Enchanter (Book 7) (86 page)

Blizzard was leaning against a small canopy, proudly displayed as a prize of war, which was the center of an encampment of about twenty bandits or mercenaries, however they identified.  The only one awake was a sleepy sentry that a spell from Tyndal rendered completely unconscious.  The boys spread out and began securing the remaining raiders, casting soporific spells liberally, while I reclaimed my property.

I reached out and took my staff back.  It seemed unmolested.  She had not yet taken the time to start dismantling it.

Bandits
, Lanse told me with a mental sneer as he looked around. 
Or the worst sort of mercenary.

This must be that raider outfit she inherited from Sir Ganulan,
I offered. 
Shouldn’t her wards be going off about now?

To answer my question, the flap of the tent opened and Lady Mask flew out, without her mask.  She was actually a pretty girl, a little older than I’d thought, but with no trace of scar or pox on her face, as many had suspected.  Her eyes were wide with surprise.  I hit her with the butt of Blizzard right between them, hard enough to make an audible crack.  She went down instantly.

“That was easier than I expected,” Lanse said, sounding a little disappointed.

“Apparently she’s not her best in the morning,” clucked Tyndal, joining us.  “The rest of them are out cold Mas—Minalan.”

“Search the camp, tie up the men, and get back to the castle when you’re done,” I ordered, as I hauled Mask limply to her feet.  She didn’t weigh much at all.  “I’ll meet you there.  After this lady and I have a little chat.”

I took her back through the Ways, but not back to my castle.  Instead we went to a high ridge overlooking Sevendor, near a little cottage.  Lesana was waiting for me, sipping tea and watching the sunrise.

“Shall I put the amulet on?” she asked.

“You can hear this, I think,” I decided.  “She will wake up in a few moments.  Let me pull her teeth.”  I searched her person.  She had slept in her armor, of course, as most warmagi on maneuvers do, and her witchstone was in an ornate leather pouch on her belt.  She also carried a combat dagger, two warwands, a garrote behind her belt, three small spheres of thaumaturgical glass, and a small knife in her boot.  I used magic to search her more thoroughly, and relieved her of two hidden enchantments.  Then I cast a few spells on her to make her talkative. 

It didn’t take long for her to awaken, as I predicted.  She was tough.  She was also thoroughly tied up when her eyes finally fluttered open.  She struggled against her bonds and realized her predicament . . . and who had put her there.

“You!” she accused. 

“Me,” I agreed, a little smugly.  “Did you really think I wouldn’t track you down?”

“I figured you would be panicking about your deplorable lack of security,” she said.  “I didn’t think you would recover this quickly.  That’s not what Isily told me to expect.”

“Isily is, perhaps, not the most reliable judge of my character,” I said, truthfully.

“What are you going to do with me?”

“I’m going to ask you questions, and you’re going to answer me.  Truthfully.”

“Or what?” she said, defiantly.

“That’s all.  For now.  Then, when you’ve told me all I need to know, you’re going in a cold, dark cell for a while until I can figure out what to do with you.”

“You should execute me,” she said, her eyes a little larger at her admission.  “I’m too dangerous to you, alive.”

“One step at a time, my lady,” I said, taking a seat on a stool near Lesana, who had kindly poured me tea.  “Let’s begin with your name, and where you’re from.”

“Nothoua,” she said, without realizing it until it was too late.  Then she looked away.  “Nothoua Venaren.  Of no place in particular.”

“Nothoua . . .
Venaren?
   Are you related to—”

“
Yes,”
she spat, glaring at me.  “Next question?”

I sighed, intrigued.  Loiko Venaren was a legendary master warmage, one of the leaders of the Magical Corps during the Farisian campaign.  Last time I had heard he was still in Farise, enjoying the fruits of his conquest.  There had to be a story there, but I really didn’t have time to explore it.

“All right, where are Isily and Dunselen keeping themselves?”

She looked at me sullenly, but spoke.  “The last I heard they were in a castle called Salaisus, in an outlying domain to the southwest of Greenflower,” she said, every word a struggle.  ‘That’s where they have their laboratory.  And nursery,” she added, her nose wrinkling. 

“To what purpose?”

“To make snowstone.  Only they haven’t been successful yet.  But they think they’re getting close.” She grinned briefly at some private thought.

“Of course they do.  How many men guard them?”

“The last time I was there they had twelve crossbowmen, seven warmagi, and a handful of men-at-arms,” she reported, looking defeated. 

“Wards?”

“Standard,” she snorted, derisively.  “I could shred them like parchment.  On a bad day.”

“They aren’t warmagi,” I reminded her.  “And their warmagi aren’t High Magi.”

“They’re lazy, all of them.  Sloppy.”

“No doubt.  They are arrogant, too.  So why are you entangled with them?”

“They are a means to an end,” she said, hesitantly.  “I needed them, after you stole my staff.”

“You put her in contact with the Enshadowed?”

“Yes,” Nothoua said, proudly.  “The Enshadowed approached me after my . . . failure against you, and promised to give me irionite if I could arrange to get them into your tower.  Since our interests coincided, I didn’t see the harm.  They taught me much, and promised to teach me more, if I helped them.”

“So how did you get Isily involved?”

“I knew her from Alar,” she admitted.  “We were classmates.  I visited her in that guise at the end of last summer, after my defeat.  I made her a proposition: I could get her more irionite, if she could help me infiltrate Sevendor Castle.  She leapt at the opportunity,” she added, spitefully.  “I wasn’t aware of her goal at the time, just that it would imperil you.”

“So how did you know the Enshadowed?”

“Sheruel sent them to tutor us.  And for us to learn
humani
warmagic.  A few of them were looking for good candidates to further their aims.  I wanted irionite, and couldn’t return to the gurvani.  It seemed like a natural alliance.”

“But an uneasy one.  You wanted me dead.  Isily wanted me alive.   Why?”

“She thinks you’re going to be the Archmage.  She plans on being your consort.
Idiot.”

“What did the Enshadowed want?”

“Your gems.  And, eventually, your death.  They have it in for you as much as I do, but they want to wait.  I don’t have centuries to fulfill my vengeance.  But they wanted that thaumaturgical stone of yours, the enneagrammatic stabilizer.”

“Why?” I demanded. 

“Because they just got bloody
Korbal
out of the ground, and they need it!  His pattern will degrade without it.  He’ll need constant intervention, and eventually his pattern will start to decay.  With that stone he can maintain his coherence.  And probably build an army of undead.  The Enshadowed think you have the knowledge and the power to prevent that.”

“They didn’t get the stone,” I said, without thinking. 

“I know.  I told them you’d improved security.  They didn’t think that you were smart enough to put the valuable ones away, when you weren’t playing with them.   Alka Alon!” she snorted.  “They treat us like children!”

“When you’re nearly immortal, that can be a risk, I imagine.  They didn’t seem too adept at housebreaking.”

“They were idiots,” she said, derisively.  “They had no idea which stone it was.  I tried to tell them that your treasury was far more extensive than they suspected, but they ignored me.  They figured that you’d have it in your most ‘secure’ place, that tower of yours.  Their plan was to just grab every gem in sight and sort out which one was the right one later.

“But they were also interested in Dunselen’s and Isily’s . . . experiments.  Fascinated, even.  They’re mad for snowstone, and its derivatives.  And they’re horribly jealous that a mere
humani
mage discovered it.  When they found out what Dunselen was doing, they were eager to lend him technical assistance to his research.”  She didn’t sound enthusiastic about it.

“Do you think they’re expecting reprisals?” I asked, curious.

“Not really,” she said, glumly.  “Isily is so convinced of your eventual union, and she’s so certain that you are under her power, that she treats you like an ignorant puppet.  Dunselen thinks his position as head of his order will protect him from you.  They’re
both
idiots!”

“As were the Enshadowed.  And you worked closely with all of them.  What does that say about you?”

Nothoua had nothing to say to that.

“You’ve given me just about everything I wanted,” I said, after thinking and studying her a few moments.  “But I do have one more question.  Why the mask?”

She looked a little embarrassed.  “Because I’m short, for a warmage.  It’s hard to get people to respect me.  The mask is intimidating.  Even to gurvani.  All I have to do to be in disguise is take it off.  That’s how I infiltrated Sevendor,” she boasted.  “And if I’m wearing a mask, I won’t be recognized by anyone who knows . . . my family.”  She sounded less proud of that.

“If Loiko Venaren is your kin, that’s probably a wise idea.  I served under him in Farise.  He is not known for his forgiving nature.”

“Can we please not discuss my family?” she pleaded.  “Just kill me.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that.  You tried to kill
my
family,” I reminded her.  “That went beyond the rules of simple warfare and into vendetta, Nothoua.  For now we’ll put you in a cell until I’m done dealing with Isily.  Then we’ll address your crimes.”

She looked at me thoughtfully.  “With your witchball broken I won’t ever see a magistrate, then.  Isily has grown far more powerful, with the tutelage of the Enshadowed and the researches of Dunselen.  From what I hear, she was . . . transformed by the birth of her child.  She is more than half mad because of it, I hear, and now has great power.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

“I want you to know,” she said, her brown eyes narrowing, “because it may be the only morsel of vengeance I get to enjoy before the headman’s axe, Spellmonger, and I am enchanted to speak the truth: If you do go to Castle Salaisus, Spellmonger, and face your jilted love, don’t expect to
ever
return!”

Chapter Forty

Castle Salaisus

I allowed Nothoua the dignity of returning her mask to her before I took her to Brestal Tower and placed her in a cell, there.  It actually wasn’t that bad, as prison cells go, but the young woman was hardly grateful for the consideration. 

I took my news back to Banamor’s which we were using as a temporary headquarters.  With the possibility of other spies around the castle and other areas we frequented, the warehouse and office complex in the center of town was surprisingly secure for our purposes. 

The next couple of days were busy.  Lorcus, once he was assured by Taren that his new domain hadn’t wandered off, returned in his packtrader disguise to Greenflower and began searching for the location of Castle Salaisus.  It didn’t take him long to find it.

Salaisus, he reported, was an older castle built a hundred and fifty years ago by a Cormeeran knight in service to a count. The entire fortress was composed of local limestone.  The keep was a large, well-built circular tower with solid pyramid spurs, abutting a secondary tower and great hall.  The entire thing was surrounded by an uncrennallated wall and moat, with a moderate gatehouse at one end and a smaller round tower at the other.

It had changed hands repeatedly since Lord Saiaisus’ family lost it; it was once part of the Greenflower holdings, and Dunselen had re-conquered it two years ago with a minimum of fuss.  He hadn’t picked a permanent tenant lord, and had come to use the property as a picturesque place for his arcane research.  It was guarded, as Nothoua had indicated, but there was no sign that the garrison was on alert for anything.

Isily and Dunselen were both confirmed to be in residence with their new baby.  My son.

Lorcus returned with a fairly detailed map of the place which he had gotten without scrying – which would have set off Isily’s wards.  Instead he’d sat at a tavern in the village for half a day, listened to gossip, and asked a few questions of the right people.  Lorcus can be quite subtle, when he’s not being a raving arse.

“Things might not be what they seem,” he told me, after we went over the floor plan.  “Magically, that is.  A lot of the village folk were spooked by even mentioning the sorceress in the castle.  They report seeing lights there, a few weeks ago.  And some of the servants who attended the birth have never been seen again.  Nor have the Baron and Baroness been seen since the birth, nor the babe.  All communication is by means of the caste steward, now.”