Enchanter (Book 7) (32 page)

“It’s not just amusing,” I said, regaining my composure, “it’s instructive.  From what Pentandra has reported, Ishi has been wandering around Alshar, getting into mischief.  I’m just trying to figure out what she’s after.”

“As I said, she is the most deceptive and capricious of the gods.  Her final purpose is unknown, no doubt, even to her.  There are few even among the primal divinities who are as secretive and yet so blatant in their manifestations.  But as for what she is doing . . . well, luckily she does a lot of it by candlelight.  Or torchlight.  Or in front of a fire.  She’s been doing . . . a lot.”

“Doing what?”

“Doing
it!”
she said, blushing slightly.  “That thing she does.  The thing she does better than
anyone.
  And in her own mad way she’s trying to help.  She’s seducing people – men, mostly, of course – around Alshar.”

“Why?”

“Because she sees an opportunity,” Briga explained.  “Alshar is in a state of flux, and Vorone, especially, is flush with desperate souls desperately seeking some sort of security.  Your friend Pentandra is doing a remarkable job, by the way, far more than she lets on.  But she’s one of the reasons Ishi is there.”

“Sex magic,” I realized.

“She would, of course, be attracted to the most powerful manifestation of her sphere around, once she achieved her continuity.  Pentandra has devoted herself to the discipline in a way few others have in centuries.  She’s passionate about it – she would have made an excellent priestess, had she not been Talented,” she admitted.  “Even her recent nuptials won’t tame her innate curiosity about it – on the contrary, I’d wager they will broaden and even intensify it.”

“But with all the temple prostitutes, whorehouses, finishing schools and such in the world, Ishi decided married sex in a warzone was a worthy place to lend her talents?” I asked, doubtfully.

“As I said, you cannot try to explain her reasoning,” she said, evenly, “It is hers alone.  But she thinks she’s helping.  Who knows?  She might be.  But she’s creating a lot of havoc in the process.”

“Somehow I don’t think Ishi is going to be able to screw Vorone out of the abyss,” I smirked, “although I can imagine she’d try.  Setting aside her motivations, what exactly
is
she doing there?  Your professional opinion.”

“As I said, she is using her . . . talents.  She is seducing men and getting them to do her bidding, just as any woman with a plan might.”

“That seems a little counter to the idea of true love,” I pointed out.

“Because you are a
man
,” she agreed.  “Men love women with high ideals in their hearts.  When the truth reveals itself, they are oft left broken-hearted.  Women, on the other hand, love at the call of opportunity,” she pointed out.  “That’s not something Ishi wants to be generally known.”

“It does seem a little cynical,” I agreed.

“It is how things are,” she shrugged.  “And it is at the interplay of idealism and opportunity that Ishi plies her . . . craft,” she said, distastefully.  “She seduced the head of the palace guard, for instance, and then turned around and seduced two assistant castellans and a stableboy, all where I could see them,” she added, irritated.  “The next morning a revolt that was to happen, didn’t.”

“Then she
is
helping,” I conceded.  “Pentandra made it sound like—”

“She’s also opened a brothel,” Briga continued, evenly and with no little judgement in her voice.  “That has put her at odds with the palace authorities.  Including the Court Wizard.  It’s been . . . interesting,” she admitted, with a little smile.  “It’s not often you see a woman willing to stand up to Ishi.”

“She is a bit intimidating,” I agreed.  “Those breasts, alone—”

“She’s a bloody troublemaking little bitch!” Briga exploded.  “She’s always doing rash and foolish things and then rationalizing them later!   She’s constantly interfering with perfectly ordinary, perfectly decent people and getting them to do . . .
things,”
she said, shuddering, “things that end up destroying them.  They bring them pleasure, but rarely do the stratagems of the love goddess leave anyone living happily ever after.”

“But that’s not entirely true,” I pointed out, oddly in a position to try to cheer up a goddess.  “Alya and I ended up happy.”

She gazed at me a little too long.  “For now,” she conceded.  “But while you bear this weight on you, letting it drive you to new feats of creation, do you not think she, too, has her own secrets?”

“What do you mean?” I demanded, warily.

“She is no different than any woman,” Briga said.  “She loves you, adores you, is devoted to you . . . but if you think she sees her love in the same light you see yours for her, you would be mistaken.  Every woman has secrets, especially once she is a wife and mother.  My sphere isn’t sex, its wisdom . . . and I would counsel that it would not be wise to ask questions you do not want to know the answer to.”

I didn’t know how to take that.  The idea that Alya had secrets from me seemed foreign, but the more I considered it, the more I had to acknowledge the possibility.  There was part of me that wanted to go seek them out, and another part of me that wanted to heed the divine wisdom being shoved down my throat and not ask any questions.  Better to change the subject.

“But what you said about opportunity . . . Alya couldn’t have known I would have become a baron, or even saved everyone from Boval,” I pointed out.  “She was just young and in love.”

Briga shook her head, sadly.  “Young, yes.  In love?  Eventually.  I did not witness your initial courting, but I know enough that I could guess your bride’s motivations far more than you.”

“My sterling character and sharp wit?” I offered, lamely.

“Your handsome face, your broad shoulders, and her desire to avoid payment for healing her brother-in-law,” Briga countered.  “She had little experience of spellmongers, save for Garkesgu, and she guessed that the fee for your services would be extravagant.  She acted upon the impulse of her loins, and the genuine gratitude in her heart, but when she lay with you it was to take the opportunity to avoid a fee.”

That was a little crushing to my ego.  But not unreasonable.  Still . . .

“How do
you
know?” I demanded.  “Sex isn’t your sphere!”

“Because she bragged about it to her sister Ela that night, over a taper,” Briga admitted.  “Ela was worried about the cost of healing her husband, and Alya told her she had taken care of it.  When Ela pressed, she bragged about the whole thing.  There were no words of love, Minalan,” she said, sadly.  “Does that disappoint you?”

“Girls talk,” I dismissed.  “It’s what is in her heart that counts.”

“Then I am not the goddess you need to speak to, if you must know that,” she said, shaking her head.  “She was shrewd about it.  She was eager to tell, too, to show off her superiority to her less-fair sister.  She made mention of several of your physical attributes, but there was no talk of love.”

“It worked out,” I said, sullenly.  “And it’s not like she doesn’t love me now.”

“That she does,” Briga said.  “I know this from her actions, not because of my divine state.  She loves you dearly and is devoted to you – far more than you suspect.”

“So much for female opportunism,” I chuckled.

“You think so?  She has a secure holding, wealth, status, and a powerful husband.  She has her children.  She has far more of a life than she had ever dreamed of, much less hoped for.  The opportunities she took in seducing you paid off handsomely.  Now she protects what she has at every opportunity, and invests in her future.”

“Well, she did get a good deal out of it, but that was by accident,” I pointed out.

“And you got a loyal, devoted wife out of it, in return,” she pointed out.  “Your ideal is fulfilled.  As is hers.  It has been a fruitful union.”

“Yet I am the one who has
betrayed
that union,” I said, suddenly hating myself.  Sure, Alya may have just been trying to get out of a fee – I could accept that, in retrospect – but she had been loyal and faithful to me.  An ideal wife.  It was I who had transgressed against our vows.  More than once.  Even though I had struggled mightily, I had failed, and that was what made this so painful. 

“You were
entrapped,
” she pointed out. 

“Not the first time,” I reminded her.  “I betrayed my love for Alya long before Isily accosted me.  That wasn’t ravishment.”

“And I am not the kind of goddess who offers solace and forgiveness for such things,” she said, a little more irritated.  “Try Trygg, if you really want to go that route.  My stock-in-trade is biscuits, anvils, aphorisms and bonfires.  And wisdom.  So listen up, Minalan the Spellmonger, because I’m going to enlighten you.”

“Please do!” I said, frustrated.

“You need to gain your composure over this, because it’s starting to affect your work, not just compel it.  Like it or not, you’ve unleashed Ishi on the world and that’s your responsibility.  Dunselen and Isily will have to wait, as there is nothing much you can do about them until they act, and they may yet play a role in the unfolding of events that none of us can suspect, now that Ishi is involved.  That’s how these things work,” she said, flatly.  “When you get the gods involved,
everything
changes.”

“So what should I do?” I pleaded.

“Stop avoiding your responsibilities.  Start looking for solutions that might get your hands dirty.  Quit hiding from your family.  And trust that your wife loves you enough – idealistically or opportunistically – to understand something as fundamental as her husband has a problem.”

I sighed and stared at the Everfire.  Those were all very good suggestions, on the surface, but putting them to work seemed insurmountable.  I thought I
was
being responsible, after all, sitting at home and puttering around the castle, playing with sticks and rocks and not getting involved in politics outside of my barony.  Much.

But Briga’s suggestion that I was avoiding things, after the disastrous encounter with Isily in front of the Snowflake, stung.  It stung because it was a truth I
had
been trying to avoid. 

“She freed me from Isily’s compulsions,” I mentioned.  “Isily had me bound up with psychomantic compulsions to feel a sisterly affection for her.”

“I doubt her feelings toward
you
are sisterly,” Briga observed.  “At least not in most decent families.”

“She wanted to be the power behind my power,” I said.  “She wanted to be the Spellmonger’s puppeteer.  She wasn’t content controlling me through my children, threatening my home life, or even tempting me with her charms.  She wanted
me
to be her toy,” I said, growing angrier as I considered it.  “She didn’t even want to supplant Alya – yet – she just wanted my seed and to control my soul.”

“It was a golden opportunity for her,” Briga pointed out.  “After you had very idealistically given her a means through your past and thought it was behind you.”

“That’s what really stings – it was bad enough she had one daughter by me, without my knowledge.  She knew how I felt about that – she had to.  But to go and ravish me, not for mere lust but with the purpose of making Dunselen a cuckold and the satisfaction of stealing another woman’s husband . . . still, she had to place me under spells to control me.  If Ishi hadn’t released me from them immediately, there’s no telling what I would have done.”

“And out of a sense of gratitude and idealism, you granted her continuity – one of her greatest desires.  Minalan, I understand why you did what you did.  I’m not certain that it’s a bad thing, even, as Ishi’s domain is essential, and she can be quite . . . loving, sometimes.  When she’s not being a deceitful bitch.  What she’s doing in Vorone right now . . . it might be helping.  But helpful or hurtful, it’s not going to be orderly, with her involved.  Love never is.”

“She said she wasn’t done with me,” I said, swallowing.  “Should I be nervous about that?”

“No,” Briga said, cocking her head.  “You should be absolutely terrified about that.  Where Ishi goes chaos follows.  It’s one of the things about love that makes life interesting.  If she’s chosen you to fixate on, you could be in real trouble.”

“That’s helpful information,” I nodded, my heart sinking.  “Hey, you’re a goddess, you should know this: does it count as infidelity when you do it at the behest of a goddess?”

“Marital vows are Trygg’s domain,” Briga shrugged again.  “Mine is baking.  And your biscuits are done,” she added.

I looked more carefully at the lumps of clay now glowing brightly in the bottom of the flame.  I could barely see them, and was about to use my baculus to reduce the flame when Briga stepped in.

“Allow me,” she said, reaching through the protective spells and into a five thousand degree fire without singing her sleeve, her hand, or her dainty long fingers.  She casually hauled all of the specimens out and cautioned me against touching them until they’d cooled. 

“Hot things burn,” she said, with the certainty of divinity behind her words.

“And sharp things cut,” I agreed.  “I’m not a complete idiot, despite my complicated romantic life.”  I summoned my baculus again, and began looking at the results of my experiment.  It helped to have a goddess who minored in magic on hand.