Chapter VII - The Order wants YOU!

Chapter VII
The Order Wants YOU

"… to obey the rulings of the archmagi, follow the decisions of the council of Elders without question…”
––The oath of the magi initiates at Carenath.

Iola was upset.

“You have decided what?” Damn it, I have been studying the healing arts for three years; my next Grand Examinations are in less than two months' time; I have been preparing for them for half a year or more! “Are you aware that my assessments are scheduled to the ides of Mossenur, my assigned Tract is due to be graded even earlier than that?” Magic apprentices wrote tracts, not thesis or treatises; these were the foundation concepts for what would later on become a tome on the Arcane Arts. That bridge she would have to cross far later, in six years’ time. For now, it was a Tract.
A Tract whose concern she had elected herself, an investigation of the similarity of the arcane structure of Magic Shields and that of certain elemental states of water (forcussing especially on salt solutions). She had nearly finished with it; all the experiments she had had to do (a lot, in spite of the largely theoretical nature of the topic), had been tremendously successful. Her theories had been almost fully supported by what she had found: Though he had had to correct her thesis regarding the angles of the most effective shield, which turned out to be shaped like Ice crystals rather than salt, a hexagonal, not a square structure; and the rates of energy exhaustion were somewhat significant if the shield was kept up under the pressure of magical attacks. Also, the effects of an added catalyst of gillyweed, proved to be far less strong than she had believed to be. But now that she actually sat down to write the reasoning, she found she still had to polish on a lot of it before she went on to formlate the conclusion, before the final concepts and principles, and the basis for the dense, informative composition of a magical tome could be laid down. She would need all the time she could spare during the next two weeks, all the time she did not spend on preparing for her examinations.
It was what some called the Hell month, among the apprentices of the Tower. There would hardly be another time as stressful for them until they reached the seventh circle, where they had to perform another demanding assessment.
She was in the midst of a breakthrough, she often found. If she were given more time for this investigation, she might be able to revolutionize the entire school of magic shielding with the Aquamantic concepts. She could even receive the honorary Order of the Fourth, for her great contributions to the magic of the waves.
And in the midst of all this, she was being called upon by the Elders? They had their mercenaries, their trained mages, and their Aventers, to take care aof the affairs of the Academy. They didn’t need to bother an apprentice, much less an apprentice about to sit in her examinations. What were they thinking of?
“You can’t be serious about this! If I cannot write the Tract to its conclusion now, my next chance will be in another year! Would you have me void and resign my chance at finishing the Third Level entirely for an entrire year, at least?”

“Iola Lyrian. If you do not help on this quest, the chances are that neither you, nor anyone else, will ever have the chance to write another Tract, or sit an examination, at this entire Academy. Or in the world.”

Ah yes, the world. It always seems to need us when we have least time to spare. Oh dear.

“So, Iola Lyrian, we have elected you to accompany the Aventer Morinan-Wo.”

And that put her to a full stop. She had been about to start arguing against the unfairness of this order, against the unfairness of choosing an apprentice so buried in work, who would be totally inept on a world-important wuest anyway, when she heard the name.

Morinan-Wo.

The Nightbird.

“Morinan-… who?” She pronounced the last syllable in just the right way for it to sound like a question. What a pun.

“Yes, the Nightbird. He is our most trusted agent in such matters, and there is no other possibility than to send him.

“That will… complicate matters rather”, she immediately noted. Complication was an understatement. If half of what she had heard of Morinan-Wo was true, then complications were his second name.

“Tha task before you is quite simple, actually. There will be no combat, it is to be be hoped, and hardly any sneaking. Certainly no open battles or assassination targets. We merely want you to accompany him on a mission of embassy. He will be a negotiator for peace, a negotiator sent by the Order of the Magi, and the Academy of Carenath to the Lendranian rebls. You see, our Elder s of Coundcil have agreed that to forge peace, we fill wirst need balance: Balance between two powers, two powers that so far oppose each other. If they continue to oppose each other when the Night of the Ravager falls over the land, and the threat that Derlen Lightweaver has told you of already comes to pass, then we are doomed. They will need to forge peace, and they will have to forge it quickly. And they will not do that, unless they both think they have something to gain from making peace and that can not happen unless they know themselves to be equally powerful. So we support the rebels for now. And now, after all this madness has come to pass, we send a negotiation troop to deal and parely with the Lendaranians.

You are being sent to her Highness the resigned, deposed and – by order of the King impeached for High Treason – Countess Lendra IV Herself, who has decided to break with the royal court and support the peasant partisans in their upriseing. It is she who not only lends legitimacy and influence to this revolt, but also acquires the weapons, the military support… everything. Any negotiation to be done with the rebels would have to be conducted with and through her - she is the head of the rebellion and its face. If you ask me, the rebellion never made a better move when they let her join them and subsidize them with her ouwn power, resources and authority.

Some say she pursues selfish goals with this, but that is her own affair, is it not? Whenever has a rebellion succeeded through the pure good will of everyone involved? Down beanath, there is the urge for power.

“And you will go and negotiate with them, in two days hence. Your role will be minor probably during the traveling itself, though you will likely do a lot of the talking once you meet the countess Lendra. Morinan-Wo is not one to make much words, and while the subtlety of stealth is his greatest skill, the subtlety of diplomacy is lost on him totally. He will rely on you to lead the discussions, the parley and the debates. But heed this: Grant no support before we authrize you, and agree to no offer or request that you have not yet confirmed with us via our magical communication link.”

Ramon was referring to the link he had established mental link he had established half a year ago with Iola, when she had to travel to the capital before. This mental link would be mmensely useful, not the least because it offered the bearer direct, immediate rapport at will – on both sides – wherever in the entire continent she happened to be (there was some stuff in the theory of the spell about open fire and void, but that hardly applied over the relatively moderately climated landscape that most of Atharellia was).

Yes, magical rapport. That would aid them all immensely.

“But, tell me, why then have you chosen me to do this? There are others with these mental links, others morte powerful and more experiences. You will feed me my lines anyway during the negotiation, so why bother with me?”

Ramon grew exasperated.

“We will not feed you your lines, nor will we actually be able to communicate with you often. You are deliberately making this task sound simpler than it actually is. In actuality, we will have little opportunity to keep in constant rapport - also because the rebel’s mages will sense it. They have skilled Thaliomancers in their pay, who they use for their negotiation sessions with ambassados just as they employ them for their sessions with captives. I am told they hardly need torture there…

“Anyway, we cannot stay in rapport while you negotiate. If you are lucky, you may manage to sneak off a message once or twice during your stay.”

“But then… what did you mean by authorizing me to offer support? How will you offer that support authorization other than by mental rapport – what are you going to use?”

“This device here.”

He handed Iola a little shred of parchment that shimmered a bit in the flickering light of the run-down candles. There were tiny splotches of ink on the parchment, otherwise it was blank.

“Is that a.—“

“Yes, a parchment with a built-in faxeran spell. Do not lose it, it has cost us a lot of skill, power and time to produce. While you are shielded away in whatever kind of room they will accommodate you in, you may be able to use it. May. Unless they put an nullifying field around your room for the time you are there, just to make it more difficult for us. Understand that the rebels might be desperate, but they will not throw themselves at the nearest chance that presents itself to them. It will be difficult to earn their trust, even while you are actually working to betray them – not actually destroy them, but at least incapacitate them to neutralize the conflict. You might not succeed.

“If nothing else helps, escape.”

“And you will be sending me my orders by this sheet of parchment.”

“Yes.”

“But that makes even less sense! You say you didn’t need me because of the link, why then? Another could take this parchment, even one who never established a mental connection in her life could communicate through it. We have negotiators. Trained ones” She added, wincing at the implication of sending someone like, for instance, Ramon. He was a nice enough fellow, but he shared that slight arrogance that was common among certain, otherwise very sociable mages. Put him before a moog to negotiate and he’d quickly mess it up.

“Don’t blame me, I never put your name forward. It seems that you have been found trustworthy and competent enough to save the world – be proud.” He grinned sarcastically. “And if you really want to know, I heard tell that the ones who decided that you’d be the one to go were Mina and Ana.” Iola winced. Ana, Arcanor and Archmagus of the Fifth, sorceress of the Light, and Mina, Cerenan of the First, the most resourceful Thaliomancer that the Wind Tower had put forth within a century. And both reputed to be the two greatest seeresses of this Age.

“Pre-ordained by fate and Chosen to be hero of the Age by Lerice, the Weaver and her chosen prophets, the sorceresses Mina Aelhwyn and Ana Shalenas?” She had to break a smile at this point.

“It would appear so, yes.”

“So I’d better go packing right away then…” She began retreating into her little student cell. She was about to close the door, when a thought seemed to hit her. She hesitated, then addressed Ramon again, who had already turned away.

“Wait!” Ramon stopped and faced her. “Could you possibly find a way that will allow me to still hand in my tract when all this is done? And can you get the examiners to accept it?”

This time it was Ramon who had to break a chuckle. “Rest assured, I will. Saving the world and leading secret negotiations are certainly legitimate excuses for a delayed research paper. Just finish it when you return, and I shall personally make sure it gets the marking it deserves.”

“Thank you. And now excuse me while I get ready to embark on my world-saving quest.” She retreated into the room and closed the door. Ramon went away down the hallway, his slow steps sounding over the hard stone floor and reverberating from the high ceiling. He was still grinning a little; sending off mage apprentices to go out and be heroines had turned out to be a lot more fun that it should have been.

I get far too little opportunities to do this.

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