by Vox Day
He looked at Theuderic with the piercing, intelligent eyes of the hunter, rather than the wise and gentle ones of the shepherd that his office tended to lead one to expect.
“You are the king’s magus, my son.”
Theuderic blinked, feeling as if he’d been unexpectedly stabbed in the stomach. He wasn’t quite sure what to do, or if he was in danger, so he went with his instinct and dissembled. “I am the king’s man, Sanctified Father. May I kiss the ring?”
The Sanctiff nodded impassively and extended his hand.
Theuderic quickly dropped to one knee and pressed it to his lips. He stood again and gestured to the chests which the Sanctiff’s guardsmen were carting onto the platform behind him.
“Sanctified Father, please accept this gift from the first fruits of the bounty with which the Lord has blessed His Majesty the King of Savondir and his people, in the name of Our Most Immaculate and Holy Savior.”
The Sanctiff nodded graciously and sketched a tree in blessing.
Theuderic was startled to see the six lines of white light suddenly appear in the air between them, glowing softly without a hint of magic having been used to produce it. He did his best to hide his reaction, but not well enough, as a faintly sardonic smile appeared on the Sanctified Father’s bearded face.
“Do convey our gratitude and our inestimable good will to His Most Constant Majesty. We are well aware that His Majesty, by the grace of God the King of Savondir, is a good and loyal son of the Church, and he is often in our thoughts and in our prayers.” The Sanctiff’s deep voice was clear and loud, carrying to the far ends of the chamber, but it dropped to a whisper as he addressed Theuderic personally. “There are powers well beyond the occult ones upon which you draw, my son. Seek them out, lest they destroy you unbeknownst. And remember, the light will always outlast the shadow.”
And with that, the glowing light flared and disappeared. Theuderic understood the interview was over. He bowed low, in genuine respect for the man as well as the office, for he had the distinct sense he’d been told something of considerable import, even if he did not know what it was. Although he wasn’t sure precisely what he believed, and he had never been purified, he found himself feeling strangely at peace simply from being in the presence the Sanctified Father. It was absurd, he told himself. It made no sense at all, but he couldn’t honestly deny the feeling.
The Sanctiff proceeded to give material evidence of his gratitude by summoning both Archveque Nivelet and Archveque Vincenot before him and elevating them to the Sacred College. Theuderic was almost as pleased as the two new celestes, for not only had the two primary goals of his embassy been fulfilled on their very first day in Amorr, but also because he knew the king would be delighted. In fact, he would have been satisfied with only one vote in the Sacred College. To receive a second without even needing to ask for it was a good sign of his favor with the Sanctified Father.
And, given the Sanctiff’s relative youth, Savondir might well hope for a third, a fourth, and perhaps even a fifth before it met again. The Church would always be well beyond royal control, but at least His Most Constant Majesty might hope to gain some influence in the hierarchy, which would help considerably in maintaining his freedom of action with regards to vacant sees, difficult prelates, and fractious abbots in his realm.
Theuderic was waiting patiently for the newly named Celeste Vincenot to finish his conversation with the Sanctiff when he felt the first faint tendril of sorcery slithering through the air around him. With some difficulty, he controlled his instinctive reaction and sat motionless, staring fixedly at the three men on the platform as he summoned his powers to him and raised up the strongest shield he could improvise without a spell or a gesture.
He bowed his head and closed his eyes, as if in prayer, and gingerly began tracing the tendril back to its source. The sorcery was incredibly delicate, in fact, if he had not been in Amorr, in the Sanctal Palace itself, he probably would not have even noticed it. Here, though, surrounded by a vast magical void, even the most delicate magic was as easy to detect as someone snapping his fingers in a silent auditorium.
There was a strangeness to the sorcery that he could not identify, an alien sensation. It was not a mage from L’Academie, nor was it a shaman utilizing earth magic or blood magic—he would have recognized those. He was impressed with a definite sense of expertise, of an ease so effortless it almost smacked of carelessness. But who would dare to use magic so openly in Amorr? And what could the unknown sorcerer possibly be attempting to discover with his arts? Did the priests of St. Michael hold some sort of dispensation? Could it be that their famous talents were actually more esoteric than miraculous?
Perhaps it was only the elven ambassador keeping a watchful occult eye upon the imperial city. He assumed the elves would have sent more than one adept as part of their embassy to the Empire, as most of the royal family were supposed to be extraordinarily powerful sorcerers, and the ambassador would almost certainly be of the king’s blood. And for all that the elves would have promised not to use their magic inside the city, even the Amorrans probably wouldn’t have taken any such promise very seriously. So long as the elves didn’t scare the children, horses, or priests with their dark and scandalous arts, he had no doubt that the magistrates of the city would studiously pretend not to see anything they didn’t absolutely have to admit seeing.
Then he made his mistake. The faint sorcerous tendril was beginning to fade away, and in his eagerness to find the sorcerer on the other end of it, he attempted to catch hold of it.
The reaction was swift and violent. No sooner had he focused his concentration upon the barely perceptible magic than something very large and powerful seemed to swell before his mind, like a mighty sea monster rising up in front of fisherman’s ketch. He had the vague impression of an arrogant, inhuman mind holding him in contempt.
Then the sheer force that radiated out from it slammed into him, overwhelming his shields—and his senses.
He tried to scream, but the massive magical backlash rendered him mute and immobile. Just as everything faded into blessed black silence, he heard something speaking to him in a voice that lashed his consciousness with fire.
Leave, Magician. Go away. There is nothing for you here.
FJOTRA
While it was somewhat of a relief to exchange the terror and cramped quarters of Raknarborg and the ceaseless motion and cramped quarters of Le Christophe for the fish-stinking streets of Portblanc, Fjotra felt far from at her ease as she strolled aimlessly down the rudely cobbled streets, arm in arm with Geirrid and Svanhvit.
Upon reaching port, their captain had prevented anyone from leaving the ship or even going on deck while Patrice and the honor guard escorting the prince’s body had debarked. After land had been sighted, Patrice had told her that he intended to commandeer a cart and a pair of horses from the portmaster and travel directly for the royal palace in the hopes of reaching it before any rumors of the prince’s death could make their way to the king’s ears. He would have to ride quickly then, she thought after she and her two handmaidens were finally permitted to make their way down the rickety wooden ramp to the shore.
No wonder the Savondese suffered so long from the depredations of her people, she thought. Ships like these might sail well and carry massive quantities of men and cargo, but they needed harbors and all sorts of special constructions simply to allow people to get on and off them, and the process seemed to take forever. It was so much easier and faster for men to simply hop out of a snekkja in waist-deep water and muscle it onto the shore. More importantly, they could do it almost anywhere the land met the sea. There must be some advantage to using the big boats and the deep water harbors, but whatever it was, she couldn’t see it.
Geirrid and Svanhvit were wide-eyed and slack-jawed with amazement at the size of the port city. It wasn’t a particularly large city by southern standards, and it was considerably smaller than Lutece, but Raknarborg had been bigger than the largest village
in the Isles, and the thick, stumpy walls of Portblanc encompassed considerably more land than those contained by the walls of her father’s grim fortress.
Unlike the little villages in which the three of them had lived prior to the coming of the wolves, the buildings here were almost universally made of stone, and the glass windows, in particular, struck her friends dumb with amazement. When the cathedral struck the midday bell, both of them screamed and nearly jumped out of their skin with alarm, only settling down when they noticed that neither Fjotra nor anyone else in sight appeared to be the least bit afraid of the jarring noise.
“It is loud,” Fjotra admitted. “But it has to be, so that people all around the city can hear it. Do you see that building there, with the tall square thing pointing at the sky? The bell is inside there, at the top, and their priests hit it every so often to tell everyone the time.”
“Why don’t they just look at the sun?” Svanhvit asked. She was a pretty girl with long hair and skin that was even more fair than Fjotra’s was now, after all the weeks Fjotra had spent in the southern sun.
“I don’t know,” Fjotra said. “They do many strange things. The bells are only one of them. But they create so many beautiful objects and they are so rich, I think they must have good reasons to do things the way they do.”
And we will have to learn them, she reminded herself. They will not tolerate us for long if we insist on remaining reavers.
“Their clothes are so beautiful!” Geirrid sighed as a pair of women wearing homespun wool that was brightly dyed and neatly embroidered walked past them. She fingered the rough cloth of her own greyish-brown dress a little self-consciously.
“Just wait until you see the comtesse’s silks,” Fjotra said. “The material is so soft and fine, you would think a spider god wove it for her out of moonbeams.”
The three of them were so caught up in all the wonderful and fascinating sights to be seen in this strange city by the sea that they forgot to pay attention to their surroundings. Their wandering had taken them away from the docks and the market area, and deep into a residential area that in a larger city would probably have been considered a slum. Here, it merely seemed to be a quarter in the early stages of decay. Fjotra had just noticed that the buildings were lower, less colorful, and increasingly devoid of glass, with their windows being covered with wooden shutters or iron bars, when two men wearing dirty clothes and predatory smiles approached them from the other side of the street.
“I’d heard a big fisherboat come in with a nice lot of reaver women, but I didn’t know they was free for the taking!” The man’s stubbled head barely came to Fjotra’s chin, but his shoulders were thick, and he appeared to have no neck.
“You come looking for us, pretty gels?” asked his taller companion, whose long, stringy hair was dirty and streaked with grey. When he smiled, she could see that several of his teeth were missing, all on the left side.
“What do they want?” Svanhvit asked her, puzzled but not alarmed.
“Us, I would imagine.” Fjotra reached into her bosom and drew the dagger her father had given her from the sheath she wore around her neck under her dress and spat at them in the southern tongue. “Go away, trash men. I kill you!”
She was taken aback when the two men simply laughed at her. But she understood their lack of concern when they pulled long wooden clubs out from their pants, where they’d been concealing them.
“Put the knife away afors you cut yourself with it, darling” the shorter man said, waggling his club. “Or I’ll break your arm and make you drop it.”
“Come now, is this any way to greet such lovely visitors to our fair land?” Fjotra heard a self-assured voice behind her ask. “Run along, my dear harbor rats. Such beauty should never be wasted upon those who cannot truly appreciate it. Go and find yourselves some poxied whores who won’t openly object to your tender ministrations, and enjoy yourselves. No, really, you must, I absolutely insist upon it.”
A pair of silver coins came sailing past her and landed on the cobblestones in between her and the two men. She didn’t dare take her eyes off the men in front of her, but out of the corner of her eye she saw a slender man with dark hair, about her height and wearing a black hat and a red velvet cloak, walk past her to confront the men.
“There’s two o’us and only one o’ you. Mebbe we’ll take your purse and the reaver girls alike.” The stubble-headed man whacked his club against his open palm. “Specially ‘cuz it don’t look like you ain’t got no weapons, peacock.”
“Don’t I?” said the newcomer. “An unfortunate oversight, I admit.” Then, without warning, both of the men facing them shouted in surprise as their clubs began to glow red. No sooner did the wood strike the stones on the street than they burst into flames, eliciting a little shriek from Svanhvit.
“How’d ye do that?” shouted the stubble-headed man, clutching at his hand. His taller companion was even more verbose, swearing energetically as he backed slowly away from their rescuer.
“I should be happy to lecture you upon the subject if your interest is genuine, my friend.But alas, your readily apparent lack of sanitary habits suggests to me that you would lack the necessary discipline to utilize the knowledge. No doubt this is why the mages of lore tended to set their apprentices to menial tasks for years.”
“What?” Fjotra said almost at the same time as her erstwhile attacker did.
“I suppose I’m asserting my mistrust in the genuine nature of his intellectual interest in the subject,” the strange man said, leaning toward her as if confiding in her. “It’s just idle curiosity with no real thought behind it. Even a dog that burns its nose will sniff at the fire, after all.”
“Ye’re laughing at me, peacock? I’ll cut yer damn todger off and futter the gels with it!” The stubble-headed man shook off his companion’s attempt to restrain him and produced a wicked-looking blade from somewhere underneath his filthy clothes. Fjotra gasped and felt her friends’ hands pulling her back, but their rescuer seemed to be more disappointed than alarmed.
“Are you serious, my good man? Even the dog knows better than to promptly stick its nose back in the flames!”
He made a circular gesture with his hand.
The knifeman’s eyes widened as his right hand, seemingly of its own accord, slammed itself into his own stomach.
The thug bellowed, with more shock then pain, but his roars rapidly declined into wordless grunts as his arm mechanically punched the knife one, two, three more times into his own chest before snapping the last time on his breastbone. He fell to his knees, then collapsed limply onto his face, as a pool of blood began spreading out from beneath his body.
“Josson!” shrieked his long-haired companion in horror, staring incredulously at his fallen friend.
“Josson, was that his name?” The magician spread his hands. “Weep not, my good man. Find solace in the knowledge that our Josson’s restless and insufficiently inquisitive mind is now at peace. A man who fails to realize that one is well-advised to use one’s own todger to, how did he so eloquently put it? Ah, yes, ‘futter the gels’ can hardly be considered a tremendous loss to humanity.”
“Ye’ve killed him!”
“Au contraire. You wound me, sir. As these lovely ladies will bear witness, the man quite obviously attacked himself. The sad consequence of a diseased mind, one fears. Wages of sin and all that. Given his observed obsession with other men’s todgers, I fear our Josson was not one for leading the most pure of lives. Now, my good man, will you run along and bear the sad tidings to the new-made widow and orphans, or must I rack my imagination for some means of convincing you to leave these charming young reavers to my tender mercies?”
But he was talking to the rapidly receding back of the man. Fjotra’s surviving assailant was running away as fast as his feet would carry him, and the flapping sole of his right boot made the sight almost comical.
Their rescuer spread his hands as if mystified by the reluctance of the other man to c
ontinue the one-sided conversation, then he held out his hand, and the two coins leaped up into it from the ground as if his hand were a powerful lodestone.
“How you know he be married?” Fjotra asked their savior, a little afraid to address him, but too curious to remain silent.
“What a remarkable response,” the man mused as he watched the tall man flee with a pensive expression on his face. “Of all the vast panoply of mysteries that life’s rich pageant has provided for your entertainment today, that is what you consider to be the most curious matter? I weep for Man. In any event, I direct your attention to his hand, the visible one.”
Fjotra didn’t understand most of his answer, but she did see there was a simple silver ring on the man’s left hand. That made sense, she thought, although it was strangely observant of the man to notice it in the middle of an altercation. And the ring still didn’t tell her how he knew their assailant had children.
“Is he a troldmand like Patrice?” Svanhvit asked her.
“No, I am no king’s sorcerer. I merely happen to know a few useful tricks,” the man interrupted in perfect, unaccented Dalarn, causing all three girls to stare at him in even more disbelief, if that were possible. “Am I, on the basis of your courageous, if ultimately disastrous attempt to speak our most noble tongue with our late friend Josson, correct in ascertaining that you are Fjotra, the daughter of Skuli Skullbasher, the king soon-to-be-in-exile from the Wolf Isles?”
“Skullbreaker,” she said reflexively.
“I stand corrected. As does my question. Stand, that is, it can hardly be corrected. Are you the aforementioned Fjotra?”
“Why you want to know?” she asked him in Savonnais. “How are you called?” It wasn’t so much that she had any reason to distrust him. After all, if he wished her and the other girls any harm, he could have simply pretended not to see them being assaulted and walked on. But there was something deeply disconcerting about him. The friendly smile that so readily played about his lips never seemed to touch his dark eyes, and the way he carried herself reminded her a little of an actor she had seen at one of the plays to which the comtesse had taken her.
