Extermination (Daniel Black Book 3) (11 page)

“I’m a quarter human,” she pointed out. “But yes, it’s quite likely that I shall live for centuries. That’s another thing that worries me, actually.”

“You worry way too much,” Tina said, clearly exasperated. “A great wizard like Daniel isn’t going to die of something stupid like getting old.”

“Most wizards do, Tina,” Elin said.

“Not this one,” I admitted, a little embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Elin. I should have realized that was something you’d be concerned about.”

“You’re immortal?” She asked skeptically.

“No, but I can heal old age just like any other malady,” I told her. “I’m not going to get old on you, and neither is anyone else in the coven as long as I’m around.”

Elin boggled. “You can heal old age? Just like that?”

“Yeah. Just like that.”

“See?” Tina beamed. “Have faith, Elin. Whatever happens, we can work things out.”

Elin wiped the tears from her eyes, and finally relaxed into our embrace. “I… thank you. Perhaps you are correct, Tina. I’ve spent most of my life expecting the worst, and rarely been disappointed. But ever since you came into my life, Daniel, everything has been different. Perhaps we truly can just… work things out.”

“We can, Elin,” I assured her. “I know you’ve had a long, hard road to get to this point, but things are going to be different now. Don’t be afraid to hope.”

“I’ll try, Daniel. I’ll try. I… I’m sorry I’m such a wet blanket, Tina.”

Tina rolled her eyes. “Don’t you dare start apologizing for feeling bad, Elin.”

She opened her mouth, but Tina beat her to the punch.

“And don’t apologize for apologizing, either!”

Cerise picked that moment to interrupt us with a question about how Elin wanted her furniture arranged, although from her expression I suspected the timing wasn’t an accident. She pulled Elin away with a smile and a hug, distracting her with mundane details.

Tina watched them go, and shook her head. “She really needs a lot of love, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah, she does,” I agreed.

She put her arm around me, and rested her head against my chest. “Well, we’ll just have to make sure she gets it.”

We stood there in silence for a moment.

“Oh, Daniel?” She went on. “I’ve been meaning to ask. What are we going to name our daughter?”

“Name her? What do you mean? She’s Bast.”

Now Tina was giving me her exasperated look. “She’s hiding, isn’t she? We don’t want to tell the whole world that she’s back.”

“Huh. Well, now I feel stupid. You’re right, Tina. I hadn’t thought about that.”

She smiled. “That’s alright, Daniel. You keep filling your head with the big, important stuff, and I’ll keep an eye out for the little things. Besides, didn’t it sound like she wants to be our daughter for real? We’re supposed to raise her just like a normal girl, so that means we need to give her a name too. What do you think about Borghild?”

I laughed. “I think some of these Norse names sound pretty strange to my foreign ears.”

She pouted a little. “Well, it doesn’t have to be that. I was just trying to think of a good name for a goddess of battle. Um, maybe Erika? Or Brita?”

“Erika sounds nice,” I agreed.

High Adept Steelbinder wasn’t terribly pleased with the delay in receiving the Conclave’s new power source, but he seemed somewhat mollified when I finally delivered it the day after moving Avilla’s kitchen.

For my part, I was happy to see that he’d apparently taken my warnings about how dangerous these things were seriously. He personally escorted me deep into a maze of windowless rooms on the Citadel’s upper floors, where High Adept Ward was waiting by a sealed iron door covered in enchantments. The old wizard grinned at me as I approached.

“So that’s the miracle stone, eh? It’s a strange enchantment, alright.”

“Oh, I layered it with misdirection and defensive effects just in case,” I told him. “But yes, the heart of it’s pretty exotic. I take it this is the vault where you’re going to keep it? I guess iron doors are a good bet for that.”

“The Conclave has better ways to protect something like this than just a locked room, Daniel. Ready, Lukas?”

Both wizards drew short wands of rose-colored crystal from within their robes, and stepped up to the door. There were thirty or so small hexagonal holes in the iron surface, each with a symbol engraved above it. They each took a moment to select one of the holes, and then inserted the wands simultaneously.

There was a deep mechanical sound from somewhere inside the door, and then it slowly swung open. On the other side was a large, open chamber where an iron dragon sat watching us.

I blinked.

No, it wasn’t alive. On second glance it had to be some kind of giant golem, but it was easily as big as the dragon Cerise and I had fought in the catacombs a week ago. Damaging a mass of iron that big would be quite a feat even if it wasn’t enchanted, and this thing was practically covered in runes anchoring a thicket of defensive wards.

“You’ll have to stay out here,” Steelbinder said. “Only High Adepts can enter the chamber without being attacked.”

“Not a problem, Your Wisdom,” I replied. “Here you go.”

The power source was a big block of granite shaped into a cylinder, just like the others I’d been making. It weighed a good sixty pounds, but Steelbinder carried it like that was nothing. He turned to step into the room, raising his staff and chanting something in Latin as he did so.

“Let’s give the man some room to work,” Ward said, drawing me away from the open door. “Old furnace belly is always a bit touchy, and he’s liable to roast strangers if they set a foot wrong.”

I let him lead me away. I’m sure they didn’t want an outsider knowing too much about how they handled that thing, and I’d seen enough to reassure me that their power stone was going to be as secure as anything could be. Given the number of checkpoints we’d passed through it was actually a lot more secure than my own vaults, although that was partly mitigated by the fact that this place had been here for centuries. Anyone who wanted to steal from the Conclave would have a lot of information to work with, while my own defenses were a completely unknown quantity.

Still, I wasn’t too worried. The fact that the Conclave was going to have a power stone at all didn’t exactly fill me with good cheer, but I was pretty sure they’d be using it primarily to kill monsters and defend the city. That, and theirs was designed to only put out a tenth as much energy as one of mine. Even that was a pretty terrifying level of magical power, but at least I could be confident of winning any future contest of magical brute force.

“So, did you bankrupt us on those amulets?” Ward asked as we moved down the corridor. “How many did Lukas end up buying from you, anyway?”

“Only three more,” I told him. “One for you, I assume, and a couple for use in rituals and enchantment work. We set the price at a hundred and twenty crowns for each amulet.”

He winced. “That’s a pretty penny. Worth it, mind you, but I can’t see any of the Adepts coming up with that kind of coin.”

“I think that was the idea, Your Wisdom. Keep things from spreading too fast, until you’re prepared to deal with whatever fallout there might be.”

“Ah, you don’t have to keep pulling that formal crap with me, Daniel. Not in private, anyway. The name’s Boris.”

“Thank you, Boris.” That was a surprise. But he waved me off.

“Bah. It’s obvious to anyone with a brain that you’re no lightweight yourself. Where are you from, anyway? No one can place your style, and you’ve got some damned odd turns of phrase. ‘Fallout’, for instance.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, the translation magic does funny things with idiomatic speech. But I’m afraid that’s something I need to keep to myself. All I can say is I’m not from Europe, so I don’t have any connection with the factions and feuds in this part of the world.”

“But you’ve got some connection to those pet witches of yours,” he pointed out. “Beyond the obvious, I mean.”

“There’s a bit of a story there, yes. I wouldn’t be in Varmland right now if it weren’t for Cerise. But I’m not secretly plotting against the Aesir, or anything stupid like that. At this point I figure the wise course is to concentrate on surviving Ragnarok, and see how things work out.”

“Surviving Ragnarok is ambition enough for any man,” he said dryly. “Ah, if only I were thirty years younger. The cold is hard on these old bones, and the battles are worse.”

I considered that for a moment. On the one hand, I didn’t want to give away too many secrets. But on the other hand I needed all the allies I could get, and wizards are used to hiding things.

“Well, I’m sure a wizard of your caliber has options in that regard,” I said carefully. “But as it happens, my healing works on old age.”

That got me a raised eyebrow. “Does it, now? That’s an unusual talent. What’s the catch?”

“I can fix the symptoms of old age, but not all of the underlying causes,” I told him. “So if I take twenty years off a man’s age he’s still mortal, and he’ll age a little faster the second time around. I assume that eventually it would reach the point where my healing doesn’t work anymore, but I’m not actually old enough to have tested that.”

I was pretty sure that was drastically underselling my flesh sorcery, actually. But if word somehow got out I figured the ability to give someone an extra century of life would draw a lot less attention than the ability to keep them going indefinitely.

“Not bad,” he mused. “But actually getting younger would conflict with my bargain, so I’ll have to pass. My arrangements will kick in when I need them. I’ll just have to be patient until then.”

Steelbinder rejoined us shortly after that, and the three of us made our way back out of the vault complex. They both had meetings to get to, but I had one last question to ask before I took my leave.

“So, what’s the Conclave’s policy on selling magic weapons to the nobles?” I asked. “I’ve got some ideas for simple things that would help the garrison deal with the next monster attack more easily, but I don’t want to step on any toes.”

“Simple devices are fair game,” Steelbinder said shortly. “But don’t sell anyone a weapon designed to kill wizards. No golems or bound creatures of power, either. If a noble asks for something like that refer them to the Conclave, and we’ll vote on the request.”

“Understood. What about utility magic, like warmth cloaks or heating stones? Same principle?”

“That, and don’t hand out anything that consumes a significant amount of ambient mana,” Ward told me. “That’s not a pressing issue, but there are enough wizards in Kozalin that we have to be careful not to let it become one.”

“Indeed,” Steelbinder agreed. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a golem animation to conduct.”

“Yes, and I’m off to the basement. The city wards aren’t going to renew themselves.”

They went bustling off in different directions, leaving me to my own devices. I had a million projects of my own to get back to, but I figured I might as well spend a few minutes checking out the library while I was here. I’d gotten access to it for myself and Cerise as part of the deal with the amulets, so I should probably find out what that was worth.

I had to flag down a servant for directions, and the interior of the Iron Citadel was such a maze I actually got lost a couple of times along the way. But there were enough servants around that there was always someone to point me in the right direction, so I found it soon enough. There were a couple of guards at the entrance, but they let me pass after checking the little bronze library pass I’d been given.

Medieval libraries look nothing like modern ones.

I suppose that subconsciously I’d been expecting a huge room filled with overstuffed bookshelves, but Varmland had neither printing presses nor a magical substitute. So instead what I found was a maze of interconnected rooms dotted with tables and comfortable-looking chairs. Here and there was a niche where a few books rested, or a pedestal with a massive tome lying on it. Most of those were actually chained in place, and some even had protective wards over them.

Several attendants waited by the door, and as I looked around one of them scurried over to ask if he could be of assistance. He was a young man, maybe seventeen, wearing a neat gray robe with a symbol embroidered on the chest in the Conclave’s colors. After a moment I realized it was a stylized book. Alright, so probably some kind of librarian rather than an apprentice wizard.

“Today I just wanted to get a look at the library, and find out how you run things here,” I told him. “I expect my apprentice and I will both be paying a lot of visits in the future.”

“Of course, Your Diligence,” he replied obsequiously, giving me the honorific the Conclave’s Adepts used. “I’ll be happy to show you around. The Red Conclave has the largest collection of arcane works north of the Alps.”

“Shouldn’t that be ‘Your Wisdom’?” Another voice interrupted. “I can’t imagine an ordinary Adept disrupting the whole natural order of things as our visitor has.”

I turned to find a lovely dark-haired woman in a low-cut dress regarding me with amused interest. She certainly had the figure for an outfit like that, and I recognized her face from recent Conclave meetings.

“Hello, Tova,” I said. “Do you always torment the staff like that?”

She smiled warmly. “Only on occasion, Daniel. I must admit, I wouldn’t have expected to see you here.”

“Oh, I talked Steelbinder into making library access part of our deal,” I told her. “I expect you’ll see me visiting from time to time.”

“So you’ve come to an arrangement? I’m glad to hear it, Daniel. Perhaps I could give you the tour? I believe I know the library as well as any of our scribes.”

I shrugged. “Why not?”

I let her lead me around the library for a few minutes, explaining the organizational scheme and commenting on the quality of various works. There were a lot of writings on magic here, as well as a considerable selection of other works. The filing system was a complete pain, of course. They categorized grimoires based on the era and school of the author, for instance, which was useless unless you already knew the whole history of the development of European magic. I could see that finding anything useful was going to take some work.

But Tova hadn’t approached me just to be friendly.

“Since you have your library access already, I assume matters must be progressing quickly?” She asked as we neared the back of the library, leading up to the obvious topic of conversation.

“Yes, I delivered amulets for the High Adepts today,” I told her. “We also agreed on prices. One hundred and twenty crowns per amulet, for Adepts in good standing.”

She frowned pensively. “I see. Not many Adepts could lay their hands on that kind of money, Daniel. I don’t suppose you’d be interesting in non-monetary forms of payment?”

“Going to offer me your daughters again?” I said dryly.

I was half expecting her to try vamping me into a deal, but instead she just sighed.

“I do wish I’d been more circumspect in approaching that topic,” she said tiredly. “You know, most men would jump at an opportunity like that. Britt and Caja are the perfect blend of demonic passion with human intellect, and half the wizards in the Conclave have been sniffing around them since they turned fourteen. It was a natural assumption.”

Well, if she was going to be honest instead of playing mind games I could do the same. “How did they feel about it?”

“After you threw up that fortress overnight? You were all they could talk about for days. Then they met Cerise at one of the apprentice gatherings.”

She paused, and shook her head sadly. “Fifteen years of painstaking research and preparation. Two years of summoning rituals, desperately trying to fight off incubus addiction long enough to make the fertility magic work. Then another sixteen years raising them in the family traditions, dealing with demonic instincts and helping them forge their natural magic into a tool instead of letting it control them. I’ve invested most of my life in those girls, and until you came to Kozalin I thought I’d succeeded. But crude as she is in some respects, Cerise puts them to shame.”

“Cerise is pretty amazing,” I agreed.

“As is Avilla. She must have been quite a beauty even before she was touched by magic. Or else, you must be a true master of cosmetic spells.”

I shook my head. “Believe it or not, that’s actually what Avilla looks like. No enhancement needed.”