Enchanter (Book 7) (19 page)

Banamor was giddy with the success, as the final accountings came in.  It surpassed his most generous expectations generously.  My own cut was pretty impressive, considering it was a larger percentage than Banamor’s.  More than I made in annual tribute from my barony.  I was rich.  Again.  Still.

I had decided to use the dividend partially by investing in my professional development.  My experience with Pentandra’s baculus, and the seminar at the Fair, had convinced me that the best use of my house arrest was to convene a Bouleuterion.

The term was popular in the Middle Magocracy, as the later Archmagi consolidated power on the mainland.  At the time, the role of enchantment was being emphasized to compensate for the loss of the great civilization of Perwyn.  As most of the enchanters in the nascent Magocracy worked alone, studying in seclusion with a few picked apprentices or acolytes, enchantment was originally seen as a solitary pursuit of specialists. 

The problem with this method is that it is slow.  It could take a single mage years to produce a workable enchantment, painstakingly working on a few pieces until he could show or sell them.  When the first Bouleuterions were convened, those solitary enchanters – known as
remotads
– were invited by a wealthy patron to gather together for the purpose of pooling their talents and efforts.  Whether the goal was to produce many temporary enchantments or focus their efforts on one major enchantment, the result was a century or so during the rise of the Empire where enchantment first flourished. 

The specifics varied from place to place, over the years.  Some Bouleuterions were small affairs, more theoretical gatherings than practical exercises.  Others devoted thousands of ounces of gold and hired hundreds of enchanters to gather together for years to produce their wonders.  A few evolved into regular manufactories. 

They institutionalized the production of a few prized enchantments that could be created at a profit, while creating lesser enchantments for instruction and practice.  The Bouleuterion first purpose was, after all, to be a commercial enterprise.  The enrichment and education that occurred at those gatherings was secondary to the important purpose of a mage earning a living.

As the Bouleuterion evolved, some of its practices became standard, such as the methodology of documentation of a particular enchantment.  Others varied widely depending on region, school, or preference, producing conflicting or wildly divergent methods.  Eventually interest in the movement died away as the Archmage confiscated most of the irionite, leaving only a few simple enchantments available to the profession.  A brief resurgence fifty years before the Conquest produced some intriguing new developments, and some evolution in technique, but then my ancestors kind of killed that line of research.

Since then, very little major enchantment had been done . . . and I had been doing it.  I decided it was time to re-establish the ancient and respected practice of the Bouleuterion, so I started one myself.

Traditionally the magi were summoned or invited by a wealthy patron or a mage with a wealthy patron.  Indeed most Bouleuterions were organized around the personal charisma of a particular thaumaturge.  These master enchanters – called
Aristophreni
– were the centerpoint of the grand enterprise they initiated.  They hired the paymaster, the mundane craftsmen, the specialists, arranged for the site for the workshops, guided the purpose and goal of the work, and organized the enterprise personally.  They were influenced at the time by both the vestiges of the Old Magocracy, which the Middle Magocracy was desperately trying to revive, and the emerging clerical movement. 

But for a hundred years or so, during the Golden Age of Enchantment, things were nearly ideal.  Or at least that’s what the historical section in
Raster’s Pandect of Gramary
said.  I read several standard thaumaturgical texts since I embarked on Pentandra’s baculus:
The Florilegum of Basic Thaumaturgy, Raster’s Pandect of Gramary, The Delectus of Pors
(a rare tretise on enneagrammatic magic),
A Pantography Of Magical Construction, Ratel’s Paraenesis
(“Helpful Tips for Practical Enchantment”), even obscure works like
Honlanus’ Paralipomenon on Enchantments
.  Master Ulin brought a few more works from his own collection, and Dranus had been adding as many volumes to my library as he could budget for.  That happened to be a lot.

By the end of the fair, I felt well-educated enough to know what I wanted to do.  Hence the quiet announcement of the Spellmonger’s Bouleuterion to those enchanters and thaumaturges still lingering after the fair.  I got a lot of interest.  Winter was coming, and few wanted to be caught on the roads or just getting home as it hit.  The promise of gold and an outstanding professional opportunity was just too alluring for them, and I recruited several adept enchanters to the enterprise.

I’ll admit, part of my sudden enthusiasm and willingness to act was a reaction to the events in the Snowflake chamber.  I was still angry and feeling guilt-stricken over what Isily – and Ishi – had done to me, and the appeal of the purity of professional work was powerful.  Alya was happy just to have me back home and working – she barely realized at the time that anything was wrong.  If I was talking about work or the kids I was happy, and she left it alone.

There was plenty of work to do.  Banamor was happy to be included in the enterprise, and signed on to be the Bouleuterion’s
eutaxarch
, the official responsible for distribution of finances, and he also agreed to share the job of manciple with Gareth, owing to the fact that he already had a warehouse stuffed with wares we’d need.  Master Andalnam agreed to act as Prime Symposiarch, the official in charge of over-all organization, and Master Ulin agreed to be the archivist for the project.  Considering the way his eyes bulged when I told him what he’d be paid, plus livery, such positions did not often become available for magi in Merwyn.

The rank-and-file enchanters we hired were equally pleased at the idea.  Banamor and I had hired them piecemeal, in the past.  Now that we had real, regular work for them, including the opportunity to work directly with the Spellmonger and his toys, the Enchanter’s Guild suddenly became a vibrant institution.

I had dozens of ideas, in those first days, as did everyone else.  There was a spirit of innovation and daring in the air as we considered the possibilities.  And the problems.  The biggest of which was a lack of standardized terminology and nomenclature for enchantment.  Right behind that was the renewed importance on enneagrammatic enchantment that almost no one knew how to do.  Most such spells had been originally contrived by necromancy, and were thus forbidden even before the Censorate.  But with the Grain of Pors and other treasures, the field was open anew for experimentation.  That was exciting in itself.  But it also required a lot of basic research and sharing of knowledge. 

Among my goals was to create powerful tools and ultimately weaponry and great enchantments that could, I hoped, challenge Sheruel.  But there were a lot of steps in between, and those first weeks after the fair we focused on basics.

I was particularly concerned about the coming winter.  According to Zagor, who was acknowledged an authority on such folk magic, the winter would be fierce, and extra care should be taken.  Such prognostications weren’t considered prophecy, as much as prediction.  Despite his recent familiarity with Sevendor, Zagor had quickly gotten entrained with the local geography and microclimate the way a good hedgemage should be.  Master Olmeg concurred with his opinion – the signs that the natural world were giving him told a story of a long, cold, wet winter.

So we prepared for it.  Not only did we import twice as much fuel into the domain stockpile, I also had my nascent crew of enchanters begin their practice by building no less than five hundred heatstones.  It was a simple enchantment.  Each was made from a smooth river-rock, brought up from the lower, non-magical portion of the Ketta.  With only about five runes and not much possibility for error, a group of enchanters could prepare a dozen in a day.  The hard part had always been powering the things, but irionite made that a trivial thing.  Those first few sessions it took Dara, Dranus and a few other volunteers about five minutes of spellwork and a jolt of power from their witchstone to feed the enchantment enough to make it work for years. 

That was the key.  Just about any footwizard can manage the heatstone enchantment; it’s a simple exercise in applied thermomantics.  But spending a whole day raising power naturally to get a few tepid hours of heat just isn’t economical.  It’s easier to build a fire.  The Sevendori heatstones would raise the interior temperature of a small cottage to a comfortable level for days, and keeping larger spaces warm enough to make a fire a convenience, not a necessity. 

Many of them we sent to local temples and abbeys in the barony, places where the poorest of my subjects sought relief from the cold.  Some we distributed to the ridgetop cottages, where wood was scarce and much had to be brought up steep trails.  Some we gave to larger, poorer families at risk of death from freezing over the winter. 

But most we sold at premium prices.  Within the barony I set the price at a mere fifty ounces of silver.  Stones for export were ten ounces of gold, with the promise of a free renewal of the enchantment, once it was exhausted.

The exercise was intriguing.  We did the work in a warehouse that Banamor rented space in to merchants before the fair, but was now mostly empty.  I convened a half-dozen wizards, went over the basic spell, made certain each of them could do it effectively, and I turned them loose on the big pile of rocks the Tal had brought up from the river.  They had them done by the end of the day.  After giving around a hundred and fifty of them away, two thirds of them sold in the barony, and a third sold in Sendaria Port, through Master Andalnam’s shop.  More than a thousand ounces of gold and nearly ten thousand ounces of silver . . . more than I collected in tribute from my combined domains in two years.

“You know,” Banamor admitted, a week later when he reported that we might have to do a few hundred more to meet demand, “we could expand this experiment.”

“How do you mean?”

“There are a lot of really useful basic enchantments that wizards rarely do because of the power involved,” he pointed out, “but we don’t have that problem here.  I just don’t have time to sit there and enchant rocks all day, no matter how much money it makes.”

“Either do I,” I agreed.  “That’s why I got other people to do it for me.”

“That’s the essential characteristic of professional greatness,” he chuckled.  “But what if we hired enchanters – plenty of them loitering around the Guild – and paid them to do it?”

“But they don’t have witchstones,” I said.  “Except for Rael.”

“Exactly,” Banamor said, smugly.  “But they’re
desperate
for them.  That’s why they haunt our town, for the chance to curry your favor and gain a stone.  All of them participated in the Trial, but none made it past Pentandra’s Veil. 

“But if we gave them access to irionite in exchange for doing the – let’s face it – boring, mindless chore that such things as heatstones have become, after the novelty of early success has worn off.”

“Give them irionite?” I asked, skeptically.

“Give them
access
to irionite,” he corrected, cagily. “What if you took a few of the lower-power stones and rented them to the Guild?  They would be under your supervision, and used only in your facility, but in exchange for doing some simple enchantments the poor bastards could use the stone for their own research.”

“I do have some lower-power stones, and it wouldn’t take many,” I considered, seeing the possibilities unfold.  “We could even put them in a protective housing to track and secure them.  That wouldn’t preclude vetting the enchanters thoroughly,” I added, warily.

“Oh, of course,” Banamor agreed, quickly.  He’d been the subject of one of my thorough vetting sessions.  Of course I trusted Banamor.  But I still had to watch him.  “But we could use the enterprise to screen for real talent . . . and perhaps even some innovation.”

“It would have to be under close supervision,” I cautioned.

“Then you agree with the plan?”

“If it can lead to revenues like this,” I said, gesturing to the parchment he’d brought me with its generous early tally, “I think I’d be a fool to ignore it.  Have you gotten the final tally from the Fair, yet?” I asked, curious.

“I’ve got a few clerks still working on it.  In terms of direct revenues and fees, after expenses we’ll make more than a thousand ounces of gold, profit.  In secondary revenues we did even better.  Sales of snowstone alone brought in two thousand three hundred ounces of gold and change, and our other enterprises did nearly as well,” he said, satisfied.

I started adding it up.  It was impressive.  Not as much as I got through the Arcane Orders in fees for witchstones and such, but that revenue was drying up a bit since the treaty with the goblins was signed.  I hadn’t had a new warmage candidate in weeks.  But a profit of over five thousand ounces of gold was enough to, theoretically, buy another domain, if I wanted that kind of major headache. 

That was in addition to all of the coin spent at the town’s shops, inns, and taverns.  Particularly the taverns.  After the fair, there was nary a drop of ale to be had in town.  It would take a few weeks for the fresh crop of barley to be malted and brewed before there was more.  My buttery was severely depleted, and we had to order from other estates for a few weeks.