already put into place a counterhex to ward off the transformation spell. This is one reason why generals have a strong distrust of wizards and magicians. In fact, most military magic is essentially defensive in nature—a good practitioner will anticipate the big magical attacks that the other side launches, and will defend against them, allowing his soldiers to fight without interference.
“Lord Burs was very good at that sort of thing, but his real genius was in casting smaller, less predictable spells that threw the enemy off balance or otherwise gave our side an advantage. At that first battle I saw, Raitornikan, he rendered some—not all—of the enemy’s runners deaf and mute so that they could not deliver orders to the front lines. The wizard on the other side did not even realize what had happened until after the battle was lost. At the battle of Barrel Hill, Lord Burs moved the tower that Lord Diven was trying to take—moved it to the enemy’s rear, so that Diven’s troops, after breaking through our lines, had to turn around and fight back through them.
“When we were not on campaign, we were at Blesn, which was another sort of education. Lord Burs kept a rather grand court, second only to Semr. I learned something of the polish that one normally picks up as a knight in training. Swordplay, dancing, how to speak in company—how to speak to women,” he added. Then, more briskly: “I never went in for poetry, although it was all the rage, or for playing the
“The other thing that I learned from Lord Burs—he was one of the few wizards who still composed some of his own spells. Most spells had been written generations before. Good wizards made it their business to collect as many as possible. But from Lord Burs I also learned how to conjure up spirits and bind them to do my will in spells of my own writing. Demons, mostly. Sometimes human ghosts.
“I stayed with Lord Burs for almost five years. By the time I was twenty-two I had come into my full powers as a wizard, and I was ready to make my own way in the world. I began by working for one of my old master’s allies as house wizard, and then I moved to Semr and set myself up as an independent practitioner. I worked mostly for a small group of noblemen close to the king, going to war at their side or handling other assignments.” He laughed suddenly. “Curing their gout, if need be.
“Occasionally I worked for the king. Usually he relied on Lord Burs, his old friend—but I could see the day was coming when Lord Burs, who was over sixty, would be less interested in riding all night to fight a battle the next day, and then it would be me going to war under the royal standard. Wizards do not live any longer than ordinary men, you know,” he added.
“Unlike magicians,” Nora said.
“Unlike magicians,” Aruendiel echoed moodily. After a moment, with a twitch of his shoulders, he continued: “I came to know all the other wizards of the kingdom, those of my generation and those older, and none of them was any better than I was. The most powerful men in the kingdom sought me out—I had my pick of interesting magical problems. My purse was heavy. I bought horses and books and fine armor. One day, I thought, the king would award me a great estate, or I would marry an heiress, but for the moment I was content enough. There were plenty—well, you would not know it now,” he said, a little awkwardly, “but I was considered a handsome man then. Women found me pleasing. I fell in love and out of love and made sport with them as often as I could.”
Aruendiel coughed, bemused to find himself saying these things to her.
Nora was nodding. “Mmm, I can imagine,” she said in so knowing a tone that Aruendiel looked at her in mild surprise. She flushed. “Well, I found a letter of yours in one of those notebooks. I don’t think it was ever sent. You were going to send some money to a friend of yours to pay a gambling debt, and there was also a discussion of some ladies named Lark and Frishi. It was very—candid.”
“You read one of my private letters?” Aruendiel said.
“I read everything in those notebooks,” she said virtuously, “looking for the spells you wanted.”
He grunted. After a moment he shook his head. “Lark and Frishi—I cannot recall them. Whom was the letter addressed to?”
“Someone named Goffil. You talked about a battle near the Pir River, and you said that you would be back in Semr as soon as you finished off the old ox.”
“The old ox?” Aruendiel repeated, sitting upright. Nora looked at him: There was something wary in his gray eyes, a startled animal dodging away into cold mist. “The letter was never sent?”
“I don’t think so. Why, what happened? Did the old ox win the battle?”
“He lost it.”
“Oh. And he was—?”
“Lord Els of Haarevl—his family crest was a crowned ox.” With Nora looking at him expectantly, Aruendiel frowned and made himself go on, stacking up facts like bricks: “He had allied himself with the Pernish pretender. I was advising Prince Totl and his allies. We pursued Els along the Pir for some days, and yes, he lost the battle.”
“But you never sent the letter,” Nora said.
“It’s possible,” he offered, “that I realized I would return to Semr before the letter would arrive there.”
Nora nodded. “Go on,” she urged. “I interrupted again. Anyway, it sounds as though you were having a wonderful time back then.” She could not quite rinse a shade of sarcasm from her voice.
“Those were heady days,” he agreed. It was pleasant to recall them, even while reflecting what a blind and cocksure fool he had been. “The only thing that clouded those years was the death of my father. My brothers divided his titles and estates. There was nothing for me, but I had already achieved a greater position than either of them.” He added: “I would see Dies and Aruendic at Semr when they came to sit in the Assembly. Normally they would take precedence over me, a landless younger brother—I had no seat myself—but I was usually up on the dais with the king and the highest lords of the kingdom.”
“How did they like that, your brothers?”
“Dies and I were always on the best of terms. Aruendic—well, if he ever tried to hide his resentment, he did a poor job of it. I did not help, particularly.” Aruendiel laughed quietly. “I was brash, I baited him when I could, and he did likewise. We brawled on the quay in Semr in broad daylight once, after Aruendic made a gibe about the cowardice of wizards.
“There is always this idea among the knights,” he added with some warmth, “that wizards and magicians are not real warriors, because they rely on magic, because they do not fight with steel. But I carried a sword into battle, and most of the time, I had occasion to use it.”
“Mmm. What about your sister? What was she doing?”
“My sister? Busy with her children. I visited her at Forel a few times.”
He was quiet for a moment, curling his fingers around the empty goblet, tilting it back and forth against the table. “Gradually, though, I became aware that something was not quite right.”
Another pause. “Something not quite right with your sister?” Nora prompted.
“Oh, that—but no, I was thinking about magic. It had become a sort of open secret among magic-workers that wizardry was in decline. No one was writing spells as complicated or powerful as those from the distant past. Some famous spells had stopped working altogether. You remember passing through Old Semr?”
“The ruined city.”
“That was a city built with magic. When I was young, people were still talking about rebuilding Old Semr. It was one of those perennial topics at court—what would the rebuilt city look like, how would the king pay for it, what sort of defenses should it have? The real question, though, was
“We had lost some essential knowledge of how to deal with the spirits that powered our spells. The wizards of my day could not command spirits the way the wizards of the distant past had. The more powerful demons had stopped responding to our calls at all. They broke their old covenants, and we could not punish them, and so our spells—some of them—became worthless.
“It was not something that I thought about very often. I was too busy, too happy, and most of the time, my powers were more than ample for the tasks I set them to. But occasionally I was aware that—for all the victories that I won, the ingenious and powerful spells that I worked, the fame that I earned—I had become preeminent in an art that might be dying.”
