Hawklady: A Spellmonger Cadet Novel

by Terry Mancour

  “Only from afar,” Rondal promised. “When you get to enchanting, then you can talk to Tyn. He’s marginally better at certain aspects of it than I am,” he said, grudgingly. “But if you can find a drunken goblin witchdoctor, you might fare better,” Rondal suggested.

  Tyndal ignored the jibe. “She’s getting tutored by Lady Pentandra,” Tyndal said, solemnly. “There’s no better teacher. Banamor isn’t bad, for simple stuff,” he reasoned, referring to the footwizard who had arrived last year, and become one of Master Minalan’s most trusted servants. “And Master Olmeg is great . . . provided the subject is onions,” he sneered.

  “What about Gareth?” Dara asked, suddenly. The two boys looked at each other and shrugged.

  “Gareth’s really good,” Rondal nodded. “Especially anything to do with thaumaturgy. He’s incredibly good at that, not just theory, but the practical stuff. He’s a decent alchemist, too.”

  “Just don’t ask him about warmagic,” snorted Tyndal. “He’s the worst!”

  “Why would she ask anyone about warmagic?” demanded Rondal, irritated. “She’s a civilian. The last thing she needs is to learn a bunch of useless warmagic spells. She needs to focus her attention on the rudiments.”

  “If things don’t go well in Gilmora, she might have to,” Tyndal said, moodily.

  “Don’t talk like that!” snapped Rondal. “Master Minalan will handle Gilmora. He’s up there now, planning and plotting,” he said with confidence . . . and a little bit of doubt, Dara noted. “He’s got all those new magical weapons the Alka Alon gave us.”

  “That we have no idea how to use,” reminded Tyndal. “Are you hungry? I’m getting hungry.”

  “I just ate,” Dara said, absently. “The Tree Folk gave us weapons?” That just didn’t seem like the friendly non-humans, as she knew them from lore.

  “We don’t really know,” admitted Tyndal. glumly. “A bunch of them apparently showed up to the new king’s coronation and gave us a bunch of amazing magical artifacts to help the war effort. . . that we know nothing about. That’s what Lady Varen is trying to explain to Master Min, now. I hope they are,” he added, nervously wiping his hands on his hose. “Minalan was trying out a few yesterday. It didn’t . . . go well,” he added, scowling. “He almost hurt some people by accident. But I hope he can figure it out. It would be nice to defeat the goblins without actually having to fight goblins.”

  Dara spent most of the morning on the stairwell, and she learned a great deal about the two senior apprentices. Despite their odd accents, acrimony, and constant teasing, they volleyed the worst of the insults at each other, not her. Indeed, they were generally welcoming and friendly toward her, which she found a relief.

  Eventually they got around to the subject of her falconry, and what it was like to hunt a falcon. That was more her element than magic, and she spent the better part of an hour explaining the long, complex process of training a hunting falcon. The boys seemed genuinely interested, and never once suggested that she was poorly prepared or unsuited to the task because she was a girl. Or a commoner.

  She discovered that before their knightings on the field after the Battle of Timberwatch, they – like all magi – were prohibited from taking lands or titles of nobility. But King Rard had changed all that, and threw the bothersome Censorate of Magic out of his realm.

  “You never, ever want to meet a Censor,” Rondal explained, solemnly. “Garkesku was terrified of them, and he had his working papers in order. They wore black and white checkered cloaks, and carried mageblades, among other weapons. And they could have you imprisoned by their word, if they found you violating the Bans in any way.”

  “They used to kill footwizards and wild magi,” Tyndal nodded. “They still do in the Eastern duchies, I suppose.” Those were lands not under the King’s control, she’d learned. “Getting caught with witchstone? Instant hanging,” he assured her.

  “They could go after your entire family, on the pretext that your kin might have rajira. They recruited only the youngest, most fanatical wizards out of the Academy. The best thing Master Min ever did was insist that Rard banish them and break their order.”

  “Pure fanatics,” nodded Tyndal. “They tried to bust up Master Min’s wedding,” he added, though she’d heard the story. Twice, now. “They have a price on his head, it’s said, grimly. “And maybe ours,” he added, resigned.

  “They hate us, and Master Min most of all,” Rondal said, philosophically. “They’ll do just about anything to capture or kill him. And us,” he conceded. “It’s odd to have enemies.”

  “I’m used to it,” dismissed Tyndal. “But until you know how to protect yourself, if you see a checkered cloak, run.”

  “It’s the Censors without checkered cloaks that disturb me,” Rondal said. “When they take them off, they’re a lot harder to spot. But no less fanatical. They even tried to attack Master Min and Banamor at the Chepstan Fair!” he said, outraged.

  “Hey! I rescued him!” Tyndal insisted.

  “Baron Arathanial rescued him,” Rondal argued. “And he didn’t really need rescuing. But they’d violated their Fair Oath when they started a fight, so Arathanial fined them and ejected them. I doubt they’d try to come to Sevendor, after that.”

  They were just about to explain the confusing politics of that to her when the door at the top of the stairs opened. Master Minalan peered down at them.

  “Good, you’re here,” he grunted at the three apprentices. “Boys, I have some errands for you,” he informed them. “But first I want to talk to Dara. I need to ask you something.”

  “Tell me, Dara,” Master Minalan, Magelord of Sevendor, began as he sat himself on a stool in front of his workbench. Lady Varen, the unearthly Emissary from the Alka Alon, stood nearby with Lady Pentandra as he interviewed her. “When you’re riding behind Frightful’s eyes – when you are in rapport with her – how does it feel? What do you experience?”

  The question came as a surprise. She expected to be quizzed about her reading, or how well she was mastering the runes, or her ability to conjure magesight – the essential ability of a wizard to see magically. Dara was unprepared for questions regarding the special portion of her Talent that allowed her to naturally send her consciousness into animals to communicate and direct them – known commonly in the wizard’s trade as Brown Magic, she’d learned.

  “Uh, it’s kind of like putting on a mask,” she said, struggling to come up with words adequate to describe that special feeling when she and Frightful were of one mind. “You see through her eyes, you hear through her ears, you feel the wind and such just the way she does.”

  “And you don’t find this . . . disconcerting?” Minalan asked, curious.

  “It was at first,” Dara agreed, recalling the first time she accidentally slid behind Frightful’s eyes during training. “I didn’t know what had happened. But once I got used to it, it was like putting on a comfortable pair of hose,” she shrugged. “Flying was the hardest bit to get used to. That, and how she looks at everything. She doesn’t see things the way we do,” Dara stressed. “It’s difficult to describe, but she sees and notices movement more than color or shape.”

  “Ah!” Master Minalan nodded. “That’s what I was looking for. Why is flying difficult? The perspective?”

  “Oh, that was a little hard to master,” she nodded, remembering the horrid vertigo she got when she first started flying Frightful magically. “You get used to it pretty quickly, though. I don’t even think about it anymore. I suppose it’s like swimming: when you’re doing it, you don’t realize that you’re moving differently than you do when you’re walking. You just accept that you are in water and you swim. I mean, once your feet don’t touch anymore,” she added.

  “Now that’s an interesting analogy,” Tyndal nodded. Lady Varen, on the other hand, looked puzzled.

  “Then perhaps more practice is the answer,” she suggested in her odd, bell-like voice.

  “We don’t have time for more p
ractice,” Master Minalan sighed. “Not if it is to be effective. But if Dara is able to handle the transition, perhaps she can wield the Knife.”

  “She is but a child!” Lady Varen protested.

  “All of us humans are but children to your long-lived race,” Master Minalan pointed out.

  “Dara is on the cusp of womanhood, among her own people; no doubt she’d be wed within the next year or two, had her Talent not arrived,” Lady Pentandra added. “In this war, we all must fight, at need.”

  “Fight?” Dara asked, confused.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Master Minalan said, thoughtfully. “I don’t need you to don armor or wield a sword, but in there are more ways to wage war than that. Especially against this foe. The gurvani aren’t like the men who besieged Sevendor,” he explained. “They are cunning and vicious, when compelled by their dark masters: a cult of shamans who lead them on the Dead God’s behalf. They carry witchstones,” he said, darkly. “That’s where I got my original stone, from the hand of a defeated shaman.”

  “The gurvani want to see all human life extinguished,” Lady Pentandra explained.

  “But why?” Dara demanded. That was a question that had never been properly answered, to her satisfaction. “Why do they want to kill us? What did we do to them? I still can’t believe all of this is because of some war that happened a 100 years ago!”

  “That was the greatest insult they wish to avenge in this war. But is not the only one. Many ancient slights led to their wrath,” Lady Varen informed her. “Now they fix their hate on your people, for taking their lands from them. And mine for . . . other reasons.”

  “Though it was the Alshari Wilderlords who conquered them, they make no distinction between us,” Minalan nodded, as he took an elegantly carved, highly polished cask off a shelf. “So they make war. And we, in turn, are forced to defend ourselves. Right now that defense is concentrated on the far castle of Cambrian, in Gilmora. I have a number of warmagi there, as well as knights and warriors. But they are besieged and outnumbered. There is no good relief for them in days’ ride. So we are concocting a response . . . magically. And among the weapons that I hold is this,” he said, tapping the box.

  “This was a gift from the Alka Alon, upon the occasion of King Rard’s coronation,” Master Minalan explained as he placed a box on his worktable opened it. “It’s a legendary weapon, one that appears in their sagas. It was once used in the ancient wars between their noble houses,” he said, as he unveiled the object within the cask. “It’s called the Thoughtful Knife.”

  Dara stared at the strange, smooth object with a mixture of curiosity, intrigue, and dread. It didn’t look like a knife. It looked like an over-sized arrowhead: a smooth, metallic form, longer than her arm. It swept back from a wickedly deadly point to make a slender delta. Where the top and bottom came together a gleaming edge, a blade sharper than any razor, lead the wing.

  “What does it do?” she asked as she examined the deadly-looking artifact.

  “It’s a weapon,” Minalan explained, as he removed a gem from the elegantly decorated protrusion on the top of the Knife. “It uses magic to fly. The leading edges of the wings are magically sharp, creating a wide and irresistible blade. The blade can cut through nearly anything, especially at the speeds the Knife can travel. But it’s . . . difficult to control. It’s magical, of course. The Alka Alon fashioned it so that the wielder could steer and direct this fearsome blade from afar and strike their enemies. Properly employed, it was a deadly spell, and slew thousands.”

  “Yet despite days’ worth of practice, I can’t seem to master it,” the Magelord confessed.

  “Perhaps you heard the yelps and screams yesterday, when he thought he’d mastered it,” Tyndal remarked with a smirk.

  “Why would the Tree Folk build such an awful weapon?” Dara asked, aghast at the thought.

  “Once the kindreds of my people warred on each other nearly as much as yours,” explained Lady Varen. “There are evil Alkan Alon, just as there are evil men. And stubborn,” she added. “We’ve matured, since then, and put aside such horrible tools. But if you have need of them – and against the might of the gurvani, you do – then you should employ them.”

  “Only if we can manage to do so without nearly slaying the servants by accident,” Rondal quipped. “Something Master Minalan has yet to manage.”

  “The distortion effect is difficult to manage, on top of the dramatic shift of perspective. I’m a wizard, not a crow!” he snorted. “But then I thought I might know someone who has some experience with that shifted perspective, and distorted view. Someone who has ridden with the birds already.”

  “You want me to fly that thing?” Dara asked, incredulously, when she realized what her master was asking.

  “Into battle,” nodded Minalan. “Yes.”

  “You would not be in any personal danger,” Lady Varen assured her. “Indeed, you will likely be miles away from the siege. Once the Knife is deployed, it may range long distances from the operator. That’s what makes it such an insidious weapon.”

  “It should be a lot like your bilocation with your falcon,” agreed Pentandra. “The perception effect will be different, but there is nothing to fear.”

  Lady Varen ran her hand along the top surface of the Thoughtful Knife. “You cannot come to harm if the Knife is struck. Merely hold the control stone, and send your consciousness within, as you do with Frightful, and you can activate the Knife. Once it is active, learning how to control it should be easy.”

  “Should be,” Pentandra snorted. “Yet Minalan nearly gutted everyone in the castle yesterday.”

  “To be honest,” her new master admitted, “I threw up the first time I flew. The vertigo was horrendous, and the moment I started moving I lost my bearings. I’ve always had a higher affinity for fire than wind.

  “So,” Minalan said, offering her the stone, “are you ready to try this?”

  Dara looked from the stone, which was as wide as her palm, to the Thoughtful Knife. Suddenly it didn’t look as elegant as before to her. Now it looked . . . sinister.

  She swallowed, hard. “You really think I can do it?”

  Minalan shrugged. “I figured it was worth the attempt. You already have experience flying. I can’t honestly say that of anyone else I know.”

  “Then . . . I guess I have to,” Dara decided, taking the stone in hand. “It’s . . . it’s my duty!”

  Chapter Four

  The Thoughtful Knife

  The moment she took the oddly-shaped control stone in hand, Dara felt the inherent invitation it offered her mind. It was a startling difference from the way her and Frightful’s minds reached out for each other. As her fingers curled around it, her mind was drawn into the device’s depths; she had to consciously resist to keep from losing herself in it immediately.

  “Just relax,” Lady Varen counseled in her soothing voice. “Let yourself fall into it. We’ll ensure your body is protected.”

  Dara nodded, and followed her instructions. More quickly than the first time she’d purposefully bilocated, she felt her fingers and toes and the rest of her body slip away from her awareness. It was replaced with a new set of sensations – more limited, but more efficient.

  It was what she imagined putting on a suit of armor and helmet felt like, she supposed. She even felt more martial, she realized, as she took control of the Thoughtful Knife.

  She could see what Master Minalan meant as she oriented herself in her new environment. If you weren’t used to being not-quite-in-your-body, the experience could make you panic. There were whole senses that she couldn’t feel while connected to the Knife – smell, for example. Although she knew her body was breathing normally, in and out, while she was with the Knife she had no sensation of her breath, or any sensation of smell or taste.

  That was fine, from Dara’s perspective. If the Knife was as deadly a weapon as she’d been told, she didn’t want to taste or smell anything.

  On the other han
d, her sense of balance was far more acute. As was her sense of position. The Thoughtful Knife had a complex understanding of where it was – precisely – and it freely communicated that to Dara. Its vision was also highly acute. She could “see” in a far greater range with its magical eyes than she could even with Frightful. Colors were a lot more complex than she could see with her own eyes, and her ability to discern detail was expanded to a breathtaking degree. She could count the threads in Lady Pentandra’s richly-embroidered mantle, if she wished, and she could see the bleary eyes of her master in exquisite detail.

  But it was the desire to move that the Knife projected her most insistently. The Knife wanted to fly, as far and as fast as it could. It wasn’t the complex whirl of emotions she received with Frightful. It was far more basic and simple than that. It was desire without purpose, she realized. When Frightful was eager to hunt, it was because she was hungry and wanted to stretch her wings and ultimately be rewarded for her efforts. The Thoughtful Knife wanted to fly because it was made to want to fly, and for no other reason.

  In some ways that made it simple to push, ever-so-slightly, and lift the Knife into the air. The magic automatically supported that desire, and she felt her perspective shift. With no real effort she changed her orientation, the point of the magical blade projecting before her perspective like an elongated nose of surpassing hardness and sharpness. One by one she surveyed the people in the room from her new vantage: Varen, Pentandra, Minalan... and herself.

  As always, it was odd seeing her own body through someone else’s eyes. But this time, she realized, the Knife understood the difference between her and the others. She held its stone. She was its master. Everyone else was just... a potential target.

  “Good!” she saw Lady Varen say, encouragingly. “Now take it out the window, and see what you can do with it.”

  “Try not to kill anyone,” Minalan warned her, unnecessarily, as she shifted the point of the device around toward the open window of the tower. When she saw the sky above the roof of the castle, she allowed the Knife to select the best route to the area she desired to go, and then she allowed it to take her there.