The Spellmonger's Yule: A Spellmonger Series Short Story Read online

  “That’s Minalan speaking,” I corrected, firmly. “If I thought that Sheruel or Korbal held the answer and were willing to bargain with me, I might even consider it. But I know that they don’t and they wouldn’t, so you have nothing to fear on that front,” I said, perhaps more bitterly than I intended.

  “It wasn’t your treason I fear, Minalan,” she said with an irritated snort. “Can’t you see that? It’s your self-destruction!”

  With that, she disappeared in an entirely unnecessary and overly dramatic burst of flame. Briga’s equivalent of slamming a door.

  I turned back to the fire, knowing her eyes were still watching me through the flames. I kept my face stoically set, unwilling to let her even guess my thoughts from my expression. I briefly thought about extinguishing the flame by urination, but I knew that would be going too far. I was frustrated, but I wasn’t frustrated with Briga.

  Drink the mead.

  It irritated me like a pebble in my shoe while I was running for my life. There were so many other things that needed my attention and required my investigation.

  Politics. War. Governance. Gods. Goblins. As irritated as I was with Briga, she was correct. Too much did depend upon what I did – or didn’t do – and lapsing into abject despair could doom us all.

  So why didn’t I care more?

  I knew why, and the answer was selfish. Doing all of this without Alya seemed pointless to me. I’d become so dependent upon her that without her I felt like I was acting on a stage from a script written by someone else, to an empty audience. And that was selfish.

  But I didn’t care . See why Briga was worried?

  Drink the mead. Pentandra’s unearthly message would not flee my thoughts, not after weeks. And I was a good enough wizard to know that when your subconscious keeps pointing to something like that, it would haunt me until I dealt with it.

  When Alya and I were married, nearly gotten killed by Censors, and escaped on our honeymoon on a romantic river cruise on Pentandra’s private barge, Pentandra had followed an old Narasi custom and included (among other incredible delicacies) a hamper containing seven bottles of mead.

  Alya and I drank the first six bottles on the honeymoon, and – again, according to custom – saved the final bottle to celebrate our fifth anniversary.

  Only... the Magewar had intervened, and Alya had fallen before we could complete that happy ritual. I had vowed not to drink the final bottle of mead until I restored her, and we could drink it together, as intended.

  I felt a little stupid. It was a silly peasant rite. A superstitious bit of folk religion that helped bond unruly peasants together. There was nothing magical about that mead. I could pour the entire bottle down Alya’s throat and it would not alter her condition one bit. I could empty the bottle myself and, after a brief period of pleasant drunkenness, my problems would still be piled in front of me, as they were before.

  It was a silly solution to an intractable problem... but part of me suspected what it meant, if not where it originated.

  To me, by opening that bottle I was accepting the fact that Alya was forever gone. To drink the mead was to admit that I had failed, that I needed to mourn a wife who was dead in all but name, and move on with my life.

  I had no doubt that there were important lessons and deep spiritual truths involved in the process, but I could not care less about my spiritual health. Drinking the mead was admitting defeat in the most personal battle of my life.

  So, a tiny part of my mind whispered, perhaps you should do that.

  That wasn’t a part of myself I wanted to listen to. But experience had shown that when it spoke, it was usually in my interest to listen.

  I hate that part of myself.

  I knew that it was my fear of letting go that was keeping me from doing it.

  I thought of our children, Minalyan and Almina, growing up without their mother. I thought of the unborn baby we’d lost at Greenflower, and allowed my mind to take me into all sorts of dark places.

  Drinking that mead would be accepting all of that... accepting a life without Alya. I was still clinging to mad hopes and desperate ideas about magically repairing her, but the fact was that I had consulted the best magical minds in the Kingdom already, to no avail. I had even toyed with the idea of necromancy, but Alya’s problem wasn’t death. It was... beyond madness. Beyond the understanding of the mightiest minds of the age. Even Master Icorod, head of the medical order of magi, had told me sympathetically that Alya’s recovery was “in the hands of the gods.”

  Icorod is not a religious man, but he wanted to give me hope after his exhaustive examination. But when the gods themselves declare that they are stumped, it kind of saps your confidence. And your hope. Perhaps it was time to face that.

  It had been only months since Greenflower, and while I knew that the entire barony was shocked and in mourning over their beloved baroness, there were already whispers – even proposals – that I have my marriage annulled and seek a new wife. No one had been brave or stupid enough to say the words to my face, but I wasn’t naive. Or surprised.

  Alya was an integral part of running the barony. Right now, Lady Estret and Sister Bemia were handling much of her functions, with Sire Cei conducting business as usual. As if we were just, off on holiday somewhere.

  But that was a stopgap. With Yule approaching in just a few weeks there was a lot of baronial and domain-level work to be done, work that Alya, as baroness, should be conducting. Yule Court was one of the central ceremonial occasions of the year, when my vassals would be feasted at the castle, gifts would be given, posts would be announced, and fealty would be pledged for another year.

  Alya loved Yule, I recalled fondly. She would be terribly upset to miss it this year.

  The absurdity of that thought was what brought me back to my senses.

  Drinking the mead would acknowledge the reality I didn’t want to face, but that my loyal subjects and friends were quietly urging me to.

  I don’t know how long I sat and smoked and stared into the fire. All I know is that at some point I went downstairs to our old bedroom (and my current study) and retrieved the leather-cased bottle, sealed up since we returned from our honeymoon. I don’t even remember doing it, I just recall staring at it in the center of my worktable for what seemed like hours.

  Drink the mead . Whether it was merely Pentandra’s subconscious advice or a message from some other power through her lips, I could not ignore it.

  Finally, with tears rolling down my cheeks and despair and hopelessness in my heart, my trembling fingers unsealed the top of the case and pulled the bottle out... along with a thick sheaf of parchment.

  I wasn’t expecting that.

  I stared at the roll of parchment surrounding the bottle in confusion, and straightened them. They were filled with cramped sentences, some stuffed into margins or written at odd angles. Most of it, I was even more surprised to see, was in my handwriting. And Alya’s. Odd, considering that I didn’t remember writing a word of it.

  The leaf at the top of the stack caught my attention, as it was designed to. It was from me. To me.

  MINALAN – Greetings from your storied past! Either this will be an amusing tale to tell my kids, or a vital piece of intelligence. But herein lies the story of what truly happened on your “uneventful” honeymoon. Hopefully you’re reading it while you and Alya are wildly celebrating. In any case, there are several details here that, for obvious reasons, you may find interesting or even important. You are likely wondering why you have no memory of this, or even of writing this account. Once you read this, you should understand. Good luck, and may Ishi’s blessings keep our union as lusty and fruitful as it is now! – s. Minalan

  Yes, that was my flamboyant signature at the bottom of the page. I had written it. And I didn’t remember writing it.

  The bottle forgotten in front of me, I eagerly devoured the tale – which occasionally rambled, as details were inserted or something was explained in more detail. While it w
as far from scholarly standards, it was fascinating to read. And it explained so much I had questions about.

  Apparently, my uneventful honeymoon was a bit more eventful than I recalled.

  It took me two hours to get through the sheaf; much of it spent tracking down where in the wandering narrative certain things and certain people were mentioned. By the time I felt like I had a good understanding of the events of five years ago – events I had no recollection of – the roosters in the courtyard of the castle were starting to greet the pale sky in the east.

  It was a lot to absorb. From the sheer unlikelihood of the adventure to the unexpected conclusion, to the removal of the experience from my memory to the point where I had not even suspected a gap... it was a lot to absorb.

  I was still mulling the details of the revelation when the laboratory door opened, and Ruderal entered, yawning. When he saw me, he stopped mid-yawn.

  “Master! When did you arrive? I thought you were still in Vorone!”

  “Last night,” I admitted. “But I am not staying long. Fetch me some hot tea and breakfast from the kitchen and send word to Sire Cei to attend me in my lab. And Onranion, if the rascal is around.”

  “He is, Master,” Ruderal assured me. “Is everything... all right?”

  “Mayhap,” I admitted, grudgingly. “Ruderal, I was in the depths of despair... but I think I just threw myself a rope from the past.”

  Ruderal looked at me skeptically. “That seems a bit cryptic, Master,” he said, cautiously.

  “It was meant to be,” I decided. “Tell no one you don’t have to that I’ve returned. I won’t be here long.”

  “What... what did you discover, Master?” the lad asked, hesitantly but politely. He glanced at the parchments, now scattered across the table around the bottle and its case.

  “Hope, Ruderal,” I conceded. “I discovered a tiny, almost invisible ray of hope.”

  *

  *

  *

  “So, tell me about this rebel of yours, Onranion,” I said, as the transformed Alkan songmaster settled into his favorite chair in my study. “The Sorceress of Sartha Wood. Lilastien. Elre .”

  Onranion normally jovial manner changed abruptly at the mention of her name. His eyes grew larger, and then narrowed in recollection. He grew serious, which is always disturbing to see in the Alkan songmaster, even in his humani form. Especially in his humani form.

  “Ah. You’ve heard of Lilastien,” he said, quietly, with a sigh.

  “I’ve apparently met the good lady,” I said, glancing at the parchments before me. “A fact which, in retrospect, may have changed a good many things.”

  “Mayhap it is best things evolved as they have, without her,” proposed Onranion. “I have the deepest respect for her, but Lilastien has a history of chaos and disruption associated with her. And considering I’m generally in favor of chaos and disruption, you can appreciate my caution, my friend.”

  “I don’t need your advice right now, Onranion, I need some straight answers,” I said, sharply. “Truthful ones.”

  “Minalan!” he said, affecting shock. “I’ve always been straightforward with you, my boy!”

  “In your way,” I conceded. “And a lot more candid than your countrymen. Now I find out that they’ve been keeping their foremost specialist on humanity locked away, when we need her the most. And these Enshadowed... you knew about them and didn’t tell us.”

  The old Alkan songmaster sighed. “Minalan, the things the Alka Alon haven’t told you are manifold. Some we have told you, but you’re so damnably short-lived that you forget after two or three generations. It’s a bit like having a conversation with someone who forgets what you’ve told them every five minutes.”

  “A fair point,” I grunted. “But I was thinking a little more immediately.”

  “Yes, the rebels are confined, yes Enshadowed conspire against both our peoples for sinister reasons of their own, yes there are factions and clans and families of Alka Alon who despise humanity for their own personal reasons,” he recited. “Minalan, we’ve had ten thousand years of history on Callidore. It’s hard to explain the nuances of it all, so we’ve given you what we think is important. The problem is we don’t know what is important until it becomes important.”

  “Then back to the Sorceress. You know her?”

  “Lilastien? Intimately ,” he nodded, some untold tale inspiring his emphasis. “She’s brilliant. Very passionate about your people, and… a little insane. She’s also under arrest, by order of the council.”

  “And protected by the gods, apparently,” I added, nodding to the parchments.

  “Yes, that was an unexpected development,” chuckled the old reprobate. “It was one thing to confine her to her laboratory. It was another to lose control over the access to it. If she chooses, she can keep the council out, as much as they can keep her in. One of the many reasons why human divinity is not in favor among some on the council.”

  “For once, I empathize,” I snorted. Ishi had caused enough trouble in the last year to make a man consider swearing off religion. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I happen to desperately need an Alkan songmaster familiar with the intracacies of humanity to save my wife, and your folk happen to have one... and no one bothered to mention it!”

  “Minalan! Lilastien is dangerous, ” he reminded me. “She’s unpredictable. ‘Elre’ means ‘rebel’ in Alkan, and it’s a term of deep shame. She’s embraced it.” He sounded both condemning and admiring.

  “I don’t care if she calls herself Queen of May and smears blue mud on her arse to help the flowers grow; I need to consult with her! And I apparently already have, and I don’t remember it. To be honest, I feel particularly betrayed by Ithalia’s role in this,” I added, with more emotion than I’d intended. “She’s supposed to be my friend and my envoy, yet—”

  “Don’t blame the poor girl! She was put into an impossible situation, Minalan,” Onranion interrupted. “She took some initiative – against the wishes of the Council – and ended up bringing our peoples into an alliance. Be angry for many things, my friend, but poor Ithalia has done remarkably well with what she was given. Her grandmother’s status has been a social burden on her for her entire life. Yet she was courageous enough to make the attempt, despite the risk.

  “You know,” he said, after a pause after my outburst, “now that I think about it, Lilastien might actually have some insight on your particular problem,” he finally conceded. “She was among the first to recognize what was happening with your divine eruptions, when they first appeared. She also knows more about human physiology than any Alkan alive. She studied for years with your physicians, on Perwyn. We were all intrigued by your arrival, but she was one of the few who were obsessed with you as a species. She might know something about human psychology that may have escaped the rest of us.”

  “Onranion, from what I can tell, the Alka Alon know very little about human psychology at all. Otherwise I wouldn’t have to keep lecturing you about leaving a trail of heartbroken maidens behind you.” Since Onranion had been granted permission to use his human form, he’d taken advantage of his new body to indulge in a great many liaisons with Sevendor’s women. To the Alkan they were no more important than what he had for breakfast or the vintage of wine he was drinking. To the women involved, the seductions were far more meaningful. “But if this Lilastien has any insights, I must seek her counsel. Perhaps she will provide better perspective on the human condition than the other Alka Alon.”

  “Mayhap,” he admitted. “You are a delightfully confounding species. But your point is well-taken. Lilastien’s combination of Alkan songspells and human physiology – and psychology – might have an answer for you. But it might not,” he emphasized. “Minalan, I know you are desperate, and I understand why. However, despite the reputation Lilastien has garnered among humanity as ‘the Sorceress of Sartha Wood’, she is just a songmaster with a rebellious streak. Try not to elevate your hope beyond reason.” />
  “I do what I must,” I said, simply. I didn’t know how else to answer that.

  “I know,” he said, sympathetically. “And between us, I share your hope. But once you’ve been around a few centuries, you see how such hope gets dashed over and over again. It’s a little depressing.”

  *

  *

  *

  Sneaking around your own castle when you don’t want to be noticed can be surprisingly difficult – if you aren’t a powerful wizard. I used unnoticability spells, the kind warmagi use to sneak past sentries, and avoided anyone recognizing me as I walked from the door of the keep to the outer bailey.

  There is an old shed in the outer bailey that got turned into a clandestine taproom, a few years ago. It’s a small, cozy place where the residents of the castle grounds could retire for a quiet pint or a quick shot of spirits. It was a quiet favorite of the enchanters, the senior staff, and important residents. At this time of day it was still quiet, with only a few patrons. One of them was covered in flour.

  It might seem odd to some professions to see a man tip back a full pint that early in the working day, but my father’s working day was done. When you rise before the roosters to get the day’s bake started, by noon your day is done. Even a brand-new bakery and a squadron of former apprentices could not break a habit cultivated over a lifetime.

  He still wore his ragged apron, as he smoked a long-stemmed pipe and drank peacefully from the earthenware mug the Tal barman kept filled until he called a halt.

  “I was wondering when you’d get back here,” he murmured around his pipestem without looking up.

  “I had wizard’s business in Vorone,” I replied, casually. “Dragon attack. Burned the palace down. It’s taken weeks to put things right. I even missed most of the Magic Fair.”

  “Pesky things, those dragons,” he observed. “Glad you made it back.”

  “My lads mostly handled things without me,” I conceded. “But I’m considering leaving again, which is why I haven’t made my return well-known.”