thirty, unless he was also dabbling in demonology, except we don’t call those prayers, we call them invocations or summonings.”
“So you can ask nineteen different gods for help, but only those nineteen?”
“Yes, but really, not even all those. You see, as I said, some people are better at some prayers than others. Some gods are just harder to talk to, too. And I know nineteen names and prayers, but I can’t get all nineteen of them to listen to me. Or at least, I never have. Maybe I learned a syllable wrong somewhere, or maybe they just don’t like me, but I can’t get all of them to listen.”
Sterren saw where this was leading. “How many do listen to you, then?” he asked.
“Usually, three,” Agor replied nervously.
Sterren stared. “Three? Out of nineteen?”
“I told you I’m not really a very good theurgist,” Agor said defensively.
“How did you ever wind up as the royal magician, then?”
“The royal magician to the court of King Phenvel III of Semma? Of Semma, my lord? You’re from Ethshar; you know better. If I were any good, would I still be here?”
“I suppose not,” Sterren admitted.
“I was born in Semma, but I ran away from home when I was twelve and served my apprenticeship in Lumeth of the Towers. I couldn’t make a living there, though, and I didn’t speak anything but Semmat and Lumethan, so when I got tired of starving in Lumeth I came back here, where there wasn’t any real competition. They don’t care if I can only talk to Unniel, Konned, and Morm, because nobody else here can talk to any of the gods!” A trace of pride had crept into Agor’s voice.
“Um... Who were those, again?”
“Unniel, Konned, and Morm. Unniel the Discerning is the goddess of theurgical information, Konned is a god of light and warmth, and Morm the Preserver is the god of genealogy.”
“I never heard of any of them,” Sterren said. “And how many gods have you heard of by name?”
“Not many,” Sterren admitted. Laymen virtually never bothered with names, since only theurgists could count on getting a specific deity’s attention. Usually prayers were directed to categories of gods, or just any god who might be listening, to increase the chances of reaching someone.
Sterren realized he could not name a single god, other than the three Agor had just mentioned, and he didn’t think he could pronounce two of those. Konned was easy enough, but the diphthong in Unniel and the r sound in Morm were very alien indeed.
“So, could any of those three help us?” he asked. “I don’t see how,” Agor replied. “Morm is completely useless; all he does is keep track of family trees. If you need to know your great-great-grandmother’s childhood epithet, or when your third cousin was born, he can tell you, but that’s it. He’s been very useful to me, since all the nobility of Semma are obsessed with family, but a war is completely out of his area.”
“And Konned?” Sterren did not care to try pronouncing Unniel.
“Well, if you make a regular sacrifice to him, he’ll provide you with supernatural light at night, brighter than any candle, and he’ll keep you warm in the winter, so we don’t have to worry about freezing during a siege but that’s about it. And freezing isn’t very likely in Semma anyway.”
“And...”
“Unniel’s our best hope, I suppose. She knows everything there is to know about all the other gods and sometimes she can be coaxed into carrying messages to them; I found you by having her call her brother Aibem for me. I know a prayer for Aibem, but I can never make it work right, so when I really need him, sometimes I can get him through Unniel. Aibem is a god of information; I’ve never found anything he doesn’t know, but getting him to tell me what I’m after is usually like trying to catch a black cat in a dungeon at midnight. Unniel can also talk to the dead, sometimes, not all the dead, just certain ones, and I have no idea why.”
“Information? Couldn’t Um... Unniel or Aibem tell us how to avoid the war, then?”
Agor shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe.” He sighed. “It’s too bad I could never get Piskor the Generous to answer; she provides food and water and advice, and that would be ideal if we’re besieged, wouldn’t it?”
“It would help, certainly,” Sterren agreed.
They sat in moody silence for a moment, thinking.
Sterren considered what he had just been told and decided that he did not care to rely on the gods for help.
That meant returning to his original intent of locating a really powerful magician and somehow buying a miracle. Agor, it appeared, did not qualify.
“So, Agor,” he said, “are there any other theurgists in Semma?”
“No,” Agor answered. “It’s too bad, because I wouldn’t mind having someone to talk theurgy with.”
“What about other magicians? Do you know of any?”
“Oh, certainly! When I first got the job here, naturally I looked over the potential competition. It turned out I had nothing to worry about.” Sterren suppressed a groan at this news. Agor continued, “There are a few village herbalists, of course, and a couple of local shamans who seem to be more fraud than anything else. There are two wizards in the whole kingdom; one’s here in the castle, where he helps out in the kitchen, and the other’s in a village to the east. The one here in the castle used to be the other’s apprentice, I think.”
He paused, thinking.
“I don’t remember exactly how many witches there are; four or five, I’d say. None of them are in the castle.”
“What about sorcerers, or demonologists, or warlocks, or... or anything?”
“Well, demonology is illegal, of course, and I haven’t found any outlaw demonologists, but I suppose one could be hiding somewhere. The gods can’t see demons, usually. Sorcery is illegal, too, I suppose because the Northerners used to use it so much, and I know for certain there aren’t any sorcerers.”
“And warlocks?” He used the Ethsharitic word, since he had never heard a Semmat term.
Agor looked puzzled. “What’s a warlock?” he asked.
“Another sort of magician,” Sterren explained. “We’ve had them in Ethshar for about twenty years now.”
Agor shrugged. “I never heard of them,” he said.
That accorded well with Sterren’s suspicion that warlockry did not work in Semma, that the Power in Aldagmor was too far away. Quite aside from his losses at dice, surely, if warlockry were possible, there would be warlocks.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“Not that the gods would tell me about. Believe me, I’ve asked them.”
Sterren nodded. No mysterious hermits, then. He could not help asking, “You’re absolutely sure there aren’t any you’ve missed?”
“I could have missed a demonologist and maybe one of these warlock things you mentioned, but that’s all.”
“How good are the two wizards? And the witches?”
“My lord Sterren, the younger wizard is working in the castle kitchens, lighting fires and entertaining the cooks; how good do you think he is? And they always say you can judge the master by the student.”
Sterren did not entirely believe that particular proverb, but he admitted that the older wizard could not be much of a miracle-worker. “What about the witches?”
“Well, my lord, none of them ever gave me any competition for the post of royal magician; does that tell you enough?”
Sterren had to agree that it did. He stared at the gleaming silver hasp on a nearby trunk, trying to think what else he could ask.
“My lord Sterren,” Agor said, after a thoughtful pause, “Do you really mean to use magic to fight this war?”
Sterren started. “Of course I do!” he shouted. “How else am I going to get out of this alive?”
“In that case, my lord, I don’t think you’d want Semman magicians in any case. They’ve all been raised in the tradition of using no magic in war. Wouldn’t it make more sense to get your magicians from somewhere else?”
