Enchanter (Book 7) (88 page)

Master, the last of the non-combatants are out.  We took nine babies from the nursery!  Everyone is out in the outer hall, now. 

Get back there and keep watch over them,
I ordered. 
We’ll take it from here.

Good luck, Master!  May the Flame guide your path!

“Dara’s got them clear.  Time to go.”

Pentandra looked up from her spells.  “Be careful, Minalan.  She’s deceptive.”  Then she looked at Alya and gave her a meaningful expression.  “Make her
pay,”
she said, with especial venom.

Alya simply nodded, sighed, squeezed my hand, and pulled her dark green mantel over her shoulders.

The sun had yet to break over the horizon, and dark stormclouds contended with the nearly-full gibbous moon for domination of the morning sky.  There was a heaviness in the atmosphere that suited my mood, one of expectancy and anxiety.  We walked past the empty gatehouse, the guards slumped over their crossbows, and across the outer bailey.  Dara was standing at the door of the small hall that was now overflowing with children.  She waved at me, Frightful on her shoulder, Talon drawn in her other hand.

Alya waved back, gratefully.  “You really have done a magnificent job bringing together talented people, Minalan.  They’re devoted, they’re powerful, and you’ve kept them motivated.”

“It’s just survival,” I dismissed.  “I need them.  I’ll keep bribing them to keep them around, if I have to, but this escapade proves just how important they are.”

We walked through the devastated remains of the Great Hall, where Lanse and Lorcus were keeping guard while Tyndal tended to Rondal’s shoulder.  There were three bodies – two unconscious, one dead – in a space between upturned trestles.  The hall itself was smouldering in several places, the banners and tapestries had been blasted by magic, and the smell of ozone and Sulphur filled the air.

“Welcome to Castle Salaisus, Baron,” Lorcus said, formally.  “They gave us more fight that we expected.  We gave them more fight than they were prepared for.”  He held out his gauntleted hand and revealed four smooth witchstones.  One was charred and black.  “With the compliments of the Baron of Greenflower.”

“What happened to the fourth mage?” Alya asked.

“He rushed me,” Lanse of Bune said.  “He was in the process of attacking Rondal, and I had to incinerate him.  Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Fortunes of war,” I shrugged.  “What about the stones?”

“Alka Alon,” Rondal supplied, as Tyndal picked scraps of leather out of an open wound on his right shoulder.  “No songspells within, upon cursory—OUCH! Damn it!  Cursory examination, but they’re clearly Alkan stones.”

“Enshadowed,” Tyndal agreed, without looking up.  He had a magelight over his head, bathing the nasty wound in light.  “They also had some artefacts that were clearly gifts from the Alka Alon.  Which is why I’m cleansing One-Shot, here, instead of investigating Dunselen’s wine cellar.  It sliced right through his defenses.  Which were not inconsiderable,” he admitted.

“Did you consider an analgesic spell?” Alya asked.

“I don’t want to be out if there’s a fight,” Rondal explained, wincing.  “Or unable to flee if things go poorly.  It looks bad, but it’s mostly cosmetic.  It hit the muscle, didn’t even get down to the bone.”

“It hit a lot of muscle,” Tyndal said, with concern, as he irrigated the wound with field spirits from a flask.  Rondal stifled a howl.

“The way into the keep is clear, Excellency,” Bendonal said, loudly, over the screams.  “The door is locked and bolted from within, but Pentandra has dismantled the defenses from afar.  You may proceed at your leisure.”

“Do you have the documents ready?” I asked, Alya.  She tugged on the leather satchel over her shoulder.

“Everything you need to legally require them to give up their stones,” she said.  “I still don’t see the point of all the parchment, Min.”

“My dabbling in feudal politics has shown me how important such things are,” I explained.  “This is the first time I’m recalling someone’s stone.  It establishes precedent.  It makes policy by default.  How I do this matters.  Which is why copies of all of those will be filed with the Kingdom’s archives at Wilderhall tomorrow morning.  That’s going to confound Lady Arnet, as she has no place or files to put them, but that’s her problem.  I want it noted when I take a stone, and I want it established outside the Arcane Orders, so that there can be no misunderstandings.”

“I still think that reveals too much about our business to outsiders,” Bendonal commented.  “I agree with the Baroness.  I don’t see the point.”

“By informing the Kingdom, officially, of action taken on behalf of the Order,” Lorcus said, authoritatively.  “Minalan is establishing the legal right of the Order to take disciplinary and even punitive action in redress of a violation of the oath of a High Mage.  Without their consent or even knowledge,” he added, smugly.  “That might not seem like a big thing, now, but according to my pet lawbrother . . . and a couple of pretty young lexits who were kind enough to share their opinions, among other things, with the conquering lord of the domain . . . this essentially establishes the premise for a separate method of accountability among magi, as exists for the clergy.  The implications of the move won’t be felt for years, perhaps, but this precedent provides the foundation to extend further rights of action, independent of the Crown.”

“It’s about power,” I sighed, gloomily.  “This is how you build it.  One bureaucratic step at a time.  I’m defining the domain of our future use by taking this very clear-cut opportunity to act.  The crown can’t very well object to this, because the cause of action is provably treasonous.  By accepting our action, in accepting these documents, they also accept the legal premise for our action.”

“I think I understand,” Alya agreed.  “It’s just boring as six hells, and reminds me too much of town council meetings,” she admitted.

“It’s important,” Rondal agreed, as Tyndal slipped a mantle gingerly over his wounded shoulder.  “As is this: Minalan, before you approach that keep, I’d suggest you scry it with your baculus, before you assault it with your warstaff.  He’s done something there.  It’s transformed the place.  Like the snowstone effect, but far less in both volume and transformation effect.  But it
has
been transformed,” he warned.

“So were two of the warmagi we faced,” Bendonal agreed.  “Blue eyes, blue teeth.  Their hair was messed up.  Spooky.”

“Thanks for the warning,” I nodded, and summoned my baculus. 

As I approached the great door to the refuge I allowed the curious paraclete within to turn its attention on the stone.  It reported back, eagerly, that the calcium had, indeed, been affected within the stone, though the exact nature of the effect was unclear.  Visually, the limestone of the walls, extending four or five feet within the Great Hall, had subtly changed.  It had a more bluish tint than the grayer stone farther down the hall.  But it was still a long way from snowstone.

“Ishi’s tits!” I exclaimed, despite myself.  “The old coot figured out part of the spell!”

“You think?” Lorcus asked, interested.  “Maybe he wasn’t as mad as I thought.”

“You are hardly the best judge of such things,” Lanse said, shaking his head.  “Whatever it is, it doesn’t have any effect on arcane resistance.  It’s decidedly not snowstone.”

“We can figure out what it does, later,” Alya said, impatiently.  “Are we going to storm this tower, or not?  I’m pregnant and I haven’t eaten yet today.  I suggest we proceed before that becomes a factor in our battle plan.”

“You have no objections, Ron?” I asked.

“I just wanted you to be aware,” he said, shrugging painfully.  “I don’t think it’s volatile, whatever it does. And  I’m ready.”

“Let’s hope not.  And since you’re wounded, you get to be Alya’s escort.  You come in behind us, and only when we’ve summoned you.”

“Understood,” he nodded, drawing his short mageblade.

“The rest of you, follow close, once we’re beyond the door.  Be ready to spread out and take action.”

“I’m all a-tingle,” Lorcus smiled, drawing his own blade. 

I approached the great oaken doors again and considered how best to proceed.  I settled on taking Blizzard and grounding the butt under the heel of my boot before tilting the head of the staff toward the door.  I uttered the mnemonic and a powerful wave of concussive force smashed into the center of the door in a space less wide than my fist. There was a loud boom the cracking of the wood’s fibers.  But it still didn’t give.

It gave on the third try.  I had a lot of patience for such things.  And no matter the stoutness of the door, few could sustain the power of a magical battering ram indefinitely.  Not when the arcane defenses were down. 

When the massive doors finally burst inward with a roar and a cloud of dust, no defenders leapt out at us.  Lanse cleared the air of dust with a wave of his hand before stepping through the ruins, his spear ready.  Tyndal followed next, then Lorcus, before I went.

Magesight revealed an eerie glow from the stone of the walls and floors.  I felt a shift in something fundamental as we crossed the threshold and were in the embrace of the effect.  It presented a more pronounced mental sensation than being proximate to snowstone, the stupidly analytical part of my mind observed, as we continued to advance into an enemy wizard’s keep.

We came to the lowest chamber, unguarded and unlocked.  Lanse opened the door and led, while Tyndal added a bright magelight to illuminate the interior clearly.

What we saw was better left to the gloom.

The chamber had been given over wholly to the work of arcane research but it was far shabbier than our mirabiliaries.  Shelves and baskets contained scroll after scroll, and cabinets of books and folios crowded the exterior walls.  I recognized volumes both obscure and common, and was suddenly envious at the meticulous nature of his collection.

But the rest was a mess.  The long trestle tables set up at the center of the chamber were littered with the residue of prolonged and obsessed academic inquiry.  Discarded cups and dishes of half-eaten food contended with references and tomes of great lore.  Inkpots and quills littered the table with discarded notes on undersized scraps of parchment.  A pall of decay and neglect hung in the air of the chamber. 

At the center of it, we found Dunselen.  He was seated in a battered old chair with a dusty old canopy over it, likely an undead relic of some past lord of the castle.  He looked far from regal, or even noble, however.  He wore a long black robe of threadbare cotton and a filthy woolen smock under a ratty old gray hooded cloak.  He wore no shoes, and he had not bathed in months, from the reek.

Lorcus stepped in front of him, twirling his mantle in a dramatic flair as he sheathed his blade and pronounced sentence.    “Master Dunselen, Baron of Greenflower, Head of the Order of Tarkarine, member of the College of High Magi, and member general of the Arcane Orders of the Kingdom of Castalshar, you are hereby stripped of your professional titles and offices and required to surrender your irionite to Baron Minalan the Spelmonger as you pledged to do in solemn oath!” he demanded in a loud, clear voice.  Lorcus had agreed to act as our herald for this occasion, so I designated him Constable of the Order for the duration. 

“I . . . I don’t have it,” the old man said, deeply confused.  His face was deeply lined and his eyes were haunted and evasive, in the shadow of his dark cowl.  “She
took
it.  She took
everything,”
he said in a whisper. 

“Who?  Isily?” I demanded.  He nodded, and then recognized me.

“Oh, good!  Master Minalan!  I was hoping you’d pay a call and review my work,” he said, suddenly fumbling around on the table.  “I did try so hard to replicate your results, but, alas, met with only partial success.  I think the key is the
timing
,” he said, focusing intently on the subject for a moment. 

“What are you talking about?” I demanded, Blizzard ready to strike if he got violent.  He was certainly acting erratically.

“It has to be
timing,”
he said, combing his wrinkled fingers through his greasy white hair under his cowl, while he gestured to the collection of hourglasses and water clocks on the far table.  There seemed to be something wrong with both his dirty nails and his hair, but I couldn’t see it clearly under his hood.  “But not like I suspected – local time matters, but
far
more than I’d thought, and not at all as I originally suspected.  Of course, you could only draw that kind of conclusion with several successive runs, but in doing so I think I’ve established the secret.”

“
What
secret?” Tyndal asked, curiously.  His blade never wavered from the direction of the mage’s throat. 

“Its
sidereal
time!” he said, his eyes blazing as his cowl fell to his shoulders.  Their whites, I saw, were a bright blue.  So were his teeth.  His hair was streaked with it, I saw “I’m certain of it!  The effect has some component that is acted upon by some agent or agency that arises at a particular time . . . but it shifts
siderally!
  I’m certain we can figure out the answer together, and avoid the . . . unfortunate effects of our last trial.  I was so hoping that your progeny would be the key to withstanding the effects, and the last subject proved far more vital, but we never got more than thirty yards’ distance.   And the effect was nothing like yours, unfortunately . . . though it was just as pervasive.”