Chapter Ten
22 Jennitar, evening
Today saw a gradual erosion of the optimism I’d been feeling since we arrived in Pfulerre. This morning, when Cederic woke up, I made him sit down with me—well, no, first I finished writing and got back into bed naked, because I love the look on his face when he wakes up and finds me like that next to him. So after that, I made him sit down with me over breakfast (eggs, toast, bacon, pink juice, hashed potatoes, not a whiff of fish anywhere) and tell me what had happened last night.
“I am not certain our welcome was entirely genuine,” he said. “Dugan and I met with Daenen Radryntor and a few of the local mayors to discuss the needs of the Army for the next few months. Lady Radryntor was very polite in acceding to our requests, but it was clear she was unhappy with our presence here.”
“Well, you can’t really blame her, given the kind of burden the Army will be even for those few months,” I said.
“We are apportioning the supply needs among the towns near Pfulerre as well as the city itself,” Cederic said. “It is the fact that it is the Balaenic Army she is hosting that displeases her. She will not oppose her Emperor publicly, but I am certain she will not do more than she is explicitly asked to do.”
“As long as she does it, do we mind?” I asked.
Cederic sighed and forked up another piece of bacon. I have never once seen him eat with his bare hands and there’s never been an opportunity for me to ask him why. This wasn’t the right time either. “A reluctant consul is a consul who might be swayed to the other side if offered the right inducement,” he said when he’d finished chewing. “Lady Radryntor was supportive of the God-Empress until we were crowned, at which point she decided we were the more legitimate claimants to the Imperial throne. But these talks have revealed she is also a staunch patriot, and she is not happy about the idea of Balaen being given equal treatment by someone she sees as a purely Castaviran Emperor. She might decide Renatha Torenz, despite her evil madness, will be more likely to put Castaviran interests first.”
“But the former Empress is marrying the King of Balaen,” I said. “Shouldn’t that tell Lady Radryntor she’s more interested in integrating the countries than supporting Castavir?”
“You and I know Renatha Torenz intends to control the King and ultimately subjugate Balaen to Castavir,” Cederic said. “But Lady Radryntor does not, as yet, realize that. I have made your point to her and I think for now it continues to sway her to our side. That may not last.”
“How does she feel about a Balaenic on the Imperial throne?” I said.
“You will have to tell me,” Cederic said. “The question did not arise, and aside from greeting you on our arrival, she has not interacted with you. That might indicate disdain, or it might simply be coincidence, but in either case I have arranged for you to meet with her this afternoon to discuss Balaenic magic.”
“Why would she care about that?” I said.
“She is fascinated by magic and has cultivated a large cadre of mages here in Pfulerre,” Cederic said. “Apparently her interest in magic is greater than her distaste for Balaen. Whatever she may think of you as Empress-Consort, she certainly seems to respect you as a Balaenic mage.”
“So should I try to be an ambassador for my country, to ease her mind about Balaen and Castavir becoming one?” I said. “That seems like it could work against us, if she thinks I’m pandering to her.”
“Just be honest and forthright,” Cederic said, “as you always are. Ultimately there is nothing we can do to force Lady Radryntor to believe one way or another, so we will simply go on as we have in the past. But if you can use the pouvrin to show her we have more in common than she believes, that would benefit us tremendously.”
After breakfast, we went on a tour of Pfulerre—they don’t have collennas yet, I mean the kind people can ride in; of course they have collennas to power things—with Radryntor and a couple of local mayors. We rode in a wheeled chariot propelled by four men seated on smaller wheeled vehicles harnessed to our chariot. Cederic said it was a type of baezrel—I know I’m spelling that wrong—which is a vehicle that was invented in Pfulerre and is very popular here, and sure enough we saw a bunch of them as we went through the streets, slimmer than the ones pulling our chariot and mostly carrying only one person. I think Balaen needs to adopt them as much as we need to have collennas, though the latter might be too big to fit comfortably in most of these streets.
Pfulerre is a very pretty, very old, very big city, maybe twice the size of Lethess and more of a port town like Thalessa than a resort. The climate here is warmer now than it was when I visited Lethess, but obviously cooler than Pfulerrians are used to, because most of the people I saw on our tour were bundled up far more warmly than I thought was necessary.
Crowds gathered wherever we passed, and everyone cheered again, calling out our names—that was a strange feeling—and not seeming to care that I wasn’t Castaviran. Though they might not have realized that. It’s possible they thought I was Viravonian, thanks to my hair color. I think people in Castavir don’t migrate nearly as much as Balaenics do, if they assume every blond person comes from only one place in the country.
Radryntor was perfectly polite and friendly the whole time, and the mayors were even more so. I got the feeling they’d given us their unqualified support. That was reassuring, even if they aren’t in positions of power that could benefit us. It was more the feeling that there were Castavirans who thought we were a good choice to rule, and that felt good.
We finished our tour, and had lunch, and then Radryntor said, “Your Majesty, I would love to hear more about Balaenic magic, if you wouldn’t mind joining me?” and I agreed. We went to a salon decorated in blue that reminded me of a small version of the dressing room the God-Empress had brought me to the day she decided I wanted to marry Aselfos. This one didn’t stink of cedar, fortunately.
Radryntor offered me a seat, sat down opposite me, and said, “I understand your magic is very unlike ours, is that true?”
“It is,” I said.
“But it does the same things,” she said.
“We can duplicate the effects of some th’an or kathanas,” I said, “but there are things I can do that Castaviran mages can’t.”
“Can you show me?” she said, leaning forward in her eagerness. She was definitely acting like someone who wished she’d become a mage, though since she has hazel eyes, if she had, she would be a very frustrated mage right now.
I showed her as many pouvrin as I could, though I had to be careful with the fire pouvra because the room was filled with little wooden statues and big vases full of winter floral arrangements, all of them extremely flammable. She was most impressed with the little sphere of water I flew around the room and then dropped into one of the vases. “But you can’t produce fog,” she said.
“No, not yet, but we’ve learned Balaenic and Castaviran magic is interchangeable, so there’s no reason I couldn’t learn to,” I said.
I don’t know why that annoyed her, but she suddenly became a lot less friendly. “But Castaviran magic is capable of much more than Balaenic magic,” she said.
“Castaviran magic has a tradition going back centuries,” I said, “while Balaenic mages before the convergence had to stay hidden, and piece together pouvrin from ancient texts. So it’s more accurate to say Castaviran mages are capable of more than Balaenic ones are. For the moment. But that won’t last, because we’re trying to find a way to combine the magics the way they’re meant to be.”
That definitely irritated her. “Why would that even matter?” she said.
“For the same reason it mattered that the convergence bring the worlds together as perfectly as possible,” I said. “There’s supposed to be only one magic, and we aren’t sure why there isn’t yet, but we know when it happens, magic is going to look very different than it does now, and be more powerful. It will complete the convergence.”
“I see,” Radryntor said. “But if Castaviran magic is more flexible, wouldn’t it make sense for Balaenic mages to adapt their magic to it? That would create only one type of magic.”
This was where I started to feel I should be very, very careful in what I said to her. “That’s true,” I said, “but history says before the worlds separated, magic wasn’t like either Castaviran or Balaenic magic. Both of those developed because of the worlds being apart. We’re trying to return to the pre-divergence state.”
“I apologize for my bluntness, your Majesty,” Radryntor said, making “your Majesty” sound close to an insult, “but that seems as if it would be a waste of both our mages’ experience, if they’ll have to learn a completely different type of magic. Why not let things stay as they are?”
“We hope the new magic will build on what we’ve already learned, Lady Radryntor,” I said, managing not to make her name sound like an insult, “but we feel it’s more important to restore the original conditions. We believe magic will be much more powerful if we do.”
“I see,” Radryntor said, in a chilly way, and she turned the conversation very swiftly toward asking me about Balaen, and my life, and it was obvious from her first question that she wanted to find reasons to think poorly of my country and of me. I steered the conversation away from the less savory parts of my life, downplayed my history, and did my best not to make Balaen sound superior to Castavir, even though in some ways it is. The conversation made me even more convinced both countries are going to benefit by coming together. I’m not sure it changed Radryntor’s mind at all.
Finally, after about an hour and a half, we ran out of things to say to each other, and I excused myself. I was tired from working all those pouvrin, which is embarrassing because I slept so well and have eaten such good food. It’s not as if I haven’t been practicing.
So I went and took a nap, and Cederic woke me before dinner to join him for a meeting with the mayors of the towns to the north, in the direction of Lethess. In the first weeks after the convergence, Pfulerre went through some civil turmoil Radryntor brought them out of—she may be a bigot, but she’s a good leader. During that time, the northern towns clashed a few times with people from Lethess, though nothing really serious because Lethess doesn’t have more than a token city guard. The Pfulerrian troops (also not much more than a token, I guess) were too busy putting down riots in the big city to be bothered to go after them.
By the time everything was settled, Lethess had withdrawn completely into itself, marshalled a city militia, and was able to drive off every attack Pfulerre sent. Now the two cities leave each other alone, but these three mayors complained that Lethess raids them occasionally, and while they’re able to drive them off, it’s weakened them and they’re afraid they won’t be able to hold out indefinitely. They want Cederic to do something about it.
Cederic said he would send a detachment of troops to each town (he told me and Mattiak afterward it would ease their supply burden too, getting some of these towns to support part of the Army) and that he would try to reason with the Lord Governor of Lethess. Not that this is likely to help, if Granea Amelessar is as unreasonable as Domenessar. She’s one of only two female Lords Governor, and if the Chamber Lord Debarra Jakssar is any indication, she’s going to be even more stubborn and hard-nosed than her male counterparts. But it sounds like we’re going to make the attempt anyway.
23 Jennitar
I spent the day with the mages. Everyone’s feeling tired these days, what with all the failed attempts at understanding why we can apply our will in such different ways and have magic still work. It took me three tries
23 Jennitar, nearly midnight
It’s not us. It’s the magic. It’s getting weaker.
I’ve spent ten years—almost eleven, now—learning pouvrin, and as a result I’ve also learned a lot about the ideal conditions for working a pouvra. The more weary your body is, the harder it is to bend your will to the pouvra. Same thing with when you’re sick, or if you’re in pain—that’s why I had to stay in Lethess all those years ago, because my broken arm hurt badly enough I couldn’t work any pouvrin and I would have been defenseless on the road.
So I assumed, when I felt so tired working pouvrin recently, the tiredness was making them hard to manifest. It was actually the other way around: I was growing tired because it is increasingly difficult to work magic.
Because I figured this out about three hours ago, when I was already tired, I couldn’t prove it myself. So I tackled Cederic. It wasn’t a very good experiment, given that:
1. For all I knew, the problem was me, and every other mage had no problems;
2. Only Balaenic mages might be having problems; and
3. Cederic, as Kilios, might not struggle with magic even if there were something wrong with it in general.
But I had to try. The idea of magic getting weaker, or of pouvrin becoming less effective…it’s too horrible to contemplate, and yet—anyway. I explained what I’d experienced and asked him to think of a kathana, or a th’an, that might reveal the same effects. He thought about it for a while, then did some complicated th’an on the floor with his fat writing tool that seemed to do nothing, but after a few minutes he stood up and said, “You are correct, magic has become weaker.”
“But how is that possible?” I said. “Did the convergence do something?”
“I have no more idea than you what might have happened,” he said. “But I think your mages now have a more urgent problem to solve than bringing magic together.”
“We need to know if the weakening is getting worse,” I agreed. “Will it be all right if I don’t join you for the journey to Lethess tomorrow?”
“I think we have established—my apologies—that your presence matters little to these Lords Governor who can see only that you have no surname,” he said. “So I would not have asked you to come in any case. Your efforts are better spent here, at least for now.”
I don’t know what we’re going to do. We’ve been complaining of tiredness, of difficulties, for weeks now without realizing it wasn’t just us. If things are getting worse, and we missed our opportunity to keep that from happening…no, that’s paranoia talking, because there’s no reason to believe the worst has happened. I’m going to bed now, and in the morning I’ll be able to face this better. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep at all.
24 Jennitar
We did a lot of experiments today, all of which proved magic is weaker than it used to be. No way to tell if it’s growing weaker over time. We all think, looking back on the past few weeks, that it has been getting harder to work magic—for example, how the warming th’an seemed to be less effective—but that could be paranoia.
Anyway, we succeeded in exhausting ourselves, physically, mentally, and spiritually, because not only do we not know what to do about it (if there’s anything we can do about it) there wasn’t any indication in all our previous research that this was a possibility. I haven’t felt this discouraged since I was trying and failing to manifest the fire-rope pouvra under threat of the God-Empress’s lethal displeasure. I’m doing everything I can to keep the others from picking up on it.