Arcanist

by Terry Mancour

  Yeoman Rysh was wise in his selection of subjects and adept in the use of satire to reduce a political foe to the state of buffoonery. When the Duke’s demand for timber to feed his shipwrights waned, and the fair-weather explorers who’d come north departed, those lords who remained in the stark conditions of the Wilderlands competed for the loyalties of the tough settlers who’d found the freedom and occasional financial opportunity of the woodlands preferable to the predictable prosperity of Gilmoran cottonlands.

  Economic depression and a rise in feuding and dueling between the Wilderlords made frontier politics both bloody and exciting. The harsh conditions often led to tragedy among the common people. Rysh found ways to rally them, in their desperation, by using his golden voice and his eye for political gain. Within a decade, he’d become a valuable ally to any lord who wished to improve his tentative grip on the wild land. An appearance at their hall by Rysh invited popularity – everyone wanted to hear from the famous minstrel in person. Telling stories and relating legends (some generated on the spot) between songs, Rysh’s fame spread and his influence grew in the earliest days of the Wilderlands’ emerging culture.

  In the process, he introduced his children to the courts of dozens of Wilderlords. They served as his apprentices, for each had a voice as pleasing as his, and some had a wit that surpassed their sire. Nor were they all of one line. Widowed twice, Rysh remarried a beautiful, talented Gilmoran lady whose father had perished in the settlement of the land, and the Rysh continued producing beautiful, talented children gifted in music and verse. Their reputation flowed from their performances. Fair of face and with fingers of unnatural talent, they played a variety of musical instruments and sang accompaniments to their father’s famous voice in every hall and castle in the northlands. The Wardens of the North, in particular, encouraged the talented line. The Children of Rysh became famous among the scattered encampments and rustic settlements of the north, beloved by the common folk and the Wilderlords, alike.

  Such careful cultivation eventually bore fruit. By the time Rysh the Younger was an old man, and a grandsire, his eldest son had become the minstrel of Tudry Castle, at its height. His eldest daughter had married a young Wilderlord with a promising holding and filled the rustic hall with song and grandchildren. His younger sons and daughters, masters of the art in their own right, rode circuit among the far-flung keeps of the Wilderlords and brought news and entertainment to their barren halls.

  But each traveling Child of the Rysh made a pilgrimage back to Cartrefygan every year to visit their kin . . . and report all that they had heard to their canny father.

  Rysh the Younger had no desire to rule, nor a lust for power. He was content to see his verdant little holding prosper, regardless of the fortunes of the outside world. His children, grandchildren and retainers eventually filled Cartrefygan, and his legacy had filled his coffers and secured the frontiers of the Fair Vale. He was secure.

  But he’d seen the calamities that befell a poorly run estate and the senseless violence some of the Wilderlords displayed in the absence of proper authority. He took note, accordingly. It took strong Wilderlords acting honorably to impose order. And it took a loyal, independent population to support the rustic aristocracy with their labor and swords.

  The goal of Rysh the Younger was to see the descendants of Gilmora who had braved the Wilderlands enjoy a prosperous return on their expensive investment. That required a subtle and occasionally brutal touch to his interactions with the nobility. But that did not dissuade him. When he determined a Wilderlord was a bully and undeserving of his holding, he contrived to have the man removed. When he saw good governance and prosperity, he praised the lord and his wisdom, as much as his puissance.

  Regardless of which Wilderlords rose or fell in power, Rysh and his family remained popular and influential.

  Upon Rysh’s death, his nine surviving children from three wives had peopled the Fair Vale of Cartrefygan with scores of incredibly talented musicians who’d additionally absorbed the political wisdom of their sire as thoroughly as their lessons in music, performance and poetry. His son, Rhodri, became the new Master of Cartrefygan and the heir to a legacy of influence.

  The Children of Rysh, or just “the Rysh,” were subtle in their social manipulations. They took no noble title and indulged in little meaningful aggression. Cartrefygan was valued far more among the Wilderlords for its counsel than its cornlands. It produced a rich culture of song, story and careful observation that yielded generation after generation of highly coveted minstrels to inform and entertain courts across the north.

  Through the brutal Goblin Wars and after, the Rysh were present in many of the important centers of power in the Wilderlands . . . and every few years they would report to the Master of Cartrefygan during a grand family reunion at Midsummer or Yule.

  Some scions of the house had become attached to great families and prospered. Sir Anrysh of Callierd had been knighted on the field after his lord’s victory over the savage Gaioefan tribesman. Lewarch of Cartrefygan was awarded lands in the Five Rivers Vale after his return from raiding the Riverlands during the Gilmoran Secession. Dozens of cousins counted among the Rysh either took positions as counselors and court poets of Wilderlords or rode broad circuits across the slowly spreading settlements in the north, spreading tales and song while they collected more intimate information about the region’s rulers.

  The Rysh never accumulated great wealth, nor coveted lands beyond their vale. But their counsel and their criticism shaped the politics of the northlands for over a hundred years. They counted information as coin and used it cunningly to control the destinies of thousands. Great houses waxed and waned in fortune, but the Rysh were always at the elbow of whoever made policy over the Wilderlands.

  Alas, the Goblin Invasion put an end to that influence. When the barons of the Wilderlands rode to meet the dark armies at the fords of Bonser, they brought with them their loyal retainers, including the most cunning of the Rysh, to the slaughter. In the bloody and chaotic year that followed, the loyal minstrels and crafty counselors gave their best sooth against the goblins, to no avail. They died along with their masters. After presiding over a century of relatively peaceful and prosperous times, the gurvani invasion dashed the power of the Rysh to do much of anything but survive.

  Worst of all, during the withdrawal of the hordes from Timberwatch, fair Cartrefygan was raided and pillaged to its last laying hen. Generations of Rysh were slaughtered or enslaved. Only a few scattered remnants of the once-proud house survived in the pockets of resistance to the wave of darkness.

  One old survivor was Alun of Mandale, who was born in Cartefygan and journeyed in his youth to Vorone, where he took shop as a luthier. Though he possessed the golden voice of his sires, he lacked their desire to perform, and he found the skill in his hands to be more profitable and less tedious than singing or telling stories. He weathered the hard times the summer capital endured for years, from the reign of the ruinous steward to the return of the Orphan Duke to the division of the Wilderlands into the Magelaw and the Wilderlaw. During the entire process, he continued to make high-quality musical instruments for any who could afford his prices.

  A second survivor was a widowed matron in Yellin, one Goodwife Aderyn. Aderyn had come to the village in her youth, with her cousin, on a tour of the vales. The Rysh were famous for their entertainments and commanded a high commission from the innkeepers and Wilderlords in the region. When an accomplished minstrel arrived with a pretty young maiden with a voice like a goddess, the price rose dramatically. Aderyn could have accumulated a small fortune, had she not fell in love with a local prosperous peasant and married. She had three children she raised to adulthood as a result, though they had never taken the pilgrimage to Cartefygan.

  A third scion of Cartrefygan survived by being engaged on the road at a tavern near the borderlands with Norther Alshar. A young woman with a captivating voice and an enticing figure, Cafell the Comely had emerged from the Fa
ir Vale with a voice as gracious as the Alka Alon, it was said, and a fiery character that was alluring to lord and peasant alike. She’d been beyond the reach of the slaughter, though she’d endured great deprivation in the chaos that followed the Battle of Timberwatch. She managed to eke out a meager existence singing for her supper wherever she could and relying on less savory means when required.

  The three of them represented, perhaps, the last active scions of the once-great house. With Cartrefygan ruined and its people dead or enslaved, there was little to bind the survivors together. Their relations were too remote for them to have more than a passing knowledge of each other, and fortune had contrived to keep them distant from each other.

  But fate has a way of finding a means of gathering such fragments when it has a mind. Perhaps the hands of the gods were involved, but some force beyond mere chance contrived to stitch together that which had been rent.

  For a fourth Rysh had survived, due to his native cunning, cleverness and wit; a traveling minstrel who tarried in the wrong village at the wrong time of year and became quickly overwhelmed by Sheruel’s hordes. He took refuge under a cloak of lies and deceptions, half-truths and utter fabrications in the horrific aftermath of the invasion and occupation. He did things his ancestors would have shuddered to contemplate, and he witnessed atrocities no mortal man should have to bear.

  His name was Jannik. He was the last true heir to Cartrefygan.

  And as we were approaching Cheerford, he was running for his life.

  ***

  “He’s late,” grumbled Mavone, as he scanned the road in both directions with magic. We were nearly a hundred miles from Cheerford, having transported ourselves through the Ways to Mavone’s Waystone. We were on a nameless road to somewhere that didn’t exist anymore. Night had long fallen. We had left our guard and our horses behind for this portion of the mission.

  “If he’s a minstrel, I assume it’s because he likes to make an entrance,” Sandy countered.

  “This isn’t a matter of showmanship,” Mavone murmured, casting a scrying spell. “Jannik doesn’t miss a rendezvous unless there is trouble.”

  “We’re in the Penumbra,” Sandy reasoned. “This is where they grow trouble.”

  “That’s what I fear,” Mavone agreed.

  “Have you met with him often?” I asked, curious.

  “Every few months, for the last year,” Mavone affirmed. “He’s been the bulwark of my operations in the Penumbra, in fact. Ah! There he is. Or something that looks like him,” he conceded. “But he’s moving . . . rather fast.”

  “He’s riding,” Sandy proposed, as he overlooked the results of the spell, because he’s nosy like that.

  “A rather fast horse,” Mavone nodded. “And he is not alone. He is pursued,” the Gilmoran said, ending the scrying spell.

  “Your minstrel seems to have attracted a critic,” Sandy chuckled. “Shall we prepare to meet them?” he asked, drawing his sword.

  “If we want to hear our man’s report, then that would be wise,” Mavone agreed, summoning his mageblade. “I don’t think he’ll slow down long enough if we don’t.”

  I didn’t prepare weapons – if whatever was chasing Jannik couldn’t be handled by Mavone and Sandy, I wanted a running start.

  By the time the minstrel came into sight on the deserted road, Mavone and Sandy had taken positions and cast spells to counter the riders pursuing the him. The moment Jannik’s lathering horse was past them, the warmagic spells they employed quickly shredded the three horses that pursued him, along with their riders, in an impressive display of destruction. Jannik rode on, as fast as he could. It took a bright flare from Mavone’s blade to summon the terrified minstrel back to the site of their ambush.

  “Thanks for that, gentlemen,” Jannik said, gratefully, after he brought his exhausted horse to a halt and dismounted. “I picked them up at the last ford. Not even proper soldiers. Ruffians in the employ of one of the local scrug lords,” he sneered. He examined what remained of his pursuers’ clothing. “The scrugs don’t mind hiring out their daytime scout-work to bandits and rogues. Alas, there are all too many willing to work in such positions.”

  “You escaped without further notice than that?” Mavone asked, concerned. “I expected half the armies of shadow to be following!”

  “They were incidental,” assured the thin man, as he pulled his cloak closer to him in the drizzle. “No one has questioned me on the road since . . . well, for days,” he decided. “If one rides arrogantly enough through your enemy’s lands, they don’t question you. There are plenty of renegades who do so as a matter of course, whether they serve Sheruel or Korbal or their own selfish ends. It was easy enough to masquerade as one. It was actually easier than usual,” he dismissed.

  “I don’t understand,” Sandy said, confused. “You’ve escaped from the Penumbra before?”

  “Escaped? I dare say! And returned again to its dark clutches like a sot to a tavern,” Jannik said, mournfully. “I’ve done it repeatedly, since that first time we met, Minalan. Good to see you again!”

  “You, as well, Jannik!” I smiled.

  “Wait, you’ve met before?” Sandy asked, confused.

  “I rescued Jannik from the clutches of an evil wizard,” I suggested. “Though you professed to be from Vore, at the time.”

  “Garky?” snorted the thin minstrel. “He’s a cuddly kitten, compared to most of the brutal buggers in the Penumbra. But I was in a spot, and I appreciated the liberation,” he assured. “And I sometimes tell people I’m from Vore. Or did, when the people I met weren’t goblins. The farther away you appear to be from home, the more expert you seem to those who don’t know you,” he said, sagely.

  “I’m surprised that you returned, after you left the first time,” I said, impressed with the man’s bearing. “Much less take up the spy’s trade.”

  “It’s more of a side business, really,” Jannik demurred. “Just until trade picks up. Proper venues for performance have been scarce, of late. But I felt compelled to return. I just knew too many poor souls suffering inside the shadow. I felt obliged to help, as I could.”

  “Jannik is among my most trusted spies in the Penumbra,” explained Mavone. “He reported to Azar’s folk, mostly, at first. When I became Minalan’s constable, I inherited him from Astyral, who employed him when he was governor of Tudry. Jannik has been skulking about the western vales for years, now, watching the foe on our behalf. First among the Soulless in the south, thence to the centers of the Goblin King’s court and beyond.”

  “You’ve been . . . singing to goblins?” Sandy asked, amazed.

  “Mostly jesting, actually. Even the scrugs like a good poop joke,” Jannik smiled, humorlessly. “A human entertainer is a novelty, it seems. They don’t tip well, but they like to drink. I built up a modicum of trust among them. Got to know them, so to speak. And yes, it was as quite as grisly as that sounds, especially in the early years. But . . . well, no one else was doing it,” he declared. “Just a few stray sots who can remain below notice and think on their feet, at need. Me and my fellows have been quietly reporting about all sorts of things from the Penumbra for years.”

  “But now, it’s time to come in from the cold,” Mavone smiled.

  “Cold? Why. I’ve burned every contact I’ve made in procuring this,” Jannik said, indignantly. “Indeed, I flee from a fire of extravagant proportions. I’ll not be able to show my face in the Penumbra again any time soon. Not until there is a change in regime.”

  “What’s so important, then, that you would risk the security of your network?” Sandy asked, uneasily. He knew how difficult building such things were.

  “I have reports from every major outpost and settlement within the shadow,” Jannik replied, proudly. “More, I have news from the very bowels of the Umbra, and a detailed report on the disposition of Lord Shakathet. But most importantly, I have news bearing on a secret mission the foe is planning. One they believe will shatter the balance of power,” h
e said, grimly.

  “I suppose that might warrant your retrieval then,” Sandy conceded.

  “I authorized it,” Mavone said, authoritatively. “Jannik has been in the field overlong. The recent change in government in the Penumbra had already shaken his old contacts, and the Enshadowed proved less forthcoming than the gurvani. Suspicion was rising. I figured it was better to harvest the best of the crop now, when such storm clouds are on the horizon.”

  “And since it was my hay that would be caught in the rain, I agreed. Things are changing in the Penumbra,” Jannik related, sourly. “They’re going from horrific to pure bloody despotic madness in there. The scrugs are fighting each other. The Enshadowed are everywhere, commanding squadrons of those red-eyed undead devils. Summary execution and sudden massacres are the order of the day. The humans who are left are all in danger,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s about them that I’ve come. Them, and . . . well, I have much news,” he sighed, as he looked around at the dark and foreboding woods. “I would prefer a more entertaining locale to report it.”

  “We’ll take you to the inn in Cheerford, where I have a squadron of guards to ensure your safety,” Mavone assured him. “And food and ale,” he promised, as the minstrel’s thin face beamed at the idea. “The Master of Rysh deserves no less, after such mighty service.”

  The mention of his line made the minstrel’s face fall. “The Rysh are gone,” he said, flatly, keeping unbearable emotion penned up behind his blank expression. “The Fair Vale is a barren, empty wasteland.”

  “Many things are rekindled, beyond the Wildwater,” I offered the man. “And there may yet be other Rysh who escaped. But you already serve as the Master of Cartrefygan as much as your sires did,” I pointed out. “From what Astyral tells me, you provided much of the intelligence on the locations and complements of the slave camps. That was essential to the Great Emancipation. Hundreds of thousands owe you their liberty and their lives.”