“Just wait until he starts teaching you,” Tyndal was saying to Dara in the stern of the barge that first afternoon. “At first it seems like an awful lot of fun, and then it is work, and then it’s just bloody tedious,” he complained. “But once you start picking it up . . .”
“Don’t let him scare you,” dismissed Rondal with a wave. “Master Min is a creampuff. You should have met my first master. He works for the Dead God now.”
“The hard part will be learning to concentrate on everything at once,” Tyndal continued, ignoring his brother apprentice. “Then remembering all of those bloody correspondences, the charts, the sigils – bah!”
“The mysteries of the universe in his hands, and he’s frustrated,” Rondal said, shaking his head. “Idiot. So, what kind of magic are you most interested in, Dara?”
Her hawk chose that moment to fall out of the sky and slap the water with its talons, before returning to its mistress with a healthy two-pound fish.
“I don’t know . . . I was thinking of something with animals,” she said, casually. “Am I going to have to learn warmagic?” she asked.
“Are you sure you have the energy for a third apprentice, Magelord?” Sire Cei asked me, as we overheard the young people talking.
“I don’t think I have enough for the first two,” I acknowledged. “But she needs to be trained. She’s Sevendori, and I want some native Sevendori who can defend her, at need. As you can see, my current position is going to take me on the road frequently. And you will be spending all your time tending your . . . beehives,” I smirked, thinking of Lady Estret.
“Still,” he cautioned, “there are those who feel you are unfairly putting her in front of worthier candidates. I am not a mage, but I have ears. There are already mutterings.”
“There always will be. I’m learning that a good part of being a good magelord is ignoring them and doing what you think is right anyway. Besides, I think my other two apprentices are going to be out of my hair for a while, so I’ll have time to devote to her instruction. Indeed, I would see it a boon if you would volunteer to teach her to read, this winter.”
“It would be an honor, Magelord,” he nodded. There was a long, quiet moment between us, then, as the apprentices chattered away, the bargemen were poling their way along the river, and the sun was settling beautifully over the receding city of Barrowbell. We puffed our pipes and enjoyed the quiet, until Cei chose to break it.
“Magelord, I would like to take the opportunity to express my gratitude,” he said, lightly. “And to make an admission. I was wrong about you.”
That startled me, coming from Sire Cei. “I beg your pardon?”
“When I first accepted your offer of employment,” he explained, “I did so figuring it would be a temporary assignment. You and I had a . . . poor history of relations until then. I thought you young, foolish, and wealthy enough, perhaps, to give me time to find a better situation. I did not think you had the heart to be a lord and run your estate, and I vowed to do so honorably until I could find a way to abandon you with a clear conscience.
“Then I watched what you did, for me and for the other Bovali. You created a home for us, gave us succor when we should have, by all rights, been refugees. You did not need to do that. You did not need to invest so liberally. Indeed, I felt you a fool for spending so lavishly, and I counted it as proof that you would spend yourself into penury.
“But I erred,” he admitted. “You have proven a wise and adept ruler, which I never would have suspected. You have shown compassion and mercy when you did not need to, and blood and iron where you did. I took you for a merchant pretending to play at being a noble. What you showed me was the heart of true nobility: leading the people you are charged with protecting with the thoughtfulness of a father over his children.”
“You give me too much credit!” I protested, laughing. “Cei, I’ve been making this up as I go along. There are no ideals I proclaim, there are no schemes in my head save this one: to make a happy home where my happy family can live among friends, until the day the Dead God comes to my gate. And by then I hope to be able to deal with him.”
“I daresay he should be worried,” chuckled Sire Cei. “You took your greatest enemy and not only defeated him and took his lands . . . you ‘rewarded’ him to the point where he thanked you publicly with tears in his eyes in front of the King.”
“I do hope the Alshari counts enjoy the taste of Warbird,” I said with a little more relish than I had intended. “As Rard’s designated representative, he’s going to get a lot of attention from his new neighbors. Including poison and rat tails, I’d wager. Not really the ‘reward’ for his good service he expects, but he can wear the sash of the king’s steward proudly until he is poisoned or stabbed. If Gimbal plots and plans the way I suspect he will, it wont be long before he’s eliminated. That man has a way of making enemies everywhere – one of the reasons I recommended him to Rard for the job.”
“Perhaps he will do as well as his friend Erantal did with Sevendor,” Cei agreed. “Speaking of which, I ache to see it again. I once thought I could never love a land more than the wilds of the Mindens but . . . perhaps it is the sweat and toil we’ve invested that we miss.”
“No, it is our ladies we miss, as much as the soil and the scenery,” I sighed. “But for that, at least, I have a remedy.” I took a pouch out and handed it to him. “The magical mirror of Sevendor,” I reminded him. “Use it and summon your bride to speak to you before you arrive, to let her know the good news.”
I had already alerted Banamor myself, so the news of the Sevendori casualties and the day of our arrival was well-known, but nothing beats hearing it from your warrior’s own lips. “Just don’t be too long – I want to speak to Alya before she’s crippled with morning sickness again.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
The Mageland of Sevendor
The trip home to Sevendor was almost leisurely, compared to the pace we’d been running at since we’d left. The siege of Sevendor, the conquest of Fleria, the end of the Magic Fair, the Spellmonger’s Trial, and Sire Cei’s wedding all seemed like years ago, but they were less than a moon in our past. The men who trudged off the barge at Sendaria Port, were not the same men who had trudged into the bailey of Sevendor Castle three weeks before.
They had seen war – not as a frightened peasant in a siege, desperately defending their lives, but as warriors in the field, seeking and slaying the enemy where they found them. They were no longer Bovali peasants, or even Sevendori peasants. The men who had fled from Boval Vale with naught but the clothes on their backs had become something more, in the heat of battle. They wore their snowflake tabards with a different attitude, now. The new Sevendori had proven to themselves in battle that they were a fell people led by a powerful lord.
It occurred to me as we were disembarking at Sendaria Port that they were not the only ones changed – staring down that dragon’s maw, being nearly dashed to pieces by its tail, I had brushed up against my mortality yet again – only this time I had Alya and Minalyan – and whomever the little bugger growing in my wife’s belly turned out to be – who were depending on me . . . not to die bravely in battle, but to protect them from everything from hunger and poverty to vengeful warlords and undead goblin heads. Without me standing between them and those dangers, they were vulnerable.
That had been the sobering thought that had haunted me every mile up the river. Without me, where would my wife and son be? Sevendor was secure, such as I could make it, but it was far from being impregnable even to mundane human attack. I was – much to my amazement – fabulously wealthy now, and that, at least, I could fix . . . if I was around to fix it. Because without me pushing to do it, who would?
That was the crux of my problem. For the last two years I had been running around trying to keep things moving, make things happen, and risked my life repeatedly in the process. Back then it seemed a small enough wager – but now I was not the only player at the table. If I fell now, th
en most of what I was working toward would fall with me.
Not only would the new Sevendor Castle not be built, and the fate of my family would be in doubt, but there would be no strong leadership to guide it, to protect it, to advocate for the special nature of the place.
Worse, in the long run, was what would happen to the war effort. The nascent Arcane Orders would likely collapse – oh, Pentandra would do her best to keep them together, united, but she was no warmage. As competent and brilliant as she was, she could not boss Azar and Terleman around like I could – she wasn’t a warmage. While the Hesians and the smaller orders would likely follow her, without the Horkan Order would start acting independently, and eventually fighting among themselves.
At least she’d have the Order of the Secret Tower on her side. If they could ever figure out exactly what they were supposed to be doing.
The Censorate was already marshalling strength in Merwin and Vore, from the news I’d received in Barrowbell. The Duke of Merwin had re-affirmed their charter, and granted them even more power under his authority. A new Censor General had been elected, and by all reports he was a zealot about the Bans. Even normal, law-abiding magi were fleeing from the east. Without me and the Arcane Orders to offer them protection (and recruit them for the war effort) they would be trouble.
King Rard and his vicious Family was otherwise occupied at the moment, which was a relief – whatever their other machinations, they seemed to have gotten what they wanted from us magi, and were leaving us alone . . . for now.
But the specter of Lady Isily’s child was still out there, and I could not help but feeling a chill down my spine every time I recalled my conversation with the Princess on Coronation Day. The Family were uneasy allies at best, and I fully anticipated them turning on us eventually. Indeed, I was almost counting on it.
Then there was our alliance, such as it was, with the Alka Alon. I was as suspicious about that as I was eager to exploit it, but I didn’t understand it. Despite all we knew about the Tree Folk through literature, most of that knowledge was over a thousand years old, predating humanity’s appearance on Callidore.
We knew almost nothing of their politics and strengths in the present. While absence of knowledge isn’t proof of anything but ignorance, there had been several subtle suggestions I’d picked up from their conversations. Such as knowing that there was a political split within the Alkan community, with one side favoring an alliance with humanity and the other side morally opposed.
That would doubtlessly play a role in how the war played out. For whatever reason the Alka Alon had adopted me as their ambassador, and my possession of the only snowstone deposit on Callidore did give me some leverage with them, considering how eager they were to acquire and experiment with it. Such longevity as the Alka possess makes novelty a particularly precious coin. Snowstone was something new, magically speaking, and that had gotten their interest as much as the specter of the Dead God.
But he was the ultimate reason I had to stay alive. I could not die in good conscience while that abomination existed. I had stood in its presence and felt the seething evil that had blighted reality in front of me. There was no negotiation with that hatred.
With the power at his disposal, the Dead God would not be stopped by anything less than his own destruction. The most I could hope for was to slow him down while we came up with a unique solution. Somehow I suspected that snowstone would play a role in that, but I could not imagine how.
It did underscore just how important my continuing to live was. With me, there was a chance we could last long enough to find a way to slay the un-slayable. Without me . . . well, maybe they could think of something, but I couldn’t. One might say that’s egocentric of me to think, but the big sphere of glowing green amber that floated around me all the time agreed with me.
Besides . . . the one important lesson I’d learned in the last year was that I could not afford to worry about what other people thought about me. I was the Magelord of Sevendor, the Spellmonger. I had no peer. I was unique, and this was a unique time in history. The only way I could survive – and the only possible way I could triumph – was to keep that fact in mind.
What I was doing has never been done before, and while I could take inspiration and instruction from others and from history, the plain, no-nonsense fact of the matter was that I, alone, was in a position to judge my actions.
That’s a pretty scary thought, when you think about it long enough. But after attacking it from all sides, that was all I was left with. And if that course of action included a lot of egotistical nonsense due to my own quirky personality, Posterity would just have to contend with that.
By the time Tyndal had hired us fresh horses for our return journey, I was feeling better. Then I remembered that I no longer had my old friend Traveler with me, and I started feeling worse again.
He wasn’t the only one not coming back. Sevendor had bled for this war. Jurlor had lost a son and a nephew in the battle before the castle, and three of the Westwoodmen would not be returning to their forest home. Gurisham had lost thirty men of the sixty they’d sent, including Headman Brandine.
Sevendor Village had lost four more than that, and Boval Hall had spent sixty-six lives in pursuit of their feud with the gurvani. Southridge, Genly, Brestal, and Caolan’s Pass had all given around a dozen men each, and the new domains under Sevendor’s control had lost a few hundred.
But the survivors were resilient. They formed up with something akin to military discipline, when we departed Sendaria Port, marching with their spears and bows on their shoulders and their shields slung like hardened campaigners. Their matching green-and-white tabards looked impressive. And the purses of silver they had been paid dragged pleasantly heavy on their belts. There would be no empty bellies in Sevendor this winter.
“Master,” Tyndal complained, as we rode past Chepstan Castle that evening, preparing to encamp for the night, “why couldn’t we tarry in Sendaria Port a day? We barely arrived before we left, and there was little time to . . .”
“Spend every coin you had on whores and drink?” I supplied, helpfully.
“I was going to say ‘relax and restore ourselves’,” he corrected me, sourly. Somehow I think we were both talking about the same thing. “But it seems a waste to let such a valuable shopping opportunity pass. Yule will be here before you know it,” he reminded me.
“So it will,” I agreed. “Which is why I spent far too much coin in Barrowbell doing my shopping. Some of it has already been sent to Sevendor, more will arrive soon. There is nothing more exotic in Sendaria Port than you’ll find in Barrowbell.”
He looked uncomfortable. There must be a girl involved. “Very well. I suppose I can whittle my gifts out of twigs or something,” he grumbled.
“Oh, don’t worry,” I encouraged. “You’ll have plenty of time to shop. You and Rondal.”
“Huh?” my other apprentice said, when he heard his name. “Master?”
“Just after Yule,” I revealed to them, “you both will be going back to Sendaria Port, weather depending, and thence downriver. All the way to Inarion Academy. I have used my influence to get you both special appointments there, for individual training and assessment. I’d like to think I’ve done a decent job giving you the basics of Imperial magic, but the fact is your educations have been a little . . . unorthodox, thanks to Shereul.
“Now that you are both nearly grown, are High Magi, and are magelords in your own right, you need more polishing. So Rondal, you will spend six weeks at Inarion.”
“Six weeks!” scoffed Tyndal, alarmed. “That’s forever!”
“Then you’ll be there twice as forever, because I’ve arranged for you to do twelve weeks there. While Rondal goes to Coran Mor, to the War College, to get his own six weeks of intensive, individual combat instruction. Then you will both do another six weeks of combined training under the finest warmagi in the Kingdom.”
They both looked appalled. “But Master!” Rondal said, his
eyes wide with fear, “why? Have we not given good service? Have we not—”
“It’s not about your service, and it’s not a punishment,” I explained patiently. “Look, you two are unique. You have power available to you far in excess of your skills. You’ve muddled through on cantrips and quick wits and brute force, so far, but you both need additional training, and the cold fact of the matter is that I’m going to be too busy to provide it the way it should be. You both possess a strong, unblemished Talent, you both have higher than normal intelligence, and you are both hale and hearty.
“More importantly,” I said, in a somewhat lower voice, “I can trust you . . . and that’s going to be at a premium in the future, boys. We have power, now, and not just magical power. We have political power – and don’t forget that that’s what doomed the Archmagi of old. Having power gains you enemies faster than a foul mouth. And power held unused is an invitation to the ambitions of your enemies.
The Spellmonger Series: Book 03 - Magelord Page 95
