Chapter 9
Sorcere
Zaknafein
grumbled to himself as he walked unsteadily over to his shelves and unearthed
Gromph's staff from under the rubble. Hefting it, he noted that it was conventionally made of surface-dweller
wood, which could supposedly store the most amount of magic. It had a large gem on the top.
He
knelt down and sifted through the rest of the mess, digging out the staff he
kept here under a small pile of dusty spell books and wands. This one was more for defending from a
warrior – made of solid adamantite, grudgingly infused with gems at the
handle. It stored only the faintest
amount of magic, but it was astonishingly effective at bashing the heads of
others in.
Calmly,
he put the two staffs together, holding them with some difficulty upright
before pulling himself to his feet, then sighed and reached carefully for raw
magic.
Zaire
had come out of the table to watch him with interest, and her tail curled and
uncurled fitfully.
Slowly
he reached just past the filter to the bubbling, heaving blue-gold brightness
within, and grunted quietly as he forced it through. The power surged through his hands into the staffs, and their
outlines dimmed. Zak realigned them
carefully, then pushed them together, using a little more magic to tie it off.
He
swore sulphurously to himself and leant on the staff for a while with his eyes
tightly shut until the nausea and the blackout went away, then straightened to
probe the new staff carefully. The
merged staff had Gromph's enhancing ability and was able to channel a lot of
stored magic. Though it looked faintly
like gnarled wood, it had the consistency of adamantite.
All
the gems had gone – that from Gromph's staff was lying on the ground. He picked it up, and looked at it – the
magic from it was mostly gone. He
tossed it under the table for Zaire to play with later, and raised an eyebrow
at the cheetah.
It
yawned at him.
"Where
am I going?" he grinned, "I'm going to Sorcere. Do you want to come along?"
Zaire
looked bored, and twitched her ears irritably.
"I'm
not walking there, by the way," Zak said, "Too lazy, I know."
Zaire
sighed, and padded over to rub against him. The mage nearly staggered under her weight. "If that's what you say," he grinned. Leaning the staff on the crook of his arm, he moved his hands
precisely in several motions, muttering all the while, and waited as a
bluish-purple portal spiraled out and firmed into an arch. The colored nebula dissipated after a few
seconds, to show the top of the steps to Tier Breche. No sense in wasting effort, and directly setting a portal beyond
the guard spiders was not permitted.
Zaire padded sedately out first, and
Zaknafein walked through after her. As
he closed off the portal, he smiled in satisfaction – the silly ceremonial robe
was under so much magical paraphernalia that it was buried out of sight. He wore a plain, light robe with the
trimmings of runes of any good mage robe. The sleeves were not long enough to cover his hands completely like some
of the 'new fashion' robes, short enough to show part of the bracers of a
Master of Sorcere.
As
he walked through between the large statues of the spiders, he looked
immediately to the pointed stalagmite tower of Sorcere, wider than House
Do'Urden itself, towering up to nearly touch the ceiling of the large
Academy. Someone standing outside it
immediately darted in, and he smiled again to himself.
Only
then did he look to the other buildings – the impressive Arach-Tinilith, where
Vierna taught as a Mistress, and the ugly pyramidal Melee-Magthere, where
Jarlaxle had been a Master, though he had caused more than his fair share of
trouble there, the other Masters of Melee-Magthere had ignored it
carefully. Then, House Do'Urden had
been the only House to have a Master or Mistress in all three schools.
Lastly
he glanced at the newest addition – an arched entrance towards a lit interior
in the wall between Arach-Tinilith and Sorcere, that led to a laboriously
carved half-sphere slightly wider than Sorcere, polished smooth with magic. The new library held books from all three
schools, such that space could be conserved in them. The books lined the walls, though there was an extra tall
bookshelf for Sorcere's spell books. Zaknafein knew the librarian inside personally, and he spent most of his
time ostensibly studying in the library (chatting) or in his room
(sleeping).
Jarlaxle
had retired to the post of Weapon master under dire threat from Malice, but
Vierna still stayed on, apparently rising in rank. Zaknafein had just been waiting for Gromph to die. Now he contentedly walked on, proud that he
was not staggering as usual. Zaire gave
her usual flat glare at the last-year fighter students at the entrance of Melee-Magthere.
He
had been surprised he hadn't healed as fast as he should have, until he
cornered Dantrena one day and made her admit that Malice was trying to keep him
in the House, then made her heal him the rest of the way. Later he would apologize to her – when he
got the chain.
Accordingly,
there were thirteen masters, with one as Master of Sorcere, and also the
ArchMage. It was the same with the
other schools. Zaknafein had idly
wondered if thirteen had some odd significance, and decided against it – eight
was Lloth's 'lucky' number. Eight, that
sounded like 'hate'...he was rambling again.
Zaire
padded to the entrance of Sorcere and yawned, baring her not-unimpressive
teeth. He grinned at her, and followed
her inside.
The
inside of Sorcere was lit by dim mage lights, the corridors uniformly wide that
branched off into other rooms. The
lecture hall was in front of him, but he turned away to ascend the steps
upwards, to his rooms.
He
reached the corridor of the Masters' rooms, went to his, and closed the door
behind him, Zaire immediately bounding onto the bed and settling down.
There
was an intricately carved table with a smooth polished surface, where there
were several stacks of notes and some glass equipment. Wands were lazily strewn
over the table, but any student who thought of pinching one would be
immediately destroyed on the spot. Zaknafein wore no wands, unlike the other Masters, but he liked to see
them around.
The
room was, if possible even more disheveled than that at House Do'Urden though
the mess was mostly made up of books and some vials filled with viscous, many
colored liquids. Most of the vials were
explosive, and thus carefully kept in the glass fronted cabinets, though all
were not labeled. Zaknafein remembered
each and every one of them, and it did not suit him to put labels and allow the
rest of the world to see.
There
was a wardrobe for spare clothing that was standard in all the rooms after the
Faceless One's famous accident, though there was nothing inherently valuable as
well. Or anything valuable that
belonged to the school, at least. Since
a rare Sorcere book had been melted in another accident, books were not allowed
to be borrowed out from the library.
Sometimes
Zak believed the entire history of Sorcere was one big accident.
Someone
knocked on his door, and Zaire automatically growled.
"Come
in," Zak said, leaning on the staff. A
student looked inside.
"The
Masters are calling a Meeting, sir," he said.
Zak
nodded, and the student darted off thankfully. "Come, Zaire," he said quietly, hands tightly gripping his staff, "I
suppose we had better answer to them."
**
Jarlaxle
gave the fifty Bregan-D'aerthe soldiers a few more commands, then walked them
all to a room hidden in the twisting passages of the lower floor of House
Do'Urden. Zaknafein had painstakingly
converted it before the unfortunate meeting with House Baenre's soldiers to a
permanent portal to the new building.
It
was heavily warded, and Jarlaxle looked back at the fifty nervous soldiers
crowding the corridor. All of them were
wearing a chain of adamantite that could not be removed by normal means, which
ended with a mithril amulet of a fox, one paw upraised. Expensive, but well worth it. Only those wearing the chain, with the
exception of Jarlaxle and Zaknafein, could see the portal, let alone enter it.
Jarlaxle
ordered the soldiers through, and walked in himself after the last one. They were inside a dusty room that was
nearly the exact replica of that of House Do'Urden, but Jarlaxle opened the
door to a corridor narrower than that of the House. Zaknafein and himself had lectured the soldiers already on the
layout of the building on the quiet side of the bazaar, and the soldiers more
or less knew where they could go and where they could not. Further training and testing had picked out
four captains. He and Zaknafein would
have to figure out the ranking system later, for they had not expected this
many troops.
The
mercenaries could do their own exploring later. Jarlaxle handed a small bag of coins to each of them and a ring
of keys to their room and to some doors, and told all of them to get lost. Grinning, they did so – soldiers, or
mercenaries now as they were called, had more freedom than normal House
soldiers did.
They would explore the place with their own
leisure, and settle into their appointed rooms, then go out to the bazaar in
their mercenary uniforms of chain mail and tabard to go and attract some
attention.
Jarlaxle
watched their retreating backs with satisfaction.
**
Zaknafein
filed into the Hall with the other Masters, and took his seat at the round,
wooden ring-like table, where the ArchMage normally sat at the head. Zaire settled down next to his chair.
No
one sat in the seat of the ArchMage, and Zak would have been very angry if that
had happened. All the Masters had to
nominate and vote for an ArchMage, together.
Nalrann
took his normal seat, shooting Zak a flat glare, which he returned
equably. After a few seconds, the other
mage looked away. Pael'ran also took
his normal seat, which was thankfully (for him) far enough away from Zaire.
The
two Shobalar Masters were male, but still looked on with thinly veiled contempt
for their House's reputation for female wizards. The other ruling houses all had one Master, and the three last
wizards were from Ninth House Freth, Twelfth House K'ya'natra and Fourteenth
House Nal'Fayan.
Zak
noted that the chain of office was on a velvet cloth in front of the ArchMage's
seat, and his jaw tightened.