Michael Manning - The God-Stone War

Dinner was noticeably quieter after that.

“Feel free to explain your extremely clever reasons for not putting Rose and Dorian’s minds at ease about the next patrol,” said Penny, as we closed the door leading back to Castle Cameron. Her expression left no doubt regarding her personal opinion.

Now that we were alone, I had no reason not to give her my real justification. “First I will have your promise that this remains between the two of us,” I told her.

“Why?” she asked shrewdly.

I sighed. “If my reasoning gets back to Rose then it will defeat the purpose.”

She shook her head in resignation, “At the moment you aren’t in her good regards anyway.”

I held my ground. “Promise?”

Penny stared at me, “You really don’t want me to tell Rose?”

I nodded positively.

“Fine.”

“Dorian can’t help himself. As long as he feels he could be doing more, he will. I’m just trying to make things easier for him with Rose,” I said at last.

My lovely wife stared at me intently for a moment before she replied, “You really surprise me sometimes. Over the years you’ve really learned a lot of tact and subtlety. What really amazes me is that you can be so complex and yet still make so many mistakes.” Her face was thoughtful and one of her eyebrows twitched awkwardly.

And you my dear, have come a long way in mastering your temper. Years ago you would have simply called me an ‘idiot’ and the fight would be on, I thought silently. “You still haven’t mastered the art of lifting one eyebrow,” I said instead, raising and lowering my right brow to illustrate the point.

Penny smirked. “That doesn’t change the fact that you picked the wrong side this time. Dorian is about to be a father again. I know you well enough to know, you couldn’t possibly think he should be out in the field rather than at home with his children. You should be trying to beat that lesson through his thick skull, rather than making it easier for him.”

She had me, but I didn’t intend to admit her point yet. “The danger still exists; otherwise Dorian would not be so keen to find the shiggreth.”

“You have many other knights who are capable of managing the task for now.”

“There is only one Dorian.”

“His children deserve a father, and he deserves a family life,” she countered smoothly. “Only he can do that for them. Other knights can lead your patrols.”

I crossed my arms, a visible sign of my stubborn intent. “I believe he wants that as well, but I trust his instincts. If he thinks he needs to keep going with them, I won’t hold him back.”

She pursed her lips, staring up at me. “You’ll pay a price with Rose for this. Don’t think she’ll let you off, now that you’ve set yourself as the obstacle to her happiness.”

“What about you?” I asked.

Her hand slipped into mine and we resumed walking. “I think you’re wrong, but it isn’t worth fighting over.”

“Rose is your closest friend. Will she hold my decision against you?”

The most beautiful woman I had ever met looked at me from the corner of her eye. “I intend to let her think I’m making your life miserable at home as matter of female solidarity. Make sure she doesn’t doubt me or I’ll make the ruse into reality.”

That deserved a kiss.

The next day I met privately with Dorian after breakfast. I had considered having him eat breakfast with us, but Penny had vetoed that idea by telling me that he needed to spend the time with his own family.

Since it was just the two of us, I thought we could use the time more productively if I showed him the progress on some of my projects while we talked. I was too often forced to sit in chairs to want to spend my morning that way. So it was that we found ourselves walking down a corridor leading to a stairway.

As we walked, Dorian asked with a grin, “Aren’t you supposed to have a babysitter or some such with you?”

I gave him a sour look to reward his witty remark. “If you mean a miellte, then yes I probably should, but I gave Elaine the morning off.”

“I thought you said they were supposed to keep you under twenty four hour watch.”

I was beginning to regret sharing some of the information that Moira Centyr had given me years ago. According to her, an archmage with my extreme sensitivity should be monitored constantly, even while sleeping, to avoid unfortunate ‘accidents’.

“There are only three other wizards in existence currently. I can’t afford to keep them all occupied simply watching me,” I replied. Of course I was referring to Walter, his daughter Elaine, and his son George who had just turned eighteen, hardly a good age for the boring duty of following me around all day. “Besides,” I added, “I’m not planning to do anything remotely magical this morning, and I thought we might need some privacy for your report.”

“I’m sure Elaine was disappointed,” my friend replied, with an amused expression.

“Are you planning to tell me about your trip through Gododdin, or do you just plan on reminding me of all my other problems this morning?” I answered, slightly annoyed.

Dorian’s brow creased as his thoughts returned to the main purpose for our walk. “I don’t have very much to report, which bothers me.” As we began descending the stairs leading into the cellars beneath Castle Cameron, he said, “We saw absolutely no sign of any remaining shiggreth in Gododdin this time.”

“Which doesn’t mean they aren’t there,” I responded, “since we have no way of detecting them yet.”

“You keep saying ‘yet’, but you’ve been trying to solve that problem for years now. You should put your time and energy into something more productive.”

I ignored the subtle reproach in his statement. “I’ll find a way eventually. What do you think they are doing?” I asked. At the same time, I raised my hand and placed it against an unremarkable stone in the wall on one side of us. Hidden runes lit up in my magesight, and part of the wall slid away to reveal a secret corridor.

Dorian followed me through the opening without pause; he had been this way several times before. “I have no way of knowing,” he said, as the stone door closed behind him, “but my gut tells me that they’ve moved north and east, around the Elentir Mountains.”

“To Dunbar, eh?” I remarked. Dunbar was a kingdom to the east of the Elentir Mountains. Given the difficulty traversing the Elentirs, Lothion and Dunbar had had little commerce in the past, but historically they had had some trade with Gododdin.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“James has given them ample warning about the threat. They closed their border with Gododdin years ago. They should be ready,” I observed.

My friend sighed. “You know they can’t keep them out. There’s no way to close the entire border. Without magic and the proper tools they will be overrun no matter what they do.” He patted the enchanted sword he wore at his waist. He wasn’t wearing the magical plate today; six months on the road had given him a strong desire to avoid armor for a while.

I led him through another door, this one over a foot thick and composed entirely of iron. It opened into a spherical room that was fifty foot across from side to side and twenty five foot from floor to ceiling. In fact, the floor was a wooden platform that had been built across the middle of the chamber. Below the wood at our feet, the thick iron walls extended downward another twenty five feet. We stood inside a perfect bubble of iron, deep below Castle Cameron, a bubble with walls a foot thick.

Dorian gazed around us at the foreboding black walls. Naturally his eyes could not see the runes and patterns etched into the iron, but then again, neither could mine. I had designed the enchantment using a similar structure to the one that hid the secret room within the Illeniel house in Albamarl, with a few distinct and very important differences.