagements so amiss, of course. He wasn’t a fool. He knew that inside Councillor Danfey still lived the shade of his younger, student-mage self.

  “Sir? Sir, is something amiss?”

  Startled out of melancholy thought, he stared at the youth who had so intemperately plucked at his elbow.

  “Are you blind?” he demanded, and flicked the Council insignia pinned to his pearl-embroidered, blue velvet tunic. “Is it censure you’re seeking?”

  The student opened his amberish eyes wide and let his small, wet mouth fall open. From the look of his merely serviceable attire, he was the offspring of a very lowly placed First Family. The upper ranks dressed their sons and daughters in brocades and velvets, not hardy linen. To be sure the boy’s tunic was dyed a rich forest green, and stitched here and there with gold thread, but at the end of the day it was linen. And that was that.

  “Councillor!” he gasped. “Forgive me. You looked stricken and I thought—I thought—”

  Morgan cuffed the gibbering fool on the side of his unkempt head. If you can’t afford a decent haircut, dolt, what are you doing here? “No, you failed to think or pay attention. And you would be a mage in the world beyond this College? Numbskull.” Another cuff. “Name?”

  The student blinked. “My name, sir?”

  “No, pibble! The name of my wet nurse’s big left toe!”

  Shuddering, the boy gathered his wandering wits. “Werik Gowen, sir.”

  Gowen? Yes indeed, a most lowly ranked First Family. If he’d been admitted as a student then he had to have talent, but talent wasn’t enough. When would people learn?

  “And is there a reason, Student Gowen, why I should not make complaint of you to the proctor?”

  Werik Gowen swallowed a sob. Hovering at a safe distance, three more students. Avid and peering, horrified by their friend’s predicament, relieved it was his and not theirs. The absence of other students roaming the College grounds suggested that all four of them were late to their next class.

  “Please, sir, please…” The boy’s voice had sunk to a near whisper. His damp, mortified gaze was trained on the grass. “I humbly beg your pardon. I meant no offence.”

  Morgan considered him. The afternoon was fast dwindling. He had no more time to waste. “You are pardoned. But should you again come to my attention, Student Gowen, you can be sure the repercussions will not be to your liking. Now get to class. Quickly!”

  “Sir!” the boy gasped. “Thank you, sir!”

  Shaking, Werik Gowen retreated to the safety of his goggling fellow students. With a final scorching stare Morgan continued down the tree-shaded brickwork pathway that led from the College’s front gates to its sprawling complex of lecture halls, staff offices and heavily warded practical application workrooms. As he walked, he repinned his Council insignia to the inside of his tunic. His purpose was to assess the situation here discreetly. When that was done he’d once again identify himself.

  Though years had passed since he’d breathed College air, he recalled every twist and turn of its central thoroughfare, every sinuous side path, every ancient, flowering tree. The lecture hall he sought sat in the furthest north-east corner of the College grounds, shrouded in ferns and rambling hancinthia vines. He’d timed his arrival so he could slip into the hall while the students were getting settled for Bellamie Ranowen’s last class of the day. Their bustle and flurry meant he’d go unnoticed, and once the lecture began he’d observe, unnoticed, and so be perfectly poised to deliver an accounting of his findings to Lord Varen. Though in truth, whatever he said would be aimed at Sallis Arkley.

  And what Sallis will do with it, or make of Varen’s insistence on involving me in Nevin Jordane’s crisis, justice alone knows.

  For himself, he didn’t care. For now it was enough to know that Arkley could only be lemon-sour knowing he’d have to abide by Morgan Danfey’s recommendations.

  Stepping softly through the lecture hall’s doors, left ajar, Morgan hid himself in the shadows that blurred the furthest edges of the large room. The tutor’s podium was glimlit, but yet unoccupied. Ranowen’s whispering students, some thirty of them by his rough head-count, prepared themselves to work, tugging ink and pen and paper from their satchels, igniting the tiny balls of glimfire that would illuminate their note-taking. Though these were the College’s senior residents, they were not permitted the use of transcribing incants. It was thought, perhaps not without merit, that the act of putting pen to paper helped ink the lesson into a student’s labouring brain.

  A door behind the tutor’s podium opened and Bellamie Ranowen entered the hall. Short for a Doranen, she was more muscular and broader in the frame than most. Not beautiful at all. As she closed the door her students sank into a respectful hush, which spoke well of her discipline if nothing else. Intrigued, Morgan eased sideways until he was fetched up against the wall, where the hall’s deepest shadows lay, and considered his quarry.

  She was a rare creature, this Bellamie Ranowen. The only College lecturer to teach here who’d not sprung from a First Family. Her unremarkable appearance was sharply at odds with what had been reported of her, that she swam in dangerously unorthodox and reckless waters. But no mage worth his magic judged another mage by appearance alone.

  And if she’s to be condemned, she’ll condemn herself by her own words and actions.

  Should Nevin Jordane’s accusation be proven, if this unlikely College tutor did indeed overreach her authority while conducting a vendetta against his daughter, she’d pay the price… and payment would not be pretty. A prominent family, the Jordanes. Sixth-generation Elvadians, and in the first rank of First Families. Nevin’s younger brother had also been considered for the Council seat rendered vacant by Andwin Bellem’s untimely death.

  Venette had refused to divulge why it was that Greve Danfey’s son had defeated Arnulf Jordane for the honour, and he’d not pressed her to break silence. Sometimes it was wiser not to question a victory.

  But while I question the wisdom of Mage Ranowen’s appointment, and likely would have voted against it had I been on the Council then, what does it say about me that I hope I can prove Sallis Arkley’s friend wrong?

  No doubt that he was petty. Incapable of rising above the personal, of leaving his complaints about Sallis to one side.

  Fine. Then I’m petty. I don’t intend to lose sleep over that.

  Comfortable behind the dais’s tall wooden lectern now, her opening remarks concluded, Bellamie Ranowen launched into the meat and drink of her lecture. Within moments she revealed herself to be an indisputable expert on the subject of advanced transmutations, and not unfamiliar with Rubin Cylte’s theories. Eyebrows raised, Morgan li
stened as she deftly worked the least controversial of Cylte’s notions into her deconstruction of transmutational harmonics.

  Interesting. One could call it simple erudition… or dangerous unorthodoxy, if there was a personal score to settle. But I wonder how it is that Nevin Jordane knows Cylte’s work?

  A question he might well ask of Sallis Arkley.

  Twice, Ranowen paused her lecturing to call forth a student to help her illustrate a point. In neither instance did she mock or belittle, even though both young mages made stupid mistakes.

  Morgan began to feel a stirring of temper.

  Ranked or not, she’s an exemplary tutor. That more than makes up for her unfortunate family. What we have here is an abuse of Council power. Arkley sides with Jordane to punish a mage who dares look upward, toward the next rung of Dorana’s ladder.

  Well, he’d not be a party to that. Not when Sallis was doing his best to keep Morgan Danfey pinned in his place. But as he turned to leave, Bellamie Ranowen rapped her knuckles to the lectern.

  “Student Jordane! I’m sorry, do I bore you?”

  He stopped. Turned back. Drifted once more into the shadows.

  “I’m so pleased, Student Jordane,” Bellamie Ranowen added, pleasantly mellow, “that your grasp of these principles is so perfect you can find time for idle gossip. Come. Join me on the dais and help me illustrate an important point.”

  A frozen moment, then a student slowly stood. Jordane’s daughter had chosen to sit as far as she could from her tutor, but that hadn’t saved her. So either she was careless, or Bellamie Ranowen had been lying in wait.

  Curse it. If it turns out Sallis was right…

  As the girl picked her reluctant way to the front of the hall, Ranowen continued her lecture.

  “And so we must conclude that the key component of any successful transmutation lies not in the balance and counterbalance of sigil and incant, as received wisdom would have it, but in the specific syllabic stressors contained within the incant itself as it particularly relates to the boisterous give-and-take of the incantic excitation at the moment of completion. In other words, if transmutation is your weakness it is not because you can’t juggle, it’s because you have a tin ear for rhythm! In which case neither take a young lady dancing, gentlemen, nor accept a dancing invitation from a handsome young man, ladies. Because as sure as glimfire vanishes in sunshine it’ll be bruised toes and bruised hearts and no stolen kisses for you!”

  A gentle chorus of chuckling broke out amongst the students.

  Smiling, Bellamie Ranowen waited for the amusement to die down, then nodded at Student Jordane as she stepped up to the lectern. The girl knew better than to openly defy her tutor, but there was a curl to her lips that suggested an imperfectly veiled contempt.

  Morgan frowned. Like father, like daughter. The girl should be disciplined for that disrespect alone. Once appointed a College tutor, Ranowen’s lack of ranking had been rendered moot.

  Bellamie Ranowen pretended not to notice her student’s mutinous expression. Instead, with effortless expertise, she translocated a slender crystal bud-vase from elsewhere to balance on her outstretched palm.

  “Student Jordane. Be so good as to take possession of this vase.”

  With poor grace, Nevin Jordane’s daughter did as she was told. The set of her elegant jaw said she wanted to hurl the vase to the very back of the hall.

  “Excellent,” said Bellamie Ranowen, approving. “Now, transform it into a crystal flower. Nothing too elaborate. A single-stem budded nartani, perhaps.”

  “Yes, Tutor Ranowen,” the girl murmured, pretending dutiful compliance… but if her fingers tightened much more she’d be holding a handful of broken glass.

  Still watching closely, Morgan stepped as near to the back row of student seats as he dared. None of Bellamie Ranowen’s pupils noticed him. Their attentions were fixed upon the drama playing out before them on the dais.

  “Come along, Student Jordane,” said Bellamie Ranowen. “We’re waiting.”

  Was it a trick of the hall’s atmosphere, or did she now sound a trifle mocking? Morgan thought she did. And with what he could sense… or not sense… in Nevin Jordane’s rude daughter, he suspected the truth behind the accusations made against Bellamie Ranowen was far less savoury than Lord Varen was going to like. He stifled a smile.

  Oh dear. Sallis is going to look such a fool.

  Student Jordane flicked a nervous, resentful glance at her watching classmates, then cleared her throat. With the crystal vase held in her left hand, she used her right to trace the transmutation sigil in the air. It burned indigo blue, vibrant with promise.

  “Quickly now, the incant,” said Bellamie Ranowen. “Don’t let the sigil’s energies go to waste.”

  Her tongue stumbling, Nevin Jordane’s daughter recited the transmutation incant’s nine lilting syllables. Three words into her casting, Morgan felt his skin begin to crawl.

  So his suspicion was correct, and Bellamie Ranowen knew it too. Nevin’s daughter had a tin ear. She was mangling the incant. Even as she reached its painful end, the crystal vase she was holding collapsed into glassy dust.

  Bellamie Ranowen sighed, and with another flourish produced a second vase. “Try again, Student Jordane.”

  Cheeks burned dull red, pretending not to hear the whisperings of her peers, the girl took the second vase and ignited a second sigil.

  “Now,” said Bellamie Ranowen, who’d made no attempt to silence the whisperers, “repeat the incant after me, exactly as I pronounce it. Understood?”

  The girl nodded, bottom lip caught between her small, perfectly even teeth. Even wreathed in embarrassment, she was beautiful, this Jordane daughter. But then why wouldn’t she be? Doubtless she took after her mother. Sons born into the best First Families had the pick of prospective wives, after all.

  Since the power and energy of the sigil belonged to Student Jordane, Bellamie Ranowen’s recitation of the incant could not trigger the transmutation. Woodenly, the Jordane girl repeated the incant. Even with help her cadences were stiffly imposed. The girl was a blockhead. However had she managed to stay in College this long?

  But then, the answer was obvious, wasn’t it? Morgan shook his head, disgusted.

  Family. Connections. Always, always, it comes down to that.

  Unsurprised, he watched the shuddering transformation of the crystal vase into a sprig of nartani. The incant worked well enough this time, but the change was laborious and the finished crystal flower looked oddly deformed.

  More whispers and murmurs from the watching students. Scarcely seeming to notice, Student Jordane stared at her creation as though it were poison, or might spring to life and bite her.

  Bellamie Ranowen parted her lips, seemingly on the point of asking the girl a question. Then she changed her mind. “Thank you, Student Jordane,” she said, nodding. “Although I think you’ll agree you don’t yet grasp the task’s subtleties. Less gossip and more practice, perhaps? You have until the morrow to muse on what you’ve just done. We’ll talk on it then.”

  “Tutor Ranowen,” said the girl, a breath away now from open defiance.

  “Good,” said Bellamie Ranowen, with a thin, restrained smile. “Take your seat.”

  As she returned to her place, the girl’s furious, unsavoury thoughts were shockingly clear in her face. Morgan felt his hands itch to slap her free of them.

  “And in case the rest of you are congratulating yourselves for escaping this little exercise,” Bellamie Ranowen added, frowning at the hall’s sea of student faces, “you will all be doing the same task in your own time, making sure, on the morrow, to present me with your transmuted crystal so I might gauge the effectiveness of your syllabic rhythms and incantic prowess. Now. Turning to the question of harmonically linked sigils…”

  Even though he was sure he’d reached the correct conclusion, Morgan stayed to hear nearly all that remained of Bellamie Ranowen’s lecture. Nevin Jordane’s daughter was not called upon a second
time. Three more students were singled out to perform exercises designed to illuminate the subject. All three easily outstripped Student Jordane.

  Before the lecture concluded, while the hall was still mostly dark, he slipped out and made his way to the College proctor’s domain. There he closed the door to Mage Lowyn’s chamber, explained enough of his presence to receive an alarmed surety of discretion, and skimmed through Student Jordane’s privy records.

  Finished, setting them aside, he kept his expression sternly noncommittal, but on the inside he was laughing. There was no pleasure quite so exquisite as being proven right.

  After a sharp conversation with hapless, chagrined Proctor Lowyn, he made his way to the Hall of Knowledge. The afternoon was fast drawing to a close, dusk creeping in, wreathed in purplish shadows. Provided there were no last minute, unpleasant surprises, like running into Sallis Arkley, he’d have this matter dealt with in plenty of time to meet Maris Garrick for dinner at The Opal.

  Voln Hahren was in his privy chamber on the Hall’s seventh floor, reading from a haphazard pile of correspondence.

  “Yes?” he said, looking up. There was a vague impatience in his voice, as though College matters were tiresome, even though their oversight was entirely his responsibility. “Can I help you, Councillor Danfey?”

  Morgan closed the door and sat in a chair, uninvited. “Have you been made aware of the complaint lodged against Bellamie Ranowen?”

  Hahren dropped the letter he was reading and sat back, the corners of his mouth turned down. He was a proud man with finicking standards, quick to take offence at visitors to his privy chamber taking liberties. Most particularly he was jealous of his position as College overseer, but if he resented Councillor Danfey’s investigation of this matter, he was wise enough not to show it.

  “Yes, Councillor,” he said, very civil. “Lord Varen informed me. You’ve looked into it?”

  “I have. The complaint is spurious.”