Enchanter (Book 7)

by Terry Mancour

  By the end of the fair, I felt well-educated enough to know what I wanted to do. Hence the quiet announcement of the Spellmonger’s Bouleuterion to those enchanters and thaumaturges still lingering after the fair. I got a lot of interest. Winter was coming, and few wanted to be caught on the roads or just getting home as it hit. The promise of gold and an outstanding professional opportunity was just too alluring for them, and I recruited several adept enchanters to the enterprise.

  I’ll admit, part of my sudden enthusiasm and willingness to act was a reaction to the events in the Snowflake chamber. I was still angry and feeling guilt-stricken over what Isily – and Ishi – had done to me, and the appeal of the purity of professional work was powerful. Alya was happy just to have me back home and working – she barely realized at the time that anything was wrong. If I was talking about work or the kids I was happy, and she left it alone.

  There was plenty of work to do. Banamor was happy to be included in the enterprise, and signed on to be the Bouleuterion’s eutaxarch, the official responsible for distribution of finances, and he also agreed to share the job of manciple with Gareth, owing to the fact that he already had a warehouse stuffed with wares we’d need. Master Andalnam agreed to act as Prime Symposiarch, the official in charge of over-all organization, and Master Ulin agreed to be the archivist for the project. Considering the way his eyes bulged when I told him what he’d be paid, plus livery, such positions did not often become available for magi in Merwyn.

  The rank-and-file enchanters we hired were equally pleased at the idea. Banamor and I had hired them piecemeal, in the past. Now that we had real, regular work for them, including the opportunity to work directly with the Spellmonger and his toys, the Enchanter’s Guild suddenly became a vibrant institution.

  I had dozens of ideas, in those first days, as did everyone else. There was a spirit of innovation and daring in the air as we considered the possibilities. And the problems. The biggest of which was a lack of standardized terminology and nomenclature for enchantment. Right behind that was the renewed importance on enneagrammatic enchantment that almost no one knew how to do. Most such spells had been originally contrived by necromancy, and were thus forbidden even before the Censorate. But with the Grain of Pors and other treasures, the field was open anew for experimentation. That was exciting in itself. But it also required a lot of basic research and sharing of knowledge.

  Among my goals was to create powerful tools and ultimately weaponry and great enchantments that could, I hoped, challenge Sheruel. But there were a lot of steps in between, and those first weeks after the fair we focused on basics.

  I was particularly concerned about the coming winter. According to Zagor, who was acknowledged an authority on such folk magic, the winter would be fierce, and extra care should be taken. Such prognostications weren’t considered prophecy, as much as prediction. Despite his recent familiarity with Sevendor, Zagor had quickly gotten entrained with the local geography and microclimate the way a good hedgemage should be. Master Olmeg concurred with his opinion – the signs that the natural world were giving him told a story of a long, cold, wet winter.

  So we prepared for it. Not only did we import twice as much fuel into the domain stockpile, I also had my nascent crew of enchanters begin their practice by building no less than five hundred heatstones. It was a simple enchantment. Each was made from a smooth river-rock, brought up from the lower, non-magical portion of the Ketta. With only about five runes and not much possibility for error, a group of enchanters could prepare a dozen in a day. The hard part had always been powering the things, but irionite made that a trivial thing. Those first few sessions it took Dara, Dranus and a few other volunteers about five minutes of spellwork and a jolt of power from their witchstone to feed the enchantment enough to make it work for years.

  That was the key. Just about any footwizard can manage the heatstone enchantment; it’s a simple exercise in applied thermomantics. But spending a whole day raising power naturally to get a few tepid hours of heat just isn’t economical. It’s easier to build a fire. The Sevendori heatstones would raise the interior temperature of a small cottage to a comfortable level for days, and keeping larger spaces warm enough to make a fire a convenience, not a necessity.

  Many of them we sent to local temples and abbeys in the barony, places where the poorest of my subjects sought relief from the cold. Some we distributed to the ridgetop cottages, where wood was scarce and much had to be brought up steep trails. Some we gave to larger, poorer families at risk of death from freezing over the winter.

  But most we sold at premium prices. Within the barony I set the price at a mere fifty ounces of silver. Stones for export were ten ounces of gold, with the promise of a free renewal of the enchantment, once it was exhausted.

  The exercise was intriguing. We did the work in a warehouse that Banamor rented space in to merchants before the fair, but was now mostly empty. I convened a half-dozen wizards, went over the basic spell, made certain each of them could do it effectively, and I turned them loose on the big pile of rocks the Tal had brought up from the river. They had them done by the end of the day. After giving around a hundred and fifty of them away, two thirds of them sold in the barony, and a third sold in Sendaria Port, through Master Andalnam’s shop. More than a thousand ounces of gold and nearly ten thousand ounces of silver . . . more than I collected in tribute from my combined domains in two years.

  “You know,” Banamor admitted, a week later when he reported that we might have to do a few hundred more to meet demand, “we could expand this experiment.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “There are a lot of really useful basic enchantments that wizards rarely do because of the power involved,” he pointed out, “but we don’t have that problem here. I just don’t have time to sit there and enchant rocks all day, no matter how much money it makes.”

  “Either do I,” I agreed. “That’s why I got other people to do it for me.”

  “That’s the essential characteristic of professional greatness,” he chuckled. “But what if we hired enchanters – plenty of them loitering around the Guild – and paid them to do it?”

  “But they don’t have witchstones,” I said. “Except for Rael.”

  “Exactly,” Banamor said, smugly. “But they’re desperate for them. That’s why they haunt our town, for the chance to curry your favor and gain a stone. All of them participated in the Trial, but none made it past Pentandra’s Veil.

  “But if we gave them access to irionite in exchange for doing the – let’s face it – boring, mindless chore that such things as heatstones have become, after the novelty of early success has worn off.”

  “Give them irionite?” I asked, skeptically.

  “Give them access to irionite,” he corrected, cagily. “What if you took a few of the lower-power stones and rented them to the Guild? They would be under your supervision, and used only in your facility, but in exchange for doing some simple enchantments the poor bastards could use the stone for their own research.”

  “I do have some lower-power stones, and it wouldn’t take many,” I considered, seeing the possibilities unfold. “We could even put them in a protective housing to track and secure them. That wouldn’t preclude vetting the enchanters thoroughly,” I added, warily.

  “Oh, of course,” Banamor agreed, quickly. He’d been the subject of one of my thorough vetting sessions. Of course I trusted Banamor. But I still had to watch him. “But we could use the enterprise to screen for real talent . . . and perhaps even some innovation.”

  “It would have to be under close supervision,” I cautioned.

  “Then you agree with the plan?”

  “If it can lead to revenues like this,” I said, gesturing to the parchment he’d brought me with its generous early tally, “I think I’d be a fool to ignore it. Have you gotten the final tally from the Fair, yet?” I asked, curious.

  “I’ve got a few clerks still working on it. In terms of direct revenu
es and fees, after expenses we’ll make more than a thousand ounces of gold, profit. In secondary revenues we did even better. Sales of snowstone alone brought in two thousand three hundred ounces of gold and change, and our other enterprises did nearly as well,” he said, satisfied.

  I started adding it up. It was impressive. Not as much as I got through the Arcane Orders in fees for witchstones and such, but that revenue was drying up a bit since the treaty with the goblins was signed. I hadn’t had a new warmage candidate in weeks. But a profit of over five thousand ounces of gold was enough to, theoretically, buy another domain, if I wanted that kind of major headache.

  That was in addition to all of the coin spent at the town’s shops, inns, and taverns. Particularly the taverns. After the fair, there was nary a drop of ale to be had in town. It would take a few weeks for the fresh crop of barley to be malted and brewed before there was more. My buttery was severely depleted, and we had to order from other estates for a few weeks.

  I was glad most of my noble guests had been quick to leave after the fair – their tastes were expensive, and it ate into my profits. But nearly every yeomanry had seen a dramatic jump in revenues, from the fees paid to Sagal for his stately halls at Southridge to the coin the Tal Alon made selling smoking herbs at the fair. That was in addition to all the coin the Tal made individually performing service functions. Hollyburrow was rapidly becoming one of my more prosperous estates.

  That was a lot of coin, and that made people happy. Sagal was planning on expanding his holdings with another guest hall, and so was Jurlor, they revealed at the harvest feast. The Westwood was enjoying tremendous prosperity, thanks to the revenues they gained from Caolan’s Pass, and Boval Village was thriving. While Brestal had been more removed from the center of commerce, it, too, had seen a rise in its fortunes, as wizards and traders who wished to be proximate to Sevendor, yet wished to avoid the increasing prices there, found affordable, if modest accommodations in Sevendor’s other vale.

  Even Gurisham was enjoying a prosperity unheard-of among villeins. Most now lived in longhomes like freemen, and Guris, the Bovali headman of the commune, had invested wisely in the village’s infrastructure without enriching himself. Now that they were using magic to aid in the ploughing, mowing, and harvesting, the villeins of Gurisham had far more time and energy to focus on their own modest village, instead of my crops.

  That produced a bit of a problem, as the village’s economy was dependent upon how much work a villein owed to the lord’s demesne, and how much was dedicated to their own. Technically every man in Gurisham owed service to me, but when the plowing and haying that used to take days was now done in hours, that left a lot more time owed than was necessary. That led to peasants showing up to magically-harvested fields and standing around all day, in fulfillment of their service.

  That’s never good.

  The problem was that the villeins were committed to their service duties, even if a renegotiation might mean less work. Until I could figure out how to right the system permanently, I had Guris detail the loitering villeins to re-construct the road between Boval and Sevendor Town. We had enough traffic to justify cobbling the entire way, now, and it gave them something to do. As autumn swept in crews of the Gurisham folk could be seen carting wheelbarrows full of cobbles from the river, and digging at the low spots with good iron shovels. No doubt they were reconsidering the wonder of a magical harvest by then.

  At least we spared them the tiresome labor of shoveling the way clear of snow that winter. Once the cobbles were laid (and we constructed some, when the supply from the Ketta ran low, with an enchantment similar to the Bricking Wand. Instead of breaking a goodly-sized rectangular brick out of a stone, however, the Cobbling Wand smoothed the top edges while leaving the bottom square and easier to fit into a roadbed.) I enchanted the entire route myself, creating a low-level thermomantic spell that wouldn’t allow the cobbles to fall below freezing, melting the snow as it fell. It worked splendidly, too.

  That autumn was noteworthy for other events, namely the dedication of the grist mill by our local priest of Huin the Tiller, and its subsequent operation. That allowed us to grind our own grain in bulk. That meant cheaper flour when wheat and barley began to flow from our harvest.

  That, of course, complemented the construction of Dad’s new bakery. Sevendor’s population had grown well large enough to sustain it – Sevendor Town now dwarfed Talry-on-Burine in populace, and there was the castle to feed as well. If my entire family went into exile because of me, the least I could do was facilitate a model bakery right outside my castle door.

  I let Dad pick the site – a four-acre parcel directly on the market square, backing up to the growing Temple of Briga, of course. He and his apprentices oversaw the construction of the great oven, the workshops, and the hall where they would eventually live and work right after the Fair. By Luin’s Day the priestess of Briga who had been appointed to the temple lit the ceremonial first fire in the oven and we started having bread – real bread – again.

  All of these little projects were, of course, secondary to my main purpose. The Bouleuterion was building a team of enchanters the likes of which the world had never seen. If I was going to be confined to my own lands while the Prince sulked, I was going to make the most of it. If I couldn’t leave Sevendor to visit my colleagues, I was making the rest of the magical world come to me.

  I already had a good core of folk who had lingered after the Fair. Taren was staying for a while, he said, and took rooms at the Chapterhouse. Rael and her father, Andalnam, put aside their personal differences and devoted their winter to assisting my projects, enthusiastic about the opportunity. Both Lanse of Bune and Master Cormoran agreed to come stay at Sevendor with their households for the winter – I arranged for them to take a hall at Southridge, now that the Fair was over. Master Guri and Grandmaster Azhguri were at my disposal, even as the excavation of the first hall of the mountain was well under way.

  Then there was Master Ulin, the enchanter I’d asked to stay and take my service. He had been poring through our library at the Court Wizard’s tower and waiting to be of use. Planus, who was a fair enchanter in his own right, agreed to stay through Yule, and of course I had Dranus to help. While enchanting wasn’t his specialty, he was eager to learn and appreciative of the opportunity he had.

  The Spellmonger was going to do some experimenting. He wanted to be part of that.

  I called or summoned others – some specialists, some generalists, some academic theorists in particular areas. Others I communicated with, mind-to-mind or over the Mirror. Our warehouses were filled with materials, our schedules were free from wars and missions, and – damn it! – I felt like building things.

  It took my mind off of my other failures.

  *

  *

  The day after Luin’s Day, I convened a meeting of my crew in Dranus’ tower. The old crumbling fortification on the outer wall had been upfitted dramatically since he’d taken residence. The lower room was now well-appointed with chairs, couches, and tables. He’d hung fine Remeran tapestries on the walls and prepared a few bottles of wine to help the conversation. It barely looked like an archaic, drafty old tower.

  I’d limited the initial guests to those whose opinions and confidence I trusted the most. Taren, Guri, Ulin, Planus, Andalnam, and Rael.

  “My goal,” I announced, after we had a cup, a pipe and a few minutes chatting, “will be to push the frontiers of enchantment ahead dramatically. My experience with the Grain of Pors this summer has led me to new ideas about the subject. Imbuing objects with self-awareness, for instance.”

  “That seems a dangerous pursuit, Minalan,” Planus said, with uncharacteristic concern. “Why would one want to do such a thing?”

  “Many reasons,” Taren said, studiously. “Giving an enchantment independent agency, for one thing. Allowing independent action without supervision.”

  “But I do not think we are speaking of the simple mechanisms of elementa
ls,” Andalnam said, reasonably. “Are we?”

  “No. The Grain of Pors is a bit of a substance the Alka Alon call Ghost Rock,” I explained. “We didn’t discover that until recently. But Ghost Rock has the ability to absorb and recall the enneagrammatic pattern of any being it touches. A magical record of your self-awareness, if you will. The Grain is ancient, and possesses the patterns of thousands and thousands of bizarre and unusual creatures, long extinct from this world. A skilled thaumaturge can take an impression of the enneagram and transfer it to an object. An adept enchanter can harness it to a complex enchantment as a paraclete.”

  Taren picked up the explanation enthusiastically. “Once it’s mounted in an object, you can affix relays to various elements in the enneagram for sensation and manipulation. Its delicate work, but the results are incredible. Just ask the poor magi who faced the constructs at the Trial,” he said, smugly.

  “I understand the utility,” agree Planus, “it’s the wisdom of unleashing a long-dead beast on the world I question.”

  “It’s actually pretty well controlled, as you’ll see,” I promised. “It has only as much power as you give it. But there is definitely an art to selecting the right enneagram, and it’s an art we are making up as we go along. That’s one reason why I want to do this. For the last four hundred years the art of enchantment has stagnated, and been consigned to mere theory or repetition of well-known spells. I want to advance the art as much as we can. Using the Grain of Pors to add sophistication to some of the greater spells is a step down that road. As is using ironite to power them. And snowstone can make them dramatically more efficient. But if we do not take this chance to experiment, then we will have squandered a golden opportunity.”