Shadowmage: Book Nine Of The Spellmonger Series (33 page)

When they arrived at Galvina late the next day, the ancient abbey at the far end of the ancient town hardly seemed the sort of place where thieves and robbers might congregate.

The town itself was modest, an ancient Sea Lord settlement, long conquered by the Coastlords and then forgotten, on the eastern bank of the mouth of the mighty Mandros River as it emptied into the bay.  It was set high on a rocky promontory overlooking the small harbor below, the ships bobbing at the wharf sheltered behind a line of massive boulders from the fury of the dark blue Bay beyond.  The smaller side of the sheltered docks was home to the fishermen who fed the town.  The larger docks were for the ships which gave it purpose.

Tyndal noted that the six ships berthed in the larger docks were all Farisi naval ships, by their banners.  He was far from a mariner, but he was beginning to appreciate the differences in ships from his time here in Enultramar.  The Farisi ships were much smaller than the great vessels of the Alshari fleet; he’d yet to see a Farisi-flagged ship in the great harbor more than forty feet long, whereas the largest of the Alshari were twice that.

But the Farisi ships looked much faster, and the artillery pieces under oiled sailcloth tarpaulins on their decks looked both complex and efficient.  

The town itself was surrounded by a rough, unmortared wall of local stone, behind which the folk had constructed gardens to complement their seafood-laden diet.  Within the confines of the wall, dozens of fruit trees imported from the Coastlands long ago made up precious little orchards and gardens in the poor, rocky, sandy soil.  The tower that loomed over the town seemed to offer visible protection, but as Tyndal studied it he realized that for all of its imposing size, the place could have offered only token protection from attack and virtually no refuge in a siege.  

No doubt that was why the lord of the domain had nearly abandoned the tower in favor of a smaller, grander, and completely undefendable manor hall nearby.  It seemed to Tyndal that the best defense against Galvina being conquered was the reality of Galvina, itself.

The rest of the small town was laid out on three streets at the head of the stairway down to the docks.  Nearly every building, whether barn or home, was made of the rocks that seemed to grow everywhere, and thatched with reeds from the estuary below, if the family was poor, or with green earthenware tiles if it was prosperous.  There were few of the latter.

If the town of Galvina was faded, the temple it claimed was far more so.  Indeed, the humble old pile of rocks and driftwood looked barely adequate for a prayer service, much less a going criminal concern, to Tyndal’s eye.  But the others seemed to think that it was the perfect sort of nondescript location necessary to avoid intrusion. 

It was a simple two-story structure, the bottom floor constructed of gray stones and the upper made from posts and beams.  The entire thing showed its age, as hundreds of coats of whitewash over the years had done little to keep the place from deteriorating.  It was the kind of temple that the local folk only visited for funerals or religious instruction . . . and its dedication to the Salt Crone, the psychopomp of Enultramar’s maritime religion, did little for its charm.

“Welcome to the Abbey of Solsaritsa, famous for not one damn thing at all,” Lorcus said, enthusiastically, as they mounted the long flight of narrow steps leading from the docks to the quiet port town and the abbey came into view.  

Tyndal suppressed a sudden urge to abandon his life as a knight mage in favor of that of a mariner, and returned his attention to the abbey.

“Are those real monks and nuns, there?” he asked, peering at the old hall.  

“Probably,” nodded Rondal.  “Plenty of spare clergy around the harbor.  They have to keep them somewhere.”

“Then how do our foes escape attention?” Tyndal asked.

“The same way we are,” Lorcus said, clapping him on the shoulder.  “By wearing one of these charming robes.  Now, let’s find an inn with more barmaids than bedbugs before nightfall,” he suggested, looking around the depressed-appearing town.  

Most of the inns closest the port were full of mariners who had paid for the winter. Already they were packing up and heading toward their ships in preparation for the spring raids.  But there were more genteel quarters available farther inland, near the wall overlooking the small farms of the land.   In their guise as rich pilgrims or an ecclesiastic junket, it only took a handful of silver pennies to secure a private room for the four of them.

“I’m getting to like this,” Tyndal said, straightening his robe.  “People respect the clergy!”

“People fear the clergy,” corrected Lorcus, as he checked the two narrow windows in the second-floor chamber.  “They make them feel guilty, or fear their powers, divine and mundane.”

“I know!” Tyndal nodded.  “I never realized that, really, until now.  Boval Vale didn’t have any temples.  Only a few priests who’d visit.”

“I envy you your secular life,” snorted Atopol, whose fake priestly raiment was much plainer than the warmagi’s.  “Mostly the clergy are a pain in the arse.  And people ask you to do the damnedest things while you’re so attired.  On the bright side, you can always claim a vow of silence, or some other bizarre religious rite, to keep them at bay.  I learned that from
real
monks,” he chuckled.

“If we raid a real abbey, is it blasphemy?” Tyndal asked, suddenly curious.

“Probably,” shrugged Rondal.  “Which puts you in familiar territory.  It’s the Salt Crone, the one who takes the landborn to the halls of swampy death.  Considering all the other divinities you’ve blasphemed over the years, she’s going to have to draw lots for the pleasure of her divine vengeance.   I say we spend a day spying and scrying, then take them apart at the seams.”

“I like the way you think, Sir Rondal,” Atopol nodded.  “What my house knows about this place is limited, but might prove useful,” he said, settling into a padded chair while Rondal started a fire in the brazier with a cantrip.  “It’s another central hub, this one for slaves.  I—“

“Slaves?” asked Rondal, aghast. 

Atopol looked surprised.  “You didn’t know?  That’s one of the reasons the spring raids are so important.  If the fleets can bring back enough slaves to fill the fields by harvest, they stand to make a lot more than if they have to rent the labor.  And they sell the surplus inland to the great plantations.  It was proscribed, under Lenguin, but the rebels have permitted the trade again.  As they have open piracy,” he added, darkly.

“How is this place connected with the slave trade?” Lorcus asked, intrigued.  “Those bastards raided the coast of Remere for centuries.  Took entire villages into slavery!”

“Didn’t the Remeran corsairs do much the same to Castal and Cormeer?” observed Atopol, who was more familiar with maritime history than Tyndal by far. 

“Well, yes, but it isn’t about the politics, it’s about the people,” Lorcus stressed. 

“The Brotherhood acts as the broker for the trade,” explained Atopol.  “It’s not nearly as big as it once was, and they don’t hold their auctions in the open, but no one is trying to stop them anymore, either.  The local crews take orders from the landowners, and then come here to place them.  The actual auctions are elsewhere, but this abbey is where they control it from.  No one pays heed to how many nuns and monks are going into and out of an abbey, and the Salt Crone’s cult is popular in some quarters of Enultramar.  But this is where you tell them you want a slave, and this is one of the places you pay for it and then pick it up.”

Tyndal considered that information.  “And this is the captain that Pratt reports to?”

“Oh, assuredly,” Atopol nodded.  “I looked into it, personally.  “His crew does transportation, after the fleet returns.  They cart their human bounty all over the bay, and often make deliveries.  Assuming, that is, they survive the raiding season.  Between the sudden storms off of the Depths and the other fleets on the water, the Shipwrecker could take him before high summer.”

“I would hate for her to deny me the pleasure,” Rondal said, gravely.  “If Pratt depends on this place for his orders, then let’s destroy it.  Utterly.”

Lorcus looked enthusiastic.  “I am in favor of this motion, despite your callous use of the term ‘utterly’.”

“I’d like to watch you fellows work, maybe learn a few things,” agreed Atopol.

“Let’s kill some Brotherhood slavers,” shrugged Tyndal.  “That’s what we came here to do.”             

This time they spent two days reconnoitering the abbey.  First touring it as pilgrims, then by infiltrating it as spies.  While Rondal’s construct was useful in the process, and their scrying was exemplary, the very best intelligence, they discovered, came through their shadowmage.  Atopol explored nearly the entire complex without being seen.

“How do you do that?” Rondal asked, one afternoon after he returned and briefed them in detail about what he’d seen.  “It can’t be invisibility – if I try hard enough, I can see you.”

“You just think you can,” Atopol bragged.  “Family secret.  But it’s about three parts blue magic and one part photomancy.  If you and Gat actually get married, I can teach it to you,” he promised.

“I’ll . . . I’ll figure it out,” Rondal muttered.

“How much blue magic do you use in your trade?” Tyndal asked, suddenly curious.  He’d learned a few things about the art of psychomantics – the magic of the human mind – at Inrion Academy, and he continued to have an interest. 

“A fair amount,” admitted Atopol.  “My aunt is a blue mage, or used to be, when she practiced.  There’s a lot of it in the house library.  Why?”

“It’s useful,” shrugged Tyndal.  “So, how many guards are we dealing with?”

“Nine,” the shadowmage reported, grimly.  “And that’s just on the first floor.  They haven’t tightened up security yet – I doubt they’ve heard of the Guildhall massacre yet – so we can just imagine how it would be if they were expecting trouble.”

“What about the clergy?  The real clergy?” Lorcus asked. 

Tyndal shrugged again.  He was good at shrugging.  “We lure them out, before we strike.”

“How do you allure a bunch of poverty-bound clergy?” asked Rondal, philosophically.

“Alms,” Atopol said, suddenly.  “Coin.  The Brine Brethren are not a popular order, nor do they have many patrons.  They rely upon a few bequests, fees for services, and alms.  If someone was passing out alms . . .”

“Why would anyone do that?” Tyndal asked, frowning.  “A few pennies in a begging bowl, perhaps, but . . .”

“No, no, no,” sighed Lorcus.  “That’s the right idea, but the wrong approach.  You want to get the entire abbey turned out – anyone who isn’t a Rat.  So . . . we hire them.”

“Hire them?  To do what?” asked Rondal, amused. 

“They’re sometimes employed as mourners,” suggested Atopol.  “If you could arrange for a funeral, you could hire them to do the Orison of the Foam.  Supposedly the pleas of the hymn can sooth the Shipwrecker and keep a soul from her grasp.”

“Well, I’ve arranged a lot of funerals,” boasted Lorcus.  “One more won’t be a problem.”

“It doesn’t have to be an actual funeral,” Atopol protested.  “The Orison can be sung in someone’s memory.  It’s an old tradition, but if you paid enough you could have every novate in the abbey on the shore, singing for you at dusk.”

“That would do it,” agreed Lorcus.  “I can approach the abbess, see if she’s keen.  Then when everyone is singing the sunset away, we can destroy their home.”

“We’ll pay them enough to build a new one,” Rondal promised.  “From the Brotherhood’s treasury.  So how do we want to do this?”

“A slaughter like the guildhall would be impractical,” Lorcus suggested.  “There are just too many folk nearby who might come and try to intervene.  It needs to be something more sudden, and more permanent.  We sacrifice some drama for limiting the damage to bystanders, but I think that’s worth it.”

“Agreed,” Tyndal said, nodding.  “So a spell affecting the entire area . . . you know, I think I figured out a way to preserve the drama,” Tyndal said, getting a fiendish idea.

He was not often prone to fits of creativity, although he often responded to crisis in unusual ways.  But every now and then Briga whispered a trick in his ear. 

And for this raid, that was the most appropriate deity to invoke.

Lorcus, in disguise using the name “Lawbrother Lorcurard,” visited the aging abbess of Solsaritsa, a bone-thin matron in her fifties who wore her light gray habit like a threadbare blanket the next morning. 

He professed to be representing the estate of a benefactor who had made a bequest – something which perked up the abbess’ covered ears.  Bequests could be very good for an ecclesiastic institution.  Though she was disappointed that it was merely a service, and not a grant to the abbey, she was happy to accept what coin she could.

Lorcus convinced her to perform the Orison of the Foam with every single member of the order two days hence . . . on behalf of Orril Pratt, the Mad Mage of Farise.

That took the abbess aback.  Just a few years before the might of the Alshari navy had been marshaled to destroy the man, one who many amongst the Coastlords saw as a cousin.  Orril Pratt was a sensitive subject, even now. 

But silver was silver, and when Lorcus placed a fat pouch of a hundred ounces of silver in her lap, the abbess was happy to sing the Orison for Orril, or anyone else Lorcus desired. 

“Two days?” asked Atopol, curiously.  “Why wait?”

“Drama,” Tyndal grinned.  “Within a day, Rellin Pratt will hear about the bequest, and he’ll crawl out of whatever hole he’s in to investigate.  Hopefully, he’ll get here in time for the festivities.  If he happens to be around while the abbey is destroyed – the third such attack against the Brotherhood – then he will be held accountable by their council.”

“If we don’t slay him ourselves, first,” added Rondal. 

“That would be preferable,” agreed Tyndal.

“So what are you going to do to them while the clergy are gone?” asked Atopol.

“The same thing we did to one of Sire Gimbal’s castles, back in Castal,” Rondal supplied, pulling out a wand about a foot long, an inch thick, and made of ash.  “After you loot the place thoroughly, first,” he added, looking at the thief.

“I suppose there are a few coffers in there that could be liberated for the cause,” the thief agreed.

“Grab all you can, the higher-value loot,” Lorcus suggested.  “For expenses.  The rest of it can go to slag.  Along with the slavers.”

With time to waste while they awaited the fateful hymn, the four gentlemen enjoyed what few pleasures the town of Galvina had to offer.  Apart from the string of seedy establishments that catered to the mariners and the dockmen, the rest of the town seemed as threadbare as the abbess’ habit. 

To Tyndal’s eye it seemed a terrible place to try to live, if it wasn’t for the sea.  The soil was rocky and sandy, the winds were harsh and bitter, and the rains that washed the stony shore so frequently kept the town damp, cool, and depressed.  The cottages and shops were faded no matter how many times they’d been whitewashed, and moss clung to every shady crevice.  The damp infected everything – he could see why the Brine Brethren settled here, if they found divinity of the salt spray illuminating.  But it also made the entire town of Galvina smell of mildew.

But then there was the sea . . . the twilight before their assault, the four of them found themselves with a couple of bottles, a basket of provisions, and a few moments between rainstorms to watch the sunset over the great Bay of Enultramar. 

That was a sight Tyndal could never tire of.  He took a bottle up to the roof of the structure to watch it.  The golden sun and the dark blue-gray water, the hundreds of ships bobbing on the waves as massive flocks of sea birds wove between their swaying masts.  As the sun set, the color of the entire bay shifted, and the light that fell on the mountains to the east changed tones a dozen times in moments.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Atopol asked, as he joined Tyndal with a bottle and refilled his mug.  “I was raised inland, but the first time I saw this I was mad to go to sea.”

“Will you? You’re a journeyman, now,” he reminded the thief.  That was a mark of proficiency and independence in any trade. 

“Will I?  Oh, I satisfied that craving long ago,” assured Atopol.  “Part of my training involved a three-month cruise aboard the family yacht.”

“Family yacht?” Tyndal asked, surprised.

“We have a lot of assets,” Atopol admitted.  “We’re an old house.  And it’s an old ship.  But my master took us out and we learned how to sail, how to fight at sea, how to dance on ropes and spars . . .”

“That sounds . . . challenging,” snorted Tyndal, imagining the kind of drills a shadowmage thief might have to perform.  “Hells, it makes doing practicals sound relatively easy.”

“We had to do those, too,” Atopol said, frowning.  “My master is very thorough.  And very traditional.”

“Did you have to fight a siege drake?” Tyndal challenged.  “We had to fight a siege drake.”

“It sounds like you and Rondal have had a tough time,” Atopol agreed.  “But life at sea isn’t as glamorous as it sounds.  It was actually like being in prison, more than anything else.  We only went as far as the Shattered Coast, but that was far enough.  The sea is dangerous,” he said, respectfully.  “It can kill you a hundred different ways you can’t even imagine, on top of the thousands you can.  There is a reason the Sea Lords revere the Shipwrecker among the five daughters.”

“It sounds like you’ve had a pretty adventurous life,” conceded Tyndal.

“It’s mostly been training and preparing,” complained Atopol.  “Since the Duke went north and never came back, things have been tense in Enultramar.  Even the private dynastic wars have been paused, as the political situation sorts out.  My . . . master has been hesitant to expose the family to any conflict, so I get to break into a crappy old warehouse and not the palace in Falas.”

“Here’s to better times,” Tyndal agreed, toasting.  “I still want to go to sea,” he added.

“You’re an idiot,” Atopol agreed.

Chapter Fifteen

The Orison Of The Foam

Atopol scouted the stony abbey the next day while the brethren prepared for the ceremony they’d commissioned.  He returned before noon, a disgusted look on his face.

“This really is a waste of my talents,” he complained, when he returned to the inn.  “I’ve seen better-guarded kennels than that place!”

“Is that a problem?” Rondal asked, confused.

“No, it’s just insulting,” the shadowmage replied, taking a seat at the table.  “The Brotherhood has gotten so ridiculously complacent that they only have nominal security in their section of the abbey.  Two guards – two! – and only two doors between the general public and their treasury.  One of them isn’t even locked.  The Brotherhood have enjoyed such a long stretch of prosperity they’ve scrimped on the basics.”

“It’s a sad state of affairs when even criminals cannot be depended upon to fulfill their duties,” sighed Lorcus.  “I suppose we shall just have to teach them a lesson, then.”

“Apart from that, the rest of that sorry lot will be easy enough to handle,” he continued, as Tyndal brought him a mug of beer from the keg he’d secured that morning, when he tired of going down to the common room.  “There’s three clerks dealing with accounts, a couple of slave handlers, and Jester.  He has two little toadies who run his errands, but they’re only at his side about half the time, and they don’t look very challenging.”

“Arms?”

Atopol shrugged.  “Short blades, a few scimitars.  And you can bet every one of them has a rat tail on them.  But no real armor, no heavy infantry gear.  They’re beating up starving slaves, not going to battle.”

“That’s fortunate,” Lorcus agreed.  “So it was business-as-usual, this morning?”

Atopol stopped and looked at the warmage thoughtfully.  “Actually, no.  The abbey was all a-twitter about the mysterious benefactor who commissioned an Orison of the Foam for Orril Pratt.  That, Lorcus was a fiendishly brilliant idea: the entire crew was beside themselves with worry and anxiety.  Apparently the Brotherhood had some history with the Mad Mage of Farise that they are concerned about.  Jester was composing a message to be sent to his superiors this morning.”

“And you’re certain no one saw you?” Tyndal asked.

Atopol gave Tyndal a look questioning his reason.  “I am a shadowmage.  There are more shadows in the daytime than at night.  Trust me to know my business.”

“He’s just unfamiliar with your Art,” Rondal quickly intervened.

“So do you think this will draw Rellin Pratt out?” asked Atopol.  “That was brought up around Jester’s table: apparently Pratt is not well-loved amongst the Brotherhood.”