Aethersmith (Book 2) (5 page)

“I wish Brannis were not so busy. I know he has an army to
look after now, but at least he doesn't seem bothered by me being a warlock. He
probably has the same feeling: being thrown off a cliff and told to fly,
offending the birds as he plummets past them.” Iridan shook his head.

He poured himself a glass of sweetened wine from a decanter
left for him by his ever-attentive servants. He had dismissed them after arriving
back from his morning practice session. It was only mid afternoon, but it was
his fourth glass. It sped the passing of a long day, and dulled the aches in
his body.

* * * * * * * *

That evening, in a different palace bedchamber, Brannis set
aside his pen and ink, and took up a book entitled
To Anywhere
. After
Kyrus’s test against the Katamic Sea, Brannis felt he might finally be ready to
try learning the transference spell contained within its age-yellowed pages.
Like many of the books from the Circle’s libraries, it had aged well due to
magical means of preservation. Similarly protected, steel would last for entire
eras, and stone was nearly eternal. Paper could be kept for hundreds of summers,
but eventually would need to be rewritten and replaced. Annotations inside the
front cover of the book indicated that it was the third copy of the book, and
the inscription put this copy at over three hundred summers old itself.

Transference was one of the more difficult and dangerous
spells of which sorcerers were widely aware. It literally took two identically
sized chunks of the world, and exchanged them in space. Without special
modifications (and why anyone would wish to further complicate such a spell was
beyond Brannis’s understanding), the chunks of space would both be spherical in
shape, with one centered about the caster, and as large as the sorcerer had
aether to make it.

The latter was one of the most obvious pitfalls of the
spell. The book was nothing if not explicit in its warnings of the perils of the
spell. Should the spell be cast without enough aether to fully surround the
sorcerer, a rather grisly package might end up delivered to some far-flung
destination: whatever chunk of sorcerer was on the inside of the sphere when it
formed.

Another was the matter of where one ended up. As a part of
the spell, the mind would be cast into the aether to find a place for the
companion sphere to form. Traveling the world mentally could be dizzying and
the landscape—rendered all in shades of blue-white aether—would look nothing
like it would in the realm of light. A keen observer would be able to discern
terrain and structures from the way the flow of aether was impeded by them, but
they would not be obvious. Sources would be easy to spot, but without
foreknowledge of to whom a Source belonged , many sorcerers would find it
difficult to distinguish between a man or a woman, let alone identify one
uniquely.

Brannis sighed. If Kyrus ended up missing his mark and
burying himself below a mountain or deep underwater, he would be sorely pressed
to save himself. Too high seemed the safer error, since Kyrus could at least
levitate himself, but Brannis would prefer being no party to that, either.

“Doxlo intuvae menep gahalixviu …”
Brannis began,
reading the chant from the book aloud as he pantomimed the gestures of the
spell as it described them—intricate weavings of the fingers, with little
motion of the rest of the body. The chant was long and tedious, exacting in
pronunciation by the book’s own admission and, above all, dangerous.

Kyrus would have to be very careful in practicing the spell,
lest he injure himself horribly. Brannis, of course, had nothing to worry about
from practice and Kyrus learned nearly as well from Brannis’s work as from his
own.

This is for you, Kyrus. You have earned it many times
over. This is thanks for discovering Jinzan Fehr’s plot and for forcing him to
barter my life for his counterpart’s own in your world. Thank you for letting
me feel what it is like to use magic. And thank you for paying attention when
your grandfather read you
Captain Erasmus and His Flying Ship.

Brannis paused at the end of his third run-through of the
transference spell chant, and looked at the papers he had set neatly aside
prior to resuming his magical studies. Below a fanciful sketch of a sailing
ship with feathered wings were pages of diagrams and annotations showing how
and where wards ought to be carved to turn one of Kadrin’s warships into an
airship.

Chapter 4 - Traderous Intent

“As you see, sirs, this device is unlike any catapult or
trebuchet,” Jinzan said, gesturing to the gleaming brass cannon that sat in the
grand foyer of his palatial home.

Gathered around him were a large number of men and women in
various cultural dress. Dignitaries from all the far-flung lands that had
shores upon the Aliani Sea had come to see Jinzan Fehr’s great siege engine.
They crowded around, jostling with unbecoming familiarity to get close enough
to touch the strange weapon.

The cannon was of Acardian design, though Jinzan took full
credit himself; none of those present were aware of the other world, as best he
knew, and he enjoyed being thought a genius of destruction.

“It does all your missive said? It looks puny. I had hoped
to see more,” one guest said, a dark-skinned elder with thinning white hair who
was a general in Narrack’s army. He regarded the cannon with a skeptical eye.

“I assure you,” Jinzan began, reaching over to a small table
that held the remaining three cannonballs he had salvaged during his escape
from Raynesdark and picking one up in his hand. The iron ball was engraved with
simple runes to help it penetrate wards and to keep its shape after impact. It
filled Jinzan’s hand and weighed a bit more than two gallons. “This is going to
fly from the open end with a speed twice that of a loosed arrow. I do not ask
you to take this claim on faith. The demonstration this afternoon will prove
its capabilities.”

Jinzan allowed the group to gawk and paw at the cannon for a
time, and he answered their questions and smiled more than he was accustomed
to, acting like the merchant he supposed he had become. Megrenn was wealthy, in
a peculiar sort of way. Despite few resources of their own, goods came into
their ports at one price and left at another, with the difference ending up in Megrenn
coffers. So many ships and caravans passed through that there was enough to
keep the Megrenn citizenry fed, clothed, and supplied with luxuries that made
life better …

… like steel swords, mercenaries, and ferocious beasts, to
finally repay the Kadrin Empire for their long winters of occupation. The
Freedom War had put Megrenn far into debt, but those debts had been repaid. If
the war to overthrow Kadrin dominance of Koriah was to succeed, they needed the
coin to buy all those things they needed.

Jinzan was a sorcerer of great standing among his people,
and his counterpart in the other world was a pirate. He was no merchant to
haggle, barter and wheedle, eking each copper coin out of a deal. He was
accustomed to taking what he wished, or having it given to him. But his people
needed him, and he had reluctantly agreed to act the part, since no one else
knew how the cannons worked as well as he did. He had scant gunpowder left and
only the three cannonballs, durable though they might be. There had been only
one other demonstration since his return from Raynesdark, for the rest of the
Megrenn High Council. That demonstration had led to the missive that had been
sent to all Megrenn’s allies and trading partners.

They needed craftsmen, materials, and buyers for the
finished weapons.

Jinzan hated seeing the things proliferate in his own world,
but it seemed necessary to gain the cooperation of so many nations. In times of
war, profiteering was a tradition, if not a noble or revered one. Soon Megrenn
would find that fewer ships were willing to brave their ports, and the price of
bringing goods to their wharves would increase. Some would blame the increased
risk they faced, others the increase in demand for their goods. Some would go
so far as to admit the real reason: “because you need it so badly that you will
pay whatever we ask.”

They were not so far gone yet. With only preparations
underway for the main offensive, Zorren was not deemed to be a war zone by
their merchant friends. That would change with the season. As the weather
warmed to the south, in Kadrin’s less forgiving climate, Megrenn would be free
to bring their heavy cavalry to bear. The warm-weather beasts they had imported
were ill suited to Kadrin in winter, but with the spring thaw, the balance of power
would shift heavily to their favor. However, with the advancing of their war
plans, the cost of doing business with the outside world would rise. Kadrin was
a paltry naval power, but they had warships, and trading with Megrenn would put
ships at risk of predation by them. Despite how little risk they actually took,
merchants would still use the excuse to drive up their prices.

Jinzan was a sorcerer of fire, water, wind, and stone. The
Megrenn High Council counted among their members a man named Varduk Steelraven.
Varduk was a sorcerer of coins. Folk said that he could sell a man a gold
hex—the six-sided coins the Megrenn mint turned out, along with silver squares
and copper circles—and charge him two hexes for it. As minister of finance,
Varduk had been responsible for Megrenn’s economic success. He set taxes,
tariffs, duties, and a hundred other means of controlling the flow of money. He
worked coins like an expert glassworker, slowly and methodically forming a
bubble of molten glass, shaping it to his vision, and sure-handedly skirting
the edge of ruining his piece without ever doing so. It was the same with coin.
Men saw what Varduk did and tried to emulate him, but always they were missing
something: a deftness of hand, a keenness of timing, and the understanding of
the roots of why men spent their coin or did not.

Varduk had seen the demonstration of the cannon and saw it
not as a specially formed piece of cast bronze, but as a rather large pile of
gold hexes. He had been the one who saw victory embodied in the cannon’s
novelty and utility. Jinzan was asked to sell its virtues to the visiting
dignitaries and make them wish to own them. Jinzan was a patriot, and he hated
the Kadrins as much as any of the Council. With some trepidation, he was
persuaded to play the role of a street hawker.

“What price will you ask for these?” asked one of the more
practically minded of the visitors.

“Ten thousand gold hexes and after the demonstration, you
will consider it a bargain,” Varduk spoke up from the back of the assembly,
where he had been waiting to chime in once the discussion inevitably turned
from show-and-tell to buy-and-sell.

* * * * * * * *

The Fehr Estate had extensive gardens with lush green grass.
Fruit trees and flower beds were scattered about in whimsical arrays, with
trellis-covered walkways wending their way throughout.

The assemblage of foreign allies was congregated at one end
of the vast central lawn, clustered on the breech side of the cannon. They had
already taken a brief walk to inspect the mortared stone wall that had been
built some three hundred paces distant. A trio of foreign-born sorcerers had
been hired to inspect the cannon, the wall, and all the accoutrements that went
along with the demonstration and to verify that there was no magic at work.

It had amused Jinzan to watch old men leaning against the
wall with their shoulders and rapping soundly at it with walking canes.
You
are the ones here to buy. You need convince none but yourselves. Perhaps as
youths you might have truly tested the wall with such efforts, but you could
not have toppled a wall of loose bricks.

When everyone was settled into their seats in a great
semicircle, with no line of sight to the target obscured, Jinzan went through
the process of loading and readying the cannon. He was grateful to the goblin
tinkers who had improved on the Acardian design when they made it. The
pull-chain mechanism that sparked the powder was something he never would have
thought of, and it made for a more predictable demonstration than lighting the
cannon with a brand would.

“Honored guests, the moment you have all journeyed here to
see. I give you the Fehr Cannon,” Jinzan announced grandly, flourishing with
his left hand as the right gripped the pull chain, facing his audience and not
the target. With a quick motion, he tugged the chain.

Kthooom!

There were screams of surprise as the shock wave of sound
tore through the spectators. Jinzan had given them no warning of the sound it
would make: a deep, sonorous cracking that shattered the very air.
Battle-hardened veterans had heard the blasts of arcane magic that some
sorcerers used in battle, but those were a kitten’s whisper when held against
the sound of a cannon’s report from three paces away.

Those steel-nerved enough to have kept their vision
downfield on the target saw nothing of the projectile that flew from it, only
its impact a heartbeat after the report. A great cloud of dust obscured the
wall immediately, but as the wind slowly parted the stony curtain of debris,
the wall could be seen to be in a sorry state. An arm’s length thick, twice the
height of a man and four times as wide, a massive chunk was missing, turned to
rubble and dust, with the larger chunks presumably having fallen on the far
side.

As the assemblage gaped at the stricken wall, Jinzan was
already at work cleaning the bore. He did all the work manually so that none
could accuse him of altering the cannon’s performance through the use of magic
even for something so simple as cleaning the gun. He also wished them to see how
quickly it could fire a second shot. Once he had cleared the bore and reloaded
it with powder, wadding, and one of the remaining two shots, he nudged the
cannon’s aim over just a fraction.

Taking up the chain once again, he deigned to issue a
warning: “You may wish to guard your ears. It gets no quieter than the last.”
And with that, Jinzan pulled the chain again, wincing as he thought of the
damage that was being done to his gardens.

Kthooom!

Jinzan knew enough of the showman’s trade to understand that
you do not demonstrate something against a challenging target. Build something
impressive enough, but leave enough room for the result to be spectacular. The
wall had stopped neither of the shots, and no doubt the cannonballs were now
lying in some devastated flower bed.

“If you all will be so kind as to follow me, we shall have a
look at the damage that we have wrought.” Jinzan stooped to pick up the one
remaining cannonball. “And we also have a bit of a puzzle ahead of us.
Somewhere in the gardens, there are two more of these. Familiarize yourselves
with the look of them, and let us see about finding where they have gone.”

Jinzan then passed the cannonball around, and let everyone
have a turn examining it. He had little doubt the shots would be easy enough to
find; it was just more showmanship. Let them see the cannonball, and wonder
that such a small thing had caused so much havoc.

At the head of the assembly as they walked down toward the
wall, Jinzan smirked.

* * * * * * * *

That same evening, after the various foreigners had departed
with dreams of cannons in their eyes, Jinzan sat on his own terrace with a
glass of Halaigh wine in his hand. He was accompanied by Varduk Steelraven and
his wife Tuleen, as well as his own three wives, Nakah, Frenna, and Zaischelle.
It was a small, reserved celebration of a great many promising deals ahead with
the trade nations of the Aliani Sea.

They dressed warmly against the cool evening air, but the
smell of the nearby sea made it pleasant despite a bit of chill. Down below in
the gardens, Jinzan’s children played with Varduk’s. The children laughed and
shouted, making the palatial estate feel homey rather than intimidating. Of all
the sounds that Jinzan associated with Zorren, it was the one he had missed the
most during his time away among the goblins.

“Listen to them down there,” Jinzan remarked. “Did we make
such riots at their age? I think not.”

“Perhaps we did, and do not remember,” Varduk answered. The
black-bearded mercantile genius had known Jinzan for over twenty winters, when
they had fought together in the Freedom War. There were few men in the world
Jinzan knew or trusted so well.

“I think not. I think we laughed and shouted, true, but
those are the sounds of freeborn children, who have never lived under Kadrin
rule,” Jinzan said. “There is no fear in them. There are no secrets to keep.
Should any man take issue with their manner of dress or how they address some
soldier, a magistrate will stand between them and brutal punishment, not some
Kadrin lord. They could never tell you the difference themselves, but I hear
it.”

“Jinzan, you should drink more often. We can make a poet of
you yet if you loosen your tongue more often,” teased Nakah, Jinzan’s second
wife.

With the population of able-bodied men vastly depleted by
the Freedom War, the Megrenn High Council had decreed that men might take two
wives each, except for the Liberators. The Liberators were the heroes of the
rebellion, and might take as many wives as they could find women who would have
them. Despite their hatred for their Kadrin oppressors, they had learned the
lesson that strong blood begets strong blood. Nakah Fehr was born in the
faraway Painu Islands. Her father had been one of the merchant princes who
threw in with the Megrenn when it seemed clear they would win their freedom. He
had offered his eldest daughter as a gift to strengthen relations between Painu
and Megrenn. Nakah had skin the color of walnut wood, with striking green eyes
like a cat’s, which stood out from her dark skin. In the sixteen summers since,
she had barely aged in Jinzan’s eyes.

“As you prefer,” Jinzan replied, taking a large swallow from
his glass, drawing a chuckle from his companions.

“What will the world be like, once Kadrin surrenders?” asked
Tuleen Steelraven, a plump woman who ran a third of Varduk’s trading empire for
him. She had been a beauty in her youth, but traded the primping and preening
of her vapid contemporaries for a life of ledgers and business dealings after
her marriage. She loved her husband for teaching her his trade rather than
expecting her to just tend to babes and look pretty.