Aethersmith (Book 2)

by J. S. Morin

  Kyrus had awakened with a plan, conceived largely by Brannis, but with which he wholeheartedly agreed. He sat at Brannis’s desk with stacks of officers’ files at his left hand, and a pile of blank parchment to his right. With a quill in hand, he was going to rearrange the army just a bit.

  In all the files, there was one name he was looking to find: Elmin Tanner. Soria had told him that Tanner was assigned to Naran Port, so it would not take a great deal of searching to find him or his file. What Kyrus needed was to find enough other officers to reassign to cover the inclusion of Tanner among them. His pretense would be sending more of the senior leadership of the army out into the field, and bringing the inexperienced ones back to Kadris to get them logistical training, and vet them for higher positions, as the army was destined to grow in size as the war effort took hold.

  Kyrus spent a good portion of the morning arranging for promising middling officers to be brought to army central command, and assigning irascible old veterans to apply their oft-touted expertise where it could be more immediately used: on the battlefront with Megrenn. He looked for men with unusual skills and circumstances. Ronnad Darkhorse was accounted one of the best archers in the Empire; he would train recruits at the School of Arms while in Kadris. Sir Hanliy Garlent’s career had foundered after a falling out between Lord Jomon and his son; he would get a chance to prove himself. Elmin Tanner was an arrogant sword captain who had been reprimanded on occasion for insubordination. Well, he would be a project, certainly, but “Sir Brannis” really could use a good sword instructor. Kyrus smiled.

  He picked a half dozen other officers who he thought could avail themselves of a change in locale, and found plausible assignments for them as well. Do other commanders make these sorts of assignments as well? It would certainly explain the grousing among the men of nonsensical orders coming from the top levels of the army. I had always thought they were just looking to place blame for things that inconvenienced them, and had no clear purpose from their viewpoint. I had never considered that the orders were as capricious as those men had claimed. The maligned wisdom of the downtrodden, I suppose.

  Kyrus looked over the sad, empty table from which Brannis had plotted their defense against the expected Megrenn invasion. His first thought had been to get the map back from wherever it had been taken, but then he remembered the spell Rashan had shown him the night before.

  “Huaxti janidu deldore wanetexu elu mulaftu sekedori puc’anzu margek lotok junubi,” Kyrus intoned, carefully weaving his fingers through the complex motions the spells required. As he did so, he could picture the colored lines hanging in the air that the warlock had provided for him to trace with his fingers.

  The table transformed. The glossy wooden surface turned rocky and brown, and the edges turned to water, outlining the continent of Koriah as best Kyrus could remember it from maps. Giving in to fancy, he let the water cascade off the edges like a waterfall, in a small tribute to Stalyart, and his ideas about old maps. Kyrus approximated the locations of the Cloud Wall and Stone Talon mountain ranges, and they rose from the continent like erupting teeth of stone. Using those mountains as a guide, he set about creating rivers and lakes, forests, roads, cities, and towns as best he could remember them. He knew the scale and proportion were awful—he would have to retrieve the map to consult it, at the least—but certain locales he was more familiar with were likely accurate enough for tactical use: the vicinity of Kadris, Raynesdark, the ogrelands, Kelvie Forest. The little figurines representing the armies floated up out of the illusory map at Kyrus’s command. He was going to place them where reports had last claimed them to be, but then redirected them over to a bookshelf, where he set them down safely out of the way. Upon the topography of the map appeared the forces of Kadrin and Megrenn, and all their allies, in fine detail, though not to scale.

  Kyrus spent much of his morning reading through reports, and making alterations to his map accordingly. He also got hold of his original, flat, paper map, and adjusted his aether-constructed one until it matched as exactly as he could make it. From his limited experience in such things, he judged that the construct would last several days before needing to be reinvigorated with aether. While he was away, the illusion of falling water, some little waves crashing against the coastlines, the flow of rivers, and some swaying of the trees and prairie grasses would continue on their own. Kyrus thought a moment, and added some clouds above; those would continue to laze across the continent on their own as well. The rest of the map would be unchanging except by the application of aether by a sorcerer.

  Kyrus left orders for some of the officers to study the map, and make note of anything they were aware of that was based on outdated intelligence or erroneous reports. He had not spent nearly enough time digesting every report that Brannis had received to ensure the map’s complete accuracy, but it ought to have been close enough for military strategists to work from.

  There was one last order he wanted to send. It really ought to have been a request. He wanted to offer a position to someone who was not under his command. For that matter, the position he intended to fill was neither vacant, nor under his purview. It would be a test of the leeway that Rashan allowed him, but he rather expected that it would work. The captain of the palace guard was sixty-three autumns of age, and no longer the hard-eyed sentinel he had once been. The man managed the palace guards well enough, but lacked vigor, fire, and the ability to provide much protection by his own sword anymore. Kyrus somehow suspected that it would not be too difficult to convince Varnus to accept the position.

  * * * * * * * *

  Kyrus left the army headquarters shortly before noontime. It was a warm, mild day of the sort that southern Kadrin rarely got so early in the season. He should have been glad of the fact, but found that it only reminded him that the exotic cavalry of the Megrenn would be all the more comfortable; the blue skies and sweet-smelling breezes were lost on him.

  He made for a home he had scarcely imagined he would have to visit. Celia Mistfield had so dogged his steps since their return from Raynesdark that he half-expected that he could merely look over his shoulder to find her. Ever since Iridan and Juliana’s wedding, however, she had left Brannis in peace. Now Kyrus set about actively seeking her out. He had needed to ask one of the palace messengers that morning just to find out where she lived; he had never thought to ask.

  Rashan may be playing at something. I cannot risk it, though; the bait is too tempting and he knows it. A drunken demon? Even one-quarter in his cups, he ought to have been more politic than to drop such a juicy morsel accidentally. He had some motive and I will not divine it without speaking to her. The warlock’s sudden recognition when Abbiley’s name was mentioned suggested that it was not the first time he had heard it. Was it feigned or a genuine reaction? Kyrus could not tell.

  He had not, in fact, found Juliana awaiting him in his bedchambers the night before. It would have been well past impulsive, even for her, to antagonize Rashan again so soon. With the peace of a solitary pre-slumber, Kyrus’s sleepy mind had wandered its way back through the conversation between himself and the warlock. What details he had given, what tricks might have been played on him, what sort of motive he might have had for deception—all sloshed about in his mind like the water in a carelessly carried bucket; most had fallen out.

  The sweetmilk had helped him to a wondrously restful night’s sleep, but he recalled little of the detail of his deliberation. He had no reason to suspect the warlock of poisoning him or drugging him; the effect of sweetmilk was tried out on children from the age of two summers clear through to … How old am I now, twenty-two summers? Kyrus shook his head at his foolishness. It was as good as wine for putting you out cold for the night, but with no hangover afterward, and more importantly, no violent, drunken outbursts while awake and under its influence.

  When he arrived at the modest home that had been provided for Celia, Kyrus knocked at her door, standing smartly at what he thought was military attention as he awa
ited a response from within. He studied the door, noting its construction and estimating how sturdy it was as a defensive bulwark; he had no intention of assaulting the place, but his preoccupation with military planning since his arrival in Veydrus was beginning to leak into his thoughts more and more.

  “Good morning, your lordship,” a young maid answered the door. She was pretty in the plain sort of way that even rather ordinary girls are at a certain age; flush in newly found womanhood, and not yet worn out by a life of work and childbearing. Her sleeveless grey dress was cut thigh-length, with plain trousers showing beneath them. Brannis would have thought nothing of it, having been around such garb all his life, but Kyrus found it cynical. The dress was a mere covering for work clothes: arms bare for washing and scrubbing, no long skirts to catch on things, trousers for kneeling for truly lowborn tasks.

  “I am here to see Sorceress Celia,” Kyrus informed her, brushing aside his thoughts on the class system evident in Kadrin. He had too many other matters to worry about right then.

  “Milady is not in the house. I can prepare tea and tarts for you, if you care to wait for her, or you may return in the evening,” the girl replied with all deference, not even looking Kyrus in the eye.

  “Where can I find her now?” Kyrus asked. He did not have the sorts of days that permitted waiting in Sixth Circle sorceresses’ sitting rooms.

  “I do not know, your lordship,” came the reply. It sounded honest enough; she was just a maid, not privy to all Celia’s affairs. Had she been better dressed, he might have taken her for a ladies’ maid, and not the cleaning sort, and his expectations of her knowledge would have been more demanding.

  It was then that Kyrus noticed something subtle in the aether. The girl’s Source was hiding it partially, but there was some sort of aether construct about her. The girl squirmed and blushed under Kyrus’s scrutiny but voiced no complaint.

  At length, Kyrus spoke to her. “Do you know that someone has put a spell on you?” he asked bluntly. He had no reason to worry about offending her. Had that been his aim, he would have known better than to stare at her so long to begin with.

  “Of course, my lord,” she replied, her voice a tiny thing, as if she were trying to keep her answer a secret from her own Source.

  “To what end?” Kyrus asked, annoyed that Celia—or possibly someone on her behalf—had enspelled the poor girl. He had not puzzled out the exact nature of the spell, but he could not see any protective effects in evidence. He suspected that the girl’s ignorance was not entirely of her own making.

  “It was a condition of my employment, your lordship,” she confessed.

  Kyrus seethed. Taking commoners as thralls was a time-honored—and widely condemned—practice among sorcerers. The Imperial Circle expressly forbade it, and Kadrin law made it a crime punishable by banishment. It was in many ways worse even than the practice of necromancy, since not everyone was convinced that the suffering evident in the bodies of the dead was felt by the individual whose consciousness had once inhabited that body. Thralls were worse than slaves, with no freedom even in their own minds.

  “Who cast this spell on you? Just give me a name, and I will be on my way.” Kyrus focused on the construct and it shattered, spilling its aether loose and succumbing to his draw.

  “Thank you, your lordship, but I have no name I can give you. I remember the fact of it, but I can recall no details. I may as well remember events from before I was born, it is such a blackness in my mind,” the girl explained, relieved but worried that she was not able to provide what her benefactor wished to hear.

  “I will find out by other means. Until then, if Celia returns, tell her to report to me immediately,” Kyrus ordered.

  “If I might beg your pardon, my lord, but what name should I give her?” the girl asked diplomatically.

  Of course! I am growing arrogant indeed to expect that the whole of the Empire knows me by my face, especially since I only somewhat look like Brannis.

  “Brannis Solaran,” Kyrus lied. He was getting good at it.

  * * * * * * * *

  Kyrus was in his office in the palace when Celia arrived, per his orders. Kyrus had been going over the plans for his newest airship with Sanbin, who had become his own private smith of late. The sword-maker would be helping to construct a hull made of folded, runed metal, similar to the construction of the dragon-tooth weapons they had made together; the process looked to be easier and quicker using steel.

  “Sanbin, if you would excuse us,” Kyrus told the smith.

  Sanbin swiveled a neck that looked too thick for such a movement, and saw the arrival of Brannis’s tag-along shadow. He gave a knowing wink when he turned back to look Kyrus way. “I have plenty o’ work fer keepin’ me busy a while. No worry on that account.” He took up the sheaves of parchment with Kyrus’s drawings and runes on them, and packed them in a neat bunch.

  Kyrus waited for Sanbin to exit and Celia to take his place across the desk from him. He studied her a moment as she stood there, wearing a green dress with white fabric showing at the tight-laced bodice that hugged her form. She was of a height with Abbiley, and built just like her, buxom and curvy, not so painfully thin as Juliana seemed at times. Her hair was darker but that was no hard thing for a sorceress to change. The face was smoother, her teeth straighter and brighter. They take the girls at the Academy aside, and teach them all those vain tricks, though. He could not honestly rule it out.

  The other matter could wait. He would not let such abuses of magic pass, but it was a subject that required less delicate handling than the one that was foremost on his mind. “I had a long talk with the warlock last night,” Kyrus began noncommittally. He watched for signs of a reaction from Celia, but saw nothing but earnest curiosity (possibly feigned, in the long tradition of humoring long-winded superiors).

  “And?” she prompted when Kyrus did not continue after a pause she deemed a bit too long. Kyrus wanted to see her mannerisms in all forms, looking at them in a new light, comparing them to his memory of Abbiley.

  “We talked about a great many things, things I had quite frankly never expected to hear from him. We talked about distant lands and people in our pasts—his from much further ago than mine. At one point, I mentioned a name and he suggested that I mention it to you.” Kyrus allowed himself to wander just a bit, to make her impatient. It was working.

  “What name? Brannis, I know you are important around here now, but that does not mean you should fritter away at other people’s time. I have work to be getting to, and a meeting I am going to be late for,” Celia said.

  “Abbiley,” Kyrus dropped the name in front of her, to see what she would do with it.

  “That forsworn bastard! What else did he tell you about my dreams?” Celia demanded, her nose scrunched up in disgust. Her face was reddening as well, Kyrus noted.

  “Tell me? Nothing? I brought the name up, and he thought I ought to mention it to you. Tell me, what does it mean to you?” Kyrus asked, trying to keep his tone neutral and inquisitive, rather than the eager and interrogational it was steering toward on its own.

  “I started having recurring dreams after Raynesdark. I figured I had just seen enough horrors there and in Illard’s Glen that I just needed to see something mundane and comforting every night; my sleeping mind was making it up for me, like some sort of cure for nightmares,” she explained.

  “How does the name come in?”

  “That is the name they called me by in the dreams: Abbiley Tillman,” Celia stated simply, as if it were not germane to the heart of the matter. She seemed not to realize how much it mattered to one heart.

  I never told him her family name, Kyrus realized. Or did I? Did I slip and let loose that key bit of information, and forget I had done it? I know I had wanted to hold it back in case of such treachery as this may be.

  “Do you remember any details of these dreams? People, by any chance?” Kyrus pressed. Celia gave him a funny look, growing suspicious of his questions.


  “Why are you so interested all of a sudden, Brannis?” she asked.

  “Just humor me, if you would.” Kyrus tried being reasonable, to see if that would get him just a bit farther.

  “I do not remember details very well,” she said. “I have a brother, Neelan, or something. That is the only one that comes to mind. Is this what you brought me here for, to ask after my dreams? They are just dreams, Brannis.”

  “Rashan told you that?” Kyrus asked, filling time as his brain absorbed the blow it had just taken.

  Neelan really is her brother’s name. I never gave that up. I hardly remembered it before she said the name but that was it. Perhaps it was too much to hope for her to remember me, if it has truly only been since Raynesdark.

  “I did not need to be told whether my dreams were really dreams. I had asked him in case some magic might have been at work. I had assumed two things, both of which turned out to be wrong. First that he would be of some use in telling me what might be happening in my head; the second, that he could be discreet about it.”

  “I will not keep you any longer from your other engagements.” Kyrus tried not to stumble over the words. He needed time—time he was not going to have with Celia in his office—to sort through his thoughts.