Enchanter (Book 7) (20 page)

I was glad most of my noble guests had been quick to leave after the fair – their tastes were expensive, and it ate into my profits.  But nearly every yeomanry had seen a dramatic jump in revenues, from the fees paid to Sagal for his stately halls at Southridge to the coin the Tal Alon made selling smoking herbs at the fair.  That was in addition to all the coin the Tal made individually performing service functions.  Hollyburrow was rapidly becoming one of my more prosperous estates.

That was a lot of coin, and that made people happy.  Sagal was planning on expanding his holdings with another guest hall, and so was Jurlor, they revealed at the harvest feast.  The Westwood was enjoying tremendous prosperity, thanks to the revenues they gained from Caolan’s Pass, and Boval Village was thriving.  While Brestal had been more removed from the center of commerce, it, too, had seen a rise in its fortunes, as wizards and traders who wished to be proximate to Sevendor, yet wished to avoid the increasing prices there, found affordable, if modest accommodations in Sevendor’s other vale. 

Even Gurisham was enjoying a prosperity unheard-of among villeins.  Most now lived in longhomes like freemen, and Guris, the Bovali headman of the commune, had invested wisely in the village’s infrastructure without enriching himself.  Now that they were using magic to aid in the ploughing, mowing, and harvesting, the villeins of Gurisham had far more time and energy to focus on their own modest village, instead of my crops. 

That produced a bit of a problem, as the village’s economy was dependent upon how much work a villein owed to the lord’s demesne, and how much was dedicated to their own.  Technically every man in Gurisham owed service to me, but when the plowing and haying that used to take days was now done in hours, that left a lot more time owed than was necessary.  That led to peasants showing up to magically-harvested fields and standing around all day, in fulfillment of their service.

That’s never good.

The problem was that the villeins were committed to their service duties, even if a renegotiation might mean less work.  Until I could figure out how to right the system permanently, I had Guris detail the loitering villeins to re-construct the road between Boval and Sevendor Town.  We had enough traffic to justify cobbling the entire way, now, and it gave them something to do.  As autumn swept in crews of the Gurisham folk could be seen carting wheelbarrows full of cobbles from the river, and digging at the low spots with good iron shovels.  No doubt they were reconsidering the wonder of a magical harvest by then.

At least we spared them the tiresome labor of shoveling the way clear of snow that winter.  Once the cobbles were laid (and we constructed some, when the supply from the Ketta ran low, with an enchantment similar to the Bricking Wand.  Instead of breaking a goodly-sized rectangular brick out of a stone, however, the Cobbling Wand smoothed the top edges while leaving the bottom square and easier to fit into a roadbed.) I enchanted the entire route myself, creating a low-level thermomantic spell that wouldn’t allow the cobbles to fall below freezing, melting the snow as it fell.  It worked splendidly, too.

That autumn was noteworthy for other events, namely the dedication of the grist mill by our local priest of Huin the Tiller, and its subsequent operation.  That allowed us to grind our own grain in bulk.  That meant cheaper flour when wheat and barley began to flow from our harvest.

That, of course, complemented the construction of Dad’s new bakery.  Sevendor’s population had grown well large enough to sustain it – Sevendor Town now dwarfed Talry-on-Burine in populace, and there was the castle to feed as well.  If my entire family went into exile because of me, the least I could do was facilitate a model bakery right outside my castle door. 

I let Dad pick the site – a four-acre parcel directly on the market square, backing up to the growing Temple of Briga, of course.  He and his apprentices oversaw the construction of the great oven, the workshops, and the hall where they would eventually live and work right after the Fair.  By Luin’s Day the priestess of Briga who had been appointed to the temple lit the ceremonial first fire in the oven and we started having bread –
real
bread – again.

All of these little projects were, of course, secondary to my main purpose.  The Bouleuterion was building a team of enchanters the likes of which the world had never seen.  If I was going to be confined to my own lands while the Prince sulked, I was going to make the most of it.  If I couldn’t leave Sevendor to visit my colleagues, I was making the rest of the magical world come to
me.

I already had a good core of folk who had lingered after the Fair.  Taren was staying for a while, he said, and took rooms at the Chapterhouse.  Rael and her father, Andalnam, put aside their personal differences and devoted their winter to assisting my projects, enthusiastic about the opportunity.  Both Lanse of Bune and Master Cormoran agreed to come stay at Sevendor with their households for the winter – I arranged for them to take a hall at Southridge, now that the Fair was over.  Master Guri and Grandmaster Azhguri were at my disposal, even as the excavation of the first hall of the mountain was well under way.

Then there was Master Ulin, the enchanter I’d asked to stay and take my service.  He had been poring through our library at the Court Wizard’s tower and waiting to be of use.  Planus, who was a fair enchanter in his own right, agreed to stay through Yule, and of course I had Dranus to help.  While enchanting wasn’t his specialty, he was eager to learn and appreciative of the opportunity he had.

The Spellmonger was going to do some experimenting.  He wanted to be part of that.

I called or summoned others – some specialists, some generalists, some academic theorists in particular areas.  Others I communicated with, mind-to-mind or over the Mirror.  Our warehouses were filled with materials, our schedules were free from wars and missions, and – damn it! – I felt like
building
things.

It took my mind off of my other failures.

*

*

The day after Luin’s Day, I convened a meeting of my crew in Dranus’ tower.  The old crumbling fortification on the outer wall had been upfitted dramatically since he’d taken residence.  The lower room was now well-appointed with chairs, couches, and tables.  He’d hung fine Remeran tapestries on the walls and prepared a few bottles of wine to help the conversation.  It barely looked like an archaic, drafty old tower.

I’d limited the initial guests to those whose opinions and confidence I trusted the most.  Taren, Guri, Ulin, Planus, Andalnam, and Rael.

“My goal,” I announced, after we had a cup, a pipe and a few minutes chatting, “will be to push the frontiers of enchantment ahead dramatically.  My experience with the Grain of Pors this summer has led me to new ideas about the subject.  Imbuing objects with self-awareness, for instance.”

“That seems a dangerous pursuit, Minalan,” Planus said, with uncharacteristic concern.  “Why would one want to do such a thing?”

“Many reasons,” Taren said, studiously.  “Giving an enchantment independent agency, for one thing.  Allowing independent action without supervision.”

“But I do not think we are speaking of the simple mechanisms of elementals,” Andalnam said, reasonably.  “Are we?”

“No.  The Grain of Pors is a bit of a substance the Alka Alon call Ghost Rock,” I explained.  “We didn’t discover that until recently.  But Ghost Rock has the ability to absorb and recall the enneagrammatic pattern of any being it touches.  A magical record of your self-awareness, if you will.  The Grain is ancient, and possesses the patterns of thousands and thousands of bizarre and unusual creatures, long extinct from this world.  A skilled thaumaturge can take an impression of the enneagram and transfer it to an object. An adept enchanter can harness it to a complex enchantment as a paraclete.”

Taren picked up the explanation enthusiastically.  “Once it’s mounted in an object, you can affix relays to various elements in the enneagram for sensation and manipulation.  Its delicate work, but the results are incredible.  Just ask the poor magi who faced the constructs at the Trial,” he said, smugly.

“I understand the utility,” agree Planus, “it’s the wisdom of unleashing a long-dead beast on the world I question.”

“It’s actually pretty well controlled, as you’ll see,” I promised. “It has only as much power as you give it.  But there is definitely an art to selecting the right enneagram, and it’s an art we are making up as we go along.  That’s one reason why I want to do this.  For the last four hundred years the art of enchantment has stagnated, and been consigned to mere theory or repetition of well-known spells.  I want to advance the art as much as we can.  Using the Grain of Pors to add sophistication to some of the greater spells is a step down that road.  As is using ironite to power them.  And snowstone can make them dramatically more efficient.  But if we do not take this chance to experiment, then we will have squandered a golden opportunity.”

“I am all for pushing the art,” Planus said, shaking his head, “I just propose doing so with all due wisdom and caution.”

“That’s hardly conducive to experimentation,” said young Rael.

“What course do you propose, Baron?” asked Andalnam, politely, before his daughter could embarrass him.

“Banamor and I have been talking, I explained. “We’re going to begin with the smaller enchantments, like the heatstones and such,” I decided.  “Turning laboratory work into industry means profit, and where there is profit there is incentive.  But we will be continually advancing and refining along the way.  And recording everything.  Then we’ll move up to more sophisticated works, general-purpose thaumaturgical tools and enchantments-of-power.  Things like Pentandra’s baculus.”

“I rather covet that,” admitted Planus.  “My cousin is a very lucky woman.”

“That’s the gossip around the Guild,” murmured Rael, her eyes twinkling.  “You could hear them all the way—”

“Was that a difficult tool to construct, Baron?” Andalnam interrupted, without looking at his daughter.

“Not as bad as you might think,” I said.  “Of course I was starting with the rod I liberated from Lady Mask, in the Penumbra.  Not bad work, though I removed the original enchantments.  But with the use of the pocketstone and the other tools we’ve developed, improving it mostly took time and consideration, not power.”

“I would like to craft a similar tool, designed for thaumaturgical use,” Andalnam proposed.  “I have several independent tools that I use in my work, but it seems that having them all in one place would be convenient.”

“That’s exactly the sort of thing I want to do.  Master Ulin and I have been talking, too – fascinating discussions, he’s a real scholar on the history of enchantment – and it’s clear to me that though this is one of the ways in which magi are best able to project their power in useful ways, there hasn’t been a comprehensive effort to invest in the process or the techniques in any meaningful way since the Middle Magocracy. 

“So we’re going to start by building the tools we need – tools to make tools – and that includes a lot of things like the thaumaturgical baculus.  Like a smith building his own tools before he forges anything else, we will use what we learn this winter to rise to even greater levels of enchantment.  That is the purpose of this Bouleuterion.”

“That’s going to be problematic, politically,” Dranus pointed out, helpfully.  “There is already a great deal of animosity toward magi building among the nobility, as the novelty of our risen estate wears off.  Tales of that bloody march are all over the kingdom, now.  And it has been noted that no modern Magelord has yet to lose a contest with a neighbor in war.  A sudden display of arcane power could quickly turn into political conflict.”

“Easily,” Andalnam agreed.  “Even among the artisans there is sudden resentment over our recent fortunes.  The chandlers’ guild has been protesting my shop to the town council for selling light wands to the public, though that is clearly within my charter.  That kind of resentment is like to spread.”

“Which is why wisdom dictates we be really sneaky about it,” I said, lighting my new pipe.  “My interrogation of the former Censor was enlightening in ways more than mere intelligence. The Duke of Merwyn seeks to control the resurgent power of the magi through their new order, centralizing that power and making it subservient to the state.  As a result the magi are near captive of the state, subject to severe penalties and requirements.

“That’s not how I want things to evolve in Castalshar.  We’ve got more power, both political and arcane, than the Merwyni magi, but our position is still evolving. I propose we quietly, if not secretly, use this time to build up our resources without attracting too much notice.  I’m officially confined to my lands, theoretically unable to meddle in politics.”

“Somehow that doesn’t seem like you, Magelord,” Dranus observed.

“Only to those who know me,” I chuckled.  “I’ll be holding some events and officially pouting in all the right places, but I have my agents at work.  If I can invoke your discretion,” I said to the group, picking out each one by eye, “I can now reveal that Lady Pentandra and her new groom are even now on their way to meet with the Orphan Duke and his retinue at an estate in northern Gilmora.  At Yule they will cross the frontier together, unite with two thousand Orphan’s Band mercenaries, and quietly take control of Vorone.  At that point, Lady Pentandra will resign her positions at the Order and become the Dual Court Wizard of Alshar.”