And you think presenting a bunch of shiny warmagi is going to do that?
It’s going to be a big step in that direction, she affirmed. In fact, it would be wise for us to be organized before the Council. Have a meeting, maybe in the spring, to figure out some organizational details and fix some policies.
I don’t know, Pen, I replied, doubtfully. There isn’t much time before the Summer Solstice.
What are you talking about? There’s plenty of time. Most of the High Magi are in northern Alshar already, and the few who aren’t could make it back here in a few weeks. And if they can’t, then we can get their opinions mind-to-mind. But we need to all be reading from the same scroll, so to speak, because this autumn when Rard is crowned we will have a golden opportunity to get . . . well, whatever we want. But until we know what we want, that’s not going to do us much good. So we have a conference, a convention, a convocation, a coven, whatever you want to call it. We get together and map out some policies and procedures and maybe talk about the future.
Well, I suppose that would work, I admitted. But where to meet? Tudry?
No! she said, adamantly. That’s too close to the Penumbra. I don’t want the Dead God overhearing anything. We don’t know if he has human servants as spies in Tudry yet, but you can bet it will only be a matter of time.
Good point. What about Vorone?
Somehow I don’t think we’d be too welcome there, she pointed out. A lot of the Alshari are blaming us for Lenguin’s death. And for the whole war. Now they’re shy one Duke, and from what you and Mavone have said, he was the only reason anyone ever came to the damn place anyway. And it’s still hip-deep in refugees.
Again, a good point. That leaves Wilderhall.
That’s what I was thinking, she agreed. But from what you’ve told me about the Family, that might be even worse than Tudry in terms of eavesdroppers.
Penny, we’re running out of Wilderlands, I said, patiently.
I know, I know! Let me think . . .
It took us almost an hour of brainstorming, and in the end she had to contact a few other magi mind-to-mind, but we finally settled on a place from an unlikely source: Forandal of Scafford.
Sire Forandal was a scion of a coastal family of aristocrats, and had become a warmage of no small repute when he was recommended by Terleman, the military head of the order, to get a witchstone. He had fought valiantly at Timberwatch and already had friends in the Castali and Alshari courts, so when the Dukes had been handing out honors, he’d gotten awarded an estate, just like I had.
Only he had chosen one about three hundred miles southwest of Wilderhall, near the Alshari frontier, a fief known as the Domain of Robinwing. It was a small, out-of-the way land, much like Sevendor. But unlike Sevendor it had been fully functional and even profitable when Sire Forandal had become its Magelord. That was largely thanks to a big temple on his lands and ambitious villagers who had hoped to use their time without a lord to advance their own agendas.
But Robinwing Castle was spacious and roomy, the village had several good inns, and the temple could house our conference without fear of being overheard. Forandal was delighted to be able to play host, too, and I couldn’t blame him. I had been tempted to host the meeting myself in Sevendor, just to use the specter of the best warmagi in the world on my bellicose neighbor’s border, but in truth we didn’t have the facilities for that kind of meeting . . . yet.
We set the time for convening the Order as three weeks after the Equinox, which should be long enough after the snows to melt for the roads to be safe, but still too early in the season to take the warmagi on the front lines from their posts.
We were fairly certain we wouldn’t see any major gurvani offensives until at least a full moon and a half after the equinox. Gurvani don’t like mud any more than we do, and they hate snow and cold weather. The Robinwing Convocation should be relatively well-attended.
So the Censorate still wants us dead, and Rard wants us to show up and scare his enemies. And the Family isn’t nearly as friendly to us as before. Please tell me you have some good news.
I do, she agreed. The Order of the Secret Tower is at your beck and call. Daddy’s witchstone has already revolutionized the business here. He’s become the most powerful mage on the Order’s council. But they’re already lining up and wanting to know what they have to do to get one.
Well, if they’re warmagi then I’ll grant them a stone if they go to the Penumbra for a year, I offered.
They aren’t. They’re wealthy old practicing adepts and court magi. “Practicing Adept” or “Practical Adept” (or even “Resident Adept” in Vore) is a term that Eastern magi use when they sell their services and are associated with a magical firm.
If you’re wondering what the difference between a “Practicing Adept” and a “Spellmonger” are, so did I, the time I went to visit Penny’s family’s estate in Remere. After days of argument, I still couldn’t see one. But Practicing Adept apparently sounds more sophisticated and prestigious, and considering how much Penny’s dad’s firm charged for their spells, I suppose their clients were entitled to the very highest quality bullshit.
I don’t know, Pen. The war effort has to be our first priority.
I agree. I just don’t think it should be the only priority. Are we going to only allow warmagi to have witchstones?
Of course not! I’ve already given stones away to non-warmagi. Master Icorad, the Mage healer. Master Thinradel, Master Dunselen, Lanse of Bune, your dad, you . . .
I know. That’s my point. We’ve dealt with them haphazardly, and in some cases we’ve lost control of the situation. We need to figure out a good, practical method of deciding who gets a stone and who doesn’t. That’s going to become a political headache before we know it. And that’s the sort of thing we need to decide at a conference.
How about every fourth stone goes to a non-warmage? I offered.
How about every third stone? She countered. There are a lot of specialists out there who are eager to expand their abilities. Some specialties that could prove quite useful. Enchanters and healers, for example.
I’d be willing to give one to a decent Green Mage, I agreed. If he was good enough.
Green Magic is, as you probably guessed, the magic of plants and growing things. It wasn’t a very widely respected specialty, despite how useful it was. Growing stuff just isn’t as flashy or impressive as warmagic or even common spellmongering.
But I’d seen a few talented Green Magi who could grow roses on a paver stone. I thought about the desolate landscape of Sevendor and wondered what a well-trained, Talented Green Mage could do with the land to make it more productive. In fact, you can put the word out that I will be willing to grant a stone to the Green Mage who impresses me most.
You’re going to be mobbed, she giggled. I wasn’t actually thinking of Green Magi, but I suppose they could benefit. Just think what a Seamage could do with a stone. Or a Stonesinger. Or an adept enchanter. Or a really good thaumaturge—
Hey! I am a really good thaumaturge! I protested.
And see how much you’ve been able to accomplish? We’re going to need support magi, Min, and they’re going to need witchstones to do their jobs.
Agreed. What about religious magic?
Theurges? she asked, surprised. If you’re worried about the war effort that’s the last place I’d recommend spending our precious stones. How could a temple mage be useful?
This was a common argument for us – Penny never thought religious magic was actually practical, whereas I had seen a few things that convinced me otherwise.
Come on, religious magic has accomplished some pretty amazing things, I countered. I admit, it’s unreliable and problematic, but it’s also quite powerful. There’s a reason that even the Censorate is careful in how they regulate theurgic magic. You get one of the larger cults angry at you, and even without irionite you can tap on the raw emotional power of hundreds or thousands of the devout. That could come in handy.
What? I asked, surprised. Why would we do that?
To raise money, she said, simply. The Order is running on a horsehair right now. But it’s going to need resources, its own resources. Selling a stone or two might be a way to do that. To the proper people, of course, she added.
Like whom? I asked, dryly. I knew Penny. She wouldn’t have brought it up if she didn’t have someone in mind.
Like my cousin Planus, she offered. You met him when you visited, remember? The really handsome one? He’s a very, very good practical adept, and he’s also got a good head for business. He’s the one who got the family firm into commercial merchandise evaluation and assurance.
What?
He started offering to magically ensure that a shipment of goods arrives intact. He uses a version of the Resitilan Grouping spell on a wagon or a bargeload of merchandise after it’s loaded. When it arrives, the merchant has another mage verify that the entire load has arrived as promised, without any of it . . . falling off the back of the wagon. He charges five percent of the merchandise total.
Does he make good money at it? I asked, incredibly impressed at the idea. I grew up in a riverport – in Talry, you could always go down to the docks and trade a couple of fresh-baked pies for some of whatever the bargemen were loading, unloading, or hauling to distant ports of call. By the time a shipment made it to its final destination, as much as a quarter of the merchandise might have disappeared. Paying five percent to ensure that it didn’t was well worth the price.
It’s about a third of the firm’s revenues, now, and the best part is that the Resitilan Grouping is such a simple spell even second-year apprentices can do an evaluation. Of course Planus wants a shard of irionite. He asked me to ask you how much you’d sell one for, outright.
Ishi’s nips, Penny, how should I know? They’re priceless!
Nothing is truly priceless, she countered. And Planus’ side of the family is the really wealthy one. They’ve had contracts in central Remere that stretch back two hundred, three hundred years. So when he asked me to ask you, he also said he would pay you one hundred thousand ounces of gold for one.
One hundred thousand ounces . . . of gold? I asked, incredulous.
He’s got it. Or his family does. But he’s not worried about the expenditure. With irionite he can make that back in two years with what he can do. Probably less – Planus is terribly smart. He was also handsome and as smooth and charismatic a mage as I’d ever met. The sort that can make you feel like a hayseed hedgemage on your best day.
I don’t know, Penny, I said, after I’d recovered. Is that a good precedent?
I don’t know, Min, she said, tiredly. Maybe, maybe not. But why not?
It just seems corrupt, somehow.
Someone has to decide who gets the stones, Min, and we all decided that it would be you. How you dispose of them is your business, then. But as your advisor – and Acting Steward of the Arcane Orders, may I remind you – let me advise you to think about it strongly. I’d recommend you just give Planus one, except I know that seems a little too much like nepotism even to me. The money makes that less painful. And with so many other, older, more prestigious adepts around . . .
I’ll think about it, I promised. Maybe it is a bad precedent, maybe it isn’t. I was thinking that we might want to set up a network of spellmongers and footwizards to encourage trade in knot coral and sympathy stones, weirwood and that sort of thing. There are dozens of substances and items that are invaluable to magic, but they’re rare, exotic, and scattered. If we’re really going to push the art, we’re going to need access to them. We should start encouraging that, especially if we’re going to take a mercantile approach to irionite. Maybe we can raise funds by taxing that trade somehow to pay for the Order’s upkeep.
That’s what professional fees are for, Min, she said patiently. It isn’t unusual for someone to pay a fee for a position or a feudal right.
I did just take a sympathy stone from one of my people as a fee for setting up shop in the village, I admitted.
Then you understand that a small fee for a witchstone isn’t dishonorable or dishonest. Consider it a feudal arrangement: you, the head of the Arcane Orders, control the witchstones. You dish them out to worthies you know, she said, unselfconsciously, you take their oaths, just like an oath of fealty. The fee is just another element of that arrangement. And it keeps too many untrained magi from dogging you.
I still don’t like the idea of prohibiting someone, just because they’re poor. Couldn’t we make that fee payable within two years? That should be plenty of time, if the mage is good. That will also help ensure that new members are on their best behavior. If they owe us money, they’ll behave better.
That’s actually a good idea, Min, she admitted. I’ll add it to the agenda. Oh, and there’s another pressing item on the agenda. The Order needs a permanent home. At least some place where we can store records and construct a library, that sort of thing. Someplace like the Citadel of the Censorate at Terrematon.
I thought we were going to take over Terrematon? That’s the impression Hartarian gave me.
It might not be up to him. If the rest of the Censorate prevails, they might burn the place down rather than allow it to fall into our unclean hands. But even if we don’t take it, there’s a lot of stuff that we might be able to get from there, and we’ll have to store it someplace. And the Order of the Secret Tower has a lot of books and scrolls that I want to move to Castal or even Alshar, far out of the Censorate’s reach. Half of them I don’t even know what they do, but no one has been able to study them properly. And a lot of them might prove useful against the gurvani.
I’d offer Sevendor, but at the moment the place is stuffed to the rafters and stinks to high heaven.
I wouldn’t want to put it there, anyway, she agreed. You don’t need to be in charge of our headquarters. I’ll find someone for that duty. You’re in charge of enough, already.
You’re telling me? All right, put it on the agenda.
We talked like that far into the snowy night. At one point I even pulled on my fur mantle over my wool cloak and went to the top of the tower to smoke a pipe and watch the ferocious snow blow through the darkness. And after we finished talking, I stumbled back to bed, thankful that Penny had had the foresight to create the mind-to-mind spell.
One of the things that I’d missed most about being up in Boval, or going from one little war to another was the lack of magi to talk shop with. Now I could summon some of the finest minds in magic with a thought, and consult with them, trade information with them, or query them.
It was a wonderful improvement over hired messengers or pigeons, I reflected as I fell asleep. But it also meant a lot more headaches. It meant that I could – and would – have a hand in politics, even when I was in my remote vale, far from the corridors of power. I disliked politics, particularly when they could end up with me dead.
* * *
I don’t know how long I slept, but at some point I came awake because someone was punching me in the shoulder. I was naked under the blankets and furs, and as I came awake I realized two things: one, that my knee up to my waist was damp – no, wet. And secondly, my wife was pounding frantically on me, and some part of my brain knew that was important.
“Min, get up!” she said, her voice thick with excitement and dread. “The cauldron spilled!”
“Huh?” I asked, pushing the edge of the fur back sleepily. I couldn’t recall that we had left one on the fire.
“The cauldron spilled! At least, I think it did. I woke up and . . . and . . . ow!” she said, rubbing her belly.
“What cauldron? We don’t have a cauldron in here . . .” I realized, sitting up and gazing at the fireplace in the darkness. I summoned magesight and inspected the room. “I don’t see a—”
“Oh, you idiot!” she said, de
sperately. “That’s right, you wouldn’t know. The matrons told me to expect this. My water broke – ‘the cauldron spilled’.”
“So . . . what does—” I started asking, wondering if I could go back to sleep and clean it up in the morning. Then what she said started to filter its way through my brain. But apparently not quickly enough.
“It means the baby is on the way!” she said, excitedly.
That got my attention.
Everything that happened after that is a kind of vague blur. Before I was fully awake there were seven people in my chamber and more on the way. My status as both husband and lord of the realm was suddenly insufficient to command anyone’s attention – I was in the way.
I stood near the bathtub and watched in amazement as my bedroom was quickly transformed into a birthing room by Alya’s attendants. The fire was stoked, water was placed on it to boil (in an actual cauldron) , packets of herbs and oils appeared, and one of the older native Sevendori crones hobbled in and presented Alya with a wrapped bundle of instruments, the nature of which I could guess but did not really want to know.
I felt ill and dizzy at the same time. Someone complained about the light, and I realized that there was something useful I could do. I cast a small but bright magelight to hover over the bed, bright enough to read by.
There. I contributed.
I tried several times to get near to Alya, and twice I actually got to hold her hand during one of the wracking contractions. It was terrifying. Her eyes went white with pain and fear, and the cramping was so harsh she couldn’t breathe, let alone scream. I was about to panic – surely this wasn’t normal.
“She’s comin’ along nice, she is,” crooned a crone at the foot of the bed as she rubbed Alya’s broad belly. “It feels like the lad’s in position: head down, face down, bowed in reverence of the goddess.”
I wasn’t so sure about the baby’s motivations, but then I recalled that Briga is not just the patroness of bakers, but the patroness of childbirth, too (don’t ask me how an elemental fire goddess specializing in baking, poetry and smithcraft also got that job), so I began praying feverishly to her out of instinct as Alya did her best to crush my hand.
The Spellmonger Series: Book 03 - Magelord Page 25
