Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy and Other Stories (37 page)

The castle library was immense, with two fireplaces, dozens of hidebound books, and scores of tightly rolled vellum scrolls. A few of the older codices were stacked on the three highest shelves and forbidden to him, but Cajarc otherwise encouraged him to indulge himself by reading as much as he liked. Which, as it happened, was a considerable amount. He learned of the Three Realms of Chênevin, Écarlate, and Savonne, of the Seven Kingdoms over which the Seven Witchkings had ruled, of the great cities to the south, the ancient, inhuman elves to the east, and the barbarian horse tribes that roamed the western steppes.

The winter, when it came, was even harsher than Speer had expected, but at least one fire was always roaring in the library. It was there, with only codices and one or two of the castle’s cats for companions, that he spent the greater part of his days.

He was permitted the run of the castle, excepting only Cajarc’s chambers, which abutted his own pair of rooms on the first level, and whatever lay beneath the circular stone stairs that led down below the ground level. The dungeons were there, or so he was told, although no one seemed to be inhabiting them as far as he could tell. He was forbidden to go there, not only on pains of the most severe punishment, but by his true mother’s name. Having no wish to learn what Cajarc considered severe, he abided by the restrictions imposed upon him.

The winter snows had just begun to melt when, one evening, over a dinner that consisted of a fishy seafowl killed by one of the guards, day-old bread, and a hard cheese made from goat’s milk that made him long for the softer, more flavorful cheeses to which he had been accustomed in Pretigny, Cajarc informed him that he was to begin lessons with his second teacher that very evening. Cajarc seemed amused, which piqued Speer’s curiosity. What sort of arts required the darkness of night? Was he about to be initiated into the Greater Truths of the Wahrkunst? He was puzzled when, after having been promised this new teacher, he was sent to bed after being permitted only a single bell of post-dinner reading in the library.

The woman who came to his chambers that night was considerably older than him. But she was kind, she was soft, she was pretty, and she was experienced. She introduced him to a magical world of pleasures he had never even suspected might exist. She was patient too, answering his every question with a grave and serious face, never betraying even a hint of amusement.

For the next two weeks, she came to him every night. Every morning, Speer awoke, naked and sated, alone in his bed. At the end of the fortnight, she vanished. He never saw her again, and neither she nor Cajarc ever told him her name, but there were nights when he closed his eyes and vividly pictured her large, heavy breasts, her wide-set eyes, her oval face, and her thick, womanly hips.

But not often. Between his lessons and his training in weapons with the guardsmen, there were many nights when Speer nodded off over a manuscript in the library and was half-carried, half-dragged to his chambers by Cajarc and one or two of the castle’s servitors.

Manhood brought about two changes in Speer’s routine. The first was that Cajarc spent less time tutoring him on history and philosophy and began teaching daily lessons in magic. They would begin with vauderie, the little man informed him, the discipline utilized by the Savondese Royal Academy, as it would give him a firm grounding in the esoteric arts he would need to master.

“Anyone with sufficient talent can call up fire or scry a pool of water,” the Écarlatean explained. “But mastery concerns more than action. Mastery relies upon knowing precisely what you are doing and why you are able to do it. To marry action with understanding, that is the object.”

“Was my father a master of magic?” Speer wanted to know.

“Of magics,” Cajarc said. “Vauderie is, well, I will not say that it is trivial, but it is limited. One might even say it borders on the common. Your father’s art, your people’s art, extended well beyond those limits.”

He smiled faintly, staring off into the distance as if he was seeing with the eyes of memory. Speer wondered what he saw.

“That is why your race was feared, Lord Dauragh. That is why, when you have received your full inheritance, you too will be feared.”

Speer learned of the second change in his routine about ten days after he began his lessons in vauderie. Earlier that day, he had succeeded in casting his first spell, a simple one that involved nothing more than snuffing out a candle then lighting it again. It was actually easier to do than to understand. He still wasn’t entirely sure why it worked, but when he concentrated and put his mind in the proper state, he could actually see the paths of force, the strings of magic, that flowed over, around, and through him like the wind.

Lighting the candle was nothing more than intensifying the connection on the flow that ran between him and the candlewick. When he focused his mind upon it, he could see the thin, faint pink string deepen and expand into a ruby-colored tunnel. Once the connection was strengthened, all that was necessary was to call the element of fire by its true name, the one he had been taught by Cajarc, and it appeared instantly, springing to life fully formed and burning like any other candle flame.

“Will, talent, and knowledge,” Cajarc told him. “That’s all vauderie is, the combination of those three things. Without talent, you cannot see or feel the forces that bind everything together, all throughout Creation. Without knowledge, you will not know how to use that which you see and feel. And without will, you can accomplish nothing, no matter what your eyes may see or what your mind knows to be true.”

“It’s like air and tinder, waiting for the spark.”

“Precisely.” Cajarc ruffled his hair and snuffed out the flame with his fingers. “Without the spark, there is no fire. You’ve done well, my lord. Just don’t set the curtains alight experimenting with your new abilities.”

Speer was thrilled. He was a magician! He was a sorcerer! No, he corrected himself, he was a Witchking! Whatever doubts he had harbored about the fantastic and terrible secret of his dread lineage vanished as quickly as the flame between Cajarc’s fingers.

“But there is more,” he told Cajarc. “You said this is the Academy’s art. Not my father’s.”

“Yes, Lord Dauragh, there is more. There is most certainly more. But never forget: No matter what the discipline, no matter how dark the art, without the spark, there can be no fire.”

Perhaps as a reward, perhaps as a distraction intended to prevent him from burning down the castle in the night, Cajarc sent him another woman. This time she was considerably younger, a Dalarn girl not much older than Speer himself, with long blond hair and breasts that were not even a handful. She was a maiden and very nearly as nervous as he was himself. It was awkward, it was uncomfortable, and yet, there was something more meaningful about her presence in his chambers than had been the case with her older predecessor, the woman Speer still thought of as Her.

There was something about the girl’s nervousness, her fear, that awoke a sleeping shadow within him. He was not cruel to her, but neither was he kind. And when she cried out in pain rather than in pleasure, he learned to his surprise that he liked it very much indeed.

• • •

Months passed, then years. His sensitivity to the great web of power, as he thought of it, now rivaled Cajarc’s. His vauderic knowledge was both deep and wide. Cajarc assured him that he would be more than a match for any Academy mage in battle, though not a grandmaster or immortel. If his will was not yet what it would be, it was nevertheless more than enough to transform even the most fragile and tenuous thread into a thick cable of force that would bear even the most weighty magics.

But despite his training, he was no master swordsman. He was competent, nothing more, and more comfortable on the defensive than the attack. He preferred to wait for his opponent to commit himself, then strike back with a counter designed to exploit the openings created. Most of the guardsmen were able to best him without much trouble—until the day he discovered that he could use his vauderie to manipulate their weapons, pulling a blade forward as a man lunged or causing it to dip just as he was attacking. Overnight, he became formidable, very nearly unbeatable, and although the guards must have suspected what he was doing, he never did more than was absolutely necessary.

Cajarc, however, was well aware of his new trick. The day after Speer discovered he could combine the art of the sword with the vauderic art, his tutor showed up for the afternoon sparring, something he had not done in years. He watched with an amused half-smile on his face as Speer defeated one guard after another.

“It’s about time,” he said, as Speer blocked his last opponent’s thrust to the side, then exerted his will to cause the sword to twist in the man’s hand, slowing his reaction to Speer’s two-handed riposte. At the last moment, Speer twisted his wrists in order to thump the flat of his blade against the man’s breastplate and grinned as he acknowledged the man’s rueful concession. “The lesson goes well beyond the blade. Never forget that the combination of two arts is often more powerful than anything one can manage with one alone.”

• • •

It was a cold autumn day in Speer’s twentieth year when he descended from the tower that served as his bedchamber and found Cajarc standing at the landing below, staring pensively out the little window that overlooked the little-used road to the village of Stammløse. To his surprise, the Écarlatean was dressed like one of the guards, although over his black leather armor he wore a fine wool cloak with a scarlet lining. He turned around at the sound of the door opening and regarded Speer in an unexpectedly grave manner.

“Good morning, Lord Dauragh.”

The sight of the sword he was wearing at his belt caught Speer off-guard. He pointed to the hilt and made a quizzical gesture with his left hand.

“What is this? Is there trouble with the villagers again?”

“In a manner of speaking. I assume you are at least dimly aware that the supplies which feed the household, and the young women in whom your seed is planted, are not magicked up by me or the staff.”

Speer had never given the matter any thought. He assumed that both were either bought from the nearby communities or demanded by virtue of his right as the local lord. But then, this was not Savondir and the reaver clans were not peasants.

“Of course,” he lied.

“Well, then, it is time for us to earn our keep. There is a petty king named Hrolf Snaketongue who apparently has had his eyes on a girl from Tønstadr. He fell on the town with a band of his men yesterday, killed three old men, and took the girl, her sister, and twelve other women back to Nidarhälla with him.”

“And how is that our concern?”

“Tønstadr is within our protectorate. Once it became clear he was going to lose the war, your father reached an agreement with ten of the local kings and godar. They agreed to keep twenty men supplied here at the castle, and in return we guaranteed the safety of their women and children when they were off reaving. After a few examples were made, no one dared touch their towns, until now.”

“Why now?”

“The ships of Tønstadr are still out reaving the coast of Savondir. I imagine when the Snaketongue returned from his own reaving, he realized the men from Tønstadr weren’t back yet and decided to take the opportunity to seize the girl. He’s young and hot-blooded, by the sound of it, and I have no doubt he disregarded the warnings of his elders.”

Speer nodded. “So you will make an example of him?” He wondered how, considering that Cajarc only had ten armed men at his disposal.

“No, Lord Dauragh.” Cajarc smiled. “We will make an example of him. It is time you learned how a Witchking makes war.”

Speer stared at his teacher in dismay. “How many men does this Snaketongue have?”

“Nidarhälla is not a large town. It’s barely more than a village. He’s said to have six snekkjas, so it is safe to assume he has around two hundred fighting men.”

“We’re going to attack two hundred men with ten?” Speer said incredulously.

“Twelve,” Cajarc corrected him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Ten fighting men and two sorcerers. Just follow my lead, my lord, do as you’re told, and you’ll see why men once said that a single Witchking in battle was worth a thousand men-at-arms.”

They departed Mordlis by sea, in the small boat shaped like a miniature snekkja that had been made by a shipwright out of Thjovrer. There were five rowing slots per side, a single square sail suspended from a central mast, and it was as seaworthy as any ship in the Isles. Speer had sailed on it only a handful of times. When he went fishing with Cajarc or one of the cooks, they usually used a smaller dinghy. The square sail was black and without device. But there was something strange about it, and it took him some time to realize what it was. Unlike most of the sails he’d seen traversing the rocky coastline over the years, it was unfaded by sun and sea-salt.

The sea was relatively calm underneath a storm-grey sky, but Speer’s stomach roiled as if he were seasick. He didn’t think he was afraid, but his belly didn’t seem to have the same confidence in Cajarc’s sorceries that his mind did. He gripped his oar and pulled with the others, seeking to put aside his fears in the strain of the physical activity.

“Take a break,” Cajarc called from the stern, where he stood manning the rudder. They had made their way out of the fjord in which Mordlis was located and caught the south wind that was bringing the last reavers back from Savondir. Nidarhälla was along the coast to the north, and given the way the sail was now bulging, they would be there before the hidden sun was at its height. “My lord, give up your oar.”

The other nine men sat back and released their oars as Speer moved out of the way of the spare guard who nodded at him and took his place on the middle starboard seat. Speer held onto the mast with one hand, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as the boat rose and fell with the waves underneath.

“Hammer and anvil,” the sorcerer told him. “It’s just like the tactics you’ve studied. I will herd them to where they are vulnerable, and you will destroy them. Fire is the obvious choice, but consider that earth is often deadlier. And when you see our men move in, stay your hand. They will be ensorcelled and fearless, so you must be aware of where they are to avoid catching them up in your spells.”