Enchanter (Book 7) (14 page)

A
great
adventure,
I repeated, trying to keep the irony from my mental voice.  I had, after all, just given her a magical weapon of great power. 

Then I went back to the party.  It was a really good party.

Lorcus – freshly shaved and drunk as hell, was in paradise.  Planus was enjoying playing unofficial host to his cousin’s nuptials, and even serene Dranus was visibly pleased at the merriment.  I gave a long and partially incoherent toast that made Penny blush and Arborn laugh self-consciously behind his hands.  Carmella and a few other of Penny’s girlfriends from Alar Academy followed with a ribald fictional account of her early years that left us all rolling in the rushes with laughter.  Seeing Carmella not just laugh but crack jokes that were actually funny was a wonder in itself.

For his part, a few of the Kasari men who had accompanied Arborn gave brief accolades to their captain, and praised Pentandra for her wisdom and devotion . . . which made me wonder what, exactly, had happened at the Kasari rites to inspire that level of allegiance. 

After the sun set we took the celebration outside where Dranus had contrived to launch a spectacular display of philoxenic enchantments (magical fireworks) from Lesgaethael, overhead.  The elegant white Alkan spire glowed with eldritch light, aswirl with a swarm of tiny magelights while alchemical explosions detonated in brilliant flowers of sparks and clouds of colored smoke overhead.  Philoxenics and alchemical incendiaries were a minor hobby of my court wizard.  A flashy bit of theater one could use to impress the gullible or augment the effect of a spell to improve a client’s perceptions of your power. 

Once you added the power of irionite to the philoxenic art, Dranus proved you could extend the spectacle in breathtaking ways.  Showers of colored stars reformed into abstract shapes or simple animals before they extinguished.  Clouds of smoke hung in the sky and burned pale from within.  He finished the display with a bright, massive snowflake that rotated for a half dozen turns over the entire town before dissolving into a gentle sprinkle of light.

It was amazing – and inspiring.  Magi had always been adept at such spectacles, and court wizards were regularly called upon for some sort of entertainment in the form of a flashy display.  But after Dranus’ performance at Pentandra’s wedding party, there began a real development of philoxenic enchantments as different High Magi competed against each other.  After that year, such spectacular fireworks became the hallmark of the magical fair.

Dunselen and Isily were there – how could they not be?  They gave Penny and Arborn a beautiful Remeran tapestry from the pre-Conquest period, enchanted to dampen sound and never need cleaning.  I once again managed to avoid them both by being very careful about my position in the room and my company . . . but where stratagem fails, magic finds a way.

I was in the guarderobe, relieving myself of some of the day’s ale, when I felt the brush of contact, mind-to-mind.  I didn’t think much of it when I answered – I get calls like that all the time. 

This time I wasn’t quite prepared for the response.

Hello, Minalan,
Isily’s voice said into my mind.  I stopped mid-stream
.  Are you planning on avoiding me all night?

It’s mostly your husband,
I admitted. 

At least you don’t have to lie with him,
she said, with undisguised disgust.
He wanted a brief encounter after sampling some aphrodisiacs, today.

Ugh!  How did you avoid that?

I didn’t.  I am a good wife.  But being a good wife, I employed my feminine skills to protect my womb.

Protect your
womb? I asked, startled.

Surely you remember me employing the technique on you,
she chuckled into my head. 
Dunselen is just as susceptible to its charms, and far quicker to respond than you, from what I recall.  With the cream of the magical profession here, and me at my fertile period, it would be a shame to waste my womb on his seed. 

Try the Gilmorans,
I suggested. 
I hear they like group activities.  You didn’t just barge into my head to talk dirty while I’m in the privy, I hope.
 

Of course not,
she reproved
. I just wanted to thank you for a lovely time.  My lord husband and I will be departing tomorrow after the Trial, skipping the Champion’s Feast to avoid the crowds.  I am truly impressed at what you have accomplished here in Sevendor, and I hope to take some of the ideas to my new home.  I only hope that on my next visit I might impose on you to see some of the real work you have been doing here.

Real work?  I’ve been gone all summer,
I reminded her.
That shiny stick I gave Penny was the only real work I’ve been able to manage.  Outside of the Trials,
I amended.

I think we both know what I mean,
she said, mysteriously.
I won’t even chide you for not sharing the mind-to-mind spell with me, Min.  It was easy enough to get from Dunselen.  But in light of our new alliance, this might be the most discrete means of communicating, don’t you think?

Just try not to abuse it,
I cautioned her, sternly. 
This is a privilege.  And, technically, a State Secret.  But I guess you know how to keep a secret.

And I am adept at discretion, as all shadowmagi are,
she reminded me. 
We just give each other what we need, and no one else need be privy to it.  Good night, Minalan.

She left my mind just as abruptly as she’d entered it.  It took me a good dozen breaths before my breathing finally evened out and my heart stopped pounding.  And it took me a dozen more before I was relaxed enough to finish peeing.

Chapter Seven

The Solace Of The Snowflake

FORMANT

“Envisioning the construction and development of an enchantment requires of the operant develop the fundamental diorics of the object: what does it need to do?  How shall it accomplish that goal?  What powers must need be brought to bear to fulfill this expectation?  Such diorics, in their totality, make up the enchantment’s formant, or essential definition.  Without the formant, the enchanter proceeds without understanding or the expectation of success for it is within the diorics of the formant that success for the enchantment is ultimately defined.”

The Florilegum of Basic Thaumaturgy

The Spellmonger’s Trial is the toughest and most important competition of the Fair, and the participants began gathering and preparing themselves at the Fairgrounds early in the morning.  By the time I got there, a crowd of nearly a thousand had gathered. 

The vendors were doing a brisk business, and the autumn skies were bright and clear.  Lesgaethael stood in the distance on Matten’s Helm, the destination of the contest.  My old pipe was resting on a boulder at its summit, and dozens of nasty magical obstacles promised to give every contestant an increasingly difficult challenge before they gained the top.

The first one who returned my pipe to me won the stone and took their oath.  It was as simple as that.

There were over three hundred contestants this year.  The monks of Ifnia took bets on the leading contenders – mostly warmagi – and the spectators were speculating on what special enchantments they would run afoul of this year.

The truth was, I wasn’t precisely certain myself.  Pentandra had strengthened and augmented the Veil she’d cast around the base of the mound, and I’d delegated specific sections to Dranus and Taren as guest enchanters, but I had no idea what devices they had conjured to challenge the entrants.

For my part, I’d created six little leather simulacrums, roughly man-shaped, packed them with snowsand and some strengthening enchantments, and invested them with the enneagrams of a particular variety of highly territorial crustacean from the Grain of Pors.  At various points along the route they would leap upon the entrants from where I’d left them an attack them as if they were defending their eggs.

Of course I didn’t want to kill anyone.  That was bad for business.  So instead of the blunt claws the ancient beast was used to attacking with, I replaced the “hands” on each side with a thick burlap pouch filled with the nastiest, smelliest mixture of manures my humble domain could produce.  Then I added a minor enchantment to make the mire stick egregiously wherever it landed.  When my knee-high terrors pounced, they covered their foes with a layer of absolutely putrid ooze. 

Just to make things fun, I added a compound that turned it Sevendor Green, too.

That seemed somewhat pedestrian, however, and as an afterthought I included some enchantments my former apprentices had inspired this last summer. 

Each belligerent poppet also emitted a horrific shriek magically magnified and augmented to send all but the most stout-hearted victim fleeing in terror.  Some also gave a maniacal laugh.  Some bawled piteously like tortured children.  Some hurled insults of the vilest sort.  As a special finish, I had talented Dara paint each face with a fiendish visage, complete with glowing eyes and a crazy-looking mouth.  When they were done I had a half dozen little imps out of someone’s worst nightmare.  Not mine, but then I have a very active imagination.

Lastly, at the top of the hill, once the entrants left Dranus’ section, they had to face a construct I designed specifically for the purpose of guarding my pipe.

It was based upon a kind of shelled animal – whether fish, reptile, or some odd thing I could not conceive of – that religiously guarded its nest from predators with incredible vigilance.  It wasn’t violent, but it would interpose its heavy body between its nest and danger.  It was also magically gifted, apparently.  If it felt truly threatened, it could summon a magical wave of distress strong enough to summon assistance . . . and knock out any predators in the area at the same time.  I don’t know what the exact action it used was, but its instinct to employ the attack was clear in its enneagram.

The construct itself I built similarly to the annoying poop-flinging imps on the slopes below, only instead of two nimble legs I gave it the six stubby little legs to which it was accustomed.  Its back was protected by a massive bronze shield once borne by trolls, a souvenir of the Timberwatch campaign.  Six feet long and four feet wide, made of solid bronze and heavily enchanted to repel direct attacks, the massive metal plate was near enough like the ancient creature’s shell to appeal to its defensive reflexes.  The bright white snowflake I’d had painted on it was just my ego talking.

To mimic it magical attack I gave the construct access to an enchantment lodged in a marble of thaumaturgic glass: a wave of magical energy designed to stun the central nervous systems of anyone in a twenty-foot radius.  Once I installed the fake beast on Matten’s Helm, and instructed it that the boulder with my pipe was its nest, it settled into a slow-moving circular march about eight feet away from the rock . . . and if you tried to get close to it, it would wheel around and interpose itself.

That’s all.  But any attempt to evade the beast would see it wheel around again to intercept the attempt . . . and if it was going fast enough, it really didn’t mind the collision that resulted.

I called it the Shieldbeast, because I was tired and not feeling as imaginative as usual that morning.  I was playing around with all sorts of ideas for magical constructs designed to besiege a castle, or do other military duties, and the Sheildbeast was an essay in that direction. 

I gave my speech, I implored the entrants to behave honorably, and I waved the witchstone prize around in the air before making it disappear into a magical pocket.  Banamor started the contest, everyone raced off, and I was faced with four boring hours of waiting around the Fairgrounds making polite chit-chat with other magi and important guests.

I suppose I should complain – I was the Spellmonger, and this was my special party, after all.  But after my encounters with Isily I couldn’t wait until the Fair concluded and everyone went home.  I wanted peace and quiet, not society and gossip.  I wanted to get on with the work that was starting to suggest itself in my head, thanks to the ideas and inspirations the Fair had given me. 

But someone always wants to talk business . . . and Banamor had ensured I had plenty of important folks lined up to talk to.  I’d arranged a few vital conferences myself, to advance my own schemes.

The most important scheme, currently, was to quietly see the restoration of the Ducal House of Alshar to at least a fragment of its former realm.  There were a lot of good and compelling economic and political reasons for this.  But there were also forces arrayed against the idea. 

The current royal house, in particular, preferred the westernmost duchy broken and impotent and would see even its nominal restoration as a potential threat.  Since those folks were my overlords, if I wanted the Orphan Duke back on his throne, I would have to arrange to do so without attracting their notice. 

This was a project I had been working on for months.  Penny was in on it, as she was instrumental to its success. I also tapped the talents of Count Angrial, a strategic-thinking Alshari diplomat who had lost favor at the royal court.  He would become Anguin’s new Prime Minister.  And the veteran soldier Count Salgo had agreed to take over as the Alshari Warlord.