Enchanter (Book 7) (83 page)

It all came spilling out – even my relations with the various gods.  That was perhaps the most unbelievable part about the tale, I figured, but Alya listened without expressing doubt.  I was waiting for her to accuse me of using religion to further my lechery, or something like that, but as I spoke she did not interrupt.  I almost wish that she had.

When I finally had no more to say, we sat there in silence for a long, long time.  Finally, I raised my head and looked at her face.  Her eyes were col an angry.  She was looking away.

“You’re angry,” I observed.  She looked at me and through me, as if I was barely there.  My heart sank.  Then her expression transformed.

“Of course I’m angry!  I’m furious!  I’ve never been this full of rage in my entire life.  But I’m not angry with you, my husband,” she added, before I could leap out the window in despair.  ‘I’m angry with that cunt who would
dare
abuse my beloved so!”

“I . . . what?” I asked, confused.

“To think that for months you’ve been carrying this wound, letting it fester in silence, while I’ve been worried you’ve fallen out of love with me,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief.  “I thought you were just preoccupied with your work or your studies, or were playing politics and were distracted.  But I knew it was something deeper.  It
felt
deeper.  Like you had been stabbed and had yet to remove the knife.  Do you know hard it is to see your husband suffer like that?” she asked, angrily, tears in her eyes.

“Alya, I’m fine!  I was—”

“The hell you are fine!” she snapped, her nostrils flaring.  “You have been moody, melancholy, and miserable, and you’ve been trying to pretend you’re fine.  I know you aren’t ‘fine’, Min.  I’m your godsdamn wife.  You can’t hide that from me!”

“I wasn’t – I mean, I was . . . I think I . . . What I mean to say—”

“Just
stop it
, Min!” she demanded, crying openly now.  “You got hurt, and you let yourself stay hurt for months without telling me!  You tell me that there are assassins after us now, all thanks to this evil sorceress.  You tell me she has stolen from us.  You tell me she’s forced you to sire a child with her – two children – and has denied them to you.  If anyone had done these things to me, Min, what would you be doing right now?”

“Tearing down her keep, stone by stone!” I said, upset.  “But I cannot!  She’s the mother of my children, the same as you are!” 

She gave me a burning look.  “I am in no way constrained by that custom,” she said, icily.  Then she threw back the quilt and stood, and started to dress.

“What are you doing?” I asked, terribly confused.  I was scared she was packing her things to leave.

“I’m getting dressed,” she snapped again.  “And then we’re going to call a few of our friends.  And then we’re going to pay a call on the Baron and Baroness of Greenflower.  It’s time we pay our respects to their new child.” 

I just sat there and watched, speechless.  I had no idea what to say to that.  Or what would happen.

But I felt enormously better.  Alya was angry, but she wasn’t angry with
me
.  At least not yet.  I realized that my father had been correct.  Once Alya shared this horrible burden with me, it was far easier to bear.  Even if it hurt her.  Part of me felt guilty about that, too, but the determined manner in which she was opening chests and wardrobes and flinging clothes spiritedly around the room told me that her energy and ire was focused on the problem, not recriminations.

I was certain those would happen, eventually.  But now I just felt so relieved that she knew and wasn’t screaming at me like a harridan that I didn’t care. 

I got up and took her by the shoulders, stopping her mid-frenzy.  I looked deep into her eyes, which were suddenly searching my own in confusion.  I kissed her lips.  “I so love you,” I said, as sincerely as I possibly could.  She looked at me strangely.  I prepared for a slap.  It didn’t come.  Instead she kissed me back, suddenly, desperately.

“I swear by Trygg, Ishi and Briga I will make that bitch
pay
for hurting you!” she said with vehemence I’d never heard in her voice before.  “I did not see you return from fire, battle, death, goblins, trolls, and dragons only to see you torn asunder from within by some scheming witch.”

That was troubling.  “Alya, Isily isn’t merely some scheming witch.  She’s a powerful sorceress.  She’s a High Mage, and an adept shadowmage.  And she’s been a trained assassin for years.  Isily has killed dozens in cold blood, even in the midst of an embrace.  She was the one who . . . arranged for the Orphan Duke to get his name.”

Her face got harder.  “She’s the one who killed that poor boy’s parents?” she asked, appalled.  “Then I have even more reason to do this.  As far as her vaunted powers, my husband,” she said, crossing to an ornate press we’d picked up somewhere, “she may be a fearsome sorceress.  I am an angry wife.  Ask yourself which of those two is more to be feared?” she asked, as she took a long, heavy dagger from the press, something she’d had since our honeymoon.  She unsheathed the blade a few inches and then returned it before fastening it to the cingulum of her underdress, under her sideless surcoat. 

“You can’t honestly think you can just walk up to her and put a blade in her, do you?” I asked in disbelief.  “She’s a Baroness, and a friend of the Queen!  She’ll have guards – warmagi, not just knights.  And she’ll have her fellow assassins, and possibly Lady Mask, herself, with her.  Hells, I don’t even know where she is, much less what to do when we get there!”

“Stop it,” she commanded.  “You’re coming up with excuses.  You’ve had time to worry with this for ten long months.  I am not going to endure a pregnancy full of worry and anxiety because we left this deed undone.  One way or another we must end this.  And no, I will not go charging stupidly into her chambers and expect to prevail.  I am not a warrior, much less a warmage.”

“So then what will you do?  What will we do?” I asked, confused and suddenly horrified at the possibilities.

“We know warriors.  We know warmagi.  We know the most powerful enchanters and wizards in the world.  We know kings and queens and dukes and princesses.  Hells, you know some gods – and I do too, actually, since I met Brother Hotfoot.  We know Alka Alon.  And all of those people owe you favors or bear you loyalty that you can call upon at need.”

“Yes, but—

“Well,
this is need
, Minalan!  You and your stupid, stupid pride thought you could tough this out, when it’s just gotten worse with every passing month.  Now she’s had the baby, and she taunts you with this insidious message.  A message designed to cast you into doubt and confusion so that you could not do the job you need to do. 

“So this is what we’re going to do: we’re going to marshal our resources, we’re going to stop pretending this cabbage twat of a killer is above our influence, and we will take action with the help of our friends, to end this threat to our stability once and for all,” she said, decisively.  “Now if you would be so kind as to use the Ways to take me to the Mirror array at the chapterhouse, I have some messages to send.  And my feet are too tired to walk all that way.  And it will just be easier to send everything from there, for now.”

“I can send them from here,” I pointed out.

“They are not for your eyes,” she said, coolly.  “I’m serious, Min.  You stay out of this, for now.  Let me work.  I might not be a mage, but this is not a magical problem.  This is a . . . a woman problem.  Both Isily and Mask.  So I will deal with it that way.  Because, if nothing else, that’s going to be the last place they’re going to expect an attack.  And this, my love, they will never see coming.”

*

*

The next two days were a blur.  I took Alya to the Chapterhouse with our page, whom she immediately sent into town with urgent messages for local folks.  Then she began composing letters to others to hand to the Mirror attendants, finishing one just as the last one was transmitted.  I sat in the hall, smoking and fretting, until I just got bored.  Alya finally looked up, blew me a kiss, and sent me home. 

“Get some sleep,” she advised.  “You were awake all night, after a long Conclave.  You need rest.  I’ll handle the arrangements, from here.  You’ve done enough for now.  Go check on the children and sleep.”

“As my baroness commands,” I sighed, yawning at the suggestion.  I really hadn’t slept in over a day, nor eaten more than a few buns.  I suddenly felt exhausted.  I mustered enough energy to stand and take the Waypoint back to my hall . . . suddenly remembering that was how Mask and the Alka Alon had invaded the castle.

Yes, we would have to find a way to ward them against that happening again, I mused tiredly, as I checked with the nurses.  Both children were eating messily, smearing porridge on their faces between the patient efforts of two Tal to feed them.  Darishi was overseeing the entertaining spectacle with a lot of amusement, and looked up at me, startled, and then concerned.

“Everything is fine,” I assured her.  “Alya and I might be away for a couple of days, but right now I’m going to go take a nap.  The extra guards are outside?” 

“Yes, Magelord,” she nodded. “Are you all right?  I heard about the fight . . .”

“I’m well; just tired.  My day started yesterday morning, and it hasn’t stopped.  I just wanted to look in on those two goblins before I went to bed.  Please wake me up if anything important happens.”

“Da-DY!” Minalyan demanded, pounding his spoon on the table like a drum.  “Les’ go GRAMMAS!”

“You just want the cookies,” I teased.  He looked genuinely disappointed that I’d seen through his scheme.  My mother always had a huge bowl of cookies for her growing brood of grandchildren down at Baker’s Hall, as the big house in the outer bailey was called, now.  She understood the feudal politics of bribery better than most lords I knew.  It was Minalyan’s favorite place in the whole world.

Mask had tried to take that all away.  I tussled his hair weakly, then went to bed.  I was asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.

*

*

“You know, it’s about time,” Briga said to me, as she stirred the fire in my dreamscape.  “I’ve been waiting for an invocation, a prayer, even a pipe in the privy, but no – you had to wait and wait and wait to get around to being someplace I could speak privately with you!”

“I’ve been busy!” I complained, as I took a seat around the imaginary fire.  We were at a crossroads, somewhere in my mind.  “And I’m supposed to be resting.  You know these divinely inspired dreams are utter crap for rest, don’t you?”

“That’s not my problem,” she said, staring into the fire with purse lips.  “You, my boy, are my problem.  I’m your patroness, and you won’t call on me when you need me!”

“I’m a big boy,” I countered.  “I can’t go running to you every time I fall down.”

“This is more than a tumble, Minalan,” she pointed out.  “You are in trouble.  In a lot of ways.”

“Aw, come on,” I dismissed.  “I’m rolling in gold, right now, and I just got a bunch of new domains.  Life is good.”

“Like hell it is,” she said, accusingly.  “It’s falling to ruin.  You should thank me for inspiring your two friends to get your father involved.  He knows how to invoke me,” she added, snidely.  “He’s been praying to me for your safety and security for weeks.  Your wife even was good enough to send me a thoughtful request.  You?  Not a peep.”

“Well, what the hells could you do about any of this?” I demanded.  “Burn her castle down?  Poison her muffins?  Convince her horse’s shoe to throw itself?”

“You might be surprised,” she said, indignantly.  “I am pretty resourceful, and rather clever, when I need to be.  But the time for clever and resourceful is done.  When you confessed everything to Alya, things changed.”

“What?  What changed?”

“Alya has invoked me, in her mind,” the goddess of fire explained.  “She has invoked me for vengeance. 
Divine
vengeance.”

“Oh, crap,” I said, my heart sinking.  “I had to tell her . . .”

“I know,” Briga said, sharply, with a toss of her flame-colored hair.  “There was a fire on the hearth.  I heard everything.  Minalan, she
knowingly
invoked me.  Among others.  And we might be compelled to action.”

“Oh, great.  This is not what I wanted to happen.”

“It’s beyond anyone’s control now.  But since we will be traveling, now, I invite someone along who might be of assistance.”  She gestured to the shadows outside of the dreamfire, and Herus approached, loping along comfortably, in his guise as Brother Hotfoot.

“Ho, Min!” he said, cheerfully.  “Looks like we’re off on another one.  A short journey, but a journey nonetheless.  And just in time.”  His face changed to a troubled expression as he looked at Briga.  “I’ve confirmed it.  Korbal is returned.  Not only that, he and his cabal have fled their stronghold in the Land of Scars, when the Kasari and the Alka Alon pressed them.”

“So they are on the run, then, at least?” Briga asked, interested.  More like fascinated.

“Ah, no,” Herus said, taking a seat at the fire.  “In fact, when they were attacked—”

“Wait,” I interrupted.  “Who attacked?  And they attacked Korbal?”

“You’ve missed a lot, on house arrest,” chuckled the god of travelers.  “Me, on the other hand, I get around.  Yes, Korbal has been returned to existence by a faction of the Alka Alon—“

“The Enshadowed.  I’m aware of them.”

“So you are – I heard about the robbery.  As the patron of thieves, you have my sympathies.  What a bunch of amateurs.  If I—”

“To business, Herus!” Briga reminded him, sharply.

“Right.  Well, when the Alka Alon realized that Korbal had been let out of his tomb by the Enshadowed, working with gurvani and renegade humans, they were alarmed enough to put a watch on the region.  A company of Kasari was detailed to the task, along with some of the more powerful Alkan songmasters and warriors.  Korbal and his companions were holed up in an old keep on the borderlands, far from civilization.  The alliance attacked it, hoping to capture the Demon God.  Instead they took heavy casualties, and while they succeeded in forcing the renegades out of the keep, they escaped deeper into the wilderness.”

“So they’re like an ash in the wind, now,” sighed Briga.

“Not at all,” Herus corrected.  “In fact, I know precisely where they are, now.  Their allies have prepared a hold for Korbal in advance of his arrival – somewhere even more difficult to get to and easy to defend than the keep.  The ruins of the City of Rainbows.”

If you’ve never heard a goddess gasp, it’s a treat.

“Oh, for the love of us all!” she swore, angrily.  “They will be
impossible
to uproot, there!  That’s at the very limits of our reach, and far too remote to be able to gather significant power.  Ashes and cinders, if they had gone anywhere else . . .”

“Oh, it’s worse than that, coz,” Herus said, removing an imaginary flask from his imaginary bag.  “Don’t forget what that city sits atop of.”

It took me a moment, but then I had sleep as an excuse.  And exhaustion.

Korbal, you see, was infamous for his experiments with necromancy, back in his prime.  That’s a pretty unusual branch of magic for the Alka Alon to study, but he came from a strange family in exile and he was fascinated by the subjects of death, life, and, ironically, something akin to human-style enchantment. 

But he had mixed his research with a brutal kind of politics that was at odds with the Council.  He was ruthless in kidnapping Alka Alon opponents and then sacrificing them for their enneagrams, their bodies, or both.  The horrors he produced from those experiments so appalled the Council that they eventually censured him, he rose in rebellion, and they were forced to put him down.  Instead of executing him, which is tricky, with someone who plays around with the undead, they imprisoned him. 

Now that he was out of his tomb, centuries after he’d gone in, he’d have the chance to take advantage of all of the changes that had happened since the Council ruled supreme.  Like the mountain of snowstone.  The rise of Sheruel and the gurvani kingdom.  And now the nearly-vacant city of his enemies, occupied by a few surly goblins and at least one dragon with ongoing complications from head trauma.  If the Enshadowed had occupied that great empty city, they had a truly impressive base to which Korbal could retire and regain his strength.

And, possibly, eventual access to the large vein of Ghost Rock that ran through the stone under the city.  It had the same essential powers as the Grain of Pors – it could capture and record the enneagrams of an entity’s self-awareness – but it was vastly larger.  If there was something as magnificent as the Celestial Mother in the tiny Grain, I could just imagine what ancient horrors lay asleep within the Ghost Rock of lost Anthatiel. 

If they had even a tithe of the magical abilities of the Mother, we could be facing a whole new type of threat.  Goblins could be fought.  Sheruel could, eventually, be faced. But if Korbal started importing powerful ancient enneagrams and putting them into bodies that could perform magic, he could raise a demon army that would make his old minions seem like mere apprenticeship.

“Oh,
soot!
” the goddess said, her lip quivering.  If you’ve never seen a goddess terrified, you’ve probably lived your life right.

“That’s right, Sparky,” the other divinity chuckled, wickedly.  “The Ancient Ones could come back.  Just as Minalan, here, has been playing with fire himself, Korbal could ignite a blaze that destroys us all.  You know what terrors will be found in that rock.  Terrors that are eager to return to life and resume their . . . passions.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, afraid to learn the answer. 

“It means that if Korbal gets inspired, he could search the Ghost Rock for some of the Celestial Mother’s predecessors.  Or descendants.  Or enemies.  And once he’s found them, if he puts them in, say, a body of a really powerful Alka Alon, then that hybrid personality will awaken to be extraordinarily potent, immensely dangerous . . . and completely subject to Korbal’s suggestion.”

“Such things have happened before, in other ways,” Briga agreed, somberly.  “Before we came to this world there were many great struggles over the ages.  Not everything that evolved in Callidore’s seas was as benign as the Celestial Mother.  And there are beings from elsewhere, other worlds, who came to this one seeking to dominate and eventually consume the unique order here.”

“What happened?”

“The natives defended themselves,” Herus grunted.  “Some even sacrificed themselves, to protect their offspring and this world.  That’s what happened to the Celestial Mother’s species, eventually.  They fought a long and deadly war with the invaders, and eventually won.  But only at the price of themselves.  Their children’s children are the ones you know as the Sea Folk, now, a mere remnant of a shadow of a far greater race. 

“But they honor the spirit of the slain Great Ones of their past.  And,” he added, his eyes twinkling in the firelight, “they are not going to be certain how to take the news that a thumb-fingered humani mage who’s consorting dangerously with the gods has in his ignorance taken one of the most revered and complex organisms ever to arise on this world and stuff it into a really pretty crystal decanter in his cellar.  That’s going to be an
interesting
conversation.”

“They are already aware of the snowstone,” Briga said, shaking her head in irritation.  “They’ve done nothing, yet.  I doubt they will stir themselves over this.”

“And you’re a goddess of
wisdom?”
snorted Herus.  “Cousin, please use some: we both know how the Sea Folk feel about their ancestors.  More pious than most of these savages feel about
us
.  They are not going to ignore it.  Particularly if this idiot continues establishing the connections that will allow it to eventually awaken.  Then we’ll be ready for a party!”

“You really do enjoy dancing on the edge of ruin, don’t you?” Briga chided her divine cousin. 

“We’ve been doing that since we arrived here!  You know it’s a miracle – a long, hard series of miracles – that humanity is even alive today, much less capable of speech, simple civilization, and barely passable roads.  Once the Sea Folk are involved again, we’re probably extinct, anyway.  So why not enjoy the decline?”

“Because we are not going to let that happen!” Briga said, stubbornly.  “We have a duty.  Now Minalan does, too.”

“Hey, you were the one who convinced me to make the damn thing in the first place.  I needed a fulcrum.  You inspired me, when I was raving out of my head.  So this is your fault.”

“Mine?” Briga demanded, surprised.  “And did I inspire to imbue it with one of the Ancient Ones of Callidore?”

“You see any other goddesses of inspiration sitting around the campfire?” I shot back.  “We’re all complicit in this.  And yes, I am acting from ignorance.  But damn it, I’m
acting!
  Even now, when I’m supposed to be sleeping, I’m acting.  I may not get it right, and I may invite ruin and catastrophe, but at least I’m doing
something!”