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The Spellcaster's Heiress -- Chapter 17

 By Christopher Leeson




Epilogue 

FROM DYAN'S JOURNAL

Triumphs pass, songs fade, good friends go their separate ways. 

It was with heavy heart that I parted from my family on the wharf of Nawcant in the kingdom of Sulidir.  Ceann, Gannon, and I had already agreed to journey inland, to a villa within a ride of three hours from the city of Tyary Graig and rejoined Lady Elekta.  Ceann had previously let me know of her desire to leave the Fyana; I supposed that this was her first half-step in that direction.

Of the months since then there is little to tell.

Late spring yields to summer, and summer ultimately assumes the golden crown of autumn.  Cefen M'Glywess, the Lady's husband, had established his family at a comfortable country house.  Here his wife Elekta has been busy for months creating a household out of an empty hall.  Understandably, she has not afforded me a great deal of time for the teaching of magic.  I have books, but their turgid discourses have left me stultified and uninformed.  I have more time in idleness than in study.  And idleness, alas, allows one to contemplate the depth and breadth of  his regrets.

When I think about Harouck, I seethe.  Is he the disease, or is he only the outward sign of a much deeper affliction?  Cawdour had been frank in his observation that the landed lords have been dwindling in both wealth and influence since well before the rise of the usurper.  Likewise, the patriotic yeoman have lost their own status and become debt-ridden, dispossessed, and -- in many cases -- shiftless.
  
It is to the energetic merchants and the burgers that a ruler looks to for support in these decadent days.  At the heart of the old warrior class is tradition, but among these new men tradition is oftentimes a very bad fit.  The old social order relegated them to the rear of the room, and they, perhaps, do not remember their former status kindly.

Those whom Cawdour called “new men” are not all bad, of course.  The M'Glywesses and the Oc'Raighnes, in fact, number among them.  Had I been brought up in the old days I never could have won my knightly spurs.  But where the old aristocracy was dedicated to the commonweal with an intensity that was akin to religion, these new-made men too often look at government as means to a personal end.  They flatter and bribe to win support for their, oftentimes, selfish aims, and those in power do their best to please them. 

The world is in a flux of change, some say, but change has assailed the warrior class like a brutal giant.  There was a time when the soldier quested far and made new discoveries; today it is the merchant, the trader, the sea captain.  The old aristocracy, though they bear the same titles, are not like their ancestors.  What has the scions of old nobility done lately to give credit to their progenitors?  I think of our king, Cathmor, and recognize how far the demoralization has spread. 

I, too, have passed my first summer of my new life in slothful melancholy.  If Chancellor Harouck typifies our future, I will live and I will die in opposition to such man and such a future.  Is there hope?  Sometimes a bush that is sheared off by the axe can return from its deep roots.  Can it be that way, too, with the stout oak which is men's traditions?  If men of worthy motives return to the fight, the battle, ultimately, may still be lost, but is not the worth of a man found in what he attempts, not in what Fate allows him to accomplish?  Failure is the most usual result of all endeavors.  It is easy to do evil; to attain a worthy cause and win immortal fame is difficult.
 
These thoughts are not light to bear and they wear me down.  I will speak of other matters.

The Spellcaster's Heiress -- Chapter 16

 By Christopher Leeson

FROM DYAN'S JOURNAL
 
There was so much to think about, so much to regret. I lay awake though the long night, suffering the remorse of the damned, until the break of dawn took away even the hope of sleep.

Gannon, who had risen before the sun, joined me at first light, carrying a borrowed harp under his arm.

"Dyan," my friend said jauntily, "I've been thinking."

"About what?"

"That if this rebellion is ever going to catch fire, it has to have a hero."

"Cemion is the hero," I said indifferently.

Gannon shook his head. "No. Cemion isn't ready to inspire people yet."

“So what kind of hero do they expect?” I asked.

"A hero who can never be captured, never defeated, and never outwitted. A hero who only laughs at the worst threats of the enemy."

I frowned. "There is no such hero!"

"I'm talking about a dead hero."

"A dead hero?"

“Real heroes never die; they live in legend,” he clarified.

Thinking it over, I realized what Gannon was saying. Only the champions of saga never failed, and they died the sort of death that only served to put the seal of greatness on their triumphs. It was always the dead, never the living, who the generations looked up to.

"We have a hero," Gannon went on blandly, "if only we only give him what thing that every hero needs."

"What's that?"

"A good song."

I scowled.

"Yes," my friend persisted, "a song, like the one that I've just composed. Do you want to hear it?"

"Do I have a choice?"

With a grin, Gannon put the harp to his shoulder. “I call it 'Rodin's Men.'


"Sing a song of Rodin brave,
Too elusive for the grave.
His arm so strong, his heart so good,
He made his foemen dread the wood.

"When assessors seized their tax
Rod gave their shoulders forty whacks.
When e'er a sellsword deighed to slay,
He made the rascal rue the day!

"Rod gave his life to save a mate,
Was struck by wounds that sealed his fate.
His soul flew to the Isles Blessed,
But the hero true refused to rest.

"The mage Harouck found out too late
Rod was back from Heaven's gate!
Again he ruled the hills and dell,
From the eye of God to the jaws of Hell!

"Saluted by those left behind
Rod helped them keep the mage in line.
They made their realm the woods and fen;
The gods protected Rodin's men!"

"Rod took a task with much to do,
With trouble great and helpers few.
But never daunted by a fight,
He lent our men his spirit bright!”

Gannon put down his instrument and grinned. “It's not quite finished yet.”

I frowned. “Write any more of that silly sing-song and I'll kick Rodin back to the Western Islands myself.”

But the words were hardly out before I heard cheers and clapping coming from behind us.

* * * *

Chapter Sixteen

From the Eye of God to the Jaws of Hell

Being Carla: A Story of Pleasure Island

By Christopher Leeson

Version 090614

 
Carl Boelke was a problem kid and he was getting worse.  In junior high, he ran a protection racket and punched out the smaller boys who didn’t pay.  In the senior grades, the police put him on a watch list.  Once, when a girl wouldn’t go out with him, he beat on her brother until she said _yes.    When their parents pressed charges, Carl juvenile court only sentenced him to community service.  When not under direct supervision, his behavior went unimproved.

His mother, Mrs. Boelke, a hospital employee, met a woman who came in frequently to visit a patient.  They occasionally talked and one day the visitor dropped a bomb.  She told Mrs. Boelke about Pleasure Island, and how the resort was more than just a resort.  It was the place that helped to solve the problems that their boy Roy was having with the law.  She hinted, in an odd way, that Pleasure Island could change the bad attitudes of troubled boys. 

Mrs. Boelke kept nagging her friend to explain how anyone could accomplish so much, but the lady kept saying that she wasn't the right one to explain it.  But relenting at last, she gave Mrs. Boelke a phone number, saying, “This man at the Pleasure Island Resort office can explain it much better than ever I could.”

The New Reservation Advice division at Pleasure Island were skilled at convincing people, even about the existence of magic.  A representative met with Mr. and Mrs. Boelke and demonstrated with videos and case studies how they could solve the problems they were having with Carl.  The Boelkes were finally convinced and signed a contract, after which Pleasure Island sent Carl a registered letter saying that he had won a free two-week luxury vacation at the island resort.  Actually, his parents had made the reservation, but if they had admitted that they wanted him to go somewhere, he might have grown suspicious.   Carl had been getting cozy with criminals.  It was his nature to trust strangers making flashy promises than to trust his own parents.

Pleasure Island was indeed magical, and its magic started to transform Carl, using the energy created by his bad thoughts and deeds.  Before he realized it, Carl had metamorphosed into a pretty blonde, just as the resort had promised his parents that he would.   When he – she – had calmed down enough, the Pleasure Island staff provided her with a traveling outfit that fit her smaller and slimmer stature and, also, convincingly forged documents that called her “Carla Boelke.  Then she was sent her back to her California home.




The first thing that Carla realized after the daze wore off was that she had a spell on her, one that made everyone she knew, except her own parents, forget that Carl had ever existed.  Her folks had also removed every picture of Carl from the home and had given all his clothes to charity, just as if there had never been such a person.  Her room had gone all yellow and fru fru, and her closets were full of girly things.  That was too much; she threw a wild tantrum, accusing her parents of having “ruined her life.”  Over the next few weeks, she absolutely refused to restart her life as a teenaged girl.  The Boelke's grew increasingly worried.  School was going to start soon and they needed to have their daughter on good behavior before that happened. 

The Pleasure Island customer service representative had given them some contact literature that presented some frequently asked questions.  The anxious parents finally decided to choose the option of securing a special teacher, one who was registered with, and certified by, the resort company.

The Boelkes had Carla picked up by her “Aunt Maud,” who wasn’t really her aunt.  She was an independent contractor whose job it was to work with hard-case former boys.  Maud had rented a house in Oakdale and island-associated technicians had prepared a bedroom for Carla.  Although it look innocent, it was wired for sound and subliminal messages from recorded lessons could be piped in without the occupant of the room knowing that she was receiving unconscious lessons that would help to adjust her bad attitudes.  

Maud tried to be non-threatening but firm with Carla.  She had rules that she insisted upon, such as those about curfews.  School was about to start and it was best that Carla attend school in Oakdale, among people who hadn't known Carl.  Consequently, there were rules about school attendance and homework.
 
Carla balked at everything, refusing to wear anything but old jackets, sneakers, tee-shirts, and dungarees.  She hated to be seen in daylight and mostly skulked around the dark streets at night.

  Hers was a difficult case, admittedly, but the teacher had long experience with transformed juveniles and many options.  The resort had provided her with  subliminal attitude discs to help her, one of which offered subliminal programming to make the listener enjoy school.  

It was important to get her mixing with her peers as soon as possible.  Once an ex-boy became part of a normal community, Maud knew, she normally stopped rebelling and went with the flow.  Though her pupil was soon attending school without kicking up a lot of fuss, Maud knew that Carla's real  “learning” would not come in class, but from the subliminal lessons she was receiving every night.  These lessons were intended to help transformed boys to open their eyes to the interesting and exciting possibilities of their new place in the world.

The Spellcaster's Heiress -- Chapter 15

By Christopher Leeson

 
FROM DYAN'S JOURNAL

All my life I had been hearing stories about the Formoru, told in a way meant to frighten children. These bogies of nightmare were sometimes called the Dark Gods.  But except for the certainty that they were dangerous and exceptionally evil, no one had described in very much detail.  Going faithfully to ritual did not illuminate a child on the subject; the parish druids said not a word about these ancient ones. Yet, it was said that our gods, the Daanan, had defeated them, thereby giving their tribe its greatest victory.

Since those days that are lost to me, and which I cannot now claim as my own, I have learned much that only the high wizards and druids are permitted to know.  It is the kind of knowledge that I would cheerfully forget -- if only it were safe to do so.

“What are these Dark Gods?  Are they truly dead and gone?” Those were the inquiries that I once put to Cawdour when I was about seventeen.

He looked at me in an odd way.  I wondered if he was taking stock of me, trying to decide whether I was ready to receive an answer to the questions that I had asked.

“The Dark Gods are ancient creatures of immense power,” he said.

“So the stories tell us. But are they true gods, or are they monsters?” I asked.

“Both. Or neither. It is a matter of definitions.”

“How would you define those terms, Sire?”

The old wizard shrugged, as if I were being irrelevant.

“Most are colossal in size,” he stated. “Their memory lingers, though they were gone from the world before Mankind walked it.”

“How can that be?”

“Because they refuse to be forgotten. They mind-touch certain mad and half-mad persons in dreamtime.  From the visions reported by these mad savants, they Dark Ones continue to be worshiped by the most depraved of human cults. And not only human cults.”

“Sire?”

Some believe that those which lurk at the edges worship them also.”

“Edges?” I echoed.

“The edges of human habitation, the edges of the seasons, the edges of Time and Forever, the edges of dark and light, the edges of dreaming and wakefulness. The edges of life and death. A few of these are found in our folklore -- the undead, the lycanthropes, the beings of the sea. Others have been forgotten, or, in their remoteness, have never become known.”

I blinked. I knew of such creatures from hero stories, but was the wizard implying that they were real?  How could one so wise hold such an idea?  For myself, belief in monsters had slipped away from me along with with childhood.

“The Dark Gods are held in abeyance by forces even greater than they are,” my foster father continued. “But this power is not immense enough to snuff them out of existence, so they abide like prisoners awaiting their release. The stars say that their day shall come again, but this is not their day. No one can prognosticate the hour when they will rise again; let us hope that it shall not be ere Mankind has withered and turned to dust.

“Is it the Daanan who hold these demons in check?”

Cawdour shrugged. “Most believe that the Formaru were routed by the gods. Others hold that their banishment came about gradually, part of the natural progression of the Cycles.”

I could not help but frown. What were the cycles that he referred to?

“According to the first theory,” Cawdour pressed, “the Dark Gods held sway in realms where our gods hold sway now. There was a great war between the gods of the natual world, led by Nudens, and the Dark Ones. It is said that nearly all of the Formoru and gods were slain.

"But the Daanan, legend tells us, held a secret. They knew the way back from the Pit of Death, and so sacrificed themselves in wild attacks, so that the enemy could be driven into the deep darkness along with them. The Daanan returned by virtue of their secret wisdom, but Death's Hall still holds the Dark Gods captive in its bowels.”  He shrugged.  “This tale is only a metaphor, the truth, we must assume, was something that our ancestors could not conceivably understand.

“Be that as it may, the Dark Gods are not truly dead; instead, they await the time of their release, eager for revenge against those who discomforted them.”

This was, in the main, the same story that parents had been telling their children for centuries.

Now Cawdour frowned pensively. “The second supposition holds that the Old Gods are dormant only due to the effects of cycles, the universal order to which even the mightiest of gods must yield. To understand this, look at the seasons of the earth. Just as some animals hibernate through inclement winter, so too must the Old Gods slumber so long as the prevailing cosmic cycle endures.

"These cycles are like the magical clock in the famous story, the one which made a sound to awaken its master whenever the time came for him to rise. While the Dark Gods sleep, life as we know it go on.  But when they wake.....”

“When they wake, what happens?” I asked.

Cawdour drew a deep breath through grim lips. “By the time they rise, their thirst for destruction shall surely have grown as bottomless as the pit that had imprisoned them.”

I suddenly wondered if the savant was only trying to test me, to assess my canniness when told a false tale, even if by one whom I had always placed at the highest level of trust.  “Wherever they presently lay,” I began carefully, trying not to sound naive, “will the world of man be left in peace for the next thousand thousand years, or should we fear?”

Again he regarded me, his glance challenging.  Was it intended to admonish me -- not for my gullibility, but for my skeptical tone?

“We should fear,” he finally declared.

* * * * *

Chapter Fifteen

The Dark Ones

Revenge: A Story of Pleasure Island

  

By Christopher Leeson

Version date 01-03-15

Dean Fontain was too wild for his sedate parents to control. But their neighbors, the Boelkes, recognized what their friends were going through and told them about the secret that had changed their lives: the secret of Pleasure Island. What the Fontains learned that night astonished them and they couldn't help but think that their neighbors were playing a bad joke. They were actually saying that their pretty and well-behaved daughter Carla used to be a very bad boy, Carl.

"That's ridiculous," said Mrs. Fontain. "I remember when you brought that precious little girl home from the hospital eighteen years ago."

Mrs. Boelke shook her head and almost smiled. "There's magic involved. The first time you saw Carl as a girl, the enchantment he brought from Pleasure Island put false memories into your mind. We remember what really happened because the island people give parents a protective charm, but everyone else sees no change when a boy comes back different. Because of the spell you can't remember how badly Carl behaved, and even that you complained that he was tempting your Dean into so much trouble.”

“No,” replied Mr. Fontain curtly, “we certainly don't remember anything like that.”

"It's all true," said Mr. Boelke. The neighbors then offered to let the Fontains wear their charms overnight, telling them that the enchanted metal would take away all their false memories. Dean’s parents thought the idea was silly, but still something made them both go along with the joke. But by morning they knew that it was no joke. The charms had worked like, well, like a charm. They had awakened up knowing everything about Carl Boelke. The pair immediately went over to their friends’ home.

Carla was there with them, finishing the breakfast dishes. She was a pretty, upbeat teen who usually dressed in a way that would catch the attention of the neighborhood boys. It was hard for the Fontains not to stare, now remembering what a sour loudmouth Carl Boelke had been.

To get some privacy for her visitors, Carla's mother gave the girl some money to spend at the ice cream shop. A minute later, Carla had gone out the door and the four adults were left free to confer.

"How did you find out about Pleasure Island?" Mrs. Fontain asked.

"A friend at the hospital told me," replied her neighbor. "She had a boy who was hooked up with drug dealers and she had found out about Pleasure Island just in time to save him. Now he's a cheerleader who's doing well in school."

Mr. Fontain reached into his pocket and handed back the charms. "These things took the wool away from our eyes. We'd give almost anything if Dean were just as well behaved as your Carla is, even if it means that we have to exchange a son for a daughter. But can't the Island people fix a boy's bad personality without changing his sex, too?"

"All I'm sure of is that there's a good reason why they don’t want to do it that way. A sexual reversal gives off an energy that they call mana and they're able to capture and store it for use later. A gender change is actually not what they're after; it’s just a by-product of the mana-harvesting."

Mr. Fontain frowned. "What exactly is mana?"

Mr. Boelke looked at him very seriously. "All we know is what we've been told. Mana is what magic is made of, and it's also the energy that makes some babies develop into males in the womb. Developing infants who don't have the mana-absorbing gene are born female. Have you see films about how a boy and girl fetus look exactly the same until after a period of development? They develop into different sexes because the baby with the mana-gene is drawing in mana that enables its development into a male. 

"Remove that energy from a male, even when he is fully grown, and he will go to the human default form, female. Younger males have the most potent mana, so the wizards do all they can to recruit mana donors at a young age. But not at too young an age, because exploiting children is against another one of their rules. With parental consent, they can take the mana from an older child, because Pleasure Island has a law that says that a child is not a legal adult until twenty-one. If on Pleasure Island, a contract with the parents or legal guardian is makes donation without the boy's consent legal to to that age of maturity. They are not very much interested in taking mana from males over twenty-one for some reason."

"Hiring wizards must be expensive," Mr. Fontain suggested.

“Not very,” said Mr. Boelke.

This surprised the other couple. “Are you saying that they don’t care about money because because what they are really after is the mana?" asked Mrs. Fontain.

“It seems so. In fact, I've heard that they can make gold out of lead; money means little to them. They want mana."

"You're lucky that Carla turned out to be so pretty," Mrs. Fontain said. "I felt so sorry for the homely girls at my old school. They always seemed either angry or sad. A lot of the angry ones became feminists."

 

Going Native by Perspikay and Friend!

Hi all, this is a collaborative story I wrote with my friend Perspikay! If you like it and wanna read more work like it, check out her DA at http://perspikay.deviantart.com
---
Going Native

The room was charged with joviality as the guests mingled and mixed with each other, cocktail glasses clenched tightly as the champagne popped and flowed, the dulcet sound of the harpist playing a lullaby to the museum’s newest acquisition. But even as the bodies milled around him, all Professor Sienkiewicz could do was gently adjust his glasses as he gazed up in astonishment at the enormous totem that loomed above them. He’d never dreamed he’d be able to see it in the flesh. 12 feet of magnificent, polished obsidian shone and glimmered in the gallery’s soft lighting, every angle and corner designed to guide the eye across the ivory relief figures that embedded themselves on it’s surface. He blushed as he gawked at multitudes of sculpted women, their exaggerated impossible forms exhibiting massive hips and bulbous breasts - and occasionally - gravid pregnant bellies, clearly denoting some sort of hyper fertility. They were all frozen in some sort of dance, a ritual, around a ferocious male figure at the centre of the totem, his enormous member towering over a woman who was kneeling low in supplication, his own groin tingling slightly..

    “Wow.” a voice next to him gasped. “It’s so… expressive.”

    He’d been so absorbed he hadn’t noticed Janice’s presence. He whipped around to find his favourite student gawking up at the totem with the same look of hushed reverence on her face, absently twisting her ponytail around her finger. When he’d been invited to help the museum curate the Kerezala Totem for the gala, he couldn’t help but bring her along as well. She’d spent years researching her thesis on the Mutabwe people, their sudden flourishing golden age and mysterious collapse.

    “I still can’t believe it’s real.” Janice said. “I mean I’ve seen the pictures, but to actually see it face to face.. a totem from the Mutabwe high period this well preserved.. Just look at the details on the figures! The poses feel like they’re leaping out at me, they look so realistic despite all the exaggerations.”

     “Yes. it’s breathtaking.” The Professor answered. “I didn’t think any still existed.”

    “What do those characters around the base of the totem say..?”

    “It was some sort of proverb, I think. “The strong will grow stronger while the lesser will quench their hunger” His eyes darted back to the central figure and his lips tightened into a barely hidden smirk. “I have a few guesses as to what it means.”

    “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Hannah giggled as she butted in between the two of them and sipped on her glass of champagne. “Honey, you need to tear your eyes off that statue for more than a minute. This is a party, remember? You two look like zombies standing there!”

    For a moment Professor Sienkiewicz was stunned at the contrast between his wife and the student, her t-shirt and jeans making a night and day difference with Hannah’s dignified little black dress. Yet, she was always so alive and perky at these sorts of events, she even looked younger, the glow of excitement evident in her face, her own enjoyment of events like these shining through her. They’d met on a dig site years ago, back when he’d still been active in the field himself - the bright, attractive girl asking him question after question about whatever relics he’d had to hand, showing genuine interest in his work. Together they’d made a perfect match - his knowledge and research, allied to her own interest and growing knowledge as well as her enjoyment of social events like this, had been the main reason he’d managed to get this appointment in the first place, and create the collection that he had. It was as much her baby as his.

     She deftly hooked her lithe arm around her husband’s and tugged insistently. “C’mon honey.”  She grinned. “There’s some people I want you to meet.” With a gentle look of resignation the Professor stumbled along attached to his wife, looking back at his student glibly waving at the two of them and chuckling to herself. “Have fun, sir” she smiled, before turning back and circling the totem to inspect it closer, her breath fogging the glass as she leaned in.

    There was a large mix of academia and upper crust society populating the gala, even though it had been intended to be a small function, the guest list had unwittingly ballooned out of control. But it was the first guest on the list that Hannah beelined for, the man who the totem was on loan from and who had originally acquired it for his private collection. Barrel chested and tall, he cut a strong figure for a man in his late 50’s, his silvery hair well matched to his dark olive complexion. His hands gesturing extravagantly as he expounded to the small group of guests trying to hide their boredom, Basil Kinnock (or “sir” Kinnock - the professor could never remember how those titles worked ) the old familiar story drifted through the room to the Professor’s ears. He, of course, had been intimately involved in every step of the process, finding, cataloguing, researching; there had been no step of the totem’s journey from desert sands to its position at rest on the high podium which hadn’t involved him to some degree. Inwardly he scoffed. Oh, in appearance he was everything the public might think of when asked to imagine an elder statesman of archaeology, still active in the field, but if his actual work was anything like the time he’d put in with the Professor the only time he had dust on his boots was when he’d left them to rest stored away in a cupboard somewhere. Not that he would risk a blemish on those expensive Italian loafers.

    “Ahh! Kieran!” Basil shouted to the professor as he reluctantly drifted to the front of the crowd. “And Hannah. It’s truly an honour to be blessed with not one, but two of the most preeminent experts in the Mutabwe culture. Besides myself, of course.”

    “Mmhmm, we’re very grateful you invited us, Sir Kinnock. The only reason my husband hasn’t had the time to thank you already is because he was so busy studying the artefact.” Hannah groaned. “I practically had to drag him away from the thing.”

    “Now now, it’s not every day one gets to be exposed to a fully preserved Mutabwe Totem!” Basil exclaimed bombastically. “Though with such a fine creature on his arm it’s quite curious how Kieran could find the time to tear himself away.”

    Hannah tittered nervously at his compliment, butterflies forming in her stomach as she took another long sip of the cool red wine. She’d been feeling the usual giddiness that heralded any evening like this, even before she’d entered the room, but after she saw the totem she’d been feeling truly ecstatic. The totem was going to revolutionize her field of study and she had Basil to thank for it, even if he would take all the credit. She shifted on her high heels slightly as he leaned in to take her tiny hand in his own, before shaking Kieran’s forcefully.

    “Well then, now that you’ve had your inspection, what do you two think the totem was meant to symbolize?”

    “Well..” Hannah said. “It seems that it’s clearly used in some sort of fertility ritual, most likely entailing a, well, orgy of some sort.” She blushed. “The inscription at the bottom seems to imply that the central figure is divinely powerful, holding command over and providing nourishment to the women that please him.”
   
    Basil seemed pleased with this explanation, when the Professor began to speak. “An alternative theory we’ve also been working on is that the inscription is a warning, the central male being some sort of demonic figure, a spirit of unchained lust who feeds off the souls of the weak. Only by being appeased is the demon sated, keeping him at bay.”

    Kinnock rubbed his chin and went silent for a moment, before breaking into a beaming grin. “Both of these interpretations would answer so many of the questions we have about the Mutabwe culture! I do hope you’ll stay on and continue studying the totem. It really is quite fascinating, isn’t it?”

“Truthfully, I know I haven’t been able to take my eyes off of it!” Laughing softly, Hannah tossed her head back towards the display, at the younger girl still studying it. “It’s just so interesting!” The Professor chuckled inwardly, his wife’s curiosity and interest still so strong even after all these years.

    “Well, I don’t want to tie up either of you too much! Please, go and enjoy yourselves! The totem and all of the study it entails will still be here when the party finishes!” The man grinned, slapping Kieran on the shoulder with his thick hand. The two of them looked at each other and smiled dreamily as they wandered back off into the crowd, Basil turning back to speak to some other dilettante who’d bother to listen to his story.   

******************************************************

As the night went on, the alcohol began to flow more generously and freely. The pale cheeks of the attendants turned rosy and bright in the sterile air of the gallery, the wine increasing both in volume and quantity. Kieran was himself nursing a half drunk martini glass in his hand as his wife slumped her head on his shoulder, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist. He could catch a glimpse of his favourite pupil giggling into her drink at the bar, her ponytail somewhat messy and yet neatly curled around her neck. It seemed like the atmosphere of the entire party had been slowing down into a calm and drunken stupor. Even the harpist was beginning to haphazardly miss notes as she tugged at the stringed instrument, her bemused face giving her a tipsy air.

In the centre of the room, Basil stood, his raised voice still continuing on his favourite theme, interrupted now and then by the giggles of the small group that stood around him, listening intently.

As the Professor and his Wife slow danced to the sound of the harp stringing them along, they both waltzed past the totem, the obsidian looking for all the world as if it was sparkling. Hannah’s lidded eyes perked up as she gazed across the slutty figures playing with each other on the totem, smirking as her eyes drifted to the appalling ivory cock poking out so rudely. Suddenly she felt...really thirsty. She lazily twirled her fingers in circles on the back of Kieran’s neck as she giggled.

“Kieerraannn.. Get me a drink.”

“Get it yourself.”

“Poo, you’re no fun!” Hannah chuckled as she pushed Kieran away, her tipsy husband almost losing his balance for a moment as she tried to make her way over to the bar. It was just that her heels were so high and her dress was clinging so tightly to her sweaty body, forcing her to mince and strut with every step she took. It didn’t help that her dress was also so very short, letting everyone see the exposed camel toe on her panties as she swished and swayed across the room.

Janice waved a lazy hand as the other woman stepped up to the bar next to her. “Hi! This is such a great party, i’m having so much fun!” Hannah slumped on the bartop, grinning over at the girl. Suddenly she just felt so top-heavy… maybe she had had too much to drink after all. “I’m so glad you’re enjoying it!” Her hand drifted slowly over to hold the other girl’s. “My husband always said you were his best student, so of course we had to invite you to come!” Behind the bar, the young bartender slid two more glasses over, Hannah greedily grabbing hers to poor the cool liquid down her throat. Beside her she heard the choking sound change to a giggle, Janice’s strained t-shirt dribbling with red wine that has missed her mouth. “Oopsie.”


    Hannah smiled. “Oh, don’t worry. You know, in ancient cultures, being so eager that you spill some food or drink was a sign of how much you were enjoying yourself.” Under her eyes, one drip of the crimson liquid rolled across the small dark stain, on the crest of the round chest beneath it. “If you want, you could always go in the back somewhere, i’m sure I have some old clothes you could change into if you wanted lying around here somewhere!”

    “No, it’s ok.” Her finger dipping to collect the drop, all three women’s eyes followed it as it became an unconscious little caress, a stiff peak rising to poke out of the material. “It’s only a cultural thing, right? I mean, so are clothes, too. I could be completely naked if I really wanted!” The new wine glass quickly placed served just right to salve Hannah’s dry throat. “Has anyone ever told you how.. how young you look? I mean, for your age. You could probably pass as my sister!”

Hannah almost choked into her drink as well, but managed to gracefully down the wine in a fluid gulp. “Oh hush, don’t tease me like that. I’m old enough to be your mother.” Janice just grinned and twirled her lengthening ponytail around her fingers. “I’m serious! You look amazinngg~. Hee hee, this whole conversation is reminding me about all those weird anomalies about Mutabwe culture.” Hannah pursed her lips and ordered another drink. “You mean like how after the high period the Mutabwe seemed to just abandon clothes?”

Janice nodded eagerly as if her head was on a swivel. “Yeah! Or how after a while the only remains that are found are just breeding age females. It’s like, where did all the men go? Or the older women and stuff? Spooky right?” Hannah just rolled her eyes and arched her back, her dress barely straining to encapsulate her swelling bust. “Those are just myths Jan, they wouldn’t stand up to any academic rigour. We just haven’t found enough samples yet.”

“I know, right, I mean, how could a culture get by without any men? It just wouldn’t work.” Eyes glazed slightly as she put her glass back on the bartop. “They couldn’t go without… I mean, it makes no sense.”

Rebecca Molay's Retirement

If you haven't heard....Rebecca Molay, a prolific authoress of the genre, retired suddenly yesterday.  Her site is down and her captions scratched.  Apparently someone was threatening to expose who she was to people she knew.

From Christopher Leeson

"I hope people are enjoying my continuing novel, The Spellcaster's Heiress. I'll be sorry when we reach the end. But my main reason for writing is to say that I have just posted a revision of my TFTGS story "The Dark of the Moon." It should read better than before, and I have changed most of the pictures, to make them better and more appropriate to the story. If anyone has liked the story enough to download it, I recommend that they download the new repost."

Thanks Everyone:) Could Really Use Some Help... I Haven't Found Any Yet!

If anybody reading this wants to submit something, I'd love to see it.  I rarely find anything online which I find suitable to publish anymore.  Bit of a sad state of affairs.

Thank god for Chris's stuff and thank god you guys seem to enjoy it, judging by the steady activity we get around the first/second week of every month when he posts!

The Spellcaster's Heiress -- Chapter 14

 

 

By Christopher Leeson 


FROM DYAN'S JOURNAL
After Ceann fled from the scene of torture, I had followed  her, believing that she needed to talk.

"I hate this,” my former mistress said.   “Why won't he just answer the questions?"

I shook my head.   "He expects to be murdered, no matter what he says or does."

She looked into my eyes.  "And is he right?"

I shrugged.

Ceann looked at the moon, now sagging into the western skyline. "You're strong, like Rodin,” she said.

I sighed.  “If I'm as strong as Rodin, that's because that's who I am.”

“I know.   But things are different now.   There's something that seems so wrong about a woman torturer.”

I frowned.  “If you mean me, I haven't touched the fellow.”

“But you would, if you had to.   I can kill, and you know that I have killed, but...   I mean, causing as much pain as possible before...killing...makes me feel dirty.”

"You don't have to....”

She turned swiftly and stared into my face.  "Yes I do!" she insisted.   "If I ever stop feeling dirty about things like this, it will be the day that I die.”

I felt sorry for the girl.   I hadn't been able to protect her the expedience of staining her hands with enemy blood.   I had worried that performing homicide would change her, and I suppose that she had changed in some ways, but I hadn't stopped loving her.   “No,” I gently disagreed.   “You wouldn't die.”

“I don't mean that I'd die physically.  But I think something inside would die.   Weren't you different yourself, before you had to...?”

“I don't doubt that I was,” I answered with a shrug.   “Maybe that's a good thing.   Maybe you wouldn't have cared for the callow boy that I used to be.”

She shifted again and leaned back against the porch support.   “I wish that we had met back then, when we were two different people.   You a callow boy, and me, whatever I was....   I don't deserve to have any good things happen to me.   Maybe I've already lost myself, maybe there's no way to ever be made clean again.   Sometimes I think that my parents are looking down on me with shame.”  Ceann turned her face away, as if it were a mirror to her soul that I should not gaze into.

I sank back against the rail.  Sometimes I, too, missed the person -- the better person -- whom I once had been.   When had he slipped away?   I don't think it was during my guards training, nor when I had been learning at the feet of Cawdour.   It must have happened after I took the responsibility decide whom should live and whom should die.  

Suddenly, Ceann was speaking again.   "Will you kill...this one...even if he tells you what you want?"  As things stood, should our captive die, his blood would stain her hands as scarlet as the men's.

"I'm not sure," I said.   "Maybe he deserves it.   We don't know anything about him.”   I didn't like to kill honest soldiers, even if they served the enemy.

Ceann stepped away, becoming more remote, gazed out over the street.   "I know what you mean.  We all deserve to die, for something or other.   It is so easy to make ourselves undeserving to live."

"Not you."

She looked back at me.  "Myself as much as anyone else.   Rodin, aren't we always trying to do the right thing?   How can so many right actions become so wrong?  How did our road grow to be so cruel and dark?"

“Maybe it's not our fault,” I ventured.   “Maybe if we had the luxury of fighting decent people, we could stay decent, too.”

That was the root of it all.   I so much wanted it to be someone else's fault -- someone else's fault that I had become the person that my parents couldn't have recognized.

But if I could blame Harouck for my fall, who could Ceann blame?

Could she -- should she -- blame me?

* * * *

THE ROOT OF IT ALL

The Spellcaster's Heiress -- Chapter 13

FROM DYAN'S JOURNAL


I had long been fascinated by Cawdour's stories about the ancient race of gods that had dwelled upon the earth before it was totally given over to the province of Man. 

"What happened to the old gods, Sire?" I once inquired.  “If they are immortal, how could they vanish?  If they were supreme, who could have compelled them to go from this land to the Western Isles?”

"They still live, my boy,” he told me.  “They are not wholly supreme, but that is a complex matter.  They are with us more than we know, yet cannot be seen unless they wish it to be so.  Our ancient heroes were the sons of gods, but they no longer condescend to merge their divinity with our mortal clay.  But never think that they have lost interest in us, their earthly kin."

"How do they demonstrate this interest?”

Cawdour shook his sage head.  "Each of us has a guardian spirit, Rodin.  I have one myself.  My guide through life comes to me in dreams sometimes, or as a voice in my meditations, imparting wisdom.  Sometimes he approaches me in the trappings of a beast, or as a man or woman -- and when he does so, the god seems just as substantial as you or I."

"What is he then, a male or a female?"

"He is pure spirit, lad, and spirit has no sex.  A god may change his shape as easily as you or I change our clothing."

"Well, I'm quite sure that I've never met a god," I remarked.

"Without the Blood, one is rarely favored with a personal visitation, but they are near nonetheless.  That famous luck of yours must be a gift of their bestowing." 

"My luck?  I'm the most unlucky of men," I said.

"Everyone at your age believes that, my boy.  But keeping a young hellion out of trouble is a tall order, even for a god.  Our divine clansmen do much to protect us, as far as their rules allow, but there is a limit.  It is for Fate alone to degree when our final hour has come."

"Are you saying that the power that stands above even the gods is Fate?"

The spellcaster stroked his beard.  "So it is said."


* * * * *

UPON ON THE ROOFTOP

The Spellcaster's Heiress -- Chapter 12

FROM DYAN'S JOURNAL

I had met Ceann back before I assumed captaincy of the Fyana.  For years, that day I laid eyes on her had seemed like one of the the pivotal moments of my life.  Now, looking back, I was no longer sure what, exactly, that day had meant.

Ceann's despondency had cast my every assumption about the two of us into doubt.  It actually made me ask myself  if she had ever loved me, or even whether I really loved her.  Why should that be?  Our years together seemed to have lacked nothing, but had something actually been missing?  Why had she turned away from me in her sorrow, instead of toward me, as I would have wished her to do?  I did not know. 

That troubling conversation made me think.  What did I still feel about Ceann, really?  I loved being with her.  But was this, the thing I felt, the love of lovers? 

I knew -- or rather sensed in my gut -- that what we still had wasn't the all-consuming passion that poetry likes to build its air castles around.   Somewhere along the road, we two had started to treat one another as dear friends, not soul mates.  The realization of this had only slowly crept in.  It had come upon us subtly, like a mouse moving inside a wall.  I hadn't thought a great deal about the matter, considering it merely a passing mood that would soon right itself.  When I had been wounded, I had been so overwhelmed by Ceann's display of devotion that it had caused me to see her once more as the object of my celestial love.

But true love, as I envisioned it, true love was immortal; it could not fade away in the face of a person's day to day adversities.  What made me wonder whether my own love ran deep was my lack of intense grief at the possibility of losing her.  I almost would have preferred to be devastated.  Instead, I was thinking that, should she leave me, I could go on, albeit with a heavy heart.

Had I grown cold?  Had she?  If what I had had with Ceann never amounted to true love, then what was true love?  I was at a loss to know.  We loved each other; of that I had no doubt.  But could it be that not every kind of love, no matter how wonderful seeming, could make true lovers of friends. 

I tried to force myself to see what she must have been seeing.  Ceann had to have suffered a terrible shock when confronted by my change.  Whatever she had once believed lay ahead for the two of us, it would have crashed at that moment.  Her desired future, no matter how vaguely or how hopefully conceived, could no longer exist for her, not even as a remote possibility.

Wasn't it natural that a young woman, looking at her life in the long term, would to start to think about where she had come from, where she now was, and where she might wish to go?  I had to face the prospect that Ceann soon no longer be a part of my life.  She loved freedom, she hated Harouck, but that wasn't enough to keep her at my side.  The simple fact was that the vital thing that had enabled her to endure the strange, harsh life of the woodlands was her bond with Rodin.  Did she see, even more clearly than I could see, that Rodin was, in fact, gone, even though I was still resisting that idea strongly?

I couldn't fully get my mind around the current situation, so I thought back to the first day that I had met Ceann.  She might have lived as the commonplace daughter of a minor nobleman, except that her beauty had attracted Sir Fultur, an odious creature beholding to Harouck.  Her parents supported her rejection of the brute, but the man obviously had gone running for help from the chancellor.  The latter's idea of rule was to dictate every detail of every other person's life.  Success had made Harouck expect that his every whim ought to be flattered with instant obedience.  He presumably thought that all the Trybalids needed was a minim of arm-twisting to make them see reason.  But the man's touch could never be subtle.  His clerks obliged him by finding -- or inventing -- anomalies in the grant of title by which the Trybalid family had held its ancestral property rights. 

The lord took the challnge to court, but the regime obstructed the family's legal defense.  Forgeries and destruction of archival documents had been suspected by Lord Trybalid's attorneys, but the papers sought from the government were withheld.  When the lord's family still did not yield to his conjoling on behalf of Sir Fultur, his response was again in character.  A hundred armed militia men appeared at the family's townhouse in Moyarien and escorted Ceann, her parents, and her siblings into the public street.  Royal agents took possession of their country estate at the same time.

Sir Fultur visited the clan at a city inn and strongly intimated that he had such influence with the chancellor that he could intercede.  All Ceann had to do was set a date for their nuptials. The maid gave him no certain answer, but asked for more time while she consulted with her father. 

She didn't have to.  The girl's parents were now certain that their family had become a playing piece in a game of rogues.  They saw no future for their clan in a kingdom so debased.  For that reason, they urged Ceann to go with a servant who would hide her with a friend's family.   The Trybalids hoped that if Ceann were not with them, the chancellor's spies would cease their watch.  They intended to take the rest of the family out of the country, to a place where the lord held investments enough to save them from a mean and disgraceful existence.  Once secure, they would send loyal retainers back to Arannan to guide their daughter back to them.

At the friend's house, Ceann soon heard that the entire Trybalid family had been murdered early in their flight, by “bandits.”  As horrifying as that was, it was further made known that “any surviving family members” would be taken under the wing of chancellor and become his ward.  To make matters worse, the family friends whom the girl was staying with grew fearful in the face of what was obviously a political assassination.  A servant of the house came to warn her that she would soon be turned over to the chancellor's care.  That moment changed Ceann.  It hardened her, made her willing to take unladylike risks.  Thus is was that a gently-reared maiden, one not yet twenty, fled alone into the night.

Ceann surprised everyone, and most of all herself, by managing to live, mostly by theft.  She displayed a knack for burglary and found a rogue to teach her the cutpurse's art.  Among the people she met, some thought that the Fyana might agree to champion her.  So, with the help of someone who knew someone who knew someone who knew someone, word came to our band regarding the fugitive lady in the woodlands.

I had not been Fyana leader that far back, and the cautious man who then held that honor thought that there was nothing to be done and that it would be best to steer clear of the wayward girl.  But the rumors, as I received them, had described a minx of allure.  That I could believe, insofar as it had been the curse of beauty that had first aroused Sir Fultur's unwanted attentions.  As for myself, I had been finding the forest camps socially stifling, and was curious to meet this intriguing the Cutpurse Coleen.  She sounded like a heroine from the rousing old stories.

I sought out Ceann and met her at cottager's home; that moment was like magic for me.  The fascination I had already been feeling not only continued, it achieved an even firmer grip upon my heart.  One customarily won a fair lady by lending her assistance, and so, when the lady suggested killing Harouck and Sir Fultur, how could I say nay? 

Despite my zeal to win the maiden's favor, assassinating the chancellor was obviously too tall an order; everyone in the Fyana had wanted him dead without result.  But the loutish Sir Fultur was another story.  We learned his pattern of movements, his moments of vulnerability.  At last, we took him between taverns.  Even without his assumed complicity in the murders, Fultur's other notorious deeds as a henchman for Harouck merited execution.  Neither of us felt any need to question the man. What could be gained?  What if he had been able to, say, implicate the chancellor in murder?  What if he had been an actual eyewitness to Harouck's riding along with the false bandits and striking down the maiden's parents with his own blood-stained hands?  In a kingdom like ours, accusations against a man who stood mighty in power were worth nothing at all.

How had Arannan come to this?  When men hear that a beggar has killed and robbed, they are instantly incensed and howl for his life.  But when these same paragons of righteousness hear about even worse crimes committed by a lofty official, they do not react at all.  Cawdour had told me that such passivity was not the result of mere fear.  People are flawed creatures.  They have difficulty imagining that those who hold the levers of power, who are charged with punishing crime themselves, could, or even should, be held subject to that same law.  The higher men of government stood, the less the people wanted to hold them accountable.

The mighty are, in fact, looked upon as if they were gods, and gods can do no wrong.  If persons of rectitude think this way, imagine the cynicism of those who have never been aught but scoundrels, rascals who benefit handsomely from a lawless regime.  Such persons -- Sir Fultur being one -- were willing to sacrifice any number of other peoples' lives in order to keep their benefactors in power.

It is an age-old concern.  When those who govern do evil, who can hope to punish them?  Who but a daring assassin as any hope at all to exact justice against the fortress of their power?  King Cathmor, a mere cipher, would never act against his over-mighty servant, and, in fact, he lacked any real authority to do so.  It would have been certain doom for him to make some vain gesture in the cause of decency, which is an undervalued thing.  So, Harouck's life was safe.
Sir Fultur alone could be made to account for his deeds.  Ceann asked for my dagger, but I knew that killing a man changed a person, and I did not want my bandit girl to be changed, not by one wit.  So I did her a knightly service.  Some men slain by me I have deemed to have honored my blade.  But running Fultur through was like dispatching a rat; his blood did naught but befoul it.

Ceann was not much cheered.  What did it matter that some small beast had been hunted to the kill if the great beast still prospered?  But what was more immediately important to me was that Ceann should not go back to thievery.  For that reason, I supported her as best I could, which was an uneven and spotty venture.  Sometimes I was spent down to the very lint in my purse, and I worried that poverty would drive my lady to do something unwise.  About that time, our leader's death brought about my election to the captaincy. 

Rank has it privileges, but I did choose to bring the maid into the Fyana at once.  I had to show the band that their captain had a brain, not just emotion.  I got them used to Ceann by letting her accompany me when I gathered with rebel friends.  After I accepted the lass's offers to spy for the Fyana in places where a man could not easily go, she proved her worth.  Little by little, Ceann affirmed to one and all that she was not like the women whom the stalwarts of the Fyana hand known before.  She reminded them of the adventurous goddesses of myth.

At last, before I even realized it, my beloved had become as much a part of the band as any man in it.  When she started attending the gatherings, we wisely refrained from sharing a bed.  We were already known to be lovers, but we respected the moment when important matters needed to be discussed.  Flaunting my mistress would have affronted my comrades, who would themselves have liked to keep their women with them. 

In those days, Ceann and I took daft chances and survived.  It seemed as though our companionship was blessed.   It was a magic time and I thought that naught but the death of one of us could end our happiness.  I was wrong.  All too soon, time would teach me that, just like there are many types of love, there are many types of death. 

At Bronell's inn, the crisis had come and, apart from the obvious, I didn't know why.  If a maid can love a prince bewitched to be a forest cat, as might happen in the old stories, why couldn't Ceann love me now? 

On the other hand, what else should I expect?  Who could stay with such a creature as myself?  Stories are stories and life is life.  When I stand back and take a look at myself, I have to ask what can I possibly offer to anyone?  I see in the mirror a misfit, one that can scarcely hope to love or be loved again.  It seems that all that is left to me, before the book of my life closes, is the chance to work for vengeance.  And if vengeance can only come at the cost of my life, that is something that I am willing to accept.

But I want to go to the Western Isles only after I have arrayed everything that I possibly can in my favor before casting the dice.  It is not so much that I want to live, I simply believe that it would be too galling to fail.

* * * * *

The Opposite of Victory

Just Christopher For Now

Don't get me wrong, I love having Christopher's stuff continue to bring in readers and views and all that other good stuff but I haven't really found anything else I like in ages.  If anyone has suggestions, please let me know. 

SEND ME LINKS!

The Spellcaster's Heiress -- Chapter 11

By Christopher Leeson

FROM DYAN'S JOURNAL

My life was changing incrementally; every day I became more aware of my inexorably strengthening link to the world of magic.  I had never asked for such a life and having to accept it was a daunting prospect.  Did this reversal of fortune bode aught but ill, or did it offer valuable opportunities?  During that cold night in Moyarien, I was nowhere ready to answer such a question.

Looking back, I realized that Cawdour had lived long and well by magic, but he ultimately died at the hands of his enemies for having become a magician to be feared. 

Should I have pitied the man for his being cursed with magical skill?  Without magic, he would have died at least a century before I had ever come to know him.  And I had to ask myself, what would his life have been if he were born into to an ordinary life?  I could, perhaps, see Cawdour as an officeholder of some sort, possibly a magistrate striving for fairness and justice, or, even more likely , a pedagog at an academy, fashioning the young minds that were destined to inherit the future.
  
What would Cawdour have taught?  Alchemy?  Perhaps; I understood that most alchemists were not wizards, but scholars of well-schooled intellect.  Or, more likely still, Cawdour would have excelled as a philospher.  Everything that he cast his gaze upon, he seemed to see deeply, more than the visible surface showed.  I envied him for his acumen and wished that I could, one day, discipline myself do the same.

“Are magic and alchemy brothers,” I suddenly asked my patron one afternoon as we lunched in the roofless court at the heart of the ministerial palace.  “Or are the two studies entirely different?”

He nodded thoughtfully.  “Ahh, my boy.  That is an interesting question.  I would gauge that the difference between alchemy and magic is even greater than the difference between magic and sorcery.”

I blinked in surprise, but held steady.  He was playing with me, trying to make me ask, “What are the differences between magic and sorcery?”  He had, time and again, admonished me to focus, like an archer concentrating on a target, and thereby avoid irrelevancies.  Even so, the possibility that sorcery and magic were not the same fascinated me.  I wished to please my patron, however, and so refused to take the bait.

“Then the difference is small?” I ventured.

“No, not small.  I would say it is fundamental,” the mage replied.  “Think of magic as the application of a diverse body of knowledge that the best minds have compiled, knowledge regarding the forces that energize the world.    Alchemy, on the other hand, is a philosophy which focuses primarily on the properties of materials and how to change them into nobler substances.  It is, by comparison with magic, quite a much young discipline.”

He paused, as if expecting some sort of a response.  “In other words alchemy has grown from its origins as a subset of magic?” I offered.

“Not precisely.  Magic and alchemy together seek all wisdom.  But neither can discover it all.  One study goes where the other does not, and so both are needed in order to understand the entire working of the spheres.”

“Then you say they are compliments?  How do they comprise the whole?”

“Understand that two forces rule the universe –- what is chaotic, and what is orderly.  Man's spirit is an ember of the gods' spirit, and his will is like the will of a god, though on a diminutive scale.  The willful spirit is, by its very nature, chaotic.  It tries to channel the free energy, the original creative force, to is own end.  But while the gods at the beginning of the world sought for order, they used the power of chaos to achieve it, and whim follows no set rules.  What you must remember is that the primordial creative essence still exists and that the magician seeks to channel it, like the gods once did, to bend reality to his own desire.

“This is to say, though the gods created order, they did so by disorderly means.  Paradoxically, the world they forged could not exist unless it existed on the basis of established rules.  Rules were needed because the workings of the world is vast and the gods did not want to be bound to it, forced to create every new horse, or pig, or insect by a new act of will.  They instead established a dictum for how the world and the creatures in it would develop and interact.  That is, how animals would breed, how plants would grow, germinate, and flourish. 
 
"They made rules governing how the weather and the other elements would come together, like the working parts of a finely crafted machine.  The interacting properties of the world produce wonders, but they are wonders that follow an established pattern.  They operate so predictably that mankind has come to call them Nature and overlooks how wonderful the patterns is.  He considers Nature a given and sees no marvel in it.  It is the alchemist who knows better and studies all his life to ascertain what the rules of the world are, and he strives to bend these rules to his own ingenious ends –- for example, how to plate base metals with copper.”

“So the magician works by understanding chaos, and the alchemist by understanding order?”

“Approximately.  But any scholar, however learned, is doomed to go adrift if he obsessively embraces his own field of endeavor and ignores –- or, worse, derides –- the other field.  Both are valid, both have much to teach us, and together they comprise the team that pulls the cart of intellectual discovery.”

* * * * *

Custin the Magician

The Spellcaster's Heiress -- Chapter 10

 By Christopher Leeson

FROM DYAN'S JOURNAL

The old struggle continues; I see no end to it.  All that has changed is the manner of the fight.  Over the last few months, I've had to learn to use different weapons, and I'm still learning. 

There was a time when I lived in a different kind of world, when the Fyana would start upon a raid with no more than a kit of bread and a skin of wine.  After the first night, we very well might be dependent on the generously of supporters along the way for even our most basic provender.  Sometimes we had no recourse but to tighten our belts and chew a plug of bitterroot to slay the gnaw of our appetites, trusting that our excitement would give sufficient strength to our limbs at the crucial hour.

We experienced misery and fear in great quantity, but the most fearful in the land were not the Fyana but its supporters.   The loyal, generous people who opened their hearts and homes to us did so at an awful risk.  Too often we would learn that a yeoman's family had been massacred by a militia patrol for having given us aid.

Occasionally, the peril would come down on their heads even while the warrior was lodged with them.  More than one Fyana swordsman had laid down his life on the very threshold of his host.  And when the victorious militia tramped over his dying body, the family sheltering behind him would be put to the sword...

*****
The Speaker in the Shadows

The Spellcaster's Heiress -- Chapter 9

By Christopher Leeson

FROM DYAN'S JOURNAL


Once I asked Cawdour why he supposed that the chancellor had been able to seize so much power with so little effort.

"The secret of Harouck's success," Cawdour told me, "is a thing that goes beyond his command of sorcery.  He is a consummate politician.  Sorcery combined with worldly self-interest weaves a dangerous spell.

"Most magicians are impractical dreamers.  Try as they might, few of them amount to anything, as men rate achievement.  The stories of accomplished spellcasters living meanly in forest huts are sometimes true.  But while most wizards scorn the tedium of bureaucratic labor, Harouck thrived on it.  He put both his political savvy and his sorcery to work for the fulfillment of his ambitions.

"Before long, those who stood in his way were being dismissed on charges of corruption, or were taking ill and retiring before their time.  Whenever he confronted a more skilled politician, he relied on sorcery; when confronted by a superior wizard, he used political trickery.

“Harouck eventually rose to First Secretary to the chancellor.  Hardly had the old king died before his superior was being confronted by accusations.  Nothing was proven, but Harouck had a pivotal ally in Prince Cathmor, the heir apparent.

"For years, he had been flattering the youth for his devotion to a dissolute lifestyle and, whenever he could, enabled it.  The old chancellor too much reminded the prince of his own stern father.  He was only too ready to advance a crony whom he supposed would continue on as a servile underling.

"Harouck wasted no time in putting his own minions into power, so that the whole government soon became naught but an echo of one upstart's iron will.  Only a strong king could have checked him, but I do fear that had King Cathmor become Harouck's opponent, he would have fared no better than any other enemy of the new chancellor.  But the young king is absolutely surpassed in the politics of power.  The sad truth is that he has always lusted for the empty pomp of kingship, not its taxing duties. 

"Harouck reigns as a virtual regent while the king dwells in a countryside palace.  Instead of consulting with his ministers, Cathmor is surrounded by mistresses and sporting companions. No doubt Harouck has selected the king's bodyguards and watches him with spies that report his every word and deed.

“A usurper craves popularity until his power is unchallengeable, and never doubt that Harouck is popular.  He has robbed the exchequer to buy favor with the landless masses, men without shops or trades.  The more wastrel they are, the more likely they will be to cheer the munificent statesman for the dole he bestows. He is beloved by the drunkard, the gambler, and the thief in the streets.

"The military distrusted him from the first day, of course, but the chancellor has used bribery and blackmail to retire the most troublesome of the commanders.  Every year he has further reduced the size of the army.  Its last units now languish in scattered barracks, while militiamen, many of them foreign hirelings, have been empowered to secure the internal order.
  
"They carry out orders that knights of the realm, men of the people, would not have countenanced.  Harouck's sorry militia could not win a war, of course, but they are effective enough in keeping down an unarmed population.

“Remember this, Rodin:  a nation is rarely brought low by invaders from without.  Foreign oppression, in fact, unites a people in resistance, forges their love of country into a mighty weapon, leading to popular revolt and a robust revival.
  
"But native-born despotism is a demoralizing thing; it puts each subject at the throat of every other. Each one clambers over one another to snatch for the oppressor's handouts.  The allure of gain is ever corrosive to the love of country.  Harouck has won over many who should have known better.  It is not just the wastrel, but also many a person of rank and office, who will welcome in a tyranny for no more than the promise of a few favors.”

*****

The Liar's Smile