To: Yaroslava Ivanova, District of the Lower Tanais, Rome-upon-Tanais, Upper Quarter, Palace of the Seventeenth Heir-son, Eastern Wing
Dearest Cousin Yarka,
I write with good news and bad. The bad news, as I have had it from the mouth of Major-General Spitignov, is that your eldest brother is deceased. The good news is that I have been assigned as his new assistant, or perhaps I should say minder, which is in some minds effectively a promotion to acting brigadier. I hope your grandfather (my granduncle!) may find in the news some cause to reconsider the matter I broached with him back in April.
Though I am sending this by special post and it should thus not be grubbed over by the army censors, I will be circumspect and give you only the details which should not matter if the wrong eyes fall upon this page. Hopefully it is not opened so often as to let out the scents of the flowers I have pressed within these pages; there is an excellent greenhouse in the Istros District Military Headquarters, primarily for the growth of reagent and medicinal plants, and I was permitted to sample it.
As you know, the Wallachian prince was said to be swept away in a storm, leaving the Ceres to make port at Tanais as a ghost ship. However, we now believe it is possible – say this not in polite company, I tell you this in confidence – that he was never on the ship in the first place. His father was a most puissant wizard, known as Vladimir the Dragon.
The young prince, also named Vladimir in an unimaginative decision of a similar sort to what your father made (rest his soul) in naming your brother (unfortunate), was supposedly kept suppressed at the Sultan’s court. But if the Sultan won him over from an early age, who is to say that he was not trained in the Sultan’s court? That he is not loyal to the Sultan?
A man matching his description was sighted several times heading north and west along the Tauridan coast – lands held jealously but not loyally by the Sultan, we have reliable sources there. That Yalita was put to fire is perhaps some sort of ruse by the Sultan, who has sent this prince from Taurida across the western part of the Axine Sea to raise rebellion.
Yours truly, if you will have me –
–Igor Vladimir Tsarevich
P.S.: The General is not so fearless after all. Mention of Vladimir the Dragon when I briefed him had him startle in his seat and begin to breathe in and out very quickly, until he was reassured that the Dragon was long ago dead by the hand of his successor Vladislav, known as the Dragonslayer. I had thought the man fearless, but he has perhaps gotten old before his time. Hopefully, the Dragon’s son is less fearsome.
The oddest thing is that he has requested “another” apprentice, saying he was quite pleased with the first one. I am quite confident he was not assigned an apprentice, and I’ve already been through the very short list of gifted officers assigned to his last command (from Major Pavlov on down to Banneret Teushpa) without finding a match. Ivan did not leave behind any documentation of an apprentice – did he write anything to you about this man? I am puzzled, and I do not like mysteries.
----------------------------------------
To: Yaroslava Ivanova, District of the Lower Tanais, Rome-upon-Tanais, Upper Quarter, Palace of the Seventeenth Heir-son, Eastern Wing
Sweet Cousin Yarka,
It pains me to say that with the rail line to having been destroyed by inimical forces just short of Tyras – if you sent me any letters, they must have been mislaid along with the last batch of our supplies. This letter will be the last to arrive by special post – I must return to Aegyssus posthaste – as the last train to attempt to reach Tyras is now a pool of cooled slag and ash covering nearly a desyatina of land. It is a state secret that the rail line has been cut, but I cannot see how it will be restored in less than several months.
The disaster occurred in the dark of night and left no survivors, so it is anyone’s guess if it is some unknown catastrophic form of sabotage of the firebox engine or an attack by some great mage or elemental spirit. Given your access to the libraries of Tanais and your well-rounded education, I invite you to speculate at your leisure, for we are all confounded. I do not know which possibility is more concerning – if a firebox engine of the size used in a locomotive is capable of such thorough destruction, it will rewrite the rules of modern warfare. If a mage can call forth such volume and intensity of elemental fire in a sudden strike, then the greatest new mage of our generation works for our enemies.
I have not had any news from your grandfather, which saddens me, but please do tell him that I have the trust and affection of our most whimsical general, for I delivered him not one, but two apprentices – both of low birth for their talents, in case his whimsy proved fatal – and he has taken to trying to teach them.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
This exercise has proven fruitful in gaining a description of his previous apprentice, which has resolved one mystery and created several more. This was a person that your dear departed brother brought to my attention. I am now reconciling his correspondence with the descriptions of the general, and am now greatly concerned that we may encounter this apprentice on one side or another of the borders of Wallachia.
With deepest affection –
–Igor Vladimir Tsarevich
----------------------------------------
To: Yaroslava Ivanova, District of the Lower Tanais, Rome-upon-Tanais, Upper Quarter, Palace of the Seventeenth Heir-son, Eastern Wing
Beautiful Cousin Yarka,
I pain from the lack of reply from your grandfather. Please tell me you have not gotten engaged in my absence – and pray speak well of me to him! Supervising (or “assisting”) General Spitignov is a very delicate assignment that precludes my taking leave from deployment in Wallachia.
Indeed, by way of an example, it will be some time between the writing of this letter and when I can place it in the hands of imperial post – for I am writing in northern Rumelia, of all places. Ognyan was not convinced by pure reason alone that reports of the missing prince south of the Istros must have been confusion with one of his brothers or cousins – Radu the Handsome is one of the Sultan’s loyal officers – and could not be dissuaded from an empirical investigation.
I am confident that Ognyan is more puissant than any mage-prince the Sultan has chosen to exile to northern Rumelia to guard the border, and we have a strong company of steam-knights with us, but still, no matter is certain in warfare! Comfort is scarce in Rumelia, and I fear that the general will yet trigger open war between the Golden Empire, the vile Turks, and the barbaric Avars.
Until we meet again, I am yours–
–Igor Vladimir Tsarevich
P.S. Unable to prove General S. wrong – verifications that younger Vladimir present at monastery in Moldavia, Radu dispatched to Thessaly by Sultan Allaedin & would not in any case force Rumelians to renounce the Sultan’s prophet, General S. insistent that greater magics used & that Danesti cousins not trained in such.
P.P.S. We are to go north and west and cross the Istros – reports that the southern Sarmatian Mountains crossed in force. This letter will go north and east and to the Istros with the steam knights & may arrive after my next letter, luck depending.
P.P.P.S. Please tell your grandfather that I have been patient as a saint in putting up with the delusions of General Spitignov – panicked delusion, there is no possibility one prince could go from place to place so quickly unless he had wings with which to fly. Clearly Ognyan has been gulled!
----------------------------------------
To: Yaroslava Ivanova, District of the Lower Tanais, Rome-upon-Tanais, Upper Quarter, Palace of the Seventeenth Heir-son, Eastern Wing
Treasured Cousin Yarka,
We are now fixed in encampment in the southern Sarmatians, in a fort we have raised next to the ruins of an older castle on the banks of the Ordessus River – the countryside is full of nuisance and uprising, the prince supposedly around every corner. His allies from Avaria, however, are not so omnipresent – the general caught them on their way through the mountain passes. Their leader, a woman named Elisabeta, clearly thought herself a real war mage; she bore one of those oversized Gothic swords that have come into fashion in the west among “double soldiers,” and wore wizard armor fit for a prince. Any mere boyar would be jealous to possess such!
Upon her capture, she swore she would not tell the general anything; and thus inadvertently preserved her life, as Ognyan Spitignov is determined to extract from her the essential secrets that I doubt she has. Her screams echo from the top of Mount Cetatea daily; she has by this point none of her toes remaining. I feel confident she has nothing to tell us; she was promised to the Dragon’s son as a child, and is little more than a puppet of Avaria.
Fervently yours–
— Igor Vladimir Tsarevich
----------------------------------------
To: Yaroslava Ivanova, District of the Lower Tanais, Rome-upon-Tanais, Upper Quarter, Palace of the Seventeenth Heir-son, Eastern Wing
Esteemed Cousin Yarka,
If you wish ever for us to unite, bid from your grandfather the favor of speaking on my behalf, for circumstances have conspired to generate a failure that may be placed on my shoulders.
Did I not say the prince would not be able to be everywhere and everywhen that he was credited with unless he had wings to fly? Did I not say he was the greatest new mage of our generation? Please let that be known!
Our fort built upon the banks of the Ordessus is no more; I returned to it in daylight not a week after the fateful battle. In every hundred paces from the ruins of the old Wallachian castle down to the Istros, there is a spear thrust into the dirt, crowned with the remains of an unfortunate arquebusier of the Golden Empire.
I write now from Tyras as a loyal Colonel of the Imperial Army; unfortunately, duty (and certain unwarranted accusations of cowardice related to my continued survival by officers eager to lay blame anywhere but on one of the Emperor’s old favorites) requires that I seek to bolster the defenses of Tyras. We must have artillery, mounted to fire at elevation – such as on the latest warships.
Yours to the very end, should it come to such–
— Igor Vladimir Tsarevich