Trelana jerked, as if stabbed by a needle. “His projector weapons were responsible for their deaths?"
"Yes, that is what I saw.” Aetria told her the events of the battle. Trelana did not react further, except to frown at the end of the story.
"What you have said is at odds with what we know of the incident. Pleates had been sending the Council daily reports since we gave him permission to create the weapons. Those reports did not mention any problems with the staffs, but they did have some uncomplimentary remarks about you."
Aetria sat back, knowing the hurt showed in her face. “I am sorry to hear that, Magess. When he foolishly went after that source and caused the death of my charges, I lost whatever respect I had for him. He is dead, and I am not sorry."
"Sometimes the dead have a way of taking revenge, Little One. You must be very careful what you say about him. He still has supporters around, despite his treachery."
"I hear you, Mentor, but please keep in mind that, with all the bad Pleates is connected to, the general still does not consider his beliefs and attitude as the same as the Council's. If the Council stands up for him, then she might. That will widen the gap between the Council and the general. Please, listen. Sonja is willing to trust sorcerers. She trusts me. That is why I think it is important to complete my mission, to build on that trust with her."
Trelana nodded. “I agree, and I have told the Council your relationship with the general can be a very good thing. Now, how can I help you with your mission?"
Aetria needed to know more about Pleates. He was well known as a powerful Aggressor, but little was known about his student years. “What was Pleates’ new spell, that he was elevated to Adept for? Could he have found a way to track sorcerers?"
"No, his spell was related to pure destruction. We have kept it secret because it is so deadly. I will tell you now, but I caution you not to tell anyone else except General Borlock, and only if you feel that is necessary."
"I promise."
"Pleates was sent on his quest into the foothills of our estate. There are rustic cabins in isolated places that we use for the purpose of putting initiates off by themselves, so they can concentrate on their studies. Sorcerer Guards take them food and check on their welfare, but that is the only company they get. Quests normally last several years. Pleates returned to us after six months, surprising everyone. Even more surprising was his new spell. He could destroy sources."
Aetria's jaw dropped open in surprise. “Destroy sources. How?"
"We don't know. I saw him explode a source in the courtyard of the Council chambers. It was very impressive. Crusher's elevation to Adept was hotly debated in Council because, although he had advanced spell knowledge, he was unable to teach the spell to other sorcerers—an historical requirement. None of the senior Aggressor instructors could duplicate his source-destroying spell. In the end he was elevated for the practical reason that the Order had joined the army and his particular skill would be useful when facing enemy sorcerers. With his death, that skill is gone."
Probably a good thing, Aetria thought. “He told me he was a candidate for Mage, and implied the staffs were the reason he would be elevated. Is that true?"
"Yes. He discovered a way to project a fireball spell into a special box at the end of the staff. The box acts to increase the intensity, until it releases out the front end of the projector. It only seems to work for Aggressor spells like lightning and fireballs. The advantage of the weapon is that the Aggressor using it does not have to use much of his own Power to eject it from the staff box. Thus, the Aggressor can maintain effective spell use for five times his normal ability."
"That is incredible. It means the Laws of Spell Warfare have been changed forever."
"Maybe not, Little One. Pleates kept the secret of how he made the projector weapons. Our Engineer, Aristes, made the staffs for him, but Pleates added something to them later on. Aristes is trying to figure out what it was but has not been successful so far. We only have two of the weapons."
"Novices Belanar and Fernonia survived the blasts. I was told they were sent back to Inhestia after Pleates’ death."
"They are here. They are working with Magess Corerilla, the Aggressor Mentor, showing her the techniques they were taught by Pleates."
"They have been using the weapons? By the Power, Magess, we have lost four Novices to those weapons already. You must stop this insanity!"
Trelana reached out and touched Aetria's arm. “The weapons have been working just fine. Until now, no one has said anything about the weapons being at fault. I will do so today to Magess Corerilla, but don't take this wrong, Aetria. Yours is the only voice that says there are problems—"
"And I am under a cloud with the Council! Do what you can, Trelana. I know what I saw, and I saw those things explode."
A knock on the door drew their attention. Trelana's page stuck her head around the corner and said a messenger from Mage Kelristo requested the Magess's presence for an emergency meeting of the Council.
Trelana groaned. “These things last all night. Tell the messenger to tell Kelristo I am coming. Aetria, will I see you again tomorrow?"
Standing, Aetria shook her head. “I'm leaving in the morning to visit my parents before I return to the encampment. I will stop by to say goodbye before I go. Can I walk with you to the Council chambers?"
"That would be nice, but no marching. I am not in the army."
* * * *
As her escort clattered into her father's courtyard, Aetria realized she had made a mistake by not riding in alone. The work hands surrounding the wagons being loaded with provisions were slowly putting their burdens down, their posture expressing their wariness with the arrival of an army unit in their midst. Her father left his seat in the shade of the warehouse porch where he had been supervising the loading of the wagons, and came down the steps at the end of the dock, approaching Sergeant Delmona's horse slowly.
"Can I help you, Sergeant?” he asked in his heavy Tierian accent.
The sergeant turned in her saddle and looked back at Aetria in the rear of the formation. The sun at Aetria's back made her father shield his eyes as he looked in the direction the sergeant was looking. Aetria dismounted and walked toward her father.
He squinted at her. “Captain? Is there something wrong with our deliveries?"
Removing her helmet and tucking it under her arm, Aetria smiled at her father. “Father, it is just your foolish daughter coming for a visit."
With a shout of recognition, her father rushed forward and hugged her fiercely to him. Patting her armored back, he said, “This is not an illusion, my sorceress child? A captain in the Royal Guard? No matter, you will explain. Welcome home! Foreman Penvel, give the men a break. A ration of cool wine for all in celebration of my daughter's return home."
A cheer greeted his announcement; the men reacting in relief from what they thought was going to be a confrontation, that had turned into a happy occasion. Aetria nodded at the unasked question from Sergeant Delmona. The sergeant ordered the escort to dismount.
"Father, could you please put my men up for the night in the warehouse?"
"Gladly, and we shall continue the celebration with meat and cheese for the evening meal, plus more wine. But only after the break is over and the wagons are loaded! I have a business to run here!"
The prospect of a party lightened the mood even more. The foreman sent a youngster running for the wine and waved to Sergeant Delmona to get her attention, then pointed behind the warehouse to the barn where the escort could stable their horses. Aetria's foster father guided her towards the modest house where her mother, Valeria, waited. The smile on her face was as large as her ample girth.
* * * *
Aetria paused at the top of the steps that led to her attic bedchamber and looked down at the common room where her foster parents awaited her appearance. They were talking animatedly, the excitement in their voices causing an occasional word to float upwards to her hearing.
> Captain of Cavalry...
So grown...
Beautiful woman...
Sorceress.
She leaned on the railing, her attention on her mother, the woman who had taken in a baby girl so many years ago and raised her as her own. Childless, her mother had longed for babies of her own, but accepted a fate that denied her children. Her father had told the story of her arrival in their lives many times, the tears of joy always flowing from his deep-set Tierian eyes. When the mysterious man had appeared in the middle of the night with a blanket-wrapped bundle in his arms, her father had taken the baby and brought it to his wife. She had taken the child from him, and checking it over, smiled her wide smile and said, “It's a girl. Her name will be Aetria.” Her father nodded. “Tierii Aetria Menhala v'Grelnes."
"I forgot, it should be Aetree, I believe."
"No, my wife, the ‘a’ is for the Delmathian woman who stole my heart,” he said, hugging the woman he had given his people up for. “Her name should have your people's ending. Aetria is the daughter of our two peoples."
Her mother gave him another smile, her life now complete.
* * * *
The woman in that story had grown older, heavier, gray creeping into her hair. The beauty that had caught her father's eye was still there but had matured. The worry wrinkles around her eyes were not from anything Aetria had done, having been a quiet girl who always did the will of her parents. No, as Aetria watched her mother, she realized the fears that had etched the skin around those shockingly blue eyes were for her father.
An outcast from his Tieri people, his decision according to him, he was not accepted by her Delmathian people. After all these years as a merchant, it was only during the war that he prospered beyond the level of breaking even. Her home villagers distrusted him for his Tieri ancestry and were quick to blame him for the misery in their life. Aetria had not been spared their pettiness, but because she lacked the hooked nose and deep-set eyes of the Tieri people, they tolerated her.
Her mother looked up and saw Aetria at the top of the stairs. She called up to her. “Hurry down, my daughter, I am dying to hear why my little girl is wearing that ugly armor instead of her lovely robes."
Straightening, Aetria fluffed out her skirt, the first time she had worn anything but a uniform in years, if she included her student's robes as a uniform. The loose blouse she had donned felt cool on her skin, not the sweat-soaked under blouse that had been stuck to her for the past five hours. Washed, in clean clothes, she was ready to join her family.
"I'm coming, Mama."
* * * *
"I must check on our people to ensure they have been properly fed and aren't too drunk.” Her mother left them.
They were seated in what served her father as a library. He was not a learned man, compared to Mage Kelristo, but he prided himself on being able to read the histories of the land and of its leaders. This was one thing that made him different from his Tieri people; he was interested in things besides gold and material wealth. She truly loved this room. When she was little, Aetria had spent many hours in here listening to his tales of travel and prying from him the secrets of his people.
She looked at the wall behind him lined with shelves holding his tomes and scrolls. His writing desk sat against the wall to his right with several stains forever absorbed into the wood from Aetria spilling ink when she was a young girl learning to write. Her father had encouraged her education, tutoring her himself when he could not afford to send her to the village teacher. She remembered so well his grumbling about spending even the small amount of gold he had on her being educated by a people who taught her values different from his, but as he had said so often, “You have to live in this world!"
It was years later before she learned what he really meant. Not being well accepted by the other village children, she had spent a lot of her time playing in her imagination. He was afraid her constant escape to that world would make her too vulnerable to the threats of the real world. He knew also that she would not be free to live the life he had growing up, for Tierians were wanderers and rovers, not tied to the land.
Here in this room he had taught her some of the language of his people, useful when they wanted to hide their conversation from her mother, who had refused to learn her husband's native tongue, saying it was too hard for her simple mind. In here he had also taught her a little of the Tieri's secretive culture and their proud traditions. They had not always been the fiercely independent clans they now were, but had been one nation under the rule of the Rhuhani clan. A war was fought amongst the Tieri, and an event he called “The Dispersal” sent the clans out into the world. She had never found out what had happened, and he would not speak of it again.
In this same room, after pushing the chairs and desk out of the way, she had spent endless hours learning the self-protection skills of his people, the infamous “Tierian Thief” style of fighting. She had asked why they were called thieves, and he had told her that the Tierians were accepted reluctantly by all of the land's peoples, as their main interest was in accumulating as much gold as possible by any means available to them. They would deal in any commodity, preferably legal, but if there was no market trade to be had, they found other means to accumulate wealth—hence their reputation as thieves. He told her that the Tieri skills in stealth were legend, aided by their magic and their self-defense disciplines.
She had been intrigued by their use of magic, for in her Delmathian world only sorcerers practiced that skill. When she had tested for magic use and was selected, her mother had been very pleased and proud of her. Her father approved in his quiet way, but she worried that his heart was not in letting her go. When she asked if she would meet any of his people at Inhestia, he laughed and said no. Those that tested for magic had rarely chosen to go into training, for using the power for the good of all was not in the Tierian interest. Instead, those who were found to have the “touch” were trained by the clan's elder to use their skills to acquire gold via sales of potions and charms. Some used their skills to disguise themselves, handy when carrying out nefarious activities. At Inhestia she had asked Trelana why the Order allowed the Tierians’ use of Power. Trelana told her that the Order did not approve of their dabbling in magic, but there was no law that said they could not hawk their medicines and lucky charms.
Her father interrupted Aetria's musings. “She is worried, Aetria—not for those men, but for you. That Pleates was a dangerous man."
Relaxing in her leather chair, a copy of which her father sat in opposite her, Aetria said, “I know, Father, but he is dead now. He was a spy for the Hermanians and betrayed our Order, and the king!"
"Yes, I have known for a long time that he was spying for the Hermanians."
The shock in Aetria's face was echoed in her voice, as in exasperation she said, “But why didn't you tell me, or if not me, then someone?"
Her father looked at her for a moment, a hesitation in his response, as if he was considering avoiding her question.
"The risk to you was too high, and I feared for your mother and the home we had built."
"Fear of whom? You would have been protected by the king for coming forth with that information."
"Your King would not have been able to protect you, or your mother, or myself from paying the consequences."
"What consequences?"
Her father shifted in his leather chair, perhaps feeling uncomfortable with having to say more about the subject than he wanted to. “Talupna Ani, Aetria,” her father said in Tieri.
Powers, her father was swearing her to secrecy with the strongest of Tieri vows! “Dama iko,” Aetria responded, meaning, “So I swear."
"It is a long story, Aetria, but I will tell it short. Among the Tierian outcasts, we have our own organization. We share information and watch out for each other. Shortly after Adept Pleates joined the army, he began to use the services of our people to do certain tasks that he did not want his own people to know about. Since we were outcast
of the Tieri, and not as bound to either The Code or an established clan, we were considered by him to be safer than using other professional ‘services.’ It was mostly courier work, passing messages back and forth to a special location. After several years of this work, we found out who was receiving those messages and stored that information away for future use. We suspected that he was spying but did not see any results which could be tracked to him."
"Even that information would have been helpful to us, Father."
"Aetria, remember the nature of our people. Information is useful for sale, but not if you give it away. Our people were not threatened, nor was a great loss of life caused by our not revealing his efforts. We did not yet see a need to waste this potential source of gold. The courier business was good. About two years ago he expanded his needs. He engaged some of us to acquire certain minerals he needed."
"Minerals? Why didn't he just buy them?"
"These minerals came from places that were under the most serious protection."
A look of disbelief crossed Aetria's face. “The source mines? He wanted you to steal sources?"
"No, but he wanted certain minerals that existed in the mines. It took us quite a while to ‘acquire’ them. At this point one of us decided that it was time to use the information we had to his advantage. We argued against it, but he went ahead with his plan. Before his plan reached fruition, we received a warning from a highly placed Tierian in the Hermanian army to stop what we were planning to do. We tried to convince our member to stop, but he continued. Within a week, he was found dead, along with most of his family, killed by assassins."
"Hermanian Assassins?"
Her father grunted in disdain at her question, as if words were too valuable to use in his answer. “The army said so. But the way of death had a signature of its own. We knew it was Kanchala."
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