“No,” Terleman said, thoughtfully, “but whatever their objective was, it clearly was tied to the magi being gone from here. We could theorize that this is because they are weak, and thus ripe for a strong reprisal or resumption of general hostilities.”
“But you don’t think that’s correct,” Pentandra ventured.
“No, I really don’t,” Terleman yawned. “As much as I’d like to believe it, that isn’t corroborated by what we know about their forces inside the Umbra. You saw what their column looked like at the Poros,” he reminded her.
“Yes, it was horrific,” she agreed, recalling the hideous black ice and the stain the gurvani left behind upon it.
“Now look at what attacked us: Fell Hounds, light infantry, skirmishers, a few heavy infantry units in tougher spots, some general raiding by their tribals, a few dedicated raids, like those at Salik Tower, Anguin’s Tower and Traveler’s Tower, and that’s it. No trolls, No dragons. No siege worms. No nightsails. In fact, from the reports there were damn few shaman involved at all. And no Black Skulls,” he said, naming the dark priesthood of Sheruel who had overseen his troops thus far. “That, itself, is telling.”
“So what is it telling you?” she demanded. “My brain is asleep, my mouth just doesn’t realize it yet.”
He grinned. “Welcome to guard duty! It’s telling because it suggests that this little midnight garden party was not sanctioned by the Big Green Marble. Which indicates a bit of a power struggle amongst our foes.”
“Well, you might be right about that,” Pentandra agreed.
As Pentandra mulled over the weighty news of Isily’s birthing and Minalan’s shame, she tried to get back to work. There was plenty to do, especially in terms of tidying up the duchy after the abortive raids across the country.
As she filed through the morning’s dispatches, ignoring Terleman snoring in the corner, she saw that most of the incursions had been defeated or forced to withdraw. The damage reports were still being assembled, but the news from Tudry, Megelin, and most of the pele towers was good. The magi at Traveler’s Tower even succeeded with a spell that had proven effective against undead – which Pentandra found splendid news.
Even better, politically speaking, was the news that Duke Anguin and three hundred 3rd Commandos, as well as fifty gentlemen of his court, had ridden to relieve SalikTower successfully.
The 3rd had formed up into two divisions, one cavalry and one infantry, and managed to drive the gurvani between them. After a brief but bloody battle the remnants withdrew in chaos and the tower was relieved. Anguin was still there, helping with the damage and celebrating the victory with Carmella. Hopefully that would help sell him on the idea of her building him a great fortress in the north.
Alurra brought her tea and biscuits while she worked, uncharacteristically quiet. The third time she checked on her to see what she needed, Pentandra looked up sharply.
“What seems to be the matter, Alurra?”
“Uh . . . sorry, Mistress,” she said, contritely. “I’ve just never experienced war before. Hearing tales of battles fought hundreds of miles away, hearing about casualties and such . . . it’s just a bit overwhelming.”
“I understand,” Pentandra said, sympathetically. “This is not what I went to the Academy for. But let it instruct you: as magi, we are often called upon to deal with challenges outside of where we are comfortable. As powerful as magic is, our ability to think and adapt is more powerful. You aren’t training to be a hedgewitch anymore, Alurra, you’re learning how to be a real wizard. Which means that you often will find yourself doing things you never imagined you could do.”
“What if . . . what if that . . . that thing comes back?” she asked, in a voice just above a whisper. Her sightless eyes looked stricken with anxiety. Lucky, on her shoulder, was looking away pointedly.
“Then we, as wizards, will deal with it,” Pentandra said, firmly. “Why was it pursuing you? Antimei’s . . . book?” she ventured.
Alurra bit her lip nervously, then nodded. “It has all her stories in it,” she answered, hoarsely. “All the stories she’s known for all the years she’s lived there.”
A book of prophecy . . . from a prophet with thirty years of experience. Despite her terror at regarding such a thing and the dangers it posed, Pentandra could not help feel a hungry curiosity about what was within. Would Antimei’s tale of the future show the magi triumphant? Or would it see the gurvani devour all of humanity? And would Pentandra be able to resist her own curiosity if she was ever faced with the temptation to look upon the pages of that book?
Prophecy was dangerous, she reminded herself. And then reminded herself again a few moments later, when she found her mind asking the same question.
“So . . . why would an evil undead want to know the future?” Alurra asked.
“The same reason anyone else would,” Pentandra shrugged. “To see what happens. To avoid tragedy and folly, and pursue that which is rewarding. To cheat fate of the burden of free will,” she said, feeling philosophic.
“Then we definitely don’t want to give it to them,” Alurra vowed. “My head is spinning from just a few months of stories. Knowing about the undead, the rats, the riots, the undead, the goddess, Greenflower, all before it happened . . . it’s more than my poor mind can take!”
“What, Greenflower? What do you know about Greenflower?” Pentandra demanded.
“That I shouldn’t have said it,” she said, slapping both hands over her mouth. “Damn it to bloody hell!”
She left her office with all the drama a teenage girl could muster. Pentandra stifled a smile, then let it happen anyway. It wasn’t as if Alurra could see it.
An hour later there was another visitor at the door. The attendant who oversaw the Mirror array appeared at her office and told her that she had an urgent personal communication waiting for her . . . from the Baroness of Sevendor.
Pentandra almost ran to the array. If something had happened to Minalan . . .
But when she arrived, the sealed message bearing her name didn’t inform her of the Spellmonger’s death. But what it relayed was almost as bad.
Dear Pentandra,
I call upon you now as a friend of mine and of Minalan’s. Sevendor has been attacked and robbed, and while Lady Mask is now in our dungeon, her confederates were able to make away with several valuable artifacts. Upon questioning it was revealed that Lady Mask has conspired with Baroness Isily of Greenflower, among others, against our barony, our home, and our family. Due to her collaboration with Lady Mask, the renegade mage allied with the enemies of all humanity, Baroness Greenflower has committed treason against the state and ethical violations of the codes of conduct governing magi under the Arcane Orders. Therefore it has been determined for the Order to demand the return of her witchstone and take other just and reasonable actions against her and Baron Greenflower, her confederate.
To that end, I invite you to participate in the disciplinary action ahead. As a former Steward of the Order, your reputation for fairness and competency is well-known, and your inclusion in this process should help alleviate the idea that this is at all a response to a political issue. My home has been burgled and my children threatened by this mage. I ask my good friends to help me get justice.
Alya, Baroness of Sevendor
Pentandra looked at the note thoughtfully as her mind worked furiously. This explained so much, she realized. If Isily had been working clandestinely with the renegade warmage Mask, whose old staff she now bore as Everkeen, and both of them were working with the renegade Alka Alon fanatics known as the Enshadowed, then the entire conspiracy demonstrated the power of a new player in the dark game of rushes that was playing out across the Wilderlands. It also demonstrated the lengths to which Isily would go to achieve her boundless ambition.
Pentandra wished she could say she didn’t understand Isily’s motivations or her strategies, but it galled her to find just a hint of admiration in her thoughts about the shadowmage. Isily had been
a product of her upbringing, which (from what she knew of the Family) included murder, mayhem, torture and abuse. Add to that the inherent frustration of being a mage under the Bans of Magic – and then release the limits imposed by those bans – and she could easily see how Isily had rationalized her actions to herself.
All she had to do was ignore the issue of accountability and totally misplace her reason, and any mage might have done the same.
Pentandra found herself growing more and more angry with her former friend, the more she contemplated Alya’s message. Regardless of her role as the puppet of Her Majesty’s clandestine assassination service, Isily was theoretically retired, ennobled, and raised to the peerage as a reward for service well-rendered.
So why would she imperil that reward and the great secular power she’d accumulated merely for the hope of higher ambition? She could not hope to replace Grendine at King Rard’s side, nor had she made any overt designs on Prince Tavard – which would have found herself arrayed against her former bloodthirsty mistress – so pursuit of pure secular power did not seem to be her motivation. But what position could be higher than that of queen?
There was no archmage at the moment. Imagining a future where there was one, and you were his wife, was beyond adolescent fantasy. It was a real sickness.
It made no sense . . . unless you had an obsession with ambition. And Isily was just the kind of woman who saw herself emerging from the shadows, the secret player in a game only she knew the rules to, to become the center of power, control, and attention. Pentandra was well-aware of the type: her sister suffered from the same delusions of importance. Though she was prettier than Isily, at the moment, she did not have the power or the drive that Isily possessed. Thankfully.
But Isily was so much more dangerous than her self-centered sister. Her long association with Queen Grendine’s organization, the Family, had given her a warped sense of what was permissible in the pursuit of her ambitions, Pentandra knew. And her possession of a witchstone and knowledge of the obscure branch of photomancy known as shadowmagic made her exceptionally dangerous. Her use of a spell on Alya proved her willingness to use magic to ruthlessly achieve her political – or personal – goals.
Add that to the power she’d accrued through her own ambitions and her rank and position she’d gained through her decrepit old husband, Dunselen, and she was an even more formidable opponent. Being a peer of the realm granted tremendous influence.
So did having a few illegitimate children by the most powerful mage in the world, one of the few who might stand in her way and hold her to account. By using her womb as leverage against poor Minalan, as disgusting as the idea was to her, Isily had ensured that she could operate without accountability. It sickened Pentandra to think of children being used as political tools like that – though it was common enough, particularly in Remeran households. It was also completely within her expectations of Isily. She had warned Minalan of her enough times.
But Pentandra never thought she’d stoop to treason to advance her goals. Yet her collusion with Lady Mask could be nothing else.
As she re-read the message, she could also see how Isily had failed. Thanks to Ishi’s interference (and, she was forced to admit, her own) Alya hadn’t been enchanted into stupefied complacency and suggestibility, as she had planned. Minalan must have confessed his affair to her, and instead of blaming the poor man she had acted like a defiant wife.
It took the realities of matrimony for Pentandra to really understand the power in that. A year ago she might have been amused at the idea of a wronged wife making a scene about her wayward husband. The theme was certainly a popular one in Narasi culture, from puppet shows to mummer’s plays to epic poetry. The antics of Trygg, the Great Mother, in response to her wandering husband Orvatas encompassed an entire dramatic cycle of myth within her cult.
But only now, with the perspective of a wife in fear for her husband, did Pentandra appreciate the potency of Alya’s response. She did not seem to blame Minalan, it appeared from the message. And where he was unable to hold her account, Alya did not hesitate.
A calm fell over Pentandra as she thought of herself in Alya’s position. If some bitch had launched an entire conspiracy to bed Arborn – say, the way Zuska had, during her Matrimonial Rites – what would she do? How would she feel if she had not only bedded her husband . . . but conspired to have to children by him merely as a means of controlling him? What would she do if her rival had position, authority, and influence at court, was protected by a castle and a small army of warmagi, and political favor?
There was no question in Pentandra’s mind. She’d tear the fucking castle down around the bitch’s ears and invite every woman she knew to participate.
Pentandra might have felt that way anyway, but the fact was she liked Alya, personally. Though they were as different in background and vocation as was likely, they had overcome their mutual mistrust and bonded, originally, over their mutual devotion to Minalan. Alya had quite graciously overlooked both the fact that Pentandra and her husband had once been intimate, and the even more mortifying episode in which Pentandra had mistaken her for Minalan’s maid at their initial meeting.
But she had grown to like the bold peasant woman with whom Minalan had fallen in love. She was kind, pleasant, and wholesome, with just enough evil in her to keep her interesting. She had accepted Pentandra before Pentandra had accepted her, fully, and she’d insisted that she come to their wedding despite the idea that it might be awkward. Not only had Pentandra’s presence been a tangible sign of her endorsement and approval of the union, it also had saved the bride and groom from capture, incarceration, torture and death at the hands of the old Censorate.
Since then, Alya had graciously made room in her home and her life for Pentandra when by rights she did not have to. She entrusted her children to her, upon occasion, and had included her in Alya’s circle of confidants as Pentandra had helped her adjust to first the life of a noblewoman, and then to the life of a baroness. And she had been enthusiastically supportive of Pentandra’s pursuit of Arborn.
She was, in other words, a friend to Pentandra when fate could have quite easily made her a foe
She looked up at the attendant – Lacnei, originally a spellmonger from some northern village. “Send a reply: I’m on my way.”
“That is all, my lady?” he asked, surprised.
“That’s all that needs to be said,” Pentandra agreed.
Let’s make this snotty bitch pay for what she’s done to our man! she was thinking to herself.
*
*
*
“I have to go somewhere,” she told her husband, when she got back to her chamber. He had finally returned to duty as Master of Wood, taking over from Jerics. He and his men were no worse for wear after the goblin’s midsummer raid. They’d assisted in the defense of several villages around Vorone as they screened the town, and Pentandra had no trouble imagining the black furry bodies they’d left in their wake along the road. Arborn was eager to return to action, too – there were still gurvani bands roaming the southern vales.
But he was not very enthusiastic about Pentandra’s news.
“But . . . why does Minalan need you?” Arborn asked, concerned. “Wouldn’t this be more of a job for warmagi?” he asked as she conjured first her baculus, and then her clothing press. The heavy wooden cabinet appeared in the middle of the floor and she pulled open the door. Just what did one wear for an assault on a magical castle?
“Minalan didn’t summon me,” Pentandra answered as she thumbed through the possibilities. “Alya did. But the need is the same. And in this case I might be every bit as valuable to the effort as a warmage. I know Isily, or I did. More importantly, I know what kind of woman she is.”
“But are there not others—”
“When the duke sends you to oversee some important aspect of the wood, my husband, does he not know there are others who could do the job?”
Arborn stiffened at the c
omparison. “I see your point, Wife . . . but does this have to happen right now?” he protested. “Setting aside my concern for my wife’s safety, the Wilderlands were just attacked. There are still troops in the field and danger to the duchy. And you are still Court Wizard of Alshar . . . not Castal.”
“My husband, you excel at rationalizing your fears, something I find particularly endearing,” she said, indulgently, as she selected the outfit she thought would be best-suited for the night’s activities. “I discussed the situation with Terleman on the way over, and he assured me that the Wilderlands can spare me for a day or so. Duke Anguin is already returning from Salik Tower, cleaning up stragglers and scouts along the way. Things are well in hand,” she promised as she stripped off the finery she’d been wearing since . . . since the banquet at Castabriel?
Had it been that long since she’d changed clothes?
“But it is still dangerous,” he said. A statement, not a question.
“I would be shocked if it wasn’t,” Pentandra admitted as she pulled a clean shift on over her head. “Isily is what we professional sex magi refer to technically as a ‘slippery little cunt’, and she’s had every opportunity to prepare for this.”
“So you’re walking into a trap,” Arborn said, disapprovingly.
“More like we are going to overwhelm whatever trap she thinks she’s constructed,” Pentandra corrected. “For all of her power and her obsession, Isily is going to be facing some of the deadliest warmagi in the world . . . and one really, really pissed-off wife. To be honest, I’m not even certain Alya will leave anything left for me to do.”
“But Alya isn’t a mage,” Arborn protested.
“She’s the wife of a mage and likely the mother of two of the most powerful magi of the next generation – so far,” corrected Pentandra as she fastened the belt she preferred for active occasions around her waist. It had several pouches and pockets she found convenient if she was in a hurry. “She’s my people even if we aren’t officially related or anything. More importantly, she’s my friend,” Pentandra stated.
Court Wizard (Spellmonger Series: Book 8) Page 75
