The Archmage Unbound (32 page)

Did they have any other family? Had the
old man been their only income? Was young Peter now desperate to find work to
support his sister? These questions and many more ate at my conscience. Even
if I wanted to help them they would not accept my aid. I walked without purpose
or direction for an hour more before I finally resolved to find some way to
help them.

It didn’t ease the black cloud in my
heart, but it gave me enough purpose to return home at last. Harold was
very
happy to see me, in the sense that he was fairly put out. Being his lord
though he was obliged to keep much of his opinion to himself and when he saw my
face he knew better than to try and pester me about abandoning him.

I ignored his questions and sought
privacy in my room, locking the door behind me. Then I stared at the ceiling
for a long time.

The next day started much as I had
anticipated. Rose and Marc were both in good moods and feeling entirely too
chatty. I ignored them through most of breakfast. Eventually of course they
tired of my reticence and started asking more direct questions. I suspect Marc
would have waited, he knew me well enough to recognize my moods, but Rose was
having none of it.

“Are you going to tell us what’s wrong
or spend the entire day brooding?” Rose said finally.

My first impulse was to lash out at
her. I badly wanted to hurt someone, to give vent to my emotion, but I
didn’t. Instead I reminded her of that night, when we raided the warehouse,
and the man I had killed. The one she had suggested hiding afterward.

“You’re still beating yourself up over
something that happened over a year ago?” she interrupted.

“No, if you’ll let me finish, I’ll tell
you,” I ground out with some irritation. “I doubt you recall, but the man I
killed that night was named Jonathan Tucker.”

She started to argue about my use of the
term, ‘killed’, I could see it in her face as she opened her mouth. Luckily
Marc stopped her, putting a finger to her lips. As smart as Rose was she still
hadn’t picked up on the heart of the problem.

“I met his grandchildren yesterday,” I
said at last, and then I stopped. They both stared at me in astonishment.
Rose had put her hand over her mouth in an expression of more shock than I
could ever recall her showing before. “Their names are Peter and Lily Tucker
and they hate me with a passion. Peter came to look for a chance to stick a
knife in me during the ceremony yesterday, but his sister forced him to go
home.”

“How did you learn their names?” asked
Rose.

“I took on another man’s appearance and
followed them home,” I answered her, and then I described the conversation I
had had with them.

Marc whistled admiringly, “That was
quick thinking my friend.”

“It still doesn’t help me help them,” I
replied. “From the looks of things they were desperate for money and I don’t
think either of them have an income.”

Rose stood up and took my hands. “Stand
up,” she said sternly. I humored her, not sure what she had in mind, but after
I had risen she put her arms around me and embraced me. Then she leaned up and
kissed me on the cheek. “You are a sweet man Mordecai, I can see why Penny
loves you, but you cannot take the weight of the world upon your shoulders.”

I returned her hug, and then I replied,
“What would you have me do? Ignore them?”

She didn’t let go of me. “No, let me
take care of it. I know the city and my father has the resources here to help
them. I’ll make sure their fortunes change for the better and they need never
know you were the cause.” I felt another pair of arms around me as she finished.
Marc had joined the hug.

“I second the lady’s idea,” he said.

“Fine!” I answered with some
exasperation, shaking myself loose from the two of them. It was impossible to
fall into despair with friends such as these. “I want to know everything you discover,
as well as how you help them,” I told Rose.

“Naturally,” she said. “You can trust
my discretion.”

The sound of a knock came from the
hallway. The door to the dining room was open but Harold had knocked on the
doorframe to let us know he was entering, since we appeared to be in a personal
conversation. I had to give him credit, for all his brawn Harold was as
considerate as anyone I had ever met. “Sorry,” he said as he entered. “Hope I
didn’t interrupt, but I’m terribly hungry.”

Marc answered, “No, come in and eat.
You should hear all this as well.” Marc pointed at a chair and slid a plate of
sausages in that direction. Rose and I sat down as well and after a few
minutes she and Marc had brought Harold up to date on our conversation.

“So that’s why you ran off and left me
yesterday,” Harold said after they had finished.

“That about sums it up, yes,” I told
him. I could see he was still upset. He was probably having trouble figuring
out how to express his anger toward his liege-lord. Honesty, integrity, and
respect for my station were waging a hard fought battle in his mind.

“I really wish you had told me what you
intended to do,” he said at last. “My job here is to protect you and if you
don’t trust me I can’t possibly succeed.”

His wording impressed me; obviously he
had a brain between his ears. “That makes sense Harold. I do trust you by the
way, but when you told me that you couldn’t obey my order you effectively ended
our conversation. Do you understand why?”

He shook his head, “But Lord Dorian told
me…”

“Lord Dorian nothing!” I interrupted.
“I understand why he told you that but when it comes down to the line you have
to know who makes the final decisions, even if they conflict with your assigned
task.”

“Yes your Lordship,” he answered a bit
sullenly.

“You may think I’m being heavy handed
here but nothing that occurs around me is normal. I frequently learn things long
before anyone else is aware of them. Therefore if you are to serve me you must
accept that sometimes I will give an order that may not make sense. Can you
accept that?”

“Yes sir,” he replied.

I let my expression soften. “I’m sorry
for putting you in that situation Harold. I will try to avoid doing that in
the future. I will also try to give you more information whenever possible.”

The tension between Harold and me was
much better after that. Eventually Rose got up and headed for the door. Marc
spoke up then, “What’s your plan for today Rose?”

“I still haven’t found a blacksmith that
wants to move to Washbrook yet so I thought I would get an early start,” she
announced.

“I don’t plan to return for a couple of
days,” I said to reassure her.

She frowned, “I didn’t think you had
anything left to do in Albamarl.”

“Well I don’t, but I plan to use my time
productively. I have a lot of distractions at home, but here things are
relatively quiet. I thought I’d use a couple of days to make use of the
library and work on some things I’ve learned recently,” I said. More
specifically I wanted to try and understand some of the unfamiliar enchanting
schemata I had found in the book I had recovered.

“I see,” she answered. “Perhaps if I’m
lucky I will find your smith for you before you finish.”

“If not I’ll come back for you in a
week,” I told her. “It really isn’t a bother for me.”

She left after that and I retired to the
library. Marc had some sort of plan to approach the church of Celior. He was
hoping to gain access to their archives somehow. I had already asked him if he
wanted my help but he was being very tight-lipped about his plan so I gave him
some space. I had faith in him, if he needed my help he would ask.

That left me and Harold on our own. Let
me clarify… that left me to my own devices, while poor Harold was stuck trying
to figure out how to keep the guards we had brought with us from Washbrook from
becoming too bored. I felt a great deal of sympathy for him, and then I put it
out of my mind entirely.

***

I had been trying to understand the
‘trans-spatial storage device’ design for hours. It seemed maddeningly
familiar, since many of the runes involved were used in teleportation circles,
yet the rationale behind it still eluded me. A large part of the problem was
probably the fact that I didn’t really know what it was meant to do, so the
design confused me.

The enchantment seemed to be broken into
two parts, much like teleportation circles were, but both halves were kept
perpetually activated. That was the simple part, what really bothered me was
that one half seemed to be designed to constantly alter itself according to a
mathematical algorithm. Even worse, that algorithm was dependent upon the
exact location of the first half of the enchantment.

“This makes no sense,” I said running my
hands through my hair for the hundredth time. “It’s as if they intend for one
side of this thing to be permanently affixed while the other moves
constantly.” There is something to be said for talking to yourself aloud.
Sometimes it enables you to see what should have been patently obvious to you
all along.

“I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid,” I
told myself. I had let the mathematics obscure my vision of how it was meant
to work. One end would be designed around some sort of collapsible opening,
such as a hinged ring for example, but any circular opening would work.
Whenever that end was opened and took its full shape, the enchantment would be
activated, forming an open link between two spaces. A simple design would be a
bag or suitcase, that when opened would create a perpetual portal, between the
bag and a permanent storage space somewhere else.

Now that I understood what it was for I
could see a lot of immediate uses. I reached down and felt the small leather
pouch at my waist. Inside it I carried a collection of small iron spheres,
each loaded with energy and ready to explode when activated. I had found them
so useful during the recent war that I had made sure to keep a supply of them
ready at all times, yet the danger of carrying them still worried me. Using
something like this enchantment I could store them in a safely remote location,
yet still access them easily when I needed them.

I thought about the implications for a
few minutes. A portable storage container that could hold heavy or dangerous
items was only one possibility. Another would be connecting the portable
‘mouth’ to a place other than box or closet. If the immobile end were
underwater, say positioned on a river bottom then the other end could be opened
to provide a seemingly endless stream of fresh water. I was no expert on agriculture
but I could immediately see that it might easily solve many of the difficulties
involved in digging canals for irrigating crops.

The enchantment could also be easily
modified to create something more like a permanent portal, or gateway between two
places. Then my magically disadvantaged friends could travel between locations
without needing me to activate a circle for them. My imagination ran rampant
as I thought about the possibilities. I dreamed of building a house in which
each room was in a different place. I could look out of a window in the
kitchen and see the beach, or walk into the bedroom and gaze out upon a sylvan
forest scene. My mind was whirling with ideas.

I spent hours studying the design before
I finally began working on my own ‘portable storage device’. I had Harold send
one of the guards out to buy a durable leather pouch and a heavy duty strongbox
for me and once I had them I spent the evening connecting them via
enchantment. I found the process much easier using the stylus that I had
discovered. It made creating precision runes a snap and allowed me to work
much more quickly than usual.

Even so it was late that night before I
finished my first project. Looking at the plain leather pouch on the table I
felt a sense of pride. It didn’t look like much, but I knew what skill had
gone into it. I immediately wished Penny were around for me to show it to
her. “No matter,” I said to myself, “I’ll see her in another day or two and
she’ll be just as excited then.”

I imagined her in my mind’s eye, smiling
with her hand resting upon her swollen belly. That thought got me to thinking
about our baby and that eventually led me to yet another use for my new
favorite toy.

“Waste disposal!” I said out loud. That
idea made me laugh and then I realized I was getting a bit silly with sleep
deprivation. It was probably past midnight already. I decided to put myself
to bed but I was still chuckling as I walked down the hallway to my room.

The guard Harold had stationed outside
my room gave me an odd look, for I was still chuckling as I wished him good
night and shut the bedroom door.

The next day I tackled the ‘self-locking
door’ schemata, which turned out to be a lot simpler than I had imagined. It
was also about as exciting as it sounded. Essentially it was a method for
making sure a door or similar closure would close itself and automatically lock
after being left unattended for a period of time.

What I did find fascinating was the
method for creating a delay before the action of closing the door occurred. It
could be adjusted, so while the standard door would close within seconds of
being used, I could use the same technique to create a delay of minute, hours,
or even longer. Although I might never want a door that waited that long to
close itself, I could imagine any number of other enchants that might be useful
if I could set them to activate after a delay.