Lesson of the Fire (29 page)

The red continued in
Middling Gien, but she spoke more slowly. “
No Mardux has won a battle against Dinah. She is a fearsome
goddess when moved to revenge.
”

Erbark could tell this would be difficult.
He began unlacing his boots, every childhood teaching screaming
against it. “The Bald Goddess is not omnipresent as is Seruvus. We
Mar have feared Dinah and her curse too much for too long. The
Mardux can tame her, but he cannot do that if Flasten continues to
betray Marrishland.”

She stretched out a hand to touch his
shoulder. Her grey eyes brimmed with wonder and curiosity. She
spoke Mar with a thick Middling Gien accent, evidence of the Gien
Empire’s influence even after centuries of freedom. “Keep your
boots, weard. I have some soup. I will hear your cause in the
Bastion.”

Erbark obeyed. A black portal opened in
front of him, and he suddenly realized Pidel Palus’ stronghold
could also serve as an effective prison. With a silent prayer to
Fraemauna for guidance, Erbark stepped through the darkness and
into the Bastion.

He passed mere minutes in the silent sense
deprivation of the Tempest before arriving in a narrow hallway. The
duxess stood a pace away, and it was a mark of the duxess’ skill
with teleportation that neither of them suffered a twinge of
teleportation sickness.

To say nothing of the accuracy necessary to
arrive in such tight quarters.

“
If you’ll follow,
” the duxess said in
Middling Gien, beckoning.

Erbark walked with her through unornamented
corridors. From the outside it had appeared as large as the citadel
of Domus Palus, but the closely spaced wooden doors spoke of small
cell-like rooms, not the vast, vaulted gathering chambers of the
citadel.

What it lacked in physical detail, the
Bastion made up in magical artistry. Energy spells lit the
windowless corridors. A Power-driven draft circulated fresh air
through the narrow area. They walked past many wizards going about
their business, none of them below the lavender of sixth-degree.
The few open doors they passed gave Erbark glimpses of vast
libraries, impossible fountains that flowed backwards or sideways,
a room filled with marsords and similar spectacles. Every one of
them spoke of the duxy’s wealth, knowledge and magical power.

She’s trying to impress
me,
Erbark knew, but he couldn’t help being
a little impressed in spite of himself.
She could have brought me directly to the audience chamber or
sitting room or wherever we’re heading.

The duxess stepped toward a door at the end
of the hall. It opened silently without so much as a gesture from
her, revealing a well-lit room occupied by three stuffed couches in
a circle around a small table.

“Have a seat, Weard Lasik,” she said, still
speaking Middling Gien. “The soup will arrive shortly.”

Erbark nodded and entered the room. She
followed him. The door swung gently shut behind her and locked with
a soft click. Ignoring the sensation of having walked into a trap,
he sat on one of the couches. The duxess sat on a second, and it
wasn’t until her knee bent that Erbark noticed the shorter gouger
blade of a marsord peeking out of a slot in her cloak.

Her eyes followed his, and she smiled
slightly. “Does this surprise you?”

He shook his head.

“It surprises me to see a green wearing a
marsord.”

He shrugged. “It’s a useful tool — a saw, a
machete, a utility knife, a serviceable hunting device.”

“A weapon,” she added.

“When necessary, yes.”

“Yours has killed.”

“Many times, duxess. There were once many
gobbels on the Morden Moors.”

“It has killed Mar?”

Erbark struggled with the structure of his
reply. He didn’t like where this conversation was going.

“Is it so difficult to answer yes or
no?”

He lowered his eyes and bowed his head.
“Yes, but never without need. It is a great sadness for Mar to kill
Mar, even to protect my master and his family.”

She said nothing for a long time, and Erbark
could feel her weighing his words. When the duxess spoke, it was in
Mar, which Erbark interpreted to mean he had passed her first test.
“Do you know why the Duxy of Pidel has always remained politically
neutral?”

He left his head bowed deferentially and
spoke in a near whisper. “I cannot know, Duxess Zaun. I can only
interpret.”

“Do you mock me?” she demanded.

“No,” Erbark said without raising his voice,
though he looked up slightly. He had intended for her to assume he
was referring to omen reading, and she had risen to the bait.
“Pidel’s actions in times of civil war are predictable, but no one
understands its motives.”

After a pause, she spoke calmly, and her
voice took a lecturer’s tone. “Nightfire teaches that the myst is
nothing more than energy — coming from somewhere ill-defined and
going somewhere just as mysterious. We believe the souls of Mar
become myst at the moment of death — lingering in our world to
protect the Mar from Dinah and Domin.”

“Watch over us, my fellow Mar,” Erbark
murmured, reciting the prayer for the dead. “Shelter us with your
darkness and guide us with your light. By your sacrifice, we are
warmed. By your sacrifice, we can see. By your sacrifice, we live
on.”

“Yes.” She sounded pleased. “The power of
the shades is limited, but Marrish grants wizards the power to
guide the spirits in a concerted effort and to use their strength
to aid their descendants.”

“The myst and stars on the same side. The
dark dead guard. The bright dead guide,” Erbark recited. He looked
directly into her grey eyes even as the startled look grew
accusatory. “Like Pidel, the Mardux’s motives are less obvious than
his actions.”

“His amendment is reckless. It will bring
Dinah’s Curse down on Marrishland.”

“He wishes to fulfill the dream of Weard
Darflaem — the first Guardian of the Mar.”

“Or he hopes to raise an army of adepts to
consolidate his power,” she countered crisply.

“Weard gave Marrish’s gift to anyone who
came to him for instruction. Sven wishes to do the same.”

“Weard did not use his power to kill those
who made themselves his enemies.”

“Sven’s only enemies are those who serve
Dinah’s children.”

“But they are Mar nonetheless, and he would
turn the shades of the dead against the living.”

“He did not begin this war. Flasten has
invaded. He has broken the Law, while the Mardux wishes to obey it.
Why side with Dux Feiglin?”

“Both sides are in the wrong, Weard Lasik,”
the duxess said with cold fury in her eyes. “Pidel will side with
neither. Flasten received the same answer.”

Erbark stiffened. It shouldn’t have
surprised him that Volund would try to win allies. Flasten had
convinced no one on the Council to side with him against Sven, not
even Wasfal. Erbark knew he had reached an impasse in the
negotiations, so he changed tactics. “What sign would you demand of
the gods before you changed your mind, Duxess Zaun?”

She frowned. “Why is the magic of deception
called Wisdom?” Glyda asked without explanation for the sudden
change in subject. “Why is the magic of altering magic called
Elements?”

Where is this coming
from?
“Both are translated from farl words,
so perhaps the translation is imprecise.”

The duxess gave him a mysterious smile and
shook her head. “Ancient histories tell of wizards commanding the
weather — summoning storms, calling down lightning, guiding the
winds. No wizard can do that anymore — not with Elements or any
other myst. Do you know why, Weard Lasik?”

“I’d guess either the stories were
exaggerated, or the knowledge was lost,” Erbark said hesitantly. He
had heard only a few such stories.

“The scholars of Pidel Palus disagree.”

“What other explanation is there?” Erbark
asked, baffled more at this sudden transition than at the statement
itself.

“Magic changed. We changed it. Oh, not
deliberately. Marrish gave us control over the elements, but the
gods later took it from us. Maybe we used it to make war with each
other, and that was our punishment. Or maybe we needed to counter
the magic of enemy invaders more than we needed to control the
weather, and the cyan souls changed to serve that need.”

“I suppose it is … possible,” Erbark
conceded without enthusiasm.

She looked at him with
deadly seriousness, her fingers flicking in irritation as she
returned to Middling Gien. “
You think
wizards of Pidel are Fulemon sitting on the library, believing they
can hear the voices of the torvekson within.
” The duxess spoke several complex sentences so quickly Erbark
could only pick out the words for “magic” and “empire” among
them.

He spoke in Mar deliberately. “Please,
duxess. I am less fluent in Middling Gien than you.”

“I am sorry, Weard Lasik. The influence of
the Gien Empire still runs strong in my duxy.” She paused, as
though trying to find a way to speak eloquently in a foreign
language. “Changes in the myst tell us where the gods are leading
Mar civilization. Dinah and Domin did not topple the Gien Empire by
merely sending the Mass. They changed the rules of the magic the
Giens relied on to expand and control their empire. The Giens had
not imagined magic could change, so they were not prepared. The
Duxy of Pidel will be.” A brief pause. “You look like you have
doubts.”

“I don’t see what this has to do with the
Mardux.”

The duxess set her empty bowl on the table
and stood up. “It has everything to do with the Mardux.” She gave
him a weak smile. “If it makes you more comfortable, you can
continue to believe I am waiting for a sign from the gods to tell
me whether or not I should side with Weard Takraf, or whether he is
simply tempting Dinah’s wrath. Let us see how he deals with
Flasten’s invasion, first. You will be my guest until then, Weard
Lasik.”

Chapter 24

“
Reconnaissance is essential to any
general, but it does not always come without risk. A scout who is
spotted tells an enemy much about the nearness of your force. A
captured scout subjected to sufficient pressure might actually
yield more information about your movements than thirty of your
scouts might learn of your enemy’s.”

— Weard Gilda Kronas,

Magic and War

When Einar arrived in Todsfal, the
southernmost of the Protectorate towns, to renew the defenses, a
bone-deep chill seized him. According to the recon stone in Leiben,
everything here was normal, but a casual glance told him otherwise.
Several buildings had been damaged, and the village square was
little more than a scorched patch of bare earth littered with
blackened corpses.

My worst fears have come true. Flasten has
invaded.

Not a soul still breathed in Todsfal, though
it appeared that many had fled or been taken slaves. Steeling
himself for an escape from an army of wizards, Einar teleported
north.

Verfal’s condition was a little better,
though there was still no sign of its inhabitants. Einar frowned
and swatted a mosquito as it brushed his cheek. He glanced up to
confirm what he already knew. A few scans with Knowledge told him
the rest.

Robert is leading this attack. A Mar could
not alter a recon spell on such a massive scale. This is worse than
blindness. How many villages have they seized already?

He did not know and, short of a systematic
check of every town in the area, could not.

Robert’s army is out there somewhere. Even
if he can send misinformation through the network of recon stones,
it cannot be easy to conceal an entire army from the village recon
spell.

He risked a recon north. An unusually large
number of unmoving mundanes occupied the village of Zerst nine
miles away, but there was no sign of wizards there.

Robert might be hiding the wizards,
though.

He reconned east and west. He found six more
empty communities whose recon stones sent local information to the
hub here in Verfal. Verfal was one of the three towns that sent
local recon information to the regional recon stone in Zerst.

He teleported to one of the towns on the
eastern edge of the Verfal region and stretched out with a recon
spell into another region of the Protectorates. The defenses there
still held, supporting his hypothesis.

Einar teleported to Leiben’s observation
room, the center of all the Mardux’s recon spells. A large, raised
circle of clay flickered with specks of color in a detailed map of
every yard of the Protectorates.

“You’re back early,” Asfrid Staute, the
cyan, commented, her lips twitching in a half-smile.

“You are,” Einar corrected her. He frowned
and stared at the recon stone. Everything looked normal in the
abandoned villages.

Definitely Robert.

“What is it, Weard Schwert?”

“Bring the other weards here. We have a
serious problem.”

By the time the recon stone had gathered
information about all the other villages in the Protectorates, the
sixteen wizards who taught at the new academy in Leiben stood in a
circle around the recon stone. Einar looked at each in turn.

“We need to stop the reconnaissance
stones.”

“What? Why?” Asfrid asked.

“Dux Feiglin’s pet farl is leading an army
of wizards that has penetrated the Protectorates. The
reconnaissance spells tell him exactly which villages to strike and
where to find them. Worse, it is not difficult to follow the trail
of recon from village to village all the way back to Leiben, and
from here to every hub and village in the entire network. If they
take this town before the network is broken, it will be a small
matter to find and capture every community in the
Protectorates.”