waiting at the top. She was wearing one of the new warmth cloaks, which
seemed sensible enough, and awkwardly holding something to her chest.
She gave a startled squeak, and backed away for a moment before she
recognized me.
“Oh! Sorry, sir, I didn’t realize that was you for a moment. Miss Avilla
sent me with lunch. Unless you were coming back to the tower?”
“No, I need to make as much progress as I can today. What have you
got there?”
She smiled. “It’s pretty clever. She made minced meat rolls, but they
would have gone cold long before I could get them to you in this weather. So
Miss Avilla collected stones from the river and heated them on the stove. Then
we filled the bottom of a pot with them, put the rolls on top, and wrapped it in
towels so I could carry it without getting burned.”
She set the pot down as she explained, and spread a blanket in the lee
of the parapet so we could sit out of the wind. Then she produced a small
decanter of water, and a cup.
I shook my head. “That girl is a miracle worker with this domestic
stuff, isn’t she? Well, you may as well have a seat. How are you doing?”
She seemed a bit surprised at the question, but recovered quickly.
“Well enough, sir. I’ve been helping Miss Cerise run errands all morning.
We’ve traded off two of the cloaks already, and we’ve been procuring all sorts
of supplies for Miss Avilla. Mind you, no one wants to part with food.”
“I’m not surprised,” I sighed. “I suppose we’ll have to do something
creative to stock up for the trip. Bribe an official with magic items, or maybe
go find a lost granary to recover. I notice the Baron has salvage teams going
out to the surrounding farms already.”
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“Yes, sir. Um, do we really have to leave?” She looked out over the
frozen landscape around the town. “That seems awful dangerous.”
“We’re going to be in danger no matter what we do,” I pointed out.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be a lot better prepared this time. We won’t be on foot,
and I’ve got some ideas for magic weapons to discourage any monsters that try
to bother us.”
“If you say so, sir. I’ll miss the tower, though. I wish we could just
close the doors and stay behind those walls until this is all over. The thought of
going out there again...”
She huddled in on herself, clearly terrified at the idea. Poor girl. I
suppose I couldn’t blame her for that. I put a comforting arm around her, and
she curled up against me.
“Tina and I are lucky you came along when you did,” she said softly.
There wasn’t much I could say to that, so I occupied myself with eating.
The food was excellent as usual, but hungry as I was it didn’t last long.
“Master Black?” Beri asked. “Does it take a special talent to learn
magic? Or can anyone do it?”
“Are you interested?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. The stories all say bad things happen to
people who tamper with dark forces. But I can’t help thinking that if Miss
Cerise ran into some terrible monster in a dark alley, the monster would run
away screaming. I’d give a lot to be like that.”
“Hmm. Well, there’s more than one kind of magic,” I said, repeating
what Cerise had told me just a few days before. “Some you have to be born
with, but others anyone can learn if they’re willing to put in the work.
Unfortunately it takes years to get to where you can do anything impressive.
Cerise and Avilla have both been practicing since they were children, and
they’re just starting to blossom.”
“I see.” She shifted, her hand slipping under my cloak to rest on my
chest. “I suppose I’ll just have to stay close, then. Is there anything else I can
do for you, sir?”
Was she trying to flirt with me? Well, this was hardly the place for
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that.
I let her go, and set the lid back on the pot. “No, I’m good. I’d better get
back to work now.”
Conjuring metal took easily a hundred times more energy than stone,
but in the end it was the only feasible solution. I hung each leaf of the gate on
an iron post set deep into the stone, with a counterweight that would be hidden
inside the wall. That let me build each door out of a framework of iron bars
several inches thick, covered with a two-inch facing of iron plate studded
liberally with spikes. The inner surface got a much thinner layer of iron plate,
and I was able to fuse all of it together into a single seamless mass with a bit
of effort. The whole thing took a couple of hours to build, including the iron
beams that could be dropped across the inside of the gate to hold it shut. But
the end result was light enough for a couple of men to open and close, albeit
with difficulty.
A few men from the current gate garrison wandered out for a look
while I was working on it, and their sergeant offered some shrewd advice on
details like where to put vision slits and the door into the gatehouse. I ended up
installing a portcullis, along with quite a few arrow slits and murder holes
covering the approach to the gate.
They also pointed out some of the practical problems inherent in living
in such a structure, which convinced me to go ahead and install fireplaces on
each floor and a few privies in discreet locations. It was far from ideal, but
that way they’d be able to get by if I never got a chance to put in magical
heating or plumbing.
Later that afternoon, once I’d finally finished the gatehouse and started
on the next stretch of wall, I got my next visitor. This time it was a burly fellow
with graying hair and a scraggly beard, carrying a weathered-looking spear
and bundled up in a coat and cloak that seemed quite well-used. He was
accompanied by a couple of younger men, also armed with spears, but from the
way they focused on surveying the snow-covered fields around us I surmised
they were here as his bodyguards.
I was raising a new stretch of wall when I noticed them, and dropped
back to ground level to see what they wanted. As the older man approached I
noted that he wore a large silver amulet outside his cloak, bearing an odd
knotwork symbol that looked sort of like three overlapping crescent moons.
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“Any idea who that is?” I asked the leader of my current bodyguard
squad. What was his name, again? I’ve never been good with names, and there
was so much coming and going it was getting hard to keep track.
“That’s Holger Drakebane,” the soldier explained in a low tone. “He’s
the High Priest of the temple here in Lanrest.”
Sadly there was no time for further questions.
“Ho there, wizard! I’d like a word with you.”
Well, that was different. What was the proper form of address for a
high priest, anyway? Heck if I know, and guessing wrong would look pretty
strange. I’d have to wing it.
“Ho yourself, priest! I suppose I can spare a few minutes from the wall.
What brings you all the way out here?”
He pulled up in surprise, and for a moment I thought he was going to
take offense. But then he laughed.
“‘Priest’, indeed! That’ll show me. Holger is the name. I understand