“I knew you could handle yourself,” he said, confidently.
“I didn’t!” she fumed. “That’s why I left you a message to come rescue me!”
“Had I not appeared when I did, did you not have a plan?” he asked, patiently.
She chewed her lip in frustration. “Well, yes, I had contingencies.”
“You always have contingencies,” he said, admiringly. “Bydda'n barod – you are always prepared, as a Kasari woman should be,” he added, with a sudden kiss. “One of the things I love about you.”
She wanted to say something rude and obnoxious, emphasizing how little she had trusted in the efficacy of her contingencies, but the kiss and the complement stilled her tongue. Instead she sighed and let herself feel grateful in her choice of husband.
“So Ithalia got you here – with Mother,” she counted.
“Too late, alas,” Arborn said, looking on Old Antimei’s body with pity.
“Her?” Pentandra asked, with a snort. “She’s not dead. Just poisoned. She won’t die; she’ll just be asleep for three days, appearing to hover near death. That was part of my plan.”
“Poisoning a witch?” he asked, confused.
“They couldn’t interrogate her if she wasn’t conscious, not even with a truthtell or torture,” Pentandra explained. “And I couldn’t rely on them not slaying her – and Alurra and me – out of hand and then attempting necromancy to gain the location of the book they sought. So I contrived to poison the old biddy, keep her out of their reach while I stalled for time. And sent them chasing a false trail.”
“The book,” Arborn said, nodding toward the thick tome the draugen dropped when it had lost its head. “They nearly recovered it.”
“That? That’s a witch’s grimoire, nothing more. A compendium of correspondences and useful measurements and equivalents, with an appendix on harvest times and preparation methods for various herbs and magical plants. An herbal,” she pronounced. “I looked through Antimei’s small library and picked the book I thought looked most like a secret book of prophecy. I counted on the illiteracy of the undead, and hoped they would be satisfied with taking a book back from their mission.”
“Wouldn’t they have recognized it as an herbal, eventually?” Arborn asked, confused.
“Perhaps not for a long time,” Pentandra shrugged. “As most hedgewitches do, Old Antimei used her own personal code to encrypt the volume. Trade secrets, personal idiosyncrasies, abbreviations and metaphors, mnemonics – no one but the witch who wrote it could puzzle it out. I could foresee months or even years of wasted effort on Korbal’s part attempting to decipher it. It’s almost a pity they didn’t take it away.”
“So . . . where is the real book?”
“Safe,” Pentandra assured him. “Old Antimei never told me where it was, but I figured it out when I was debating with the Nemovorti. It’s safe,” she assured. “Now we just have to wait a few days for the old witch to awaken, and learn how to use it.”
“It seems like a lot of trouble to go through,” Arborn said, shaking his head doubtfully.
“Prophecy is an insidiously dangerous thing,” Pentandra explained, carefully. “It binds us to the course of future actions, compelling us to act without the luxury of free will. Whether we try to fulfill prophecy or subvert it, we are acting in response to it. It invokes our deepest fears of what might come to past, and gives us an incomplete vision of the future.”
“Does it not give us the answers we need to make the right choices?” Arborn asked, confused again.
“There’s ample reason for why it was proscribed by the Magocracy and the Censorate. This particular collection,” she continued, picking up the herbal off of the floor and dusting the stray rushes and dust off the cover, “is focused on the future of northern Alshar, the Penumbra, the Umbra, Korbal, Shereul, Minalan, Duke Anguin, the Forsaken, Ishi, the future city that will stand on this spot, and . . . me,” she admitted. “Me and you. So I was particularly eager to keep it out of Korbal’s cold dead fingers. A lady has the right to a little privacy about her affairs,” she said, playfully.
“I can see why it was important,” Arborn agreed. “But was it important enough to risk your life?”
“Mine, yours, Alurra’s, Antimei’s, and yes, even my mother’s,” Pentandra agreed, after a moment’s consideration. “I don’t think you understand just what kind of damage Korbal and his minions could have caused with this knowledge, Arborn. For all of her faults, Old Antimei did us a genuine service by protecting it so jealously – and so cleverly.”
“Will she survive this poison?”
“I did,” Pentandra shrugged. “She’s old and frail, and she mistook this for her death in her own visions, so I would venture that it is really up to the divine. But in my experience, the more you complain the longer the gods make you live, so I have high hopes.”
Arborn bit his lip. “By that token, I fear your Mother may be immortal,” he said, casually . . . but with layers of meaning. Pentandra giggled despite herself over both his discomfort and his diplomatic way of expressing it.
“You’ve discovered my darkest fears,” Pentandra joked. “Was she that awful?”
“She complained that I would not let her come,” Arborn began, “then complained about the mode of transport. She complained about the company – though she acknowledged how beautiful Ithalia’s humani form is, she could not restrain herself from dozens of slights throughout our journey. When we arrived at the Waypoint, your trail had grown long cold. It took us half a day to find it, and that was, perhaps, the longest morning of my life.”
“Arborn!” Pentandra said, shocked. “You didn’t let Mother’s little barbs get to you, did you?”
“Not where she could see it,” he admitted. “But has the woman ever encountered anything she found favor in?”
“It’s just her way, Arborn,” Pentandra assured, taking his big hand in hers. “That’s the way she’s always been. Why do you think my father hides himself in his study and buries himself in his work? Why do you think she has gone through so many servants? Why do you think I escaped to the academy as soon as I was able?”
“It does explain a lot about your family,” he nodded. “Not that I dislike your mother. Once I was able to overlook the criticism, there were the occasional nuggets of pleasantness within.”
“Not many men would have the fortitude or patience to see them,” Pentandra said, achieving a new appreciation for the man she had married. “But I’ll warn you now: Antimei will be out for three days, and I cannot leave her unattended. I still have questions for her, and she must be protected while she is asleep. I’m afraid we’ll be staying at this croft for a few more days. With mother. Unless you and Ithalia can convince her to return to Vorone without me.”
“I think that is a job best left for the Court Wizard,” Arborn decided. He was stopped from further elaboration by Ithalia the Emissary entering the small croft, ducking her head as Arborn had to through the small doorway.
“The mountain is clear, and my folk are patrolling,” she reported. “I have set what wards and bounds I can on this place, for now. But it is disturbing that these undead were able to get so far.”
“They are especially powerful,” Pentandra answered. “And they used the Alkan Ways. Korbal and his followers are Alka Alon, recall,” she prompted the woman, who was dressed head to toe in beautiful bark-like armor that left ample room for flexibility, though not much for modesty.
The Alkan’s human face looked guilty. “That is known to us,” she agreed.
“And they are being assisted by the Enshadowed,” she added, a little more decisively.
“Of that we are aware, as well,” she said, a bit defensively.
“They are searching for this book of prophecy because it details, in part, the search for some lost ancient Alkan arsenal,” Pentandra continued. “One which is known only to one particular Alkan family.”
Ithalia regarded her carefully, a gaze difficult for anyone
to weather. But Pentandra was not cowed. “You seem awfully well-informed about Alka Alon politics,” she observed carefully.
“I’m a really good court wizard,” Pentandra explained. “So, from where I see things, the Alka Alon council long ago decided to lock away their most powerful weapons after their devastating wars, give up their cities and empires, and go live in trees or caves. Except for the tiny group of renegades who desired a return to the ancient power and order. The Enshadowed.
“The Enshadowed rallied around Korbal – a powerful Alkan necromancer – and sought to overthrow the Council by seeking out the arsenal themselves. Only you captured him instead. And instead of executing him, you imprisoned him so that he could pop up now and slaughter a whole bunch of humani.”
“There is a lot more to it than that,” promised Ithalia.
“Oh, I have no doubt. Like the fact that the Aronin’s family was estranged from the rest of the council, and so when the council needed access to the arsenal to arm themselves against Sheruel, they couldn’t even find his daughter in the chaos. So they threw the warrior-princes of the humani against them instead, giving us a few trinkets to help out . . . but that wasn’t a lasting plan, was it?” she asked, accusingly.
“I am not privy to the workings of the Council,” Ithalia insisted. “I am merely their agent!”
“Of that I have no doubt,” Pentandra continued, coolly, as she settled into Old Antimei’s uncomfortable chair.
“Wife!” Arborn said, sharply. “Is that any way to speak to someone who rescued you?”
“Oh, I’m grateful for that – and I don’t bear Ithalia any personal animosity – but as court wizard of Alshar and former Steward of the Arcane Orders, I have more than a personal interest at stake here,” she said, calmly. “All this time we thought that Sheruel was our fault . . . and to a certain extent that is correct.
“But the fact is, the Alkan Council has been desperately trying to hide its own responsibility in this matter. They are the ones who created Korbal and allowed the Enshadowed to coalesce around him. They are the ones who entombed him, instead of executing him. And I’m getting more and more of an idea that they were far more involved in the downfall of the early Magocracy than we give them credit for.”
“That was six hundred years ago!” Ithalia reminded her, testily.
“Which, for a near-immortal Alka Alon, is like a few decades is to us. Don’t let the fair visage and the . . . alluring manner befuddle you, my husband. The Alka Alon are acting in their own best interests, and trying desperately to get us to see them as noble, not villains. So we can fight their wars for them.”
“We have always supported your folk!” protested Ithalia, frustrated.
“We both know that isn’t entirely true,” Pentandra guessed. “The Council used humanity – Minalan, me, everyone in the Kingdom of Castalshar. Used us as a barrier and a buffer, walls of humani flesh ideal for dulling gurvani knives before they get to Alka Alon. They used us to buy time. For their own reasons.
“Now we know what some of those reasons are. You were afraid of Korbal’s return, far more afraid of that then the stupid magical goblin head bent on revenge and genocide. Sheruel might have hated humani, but Korbal – Korbal hates the Council. When Anthatiel was conquered around the same time as Korbal was released from his tomb, that caught the Council completely off-guard . . . didn’t it?”
“The temerity of such an act, and the brutal way in which it was done . . . yes, we did not suspect either of those two events,” Ithalia admitted, guiltily. “Why do you bring these things to the conversation?”
“Because I wanted to let you know, Lady Emissary, that as the court wizard of Alshar, in whose sovereign territory the Land of Scars and the City of Rainbows both reside, we are unhappy with the inclusion of the new menace on our frontier.”
Ithalia blinked her perfect eyes. “Unhappy? That’s it?”
“This is the Alka Alon’s fight, and we resent being put into the middle of it,” Pentandra declared. “This foe is one for which we are overmatched.”
“Do you think the Council can do much better?” demanded Ithalia. “You overestimate our strength!”
“Pentandra! This is just rudeness!” Arborn protested.
“Arborn, I love you, but this does not concern you, as much as you think it does. The Alka Alon have been using humanity this entire time to cover for their own mistakes. Yes, even their long alliance with the Kasari. They are using us as pawns in this game as surely as Korbal is now using Shereul’s legions as his. The Enshadowed, I imagine, gave the gurvani priests everything they needed to create the Abomination, which in turn became powerful enough to release their master.”
The look on Ithalia’s face confirmed everything Pentandra needed to know.
“The gurvani never could have managed such a feat on their own. It would take Alkan songspells, or some equivalent power, to bring forth that monster. Sheruel’s enmity against humanity was the perfect motivation to convince the gurvani to rise against us. And once he had sufficient power to capture the molopor under Boval Castle, then he had the power to find the location of Korbal’s tomb. And the power to break it, once it was found. Which was just what the Enshadowed wanted,” explained Pentandra.
“Surely you cannot be blaming the Alka Alon for the Dead God!” Arborn said, looking offended.
“Aren’t they? Perhaps not the Council, directly . . . but then they are the ones who imprisoned Korbal . . . whose minions waited almost a thousand years to attempt a rescue. By giving the goblins power far beyond their capabilities. Teaching them how to make irionite.
“Meanwhile, the Alka Alon retreat from their responsibilities and send their human allies to do their dirty work in the Wild. Yes, even the Kasari,” she added, when her husband looked skeptical. “It was one thing when it was just gurvani attacking us. But when the Alka Alon’s own legacies reach out and molest us, we have every right to demand that they pay closer attention!”
“I cannot speak for the Council!” Ithalia warned.
“Then listen, Emissary Ithalia: for now that Korbal has attacked us, and the truth of this war is revealed, the terms of this alliance must change. No longer are we fighting a war with Shereul, with occasional assistance and cheering from the Alkan Council . . . no, either we are fighting a war together, against both foes, both of our peoples taking responsibility for our history, or the Alka Alon can contend with Korbal alone.
“That is the message of the Court Wizard of Alshar to the Alka Alon Council: either step up and act like real allies, or defeat Korbal and his vassals on their own. There will be no more rescues by humani,” she promised, “as long as the Council keeps treating us like domesticated livestock, not partners.”
Ithalia might have been blushing, but it was hard to tell with her not-quite-human face. But she was clearly embarrassed. “I will relay the message,” she promised.
“You can start by getting your asses back to the embassy in Sevendor,” reminded Pentandra. “It’s been almost two years since your folk all but disappeared, and that’s supposed to be where we send for help first.”
“We have had our own affairs to contend with!” Ithalia said, testily.
“I’m aware,” Pentandra nodded. “We’ve given you as much assistance as we can on them . . . but now the Council has to agree that they are our affairs, too, now. Either include us, or let us make our own way against your mistakes and live with the consequences. But let us stop this manipulation of my people to fight your battles,” she insisted. “We fight together, or we perish separately.”
“I shall relay the message, Court Wizard,” Ithalia promised. “And . . . while I do not know the Council’s response, I do know that you are not wrong about some of your guesses. I am not permitted to speak of such things, but . . .”
“Understood,” Pentandra nodded. “On a personal note, I want to thank you for your assistance in this skirmish. And your long friendship with my husband,” she acknowledged. “And if
I happen upon any clues to your quest, I shall relay them.”
“Surely a book of human prophecy has little to do with the Alka Alon,” Arborn said, frowning.
“Don’t you see, my husband? The Alka Alon are not prone to prophecy. Either are the gurvani or the Karshak, from what I have seen. When prophecies do chance to emerge in their cultures, they are significant. The Alon magical make-up does not encourage such Talents. Compared to how frequently they pop up among humans, they’re almost mythical.
“But if a human mage was able to withstand the allure of fame and assemble a compendium of prophecies, meticulously recording page after page of the future . . . do you not think that it will include the Alka Alon, as well?”
“Would they not have the wisdom to not become bound by its dictates?” Arborn asked, confused.
Court Wizard: Book Eight Of The Spellmonger Series Page 94
