Ascendant (21 page)

Magrane gulped
the remains of his coffee, which was growing cold, made a sour face, and
continued. "Without allies, without
committed
allies, we are alone.
Alone, we cannot hope to stand against Acedor. Even powerful nations like Indus
now refuse to extend us credit to buy supplies we need for our survival, they
insist on being paid with gold, lest Acedor overwhelm us before we can pay our
creditors. I fear that Ariana will be the last ruler of Tarador. And my fear,
my lack of faith in our future, makes me unable to properly fulfill my duty to
our future queen. A general who sees no hope of victory cannot lead an army. I
intend to resign at the end of this year."

Paedris was
greatly alarmed. Grand General Magrane was his best ally against the Regent,
one of the few people of sufficient stature to make Carlana listen, who agreed
with Paedris about the need to take action against the enemy. Mostly, the two
men had argued fruitlessly with the Regent, but Paedris had hope to change that
soon. "General, I can understand your despair. Please remember," Paedris
held his left hand open, and a searingly bright ball of fire briefly lit up the
room, "that we have significant power on our side also."

Magrane
blinked to clear his vision, seeing an after image of the fireball dancing in
front of his eyes. "Paedris, I know you are a powerful wizard, perhaps the
most powerful wizard in the land, but even you-"

"No,
I-", Paedris caught himself before he revealed the truth. Not even Grand
General Magrane could know about Koren.  Carlana was safe within the
castle, while Magrane went into the field with the army, where he might be
captured. Captured, and given to an enemy wizard, who would strip the general's
mind open, and reveal any secrets his mind held. "I do
not
despair.
There are certain reasons, known only to wizards, why our fortunes will change
dramatically, for the better, during Ariana's reign. Within a very few years."

Magrane looked
up sharply at the wizard. "You speak truthfully? Not merely providing
comfort to an old man?"

"Soon,
other members of the Wizards Council will arrive here in Linden, to make plans
for the future." Paedris leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees.
"Believe me," he said as he added just a hint of reassuring magic
behind his words, "this nation will survive. Leon, for the first time
since I journeyed across the sea, to pledge my services to our long struggle
against the enemy, I can see the end of this war. Within not just my lifetime,
but yours." Paedris truly believed his words. The wizard held out his
hand. "Keep your boots on, General, your nation needs you."

Magrane
nodded. He had not wanted to resign, and whether he completely believed the
wizard or not, he could see the wizard believed. He took the wizard's hand in a
strong grip and shook it. "I know better than to ask for the secrets of
wizards, but, agreed. We'll see this through to the end, you and I."

"Excellent!
More coffee?"

"Koren!
Koren? Now, where is that boy? Oh, there you are." The wizard announced,
as Koren stepped breathlessly through the doorway, having run up two flights of
stairs as quickly as he could. "I need to send this message to Duke
Magnico, run this," he held out a rolled-up scroll of paper, "over to
the telegraph."

Koren got a
pained expression on his face, which the wizard failed to notice, as he had
already turned his attention back to the bubbling glass containers on the
laboratory workbench. Tell a griff? What is a griff, and what was Koren
supposed to tell it? "Uh, sir, what is a griff?"

This got the
astonished wizard's attention. "A griff?"

"Yes,
sir, you wanted me to tell a griff something?" Koren assumed whatever he
was to tell the griff was on the scroll.

Paedris
chuckled softly. It had not occurred to him that Koren Bladewell, farm boy from
tiny Crebbs Ford, had no idea what a telegraph was. "Not tell-a-griff. A
telegraph
.
It is a series of towers across Tarador, with one visible from the next, to
carry messages. You must have seen the one atop the hill to the east of the
city? The office here is at army headquarters, across the courtyard."

Koren had
indeed seen the tower, with a strange looking contraption on top; wooden arms
somewhat like a windmill, only instead of sails, the arms had flags. "Is
that what the tower is for, sir?"

"Yes, it
is quite clever, I had never seen one before I came to Tarador," the
wizard admitted, "the position of the arms, and the type of flags, spell
out words. At night, colored lanterns are used, rather than flags. The first
part of each message tells who the message is from, the next part tells who the
message is addressed to, then the actual message. Most royal, or army,
messages, are put into a code, to keep them secret. There are such towers
throughout Tarador, connecting Linden to each of the provincial capitals, and
some of the Dukes have their own telegraph lines to connect them directly. With
the telegraph system, a message can cross the nation from southeast to
northwest in a single day! Depending on weather, of course; fog, rain or snow
can block the view from one tower to the next."

"That is
amazing, sir!" Koren was truly impressed, he had never imagined such a
thing. Twice in his life, he had seen couriers riding fast horses through
Crebbs Ford, headed toward the Baron's castle. He assumed all messages traveled
by courier on horseback, how else could it be? "But, but I thought you
sent messages by, uh, magic, or something. Like that hawk last week." A
hawk had flown to the windowsill, and pecked at the window glass, until the
wizard let it in, and retrieved a small message scroll that was tied to the
bird's leg.

"Oh, yes,
the army also uses pigeons, they are trained to fly to one place, like the
royal palace, from wherever they are released. The problem you see, is that a
pigeon can
only
fly to one place, which is not quite convenient. And
pigeons, of course, can fall prey to falcons."

"But the
hawk, sir?"

"Oh, the
hawk. That was magic. I told the hawk to find a merchant I know, the man, well,
he lives by the coast, and keeps an eye out for enemy agents around our ports.
This merchant moves around quite a bit, so I couldn't send a message to a fixed
address."

"How did
the hawk find him, sir?"

"Huh?
Oh," sometimes Paedris forgot how even simple magic wasn't obvious to
ordinary people. "You see, I put a picture in the hawk's mind what the
merchant looks like, hawks have exceptional eyes, of course. And I also told
the hawk several places the merchant might be. That, uh, is rather odd, for
birds don't see the world the way we do, they navigate by the position of the
sun, and along invisible lines of energy, I don't know how to explain it. It is
disturbing, that type of magic, so be in an animal's mind, however briefly.
But, it might not work anyway, except that I have a piece of cloth with the
merchant's scent on it. Those little metal boxes I keep in the cupboard? Each
one has a cloth with a person's scent on it. The hawk delivers my message, then
waits for a reply message to be tied to its leg, and returns to me."

"I was
wondering what those little boxes were, sir." Invisible lines of energy?
The world of wizards would truly be forever beyond Koren's comprehension. Ah,
so what? It wasn't anything he needed to know as the wizard's servant. "I
will carry your message to the telegraph office right away, sir."

While Kyre
Falco was still glowing from the day, the party to open the maze was not quite
a triumph for Koren. Servants in the castle had started whispering as soon as
they saw Koren get out of the royal carriage on the return from LeVanne. Koren
had gotten out of the carriage before it went through the castle gate, because
Carlana was sure there would be a scandal if a young man was seen with the
princess at the palace. Still, enough people saw Koren get out of the carriage,
saw him wearing nice, clean clothes, and saw the princess lean out of the
carriage, waving to him as the carriage drove through the gate. Then, the
servant who brought to Koren the invitation to have lunch with the princess had
told a few people, who told other people, who told other people. Word got
around that this new boy, a poor, uneducated farm boy, a commoner, whose lot in
life was to clean up after the wizard, this boy was putting on airs. Thinking
he was better than the other servants.

It was bad
enough that Koren was invited to the palace, to dine with the princess. When
Koren was invited to the grand party that opened the royal maze, a party where
a large number of servants were there working properly as servants, while Koren
cavorted, and ran around, and laughed and ate fine food, with the royalty,
right in front of the servants, well, clearly something had to be done to put
the new boy back in his place.

Bart Loman
didn
’
t have
the best of luck. What he had imagined, when he thought of showing this Koren Bladewell
his proper place in the castle, was for Koren to be dressed in the fancy
clothes he wore when he visited the palace to dine with the princess, where he
no doubt drank tea from fine crystal cups, with his pinky finger in the air.
Bart had imagined Koren smelling of flowery perfume, having his hair cleaned,
combed and tied back in a fancy ribbon. The picture should have been of Koren
striding across the courtyard, nose in the air, looking down on all the other
servants.

What Bart
Loman got instead was Koren, having exercised, fed and brushed Thunderbolt, and
then worked for an hour in the stables hauling hay bales and mucking out stalls
to pay for the horse
’
s
keep, walking back to the wizard
’
s
tower, bent low under a load of firewood slung over his shoulders. He was in
old, patched and dirty second-hand clothing, his hair tangled with bits of hay
stuck in it, and he smelled, well, he smelled like what his second-hand boots
had stepped in at the stables.

Bart chewed on
his lip while he thought. The gang of servants he had gathered looked at him,
questioningly. Koren was supposed to be having lunch with the princess, in the
palace, like he had done on the first day of the week for the past month! Why
was he looking, and working, like a common servant? Working, in fact, harder
than Bart Loman ever did, since Bart preferred shirking to working. Bart
’
s personal motto was, in
fact, why work when you can shirk? Bart didn
’
t know that the Regent had declared her
daughter needed to spend her time studying the history and customs of the Indus
Empire, which was sending a new ambassador to Tarador soon, so Ariana had no
time for lunches with Koren.

Seeing Koren
working so hard didn
’
t
make Bart reconsider his plans, it only made him grit his teeth in anger. Not
only was the new boy dining with royalty above his station, he was now also
making other servants look bad!
“
Come
on, boys, let
’
s
show him how things are done around here.
”

Bart glanced
around, looking for guards, then strode out into the courtyard, leading his
gang of a dozen servants. Bart stepped in front of Koren, blocking his path,
while the others surrounded the tired young man.

Koren knew
this was trouble. He had seen Bart around the castle, the other boy was
fifteen, almost sixteen, tall and big for his age. Bart
’
s straight black hair was
pulled back like the way soldiers wore their hair, and the expression on his
face was anything but friendly. He had a reputation as a bully, and Koren had
avoided him, but that wouldn
’
t
work now. With a sigh, Koren set the firewood down behind him.
“
Hey, you
’
re Bart, aren
’
t you?
”

“
Aye, that
’
s my name, your lordship.
”
Bart said in a sneering
voice, as he bowed  mockingly.
“
Surprised
you know the name of a lowly servant, your lordship being all high and mighty,
and dining in the palace with the princess.
”

“
I
’
m not a lord, I
’
m a servant.
”
Koren protested.
“
The
wizard
’
s servant.
”
He added, knowing that
most people feared Paedris.

“
Aye, a servant when you
have to be, when you
’
re
not putting on your fancy clothes, and dining with the princess, and having her
show you around the palace like you
’
re
picking out which room you want for yourself. Being a servant like us isn
’
t good enough for you, you
’
re better than the likes
of us here.
”
Bart
glanced at the other boys, seeing with satisfaction that his words had hit
home; they were nodding, and muttering, and shaking fists at Koren. Bart kept
going, before Koren could answer,
“
And
you spreading fairy tales about how you
’
re
a
hero
, saving the princess from a bear, and a pack of wolves, and half
the Acedor army, and then you sprouted wings, and flew her to safety.
”
Bart got a good laugh from
his boys from that joke.
“
What
really happened that day, Sir Koren the Brave? Oh, I forgot, you didn
’
t get a knighthood.
”