Enchanter (Book 7) (23 page)

As the place didn’t have an official name, and I wanted one that captured both its character and its place as a uniquely Sevendori establishment, I dubbed it
The
Slushpile
– where all the dirty snowflakes accumulate in the shade. 

I had some changes made to it – Radish was employed full-time, at livery, and the stores were improved with a little additional capital from my purse.  I detailed a carpenter to make some repairs to the roof and walls, and had a new privy dug out back.  I kept the obscuring line of rhododendrons in front of the place to keep it from being an eyesore, but once you got behind them it was actually kind of quaint.  I had a few rolls of parchment, ink, and charcoal supplied, as well as a slab of snowstone that took up most of one wall.  It wasn’t for magical effect, though I enchanted magelights into it, it was to serve as a large board upon which magi could work problems in charcoal or demonstrate theories to each other over a good pint of ale.

It wasn’t exclusively a magi pub – any tavern across the yard from the hall where my Dad is staying is going to get flour in it – but once the enchantment project began it became enough of a favorite of my colleagues that it was considered a wizard’s pub.

Besides, I got to drink for free.  Perks of being the baron.

The point of enumerating the favored drinking establishments of magi in Sevendor isn’t, as you might imagine, a scheme to improve my revenues from increased tourism.  Because those taverns became hotbeds of competing and complementary theory over the weeks of winter, as the work of the effort began in earnest the cenacules of Sevendor became the blossoming gardens  of innovative thaumaturgical theory. 

The Alembic
was the school of high theory, where the most erudite of magi (myself included by courtesy, if not by merit) discussed the finer points of thaumaturgic theory, especially enneagramatic magic.  The
Spark & Scroll
school was focused on the practical issues of enchantment.  And the
Slushpile
was reserved for wild flights of thaumaturgical fancy, up to and including theurgy and alien forms of magic. 

As the snows of winter came, and the leaves were driven from the trees, the first forays into greater enchantment were being made by my colleagues.  The first great baculus spells were cast as the cleansed and bonified staves were carefully shaped and crafted.  The first serious consideration of paracletic enchantment was being made at those friendly, intense discussions over winter duck and fresh meat pies.  And wine.  Lots and lots of wine.

My interests and energies were spread among all three schools, all of the workshops, and frequently found me reading in my tower until long past midnight.  I spent hours in meditation and spellwork during the day, then engaged in lively discussions during the evening hours before either devoting myself to serious study or serious spellwork, as the occasion demanded. 

Things with Alya started to get a little frayed as my technical presence but practical absence began to be felt.  I made a point of taking her to some of the cenacules, and also taking breaks from work to spend a few evenings with the children and my wife.  Our intimate relations were tentative and distracted, ostensibly because of work. 

But the fact was I was using my vocation to hide from my own feelings.  When I was indulging in the technical challenges of enchantment, I wasn’t worrying about my anger, or Isily’s plans, or the humiliation I felt about her assault.  My work became my haven from my own feelings, but it alienated me from my wife.

Alya could tell something was wrong.  She couldn’t bring herself to say it, exactly, but she told me so in a hundred little nonverbal ways.  If anything good came of my withdrawal from her during that time it was the renewed focus I put on my children. 

Minalayn was talking in full sentences, now, using his new voice to be as demanding and entitled as a little princeling.  He was just starting to get to be real fun.  Amina, for her part, held a monopoly on pure cuteness in my household that demanded proper respect and admiration.  The nights I devoted to my family during the Sevendor Bouleuterion remain precious in my mind as the fulfillment of my paternal dreams.  The only stain on the memory involves the pensive looks Alya gave me when she thought I wasn’t looking.

It was killing me not to confide in her, unburden my soul and cleanse my conscience . . . but then the consequences of doing that were clear enough to me.  It was easier sacrificing my inner peace and tranquility than inflicting my rage and despair on my innocent wife and forcing her to endure a burden she did not earn. 

We had a lovely family.  I couldn’t let anything bad happen to it.

Particularly me.

*

*

“The sophistication of these spells demands paracletion,” Master Ulin argued, a little tipsily, that night at the Alembic.  “Entrusting the agent-of-action to the same mind that is focused on obduracy is folly!”

“Some minds are better than others,” Planus smiled back.  “Paracletion seems a powerful answer to a simple problem.”

“It’s only a simple problem because we don’t have the capacity to consider more sophisticated enchantments,” Andalnam pointed out.  “Paracletion does mitigate that, dependent on the enneagram used.”

“Ah, and now we come to the sharp point of the debate,” Banamor said, expansively.  “What creature would you entrust to a task like that?”

“It’s not a matter of the creature,” explained Master Ulin, passionately.  “It’s a matter of their enneagramatic remains, and what pathways you wish to exploit for the work.  If an ordinant can transfer the pattern without the use of a benet, eschewing deracination of the living in favor of dissamuring from the enneagramatic archive of the Grain with a suitably docimased bridewell, then both the ethical and practical issues of flagitation and paracletion are solved at once,” he stated, triumphantly.

“I have no idea what he just said,” admitted Master Cormoran, drunkenly.  “But damn, he said it well!”

“It’s true!” Ulin insisted.  “The moral issues of mactation make using more than boatic forms inadvisable, thanks to the issues involved with metempsychosis.”

“Not to mention the fact that it’s necromancy,” observed Andalnam, wryly.

“Exactly.  But with the Grain and the resources within, you can tremendously mitigate the danger of catastrophic misauntering due to a faulty paraclete.” 

“Why would you need a bloody paraclete in the first place?” asked Lanse, who was eating uptown that night.  “How many enchantments do you need to manipulate?”

“The question isn’t how many you need,” Ulin insisted, “the question is how many can you convince the paraclete to operate on your behalf?  And that comes back to the nature and the origin of the paracletic enneagram.  By using the stock of bathypalaegic patterns, the necessary abstraction of perception and self-awareness removed from a familiar environment allows as many enchantments as the paraclete can comfortably hold.”

“Still, how much could you possibly want in one enchantment?” Cormoran asked.  “For a good mageblade I manage a dozen perhaps with some room for customization.  Why would a mage need a paraclete for that?”

“How many enchantments could a panaesthesic enneagram manage?” countered Ulin.  “Far more than a dozen.  In an attempt at a true magnality, one would postulate potentially hundreds.  Or thousands.”

“Why under heaven would you need that many enchantments in one object?” asked Taren, appalled.  “That seems like diluting the purpose.”

“That’s the beauty of a panaesthesic paracletic enneagram,” insisted Ulin.  “The paraclete can combine and guide the array of enchantments at its disposal with more deftness than the enchanter, himself.  Lines of force and possibilities of outcome that would not occur to a mortal mind occur to the paraclete and a more pronounced endix is produced,” he said, authoritatively.  “In theory,” he added.

“While that’s fascinating,” Lanse admitted, “you’re putting an awful lot of faith in fish-brains.”

“The creatures whose patterns lie within the Grain are manifold,” I assured him.  “While there are an abundance of fish-brains, so to speak, there are also far more sophisticated creatures.  Do not forget that the Sea Folk are descended from them, and they are no mean magi.”

“So how could you use a paraclete in, say, a magical weapon?” asked Taren, curiously.

“Oh, it could run defensive enchantments and such while the wielder focused on offensive spells,” suggested Cormoran.  “Defender of Empires was supposed to be able to do that.  It didn’t,” he added.

“Consider the usefulness of the Thoughtful Knife,” suggested Taren.  “That has to have some sort of paraclete involved.”

“A fair point,” conceded Banamor.  “And the magical constructs – what did you call them, again?”

“
Remipids
,” supplied Taren. 

“The remipids at the fair were very lifelike,” Banamor agreed.  “Enough that I got complaints from the contestants at the Trial.  If we can do more things like that, I don’t see the danger.”

“The danger lies in pulling some great hulking monster from its long-dead abyss, revitalizing its enneagram with magic, and hoping it doesn’t panic when it realizes that it is, indeed, no more.  That kind of existential crisis can lead to disaster,” offered Andalnam.  “That’s why such work was prescribed by the Censorate for years.”

“With careful selection, such issues can be overcome,” Ulin insisted.  “Most of the benthic enneagrams are straightforward.  Nor do they have to be fully restored – full pallingenisis should not be required to achieve an efficacious effect.”

“That’s an awful lot of investment to put into a stick,” Lanse said, shaking his head. 

“Ideally that sort of magnality would be immured within a more stable vessel,” agreed Ulin.  “A stone or gem, or perhaps a piece of bronze.  Something difficult to lose or steal.”

“And something that won’t consume itself with use,” pointed out Cormoran.  “Deflogistication takes a toll, you know.  There are metals I can’t use in my alloys because of that.”

“Well, there you go,” snorted Lanse.  “Unless you want a two-ton magical rock that can do what other rocks can’t, including feeling good about itself, then paracletion seems to be the way to go.  I mean, what could possibly be large and complex enough to require a fully panaesthesic paraclete? Nothing we’ve built.  Not even my most complex diorama would need one.”

“If we keep pushing the art like this, it will only be a matter of time,” Taren observed.  “Eventually we’ll make something so fancy and sophisticated that paracletion will be the only real way to use it.”

I drummed my fingers on the table in front of me, debating with myself whether or not I should do it.  It had been months since I’d returned, it felt like.  Yet here was the opportunity I had been waiting for.

“Actually, gentlemen,” I said with a sigh.  “I think I have just the thing that will require paracletion, and perhaps the most sophisticated one ever devised.  Let me take you to the mountain and show you the secret wonder of Sevendor.”

Part Two

Chapter Eleven

An Enchanting Yule

It was the first night I’d been back to the crystalline cavern of the Snowflake, the Denehole, since Isily and Ishi gave me such an interesting evening after the fair.  I hesitate to say that I was avoiding the place – I was busy, I told myself – but I also can’t say that my heart sped with every step I took back to the chamber. 

It was just as I had left it, no evidence of the crime or the divine bargain that had happened here.  Nothing but a chair.  And the Snowflake. 

I stared at it, transfixed, unable to move.  Flashes of that night came back to me unbidden.  The confusion, the humiliation, the impotent rage . . . then the moment passed, and I started breathing again.

I went to the spot directly in front of the construct and turned toward the doorway.  I wanted to see the faces of my colleagues as they saw it for the first time.  The effect was worth the effort.

“Dear gods!” Taren said from behind me as he entered.  “You
made
that?”

“What . . . is it?” asked Dranus, his eyes uncharacteristically wide, as he filed in behind him.

“As to the first question, yes . . . in a manner of speaking.  As to the second, I have asked you worthies to come here to answer that very thing.”  I had invited my best, most trusted colleagues into the secret lurking at the roots of my mountain.  “All I know is that it’s a kind of a
molopor
, only it’s not, really, and that it attracts magical energies like a hole in your pocket attracts your coins.”

“Magnificent!” Cormoran said, shaking his head.  “Crystal?”

“It came from the chamber,” I acknowledged.  “In similar vesicles where we found the pocketsones and waystones and such there was also a lot of quartz crystal loose on the floor.  Not here.  When they broke through it had all been incorporated into the artifact.  I theorize that the Snowflake is mostly quartz, and the stonesingers agree.”

“
Mostly
quartz,” Planus said, meaningfully.

“Exactly,” I sighed.  “Just as the other vesicles produced wonders like the pocketstones, there is no telling what crystals were here before the Snowflake was forged.  Whatever they were, they are now incorporated into the constantly-shifting crystalline matrix.”

“That’s a classy piece of enchantment,” Taren said, reverently.  That was high praise, coming from him.

“This has the faint aroma of theurgic magic about it,” Ulin said, shaking his head and stroking his beard.  “Am I wrong?”

“There may have been a divinity or two present in my fevered dreams,” I agreed cautiously.  “And the gods have some stronger power here in Sevendor, we theorize – that’s why I’ve got pilgrims lined up to see the Everfire in the temple to Briga in town.’

“I’ve theorized that theurgy was involved in the original snowstone effect,” observed Taren.  “That’s the only thing that could explain it, thaumaturgically.  So this could just be an extension of that.”

“But what the hells
is
it?” Lanse of Bune demanded, waving his long arms at it.  Lanse didn’t have a lot of patience for someone who played with dolls as much as he did.

“It’s appears to be a bloody big snowflake!” Andalnam said, matter-of-factly.

“But what does it
do?”
his daughter Rael demanded, her eyes dazzled by the artifact.

Master Ulin gave it a thoughtful look.  “It’s clearly furibund and hirrient; if we could find a way to control its pandation . . .” he trailed off as he studied the pretty thing.

“Again,” Rael said, irritated, “what does it
do?”

“It changes,” I said, mysteriously.  “It hums a little.  It glows.  And it attracts power.  But apart from that, I have no real idea.  It’s stationary, and while you can touch it, the effect isn’t pleasant.  I’ve kept my distance and used thaumaturgical assays to dewray it, but . . . it’s hard,” I admitted.  “So yes, essentially it is a bloody big crystal snowflake.”

“Of literally unimaginable snowflaky power,” Rael agreed, nodding sagely.  “You’ve tried—”

“I’ve tried every essential and some exotic assays,” I assured her.  “You’re welcome to repeat your own mensuration, but I doubt if you’ll get different results.  Or perhaps you will – damned if I know.”

“So you just happen to have a
molopor
in your basement,” Lanse said, shaking his head.

“Of his magical mountain,” snorted Taren. 

“Amongst his wealth of unique and incredibly powerful magical stones,” added Planus, grinning through his Imperial mustache.

“And the gods had
nothing
at all to do with it,” finished Andalnam.   “Just the Spellmonger’s luck.  So what
haven’t
you tried?”

We stood there, studying it and proposing different theories and possible avenues of approach.  The prevailing opinion was that something that obviously powerful and magical should be able to do something other than glow, hum, and feel smug at our ignorance.

Most of what was proposed was too complex to perform there and then, but some of them did try simple spells of revelation, without much effect.  But the effects that they did record were fascinating.

“It certainly is impressive,” Cormoran summed up, an hour after we started.  “And pretty.  And the gods’ own puzzle for us, to be sure.”

“I’d like you all to take a try at it,” I suggested.  “I’ll have a blank book brought down, and if everyone could record their findings in it, perhaps between all of us we can establish just what it is, what it does, and what we can do with it.

“But I also want it kept
secret.
  No one outside the Bouleuterion is to even refer to it, except in the abstract.  If you need to refer to this location, call it the ‘main vesicle’.  If you need to refer to the Snowflake, call it ‘the Specimen’ – that’s both common and obscure enough to keep anyone from picking up on it.”

“Why hide it?” asked Rael, confused.  “It’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen!”

“Because it could be dangerous, and we have enemies,” Taren assured her.  “The fewer people know about this, the better.  Can you imagine what would happen if someone snuck in and had access to it?”

“To do what?” Lanse asked, skeptically.  “We don’t have a bloody clue what to do with it.  How would
they?”

“It’s just a good idea,” Master Cormoran said diplomatically.  “I agree with Minalan, this should remain a High Secret of the Arcane Orders.”

“Should we have High Secrets?” Rael asked, frowning.

“When dealing with a magical artifact that could possibly annihilate the human race?” Master Ulin pointed out.  “Caution might be wise.”

“A fair point,” she conceded.

“Discretion has always been important to our profession, with good reason,” he continued.  “Even with relatively simple enchantments we court unforeseen dangers, as history has often shown.  And this is anything but simple.”

Over the days that followed everyone took a turn down in the tunnels, thaumaturgically whacking away at the Snowflake.  The record that evolved quickly filled the first book of fifty leaves, and then a second as each of them approached the subject from their own perspective.  Everything from Taren’s deep radial polyspectrum series to Rael’s meticulous plotting of the change rates and arcane concordances of the mysterious object was recorded in between our baculus work and our animated discussions. 

And believe or not, we learned some things.  Not a lot, and not much that seemed useful at the time, but the raw data we gathered on the Snowflake in the weeks leading up to Yule was impressive.  A lot of them liked just standing there and watching the thing’s gyrations.

But we did establish that the Snowflake existed in the Otherworld and was drawing power toward it like a beacon.  It was emitting some odd energies, not strong but very peculiar, in ways you don’t ordinarily expect from a crystalline object.  Prolonged contact with the surface could pull you into a mantic trance, while quietly chewing the skin of your hand to shreds, as Gareth found out during one unfortunate experiment. 

I introduced Sir Festaran to its mysteries and had him estimate the mass of the thing.  That proved problematic – my mage knight’s sport Talent could give me no fixed measurement.  According to Festaran, the mass shifted slightly – as much as a hundred grams – every second it shifted.  That really
was
interesting – and suggested some variant of the pocketstone had been essential to its construction.  You just can’t gain and loose mass like that without an extradimensional component – which opened up all sorts of interesting theories on the subject.

Due to the nature of his work, Lanse had an adept knowledge of control spells and the various energies used in them.  He spent two days relentlessly pelting the Snowflake with huge amounts of power in all manner of vibration at different strengths while his senior apprentice recording the results – which were intriguing.

You couldn’t injure the thing.  I tried hitting it with a hammer, and it was like hitting rock.  The surface of the crystal wasn’t even scratched.  Blasting it with destructive magic had no effect.  The Snowflake drank in the energy without apparent harm. 

We did find one good use for it, though.  Something placed between the spokes of the thing – say, Taren’s third-best warwand – will eventually get sheered in twain by the relentlessly changing crystal.  But somehow I didn’t think having an unbreakable and unmovable pair of shears was going to topple the Dead God from his nonexistent throne.

It was a pretty problem, literally and figuratively.  After a few weeks the novelty inevitably wore off, unless there was some intriguing experiment or interesting observation that would spark a few hours of theoretical conversation.  But the truth of the matter was that as professionally fascinating as the Snowflake was, we were making such impressive progress with our various new thaumaturgical baculus that it faded from our focus.

*

*

Two weeks before Yule, most of us were finishing the major arcane tools we’d designed and were putting the final touches on them.  I imbued my new baculus I’d with a paracletic enneagram suitable and useful for the tool.  Not for any better reason than to repeat the experiment I conducted with Pentandra’s rod, and to demonstrate the technique to everyone adept enough to replicate it.

I consulted the Grain of Pors and showed the adepts how to access the thing, how to discern between the thousands of enneagrammatic patterns and how to determine – as best you could – which of them would be best suited to the task. For my baculus I wanted something observant and inquisitive, curious and perceptive.  I’d explored the Grain enough over the summer to become familiar with the impressions within, and I had a good idea where to find it.

“Scouring the Grain is similar to navigating in the Otherworld, though your level of interaction is quite a bit more muted,” I explained, as I began the process.  “There are thousands of types of creatures within, spanning the gods alone know how many centuries.  But you have to familiarize yourself with enneagrammatic expressions well enough to discern which specimens are viable, and which might be . . . disastrous.”

“Are they just floating in there?” Dara asked, curious. 

“Essentially,” Taren answered for me.  He had been the only other mage to use the Grain to effect.  In fact he had been building a magical slashing spear in the Ilnarthi style, once he had completed his baculus, and had been searching the Grain for just the right predator to imbue it with.  “The enneagrams are locked into a kind of timeless state.  As they’re complete impressions of actual enneagrams, there’s no specific life-force energizing them.  In a lot of ways, they’re like suits of armor, the shapes and forms of living self-awareness but without anything inside.  We use magical power to energize the pattern, but without the coherence and cohesion of self-regulating energy that the life-force provides, such patterns lack agency.”

“So how do you deprihend the enneagram?” Ulin asked, eagerly.  He was far more theoretician than technician, and he had never raised even a simple water elemental before.  “A bridewell?” That was a special crystal or other substance that could temporarily house an enneagram.

“And Mandar’s Reflectory,” Taren answered, while I scoured the Grain with my mind.  “It’s a simple thaumaturgical tool you probably already know.  Once you get the pattern within the focus of the spell and you activate it, re-establishing the pattern in the object or material you want to put it in is a matter of building a suitable harness enchantment.  That’s where the bridewell comes in.  And then you release the pattern with the second command.  It takes a lot of concentration,” he conceded, “which is why it’s good to have a second enchanter handing the harness enchantment.  Trying to both at once is . . . challenging.”

“How do you entrain the controlling enchantments?” asked Andalnam, interestedly.  “Regular symmetrical channels?”

“Standard eutectic spell, in and out just like anything else,” I nodded, gruffly as tried to focus on both the Grain and the conversation.  I was getting close . . . I’d examined and discarded a few dozen, already, while they’d been chatting.