Of Limited Loyalty

Chapter Fifty-one

21 May 1768 Fort Plentiful, Plentiful Richlan, Mystria

“It almost looks like a system of canals.” Standing in the thaumagraph office, Prince Vlad studied the map to which he had added the information from Owen’s latest surveys. A strong line running from the direction of the Antediluvian ruins to the northeast-and on toward a geological formation in the mountains in Bounty which looked like a man’s face in profile-split near the Stone House. Rays shot out at angles and then bounced back in. Another slightly weaker line ran from the southeast toward the northwest very close to the splitting point. The Prince guessed it was contributing to a formation of which they could only see the edge.

“If you look here and here, you see a similar angle. It is as if several squares are overlapping, rotating by thirty degrees.” He tapped his chin with a finger. “That would concentrate a lot of magick in the area.”

Owen, who had joined the Prince, Count von Metternin, Nathaniel, and Bethany Frost in the thaumagraph cabin, shook his head. “We didn’t see anything unusual out there. Just a valley with those three points on the ridges.”

“Not likely you would have seen anything.” The Prince smiled. “The Norghaest have taken refuge under the ground. If they were to have planted any devices or tools to help them split and deflect the flow, they likely would have done so from beneath the earth. Without the surveyors you’d likely have passed over the area without noticing anything.”

“I reckon we did just that a year ago, on our way into the mountains.” Nathaniel tapped a finger on the map. “We’ll be needing some eyes on that area. I’m fair sure I ain’t the only one what’s thinking that if they is going to raise a colony, that’s the spot they’re preparing for it.”

“Precisely what I was thinking.” Vlad looked at Owen. “How big is that valley?”

“About as big as this one, but not as much water. Forest mostly, with a bit of marsh in the middle. An industrious beaver could turn it into a lake.”

Vlad slapped his own forehead. “Of course. I was insane not to have seen it before.”

The Kessian noble cocked his head. “What is it you see?”

Vlad grabbed a sheet of paper from the thaumagraph table and overlaid it on the map. He drew six squares, each with a corner on one of the nexus points at the eastern edge of the valley. “This star shape, it is what we see from the high point of a fortress, with the glacises set to deflect cannon fire. It is easy, then, for us to see these squares as walls, or lines of defense. But what if that is not what it is at all? What if, instead, the magick is being channeled here not as a defense, but to create a reservoir of magick energy? Just as we shipped supplies up the Benjamin to Grand Falls and replenished our supplies there, could the Norghaest look to create a reservoir in the valley?”

Von Metternin frowned. “This would suppose that magickal energy can be contained and that we can draw on that reservoir to make magick work. Unless your studies have carried you much further than even I imagine, neither supposition is supported.”

“We do have Kamiskwa’s statements that he could feel residual magick in the ruins. Owen, you had your own encounter with it.”

“Yes, Highness, after a fashion.”

“My Lord von Metternin, please do be so kind as to fetch your servant. He might have an insight into this matter.” Vlad studied the map while emotions warred within him. The idea that magick could be collected and somehow could be used by a man alleviated the limitation of magick use. A man who fired a gun would tire. A man who used magick drawn from elsewhere might not. Provided using external magick did not kill him, it might save him from instances where overusing magick might kill him. This prospect thrilled Vlad.

And terrified him. A man like Laureate du Malphias, given an inexhaustible source of magick energy, would be unstoppable. If the Church learned of this, or shared knowledge that it already had with various individuals like Duke Deathridge, its control over society would go unchecked. The same knowledge which might give them a fighting chance against the Norghaest could spell doom when their fellow citizens turned it against them.

Von Metternin returned with Ezekiel Fire. The Steward had grown a beard and styled it in the Continental fashion, featuring twin forks. He wore one of the Count’s old uniforms, taken in and up, along with hose and black shoes with silver buckles. The Prince found the change jarring. Even though he knew who the aide truly was, he had a hard time reconciling images of Fire and the man before him.

The Prince laid out his thoughts. Fire listened thoughtfully, then nodded slowly. “I don’t know as I have a perfect answer for you, Highness, but I been thinking on why in the Good Book, in Genesis, chapters one and two tell the same story of God creating man over again, but different. First time man is made in God’s image. Second time around he’s made from the dust, has life breathed into him, and God makes him that special Garden, where everything is fruitful and it is a paradise. Now, I am thinking that this garden had four rivers, like the sides of your squares, and inside was paradise. If these rivers were your ghost rivers, then the land inside would be full of magick, which is why it was a paradise and why, within the garden, men knew no pain nor hunger. It’s right there in the Good Book, I do believe.”

Though he found Fire’s comment vague, he did find it reassuring. “And the idea of men being able to use that magick energy?”

Fire smiled. “The Good Lord wasn’t the only person who did miracles. His disciples did, too, and their enemies. Seems like it could be used and, being as how there isn’t any prohibition against it, I do believe God intended us to be able to use it.”

“How?”

The Steward shook his head. “That I do not know. I imagine, however, that Rufus found a way in what was said on the tablets.”

Vlad nodded. He had avoided studying or working on translations of the tablets because of what had happened at Happy Valley. Vlad felt certain that whatever Rufus had translated first had, in fact, caused him to invoke Norghaest magick. He suspected, based on what he had later learned about the devices used by trolls to control wooly rhinoceri, that this first magick may have given a Norghaest sorcerer the ability to control Rufus. If the changes in his body were at all accurate, the Prince was ready to suppose a Norghaest sorcerer had actually taken possession of Rufus’ body.

“If anyone else has any thoughts on the matter…?”

“Well, Highness, I onliest know about magick what I done learned for green powder, but I have to reckon that if a man is going to use that reserved magick, he needs a couple things. First, he needs access. Second, he needs to know what he needs to be to use it. Could be he just needs to see himself as a pipe and let it flow through, with him directing it. Or, and I beg your pardon Lieutenant Frost, he needs to know what it tastes like going down, then know where he’s peeing it out to. I reckon he needs to beware of drowning or being eroded and just figuring out how to start drinking it in would be the big thing.”

“Thank you, Nathaniel, for that colorful explanation.”

Bethany held a hand up. “Another thought, perhaps?”

“Please, Lieutenant.”

“We’ve noted different transmission speeds of different ghost rivers. We’ve supposed that it’s all one stream, and the only difference is speed. What if, instead, the magick is different? Think of it like the notes in a thaumagraph. It could be that a stream only produces one note, and to be able to use that stream, you have to be attuned to that note. If someone has only one string, he can only use one flow. If he has two or three, more. It may not be, as Major Woods suggests, a matter of drinking all you can, but to learn what to drink.”

Owen nodded. “The splitting and diversion might not be channeling all the magick, but only the strains our enemy can use.”

“I like that idea. Very clever.” The Prince sighed. “Unfortunately I like it because it limits our enemy and suggests vulnerabilities. Until we can prove they exist, however…”

Everyone nodded slowly. Working from any unproven hypothesis and treating it as true was to invite a disaster of an unimaginable magnitude. For a heartbeat Vlad recalled Lord Rivendell and could see him leading troops in a headlong dash for the reservoir, certain he would take it, able to work magick, and vanquish the Crown’s enemies.

Vlad tapped the map in the vicinity of the Stone House. “Nathaniel, I will, as suggested, want eyes on this. It’s three days out to Stone House, and another to Ghost Lake?”

“That’s what I made it mostly. Maybe half a day more to Ghost Lake.”

“Take one of the Bookworms and a thaumagraph, a dozen Rangers. Head out after sundown.”

Nathaniel nodded. “I will go organize that now.”

“Thank you. The rest of you, please, see to your normal duties. If you do have any thoughts on this, let me know.” Vlad folded the map up. “I’d be content with a few more solutions and a few less mysteries.”

The others left the cabin-save for Bethany Frost. Vlad almost stopped Count von Metternin, intending to fulfill his promise to Gisella to let him know before guns fired that she was pregnant. There will be ample time yet for that. So much here needs to be done.

Bethany Frost took her place at the thaumagraph. Vlad tucked the map away in a desk drawer, bid her adieu, then headed out to the large pavilion built against the exterior of the fort’s southern wall. It jutted out forty feet and the canvas, peaked roof fluttered in the breeze. Baker sat outside, polishing brass buckles. He started to stand, but the Prince waved him back down onto his stool, then slipped into the tent’s dim interior.

Mugwump opened a golden eye.

“You’re more ready for this than I am, aren’t you?” Vlad approached and ran a hand over the dragon’s muzzle. In the months since Mugwump had fought at Happy Valley, his scales had thickened and talons had grown longer with each molt. He still had scarlet stripes and spots, but the color marked where the scales had thickened the most. Though he’d never seen inside a dragon, it appeared as if stripes warded his ribs and spots covered vulnerable joints. The ridges around his eyes had become brightly scarlet, and the bony edges and ribs in his wings matched.

Vlad had wondered for the longest time about the cause of Mugwump’s successful molt and growth of wings. He’d put it down to a varied diet, which included plants and berries which were unknown in Auropa. That, combined with Shedashee knowledge of dragons, suggested they may have had their origin in the New World. While all that made it seem like Mugwump’s changes were part of a natural process, Vlad had concluded that there was more involved.

Specifically, Mugwump had consumed pasmortes — the corpses that du Malphias had reanimated with magick. He’d gobbled them down quite happily, gorging himself at Anvil Lake. But when du Malphias had killed the spells which animated his corpses, Mugwump stopped feeding and vomited back up the creatures he’d just consumed. Just as greedily, he had snapped demons out of the air at Happy Valley.

Subsequent to both instances of his having gorged on creatures of magick, Mugwump had changed physically. Vlad could not help but surmise that the consumption of magick had provided the impetus for growth and change, but he knew neither how nor why. That the visions had shown the dragons to have an antipathy toward the Norghaest explained why Mugwump would feed on the demons, but Vlad couldn’t see any connection between those demons and the pasmortes.

“If you knew, would you tell me?” Vlad shook his head. “I need to know because I have a lot of people here who are willing to face your enemies. The problem is, I know very little about them. Now, the demons, they seem pretty close to gnats as far as you are concerned. And the trolls, I don’t know, bunnies to a hawk?”

The dragon snorted.

“Was that a note of contempt?”

Mugwump shifted, bringing his tail around to hem the Prince in.

Vlad patted his muzzle again. “I’m not worried for you, my friend; I just wish you had a few more of your friends to join us. A dozen or so dragons should deal with the Norghaest very nicely, I should think. Then again…”

Vlad leaned against Mugwump’s muzzle. Other dragons might view the Mystrians as the same bother as the Norghaest. “I’m not sure how they would deal with my maintaining you as a possession. Would they be wolves looking at you as a dog, or would you be a captive that they would want to free?”

A shiver ran down Vlad’s spine. What if there are no other dragons?

Auropeans had been on Mystria for nearly three hundred years and had never reported seeing a dragon. The Shedashee had knowledge of them, but always prefaced stories of them with “In the time of the grandfathers,” which was the Auropean equivalent of “Once upon a time.” The last clutch of wurms born in Auropa had been laid seven centuries before. Is it possible that there have been none here, since then?

Mugwump’s ears came forward, then his head up and around. Vlad ducked as the dragon looked to the west.

A handful of heartbeats later the ground shook. Not hard nor heavy, just a little tremor. The sort of thing one might feel when standing on a bridge over which troops were marching.

Norghaest troops.

Vlad strode to the opening. “Mr. Baker, please see to saddling Mugwump. The Count will be joining us, and we’d appreciate having our swivel guns ready to go.”