Michael Stackpole - Of Limited Loyalty

Beecher, massaging his throat, stared up wide-eyed.

“So understand me, Reverend: Go about your calling, the one you have from God, and minister to my people, to the wounded and sick. Confine yourself to those things and see to your own soul. It occurs to me that were I to pray for you, God would listen more closely, than were you to pray for me.”

Beecher gathered himself together and stood. “Yes, General.” His throat closed after those two words. He bowed and withdrew.

Ian glared after him, then righted the chair. Once they got back to Temperance Bay, Bishop Bumble would make him pay for what he’d just done. “Please, God, take me to You, or deliver me from my enemies.” He waited for a reply, but heard nothing above the howl of the wind and lonely hoot of a dragon. He went back to his reading to gain just one evening’s peace before he, once again, had to go to war.

Nathaniel Woods, huddled beneath a buffalo robe in the shadow of the Stone House formation, took the birch disk from Kamiskwa. He rubbed it between his hands. Though his fingers were half numb, he ran the tips over the rough surface. He studied the wood and the rings. He even raised it up so he could smell its cloying scent. He’d taken to doing that last on account of the way binding magick worked; it sounded to Nathaniel a lot like animals scent-marking their territory.

As he looked at it and let his nails pick at the bumps and bits, he found a pattern. It reminded him of a little lake up to Queensland. He’d spent time there with some cousins and killed a bear in a dispute over who owned the fish Nathaniel had caught. There’d been some nice salmon on his string. He conjured up the image of one of them salmon and then mixed it with the sensation of the disk. He wove them together, the way he might have woven different colored grasses into a basket or bracelet, all the while trickling magick into the process.

When he figured he’d done enough, he passed the disk over to Kamiskwa. “Well?”

Kamiskwa held it between his hands, then stared at it hard. He looked at Nathaniel, his amber eyes reduced to slits. “What I have is a bear which is a salmon from the waist down, wearing a crown, clawing the earth open.”

“How in tarnation did you get that?” Nathaniel shook his head. He knew how. Kamiskwa had not been sleeping well since his encounter with the Norghaest woman. The Altashee had confided that she’d met him in dreams, and that made his sleep less than restful. It’s not helping him see clearly.

“I got that, my brother, because of what you anchored in the disk.”

“Well, magick’s damned hard work when your hands is froze.”

“Hands have nothing to do with it. Did you imagine weaving again?”

“Yep, just like you do.”

“Ah, Nathaniel, you never were a good weaver.”

“Well, I ain’t no good at painting, neither, and I ain’t mastered whittling.” He capped his head with his hands. “Ain’t much else to work with.”

“Why don’t you try writing?”

“I’m a better weaver than I am a scribbler.”

“Yes, my friend, you are.” Kamiskwa handed him a new disk. “But you have worked at writing because writing is necessary for the man you are becoming. So is learning to anchor a spell.”

“Right, soes I can anchor all sorts of killing into things.”

“I actually think the crowned bear-salmon would likely distract someone.” Kamiskwa laughed.

Nathaniel sighed. “Alright, but don’t you go complaining about my penmanship.”

“I won’t, my brother.” Kamiskwa looked out into the night where Nathaniel was certain he could see a glowing city and golden woman standing in a tower window. “You must make patterns, and I must break them, and only in this way can we save the world.”

Prince Vlad waved his visitors to a pair of chairs in the thaumagraph office. Msitazi and Ezekiel Fire sat, each man nodding respectfully to the other. “I wish to thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I shall be very direct, if you don’t mind. Please know I have the utmost admiration for the both of you.”

He looked at the Shedashee. “Msitazi, you said I needed to learn as much as the Norghaest did. I believe I understand what they have learned, and have shaped a plan to deal with it.”

The Altashee chief clapped his hands together. “I had no doubt.”

“What I have learned of myself is that I know far too little of what the Norghaest know. Their power is incredible. I need to know how to counter it. I need to know what the two of you know of magick, and I have a handful of days to master it.”

Fire shook his head. “No, Highness.”

Vlad stiffened. “Steward Fire, please recall that I rescued you from death, placing myself, my friends, and my family at risk of the same sentence. I am out here with a small force facing the greatest threat we have ever discovered on this continent. If we fail here, nothing will stop the Norghaest from taking all of Mystria and advancing over the rest of the world. For you to withhold what you know is not acceptable.”

Msitazi raised a hand. “I think, Prince of Mystria, you mistake what he has said.”

Fire nodded. “You don’t kneed to know what we know, or to master it. You merely need to know how to undo what the Norghaest do.”

“I do not have time to argue semantics, Steward.”

“It is not the game of words, Highness.” The Shedashee smiled. “You already know what you need to know. In the next six days, we will simply teach you how to do it well.”

4 June 1768 Octagon Richlan, Mystria

Prince Vlad took a deep breath as he strode to the chosen spot. He’d pulled on the uniform he could, by rights, wear in his capacity as Governor-General of Mystria. Though he would have much preferred to don the simple green coat and buff trouser worn by the Mystrian Rangers, he chose the white uniform with gold buttons and braid, full with a gold satin sash and gold satin waistcoat beneath it. Because snow still fell in thin curtains, or curled up off the ground, chased by winds, he had donned the corresponding cape and a tall white hat, with a plume up over his right ear, which made him look every inch a popinjay.

On the journey from Fort Plentiful, he had spent many long hours in conversation with Steward Fire and Chief Msitazi. Their discussions had confirmed many of the things he had thought to be true, and had opened doors for him to yet other realizations. The two men also learned from each other. A bond formed between them which pleased the Prince, but made him feel excluded, since they understood things between them which he was never sure he would fully comprehend.

The key thing which they both pointed out was that perception could become reality provided one put enough energy into making it so. He’d seen that in politics many times, in situations utterly divorced from magick. Men standing for office, or officers writing their memoirs, would create a picture which, naturally, elevated themselves and usually ran someone else down. The late Lord Rivendell’s book The Five Days Battle of Villerupt had left many people on either side of the ocean believing that Mystrians were incompetent cowards. Not only did that breed contempt into many Norillians, but it inspired shame in many Mystrians. One man’s poorly written and quite fictitious account of a war had caused people to think less of their own capabilities.

Similarly, the fact that most Mystrians came from redemptioneer or criminal stock sent to Mystria in an effort to rid Norisle of undesirables meant that many Mystrians thought themselves inferior to their cousins back in the Home Islands. While Prince Vlad certainly saw little evidence that this idea had any validity, the deference paid to Norillians by Mystrians-even on this expedition-proved that others held it as true. On top of that, Mystrians and Norillians alike obeyed him or Count von Metternin simply because they were nobility. They were primed to feel inferior, and Prince Vlad had to use that.