The Road To Vanador

by Terry Mancour

  Dad chuckled at that. Living in Sevendor for nearly two years, he’d seen what men like Lorcus, Terleman, and Azar could do.

  “That is . . . acceptable,” he said, trying to conceal his eagerness.

  “Be warned, there might not be many places to spend your wages,” I added. “Vanador is more refugee camp than town, at the moment. The Baroness is still importing grain to feed everyone. The local economy has utterly collapsed since the invasion, and conditions are going to be primitive for some time.”

  “As long as there is a tavern, I should be fine,” he dismissed. I could see in his eyes that his mind was already working furiously. “Is there any way we could delay our departure tomorrow for a few hours? If I am to take this commission, there are some supplies that I should secure before plunging into the wilderness, and it sounds as if Vorone might be the very last stop in which to find them. Oh, and I will have to register as your advocate with the Temple, if you want me to be able to work in your name,” he added. “But that will have to be in the morning. The Temple is closed, right now.”

  “We can delay until noon,” I agreed, as I summoned a small purse with about five ounces of silver in it from a hoxter pocket. I had dozens of purses like that, in various denominations, ready to conjure at a moment’s notice. I pushed it over to the monk. “That should cover fees and supplies. Stock up on ink, too,” I added. “From what I understand, while you can get decent parchment and quills aplenty in Vanador, such luxuries as ink are rare, yet.”

  The lawbrother took the purse like it was irionite, and held it up to the light, weighing it in his palm. “You’re serious, then. You’re actually offering me a job as your advocate and adjunct.”

  “That’s what he’s been jawing about for the last twenty minutes,” my father assured. “Take the damn job and be happy about it, Bryte!” he instructed. “Trust your god, for once.”

  “I will,” he agreed, though I could tell he still harbored doubts. “I’m certain you’ll sack me, before long, out of blatant incompetence, but even a few weeks as a count’s advocate will appear impressive on my Legacy papers.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about Min sacking you,” my father assured the monk. “He employs a righteous number of fools, back in Sevendor. Not all of them are even human. He’s too lazy to let them go. I’m sure you’ll fit right in.”

  I shot Dad a nasty look but otherwise ignored the jibe. He wasn’t wrong. Just impolite.

  “Then it appears I have a lawyer,” I smiled, instead. “Welcome to my court, Brother Bryte. I have no doubt it will be a fascinating experience for the both of us.”

  Part Seven

  The Corpse Of Tudry

  “From here, things get rough,” I warned Dad and Bryte, as we departed the northern gates of Vorone. “The terrain gets rocky, the hills are taller, and the rivers are all but unnavigable. The roads are abysmal,” I said, though the track we were following had been well-maintained – part of Pentandra’s efforts at public works projects for Vorone, I figured. “Barring weather delays, bandits, or goblin attack, we should be in Vanador within the week.”

  “You make my new posting sound so charming,” Bryte complained.

  “The scenery is nice,” I offered. “Beautiful, in fact. It abounds in resources,” I lectured. “Iron and coal deposits, copper, even a little gold. Miles and miles of forests, broad meadows, and brooks filled with fish. And all the women have well-formed legs,” I added, with a smirk. “Because everywhere you walk is uphill.”

  “Min hiked the lot of it, a few years ago,” Dad said, with reluctant admiration. “Took a few thousand kids to safety in Castal. I took a hand in that,” he added. “Baked for all of them, all summer long.”

  “That rabble of children who came near Wilderhall a few years ago?” Bryte asked in surprise. “I was handling a case around there, I recall. You were involved with that? You upset the locals,” he reproved. “Some wanted to call the banners and drive them off.”

  “Prince Tavard wasn’t keen on it, either. That’s when my troubles with him started, I think.”

  “You travel in interesting circles, Excellency,” Bryte said, shaking his head. “Sometimes I think I’m still tied to that tree, descending into madness before I freeze to death.” He reflected, for a few moments, as the wagon rolled through the village to the north of Vorone. “It is a strange coincidence, though. After that commotion with the children, I took a few days and went to see an oracular nun – Temple of Briga, of all things, way in the north country. I had to deliver a summons, anyway, but while I was there I stopped and paid my professional respects.

  “It seems the old girl could tell a man what he’d be best suited to become, in life. An intriguing idea for an ordinary man, but for a lawbrother it holds particular excitement . . . for I do not know a single colleague who does not regularly doubt the path Luin’s staff has drawn for him. Indeed, it is a common refrain, in temple circles.”

  “Is there a point to this story?” Dad asked, impatiently.

  “Of course,” Bryte continued, ignoring Dad’s manner. “When it was my turn to see the Flamesister, she took one look at me and . . . well, she had a bit of a shudder. A full body shudder, from the top of her wimple to the soles of her boots. Then she looks me dead in the eye and tells me that I am best suited to be a Lawgiver, and to the West my fate and fortune lay.”

  “Aren’t you a Lawgiver?” Dad asked, confused.

  “Oh, no, no,” Bryte said, with a wry laugh. “Sorry, it’s a technical term. I am a Lawbrother,” he explained. “It is my calling to know and argue the law on behalf of my clients. A Lawfather sits in judgement of those arguments. The law we know and argue is established, by divine write, executive edict, precedent, or custom.

  “But every lexit learns how, at certain times in history, a scholar comes forth who has the rare opportunity to formulate law from scratch, as Luin did: a Lawgiver. It’s a rare occurrence, but they tend to be decisive and important events. Like the Charter that ruled Perwyn before the Magocracy, or the Edicts of Gamerlain that ordered the Late Magocracy after Perwyn sank. The Code of Cormeer was established by a great Lawgiver, Victor of Costasol, and . . . well, there are a few more examples. But it hasn’t happened, really, since the Conquest, when the King’s priest of Luin, the Venerable Darklaven, codified the King’s Law that ruled over the conquered.”

  “Briga’s biscuits, do you fellows get paid by the word?” Dad demanded.

  “Dear Luin, would that not make my fortune?” Bryte retorted. “My point is, I thought the nun was lapsing into senility with her prediction. A Lawgiver? It would be as if she said you could become Archmage, or that you could become . . . whatever the ultimate example of the baking arts is,” he shrugged. “It was a fantasy,” he pronounced. “A laughable, terrible, humiliating comic jibe from the rest of the universe. As if Luin, Himself, was taking a piss on my head and was telling me it was raining. A Lawgiver! Really, it was just madness. I tipped her a penny and got the hell out, and sulked all the way back to Wilderhall. The gods were mocking me.”

  “Yet, here you are, in the West,” I observed. “Surely that gives you pause.”

  “It’s an ironic coincidence, I’ll grant you that,” Brother Bryte countered. “My friends, enemies, and professional colleagues have oft predicted a variety of sad outcomes to my life. Becoming a Lawgiver was not among them, to my knowledge. ‘Wastrel’ and ‘drunkard’ usually top the list.”

  “The ways of the gods are mysterious,” Dad dismissed. “A man can drive himself mad, trying to understand them.”

  “I should probably leave that to the contemplative orders,” Bryte agreed, reluctantly. “To be honest, it makes me morose to think about such things. And when I’m morose, I drink.” He pulled a bottle of spirits from his satchel and took a sip.

  “Are you feeling morose, now?” Dad asked.

  “No, I’m feeling bored,” Bryte countered. “I’m in the back of a wagon like a sack of potatoes being carted off to market. I�
�m going to be spending a week watching where we’ve been, punctuated by an endless trail of horse droppings. Which will lead me to contemplating my past and my future, which will lead me to regrets and recriminations. That, my friend, is what will make me morose. Being drunk for that is just good planning.”

  “Do you really need a lawbrother?” Dad asked, skeptically, in a quiet voice.

  “They’re all the fashion,” I nodded. “Besides, it will keep me from doing that sort of thing, when I have plenty of other things that require my attention. If it doesn’t work out, I’m a count. I can always return him to the tree.”

  “Good point,” Dad conceded.

  That final stretch up through the heart of the Wilderlands put a strain on the team, as it always does. The roads were even more abysmal than I remembered, often declining in quality to the point of a single narrow track that was barely visible in the snow. About the time that we left the immediate precincts of Vorone, the drifts along the roadside conspired to cover it completely, making our wheels slip and slide. That didn’t make the horses any happier.

  We stopped at the edge of the first great stretch of forest and I took the time to transform the wheels. I had planned on this – or, rather, Master Andalnam’s enchanters had. The wain came with an enchantment that tucked all four wheels away into hoxter pockets, replacing them with sleigh rails. After that, our progress improved dramatically, and the horses were far less concerned about unexpected torque on their harness.

  Though we had left Vorone only recently, the landscape around us was nearly deserted, with far fewer villages along the route than one would expect for a such a large city. True, the region north of Vorone is the least fertile and most rugged of the surrounding territory, but even taking that into account there was still a dearth of settlement, there.

  The next day we came to the ruins of Tudry, and I could see why.

  “Well, we are officially within the frontiers of my realm,” I sighed, as I looked at the long, blackened expanse that was once a squalid little town after pulling the team to a stop. “Welcome to the Magelaw.”

  “Luin’s staff!” Brother Bryte gasped, drunkenly, from the back of the wagon. “What happened here?”

  “That was a town called Tudry. I burned it. Or, had it burned,” I conceded. “Most of the Tudrymen relocated to a safer location. Your new post of Vanador.”

  “By the Flame that Burneth Bright, Min,” Dad swore, uncharacteristically, “you ordered that town burned?”

  “It was necessary for the prosecution of the war,” I insisted. “Tudry was becoming untenable. It was expensive. And it was a poor fortification, at best. Astyral did wonders, while he ruled it, but in the end, it made more sense to raze it and start anew.”

  “So . . . my new boss burns down entire towns,” Brother Bryte, said to himself. “That is good information to have.”

  For some reason, despite all the evidence that I was, indeed, a powerful noble and the most potent wizard in the world, despite having witnessed wonders in Sevendor, up to and including me fighting a dragon, I don’t think Dad really understood what I did until he saw the long, burned-out stretch of Tudry. The weeds and even trees had begun to overtake its outer precincts.

  But seeing hundreds of homes, houses of men just like him, burned to a crisp at his son’s command, for some reason that sent home a sobering realization to Dad. I had made this destruction happen. I may have mitigated the way in which it was done, and assured that all within had been relocated before the act, but Minalan the Spellmonger was the one who had taken this century-old town and put it to the torch.

  That affected Dad, for some reason, impressing him in ways that my gleaming white castle or my giant falcons didn’t. Before he saw Tudry I was his son, the fool wizard. After Tudry, he understood the grave responsibilities I’d had to shoulder along the way perhaps a bit more. It shook him.

  “An entire town,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “Tudry was far from the only town to fall in the war,” I soothed. “Just the most recent. Nandine, Sarsguard, Glandon Town, Mardine, just about every town and village of any size that was within reach of the gurvani fell. Tudry was the exception, and only because I rescued it.”

  “And then burned it to the ground,” Bryte said.

  “Not for a few years,” I explained. “But we held them at Tudry, and that allowed us to keep the roads to the north more or less open. But it was poorly situated and not designed for the kind of fight we face. When the time came, burning it was the wise thing to do.”

  “That’s a lot of houses, Min,” Dad said, his expression clouded.

  “And the people who lived there have new houses, now, or are building them. In Vanador. They’d not be there, if I hadn’t done what I did. I had to make some hard choices, Dad. Sometimes you have to burn down a town to save the people in it.”

  “But why did you have to make that decision?” he asked, sourly.

  “Because I’m the one whom the gods decided would make it!” I said, a little exasperated. “No one else would make it, and it had to be made. I’ve made better decisions, but I’ve made worse, too. A lot of people lived in Tudry. A lot of people from Tudry now live in Vanador. It’s unfortunate we had to sacrifice the town, but those are the fortunes of war.”

  “That’s not the kind of life I wanted for you, Min,” Dad said, seriously, as if he was realizing what I’d done in my career for the first time. “No man should be forced to do that.”

  “I wasn’t forced. It was a calculated ploy. One I gave a lot of thought to. And one of my more successful plans,” I added. “Thousands of goblins died in that fire, and in the battle. It was a success.”

  “If that’s your idea of a success, boy, I don’t want to see you fail,” Dad said, urging the horses forward past the ruins.

  It stung, a little, to hear Dad’s disapproval after the relatively good journey we’d enjoyed. Certainly, I was used to his skepticism about my profession in general, and his amusement with my being ennobled, and running my own estate. Brilliant magelights, heatstones, and magic spells, civic functions and aristocratic behavior were things he could understand.

  But when Dad saw the result of my tenure as a soldier, and a commander of soldiers, it changed his perspective. He was silent for miles and miles, to the point where even drunken Bryte noted it. He eyed every burned-out hovel we passed with new appreciation, after that. Not just for the horrific destructive power of the foe I’d fought, but for the brutal places that fight had dragged me. Dad was a peaceful man, unafraid to fight but not inclined to. He’d never had to stand under orders while unfriendly people tried to kill him. He’d never killed another man, to my knowledge.

  To see that his son had been required to all of those awful things bruised his sense of the world, I think. Not only was the danger from the goblins now more real to his mind, but the understanding of what a man had to do to himself to meet that danger also haunted him. I had ordered men to their deaths and had commanded towns to be razed. I was not just his slightly-goofy son the wizard, anymore in his mind, I was someone who could alter the fortunes of men whose names I didn’t even know. That was a responsibility far beyond his understanding of the world, and I think Dad suffered from it.

  “What happened?” Brother Bryte asked me, bluntly, when we stopped at a ford to water the horses and stretch our legs. “Your father isn’t his usual self. He’s brooding. I am of only short acquaintance with the man, but my keen jurist’s eye for detail tells me that something is bothering him.”

  “He’s just experiencing some . . . readjustment to his perspective,” I suggested.

  “That was needlessly obscure,” Bryte observed, after a moment’s consideration.

  “It was meant to be,” I affirmed, as I lit my pipe. “His thoughts are his to keep. But if I had to guess, I would say that he’s starting to see that my life hasn’t been all thrilling adventure and amusing magical spells. I learned how to bear that burden long ago. He’s see
ing it for the first time.”

  “He’s a good man,” Bryte pronounced. “A bit stubborn, but most artisans are. It’s been interesting, watching you two, in the context of my own sire.”

  “And your conclusions, Counselor?”

  “My sire sings better,” Brother Bryte decided. “Beyond that, yours is superior in all other ways.”

  Dad did, eventually, come out of his brood, and I largely have Azar to credit for that, of all people. We had come to the outskirts of Megelin Castle, near twilight, where my friend met us in a tavern in the castle’s village with an honor guard of his men.

  He was as pleased as Forandal and Astyral were to see me, and even more deferential to me and my authority. Azar has a way of improving his own status by admiring others, and I was one of his favorite points of social leverage. He feasted us heartily in that tavern, and spent all night telling thrilling tales of our battles in the Wilderlands, in Farise, against the dragon in Vorone and in the terrors of Olum Seheri.

  Dad wasn’t any more impressed with the glories of war as he’d ever been, though he appreciated the humor in some of Azar’s tales. But he listened to each one more thoughtfully, now, alert for those stories in which he could catch a glimpse of my own moral struggles along the way. Thankfully, Azar’s stories were scant with those sorts of examples. But there were a few places where he raised one of Dad’s eyebrows.

  It wasn’t anything in particular Azar said, I think; in retrospect, I believe that Dad was affected by the contrast between my warlike friend and me. Azar seemed to fulfill all of Dad’s requirements of a ruthless noble, unconcerned with casual violence or unintended casualties. The way Azar sees battle and war involves single-minded determination, a fostering of naked will and resolve that is so strong as to be unstoppable. Defeating the enemy was the only valid consideration to any course of action. That’s apparent from the moment you meet the man. It’s what makes him so good at being a warmage: the development of that level of determination is not only essential in professional warfare, it was just as indispensable for high-level magic.