Michael Stackpole - Of Limited Loyalty

“Does he?”

“Yes.” The boy nodded solemnly. “He and Mugwump will be friends.”

“I think that is a splendid idea.” The Prince gave the boy’s hand a squeeze. “Now, you get to sleep. We have to hunt tomorrow.”

The boy smiled and closed his eyes, squirming to get comfortable.

Vlad pulled a light blanket over him and sat, watching, listening to the boy’s breathing become regular as the shadows deepened in his room. It occurred to him, as he sat there, that both of his parents had spent their lives working to define the world. His father did it through reading Scripture and philosophers and doing his best to make God’s message understandable to all. And his mother had done the same thing with plants, bringing together as much knowledge as she could about each, so people could employ them in ways that would make life better. Even he had done similar things with his missions to explore Mystria and the way he catalogued the creatures.

But that carefree phase of his life had begun to change. He couldn’t quite put a finger on when it had, though the battle at Anvil Lake was one likely candidate, and certainly Mugwump’s emerging from his chrysalis was another. With both events he had moved out of the traditional realm of things that were known, into a new arena. His magickal discoveries were pushing him yet further into territories either unexplored, or jealously guarded by a tiny group of people that virtually no one outside their number even guessed they existed.

Or were allowed to live with the knowledge.

Just for a moment he considered abandoning his studies. Yes, he’d always wonder what he could have learned, what he could have created, but he could console himself with the belief that all of his experimentation would come to naught. After all, magick might have a very short range. His greatest discovery might be to create a magickal pianoforte that was notable for the fact that it exhausted the musician playing it before a single song was complete. To give up on his Mystrian thaumaturgy now meant he might never open a carefully guarded, secret door that could not be closed again.

If he did open that door, his would be the responsibility for everything that came through it. And the forces that will be arrayed against me will be very powerful, indeed.

He looked at his son again. It had been noted that when the discovery of brimstone fostered a need for cursed individuals to wield magick in combat, that after a generation or so, royal families through Auropa manifested the ability to use magick. It had been speculated that perhaps noble families had always had that ability, but had kept it hidden. Vlad, as he looked at his son, wondered if there might be another explanation-that it had taken a long time for noble families to produce magick-users of significant strength. It could be that with each new generation, the children were getting stronger. And if that were true, then while Vlad’s magickal pianoforte might exhaust him, it might provide his son the ability to entertain others for an evening or more.

He harkened back to his wife’s earlier comments and smiled as she appeared in the doorway. He got up, pressing a finger to his lips, and slipped from the room. “I think he’ll be down for the night.”

“And so up very early.” She brushed a finger over his cheek. “And you’ll likely be the night in your laboratory.”

Vlad frowned. “I do recognize what you did in asking me to put Richard to bed. You wanted to remind me of my obligations to my family, and to remind me that I’m not my father. I cannot thank you enough. And, yes, I desperately want to be in my laboratory, working on the thaumagraph, but I won’t. Not tonight.”

“Vlad, this is very important work.”

“It is important, yes, but not nearly as important as you are.” He caught her hand in his and kissed her palm. “What happens here, in Mystria, in my laboratory, will shape the future for our children. It will shape it for all children. So, I ask you, my love, what think you of our trying for another child? Another child for whom and with whom, we can build that future?”

She reached up and drew his mouth down to hers. They kissed, his arms slipping around her, her body molding itself to his. Then she broke their embrace and took his hand, leading him deeper into their home, up to their bedroom, and into their future.

10 May 1767 Happy Valley Postsylvania, Mystria

They exited the workshop and ran toward the west end of the settlement, past the fortress. A small group of people had gathered there and two men were dragging a cart over. The Steward knelt beside what appeared to be a bundle of bloody rags. As Nathaniel drew close, people moved back, revealing a second body, an adult, laying beside the child next to Ezekiel Fire.

The Steward rubbed his hands together, then laid them on the child’s form. “Our Father, Almightly and Powerful in Heaven. As You look over us and guide us, please work through me to bring Your special blessing, a healing blessing, to this child, Becca Green. In Your wisdom You know she is an innocent. Thy will be done.”

Fire hunched forward, firmly pressing his hands to the child’s body. It looked, just for a moment, as if his hands glowed the color of blood. It didn’t appear to be a trick of the light, but Nathaniel had never seen anything like it before. Then the girl gasped and struggled, kicking out. Though she couldn’t have been any older than eight, and still appeared weak, one kick caught Fire in the ribs and knocked him down. He sagged as if he’d caught a rifle-butt to the head and lay very still on the ground.

And his hands had taken on the deep purple of bruising that came from powerful magick use.

One of the women gathered the girl into her arms and carried her to the cart. A couple others saw to the Steward. Nathaniel approached the other body and dropped to one knee beside it. Kamiskwa faced him on the other side, and Rathfield stood at the woman’s head, staring down with his hands crossed over his chest.

Nathaniel knew the body was that of a woman more by her clothes than anything else. Homespun and grey, similar to those worn by the women of Happy Valley, they’d been shredded. Brush and brambles had done their work on the skirts, but the bodice had been rent by something nastier. A trio of claws had opened the woman from shoulder blade to buttocks, right to left, and again on her right flank.

Nathaniel shook his head. “Cain’t say I find anything familiar about them claw marks.”

Rathfield pointed. “Surely she must have been attacked by a jeopard.”

Kamiskwa laid a hand on Nathaniel’s arm. “Colonel, a jeopard has four claws. They use them to hold prey, not to slash them open. Once the prey is down, then they bite, very specifically and very precisely. This woman, had a jeopard taken her down, never would have gotten up again.”

Nathaniel teased aside a bit of grey cloth. “And if you see here, she done used her underskirts to be binding up her wounds. I reckon she did the same for her child. Iffen jeopards was attacking her, they’da smelt her off miles. Wounds weren’t deep enough to kill her, but exhaustion of hauling her child here was. How far is Piety? What direction?”

The people of Happy Valley looked at each other, but said nothing.

Then Rufus Branch shouldered his way through the small crowd. It might have been a trick of the light, but he’d grayed at the temples and his usually florid face had taken on a hint of grey, especially under his eyes. He pointed toward the northwest “Three days off. This time of year reckon on the bright star in the Big Dipper’s handle.”

Nathaniel stood, running a hand over his jaw. “Three days tore up like that? She had a lot of sand, that woman.”