a surfeit of wizards 4

 

Chapter 4

 

“Gentlemen, I’d be grateful for the real reason for your visit,” the headmaster asked, coming directly to the point.

Dragovar waved a hand.

“I’ll get to the point quickly, Ogramir. Whilst Demonology seems mostly to have been a conceit of those who are, or might loosely be described as the upper social echelon, you need to be aware that it has been going on systematically for years, and that it is not impossible that there are pupils of yours whose families, if they come from wizarding lines, or patrons, if not, have had truck with demons. And I don’t mean the least-demons, or ‘malodorous runts’ as I believe they are known to some, for simple, dangerous tasks, for their ability to resist fire and electricity,” said Dragovar. “That’s essentially harmless enough. It’s the use of deals with those intelligent enough to negotiate.”

“I see,” said Ogramir. “And you want me to ask the faculty to keep an ear to the ground?”

“Essentially, yes,” said Dragovar. “I shall be holding a seminar of any wizards who care to attend, and obviously, you, or your representative, will be invited. Whilst Castamir and Chessina have been busy banishing and destroying demons, and dealing with an ancient and malicious half-demon, who may have been orchestrating a lot of this, I’m not so naïve as to assume that everything is concluded. So, really, this is a word to the wise, to keep a watch out. Castamir plans to deal with the one who sired the half-demon, and he could do without any other petty distractions like a coven of demonologists.”

“Er, no, quite,” said Ogramir, looking at me sideways at the idea that a coven of demonologists was a petty distraction. “I don’t recall you at school here, Towermaster.”

“I didn’t go to school here,” I said. “I was trained as the apprentice of the former Towermaster, Harmon.”

“So, you call yourself ‘Towermaster’ purely because you were his apprentice when he died?” he said. It was not quite offensive in tone, but I could feel some smug contempt in there.

“Oh, no,” I said. “I am called the Towermaster because the Tower accepted me as its master. You would not understand the process. It took me a while after Harmon died to be ready to take up the challenge, but take it up I managed to do.” I looked down my nose, and ignored Chessina purring.

“Don’t go there, Ogramir,” said Dragovar, sharply. “Those of us taught entirely by the wizards we apprenticed to did not have in any way an inferior education. Indeed, as the education was one on one, it was probably superior. I wager Castamir knows as much as most of your masters in their individual fields; or would know where to find any particularly esoteric piece of knowledge.”

I was not so sure of this, so I fell back on that useful enigmatic smile.

I could probably fake most of it with the Tower’s help, if anyone wanted a demonstration. I might not know all the proper jargon, but I could crunch the spellwork, with the aid of the Tower – and the advice of its former Towermasters, whose voices whispered through my staff.

Ogramir was not best pleased, of course.

“Many will look askance at such an out-of-date looking staff,” he said. “We prefer to have our pupils craft their own if possible, or have crafted for them less unwieldy things, no more than four feet long, and with smaller foci. I take it that Harmon was a traditionalist to insist you create such? We will be happy to provide facilities to make something more modern.”

I smiled. I don’t think it reached my eyes.

“If I were not Towermaster, and worthy of the staff carried by every Towermaster since the first, I would not presume to ape my betters with some simulacrum of a staff, made small to reflect the small amount of power that might be channelled by the limited minds incapable of a full sized staff,” I said. “Barely more than wands, which are toys to enhance the channelling of power in a quick way to seem to achieve greater results, rather than the patience of learning to cast without any focus, to increase the magical strength within, so that when ready for a staff, one’s mind is not destroyed by it.”

“Are you using oversized wands to make your pupils seem better and denying them the chance to build their power?” asked Dragovar, sharply. “The practice will cease. If they cannot cut the grade without foci to assist, they are not ready to use foci.”

“Yes, Royal Wizard,” said Ogramir. He would obey; but he did not like it.

“I want to inspect the school,” I said. “With your leave, Royal Wizard,” I added. Ogramir had started to smile, but scowled when it was Dragovar’s leave I asked. “If there are short-cuts taken in one thing, how can we know that the faculty, which is nodding to this poor teaching method, is not also nodding to the slippery slope to demonology? Looking good by having a high percentage of passes to the fifth year is a sign of pride and hubris of the kind exhibited by demonologists and devil-raisers, and is a poor thing to see in a man who is supposed to be the role-model and leader of our future magically active young people.”

I hid my wince as Chessina kicked me in the ankle for what I had to admit was a pompously sententious speech.

Ogramir looked frightened.

“We do not encourage such things!” he almost squealed. “I… I had no idea that the use of wands, rods, and staves diminished the development of magical power! I did not want to look bad when my finest students had left the school to apprentice with the Royal Wizard, because I thought he would look at numbers of those who graduated on only, so I instituted the use of wands and staves to lift the ability just enough….” He futtered to a stop.

“I was aware of stealing your four best, you know,” said Dragovar. “And despite my vast intellect, I can also count. I am glad that it has not been going for very long; I wondered that Tasayne had not mentioned it.”

“New idea to me, Master,” said Tasayne.

The way she said ‘Master’ was just like the way Chessina says it when being formal. I did not have to do more than glance southwards, as you might say, to have Dragovar’s ears go red as he acknowledged that he suffered the same physical reaction to his wife’s games that I did with mine.

Maybe Chessina was right, and the teachers here all needed a good shag. Which was none of my concern and not in my remit to prescribe.

It might not stop Chessina suggesting it, though.

“Are you married, Headmaster?” demanded Chessina.

“No, er… apprentice, and what is it to do with you?”

“Resident demon expert, old boy, and journeyman wizard, wife of the Towermaster,” said Chessina.

“Well, I am not married,” said Ogramir.

“Yes, it’s plain,” said Chessina. “Your failure to think things through shows the lack of a good partner in your life and a distinct lack of shagging. It saps the intellect.”

Ogramir spluttered.

“It isn’t really our business,” I said.

“Nonsense, Castamir!” said Chessina. “A role-model for young people should be fully rounded in all his personality and experience, and that means healthy. And that means plenty of green vegetables, good protein, and someone to shag.”

“Arcana Hygeina,” I murmured.

“Exactly,” said Chessina.

Who knows? She might even have Arcana’s backing on this. Arcana’s sister and brother is Agapa, god and goddess of love, after all. Even if locally, Agapa is known as Froterand, god of sky, sun, and fertility, in mythos married to Frottillina, whom I knew as Silvana, representing the Earth and nature. I had a vague idea that Agapa and Arcana were able to combine as one, and at least were very close, and Arcana certainly loved lovers. The gods are beyond our ken; it’s one of these ineffability things, as Emaxtiphrael is fond of saying. Emaxtiphrael, husband of Arcana, and god of the Halls of Waiting, Death, and Wisdom, and known as ‘Oldest and Dearest.’

I’d never had the stones to ask whose oldest and dearest, but I did know that Emaxtiphrael reported to ‘The Commissioner of Eternity’ over the dispositions of souls.  Human concepts of pantheons were much simplified when one had met the odd god.

And believe me, most gods are very odd indeed.

Even those we love dearly.

 

So, we set off to tour the classes. We went to the Crafting and Enchanting class first, where a half dozen teenaged wizards were attaching a warmth and growth charms to a stone, in runes, to be activated with the application of a little of their power.  A useful little tool in a draughty castle on cold nights. They rose, and I waved them back to what they were doing.

“No more staves,” said Ogramir. “Apparently, they stop the development of strength.”

“I told you that when you told me to get the children making them,” said the wiry woman who was in charge of the class. “But you wouldn’t listen to me, would you?  I’ll be glad to stop it.”

“Er, right, carry on,” said Ogramir.

I stopped one of the children when she was about to carve a rune.

“You need to check that rune,” I said. “It isn’t expansion.”

She gave me a superior look.

“No, sir, it’s expansion plus extended,” she said.

“And had you thought through what that might do?” I queried.

“Make a decent sized hot brick,” she said.

“Wrong,” I said. “Firstly, it will make a hot brick so big that if you have your feet under it, it will break your foot. Secondly, the extension rune will work first on anything elemental and your warming stone will become a burning hot stone. Using this without testing would see you trapped in bed with a crushed foot which is slowly burning off, whilst your bedclothes go on fire. Using runes is a precise art, and whilst you will learn to mix and match them, until you know exactly what to do with them, you might just get more than you bargain for. If you find that the hot brick is too small, you should add a second expansion rune rather than messing with extensions. You should not even have come across it at your level, it’s far too dangerous.”

“I read ahead in the book,” she said. “Is it really so dangerous?”

“My master told me about how, when he was an apprentice, he was sent to fetch water, and, being thirteen, lazy, and full of his own ability, he enchanted a bucket to carry its own water up. With the extension rune on the runes to make it scoop up and carry the water. The bucket grew to the size of the vat to be filled, and would not stop. Harmon was mopping up water by hand for four days after his master managed to destroy the aggressively filling bucket,” I told her. “He caught me doing something similar. Don’t use things you have read ahead about unless it’s a dire emergency.”

“No, sir,” she whispered, looking totally abashed.

The wizardess in charge muttered to me as we left.

“Thank you for squashing our resident know-it-all,” she said.

 

 

We walked into the Divination classroom and one of the three pupils shot to his feet.

“Behold!” he said. “The Towermaster and the Beloved, who will throw down the false gods and rob the abyssal thief of the moonstone soulstealer!”

He looked slightly confused to be standing already when the rest rose politely for visitors.

Ogramir was incensed.

“What do you think you’re playing at?” he demanded.

“Sir?” said the boy.

“Why did you spout off all that tripe?” demanded Ogramir.

“I haven’t said a word,” said the boy. Ogramir raised his hand.

I caught it, and forced it down.

“Look at his eyes, you buffoon,” I hissed. “You can tell a true seer by the fuddled look. And besides, he does not have the knowledge to speak about such things if he is not a true seer.”

“I… he was not mocking?”

“Unfortunately, no,” I said.

I had not needed Arcana’s chime in my head to recognise the prophesy.

“I don’t understand,” bleated Ogramir.

“If you’re lucky, you never will,” I said, sweetly. “Some of us occupy a world a long way from academe, and you wouldn’t survive it.”

“You are presumptuous!”

“And you are an amateur,” I snapped.  “You have a very responsible job, which I presume you are capable of doing, or Dragovar would have gotten rid of you long since, but your responsibilities stop at the providing a home from home and an education for young wizards, who will continue building on the learning you provide with their own experience.  Do not presume to think past your capabilities; because if you had what it takes, it would have been you to whom Dragovar turned to deal with demonology, not me.”

I stalked out.

I heard Dragovar say, “You’re a first class administrator, old boy, but he’s right, you’re only a third rate wizard.”

 

The third class we visited was one in which an antidote to common poisons was being prepared by five youngsters on average about fifteen years old. I noted their staves stacked at the side of the room; this teacher was having no truck with the use of them.

“Don’t stop for courtesies,” he growled. “Any wizard worth his salt knows not to leave potions at certain stages.”

“Quite so,” I said. “Ignore us, we’re not here.”

The grizzled veteran took me at my word, continuing to inspect the results, one of which was the correct pale blue it was supposed to be, the others varying shades of blue, save the sludge one boy had. The master absently raised a hand to block something this one aimed at the crucible of one of the others.

“You’d do better, lad, to scour that and start again,” I said. He scowled at me, and said nothing.

“Meserand’s father is an alchemist apothecary by trade and insists that Meserand should specialise in alchemy and potion-making,” said the teacher. “Unfortunately, he has no aptitude.”

I turned to Ogramir.

“Why are you permitting such nonsense?” I demanded. “You’ve let the poor brat get far behind with any sphere he is good at, just to appease his father? You should tell the father the truth. This boy will never make a potions master. Let him start another skill, please, or you will turn him into a sullen destroyer of other people’s work because he resents their skill, and not being able to excel at his. What are you good at, lad?”

“I wanted to be an elementalist,” said the boy. “I have success with fire and water.”

“You’re relieved of school duties and will be my apprentice henceforth, working under the tutelage of Journeywizard Tasayne, who is a skilled elementalist,” said Dragovar. “There, Ogramir; I am exerting my right, to relieve you of a duty you seem to find too onerous.”

“His father is a friend of mine,” mumbled Ogramir. “I hoped the boy would learn enough to shape up; any idiot can make a potion.”

“If that were true, there would be more potioneers,” I said. “Good solution, Dragovar.”

The ruddy school was more than due an inspection and we had only seen three classes.