a surfeit of wizards 12

 

 

Chapter 12

 

While we kicked our heels, I explored the immediate neighbourhood in the mercantile district of our house, where I ran into someone I would rather not have seen again.

Krissilla.

Harman’s sister.

“Krissilla!” I said. “Did Dragovar tell you that Harman was murdered? I should have written to you.”

“Murdered? What do you mean?” she snapped. “You blew him up in one of your experiments, didn’t you?”

I stared.

“Is that what you’ve thought, all these years?” I demanded. “Is that why you dislike me so much?”

“Well, of course!” she said. “Did you think I believed a story about him falling off a horse?”

“Well, I believed it,” I said. “I know he did not ride often, so I thought he might not be very good at it.”

“He was a perfectly good horseman,” snapped Krissilla. “He just did not like horses very much. And preferred that flying carpet thing.”

“Rug of travel,” I murmured. “He was visiting someone who was nervous around magic, which is why he hired a horse in the Blue Devil. And the horse was tampered with by someone who wished him ill. Well, if you knew him for a good horseman, that would explain why you thought the story thin. But it was no lie; I swear that on my life and magic, that I did not lie, and it was no carelessness of mine.”

There was a flash around me which accompanies such magical oaths, and anyone near us skittered away nervously.

“Please don’t frighten my neighbours, Castamir,” said Krissilla.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m your neighbour too, when I’m in the city; I have a house on Fleet Lane, the messuage there.”

“Oh, so it’s you who have moved in. There was a young female….”

“My wife,” I said, in a chilly tone. “And her maid, of course.  Well, her companion, really; a lady in waiting is de rigeur for a lady at court, now Chessina is a Journeywizard, not merely my apprentice.”

“You do move in rarefied circles,” she said.

“So did Harman; but Dragovar is a good friend of mine, so he calls on me when he has little problems,” I shrugged.

“Don’t shrug; it’s common,” snapped Krissilla. I recalled, she and Harman were born to minor gentry.

“So my wife tells me. I’m a peasant,” I said. “I’m the son of a plumber. And I dislike being at court.”

“So did Harman. Why was he murdered?”

“For a ridiculous reason that wasn’t even true. He was killed by a suitor of Lady Sheyla, who thought the lady preferred Harman to himself. Which as Harman’s comments on Sheyla were less than complimentary was an irony.”

“That hussy! Well, Harman had sense,” said Krissilla. “She’s suddenly aged; why?”

“She and her cousin, Renilla, were dabbling in demonology. I put a stop to it,” I said.

She looked at me anew.

“You aren’t the bumbling boy I recall any longer,” she said. “I… wish you well. Your wife may call on me.”

I did not say, ‘Poor Chessina;’ but Chessina would wrap Krissilla around her little finger.

 

 

 

Things were looking as if they were settling down, and we had more time. I still wanted a reckoning with Bertor, over the murder of Harman, and in the meantime, when things slacked off, Chessina and I went shopping for Solstice gifts, for the year’s turn.

We ran into a fellow selling amulets for protection against Demons.

I knew of no such amulet.

I cast a surreptitious detect magic.

His amulets were nothing but baked glazed clay with strange symbols in them.

In rage I knocked his wares to the ground.

“How dare you cheat the good people of the city with your mockery?”  I roared into his face. “You are giving people a false belief in your tatty bits of potsherd, and profiting from their fear!”

A city guard came up.

“Now, sir, you can’t go around… Towermaster!”

“Still Castamir to a childhood playmate Renn Catchpole,” I said to Matille’s youngest son. “Rosie! Here’s your brother!” she was with Chessina, giggling over something. “And this fellow should be locked up for peddling lies! His amulets aren’t even magical!”

“How do you know that, squire?” demanded the vendor.

“Because he’s the greatest wizard in the land, that’s how!” barked Renn. “You’re going to be spending Solstice in the lockup!”

“I have another idea, if you’re amenable, Renn,” I suggested.

“Speak, Tow… uh, Castamir,” said Renn. I still could not get Riggo or Reline to use my name, but Renn is only a year or so older than Rosie, and he used to follow me around like a hand-reared lamb.

“I’m going to give him Asses’ ears, which will last until he has tracked down every customer and paid them back,” I said.

“You can make a spell that knows this?” Renn was awed.

“Strictly speaking, the spell knows when he knows,” I said. “He hasn’t been around here before; unless he’s been elsewhere in the city or in other places, it shouldn’t take long.”

“Gods help me!” cried the vendor. “I’m the unluckiest man in the world that a ruddy wizard should happen along when I was trying to do something over solstice after my best kiln exploded.”

“Not just any wizard, but the Towermaster,” said Renn. “And if that name don’t mean anything to your stupid self, you deserves all you get, you stupid shill.”

The little fraud didn’t do more than whimper as his ears grew, which made him more of a man than Pennover had been; and that, I suspected was more at having such apparent distinction to his face.

“I’m feeling in a Solstice mood,” I said. “Providing you make every attempt to repay those you bilked, they’ll wear off in no more than a month.  And just remember, the city ordnance on false representation of magical telesma, amulets, potions, and creams has a penalty of up to thirty years hard labour.”

“Froterand’s golden bollocks!” said the fraud.

“Find someone who knows enough about magic to put correct runes in the clay, and activate them, and you can sell legitimate amulets against minor disease, pests, resistance to cold and heat, and when you’ve found the pot with air in that blew up your kiln, and rebuild it, you can have runes of warming on serving pots to keep things warm,” I said. “Make yourself truly useful; there are plenty of hedge wizards who don’t make it through the Academy, who might be ready to collaborate. Or some of the kids who’d be glad of a bit of pocket money helping you out. You should go speak to the enchantress.”

“Like she’ll speak to me,” he scoffed.

“You never know; she might like to have someone who can give real examples of the use of runes, apart from their feet-warming stones,” I said. “I don’t know why I’m helping you.”

“Solstice!” said the little man.

“And against my better judgement,” I said, sternly.

Truthfully, I would prefer to put a man who is driven to dishonesty by circumstance in the way of making an honest living than to destroy his livelihood, and I spoke to Ildayne, the enchantress about him.

She had him in her classroom, building a kiln to show another medium on which to put runes almost before his feet touched the floor.

In case you wondered, next time I saw him a year or so later, he looked sleek and well-fed and had a partner who covered the magic side whilst he covered the pottery side, and they were doing a roaring trade.

I enjoyed browsing stalls and vendors, and shops to purchase Solstice gifts.  I got a plain, but good quality belt for Garrzlan Catchpole, and inscribed runes of strength on it, to help with his job, and I bought Matille a better quality cauldron. It was dwarven made, and should last generations.

I had been paid for my aid with the school, which was nice, and it was fun to spend it on people.

Harmana’s doll, Tilly, had a wizard’s wardrobe, tiny cauldron, and spell book.

It would do Harmana no harm to revise by playing at teaching Tilly what to do. I got both her and Ches good quality rune-carving tools as well, for wood and stone. In my book, a good and basic knowledge of runes is essential to every specialisation.

“Ches,” I said, “Would you like to come to me and be with Harmana as my apprentice, covering all the spheres which interested you not just having to choose one?”

He brightened.

“I’d love it, Tow… er, Cousin Castamir,” he said. “Only… it would be nice for Harmana to have a female friend too.”

“Oho, you are aiming to be a diplomat,” I teased. “Which of your friends did you want to bring with you?”

“Her name is Shareen,” he said. “Isn’t that what Cousin Chessina was called before she was kidnapped by a demon?  She’s a bit… odd.”

“Odd?” I asked. Yes, I was worrying that she was a demon as well.

“I think she sees the world differently to the way everyone else does,” said Ches. “Her parents died and her aunt and uncle dumped her in the school because she had manifested magic. But she looks to the side of people, not at them, and comes out with some very strange things, and the other kids bully her.”

“I’ll go get her right away,” I said.

Yes, I did stop to fill in Chessina.

“Go, Castamir! Go now!” she said, imperiously.

 

I went to the school immediately.

How useful it would be if people could teleport the way we can shift inanimate objects. Unfortunately, nobody has figured out how to take a living body through it without turning said body inside out.

 “I’m keeping Ches,” I said. “And there’s a kid called Shareen.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” said Frigermar. “I was considering asking if you’d take her.”

“Ches says she’s odd,” I said.

“I think she’s some kind of seer,” said Frigermar. “She looks at the edges of people and I think she’s reading auras and things. She drew a picture of you and Chessina on the moon, but she insisted it wasn’t the moon, just a globe in the sky.”

“She’s a seer,” I said. “There is no way she would know that Arcana has tasked us with dealing with the false gods of the elves on their false moon.”

“I’m glad I don’t have your remit,” said Frigermar.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come,” said Frigermar. A little girl came in, with her bag packed. She was as fragile as a flower, pale, with hair like moonlight, and big violet-blue eyes. Her ears had points.

“I’m ready, Towermaster,” she said.

“You’re part elf?” I asked.

She was looking round my edge.

“You are so awesome,” she said. “The rope of gold to the Tower is full of power too. Did Ches ask about me? He looks after me. It’s almost like having a friend.”

“You’ll have Harmana as a friend, too,” I said.

“My mother was a half-elf,” she answered the question I had asked a moment ago. “I like to dance barefoot in the dew but that’s not allowed here. Will you let me?”

“So long as you don’t get cold and catch a chill,” I said.

She beamed at me.

“I never catch a chill,” she said. “Even when the red ones hold me under the pump.”

Red in the aura is anger and various other negative emotions, depending on the precise shade. Fear is in there, and people fear what they don’t understand.

“I’ll find out who it was,” said Frigermar. “I know what is to be bullied.”

“Expulsion,” I said.

“It’s on the cards,” said Frigermar.

 

“You are purple and gold,” said Shareen to Chessina. “How nice to feel cuddled by Arcana all the time! Does it help with the black patches?”

“Yes, love, it does,” said Chessina, enfolding Shareen. “I do struggle with them at times.”

“It will help in the Abyss,” said Shareen. “I don’t want to look there, it isn’t nice.”

“Then look at the gold of Arcana’s love,” said Chessina.

“I want to grow things, and make the world better,” said Shareen.

“You’re in the right place for that, sweetheart,” said Chessina.

She had filled in Harmana about Shareen’s ability to see outside the world most people saw, and our practical little apprentice was happy to meet her halfway, and not worry about her sanity.

“She needs more love because she is different, doesn’t she?” said Harmana, leaning on me.

“Yes, love,” I said.

“And I should listen to anything she says, because it will probably be worth recording,” said Harmana.

“That is probable,” I agreed.

 

We were planning on going home when Shareen looked at me.

“The man you want to hurt is at the palace this morning,” she said. “But he is already suffering a lot. You might want to talk to him first.”

“Thank you, Shareen,” I said. “I suppose I shall have to see his wife at some point, too.”

“I don’t want to look at it!” Shareen sobbed.

“Touch the cord and feel how protected you are,” said Chessina.  Shareen started stroking something near me, and the Tower felt amused.

This was never going to be easy, but I was glad we had taken her. She did not belong in a school with a bunch of ordinary peri-pubescent brats with all the cruelty kids can find for one who is different.

 

oOoOo

 

I ran into Bertor in one of the many ante-chambers.

“A word, Bertor,” I said.

“It’s Lord Bertor,” he said.

“It’s Bertor or it’s Shitface, and I’m not particular which I use,” I said, coldly. “You don’t want to mess me about.”

“And who the hell are you?”

“I’m Harman’s heir,” I said. “He was a father to me when I was orphaned, you know, and I miss him sorely still, and you stole my father from me, you scummy bastard, because you were led by your priapic little brain that could not reason out that Harman loathed Sheyla and wanted nothing to do with her. But because you wanted her, you were convinced everyone else did too.”

“Well, why else was he in Stonebridge but to see her?” demanded Bertor.

“How about the fact that he bought supplies and sold potions there?” I suggested. “Though actually on that day he was going to see one Dreflain, who was convinced Sheyla had put a spell on him.  Harman thought it improbable, but now I know what your wife is, I do actually wonder if he was right. Did it shock you when she aged as soon as I had banished the demon she and her cousin were worshipping? Did her sagging, aged skin, rheumy eyes, sagging bosoms revolt you?”

“By the gods! Is that what happened?” cried Bertor. “They were having truck with demons? And that’s why her body is rotting while she still lives in it?”

“Emaxtiphrael’s bollocks!” I swore. “I turned Renilla into an ass for a good reason, because as an animal, her connection to her demon overlord will fade, and she may escape being dragged to the abyss when she dies. Right now, your wife’s soul is in danger, and she may have promised you as well.”

“By all the gods!” he cried, mopping his sweating brow. “I implore you – give me up for killing Harman, beat me to death, turn me into something unnatural, whatever you choose, but save me from that! I don’t know why I was so jealous, I swear, I was not myself.”

I looked at him thoughtfully.

“Actually, I believe you,” I said. “Did you come to court to try to get aid from Dragovar?”

“Yes, but he has been so busy.” He wrung his hands.

“Demonology had crept into the academy,” I told him. “It was imperative to deal with it. Pack and be in Fleet Lane in an hour, and we’ll go on from the Tower to your home as soon as we get there. I want to deal with this today.”

a surfeit of wizards 11

 

Chapter 11

 

Dressed in plain brown academic robes and without my staff, I accompanied Frigermar to the academy.  He presented Ogramir with the letter of dismissal from Dragovar.

Ogramir paled.

“But you’re a failed wizard,” he whined.

“And Dragovar and the Towermaster think I was robbed,” said Frigermar. “And be that as it may, they trust me to put right all your right royal fuck-ups.”

“I’ve got friends in high places,” threatened Ogramir.

“None who trump Dragovar,” said Frigermar, who had really come out of himself since being given responsibility and – I suspect, more so, from having beaten his father into a pulp.

He left, grumbling.

I used my new abilities to fly and did so under invisibility to go up the outside of the tower of the School of Summoning, peering in the windows on various levels.

I was vindicated. I had not wanted to be.

The schools had a main teacher who taught basics to the youngest classes, but they had experts within their fields as part of their faculty who followed the specialities of the higher years.  Some of these were essentially student teachers doing coaching work or overseeing personal projects.

All the seniors were learning demonology, not just how to safely summon demons; and the point at which I lost all semblance of being an impartial observer recording the abuses, and actually burst into a classroom was where I saw a young female tied to a stone in the centre of a summoning circle, naked, terrified, and the teacher standing over her with a knife. As he was lecturing, I let him condemn himself out of his own mouth in explaining to the rest of the class that the unfortunate Evdika was going to suffer a fatal accident, which would be presented as through her own carelessness, having brought it on herself for suggesting that summoning demons was dangerous and rather foolish. I judged it to be the fifth year where they were receiving their first tasters.

I hurled myself through the window.

What else could I do?

I incinerated the staff member, and burned off the summoning circle. Even without my staff, the Tower was with me.

The class scattered. 

I untied Evdika.

She was sobbing. Unsurprisingly.

“The rest of you, to the principal’s office, now!” I snapped.

They went. I found some clothes for Evdika, and followed them down, carrying her.

“By the gods! What were we doing?” cried one of the others on the way.

By the time we reached Frigermar, all but one of them were sobbing in horror. It seemed that the Control teacher was not the only one to rape the minds of the students.

  I called in Beretrulle’s troops and arrested the whole of the Summoning faculty and dosed them thoroughly with truth serum. And Ogramir, who was still packing.

Once they were glassy eyed and quiescent with enough truth serum in them to be unaware if they were human beings or overripe peaches, they sang like birds.

Ogramir, it seemed, had no idea of what was going on. He made helpless noises. Apparently he did not even enter the individual towers, and only appeared to be a good administrator by staying within budget and reading the reports and precising them.

The rest of the summoning faculty knew. They had been discussing raising a demon to help on the faculty; sacrificing Evdika was to accomplish that, but at least they had not got that far.

Fortunately, as I found out from crispy guy’s notes, the demon he was trying to summon was Pointy-Teeth; Crispy man had, apparently, been a lover of Renilla’s and was unaware how thoroughly Chessina and I had banished their patron, and believed we could have done no more than disrupt a summoning.

Mind, with a virgin sacrifice, it might have overcome it.

And some of the senior students were going to be arrested as well.  But we did not yet have a full-scale demon incursion, and that was because none of the faculty were strong enough to do any real harm.

Some of their students might have caused serious trouble. Some were brainwashed; and we called in the mind-healers again for the traumatised and the brainwashed and tramped thoroughly through the minds of everyone first because we had no choice.

Fortunately, most of what we found was no more than roiling adolescent angst of the usual kind being twisted; and it was soon enough to heal the damage.

Maybe, at last, we might be able to stop the rot.

I couldn’t even go and get drunk; I could not let my guard down.

It took days to get through the interrogations. I called in Chessina to help. We told Frigermar an edited version of her story.

“I withdraw my objections over why someone who looks so young should be an expert,” he said. “My sincere commiserations; and my respect to you, Towermaster, for your steadfast love.”

It went a long way towards making him a friend.

As he picked up spells that were needed quickly and readily, I saw no reason not to have him presented with papers of merit, and, indeed, I quickly ran him through most of what he needed to know to be signed off as a Journeyman, so that I could sign his papers myself.

It did not hurt that he had studied on his own in the Royal Library.

“Work with Dragovar, and let him bring you up to mastery in more than one field,” I said. “You need to understand enough to have a good overview of the school, and if you do decide to return to the library, it will help you in finding books required by wizards to whom it is open.”

“I confess, the project of stimulating young minds to achieve their full potential is attractive to me,” said Frigermar. “And I would like to give at least another year to those who nominally fail, in order to see if they have broader abilities, or indeed, like me, very specific interests, and encourage them to be as good as they can be.  I fear it will be called ‘Failures Tower’ but I will endeavour to get it called ‘Misfits Tower,’ for those who do not fit a mould. And I will make sure the kids know it is my own place.”

“You’re a good man, Frigermar,” I said.

 

Meanwhile, rather than risk any of those we arrested having sold their souls, we presented Duke Brandel with a new flock of sheep. With specific instructions. They were plainly different as we made them black sheep; they were not to be tupped, or slaughtered for meat, only shorn for the wool, which I made sure was long and silky so they were too valuable to kill. All the shepherds needed to know was that it was a tainted bloodline which was a failed breeding experiment, and they birthed only travesties like two-headed lambs. The shepherds nodded wisely, and made comments about fool wizards, setting a tup on his sisters or daughters to increase a trait, when everyone knew it caused trouble. We listened meekly to them having a laugh at our expense.

The healing priestesses had been helpful here, too, casting permanent sterility spells on the sheep, just in case. They understood the need for any ties to any demons to wither away from an animal intelligence.

You didn’t think we turned them into sheep out of mercy, did you? It was purely to prevent them from empowering Pointy-Teeth. Sterility is not a spell the healers will cast readily, but like the followers of Silvana, they can be implacably ruthless in preserving the status quo.

I should not have incinerated crispy man of course, but hopefully, if he was a part of Renilla’s inept band, he had not yet given part of his soul to Pointy-Teeth. Frigermar went through the main school library, the faculty library, the School of Summoning library and all the personal quarters of the faculty thereof, and confiscated all books on demonology which would go into Dragovar’s personal collection. We argued over which books on the summoning of demons should be permitted, with Chessina’s input.

“You were summoning a malodorous runt when I used the portal you were opening and leaped in it,” said Chessina. “There is no question of a soul being put in jeopardy in summoning such feeble creatures for services. They are commanded, not bargained with; it is the point at which bargaining is entered into that the danger begins. And that is why demonology is such a dangerous short-cut past summoning itself, as the useful idiots who do it haven’t got a clue, most of the time, what they are getting themselves into.”

“What is the chance that any other more powerful demon might see a portal forming and jump into it?” asked Frigermar.

I was concerned about that myself.

“Vanishingly small,” said Chessina. “I was desperate; terrified; in pain, and, frankly, ready to take a risk. I was ready to do anything for anyone on the other side because I did not think it could be as bad.  And I got lucky.” She frowned. “No, I don’t think it was luck,” she amended. “I think Arcana needed Castamir to receive a sudden education in demons, and my reward was in being released from being soulless and trapped in the Abyss, and the chance to be human again. Arcana meddles a lot. More, I suspect than the Commissioner of Souls would sanction if He knew…” she giggled. “She pouted, and said ‘quiet, you,’ to me. But we needed the meddling.”

“So, a more powerful demon would not choose to usurp the summoning of a less demon?” I asked.

“No, because they have no control over where they are going, and have no idea what they will find.”

“Renilla wasn’t expecting Pointy-Teeth to turn up in person,” I said.

“No, but he was already her patron, Castamir,” said Chessina, patiently. “Therefore, he was aware of any summoning she did, because her soul had ties to him. That was why you turned her into an ass, because the ties will decay in an animal mind. Hence the sheep. But she wanted a demon and he chose for it to be him, not one of his minions.”

I sighed with relief.

“I think that summoning any extra-planar creatures should be confined to the most senior students,” I said.

“And I’m not sure it should be more than theory,” added Frigermar. “How much summoning did Harmon do with you, regarding demons?”

“None,” I said. “He taught me how and warned me well about the dangers of dealing with demons.”

“Then no more should be taught in school,” said Frigermar, firmly.

With this, I concurred, and so did Chessina.

At the moment it was a moot point, having no faculty members capable of summoning anything more than a flea; but it needed to be a point in place for when there were able teachers.

“What about the pupils?” asked Chessina.

“Move them all into a single class, and revise all the other fields of study,” I suggested. “Then arrange accelerator classes for the older ones in whichever field they test out, or use them as the start of your Misfits, to learn general wizardry. It’s not their fault, those who have been brainwashed, that their chosen field was usurped. I suspect that with the trauma they have suffered, and compulsions not to think about demonology laid on them, they will never want to summon so much as an earthworm. And watch any who do.”

“They will need to summon Invisible servants,” said Chessina.

“But it requires no ritual,” I said. “They can learn the spell without being told it is part of summoning. The older ones will have covered it, and may find they cannot do it. This is unfortunate, and in binding them with geasa and compulsions, the school and those of us who have done this are responsible for their care, and for finding them jobs after school, because they have been damaged by the school. And whilst part of me feels there should be full disclosure to their parents or patrons, part of me feels it is unwise.”

“No disclosure,” said Frigermar. “A letter home stating that some of the faculty were part of a ring of child-spoilers, and that all have been dealt with and the children given counselling.”

“That should work,” I said, relieved. “Some parents will disown their children.”

“I will state that not all were touched, but the others were traumatised for seeing it happen and ask that it not be mentioned,” said Frigermar. “Which is not how to treat abuse, but I’ll put the blame on the healers.”

It wasn’t ideal, but it was what we had.

“It’s a trouble averted,” said Dragovar.

 

It took almost until the solstice to sort things out; Chessina and I popped back and forth to the Tower, taking care of sundry things for the villagers, and giving time to Elizelle. We decided to bring Harmana back to the Merchant’s house so at least she got some schooling. We were appearing desultorily at court, but also spending time helping Frigermar with his rather sudden group of pupils, and it did Harmana no harm to come to the school and play with other children her age, and have some lessons with people who had a different way of doing things.

None of the teachers made a peep about it; I don’t think they wanted to offend someone who thought nothing of incinerating one of the faculty.

Which wasn’t fair, as I wasn’t incinerating him for bad teaching, but for attempting to sacrifice one of his pupils, but I always got the impression they looked on me rather nervously after that.

Oh, well. You can have power, or popularity. And I’ve never courted popularity.

Harmana got on like a house on fire with Ches Kettle, which was nice. I was seriously considering taking him on as an apprentice, if only to give her a playmate who would not draw away from her as she learned more.  After all, it was as easy to teach two as one.  And he was to spend the three day solstice holiday with us, as it was too far to travel home.