The Wizard's Daughters: Twin Magic: Book 1

by Michael Dalton

  “He is a swordsman, not a dandy.”

  Ariel glanced at Erich. “He might have gone to a ball, to guard it.”

  “I guarded no balls, I am afraid.”

  Ariel pouted for a moment. “Can you tell us anything at all?”

  “Of Köln society? Nothing of use now, I am afraid.”

  “He is not a mage, Ariel.” Astrid said. “What could he tell us?”

  Now Ariel scowled at her sister. “You’re the one who wanted to ask him all this.” But as Astrid prepared a retort, Walther held up his hands.

  “Daughters, enough. I hired Erich to escort you to the city. Not escort you to dances.”

  That snuffed out the conversation for a few moments. Erich waited until it seemed appropriate to speak, and turned to Ariel.

  “So what is it you have planned for Köln?”

  She glanced at Walther, then back to him. “We are seeking a husband.”

  “I suppose none of these village boys are worthy of the likes of you and Astrid.”

  Ariel smiled for a moment, and even Astrid seemed a bit flattered, but it was Walther who responded.

  “That is certainly true, but it is not why they cannot marry here. What do you know of the lives of mages?”

  “I know you tend to keep to yourselves.”

  “Yes. But there is a reason for that, and it is not a matter of placing ourselves above the rest of the world. It is because a talent for directing the Flow places certain demands on us in return.”

  He took a bite of potato.

  “Except in extremely rare cases, mages can only marry other mages, because to do otherwise would erect blockages.”

  “I am not sure I understand.”

  “The Flow is called the Flow for a reason. It is literally a flow of energy moving through the world, though all of us. A person with the right talent can sense that, and with practice can learn to redirect it and control it. But each mage has his own means of directing the Flow. Some mages can work together because the Flow moves through them in ways that enhance each other. But with others, it essentially causes a collision.”

  He caught his breath and sat back in his chair.

  “Think of a mage’s flow as a river. My river flows in a certain direction. If it is flowing in the same direction as another mage, our joined flows are stronger. But in most cases, our directions are not perfectly aligned, and that that causes turbulence. Do you see what I am getting at?”

  Erich had learned bits and pieces of this over the years, but had never had it explained so directly.

  “I think so.”

  “If I were to marry a woman whose flow was coming directly at mine, what do you think would happen?”

  “A flood? An overflow?”

  “Essentially. Neither of us would be able to do much of anything, especially because marriage between mages is essentially a conjoining of flows.”

  “You cannot redirect it? Bring them into alignment?”

  “No. The river analogy is not entirely apt here. That is something we cannot control. But a husband and wife whose flows are in harmony can do far more than either them alone. The trick is finding that mage whose flow matches yours.”

  “And if you married a non-mage?”

  “A dam, basically. Think about it.”

  “I see.”

  “So we must go to Köln,” Astrid said. “Where there are other mages.”

  “How do you know you will find your match?”

  “We do not,” Ariel said. “But there is no one here at all. So we go.”

  That cast a pall over the table, and for the first time, Erich felt a bit sorry for them.

  “Well, I wish you luck, ladies.”

  They nodded, but did not respond.

  ♦ ♦

  As Ariel and Astrid cleared the table, Walther rose from his chair and motioned Erich to follow. He led them to a sitting room opposite the door to the kitchen. There were several chairs around a low table before a fireplace, a sideboard along the back wall, and above the mantle was mounted a long two-handed sword, covered in dust. Beyond that, Erich could see the hallway to Walther’s workshop.

  Walther stoked up the fire, then poured some brandy for the two of them.

  “Here is to a successful partnership. I am more sure I made the right decision than I was this afternoon.”

  Erich raised his glass in return.

  “Though for an itinerant swordsman, you have rather refined table manners.”

  Erich swore internally. This sort of thing had given him away before, but shaking such habits was difficult.

  “Yes.”

  “You are not of common birth.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “No.”

  “Your manner of speaking, the way you carry yourself. You are no out-of-work cutthroat. Did you really win those blades in a game of cards?”

  “You distrust your box of truth?”

  “The resonance cube. No, I do not. But I also am old enough to know there are ways to deceive by telling the truth.”

  “I won them in a game of cards, as I said.”

  “All right. I will not pry further, for now. But I ask because I noticed some reticence on your part on the subject of Köln. Will traveling there place you or us in danger?”

  “Not you.”

  “But perhaps you?”

  “There are some there who may not be pleased to see me return. It is nothing you need concern yourself with. I will do the job I have contracted to do.”

  Walther grumbled for a moment.

  “Very well. I suppose we shall see.”

  9.

  Astrid lay in bed, unable to sleep.

  The long hoped-for trip to Köln was a reality. Father had hired a guide. They would presumably leave as soon as the new automaton, Fortitude, was done, and she knew that would not take as long as Father had warned. She had seen him before in the grip of a new project and knew how it went. He had disappeared into his workshop after dinner and not emerged. She thought she could still hear him down there working. He would likely be there past midnight, perhaps all night. In all likelihood, Fortitude would be finished within a week.

  Then a week or so to reach Köln, and the search could begin. It might fail, but they would likely know within a few days if there were a match.

  Mage courtships did not last long, since the match was the only thing that mattered. If it was there, that was that. Which also meant she could easily be married within a month. Married to someone who at this moment was not aware she even existed.

  She knew mages did not marry for love—“Love will come in time,” Father had told her, and she knew he and mother had loved one another—but she was not sure how she felt about this.

  It was not precisely the prospect of being wedded to someone old and gray, or boorish and smelly. If the match was ideal and their flows conjoined so that her talents were enhanced, she thought she could live with being married to someone like that. It was worth the tradeoff.

  No, it was thought of doing all those things in Ariel’s book with someone she was not attracted to that made her deeply uneasy. She could do it; she would do it—did she have a choice?—but it would be torment.

  It would not have been such torment with the boys in the village. She could see herself doing such things with Hans Bergdahl, or Stefan. Hans did not impress her much, but she felt he would treat her kindly. Stefan she was less sure about, but he made her heart flutter nonetheless. This frightened her a bit, which was why she was cruel to him. She needed to keep him at a distance.

  Even if he liked her bottom.

  Astrid knew she and Ariel were pretty. The boys—and men—of the town had made that very clear. She was less sure why this was so. Every woman had a bottom; what made hers special?

  Erich had not looked at her bottom, but she had caught him looking at her bosom during dinner.

  She reached up under her nightdress and felt her breasts. If she was unsure about why her bottom attracted Stefan,
she had never understood at all why these lumps of flesh drew such male attention. They were meant for nursing babes, not men.

  Still, they did. Larger seemed to be better, from the male perspective, and hers and Ariel’s were not small. But she had seen far larger. The fat innkeeper’s wife had breasts so large each seemed to be the size of a cow’s udder. She had heard the stableboys joking about them more than once. But their great size made them floppy and shapeless, and Astrid did not think that was attractive. Hers were much smaller, relatively speaking, but they were firm and springy and did not droop.

  She wished her nipples did not stick out so prominently. Even with a shift, it was quite obvious under a light dress. She was sure that was what Erich had been looking at.

  She could imagine doing those things with Erich. She was not sure what it would be like, but he was a grown man and presumably knew what to do.

  Ariel found him quite dashing. Astrid could see why. He had an odd quality about him, and it was not simply the things she had overheard him and Father talking about in the study. It was something deeper.

  She was not sure it was something she wanted to get to the bottom of.

  Not that it mattered. She of course could never marry Erich. She would be marrying some mage off in Köln.

  They would, she corrected herself. Not her alone.

  She and Ariel would be marrying the same man.

  ♦ ♦

  They had realized the problem years ago.

  As children, Astrid and Ariel had had such difficulty controlling the Flow that their parents wondered if they were even meant to be mages. They could do it effectively only when they helped one another, but Father repeatedly and angrily forbade them to do so, saying they had to learn on their own or not at all.

  They struggled with it when he made them, but the moment his back was turned, they would go back to casting spells together. It seemed to be the only way.

  After their mother died and Father was forced to take a more active hand in their studies, he gradually came to recognize why this was so: Their flows were simply too intertwined. If they drew too far apart—twenty or thirty yards appeared to be the limit—their talent for the Flow evaporated. It was there, she could still sense it, but without Ariel at her side, she could do nothing with it.

  And that meant, Father would gravely explain some time later, that when the time came for them to marry, their match would likely be the same man. It was more or less inevitable.

  Enough experimentation had driven home the reality of it. No matter what they tried, they could not control the Flow separately. So instead, they had accepted their fate and gone in a different direction.

  Deuolhud, they had named it. Twin-magic. Two mages controlling the same flow.

  Over time, they had learned to adapt the spells they studied for this new approach. Casting a spell was part gathering the Flow, part shaping it, and part directing it. Rather than doing all this on their own, they broke down the tasks between them. Father had worked with them to perfect it, and they found that they could cast spells faster and more effectively than a single mage could do acting alone.

  Deuolhud had its quirks, though. They discovered it came with some unexpected limitations, handicaps that at first baffled them, yet later made sense. As they explored these impediments, they found ways to live with them.

  But there was still the issue of their marriage.

  Last year, with their having reached what was thought marriageable age for female mages, Father had again tried to determine if they were fated to share the same husband. It was for this task that he had invented the resonance cube (only later discovering that it also made a fine truth detector). Testing with it made it clear the problem was even worse than they imagined.

  As they sat there, each with one hand adorned with the rings, Father had explained the results.

  “Your flows are indistinguishable. If there were any differences at all, the cube would register them.”

  “You're sure?” Ariel had asked.

  “I am positive. The cube is merging them, comparing them. Any differences in resonance would be causing it to make some sort of sound. The larger the difference, the more unpleasant the noise.”

  “Are you sure it works?” Astrid had asked. Rather than answering, Father had pulled rings from Ariel’s fingers and begun slipping them on his. The first ring had caused the cube to immediately let out an annoying whine, the second to raise that whine to a piercing screech. Ariel and Astrid had slapped their hands over their ears.

  “All right!” Astrid had cried. “I believe you!”

  Father had removed the rings, and just to be sure, Ariel had put them back on again. The cube was silent. Astrid had then rested her hand on it to feel if there was any reaction at all, but it was completely still.

  “So,” she had said.

  “Yes,” Father had replied. “It means you will make the same match. There is no possibility that it could be otherwise.”

  ♦ ♦

  In the ensuing year, Astrid had made her peace with it, almost. She and Ariel were used to sharing so much else that sharing a husband ought not to be too unpleasant. And she in truth did not want to be parted from Ariel as they would have been had they married different men, even without the effects on their talents.

  It was Ariel—of course—who had pointed out the one true challenge. They would be doing those things in the book with the same man, presumably at the same time.

  Because the book did more than discuss the sort of pleasurable—again that word!—activities that a husband and wife could engage in, and explained as well how this worked for mages. These things enhanced the Flow-bond between married mages, made each of their powers stronger. Not to do so would cause the bond to wither, and as it withered, so would their talents. Let it wither long enough, and they would die.

  There were deeper, more technical explanations for why this was so that Ariel had studied and Astrid had skimmed over, and it was these elements that had caused Ariel to suggest an idea that still appalled Astrid to her core, even though she could see Ariel was likely correct.

  It would require a spell, one they soon developed despite Astrid’s reluctance. It was not an overly complicated one.

  But what man would allow them do such a thing?

  10.

  Erich rose early and, wanting a better feel for what he was dealing with, walked around the house inspecting the windows and doors. Though he thought it unlikely that one of the village boys would try to sneak into the house before they left, it would be a different story after their departure for Köln. So he wanted to find any possible problems in time to correct them.

  Walther’s house was solidly built from heavy gray stone, and iron bars were mortared into all the windows. Erich had—not that he was necessarily proud of this fact—some experience with burglary, and he could clearly see no one was getting in this way unless they somehow tore the walls apart. He scaled the side of the house and climbed onto the slate roof. Again, nothing was amiss. The chimney was in good shape, and he could see no way in.

  Behind the house was a small garden with half a dozen brass cages, five of which held a chicken—presumably they had eaten the sixth the previous night. A spindly automaton with four legs was busy cleaning the bird dropping from one cage while the hen inside protested. The other side of the garden was planted with short rows of vegetables.

  As he watched, one of the girls emerged from the house and began puttering about the garden. Erich called down to her.

  “Good morning.”

  She looked up in surprise. “Good morning. How did you get up there?”

  “I climbed.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just inspecting the house. I want to be sure no one can get in here while you’re gone.”

  “Oh. Well, that is what Father is building Fortitude for. Should anyone break in . . .”

  Erich climbed down the side of the house and dropped to the ground, then brushed
himself off.

  “Well, better that no one can get in at all.”

  “You are a man of many talents, it seems.”

  “Aye. And forgive me, but you are . . . ?”

  She smiled. “Ariel.”

  “It is difficult, you must admit.”

  Instead of answering, Ariel tapped the side of her nose.

  “What?” he asked after a moment.

  “This freckle here. Astrid does not have it.”

  Erich leaned in, seeing the pale gray spot she was pointing at. He doubted he would ever have noticed. It was not obvious even now.

  “Thank you.”

  “It is a secret. Don’t tell Astrid I told you.”

  “All right. I will not.”

  Erich looked around the garden as Ariel returned to pinching dead leaves from her vegetables.

  “Are you really a nobleman?” she asked a minute later.

  He gritted his teeth for a moment.

  “I am no more what than you see before you.”

  “I heard you and Father last night. He said you were not of common birth, and you said, ‘No.’”

  Erich was silent, and Ariel frowned at him. “I told you a secret. You must tell me one of yours.”

  “I am not a nobleman.”

  “But you were once?”

  “I am a third son, and a dishonored one at that. That means I inherited nothing, neither title nor lands nor money. I am, again, no more than what you see here.”

  “How are you dishonored?”

  “That is another secret altogether.”

  A small smile creased her face.

  “I will tell you another of mine.”

  “This is neither necessary nor wise. Sometimes it is best to leave the past be.”

  “Astrid and I must marry the same man.”

  Erich’s jaw dropped. “What?”

  Ariel looked down and pursed her lips. “It is true. We have no choice.”

  “But your father said last night you had not even met anyone to marry yet.”

  “We have not, but it does not matter.” She looked up now. “You recall what Father said, about the Flow? How mages must marry?”

  “Yes.”

  “Our flows are the same. They are as identical as we are. We cannot even cast spells separately. That means the mage who matches me will match Astrid as well.”