The Arcanist

by Greg Curtis

  And that was the simple truth of the matter. The hamadryad was not one to allow her followers to suffer. She would act when she had the knowledge. Edouard was simply glad that he wasn't the one responsible for this atrocity.

  “And then what? If it's another power? A war? Between powers?”

  Simon didn't seem thrilled by the thought and perhaps for once with good reason. A war between the powers would not be a small matter. But it surprised Edouard as he watched his brother let out a disgusted noise and then stump off moodily before he could even respond, that he should be worried about it. Maybe their father's hopes were finally showing promise? Maybe his brother was finally learning some measure of decency. More likely though, it was just that he wasn't in the arms business. There would be no profit for him in this war.

  On the other hand maybe he was finally growing into a better man. After all as Edouard suddenly realised, he hadn't once nagged him about his indolent life, and those were normally the first words out of his mouth whenever they met. Simon could not abide the thought that one of his kin could be so self-involved that he would spend his life playing with his arcane devices. To him everyone needed to work in some way for the financial good of the family estate. That was the purpose of family.

  Of course he was looking at it from the perspective of the first born. One day he knew that the House of Barris would be his to lead. He would be Count Severin. Edouard on the other hand was the fourth child. He would never inherit. He would never lead. His title would always be that of lord, no more. His life had already been marked out for him from birth as one of complete bone idle uselessness. So his choices had been simple. Do whatever he liked provided he didn't embarrass the family or face enlistment in the military or one of the faiths like other minor sons. And of course learn the family business just in case some highly unlikely series of unfortunate accidents did somehow leave him as the one to inherit.

  Not wanting to wear either a uniform or a priest's robe he had done what had been demanded of him, and he hadn't embarrassed the family. Much. But he saw no reason to do anything more than that. Especially not when the chief beneficiary of his labours would be Simon.

  Simon though would never understand that. Edouard knew that as he watched his brother disappear back into the city in his carriage. He was incapable of understanding anyone else's needs other than his own. So this show of concern, whatever it was, couldn't be real. Apparently his brother was simply getting better at pretending.

  The only thing he didn't understand was why. And that troubled him as he returned to his work. Edouard didn't like things he didn't understand.

  Chapter Six

  It was relaxing in Simon's private study. He liked it that way. Long ago he'd had comfortable thick leather arm chairs with reclining backs custom made for the study, and then for the entire house. It had cost a small fortune but he'd never regretted the price. He didn't regret it then either as he sank back into the thick cushioned leather comfort. A matching Ottoman cushioned his legs in soft leather as he lounged beside the book table reading his day’s accounts, while a large silver goblet of hot spiced wine beside him made his evening complete.

  Music wafted through the house and particularly the study. It was the flute of a talented musician he'd found some months back, Andreas. A young man whose finances wouldn't allow him to study without a patron. Simon had swiftly become his patron after hearing him play. People said he was selfish. That he cared only for gold. But they didn't understand him. He had two passions in his life. Gambling and music. And he would willingly part with good gold for both.

  So he had half a dozen talent musicians he acted as patron for on the condition that they play for him regularly. And he'd had his mansion modified so that his musicians could sit and play in the auditorium and the music would be channelled through to every room completely undistorted.

  Once he would have loved nothing more than to spend an evening gambling on games of chance. Betting on his skill with the dice or cards and rarely losing. But since his life had become so complicated, he hadn't been able to spend his evenings in the parlours of fortune. Now he had to be satisfied with the music alone. Still, though he had no choice, it was enough.

  Simon leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes so that he could listen.

  In time he thought he might have the servants bring him another goblet of the hot spiced wine. It looked like being a chilly night, and even though the fires were burning brightly he felt the chill.

  It had to be so much worse for so many others that night, including his rivals. That pleased him – the more so because though they didn't know it, it wasn't just the fickle hand of Virius at work. It was his hand. The others could pray to the Seven all they wished. He acted. He played the game even when others didn't know there was a game being played.

  For what he had planned he needed his rivals weakened. He needed to have leverage over them so that they would support him. And he needed the rest distracted. The mammoth stampede had done all of that perfectly. So their businesses and homes were destroyed, trampled beneath the mammoths' feet, while his had been left untouched. And no one was any the wiser. After all no one would imagine that mammoths, especially stampeding mammoths, could be controlled. Though perhaps controlled was the wrong word. Guided perhaps. Or influenced. Whatever the right term was, he only knew that the mammoths had been directed in their stampede so that not one of his own buildings was touched.

  How his ally had done it he didn't know. It was just magic. More of the same magic that had allowed him to bring the mammoths to Therion in the first place. But the how wasn't important. Only that Vesar could do it and that he had. And the reports in front of him proved that he had done it well.

  Already in just a single day the sales of blankets, clothing, material, gun powder and shot, and building supplies through his markets had gone through the roof. His warehouses were being emptied out faster than he could stock them. And his coffers were filling with gold at an unprecedented rate. In a few more days he would have done as much business as he would normally do in six months. And those were only the legal markets.

  The warehouses and underground stores from which he ran his black market were doing even better. This was a disaster and there was no disaster that did not come with the chance to make gold. So he was buying and selling stolen wares so quickly that he needed more staff just to keep up. But then the thieves were busy, taking the opportunities afforded them by the destruction as a gift. And they were a gift – for him.

  He didn't really care that the city was in chaos, that thieves were looting the ruined houses as fast as they could while the guards were distracted as they tried to keep order. That was just business. Good business for him. Bad for everyone else. What they stole would eventually come through his markets and he would take his cut there. Every trader paid him rent for the space, and more importantly, he owned half their business. But the gold was just a bonus. The real prize was that some of those thieves were working directly for him. While most of the thieves were out stealing gold and precious metals for sale, some were helping themselves to far more precious treasures. The ones he wanted. They were stealing the documents he wanted from the ruins of his rivals’ houses.

  And they were doing it well.

  Already he had enough documentation in his hands to ruin many of his rivals. He had the names of their suppliers and customers, and the prices paid. He had their trade routes and who they paid in each city to let their caravans pass uninspected. He had their inventories, both legal and illegal. And most important of all he had the signed documents of all the deals they'd made. Now all he had to do was decide how to use it.

  Some of the decisions were easy. His rivals' suppliers and customers would become his. Those they bribed would be exposed to their respective masters and from then on his rivals' caravans would be stopped. And naturally those who thought they had private deals would find them not so private any more. The authorities would be told about many of those of hi
s rivals who were flouting their law and from then on the gaolers and justices would find their days busy.

  There were some difficult decisions to make as well though. Who should he expose to the authorities and who should he extort instead? Which of his rivals did he undercut in the markets and which did he simply rob? Which agents should he sell out because they were no use to him, which did he bribe knowing their weakness and which did he threaten, knowing their secrets? So many decisions but for once, all the choices were in his favour. Thus far his wager was paying off.

  Within a week his trading concern would be larger than the next four put together.

  His father should be proud of him. For taking this gamble and making it pay. But he never had been before and Simon knew that he wouldn't be this time either. The Count was a man of law and honour. About always doing the right thing even when it cost him gold. And because of that the family enterprise had been malingering for years. It made a little gold, but not what it should. And each time Simon had found a way to turn the trading company's finances around, his father had stepped in and stopped him. It didn’t matter to him that he made coin. Not if he broke so much as a single rule. Not if he even bent one.

  That had hurt Simon as a young man learning the trade. To time and again find himself being lectured for his mistakes. Mistakes that weren't even mistakes. At least not at first. But in the end when he'd realised that he was never going to be able to win his father's approval, he'd decided to stop trying. He'd broken the laws openly, taking a secret pleasure in watching his father being humiliated. And if he gained a reputation as a disreputable trader, well, that was simply something he would live with. Besides, a bad reputation could be as useful as a good one, depending on the people you dealt with. And when you dealt with smugglers and thieves it was everything.

  Of course this time his father would never know. At least not until it was far too late. The Count was far from the city on a two month long trade mission, and when he returned he would not know how it had happened. All he would know was that his eldest had transformed himself from a man into a king. Then he would be proud. Maybe. Or he would know Simon's wrath. And quite honestly at forty four years of age, having not known his father's approval in all of those long years, Simon was actually hoping it would be the latter. After all, House Barris was becoming a relatively small trading concern compared to his. And the approval of a father who had spent years dismissing him was unsatisfying. He wasn't sure that he'd believe it either even if his father did finally speak those words.

  His father worshipped the ground his other children walked on. But not him. Never him. Marcus, the slow witted and overly muscled second son was his favourite. In him his father thought he saw nobility and pride, instead of simple minded obedience and the belief of the slow witted. And there was no doubt that Marcus was his preferred heir. Simon knew in his heart that one day if he could his father would push him aside and name Marcus as the next Count Severin. But he couldn't do that without just cause. And Simon had been careful never to give the Ram such a cause.

  The Ram adored his daughters Leona and April. He considered them virtuous in a way no others could be. He didn’t see them for the simpering idiots they actually were. Leona had wed a mere artisan soldier for love when she could have wed any true noble. And as for April, she actually gave her coin away! That disgusted him.

  And then there was Edouard, the clever one. Clever with his devices? Maybe. He could even be ingenious. But he wasn't truly smart no matter how highly his father regarded him. He was also useless, spending his days in his strange little fort playing with his mechanical toys.

  As for Thomas the baby, thus far he was too young to have shown any aptitude for anything save the ability to annoy. But Simon was certain his father would still value the brat above him.

  And now there was a new one on the way. Not yet born, neither a boy nor a girl thus far, and still Simon had found himself knocked down another notch on his father's list of favourites. From sixth to seventh. Still, that he could have lived with. He had no need of his father's affection. It wasn't the reason he had agreed to this plan. That was something far more basic. He had wagered everything on this plan to save his future.

  When one of his revenue garnering schemes had gone awry and his men had been caught by the city guards, something far more precious than gold had nearly been taken from him. His inheritance. More than simply the gold, the title of Count and his future position as the head of the House of Barris. Their incompetence had nearly cost him everything. And it was still hanging in the balance.

  If only they hadn't been caught. And if only it hadn't been the king's property they were stealing. But “if only” didn't matter. It had happened and he had been forced into this desperate high stakes gamble.

  The men had said nothing so far. But they wouldn't keep silent forever, no matter how much gold went to their families. And when they spoke, when they admitted his involvement in their crime, that they were stealing for him, the king would have no choice but to charge him. That fat, overbearing windbag would treat him as a common criminal! There could even be a trial!

  Simon had no doubt that he would win through – at least in the Court. The word of a couple of cut purses against a lord was nothing. But it wasn't the Court he was worried about. It was his father's reaction when he was forced to watch his son be publicly questioned in a matter involving a theft from the king. And if the guards then went through his estate on the word of those thieves and found something, anything at all, the humiliation would be beyond forbearance.

  Then his father would finally have the excuse he needed to disinherit him.

  It was that understanding that had finally cemented his agreement with Vesar. Not the chance to seize the throne and in time become an emperor. Not the phenomenal wealth he would amass though he hungered for that. Not even the realisation that no matter what he did, what he achieved, he would always be the disappointment. The child that was never good enough. Though his father would have to pay for that, and the price would be a bloody one, it wasn't enough to set him on this path.

  It was that he would be stripped of his title – his future as Count Severin and the head of the House of Barris – that had sent him down this path. That he might even lose the title of lord. Relegated to the status of a commoner. He could not be made a commoner! Simon couldn’t abide the thought of becoming just another nobody. Not even a lord. That could never happen!

  And all because a couple of cut purses had somehow managed to get themselves caught in a simple robbery. When he was king he decided, he would have them executed for their failure. It was unforgivable. And yet, he thought as he leaned back in his seat, savoured his spiced wine and listened to the music of the flute wafting through the air, there was excitement too. Their failure had forced him to take the biggest wager of his life. The stakes were everything. Win and he would become king. Lose and he would die. There was something to be said for that.

  A knock at the study door reminded him then that there would be a price for him to pay as well. It was the maid, coming to inform him that the priest was at the door. It was late, ten bells had been rung and even a night bird like him should normally have been under the covers. But not this night. This night was a busy one for him, and no doubt for Vesar as well who he guessed would be busy counting his coins as well. Though of course for the priest the coin he demanded in payment was not gold. Simon sent her away to greet his guest and show him in.

  A few moments later there was a quiet tapping at the door and then it swung open to admit the “priest” as she called him. But was he really a priest? Simon wondered about that from time to time.

  Certainly he seemed to serve someone, called him his master. But whoever his master was he wasn't one of the Seven Divines. None of their clerics dressed as he did, and none could do the things this priest could. And Vesar himself poured scorn on their deities. Of course there were plenty of other gods out there to worship, an entire pantheon in fact, and
just because he didn't recognise the man's dress or his complete aversion to sunlight, didn't mean that he didn't serve one of them. But always in the back of his thoughts was the worry that he might serve someone else. Something else. A demon perhaps. There were seven Divines and also seven lords of hell as they said.

  “Things went well my lord?”

  It was strange hearing the cultured, polite tones come out from under the veil Simon thought. He had always wondered at Vesar's voice. Seeing the man standing there, a statue in black, it was hard to gauge anything about him. Hard to work out what sort of man he was. Yet when he spoke, Simon always had the thought that the voice that came out was the wrong voice. That that the voice didn’t fit the mouth saying it.

  “Very well.” He had to give credit where it was due. Especially now when the plan had barely begun and there was so much more to do and so little time. If he was to take the throne it had to be done quickly. Before anyone could settle back into their familiar roles.

  “My rivals are already falling into my hands. One by one their concerns will crumble and mine will consume them. At the same time my agents are gathering information from the other nobles. Documents that can be used to force them to support my rule. Others that will destroy those who will not. And the king's position has been weakened. Already there are those who question how he could have let such a thing happen. King Byron may be loved but still his ability to rule will be doubted.”