Timothy Ferguson's Blog, page 74

Mirarion Chapter 16

The Battle of Durenmar never officially happened. Be aware of that before you discuss what I say with anyone else. This is what didn’t happen.

The Diedne leadership were never apprehended, as you know, so we can only conjecture as to their tactics from what we observed. They found it difficult to amass force in their staging area. This was due to a mixture of factors, none of which they understood. In hindsight we know that the psiloses were corroding their logistical base, that the Foolish Fires were wrecking their ability to gather information, and ambushes by Mycetian magi based in Durenmar were destroying the ends of their pickets. This forced the Diedne into a single mass, moving slowly through the Black Forest, sterilising it as they came. It stopped just below the horizon from Durenmar, and made final preparations for an assault. They did not choose siege warfare.

I can’t say for certain why this was the case, but perhaps they felt that the tide of the war was too closely balanced for delay. They had spies in our camp, and knew that we had lost House Flambeau. They knew that if Durenmar fell, House Mycetias planned to fall back to Bohemia, essentially ceding the Western continental Tribunals. Against that, they knew that the Trianomas were turning more of the neutrals to our side, in terms of material, if not soldiers. There was also the chance that House Flambeau would change its mind, break off its overtures for peace, and come off the defensive. One perfect blow, now, made everything so much more certain for them. THey threw everything they had into the battle, save only small garrisons at key points.

The leaders may also not have dared to negotiate. House Diedne had spent dozens of magicians to gain the territory they now controlled, and to build up the momentum they had. It would have been a brave Primus who marked those down as a cost of war, and refused to strike. Once you have an army at the walls of the enemy’s castle, it must be very difficult to face your subordinates and tell them that you won’t risk a battle.

So, the day dawned. We knew which day it would be. The preparations in the enemy camp were obvious. My people had been out doing our usual, trenches filled with spikes and illusions over the top. We followed that with by trenches filled with spikes, over which we had stiff mats and real turf. Nothing decisive, but still, you had to show you were putting in the effort. We only did a few of the illusory trenches, because we needed them to last more than a day. Vis was less scarce and for such a simple little trick it seemed excessive.

Everyone felt the flicker of the day, and hundreds of us chanted the Parma Magica. I felt, at that moment, a sense of communion with the rest of the Order that I’d never experienced before. Here we were, all cultists together, about to determine what it meant to be a magus. I still treasure that memory. Did you know that some of the veterans used to hold breakfasts at Tribunals, where we’d all renew the Parma together? Do they still do that outside? I’ve lost track a little.

The Diedne began a ritual. The finest magical theorists in the Order were watching them, and within a minute sent around a prearranged signal. It was Call to Slumber. I wasn’t in Durenmar at this point: I was a spotter over the enemy camp, but Apophany tells me her job was to create the largest version of Snap of Awakening ever cast, and time it for slightly after the enemy ritual, on the off chance they managed to get it finished. They didn’t of course: even the most basic ritual takes twenty minutes. The Primus of Bonisagus waited six, so that the Diedne had invested the vis in their ritual, and were all linked in communion. Then he had his apprentice blow the Horn.

The Horn was crafted as a talisman by a Bonisagus archamgus. Like most talismans, it ignored the material limitations of magical devices. Its intended use was peaceful. It supressed magical energy. If a laboratory exploded in Durenmar, and threated to compromise those around it, the covenant could be saved by temporarily making everything less magical. It would destroy all of the experiments and ruin all of the research in its area of effect, but that was a small price to preserve the generations of work embodied by the library and specialised laboratories. The horn’s Wind of Mundane Silence was as powerful as it could be, given the limitations of magical items, but it had the penetrative force of battering ram.

I heard the horn, multicast some flares over the main Diedne positions, and fell back. Those were my orders. The flares were mostly for morale. I could see that one part of the Diedne formation had crumbled more than the others. I presume someone had lost control of the monsters there, and they’d begun fighting each other. The flare for that section was a different colour. I was almost certain that my spells would have no effect on the outcome of the battle. but you can never tell how the tenuous web of happenstance works itself out in mass combat. It may have been important. I hope it was. I cannot every really know.

My orders were to head for three of the obvious escape routes, and make sure they didn’t look like roads by the time anyone tried to use them. The Jerbiton twins had a similar task. You may have heard that armies suffer the most casualties after they break and run? My job was to make sure that when they ran, it was in circles. THe plan was to lay down some basic illusions and chop up the ground with some magic items that could shift earth.

The Diedne forces lost cohesion right after the horn was sounded. My guess is that one of their officers thought he needed to use his monsters or loose them, and so he sent them toward the wall. The Diedne performing the ritual didn’t stop, so perhaps they’d targeted a particular part of Durenmar, and would not have struck their own forces. Apophany tells me that their ritual did get past the first Aegis. The second Aegis, hidden from scrying inside the first, was the most powerful she’d ever seen. She saw their ritual just curl up and slough off, like parchment in a fire. That’s another reason I wasn’t in Durenmar: they wouldn’t give Mycetians casting tokens for the inner Aegis. Possibly the Diedne plan was always to assault physically and magically simultaneously, and the monsters had just started a few minutes late.

At this point, for me, the trick was revealed. As I flew toward one of the obvious roads for retreat, intent on blocking and hiding it, I passed over a line of Flambeau magi. They were cautiously working toward the Diedne positions. I presumed they were following my flares, but that seems unlikely now. One of them, also a flier, gave me a mixture of wave and salute. How he saw through my invisibility I still don’t know.

House Flambeau had stripped its defences and thrown all it could spare into this battle. Their philosophy, that attacking was the only way to win wars, served them well this time. They were a few minutes late, and some of them had certainly been struck by the Horn, but that didn’t really signify. I followed my orders, so I missed the main part of the battle. All who I’ve spoken to say that the area before the gates of Durenmar was a bloodbath. Each House claims their people broke the Diedne. Each House has myths about a particular archmagus doing something wonderful or terrible and the Diedne fleeing. None of that really matters. They did flee, and they fled into a wall of fire magic. Some few broke through, but the wayward paths of the forest bought them, again, and again, back into the conflict.

My orders were to make sure that no-one escaped on the three paths I’d been charged with. No one did. I didn’t kill any of the myself, but I didn’t need to. They started swatting down invisible fliers, so I stuck to the ground. Some few druids had devices with the Leap of Homecoming or the Seven League Stride invested into them. Some few could turn into creatures that burrowed through the Earth. They escaped to Branugurix, and most died there.

Mirarion Chapter 15

My little team had no name initially, although our commanders began to call us the Foolish Fires. We went out into the area through which our enemies would approach and filled it with inexplicable phenomena. The sillier the better, in some ways. We did rains of fish, talking scarecrows, ghosts, dreams leading to treasure, black dogs on the moor, faerie knights on bridges, all the classics. By the time the main mass of Diedne forces reached the Black Forest, every human, tree or squirrel would have, we hoped, seen something inexplicable.

The goal was simple: fill the area with information, so that the Diedne could not look into everything. Every hour spent checking on a rain of fish was an hour in which we were building defences. Every time a druid left the host to check out a faerie knight on a bridge, he was wasting his time. Sometimes psiloses lurked near our illusions, to catch the druids unawares while they were distracted. Sometimes combat forces waited for a druid to check out an illusion, and ambushed him. The counterattacks were not the point of the wave of illusions, though. The point was to make them stop looking at details. The druids were forced to ignore the least likely rumours, because they didn’t have the time or forces to follow them up.

The problem for them, of course, is that we’d tailored the information. The likely rumours were, preponderantly, ours. We’d scripted our stories quite carefully, using what the Trianomans knew about the Diedne war plan. We had a lot of luck getting them to chase around stories of humaniform faeries, because they were desperate for Corpus vis, much as we were. Some of our army’s biggest errors were just ignored by the Diedne, because they assessed them as less likely than our illusionary scenarios.

Let me give you an example. A Flambeau magus came to discuss co-operation with the War Council. He rode in a coach with burning wheels. He had a train of liveried retainers, one of whom was playing a trumpet. The Diedne didn’t even stop him. Their spies had told us that the Flambeau had quit the army in a rage, and his method of travel seemed so garish that they assessed him as another illusion. Some of our illusions were the baits for ambushes, so they just decided to clear a path. It sounds stupid, but what else could they do? They only had so many eyes, and we were overwhelming them with flashy, meaningless things.

Toward the end, we did put in some strikes. I remember Callida did this thing where she turned spiky balls of bronze into sheep carcasses. The monsters in the Diedne army were needing to be fed, so some of them swallowed the meat. When the shapes shifted back at sunset, some of the creatures died. Apophany had spells that affected the Gift. I’m not sure how the worked, because I made sure I was out of sight and hearing, but at least twice a Diedne was eaten by a hungry monster because they lost control of it after becoming, however temporarily, mundane.

We could tell they were getting desperate. Some of the Diedne were letting their monsters eat people. I wondered if I was to blame for that. People are hard to fake. It’s easy to make a rock look, feel, and even taste like a dead cow. It’s very hard to make a rock into a convincing human. It can be done, but the rituals required are very expensive, and none of us had the vis to waste. I told myself that the Diedne were choosing what their monsters ate, but really, they were reacting to a situation we’d created.

They probably thought it was just a temporary exigency. Once they lost some monsters taking Durenmar, they reasoned, they could stop doing it. Once they had Durenmar’s supplies they’d stop doing it. Actually, though, they didn’t. They never found themselves at the point where they could truthfully say “If we had fewer hydras, it wouldn’t make that much of a difference. Let’s set them loose, and stop feeding the rest on people.” I cannot be sure, of course.

As we were finishing up one of these missions, we stopped by a little village tavern. Well, not a tavern as such: just a place where a peasant had tapped a spare barrel for their village and put out some benches. Callida and I didn’t do any of the talking, because the other three all had the Gentle Gift. At one point I went off into the bushes a slight distance to relieve myself. Standing under a tree was a young nobleman I’d seen at the inn.

He was incongruously handsome. It wasn’t just that he was wealthy, although his raiment proclaimed that even in the middle of a war, determined people could still get crushed velvet cloaks made. His skin was flawless. His teeth were perfect. He’d been sitting in the place of honour by the fire, and there was no scent of smoke upon him.

“Hello.” he said “Might I speak with you privately for just a moment?”

“I’d prefer not to be disagreeable to you, but my kind have quite fixed rules against dealing with yours.”

“You can hold some cold iron while I talk if you’d like.”

“Oh, I know that’s neither necessary nor efficacious. I can’t stop you speaking, can I?”

“No, but we prefer consent.”

“I can just head back to the group. You seem to prefer this be for my ears alone. That will stymie your goal.”

“We have started badly. If I give you my name, I think it will give you pause sufficient to listen.”

“Do you really think I can’t tell that’s just bait?”

He smiled “I am the Errant.”

“Any of you might claim to be the Errant.”

“So you know me by reputation, Mirarius?”

I wasn’t rattled that he knew my name. Of course he did. I was only seeing him now because the trick was already done.

“Any of you might claim to be the Errant.” I said, because I knew it was polite, non-committal and annoying.

“True.”

“Even if you are the Errant, there’s no reason to suppose you will aid me as you aided the hoplites in the Corruption.”

“Ah, but there is reason. I am immutable in my nature. You may depend on my vices.”

“Pride, in your case?”

“Yes. So, I say to you, that the Diedne will call upon the Infernal powers from Ynys Glannauc, as the war ends.”

“I will pass that on to my superiors. Thank you for your assistance, which is of course freely given, and for which no agreement at all is recognised.”

He laughed at me then. “Of course. Thank you. It is a weight off my mind to confide in one of you.”

“How can you do this? Your kind have no patience. They cannot plan.”

“When a dissipated nobleman sends his boy to the shop for wine, he is no less dissipated in the half hour the boy takes to return. One does not see him, sitting in his house, and listening for the footstep of his returning servant, and think his character reformed.”

“I am not your servant.”

“I know how semantics distress your kind. Let me keep my peace. You will disrupt the work of my rival. I will feel incredibly pleased with myself. We will both be happy.”

“You do sound like him.”

“Even if I’m not him, why not just check the quality of my tale? See if the priest of that little Welsh island are happy. Stand on some distant mountain and test the air.”

“I’ve thanked you. Is there anything else you wish to say? Any other customary form you need me to follow to keep the peace between us?”

“No, I imagine you’d like to demand I leave, now?”

“Out dark spirit?”

He laughed, and walked away.

When I returned to the table Apophany asked me what I’d been told.

“Where’s the lie in it?” she asked.

“Is it that he’s pretending it’s a prophecy?”

“It could be. Even if it is some sort of trap, our superiors will want to know that it is out there. The Druids do have a large covenant on Anglesey.”

“How do you know where the island is? I’ve never heard of it.”

“The great lie that makes good all the others will be told there.”

“What does that mean in plain language?”

“My mission in life is to prevent the war that will follow this one. I will do it on Anglesey. I don’t know much more than that.”

“The lie?”

“I’m going to tell a convincing lie. It will prevent an epochal War. I know very little else. I have been practicing lying since I was a little girl, so that when the moment comes, I will be a proficient liar.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t tell people? It makes it easier to sell. You have this whole “comprehensible Criamon” thing working for you.”

“Good advice.” she smiled.

We finished our meals, and decided not to head home immediately. We had not planned to, and I didn’t want to deviate from my schedule because of a conversation with one of them.

Mirarion Chapter 14

I knew the war was turning our way when my father handed me a necklace, from which depended ten tiny pearls. Its presence seemed so incongruous I asked him “What is this?”

“It is Imaginem vis.” he answered. “The War Council thought you could make the best use of it.” Then he dropped it into my hand and I stared at it, as if wondering how an impossible object could have weight.

There was very little vis left in circulation in Europe. The War Council had so many demands on its resources that some of the covenants in Thebes and Italy were being asked to cast a weak Aegis. A lucky magus who crushed a sprite might trade its single pawn of Corpus vis for any number of pawns of Aquam. Even Imaginem vis was scarce. Many members of House Jerbiton were waiting out the war in the Dominion, and each seemed to want to cast The Shrouded Glen. Magic is more difficult in cities regardless, and so much as the Flambeau liked to carry Ignem vis, many Jerbitons were trading for it, at quite favourable rates.

There was still some around, of course. It had just never trickled down to me, before, other than the stealthy healing of my wounds by a disaffected Tytalus. Perhaps I’d impressed someone. Perhaps, having defeated my father, I was now a senior magus. Perhaps because so many people were dead or deserters that mine were the only hands left? All this aside, it felt excellent to know I was carrying vis. I could exceed myself, if I needed to.

“Whose was it?” I asked, assuming it had come from the preponderant source in recent times.

“It is wild harvested, I believe.” he answered with a smile. “It comes to you with the complements of the Alexandrian League.”

“I am sorry father, but I do not know who they are. I do however, thank them.” I put it on and tucked it under the neck hem of my robe. WE don’t wear jewellery into battle in my House. We like uniformity. It feels comfortable, and filial.

“The Trianomans have managed to shift some of the Jerbiton magi from their neutrality. They do not want to fight personally, but they do not want us to lose. Well, let me be more precise: the do not want a tribe of druids to claim the Order’s great library. A Jerbiton — I want to say Archmagus, but I really mean someone who hosts lovely parties that they all like attending — has created a group who have decided to send us aid in kind, if not in blood.”

“How much did they send?”

“One hundred pawns of various types.” He paused for effect, obviously happy to bear good news for once.

I wanted to say “Good grief.” but that would have annoyed him: pointless enthusiasms always did. “That seems generous?” I ventured.

“It has been an excellent market in which to profiteer.”

“Will none of them fight?”

“Some three or four. There is talk of getting some of you together, and seeing what you can come up with.”

“Sorry, father: who is “you”?”

“You, a couple of idealistic Jerbitons who have volunteered to fight, and Apophany of Criamon.”

“Criamon are pacifists. They literally can’t attack people. or their magic stops working.” I knew he knew this. One of the excellent things about my House is that when you are wrong, you are encouraged to just be wrong, so that you can be corrected. Private error is a vice. Error before a master allows growth and is not frowned upon. This sounds surprisingly like democracy to outsiders, but that’s not how it works, and they rarely see this process. Before outsiders, we have one voice.

“Apparently not all of them.” he continued. “One of them had a revelation. Her explanation is made up of words I understand individually, but make no sense when run together. The consequence of it is that she can use a staff to prod the metaphysical place where your mind interfaces with your muscles. It’s agonizing, or alternatively, quite uplifting, depending on how hard she’s doing it.”

I found the whole idea of someone massaging my ghost with a stick disturbing, so I hurried on “So, why gather us?”

“”You are all illusionists. It would be good to slow the enemy’s development of position. Every few days, we seem to earn a little more support from the neutral Houses. Some magi still can’t bring themselves to believe that this is about to happen, but when each does, their guilty desire to make good is valuable to us.”

“I’d be happy to meet them.”

***

When we did meet, there was an extra maga, named Callida of Verditus. I’d met her before, when she led me to see her pater at Heartfoam. We’d exchanged barely a few sentences then. “Sorry, are you an illusionist?” I asked.

“No, I’m a redsmith.” she arched her eyebrow and I thought “How does House Verditius keep itself fed and clothes if they get so offended all the time? They have the social skills of rocks.” Then she smiled and said “…but my master thought you might need some spikes at the bottom of the pit.” I nodded.

“Are you spiky then?” asked a Jerbiton I knew was named Malvolio.

“Perhaps she’s just prickly?” added Benvolia, who was possibly his sister or cousin. I could see they were about to do one of their interminable bantering conversations, and so decided to just shut them up immediately. I mean, there was a war on, and we all loved to laugh, but they just did this boring single-entendre stuff. I’d only known them a couple of hours and I was sick of it. Even now I feel kind of guilty about how much I loathed their routine. They were good kids. They deserved better. Then again, so did so many others.

“And for a final introduction, Callida, this is Apophany of Criamon.”

Callida stared at the little woman, sitting at a trestle table, in plain clothes, eating lunch.

“What’s on that bread roll?”

“Pleased to meet you, too.” she said, putting it down while she spoke.

“No, seriously. Aren’t you useless now?”

“You think I lose my powers if I eat bacon?”

“I had been lead so to believe.”

Apophany turned her glass of water into wine, then drank it. Callidfa looked increasingly disturbed. “You’re a Tytalus pretending to be a Criamon.”

“No, I’m a follower of Criamon.”

“Where are your tattoos?”

“They fell off.”

“That’s not possible.”

“I have them in my bag, if you’d like to see them.”

“You have your skin in a bag?”

“No, just my tattoos. On their own. I use them as spellcasting tools sometimes.”

“That’s just weird.”

“Not really.  You have casting trinkets. That’s weird. Your lot should get that fixed.”

“Are you picking a fight?  You can’t…”

“Actually I can. I’m perfectly capable of belligerence. I call it “The Path of Walking Backwards”. It’s new.”

“Can the rest of you do this?”

“Oh, Heaven’s no. Only me. The rest of them think I’m courting the permanent loss of my powers.”

“Are you saying you are too mad for House Criamon?”

“No. They haven’t thrown me out. I’m still a Criamon. I’m just not bound by the rules of the House. I may do what needs to be done, so that others need not sully their souls. I will eat the sins of the world, and leave the House pure.  Am I sounding addled enough for you yet?  I can start spinning in circles if you like. Convulsions are also possible, but only after lunch.” She bit the sandwich again and made sounds of approval that were exaggerated and reminded me of my father’s wolf, who does similar things.

Callida stopped for a moment, then said “I didn’t see this conversation going this way at all.” Apophany smiled, swallowed and said “One little piece of enlightenment. That’ll be fivepence.”

“What?”

“Joke.”

“What happens if I give you the five pence?”

“Either I laugh at you or I get dragged into Twilight. Depends who you ask.”

“Now you sound like one of them.”

“I am one of them, but you really need to meet more of us. None of us actually sound like this. Not even me. No, that’s not a puzzle. Not really. Think about it for a sec.”

“Can we start again?”

“Sadly, that’s inevitable.”

“I am Callida. Hello.”

“I’m pleased to meet you. My name is Apophany. Would you like some lunch?”

I knew if we sat down to eat the comedy twins would start up again, but I also knew that Apophany might be doing some weird Criamon metaphor involving bread and bacon and the geomancy of condiment bottles. “While we eat, can we think of terrible things to do to the enemy, please?  Practical, terrible things. No jokes. No moral lessons, No ridiculously complicated gadgets. Illusions followed by confusion or death, please.”

“Confusion to our enemies!” toasted Apophany.

Wine seemed like a good idea.  My temples were starting to ache, and I had the distinct sensation the only way out was through.

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Mirarion Chapter 13

Durenmar remains. It did not fall, or move. The Diedne fundamentally misunderstood the distraction of the Order’s researchers for military ineptitude. House Bonisagus, early in the War, was politically divided, lacked trained soldiers, and had no logistical chain. That meant they could not project force. At that time, Hermetic generals thought of war as a series of attacks. A House that could not attack could not be strong. This was wrong, though.

People say Durenmar is a library, or a research institution. That is only tangentially true. Compare it to the great mystical foundries of Lycaneon or Verdi and you will see what I mean. Durenmar is really a comfortable madhouse, where we keep people obsessed with the fringes of magical discovery safely tucked away. It’s the Cave of Twisting Shadows for a cult we happen to be members of. House Bonisagus say they are researchers, and they are, but so many of the trivialities they had lying around were, when placed into the hands of my House, deadly tools of war.

When we arrived, there was already a political storm brewing. A contingent of psiloses had arrived from Transylvania When they other Houses learned that we had been training a specific caste of assassins how to hunt and kill magi, they were livid. When we ignored their feelings, and gave our assassins some of the most powerful magic items ever made, the Guernicus magi were almost radiant with anger. They didn’t have a choice though. They needed an army. We had one.It was another issue tabled until after the last druid was dead.

The Quaesitores can hardly blame us for the psiloses. You are not of my House, so let me try to explain it to you. Mycetias tried to take control of the order, and he failed. I believe that was a fortunate thing, as do many other Mycetians. He failed because the minds of his lieutenants were broken. House Guernicus negotiated a treaty of peace. The minds of my ancestors were restored, provided they agreed to stand down, and to never seek to know who had driven them mad. For the rest of the Order, this is a story of justice and heroism. It gives them comfort to know that we can never threaten the Order. Try, though, to imagine it from the perspective of my ancestors.

Somewhere in the world, right now, are a conspiracy who can control my thoughts. The finest defences of the most militant House cannot stop them. We do not know who these people are. We do not know why they want “peace”. We know absolutely nothing of their larger objectives. We do not know why they were inactive during the Corruption. We do not know why they were of no assistance during the Schism. Some Mycetians believe that these later questions prove that it was an inside job, by the Founder’s successor. Others say we can’t take that chance. We call this theoretical conspiracy the Umbraculo, because it is the thing that casts a shadow over all of our accomplishments.

Our punishment for the actions of our ancestor is that we, today, are never sure of our safety. Tomorrow the Umbraculo, like two whole Houses before them, may fall to darkness. Who protects my apprentices then, when they rant and writhe and mew like animals, as my ancestors did? What had stays the knives of our watchers? The psiloses are our haphazard attempt to protect ourselves from the victors of the Sundering. They are the monster born of the short-sighted cleverness of our enemies.

The other Houses had held my House in check, with fear, for centuries, and it had made them feel safe. For the first time, they realized that, even as a child scared of shadows may cling to a simulacrum of a terrible bear, we too had sought a greater but tamer monster to soothe our fears. Dozens of mortals – anonymous, unGifted and barely differentiatable from the mass of mundanes – came to Duremar to be armed. Each was met by our sodales as a new horror. Our assasins were terrible because they did not seem like the rough men who work in the dark. They were utterly unremarkable people from many professions.

The symbol of the psiloses is a donkey. The asinus is not levity. The machinery that creates psiloses requires no magus for its operation.. You could kill every Mycetian and psilos, and raze our covenants to the ground, and our system would still create a cult of magical assassins, The hope, of course, is that they would save some of us. At the least, though, they could scour the world of our enemies, and leave a green field for a new Order to grow from. We took these people, mundanes unafraid of magi, and trained to kill, and gave them the most terrible and unpredictable weapons we could make from the laboratories of Durenmar. Many of those weapons have been since been duplicated by my House.

The other Houses saw the great bear that had been standing silently behind them, for generations, and they were angry. Our elders spat back our explanations: that these were the nightmare they had made for themselves. They knew we were right. They knew what they had done to us was terrible. Worse, they knew that now, they could not stop doing it to us. They had held a weapon to our neck for so long that we had managed to slip our own dagger to theirs. Could they now lower their hand, and risk us cutting their throat? We could not give up the psiloses, because the Umbraculo exists. They could not tell us who the Umbraculo were, for fear of the psiloses would kill them all.

The psiloses were the first wave of defenders for Durenmar. The Diedne thought that the covenant would fall quickly, and so they lost cohesion. Their faster units rushed to raid the covenant’s vis sources. A surprising number fell to enchanted arrows while they unpicked Watching Wards. Many died from poisoned wells. There is a ligature in the collection at Fudarus, which was ceremonially interred after the War. It had been the death of two druids.

After the druids began to arrive in force, the psiloses changed tactics. They ceased picking off isolated mages or their creatures, and instead targeted the Diedne logistical train. Key servants of the druids began to silently vanish away. Carts broke down.  Freak accidents occurred. Bridges washed away. Bandits raided granaries. Everything became a little harder.to finish.  It sounds impressive to say that you have a vast force of magical animals under your control. It is, however, dozens of times more difficult to procure and transport the food of a menagerie than of an infantry army. Few magical creatures will passively starve to death if their meals become unavailable.

The druids only came close to catching one psilos, and they let her escape. Eight of their servants had disappeared near a little village, and a druid was sent to work out what was going on. He died, eating a poisoned apple pie sold to him by the blousy, middle aged woman who claimed to be the miller’s wife. Afterward, House Diedne later laid to rest the spirits of the miller and his family. Psilos Dorota had needed a cover, so she just killed them and took their place. Even then, the Diedne decided she was a Jerbiton magus.

So, the first wave of assaults came at us as if through swampland. This bought us time, which House Bonisagus used well. Very few people know as well as they what makes a laboratory explode. The Trianomans began a whirlwind of diplomacy. The decisive battle of the war was won in the Black Forest, but like all of the best legerdermain, by the time the Diedne thought they had begun the siege, the trick was already complete.

Mirarion Chapter 12

It was not a glorious day.  My Housemates do not seek glory, but the people asking me to tell this story usually like it. I’ve formed the habit of telling people, in advance, that it was not a heroic test of strength. I killed Incendia, and in a way she would have considered unfair, and cheap. She left me no choice, but I still remember how, afterward, I went from feeling pleased at how clever I was to disgusted at how clever I was.

Her murder was the simplest thing in the world. We were each placed at one end of the woodland, and we waited for the dawn. I renewed my Parma Magica, then immediately cast a spell that made the tiny spirits of the air carry human voices to me. It is difficult to cast spells while listening to someone else also crafting magic, but her workings were so obvious that it made my task easier. Incendia’s first spell, which I barely caught the end of, was a ward against metal. The next was a ward against wood. The third was a spell to detect invisible objects.

I cast a spell to make me invisible, intactile and inaudible. I couldn’t move quickly without breaking it, but that was not the plan. I then cast an illusion of me upon myself: one that I could give simple commands to. As I was casting and listening, I walked a little way into the woodland and found a clearing.

Incendia cast Ball of Abysmal Flame with a duration of three minutes. It created a huge ring of fire, and a great plume of smoke. While she was casting it, I cast a spell of a circle of ground, so that its appearance would be fixed: no changes I made it would be obvious to outside observers.  Then came the spell I’d been waiting for. While she was casting the spell that let her interrogate smoke, I jogged off as far as I dared, perhaps twenty yards, then dropped my pack as the spell came into effect. I then walked casually back toward the circle of fixed appearance.

I kicked my pack over as I dropped it. It contained food, water, bandages, and a particularly good bottle of wine. I didn’t really need any of these things immediately, as I had duplicates on my combat harness. My family love combat harnesses: they keep everything tucked in close to the body, within the Parma Magica.

Incendia then made a wall of flame, and cast a spell which let her talk to it. She ordered it to keep expanding, and, like the smoke, report on my location. As I hit the circle of fixed appearance, I sent the illusion of me walking through the clearest part of the woodland. It wasn’t clever enough for me to tell it to dodge trees, but it only needed to fool her for a few more minutes.

I carefully peeled up one edge of the grass in the circle, and turned the soil underneath to sandstone. That compacted it down enough for me to step inside, and pull the grass back over the top of me. I used the talisman as a long stick, to hold up the little flap of grass. Smoke and flame are fine as scouts, but they simply aren’t subtle, or clever. Her fire could sweep over the top of me and simply not notice. My little spell of changelessness was being maintained with Concentration, so I let it lapse. The magic itself was the only clue I was hidden down there, in the dark earth.

I had a lot of time to think, waiting for her to make her way through the woodland. Incendia was sure I was invisible, and flying around her. I learned afterward that she became increasingly jumpy as the day wore on. She was sure I was crafting an increasingly complicated death trap, so if a fox made a noise in the underbrush, she incinerated the whole area, just on a precaution. At one point, she cast a few formulaics all together, not resting to recover herself between each. This made her panic, and she fled back deeper into the broad circle of ashes that her advancing wall had created. After ten minutes she’d recovered her breath, but her composure was breaking down.

She wanted to bring things to a head, so she sent wisps of fire through the forest to where my pack was. Incendia couldn’t just use her most powerful spells, you see. She needed my corpse, or at least my unscattered ashes, so that she could collect my Corpus vis. I’d made it a matter of principle for her to use fire magic, and she was stretching it as far as she could, with her Intelligo spells, but she didn’t really consider trying Perdo spells. She cleared her path with flame wasps, and walked to my pack.

I did not know she was standing six yards from me. I was sitting quietly in the dark, aware that any moment might be my last, heralded with a brilliant light and a moment of agony. I had a camel pack for water, but I used it sparingly. I sat in the middle of my little oubliette, so that if I misjudged the time, or fell asleep somehow, as the sandstone became soil again it would just pop my out of the ground, like some strange plant. I had an eternity to think, there in the dark. I thought a lot about Achlys, and about dying. I made some resolutions, some of which I kept. I took slices of pear from my harness, and they were the finest thing I’d ever tasted. I kept a seed from them, and I have a whole orchard descended from it here, but I’ve never had a pear so delicious.

After a thousand years, I felt my Parma Magica flicker, and die, as the sun set. I renewed it, eagerly, and then sprang from my burrow, as the soil poured up around me. I saw Incendia on the ground, and knowing that she had warded herself against metal and wood, I took a great stone, and crushed her head. That was mere, brutal precaution. She was already dead. She’s been dead for hours, the observers tell me.

My father confirmed it was as I’d planned. Days before, my sister had cracked the side of Incendia';s favourite waterskin, and patched it with beeswax. The heat from her fire had melted it, and she’d lost her water. Distracted, exhausted, and perhaps tricked by the obviousness of the wine bottle, she’d drunk the water in my pack. Lacking vis to save herself, the serpent venom in it had killed her. The poison was colourless, and tasteless, but not quick, and not painless.

A quaesitor came to get me, and we flew back to Heatfoam. It was not in chaos. It was filled with activity, but it had the terrible precision of a hive of ants that has fallen on the carcass of a bird. My father was the one who broke the news. “We are abandoning Heartfoam immediately. We can no longer hold it.”

“What happened?”

“House Flambeau has withdrawn from the alliance. They left soon after Incendia died. They are traveling to the coast, and then to their Domus.”

I expected a reprimand to follow, but when it did not, I broke the uncomfortable silence with the sovereign question: “What are my orders?”

“You are to accompany me, as we fall back.”

“To the Bohemian border?”

“No. House Diedne has been keeping close ties with some sympathisers in the Trianoman sept within House Bonisagus. One has turned her coat, so we know where they plan to strike next.”

“It can’t be Val Negra, although that would make the most sense.  We wouldn’t need to fall back.”

“No.  It’s Durenmar.”

“Why, father?”

“Bonisagus is the easiest House to knock out of the war. Durenmar has poorer defences than Val Negra or Fudarus. It is surrounded by the Black Forest, which is useful for Druid magic. The Diedne think the Bonisagus magi have a stockpile of vis and supplies which can bolster their thrust at one of the other Domus Magnae. It would also be a propaganda coup, to take control of the spiritual heart of the Order.”

“Are they right?”

“Yes and no. We may not stop them from taking Durenmar, but they are making the same mistake we did before the Tempest. A victory will cost them a great deal or materiel and momentum.”

“If they keep it, though…”

“I’ve heard this argument in the War Council: we lose everything, because they create a generation of superior magi. It is not quite that hopeless. You don’t have to be the stronger magus to win a battle. You yourself are proof of that. We have…I shouldn’t discuss it.  Let us say we have new tools?”

“Father, are these the cold daggers of the Sundering?”

“Yes.” he nodded, and pursed his lips, as if surprised that I knew what he was talking about.

“We didn’t stop doing that?”

“No-one ever asked us to. Let us not discuss it further. I am glad you did not die, my son. Now it would be best to see the Verditus archmagus. I am sure he wants his talisman back. I think you may even owe him an extra penny.”

“Father, may I have a penny?”

And so my great day of triumph ended, asking my father for money, so that I could give away a powerful magic item, and flee my enemies, my hands red with the blood of one of my allies. You can see, now, why I so dislike telling this story.

Mirarion Chapter 11

It was not a glorious day.  My Housemates do not seek glory, but the people asking me to tell this story usually like it. I’ve formed the habit of telling people, in advance, that it was not a heroic test of strength. I killed Incendia, and in a way she would have considered unfair, and cheap. She left me no choice, but I still remember how, afterward, I went from feeling pleased at how clever I was to disgusted at how clever I was.

Her murder was the simplest thing in the world. We were each placed at one end of the woodland, and we waited for the dawn. I renewed my Parma Magica, then immediately cast a spell that made the tiny spirits of the air carry human voices to me. It is difficult to cast spells while listening to someone else also crafting magic, but her workings were so obvious that it made my task easier. Incendia’s first spell, which I barely caught the end of, was a ward against metal. The next was a ward against wood. The third was a spell to detect invisible objects.

I cast a spell to make me invisible, intactile and inaudible. I couldn’t move quickly without breaking it, but that was not the plan. I then cast an illusion of me upon myself: one that I could give simple commands to. As I was casting and listening, I walked a little way into the woodland and found a clearing.

Incendia cast Ball of Abysmal Flame with a duration of three minutes. It created a huge ring of fire, and a great plume of smoke. While she was casting it, I cast a spell of a circle of ground, so that its appearance would be fixed: no changes I made it would be obvious to outside observers.  Then came the spell I’d been waiting for. While she was casting the spell that let her interrogate smoke, I jogged off as far as I dared, perhaps twenty yards, then dropped my pack as the spell came into effect. I then walked casually back toward the circle of fixed appearance.

I kicked my pack over as I dropped it. It contained food, water, bandages, and a particularly good bottle of wine. I didn’t really need any of these things immediately, as I had duplicates on my combat harness. My family love combat harnesses: they keep everything tucked in close to the body, within the Parma Magica.

Incendia then made a wall of flame, and cast a spell which let her talk to it. She ordered it to keep expanding, and, like the smoke, report on my location. As I hit the circle of fixed appearance, I sent the illusion of me walking through the clearest part of the woodland. It wasn’t clever enough for me to tell it to dodge trees, but it only needed to fool her for a few more minutes.

I carefully peeled up one edge of the grass in the circle, and turned the soil underneath to sandstone. That compacted it down enough for me to step inside, and pull the grass back over the top of me. I used the talisman as a long stick, to hold up the little flap of grass. Smoke and flame are fine as scouts, but they simply aren’t subtle, or clever. Her fire could sweep over the top of me and simply not notice. My little spell of changelessness was being maintained with Concentration, so I let it lapse. The magic itself was the only clue I was hidden down there, in the dark earth.

I had a lot of time to think, waiting for her to male her way through the woodland. Incendia was sure I was invisible, and flying around her. I learned afterward that she became increasingly jumpy as the day wore on. She was sure I was crafting an increasingly complicated death trap, so if a fix made a noise in the underbrush, she incinerated the whole area, just on a precaution. At one point, she cast a few formulaics all together not resting to recover herself between each. This made her panic, and she fled back deeper into the broad circle of ashes her advancing wall had created. After ten minutes she’d recovered her breath, but her composure was breaking down.

She wanted to bring things to a head, so she sent wisps of fire through the forest to where my pack was. Incendia couldn’t just use her most powerful spells, you see. She needed my corpse, or at least my unscattered ashes, so that she could collect my Corpus vis. I’s made it a matter of principle for her to use fire magic, and she was stretching it as far as she could, with her Intelligo spells, but she didn’t really consider trying Perdo spells. She cleared her path with flame wasps, and walked to my pack.

I did not know she was standing six yards from me. I was sitting quietly in the dark, aware that any moment might be my last, heralded with a brilliant light and a moment of agony. I had a camel pack for water, but I used it sparingly. I sat in the middle of my little oubliette, so that if I misjudged the time, or fell asleep somehow, as the sandstone became soil again it would just pop my out of the ground, like some strange plant. I had an eternity to think, there in the dark. I thought a lot about Achlys, and about dying. I made some resolutions, some of which I kept. I took slices of pear from my harness, and they were the finest thing I’d ever tasted. I kept a seed from them, and I have a whole orchard descended from it here, but I’ve never had a pear so delicious.

After a thousand years, I felt my Parma Magica flicker, and die, as the sun set. I renewed it, eagerly, and then sprang from my burrow, as the soil poured up around me. I saw Incendia on the ground, and knowing that she had warded herself against metal and wood, I took a great stone, and crushed her head. That was mere, brutal precaution. She was already dead. She’s been dead for hours, the observers tell me.

My father confirmed it was as I’d planned. Days before, my sister had cracked the side of Incendia';s favourite waterskin, and patched it with beeswax. The heat from her fire had melted it, and she’d lost her water. Distracted, exhausted, and perhaps tricked by the obviousness of the wine bottle, she’d drunk the water in my pack. Lacking vis to save herself, the serpent venom in it had killed her. The poison was colourless, and tasteless, but not quick, and not painless.

A quaesitor came to get me, and we flew back to Heatfoam. It was not in chaos. It was filled with activity, but it had the terrible precision of a hive of ants that has fallen on the carcass of a bird. My father was the one who broke the news. “We are abandoning Heartfoam immediately. We can no longer hold it.”

“What happened?”

“House Flambeau has withdrawn from the alliance. They left soon after Incendia died. They are travelling to the coast, and then to their Domus.”

I expected a reprimand to follow, but when it did not, I broke the uncomfortable silence with the sovereign question: “What are my orders?”

“You are to accompany me, as we fall back.”

“To the Bohemian border?”

“No. House Diedne has been keeping close ties with some sympathisers in the Trianoman sept within House Bonisagus. One has turned her coat, so we know where they plan to strike next.”

“It can’t be Val Negra, although that would make the most sense.  We wouldn’t need to fall back.”

“No.  It’s Durenmar.”

“Why, father?”

“Bonisagus is the easiest House to knock out of the war. Durenmar has poorer defences than Val Negra or Fudarus. It is surrounded by the Black Forest, which is useful for Druid magic. The Diedne think the Bonisagus magi have a stockpile of vis and supplies which can bolster their thrust at one of the other Domus Magnae. It would also be a propaganda coup, to take control of the spiritual heart of the Order.”

“Are they right?”

“Yes and no. We may not stop them from taking Durenmar, but they are making the same mistake we did before the Tempest. A victory will cost them a great deal or materiel and momentum.”

“If they keep it, though…”

“I’ve heard this argument in the War Council: we lose everything, because they create a generation of superior magi. It is not quite that hopeless. You don’t have to be the stronger magus to win a battle. You yourself are proof of that. We have…I shouldn’t discuss it.  Let us say we have new tools?”

“Father, are these the cold daggers of the Sundering?”

“Yes.” he nodded, and pursed his lips, as if surprised that I knew what he was talking about.

“We didn’t stop doing that?”

“No-one ever asked us to. Let us not discuss it further. I am glad you did not die, my son. Now it would be best to see the Verditus archmagus. I am sure he wants his talisman back. I think you may even owe him an extra penny.”

“Father, may I have a penny?”

And so my great day of triumph ended, asking my father for money, so that I could give away a powerful magic item, and flee my enemies, my hands red with the blood of one of my allies. You can see, now, why I so dislike telling this story.

The Bishop’s New Stockings, or The Dangers of Love Magic

Timothy:

A little medieval love magic, to test reblogging

Originally posted on NOTCHES:

By Katherine Harvey

At some point in the first half of the eleventh century, Archbishop Poppo of Trier (1016-1047) decided to commission a new pair of pontifical stockings. He sent some material to a young canoness who belonged to a nearby religious house; shortly afterwards, he received his new footwear, and decided to try them on. The stockings were almost perfect, but they had one major flaw.

Miniature of a bishop standing on a devil. (British Library:

Egerton 859 f. 22

)

According to the chronicler who recorded the incident, the canoness ‘desiring to have [the wearer] partake of her lewdness, poisoned them with what kind of magic art I do not know’. Consequently, when Poppo put the stockings on, he was overcome with lust for the woman, and felt that his life would not be worth living if he could not have sex with her. Taking them off, he…

View original 668 more words

Mirarion : Chapter 11

At nightfall we were called into the courtyard, and the chief Guernicus present had us sit before her. We were surrounded by a crowd of gawkers.

“Are each of you adamant that this continue? This War is irregular, and it is my House’s opinion that our standards should not fall short just because we face the Diedne threat. That being said, there are political realities, and your co-operation makes them less acute.” She was another Justina.

“Yes.” Incendia said. “No apology suffices for what he said about my House.”

I sighed “Oh, come on. They know you want my vis.  Prove me wrong. Swear now that you take yourself out of the triage line. Say that if you kill me, my vis goes to someone else.”

“I was the one who received your insult…” she replied, with as much dignity as she could muster.

I turned to the Quaesitor and deliberately spoke over Incendia. “I consider myself the challenged party. I must continue if she must.”

“As the challenged party, do you accept the terms that have been laid out for the combat?” Justina asked.

“Yes.” I answered.

“I need you to recite them before witnesses, so that afterward there can be no claim you were led unknowing to your death.”

“Does she need to recite them too? She’s the one who is going to die.” I needed to goad Incendia harder, so I scratched my back with the tip of the Verditus magus’s talisman. I hoped he wouldn’t get too annoyed by that. They can be so touchy about their artifacts.

Incendia rose to the bait. “Is he allowed that thing?”

Justina answered “Yes. This isn’t a duel. There is no question of fairness, only lawfulness.”

“How many advantages do you want?” I added. I adopted my most mocking tone. “I’ve given away the right to demand you wait for the full moon, so I don’t have time to prepare. I’ve given away the right to choose where you chase me to, so I’ve lost ground advantage. I’ve given away the right to use vis, so I can’t create persistent illusions or punch through your Parma with sheer force. I’ve given away the right to shelter within House Mycetias. My only defenses are illusions, this lovely talisman, and the innate deficiencies of fire magic.”

She scowled and snapped at me “It will be a pleasure to demonstrate the power of fire to you.” I was pleased by that. She was more powerful than me. If she had fought creatively, I’d have lost. I needed her to deliberately choose to fight with a hand tied behind her back, so I kept needling her about how worthless fire magic was. I knew that if she chose fire magic she couldn’t just use her most powerful spells indiscriminately. She needed my Corpus vis, so she needed an intact corpse, or at least a discrete pile of ash. If I could get her just to use fire, then I had some ideas that I could try.

“Your recitation does not suffice.” said the Guernicus. She liked formal phrasings. She felt they gave authority. To me it just gave the whole thing a sad but comic air. No-0ne present thought this was justice, but Wizard Wars aren’t about right and wrong.

I played along, but pitched my tone so that I suggested this was all mere formality, with which I was tired. “At dawn we will be waiting at opposite sites of the nearby woodland. We will each raise the Parma Magica and step within. The war ends at nightfall, when our Parmae need renewal. There will be no second trial of force. To leave the wood before the end of the day, for any reason, will be met with fatal force.  Do I have it all?”

“No aid is to be offered by any outside party to either side. Niether side may prepare the field. No vis may be used.” she added.

“I understand. So, just to be clear: if I kill her in the first hour, I need to hang around until sundown?” I said.

“Yes.” said the Guernicus, trying to keep some gravitas.

“So, can I take a book?”

“Yes.” she paused, obviously angry at my levity. “All manner of equipment is permitted.”

“Thank you. Would you please get Incendia to recite the terms now? I wouldn’t want people thinking a lured her to her death.”

I did, of course.  That was the whole point of this conversation: to trick her into doing what I needed her to do. She did try to do some clever things. but she went into the battle deliberately limiting herself, and her few creative choices were all within constraints that she could so easily have broken. She could have saved herself at any time. She did not want to. That was the trick.

Afterward I spoke to Scipia and to father. “What’s the word?” I asked.

Scipia said “If she’s borrowed magic items off anyone, no-one has heard about it, she is not wearing them, and they are not in her chamber in the hospital.” Father kept silent. He seemed sad. I was careful not to let him see I’d noticed. Eventually he spoke “She missed one of the rules we’d laid down. There are to be no reprisals until after the war.  If she kills you, she is safe from me, while the last Diedne lives.”

I laughed, falsely. “That’s good to know. If I win, it buys me time to head for Constantinople.”

My sister hugged me, which I expected.  My father then did this odd thing: he reached out and laid his hand on the top of my head. It felt like a blessing, and a farewell, and he left quickly.

“I won’t see you in the morning.” Scipia said. “I’ll need to seal the wounds in the hospital.”

“Then goodbye, and fret not, for all manner of things may yet be well.” I said.  She knew I was being brave, and she pretended to be convinced.

Between Sand and Sea Announced

My newest book has been announced. Check it out here:  http://www.atlas-games.com/product_ta...

That clears the deck for Egypt.