The Road To Vanador

by Terry Mancour

  The Road To Vanador

  A Travelogue

  A Spellmonger Story

  By Terry Mancour

  Copyright © 2019

  Part One

  Farewell to Sevendor

  Dad had the cart and team waiting for me when I’d said my final farewells to the folk of Sevendor Castle, my home for years. The home I had built from a few poor huts and a ramshackle castle into the greatest mageland in the kingdom. The home I had fought for, defended, invested in, and nearly died for. I was leaving home.

  It wasn’t the streets, stately homes and gleaming white castle that I’d miss the most, of course – the worse part was saying farewell to the people who had been around me, supporting and working with me to build and run the place. Everyone from my Castellan – no, he was Steward, now – Sire Cei to my old Tal Alon chambermaid, Daisey. I had known some of them so long I had watched them marry, have children, and prosper. Others, like Sister Bemia, the castle chaplain, or Olmeg the Green or Zagor had been there for me and my family steadfastly, and I was loath to abandon them. The people who had been in my life more than the kings, dukes, Alka Alon masters and wizards who occupied my time and attention . . . I would miss those folk the most, I realized, as I said my good-byes.

  Tears were shed, and I contributed my share. I had to embrace, kiss, or salute to so many old friends that morning that it’s a wonder I ever left. As I gave my final address to the castle staff from the cracked table in the Great Hall, my throat nearly closed with emotion as I spoke. The speech itself was nothing special, from what I recall – it was the usual praise for their diligence, hard work, loyalty, and dedication to Sevendor, and my confidence in their ability to keep the place running in my absence. It was all entirely sincere, but it wasn’t rhetorically significant. At the end there was thunderous applause, shouts of support, and cheering. And a lot of tears.

  “Three years is not a long time, Minalan,” Sire Cei soothed, as he escorted me from the hall.

  “It is far too long,” I muttered, as I clasped hands with a few in the crowd. “All sorts of terrible things can happen in that time. And will,” I predicted. “Don’t hesitate to summon me, if you need me. I can pop back here through the Ways in an instant, if I need to.”

  “You won’t need to,” he assured me. “Our borders are secure, our markets are filled, our people are settled and content,” he reminded me. “We have no strong enemies, and we are wisely led.”

  “And if another dragon shows up?”

  “Then you have left a Dragonslayer in charge,” he said, with a touch of that cocky arrogance that underlay Sire Cei’s stoicism. “Between the Hawkmaiden and the Dragonslayer, we shall guard the land.”

  “We’ll be ready for them, this time,” Dara agreed, from behind us. “Any dragon who sniffs around Sevendor again is going to get a nasty surprise, as long as I can get my birds in the air!”

  “We’ll be fine, Minalan,” Sire Cei assured. “The existential danger for Sevendor exists only if you remain,” he said, sadly. “A tragic irony.”

  “Not tragic, merely inconvenient,” I corrected. “As annoyed as I am about my exile, there is good work to be done in the Wilderlands.”

  “The Magelaw,” Dara corrected. “You are the Count of the Magelaw.”

  “A realm for the making,” Sire Cei agreed. “And there is no one better suited for its defense than you, Excellency. As a Wilderlord, I am relieved that you are going to protect and re-people it.”

  “And as a Sevendori,” Dara added, “I am relieved that you will be attracting dragons somewhere else. Don’t worry, Master, by the time you return to Sevendor, it will be better than ever,” she pledged, confidently.

  Sister Bemia was waiting outside, and gave me Trygg’s benediction with weepy eyes. After commending them all into the capable hands of Sire Cei and Dara, I took my seat next to my dad and began the long journey from the eastern Riverlands to the northern Wilderlands. I tried not to look back. We stopped in town to make one last pilgrimage to the Everfire – and so that Dad could say goodbye to the two sisters and sons-in-law and grandchildren who were staying to run the Sevendor bakery – and get Flamemother Antara’s blessing on the journey.

  It was a busy time, as Briga’s Day was near and the temple was making preparations for the annual pilgrimage. But everyone stopped to say farewell to us. My brother-in-law had a kingly gift for me, too: a small wand Banamor had enchanted. He had filled it with an entire bake’s worth of bread, which could be dispensed a loaf at a time, as fresh and hot as it was when it left the oven.

  Then we got back in the wain, threw our cloaks over our shoulders, and began the journey in earnest.

  We didn’t say much, that first cold winter’s day. The two rounceys who pulled the wain were lively enough, but not interesting enough for either of us to comment upon. The weather was overcast, and the streets and roads were wet from the previous days’ rain. Dad was kind enough not to try to distract my attention from what I was feeling, as we left my home.

  We made good time. No, we made exceptional time, thanks to the magical enhancements both team and wain enjoyed. The axles turned with far more efficiency, the wheels were mage-hardened against casual wear, and even the horseshoes on the two draft animals were enchanted to propel them farther with less effort. It was a far more comfortable ride than most carriages could boast, even if it appeared to be merely a well-constructed wain.

  I think Dad appreciated that, too, despite his usual disdain for magic – the “easy way”. He’d enjoyed my hospitality for two years, now, and while he was as proud of me as you could ask, he was anxious to return to his old, comfortable life in Talry. But he also felt like he had unfinished business with me, for some reason. He had insisted on accompanying me on the long trip to Vanador, and he would not take no for an answer.

  I didn’t argue. I was feeling sulky, and Dad was about the only person in the world beyond my wife and mother who wasn’t in danger of my temper.

  We rolled out of the great gates at the Diketower half an hour later – though that was a poor name for the place, anymore. While Tyndal and Rondal’s first posting was still there, it was a fairly minor part of the defensive works, now. A new wall stretched from cliff to cliff behind the great berm, a wall with turrets and towers of its own. The dike in front of it seemed a minor inconvenience compared to the great wall of mage-cut stone.

  Despite myself, I heaved a heavy sigh as we passed through the gates. I bent my head under my hat, and tried not to attract attention. I didn’t want anyone to make a fuss. As far as my people knew, I had already departed for my new home by the Ways. Thankfully, a flash of my pass to the sentry had him nod us through, and we were no longer in Sevendor.

  “That must have hurt,” Dad grunted, as the roads began to worsen under our wheels.

  “Yes,” I agreed, feeling a pressure in my chest. “Far more than I expected.”

  “It’s only three years, Son,” he consoled me. “I spent two years here, and if flew by like two months,” he observed. “Glad I came. Glad I’m leaving.”

  “I’m trying to be philosophical about it,” I promised. “I’m trying to look at this as another great adventure, an opportunity. That’s what Wisdom dictates,” I assured him.

  “Yet if you were actually feeling that way about it, you wouldn’t be brooding like this,” he pointed out. “So . . . tell me why you’re pissed off,” Dad directed.

  “What possible good would that do me?” I asked, a little irritated.

  “Let’s find out,” he proposed. “What troubles you so much about leaving Sevendor?”

  “The fact that it’s still recovering from a dragon attack?” I asked, sarcastically. “That it is the target for the ire of Prince
Tavard? That it’s the richest domain in the Bontal Vales, if not the kingdom? That most of my friends and allies are here? That this has been my home for nearly seven years, now? And now I’m leaving it all behind? Perhaps any of those might be bothering me?”

  “I figured as much,” he said with a chuckle. “Every single one of those things is eating at you.”

  “So?” I asked, growing more irritated. “What good does it do me to relate them?”

  “It’s good for you to speak them aloud,” Dad assured me. “You’re going into exile. You’re pissed off about it. It’s best if you know why.”

  I wanted to groan at my father’s attempt to dispense wisdom, but my great respect for the man forced me to stifle the urge. I knew he had a point – it’s a central dictum of spellcraft to speak your intent as part of the formation of a spell. The wisdom of that is implicit: if you don’t understand your goal and your desire for attaining it, everything else gets muddied as you’re trying to work with arcane energies. Clarity is key for success.

  Of course, hearing that from your dad about your personal life is a different matter, emotionally.

  “It still doesn’t change the fact that I am, indeed, going into exile,” I offered, instead.

  “No, it doesn’t,” he admitted, as the wagon reached the bottom of the hill and started up the next one. “Watch this next part, there are spells in the road that make you sorry you’re departing Sevendor,” I informed him.

  “Sad we’re departing?” he asked, skeptical.

  “It’s one of Banamor’s. Part of his commercial effort to increase business. Pure psychomantic bullshit, and no more than a temporary pang of regret, but it can be disconcerting, if you’re not prepared for it.”

  “That seems . . . like cheating,” my dad said, a moment later, as we passed through the glyph. “I suddenly want to go back and check on the ovens,” he admitted.

  My own experience of the spell was dampened, thankfully, by the defenses in the Magolith. But I could still perceive what my own level of regret might have been, and it would have been bad. Banamor’s spell (well, he commissioned a much better mage to cast it) took a person’s base regrets and magnified them a hundred-fold, along with a jolt of compulsion. For most people it was effective to

  “The ovens are fine,” I chuckled, humorlessly. “It’s just a trick. But more than one poor merchant has found himself back at the Diketower taverns, with no understanding of why. Coming from the other direction, during the Fair and on market days you get filled with enthusiasm and excitement.”

  “Not fair at all,” dad chuckled. “You wizards cheat!”

  “That’s the entire purpose of magic,” I agreed. “Our craft subverts the nature of the very cosmos. Thankfully, not all of us are as mercantile as Banamor.”

  Dad nodded, but didn’t comment – he had a low opinion of most merchants, and magical merchants had not been any improvement, from his perspective. Not that Banamor was a cheat – he gave fair value to his customers, else I would have heard of it – but that didn’t mean he wasn’t also a sharp dealer.

  “We’re making pretty good time,” Dad commented, as we emerged from the Enchanted Forest and into Hosendor. The new castle expansion loomed ahead of us, on the right.

  “We will,” I agreed, trying to relax and enjoy the ride. It was interesting, I had to admit, to see Sevendor from this unhurried perspective. “This is an enchanted wain. There are spells all the way through it to reduce or improve friction, maximize pull from the team, and even reduce our apparent mass by about two-thirds. The team’s shoes are enchanted to improve pulling power, their harnesses are enchanted to keep them from tiring early, as well as make them enthusiastic to pull the load quickly and efficiently. Wizards cheat,” I reminded him.

  “That should improve our rate.”

  “By more than double,” I predicted. “And there are . . . other features. I’m sure they’ll come up along the journey. But if all goes well, then we should be outside the barony well before nightfall. And arriving in Sendaria Port tomorrow afternoon. By barge downriver from there, and then up the river to the upper Riverlands, before we’re back on a road, proper, once again.”

  “And your barge is as enchanted as this wain?”

  “I’m the Spellmonger,” I shrugged. “Not using magic just seems . . . pointless.”

  We lapsed into a silence after that, as I watched the scenery roll by. For the most part it was a dramatic improvement over the scenes I’d witnessed from the saddle seven years before, when I’d first come to this region with a deed in my hand and optimism in my heart. Sevendor was to be my experiment to prove that magic in the service of the people could improve the lives of everyone, from noble to villein.

  What I saw was encouraging, even if not all of it could be definitely attributable to magic. The little village had been transformed from a circle of huts no better than the original Sevendor Village into a tiny township with several two-story shops and houses along the modest High Street we rode through. There was only one or two of the old huts left, mostly in the back of the village. It seemed as if most had been made into barns or sheds as the people had improved their homes.

  None of it had been due to magic – it had been due to the village’s proximity to Sevendor. There were three new inns in the village, now, built to sustain the trade caravans that now regularly made their way to my fief. A new temple to Huin was being constructed between the village and the castle on the cliff overhead. The market wasn’t any bigger than Brestal’s, but it now boasted a cobbled court. There were permanent wooden stalls there, too. When I’d arrived seven years ago there hadn’t been anything to it but a mere lot of packed earth. Progress.

  Even the peasant cottages we passed once we were beyond the village were better, on the whole, than they’d been when I’d arrived. Commerce from Sevendor had improved the lots of everyone, it seemed, regardless if they were involved in the magical economy or not. Of course, the further we went from Sevendor, the less you saw that improvement reflected on the countryside around us. By late afternoon, as we were rumbling across the frontier of Kest into Trestendor’s lands, there was little sign of Sevendor’s mark. Not unless you knew where to look.

  We made it as far as Gosset that night, the border of Arathanial’s barony. We stayed at a nice inn, for the most part unrecognized by our fellow travelers. Only the innkeeper knew me, as he had fought with Trestendor as an ally of Sevendor and had been to the domain. A few silver coins and he was happy to not recognize me.

  I wasn’t trying to attract attention, you see. I wanted to slip away, quietly and unnoticed. That was to confound the spies of Prince Tavard, who were sure to report my faithful acceptance of his sentence of exile . . . but I didn’t want to make things easy for them. I was dressed in my brother-in-law’s clothes. As far as anyone knew, we were a baker and his journeyman going about their way on business.

  I’d hidden most of the obvious signs of my true profession. The Magolith was secure in the cart, though it would come to me with a thought. I carried no wands, and had replaced my mage’s hat with a baker’s cap. I didn’t even carry a staff, though if I needed one both Pathfinder and Blizzard were lurking in hoxter pockets in my rings, available to me at a command.

  While evading spies was my primary goal, I also wanted to enjoy a bit of anonymity that the journey afforded. I’d been playing Spellmonger and Magelord so long, it was good to shift my perspective and be just Minalan, son of the best baker in the Riverlands, for a change.

  “I’m gonna miss this country,” Dad admitted, as we settled into our seats for dinner, that evening. No one else had recognized us, thank Briga; the last thing I felt like doing was being the Spellmonger, when I’d been so recently exiled. “The land is good, almost as good as the Burine country. The people are nice. It’s like home, but . . . different.”

  “It’s still the Riverlands,” I shrugged. “It’s more or less the same until you get to Gilmora. Then it just gets more pretentious. On
ce we hit the Wilderlands, you’ll see some differences,” I promised.

  “I never thought I’d see another country,” Dad said, shaking his head in wonder as the innkeeper’s daughter brought a giant venison pie to us, with an earthenware pitcher of ale. “I thought Drexel was the biggest city in the world, when I was a youth.”

  “I’ve seen estates around Castabriel larger than Drexel,” I chuckled. “Farise has slums bigger than that. But I’m going to miss this country, too,” I admitted. “I love the Wilderlands, but there is something . . . settled and civilized about the Riverlands. Less adventure, but more security,” I decided, as I cut into my side of the pie.

  “I’ve had enough of adventure, thank you,” Dad assured me. “I want to see you settled in your new place and then get home to my ovens. The boys have them running, now, but they don’t know how to tend them just right without me.”

  Dad was convinced that no one else could read his two great ovens better than he could, no matter how many times my brothers-in-law had managed to turn out truly superior bread from them without his assistance. If he wasn’t involved in the bake, he always found some fault with the product. It was a matter of common discussion in the family, when Dad wasn’t around.

  “They’ll muddle through,” I promised. “You trained them. Besides, I’m going to want you to set up another oven in Vanador, when we arrive. I don’t trust anyone else to do it.”

  “Just about any master baker could do it, Min,” he sighed. “I’m sure there are a few in . . . Vanador?” he asked, more than said.

  “Vanador,” I assured him. “No, you haven’t heard of it, before. It didn’t really exist before a year ago. In fact, it doesn’t really exist, now. It’s just a couple of rural villages in the middle of the wilderness, at the moment – and a giant refugee camp. And a couple of wizards, to keep everything running.”

  “Wizards just go around conjuring towns, now?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.

  “The ones I know do,” I nodded. “You can blame me for starting the trend. I first heard of the site on the Great March. It’s a big mountain in the middle of a rolling plain, sticking out of the earth at an angle. The locals call it ‘the Anvil’, because it looks like one, kind of. But it’s big and secure enough to hide an entire city, under the overhanging rock. Not quite the kind of castle we’re building in Sevendor, but it should be defensible against dragons.”