High Mage: Book Five Of The Spellmonger Series (7 page)

Unlike Sir Staldin, Sir Ryff could not read.  That was not particularly unusual among country knights.  He was more soldier than administrator, so that’s how I used him.  Sir Ryff had spent all day overseeing the progress of the work crews excavating the foundation and inspecting the small garrison of Westwoodmen stationed there, and he had come down the mountain hungry. 

He washed his hands at the basin before securing a bowl of porridge and a jack of beer.  A Tal Alon drudge came by and placed a trencher in front of him without prompting.  The castle employed over fifty of the small, brown-furred humans as servants.  They were exceptionally loyal, difficult to bribe, and they worked like beavers.  The castle Tal all wore green tabards over their fur, and many had taken to wearing small human clothes as a point of distinction.

Sir Ryff did not care who served him.  As a visiting vassal, however minor, he was entitled to sit at my table in the absence of men of greater rank.  This early in the evening, before Alya arrived, I didn’t mind the company.

“Well enough, Sir Ryff.  Just untangling the mess that Sire Gimbal bequeathed to me when I took his lands away from him.  The last case was a big mess he left me from the Woolbrothers of Fistan and the matter of scutage for a garrison that no longer exists.”

Ryff grunted over his porridge.  “No doubt, no doubt.  Always robbing one vassal to pay the other,” he said, almost nostalgically.  “Put my lands in a pretty spot, he did, when the tax man came through.  Always promising more than he could deliver.”  Sir Ryff’s holding was reasonably prosperous, I’d learned.  He held two small estates in Hosendor, a little domain I had conquered just on the other side of the southeastern ridge from Sevendor last year. 

It should have been enough to comfortably meet his feudal duties, but he was always in debt to his liege by design.  I was hoping to change that, now that I was in charge.  Ryff was one of a hundred-odd landed knights who now owed me their loyalty through their domain lords.  There were always four or five extra knights around the castle, now, waiting for something to do.  Each was expected to take a turn (usually half a month every year) to come and stay at Sevendor Castle, and the ambitious among them had made a point of doing so as soon as they could. 

We weren’t in danger at the moment, but I welcomed the additional officers.  It was important to keep up good relations with your vassals, great and small, and the rotation of sworn men through the castle’s defenses allowed me to see how they worked and what kind of character they possessed.  It also helped build loyalty and camaraderie with men who could someday be risking their lives on my behalf

Sir Ryff wasn’t particularly ambitious, but he’d showed up because he was originally scheduled to stay at a castle I’d destroyed in the war last year, and he didn’t want to be counted lax in his service.  Doing his obligatory military stint for a few weeks here instead of overseeing the laborious spring plowing in his home estates was appealing, I knew.  It also allowed me the pleasure of getting to know the man.  Sir Ryff was as loyal and helpful a vassal as I could ask for, always ready for an assignment or a task.  He was an admirable horseman.  He rarely gambled and drank in moderation.  And he was a good man to grumble to, I’d found.

“Now I’m forced to make good on some of his bad decisions,” I sighed.  I explained the situation with the temple and the guild, and he was amused, if a little appalled by my solution.  I was glad someone took humor in it.  I just didn’t realize why.

“Not everyone can just throw gold at a problem and make it go away,” he pointed out.  “Don’t let their cowls fool you – those monks are sharp customers when it comes to wool.  They send a brother down my way to quietly buy what little we shear, and if some of that gets mixed up with their ‘famous’ Abbey’s wool, then who is to know?” he grinned.  “It’s a well-known fact in Hosly and Hosendor, Magelord.  Aye, fully half the wool that the woolbrothers sell at Sendaria market is from sheep outside of their manors.  Yet they command a premium price on every staple that bears their stamp, no matter the quality or origin.  The only people it harms are those with money to throw around for such luxury.”

Well, I felt like an idiot.

I was glad I’d met Sir Ryff.  He might not be literate, but he had the average country knight’s understanding of manorial management and simple warfare.  He certainly was not educated beyond that, for which I was thankful.  He didn’t know it yet, but in the furthest corner of one of his estates was a small outcropping of snowstone that no one yet knew about – and I wanted it under my control.  His presence here had shown that he was a reasonable man with no deep-seated feeling about the lands he now administered on my behalf. I was hoping to find a way to take advantage of that, quietly.

He had not been a particular client of the Warbird, merely a professional knight in a secure posting.  Chances are I could bribe him or buy out his charter, or just grant him lands elsewhere in my domains.  If the rumors of rebellion in Northwood were accurate, for instance, there might just be a few vacant estates in need of a good man to oversee them.  From my estimation Sir Ryff was wasted in Hosendor.  Nothing ever happened in that rustic, sparsely populated, forested little fief.

I was about to open the possibility of Sir Ryff making such a change when the door to the Great Hall opened behind me.  That happens a lot, of course, especially at meal times.  I was expecting Alya back from her picnic with the baby, or one of my two older apprentices – then remembered that they’d been sent away the week before for training.  Or it could have been a hundred other people on a thousand different errands.

But when the great iron-banded wooden door opened this time, I could feel a real change in the air that had nothing to do with the temperature.

“Ishi’s perky tits!” swore Sir Ryff under his breath, in wonder.  “Who is
that
lady?”

“That, my lord,” answered my apprentice Dara, as she sat near to me with her trencher and mug, “is the famous magic of the Tree Folk.”  For once she didn’t have her prized hawk, Frightful, on her arm. “That is Lady Fallwallan of the Alka Alon, ambassador to the Magelord and all human lands.  And I would counsel you not to stare overmuch, sir knight,” she chided the older knight.  “The lady is a stranger to most of our customs, but she knows rudeness as well as any woman.”

Sir Ryff nearly bristled, due to the source, but he knew his place.  It was unusual to see a girl of fourteen use that kind of language with a senior anywhere, but Dara had the rank and standing to do it to Sir Ryff without rebuke.  She was not just a fellow noble, she was also my apprentice.  She understood that made her almost untouchable around Sevendor, and while she did not trade on the fact, she was happy to take advantage of it when it suited her.  Sir Ryff did not care if she was a lady or a girl.  She outranked him, and that was enough for the knight. 

He looked away, though there was no trace of shame on his face.  I didn’t correct her.  As long as she was respectful in her use of power, I wasn’t going to interfere. 

“Lady Fallawen?  Of the Tree Folk?” he asked in a daze.  “I had heard the Fair Ones had taken up residence in their tower, but—dear gods, I had no idea they were
this
fair!”

“Actually,” Dara began, “they live there in name only, at the moment.  The real labs and workshops won’t be ready for another year or more.  But they’re already planting the peak of Matten’s Helm around their tower with trees of especial virtue.  It’s going to be very pretty,” she assured him, solemnly.  “But I caution you against demonstrating too much attention to her, my lord.”

“Why?” he asked, suspiciously.  “Would she take offense?  She has a lord, perhaps?”

“On the contrary, she may welcome the attention . . . and soon you would be following her around like a puppy.  I’ve seen it happen to a couple of poor souls,” she said with exaggerated weariness. 

“I . . . I just thought that they were . . . that they might be . . . that they are supposed to be—” he stammered.

“Little?  You must understand that the ambassadors utilize magic to appear as fair as they do, and human-sized as well.  Ordinarily they’re as small as children, and not nearly as attractive.  Lady Fallawen’s transgenic form is particularly beautiful, I think, but they are all fairer than any human woman.”

“You speak the truth,” he nodded, gravely.  “So beautiful . . .”

“But as fascinated by us as some of the Tree Folk are, you would never be more than a puppy to her.  She’s going to live for
centuries
.  You will be dead before she’s tired of you.  Besides, that’s not even her
real
body,” she pointed out, a little jealously.  “If I had the magic to make me look like—”

“Dara!”
I said, warningly as she shifted from sharing her knowledge like a sage and indulging in a teenager’s snit.  I was fiercely against that, having seen enough of them lately.  That’s why Tyndal and Rondal were off at school, now.  That was the last thing I needed.  Especially during an unexpected visit from the Alka Alon ambassador.

She sighed.  “It’s just not
fair
.  She was
smaller
than I was, and—

“Dara!” I whispered harshly as the preternaturally beautiful woman arrived at my table, “
do your duty!”

“On behalf of the Magelord of Sevendor I bid you welcome to our humble hall, my lady,” she said, suddenly standing and bowing as the Alka Alon ambassador glided over to us.  Sir Ryff stood as hastily, and I took my own sweet time getting to my feet.  It’s not that I wasn’t respectful.  I lived here. 

“Thank you, Lady Lenodara,” Fallawen said, approvingly.  Her kindred delighted in human formal occasions and forms of address, even modest ones like these.  Fallawen usually represented the more-businesslike side of the Alka Alon who were behind her embassy, while Lady Varen handled magic and Lady Ithalia handled cultural affairs. 

And Lenodara – ‘Dara’ to nearly everyone but the formal Alka Alon – was right: it
was
a bit unfair of them to transform themselves from their diminutive non-human forms into tall, shapely,
breathtakingly gorgeous
human forms.  The spell – a “transgenic enchantment” – had men staring in wonder every time one of the beautiful women chanced to visit the market. 

Thank Ishi they did not keep to their clothe-less customs after their transformation, or no one would ever have gotten anything done because of the distraction.  Instead they chose simple, woodland-themed clothing of utter elegance, gowns that seemed designed to celebrate the female form. 

The Alka Alon saw clothing as a delightful affectation by our folk, and their transformed selves enjoyed the novelty of actually draping cloth across their bodies in artful ways – but ways which were poorly informed about human standards of propriety.  The Alka Alon gowns were achingly attractive but could make a bridesister blush.  The effect of the perfect female bodies and the perfect clothes had that much of an effect on the humani around them.

The visiting transformed male Alka Alon weren’t any better.  A few weeks before a young Alkan lad had visited the castle, investigating snowstone, and his dreamy eyes and sharp features had set every woman within to relentless sighing.  Even Alya had been affected.

I was growing used to it.  It wasn’t just their beauty, I’d decided after observing the typical reaction to their presence.  The transformed Alka Alon were somehow magically just
more attractive
than mere mortals.  Every movement seemed calculated to entice and allure.  Every word seemed to invite and delight at the same time.  It was distracting.  And captivating. 

“My Lady Fallawen, to what do we owe the honor of your visit?” I asked, cordially, although I suspected I knew the answer.

“Business, Magelord,” she said, the pretense of a frown forming on her perfect lips.  “I come bearing an invitation for you to meet with the council of Alkan elders,” she reported.  “They gather to address the rise of the Abomination, the invasion, and . . . other matters.”

“Other matters” meant the sudden rise of me, the Spellmonger, to power in human politics and my even more sudden possession of the priceless mountain of snowstone we were sitting on.  The Alka Alon were mildly interested in the former, but the latter subject had gotten their attention more than when humans had fallen out of the sky the first time.

From what I understood from my Karhsak Alon stoneworkers who had built the Alka Alon embassy and were now working on my castle, snowstone was unique in the universe.  It reduced magical resistance in the area to effectively nothing, making Sevendor one of the most magical places on Callidore.  And that resistance was apparently portable and permanent, which made it all the more valuable.  The Alka Alon had never managed to produce such an incredibly useful substance in all their years as masters of magic.  That made me a bit prideful. 

The fact that I had no idea exactly
how
I did it only diminished the feeling slightly.

The important thing about this summons, however, was that they actually wanted to include me in their counsels at all.  Only a mutual threat and my sudden wealth had compelled them to relax a reclusion.  This was a golden opportunity for me – for all of humanity – to enlist the aid and resources of the wisest and most powerful of beings.  I had the chance to propose a wide-ranging alliance, material support, technical advice, perhaps even military forces.  The Alka Alon archers are unparalleled in their accuracy, and they were rumored to move like warmagi when fighting.