Knights Magi (Book 4) (2 page)

“Neither one of you have fathers,” I observed, “and as your lawful master, it is my place to usher you into the realm of manhood.
 I’ve never done that before.  Maybe there is some subtle art or magic to it.  But until I discover that wondrous spell, it is my
duty
to ensure that you become men.”

“I’m already sixteen,” Rondal boasted.
 “I doubt I have much more growing to do, Master.”

“This isn’t about your boot-size, Ron,” I said, disparagingly.
 “The fact is the two of you are full of piss and vinegar and boyish energy . . . and you’re getting on everyone’s nerves.  Poor Dara barely survived that lesson you gave her on thermomantics.  You are boys, but you are boys in the bodies of men.  Age does not bring manhood,” I explained.

“But Master,” Tyndal beseeched, “we’re both old enough to marry or fight in a war.
 We
have
fought in war,” he boasted.  He was proud of his military service and the lauds it had brought him.  That was not the emotion I wanted him to feel.

“And you did so
as boys
,” I said, sternly.  “Under
ample
adult supervision.  The problem is, I don’t have time or energy to supervise you both anymore, or even the one of you.  As much as I would like to devote the time to turning you into men, and men I can use, I do not currently have that capacity.”

“But Master, we’re still learning plenty from you!” protested Rondal.

“Couldn’t we study with Lady Pentandra instead?” asked Tyndal eagerly.

“She cannot teach you what you need to know.
 Women become women by Trygg’s grace.  It
takes
a man to
make
a man.”

I remembered my own influences as I went from boy to man: my father, of course, but after he had raised me, the teachers at Inarion, the instructors at Relan Cor, and the veterans on the warmage circuit had filled in the gaps in my education.
 They had taught me the essentials of manhood, inclusive of so much more than choosing the proper barber and the best wife.

I didn’t even understand properly what they had done until I had returned from the war in Farise.
 But they had given me guidance and taught me what I needed to know, not just about my profession, but about how to be a man.  What it was to
be
a man.  

And
I
turned out pretty well.

So I was going to try to re-create the experience with Rondal and Tyndal.
 They didn’t look committed yet, though.  Time to
scare
them.

“Show me your stones,” I said, after a long pause.

Their eyes shot open, and they looked frightened.  They had cause to be.  Under the oaths they’d been among the first to swear, I had the authority to demand the return of their stones at any time.  They were honor-bound to surrender them to me, if asked.  And they were sworn to retrieve a stone from any other High Mage who refused to return their stone upon command.  

They slowly removed them from the tiny silk bags around their neck and held them out for me.
 I stared at the two small pieces of green amber and shook my head.

“You have in your hands more power than the Mad Mage of Farise, gentlemen,” I said, looking at their stones.
 “More power than any mage since the Imperial Magocracy.  You’ve destroyed
castles
with those stones.  You’ve slain hundreds of foes.  

“But you are both still boys, as much as Urik was a boy when he went mad.
 And I cannot have a boy who cannot control himself in charge of irionite.

“So you’re both going to Sendaria Port in the morning, thence downriver to Inarion in the south.
 You’re both familiar with the place,” I reminded them – it was the destination we had chosen to rescue them and a few thousand of their fellow Bovali from a certain death.  “Put your stones away.  You are to report to the headmaster and then spend the next several weeks of winter being tested and examined by the faculty.  I want to know just how much you know about magic.”

Tyndal, especially, had large deficits in his knowledge, due in part to my poor library and in part to the goblin invasion.
 Inarion Academy was one of only two magic academies in the Kingdom, now, and they were in the process of kissing my arse devoutly.  I’d used their greed for irionite to get a few concessions, such as this special tutoring for my apprentices.  

Tyndal wasn’t stupid, he was actually very bright.
 But he lacked education.  Inarion should repair that, at least enough for the time being.  And Rondal, who was advanced even for a normal apprentice, would love the opportunity to dive into their libraries and learn from the very best academic magi.  

“Then you’re both going to the War College at Relan Cor this spring,” I continued.
 “Tyndal, you will improve your mastery of swordplay and take formal classes for warmagic.  You’ve mastered the basics of combat, but you need polishing to become a truly impressive warmage.  And Rondal, I’ve arranged for you to be initiated into the Mysteries of Duin.”

I heard them both suck in their breath, again with good reason.
 

The Mysteries were legendary.
 Legendary for their brutality and rigor.  Duin the Destroyer, war god of my ancestors, had stolen them from Gobarba, the old Imperial war god, and now all the gods seemed to prefer them.  I’d endured them myself, in abbreviated form, when I was drafted.  To my knowledge there was no better way to turn a man into a soldier than the Mysteries.  That didn’t make them comfortable or pleasant, however.

But Rondal needed it.
 Tyndal was a bit of a bully, I knew, and while Rondal was fairly good-natured, he needed to learn how to fight back.  
Without
involving me.  Rondal was smart, but he wasn’t strong.  Tyndal was strong but he wasn’t smart.  Rondal whined.  Tyndal bitched.

“Aw!” complained Tyndal, looking at Rondal for the first time.
 “You’re
lucky!
 Why him and not me?”

“Because
you’re
going to be spending the first two weeks he’s there on additional study at Inarion,” I explained.  “And because you don’t really need them, not the way he does.”

“
He
gets advanced training?” protested Rondal.  “That’s unfair!  Master, of the two of us I am—”

“—going to be enjoying a lovely spring in southern Castal, learning the ancient and honorable trade of the infantryman,” I said, dreamily.
 “But that’s not all.  When your terms at Relan Cor are up, you will return
here
. . . and spend some time learning what it means to be a knight mage.”

“What
does
it mean to be a knight mage?” asked Rondal.  As both the term and the institution were new, he had a fair point.

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” I promised.
 “I understand your confusion – I have no more idea how to be a . . . whatever it is
I
am than you do how to be a knight mage.  Fair enough.  But you’re going to figure it out.  You’re going to learn warcraft.  You’re going to learn spellcraft.  And you’re going to learn chivalry.”

That earned a grin from Tyndal and a scowl from Rondal.
 I ignored both.  

“Master, whatever I did, I’m sorry—” Rondal began, sullenly.

“I’m not doing this because I want to punish you, torture you or send you away.”

“So why
are
you doing it, then?” Tyndal asked. I considered.  That was a fair question.

“So that you will be more useful to me,” I explained.
 “I have six jobs for every one of me in this clockwork of magic, military, and bureaucracy I’ve built, and I need men I can trust to keep it working right.  Whatever other problems you give me, I know I can
trust
you two.  

“You need to learn chivalry because if we are going to see the profession of magic elevated to the nobility, we damn sure need to establish some boundaries for it.
 Knights magi will someday, I hope, be the tool we need to strike back at the Dead God.  But without the structure and discipline implicit in chivalry, that tool may well turn back on the people who it is supposed to protect.”

“I don’t much like jousting,” Rondal pointed out.

“And I don’t much like reading,” Tyndal shot back.

“And I don’t much like
idiocy
,” I said, rolling my eyes.  “I’m going to need you both for a number of missions by the end of the summer.  Things I
can’t
trust anyone else with, frankly.  I need you as competent and as trained as possible . . . with all of this boyish rivalry safely buried.  You need to learn how to work together, despite your differences . . . because you’re going to be working together, like it or not.”

That wasn’t an understatement.
 I
did
need them.  The problem was Gilmora.  

Last summer the goblins had rushed an invasion of the north-central Riverlands, pouring about a hundred-thousand gurvani warriors, trolls, and the occasional dragon into one of the most fertile and productive regions in the Duchies.
 Gilmora grew just about everything, but the region’s major crop was cotton.  Gilmora grew the finest cotton in the world, and the land had become ridiculously wealthy on its export to Merwyn, Remere, and Vore.  

Gilmora was also full of people.
 It took a lot of people to deliver cotton to market, and Gilmora had a lot of people.  Or at least it used to.

Now the goblins occupied the northern and western third of the region.
 They had not assembled in one nice, neat, easy-to-defeat army, of course.  They went after the smaller human settlements piecemeal, mostly looking for slaves, driving the survivors to flee south and east, consolidating them in the larger cities.  The invasion had played havoc with unsuspecting Gilmora last year.  The folk there were used to civilized feuds between cotton dynasties, not the savage attacks of genocidal non-humans.  The Dead God had even sent dragons out of legend there to destroy the armed strength protecting the land.

That hadn’t worked out so well, after the initial shock wore off.
 My warmagi and I had slain the last one he’d sent.  Barely.  Tyndal and Rondal had both been involved in that fight.

So now the goblins had stopped advancing.
 They were just . . .
waiting
.  Waiting and rounding up every human they could find to feed the sacrifice pits at Boval Castle.  

This had been a fell winter for Gilmora’s normally-mild climate.
 The daily dispatches I received from Lord Commander Terleman were grisly tales of gurvani raids that had driven thousands into flight and had seen thousands more captured, coffled, tormented, and force-marched north into the Penumbra and beyond.  

As horrific as the reports were, the focus of the nascent kingdom had been on stopping the advance, not reclaiming lost territory.
 The resistance behind the loosely-defined “front line” was strong in some areas, extinct in others.  Gilmora was not a bellicose land –
“make cotton, not war”
was the motto of one prominent family.  Most of those who had chosen to flee from the region were now castled or still moving away from the front lines in long columns of refugees.  Those who stayed to try to protect their property were often left alone . . . at first.  

The goblins weren’t advancing.
 But they wouldn’t stay in such a playful mood for long.  Soon they would be on the march again.  South, west, east, any direction they picked to march didn’t bode well for the kingdom.  If they persisted in an aggressive attack the kingdom’s resources would be required to repel it.

Like it or not, these two half-grown half-men who had resorted to exploding chamberpots and itching spells were some of the best potential resources we had.
 As I watched Tyndal cut sidelong looks at his rival, and Rondal’s eyes narrow in boyish derision, I wondered whether or not we were already doomed.

“I have no choice but to train you into the men that I need,” I said, almost apologetically.
 “Our fate is rarely our own to choose, but we can make the best of what the gods have gifted us with.  You both have tremendous potential.  For harm as well as good.  You’re both reasonably intelligent,” I understated.  “You generally have sound judgment.  You’re loyal.  You both can read.  You’re both fit and hale.  The only thing you lack is . . .”

“Experience?” asked Tyndal, hopefully.
 

“Seasoning?” asked Rondal, warily.

“
Instruction,
” I replied, flatly.  “You are both ignorant children, rustic rubes up-jumped far beyond your station and given power far beyond your capabilities or worth.”

They both looked at me with a mixture of embarrassment, shock, and anger.

“Stings, doesn’t it boys?  But that’s what everyone will be saying about you based entirely on what they’ve heard and your accents.  They say that because while you are both, in your ways, brave, intelligent, and energetic, you also both know nothing of the world beyond your little mountain vale.  You do not understand the social position into which you have been thrust, and you do not have the upbringing that your social peers did.