ignorance is your best ally.’
He turned and hurried away from the cage, nodding once at the guard who returned to watch over Gulamendis. Leaving the courtyard as quickly as he could, he made his way to his quarters. The Regent Lord had grudgingly admitted to the Conjurer’s usefulness by providing him with a modest suite of two rooms, one for sleeping and the other for his study.
Laromendis kept little of value here, save for a volume of notes he had prepared before departing on his latest exploration, the journey that had taken him to Home. He sat on his bed and thumbed through the journal. Reaching the last page, he reached over to a small table, expecting to find his quill and ink. They had been moved. Someone had been in his quarters and they had read his journal.
He withheld a smile, as he expected nothing less from the Regent Lord. He wrestled with what he had heard of his distant kin on Midkemia and what his own people had become. There was much to admire about the achievements of the taredhel, but in truth, there was much apparently lost as well.
A trapper from Yabon had told Laromendis long stories about the elven forests to the west of his home, so long as the stranger paid for the ale in the tavern in Hawk’s Hollow. The stories he told painted a picture of a people at one with the forest, content if not happy with their lives, and able to come and go effortlessly through the woodland. He spoke a little about elven magic, but his small amount of knowledge revealed volumes to Laromendis: The great Spellweavers and the older eldar endured!
He had left that fact out of his report to the Regent Lord, for two reasons. First he had no proof that the trapper’s tale was remotely accurate, even if he felt in his bones that it was. Second, he needed to discover for himself how many of the magic users of Elvandar there were and what capabilities they possessed. A great deal of their ancient lore had been lost at the crossing of the Starbridge.
So much of it had been rooted in their spiritual links to the very soil of Home, the energies that rose from the heart and soul of the planet had been coaxed and finessed into serving the edhel, the People. Their new world had held different magic, and it had been difficult to blend that which had been brought with them and that which they found already here. The seven great trees, the Seven Stars, had been their anchor to the old magic from Home. But their new soil had been alien soil, from a world with its own rules and nature, and from the blending had come the majestic force that the taredhel had first struggled to control, but eventually had come to master.
The taredhel Spellmasters were most likely the equal of all but the very best human and elven magic users on Midkemia, but there were so few of them left; many had paid for the survival of the People with their blood. They were honoured and remembered in the annals, but each loss weakened the People beyond measure.
More students were sent to fight the Demon Legion every year, each class less ready, less practised, and less able to withstand demon magic. If there had been any other way for the Regent Lord to find Home without utilizing ‘outlaw’ magic users like Laromendis and Gulamendis, he would have put them to death years ago.
The relationship between magic users in the Star Guild, the legatees of the original Spellweavers who fled from Home, and those outside that organization, had always been strained at best, and outright hostile at worse. Wild magic, broken magic, or any number of other terms had been used to describe those who came into their power without the training of the Star Guild.
The Star Guild had tended the Seven Stars for generations, seeking to bring the wild magic of Andcardia under control, and to prevent the destruction of the People. Their labour had earned them a place at the tables of power, and the most gifted among them – the Chief Magister of the Guild – sat second only to the Regent Lord in prestige and power.
In times past those like Laromendis and his brother were hunted down and murdered, or captured and indentured to the guild as ‘dirt magicians’ or some other demeaning epithet. But now ‘dirt magicians’, like Laromendis, and ‘demon lovers’, like his brother, were too valuable to be squandered away by bigotry. This Regent Lord wasn’t a great deal more forgiving of deviant practices than his forebears, but he was a great deal more pragmatic about using talent whatever its origins.
Laromendis put away his journal, certain it would be read as soon as he left the city. He had made sure that nothing he had written would be found to be inconsistent with his report to the Regent Lord.
He stood up and looked out of the window. He was unable to see the portion of the courtyard where his brother sat imprisoned, but knew that by now the shadows covered the cage. Just a while longer, little brother. The Regent will be reading my journal within an hour after I depart, and no matter what he may think of our arts and us, he needs us. You will be free soon, he said, silently.
Putting away his pen and ink, he placed the journal on the small table and sat back on the bed thinking. He should try to rest, but his mind was racing.
There was so much that he hadn’t told the Regent Lord, so much he had wished to share with Gulamendis and a handful of others; for this world was Home. Moreover, every fibre of his being sensed that somewhere to the north of that valley lay all of the answers that the People sought; if they were proved wise enough to recognize their salvation.
Though Laromendis believed that he was as dedicated to saving the People as the Regent Lord, he was aware that Undalyn suspected him of having a different agenda. Glancing at the journal once again he resisted the urge to smile; let the Regent Lord and the High Magister, and the other members of the Regent’s Meeting suspect him. Let them believe his ambitions to be personal: power, glory, wealth, and the freedom of his brother; those goals they would understand. Just as long as they didn’t suspect what his real aim was. His real purpose would be as alien to them as the nature of their terrible enemies to the north.
Sighing despite his iron resolve, Laromendis stood up and left his quarters. He must eat something, then be about his business quickly, for by dawn tomorrow a thousand taredhel warriors, magicians and scholars would be moving through the translocation gate into that lovely valley long ago abandoned by the Forgotten, and where the Clans of the Seven Stars would return to their ancient homeland on the world humans called Midkemia.
Laromendis stood next to the leader of the Clans of the Seven Stars as he surveyed the valley below. The Regent Lord’s face was a fixed mask, but the slight sheen in his eyes and the softening around them told the Conjurer all he needed to know: the trap was sprung. Any thought of somehow saving Andcardia fled, as the ruler of the taredhel looked upon the ancient homeland of his race: Midkemia.
Undalyn waved his warleader over to his side and softly said, ‘Begin.’
Warleader Kumal stood silently for a moment beside his ruler, experiencing the intense emotions that had struck every elf like a hammer’s blow after they stepped through the translocation gate. Then he nodded once, turned and walked back through the portal. The Regent Lord stepped aside. Behind them a humming sound filled the air, more resonant than before, like the sound of heavy stones being dragged across the ground, producing vibrations in the soles of the Conjurer’s boots. He knew his brethren on the other side of the portal were employing their arts to widen it so that the numbers waiting on the other side might pass through with more haste.
Pointing down the game trail that marked the edge of this clearing in the hills, the Conjurer said, ‘My lord, in the vale below stands a vacant stockade of familiar design. I judge the Forgotten once lived within it, and with little effort it can be made to serve us now. Beyond this immediate area are more campsites, for the stockade will only serve temporarily as your court, and no more than a thousand can occupy the vale until more shelters are built. I have marked the trails so that the trackers can lead bands to those campsites. They will serve as a defensive perimeter until the city walls can be
