Lesson of the Fire (21 page)

Does he not trust me to help him deal with
Dux Feiglin and his duxy?

Suddenly, he had it, and the color drained
from his face.

These defenses are designed to ward off
Drakes, not wizards!

He viewed the myst, studied the patterns of
all the spells on the stone. He was no farl enchanter, but he knew
Knowledge-based reconnaissance spells could be altered by Elements.
Many a magocrat had been defeated by simply mistaking information
for truth, and the recon stones were just as vulnerable to
misinformation as a wizard.

The spell radiated along a
single plane, several feet above the ground, to a specified
diameter.
To get around it, simply get
above it.
Einar smiled grimly at
that.
A little Power and Mobility to
levitate me.

I could kill one of their sentries and
return with no fear, since the spell cannot detect the differences
between Mar.

There is a four-minute lag between updates.
With Mobility, I could run the distance in less than that.

For that matter, I could teleport in.

The actual defenses were another problem,
but Einar saw holes in them as well. They were designed only to
attack Drakes and wizards who did not fit certain descriptions. Any
mundane army could walk right up to the walls and beat them down.
Since wizards were often identified by their cloaks, any wizard who
disguised himself with a different color cloak, hooded or grew a
beard — Einar shuddered and fingered his bare chin — could easily
get inside the defenses.

And, of course, once inside the walls, the
defenses were useless.

These defenses have too
many holes,
Einar thought, running a hand
through his hair.
Can I close some of the
biggest ones?

He knew he couldn’t. Even the simplest of
the automated spells demanded such a precise arrangement of
Knowledge that only Elements could place the myst in the right
shape. The triggered spells themselves weren’t the problem. If he
wished, he could incinerate all mundanes in the Protectorates
instead of shielding them from Seruvus’ Breath.

But the triggers are beyond me. I don’t
understand the theory behind them well enough to design new
ones.

An apprentice or first-degree threw the myst
around indelicately — calling the myst and activating it. Energy
made fire. Power was a punch or a wall. Mobility increased speed.
But there was so much more to magic than that. More powerful
wizards learned to arrange the myst into patterns that changed its
behavior — light without heat, lifting instead of pushing, true
teleportation. They learned how to call different kinds of myst at
the same time, which required an iron will and years of practice.
The most powerful spells demanded both, and wizards had spent
centuries designing magical applications based on the ways each
color of myst behaved when arranged in a particular pattern.

Where did the Mardux learn to work with
Knowledge and Elements like this?

He gave up the problem as unsolvable, for
now. Weard Takraf knew Knowledge better than any wizard Einar had
met, so perhaps he would have some ideas.

* * *

Ari watched as Robert carefully examined the
information his spell had gathered. After a moment, Robert nodded
and turned to Valgird.

“Well?” the gold-burdened wizard asked.

The enchanter smiled. “It is just as I had
expected. Weard Takraf, like all Mar, is not as powerful a wielder
of Knowledge as he is of Energy. The defenses of the Protectorates
extend only nine miles from the outlying villages.”

They stood on the northern border of
Flasten, facing a broad swath of rolling brown that looked more
like mud than water. Black things like sticks occasionally surfaced
and made Ari wince, much to Robert’s amusement.

A hundred low-ranking mercenary wizards
stood behind them.

“Are you certain?” Valgird demanded, gold
glinting off his fingers like the sweat shining off his
forehead.

Robert flushed in annoyance, the blood
showing clearly through his pale skin. “Yes, yes. I probed to the
walls with Knowledge. It was not much more to find the exact spot
of the nearest town.”

“And what are we facing?”

“If we teleport, nothing. There are no
spells functioning within the town walls.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Robert regarded him coolly. “I know these
patterns perfectly well. Where do you think your Mardux learned
them?”

Valgird’s brow furrowed, his face a mask of
confusion. “Nightfire’s Academy, I had assumed.”

The farl snorted his contempt. “What they
know about Knowledge patterns at Nightfire’s Academy would not fill
a thimble. I should know. I taught there for several years.”

“He was Weard Wost’s student,” Ari supplied.
Robert had told him the story when Ari had come to him to learn
more about farl magicks — his second apprenticeship. “Back when
Weard Takraf was just an apprentice.”

“I taught him a few simple trigger
patterns,” Robert admitted with a nonchalant shrug. “He built the
Protectorates on them.”

“You farls have nothing like these spells
protecting your towns,” Valgird objected.

Robert smiled mysteriously. “We do not need
them, but you are correct. Enchanters do not rely on violence to
rule, as you do. Just as you Mar are useless with Presence,
Knowledge and Wisdom because you have no finesse whatsoever, we
have little reason to practice with Power and Energy. I have
learned much in my time here, just as my students have learned much
from me.” His face clouded. “Unfortunately, not all my students
respect the debt they owe me for their success.”

“You had a falling out?” Valgird asked.

“You could say that,” Robert said with cold
fury. He visibly calmed. “On my mark, Ari will teleport the three
of us into the town. You will deal with any physical threats, and I
will handle the rest.”

Ari called the myst for the teleportation.
Elements shaped Mobility just so and held it ready. He reveled in
how much less exhausting this had become since Robert taught him to
hold spells together with Elements instead of relying on the
attention-splitting exercises Ari’s teachers had expected of him.
Knowledge wrapped itself around the partial spell, calculating
distance and finding a safe destination.

“Dux Feiglin put me in charge of this
expedition, Weard Wost,” Valgird grumbled.

“You are in charge, Weard Geir,” Robert said
with a smile. “Lead on. Ari, now.”

Ari nodded, and Valgird vanished into the
Tempest a few seconds before he and Robert followed. By the time
they arrived, Valgird had already slaughtered the militia and set
half the small village on fire. Ari blanched at the sight of dozens
of burning corpses.

Robert merely clucked his tongue. “Is there
any more resistance?”

“There might be a few waiting in ambush in
some of the huts,” Valgird warned. “I will drive them out,
though.”

It was too much on top of the stench of
burned flesh. Ari’s stomach heaved, and he fell to his knees
vomiting.

Robert spoke quickly. “No need for that,
Weard Geir. I will need a few alive to illustrate a plan of action
I believe you might wish to take.”

“They might have spears, farl,” Valgird said
with a laugh.

If the jibe offended Robert, his voice
didn’t betray him. “You killed almost thirty people in the town.
There should be about fifty here. Head back to the army and bring
enough people forward so the town’s number match the original. The
regional recon spell keeps track of the number of Mar in each town,
and the sudden disappearance of several dozen citizens will raise
an alarm.”

Valgird shot the enchanter a cold stare but
obeyed. Ari wiped vomit from the corner of his mouth with sleeve
corner of his cloak and stood up. He followed on Robert’s heels,
hoping it would mean seeing fewer corpses.

Flames licked several grass huts. Ari could
hear an old man’s last agonized screams emanating from one of them.
Bodies lay charred halfway out of doors, and near many of them was
a dead-eyed, terrified child. Only three of the original twelve
homes were undamaged.

With a regretful sigh at the waste of
resources, Robert walked the dirt paths between the huts. Mar women
and children came out of hiding and followed him, their eyes glazed
over as though sleepwalking. With nearly two dozen children and
elderly surrounding them, Robert returned to the green, where the
last of thirty-six wizards had already begun tearing down the
magical defenses with their crude knowledge of Elements.

“What is this suggested plan of action,
Weard Wost?” Valgird asked, joining Ari and Robert. “Does this
involve Blosin wands?”

Robert shrugged. “Somewhat.”

“And you can maintain this,” Valgird licked
his lips, “enchantment until we have captured all the towns in the
Protectorates?”

“This?” Robert gestured at the little
gathering of children and greybeards. “This is hardly enchantment.
For me, this is as easy as it is for you to lift a heavy rock with
Power.”

Ari knew that was an exaggeration, but not
much of one.

The enchanter gave a little laugh. “I do not
intend to maintain it that long, and I do not need to, Weard Geir.
Let me show you a little real enchantment. I call it my
Will-Breaker.”

Ari had seen Robert use the spell a hundred
times in the Duxy of Wasfal. Dux Ratsell prized the slaves the
enchanter made with it. Even if Ari had been able to master
Presence and Wisdom to such a degree and weave them together so
delicately with Knowledge, Energy and Elements, he was pretty sure
he wouldn’t want to.

From listening to Robert describe it over
and over again, though, he knew what happened. Each of those glazed
eyes, now watering in terror and shock, faced Domin or Dinah, faced
their failures and fears and their deepest secrets. It opened them
to deeply rooted suggestions. Robert said Marrishland was a good
place for this, because of its rich belief in the pantheon, but Ari
always murmured a few words to Marrish and Seruvus to protect him
in case Robert chose to use his Will-Breaker on him.

“Have you chosen to obey me?” Robert asked
them with a patronizing smile.

They could not wait to answer him in the
affirmative, their words tumbling over each other in a chaos of
terrified sound. They begged him for instructions, assuring him
that they would do whatever he wished.

The wizards at the edge of
the green watched the exchange nervously. True, mundanes were not
as strong-willed as a wizard. Ari knew their thoughts.
Could he break a wizard as easily as he dominated
these mundanes?

Valgird’s mind traveled a similar path.
After several moments of careful consideration, he opted for a
change of tactics.

“Weard Wost, I see I have vastly
underestimated your abilities. In all phases of this campaign, I
will regard you as my equal in authority.” He fiddled with a gold
amulet. “How did you ...?”

Robert smiled, clearly flattered. “The human
psyche is terribly frail if approached in the right manner. An
advanced illusion complete with physical sensations of great pain
has made them docile. They will do my bidding.”

“What if they discover that it was merely an
illusion?”

Robert touched a groveling girl’s face,
lifted her chin up to meet his gaze. She shivered, and then her
eyes fell in fear and deference. “If you have ever stabbed yourself
with a needle, you know that such an injury will soon heal. Tell
me, does that knowledge give you the desire to stab yourself with a
needle?

“And why? Because it is not the injury we
fear, but the pain. These people have sustained no injuries, but
they have all experienced more torment in an hour than you could
inflict on a person in a decade. A torturer of the body must be
careful not to kill those in his charge, neither by allowing them
to bleed too much nor by causing irreparable damage to a vital
organ. But the pain I inflict does not wound. It merely sets every
nerve in the body on fire. It is a fine, and delicate art, good
weards, but one at which I excel.” Robert’s smile was
envenomed.

“Is there ... a way to break such an
enchantment?” Valgird asked slowly.

“The beauty of the Will-Breaker is it cannot
be unraveled without killing the victim — well, not unless you are
a powerful enchanter, of course. To them, I am Domin — from his
alligator head to his fatal touch to the tortures he inflicts on
those who displease the gods. They will obey me without question or
hesitation all the days of their lives.”

Ari knew Robert could hand over that undying
obedience to a buyer, too, but he knew why the enchanter skipped
over that detail. He also suspected Robert was exaggerating the
dangers of unraveling the Will-Breaker, although he had never had
occasion to find out.

Valgird suppressed his curiosity about the
Will-Breaker with visible difficulty. “What is your plan?”

“I will use my Will-Breaker to enslave the
mundanes of the Protectorates one town at a time. You and the other
wizards will make wands for them, and we’ll use the mundanes as our
army.”

“That seems simple enough, if
time-consuming,” Valgird said, but his voice was deferential.

“Let me finish, Weard Geir,” Robert snapped,
all false humility cast aside. “The Protectorate defenses are a
fully integrated network — like a spiderweb with every strand
connected to the center. Do you know what I could do if we capture
the central town?”

“Dismantle the defenses for all the towns in
the Protectorates?” Valgird guessed, sounding like an apprentice
instead of an eighth-degree wizard.

“Even better. I can use it to cast my
Will-Breaker on every mundane in the Protectorates.”