Amegnon arrived back in his offices, the portal he stepped through was violently destroyed behind him. The Hammer didn't want him coming back, soul oath or not.
"Arch-magus?"
"Ah, Steven. I was just going to find you."
Amegnon turned away from his own desk to look over at Steven's. Olivander had set up a desk for his assistant in the office because he got sick of trying to yell down the stairs to the man. Amegnon hadn't seen a reason to change that.
Steven had been the loyal assistant to Olivander for years, but Amegnon retained his services because he was exceptional at what he did. If Amegnon let him go, he would be scooped up by one of the other High Magi before the end of the day.
"I thought you would be at the front lines for at least another week. But I'm glad you're back! I have many things that require your attention."
A black bird flew in through the window tower and exploded. Steven casually snapped the message left behind out of the air and read it quickly.
"Ah, I'm afraid that will need to wait. You've been summoned to the council."
"Summoned? Am I not in charge of the council?"
"Think of it as a scale, you are on one side, and the High Magi are on the other, balanced. You outrank any one of them, but you can't ignore them. Not that it would be wise to do so regardless."
"Thank you, Steven. Can you send word that I will attend them shortly. I was just in a battle and should clean up."
A bright yellow bird formed in Steven's hand and flew out the window.
"Done! Can I get you anything before you head over?"
"Can you find out what they want?"
Steven pulled a sheet of paper from a stack on his desk.
"This is likely what they are concerned about, unless there are new developments that I am unaware of."
He thanked Steven and excused himself. It would definitely be about the new developments. The High Magi had connections everywhere. Amegnon was coming to realize that Olivander had been much different than his peers. He knew many people, but outside Steven, he kept almost no information network. Why would he need one? He simply showed up somewhere whenever he wanted to know something.
Amegnon would need to begin building his own network. He mused over bringing Steven into the fold. The man was dependable and good at his job, but Amegnon worried about his loyalties after serving Olivander for so long. In a way, he could say the same thing about himself. Had Olivander not earned his loyalty? It was an old argument. In the end, he always came back to the same answer. Olivander would never have supported the things he needed to do, so Amegnon had needed to get him out of the way. Loyalties be damned.
Once Amegnon was cleaned up, he met Steven in the bottom of the Arch-magus tower, and they headed to the council chambers. The council was housed in the palace proper, while the Arch-magus tower was on the greater castle grounds, inside the wall that surrounded the palace, towers, courtyard, and several other buildings.
Amegnon waited a moment outside the palace while Steven collected some last minute information. The man returned promptly and reported.
"All ten High Magi are in attendance. That's a rare occurrence outside formal occasions. I would be wary of attempts to question your position and a vote to oust you from your position. That would require a unanimous vote from the ten council members and approval from either the Queen or her right hand."
Great. The right hand who probably already wanted him gone but lacked a good enough excuse to outright execute him. Perhaps the Queen would back him, but that would be a tough sell with ten High Magi recommending his expulsion.
Steven continued, interrupting his thoughts.
"If that happens, your best defense is leaning on the vacancy that would create this close to the conclave. There must be an Arch-magus at that time, and it is unlikely they have a suitable candidate outside of begging Olivander to come back. I doubt he would accept."
Amegnon gave the man a confused look. "You don't think he'd come back?"
"Excuse me, Arch-magus. I don't mean to diminish your relationship with the former Arch-magus, but I knew him quite well. He disliked being Arch-magus for a multitude of reasons. When he took up the mantle it cost him much, and he likely feels that losing it cost him just as much. He's a more fragile person than you might imagine, and I believe asking him to take it up again would break him."
That was news to Amegnon. He had known the man for nearly twenty years. He had known him before he became Arch-magus. But Amegnon had been a child. He couldn't have understood what Olivander was going through at the time, even if he had noticed.
"Thank you, Steven. You've been very helpful."
"I am loyal to the Arch-magus, sir. If you need something that will help you defend and protect the kingdom in any way, you have but to ask."
Amegnon nodded to the man and walked into the council chamber entry room. Many other assistants were milling about and talking. They bowed their heads to the Arch-magus. He found that odd. No one ever bowed their heads to Olivander. He wasn't Olivander though. He ignored them and passed into the council chamber.
The chamber was a circular room with a circular table. Fifteen chairs surrounded the table. Ten were filled with the High Magi, and Amegnon claimed the eleventh. Two of the other chairs were reserved for guests, and the final two were reserved for the Queen and her right hand. Both were rarely used.
Ten people stared at Amegnon from around the table. He had known most of them for years, but there were two he had only met briefly after becoming Arch-magus
As the senior member of the council, Lucindre had the right to begin the meeting. She usually passed it off, but today she was ready.
"Amegnon, how nice of you to join us. We've called this meeting to find out what the hell it is that you think you're doing?"
"Lucindre, it's lovely to see you again. It's been too long," he said with a smile that he knew would anger the woman.
"Don't try to butter me up you little weasel."
"Lucindre," a man wearing golden robes and a lion's pelt over a shoulder admonished the old woman, "can we act with a little decorum?"
"Decorum? You can demand whatever you want when you prove yourself to be anything other than a bag of hot air, Ansel."
Ansel bristled at that. Amegnon happened to agree with Lucindre. Ansel was, in one word, soft. He never raised his voice, he had few passions. He wasn't known as a warrior or scholar. He was an easily manipulated man who valued appearances above all else. How he ended up as a High Magi was a mystery to Amegnon.
"Let's just focus, please," a man in light blue robes said. Voqua was well respected among all of the Magi, and his words pushed Lucindre's glare from Ansel back onto Amegnon. Voqua continued, "We have heard about what you did with the balancing rituals. What do you have to say for yourself, Arch-magus?"
"I did what I thought was right with the information I had. I was unaware of the danger, and honestly I'm still not sure what that danger is. The Strong Right Hand of the Queen has given me a warning personally. I have returned to the capital to be educated. I don't blame any of you, but a meeting should have been convened to inform me of the requirements of my position as soon as I assumed it."
"How odd," Lucindre said, "that a man who knows about little known rules to oust an Arch-magus from his position knows nothing else about what the job requires. Particularly curious when that man was an apprentice to the former Arch-magus for a decade. It's almost as if you ignored your duty and did whatever the hell you wanted."
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Lucindre would never back him up. She was good friends with Olivander's mother who, fortunately, was no longer on the council. Lucindre would love nothing more than to watch Amegnon squirm. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction. He turned to a likely ally, Giles Develie.
The man was well known to dislike Olivander immensely, and would have welcomed Amegnon's ascension so long as it was preceded by Olivander's fall. The man had made that clear when he contacted Amegnon after running into Olivander in Serin.
"I know enough, but I was not given details as a simple apprentice on the path to Magus. I was not apprenticing to become Arch-magus. Reading through old manuals on council procedure was often the only entertainment I had. Unfortunately, such manuals do not cover job duties of the Arch-magus. High Magus Develie, perhaps you would be kind enough to begin enlightening me on some of the information I seem to be missing. If it pleases you, why is it dangerous to create dungeons? Are they not the mechanism by which the world naturally balances mana?"
Amegnon had been looking for an ally, but he knew he made a mistake as soon as he asked his question and saw the man shift uncomfortably. Giles was a warrior, not a scholar. He didn't know what Amegnon wanted to find out, or at the very least, he wasn't confident enough in his answers to put them forth in front of the entire council.
"Giles, I can answer that unless you would like to?" a woman in simple tan robes asked. Elise Gess was a scholar, and the newest member of the council. Amegnon knew her the least well. Having only met her once or twice before he left on his pilgrimage and before she joined the High Magi.
"Be my guest," Giles said with obvious relief, leaning back into his chair.
"Great. Arch-magus, I will be brief, but I can supply you with additional reading material for later perusal. We should be clear that there are two issues that should be discussed separately."
She held up a finger. "First, as Arch-magus, it is your duty to balance mana to diminish dungeon spawning events. It is of course natural that you will miss some, and that is quite acceptable. The dungeons allow magic to be released into the world at a rate that doesn't cause immediate problems. We want magic in our world, great, there's a stable mechanism by which that happens.
"Where we run into issues is if there are too many dungeons. If they are not cleared or actively used to a sufficient degree, they can release monsters into the world. Depending on location, that's not so bad, and happens somewhat frequently in remote areas, or even intentionally in places like the Du'la'melio basin. When dungeons release monsters near population centers in an uncontrolled fashion, things get quite dangerous."
Nothing in what she had said was new to him. These were manageable issues.
"Those issues are quite manageable," she agreed with his thoughts. "Where trouble arises is if there aren't enough dungeon spirits available to handle the dungeons that are active. The slow and steady release of monsters isn't so slow and steady without a dungeon spirit to manage it. Dungeons can and will dump an unsafe number of monsters into an area, and if enough power is contained in the dungeon, it would fail entirely. What that means in practical terms, is that you could end up with a rift into another Realm. Those are hard to close, even harder to stabilize, and wildly dangerous."
She paused for a moment to allow that to sink in. That wasn't ideal, but still manageable. Opening dungeons in remote locations the way he just had was easy enough. Elise held up a second finger.
"That brings us to the second issue we need to address. The intentional creation of dungeons, like you did with a balancing ritual. These are significantly more likely to fail for a few reasons. The dungeon spirits monitor balance using many methods. The result is that they typically know when and where a dungeon will form long before it does. This allows them to get a spirit into position to manage the dungeon before too much time passes.
"After just a handful of days without management, mana anomalies — the dungeon precursor bubbles — become unstable. Even if a spirit arrives, it might be too late to prevent collapse."
"We suspect that is what happened with the dungeon you created," High Magus Thomas added. He had been on the council a long time and was more bureaucrat than active magician. Amegnon didn't hold him in high esteem for that reason.
So they had heard about the dungeon collapse, but they probably hadn't heard about the dungeon spirit becoming corrupted yet. He could get ahead of that news with his own narrative. First, he had to lay a little more groundwork.
"I see. I had no idea. Dungeon breaches are rare enough that I never really sought any knowledge on them. So the primary, or greatest, issue is that we can open up permanent apertures to other realms?"
"That is certainly a concern," Elise said, "but an even greater issue is what happens when too many of those holes have been created. Each time we poke a hole in the fabric of reality, either a big one with a dungeon, or a tiny one with our grimoires, we weaken the border between our Realm and the others. These are self repairing to a degree. The exception is truly massive holes, like entrances to other realms. Too many of those and we risk literally tearing our own world apart."
"What does that mean? What would happen?"
"We don't know. Our Realm, our whole world, could be torn to tiny pieces set adrift in the cosmic void that exists between worlds. We might just cease to exist. Our world could even end up merging with another Realm to form a new stable Realm. There's truly no telling."
Part of the entire explanation aligned with what he knew and was manageable. The problem was he just assumed the dungeons patched things up, because that's what Olivander had always implied. The man had never made a big deal out of any of this. Now his own plans seemed wildly dangerous. Then again, they always had been.
There is still a path forward.
As soon as he heard the voice, three of the High Magi stood abruptly.
Lucindre and Voqua had their grimoires out and were looking around. The third High Magus was a one armed woman whose grimoire was a single sheet of parchment hanging from a black crystal orb. It was filled with tiny writing and looking at it made Amegnon uncomfortable.
Tocks was one of the three that Olivander often referred to as "the crones," along with Lucindre and his mother Muriel. She was perhaps the most dangerous obstacle to fulfilling his designs.
Giles belatedly stood up and summoned his own grimoire, a crown of ice forming above his head. "What is it?"
Tocks clicked her tongue. "For a moment a powerful will connected with something in this room. Did anyone hear anything? A message or impulse perhaps?"
Some people around the table looked confused, and Amegnon simply shook his head.
"It's gone now," Lucindre said. "A foreign Magus attempting to spy on us?"
"Unlikely," Tocks said. "Not unless they were in the city, or had a special connection. It would have to be a connection to a powerful item though. We would no doubt sense it if that were the case."
Amegnon noted that and kept his grimoire tightly held inside his soul. He wasn't aware an external connection like that could be sensed. He was getting tired of constantly being badly informed about everything he seemed to do.
"Does Olivander have a reason to look in on us? I wouldn't put it past him taking note of the first full council meeting since his expulsion," Voqua asked.
"I don't think he has an interest," Lucindre said. Amegnon had seen reports of the activity in Serin that she and Giles had been part of, so she would have decent insight on what Olivander's disposition was.
"It's not like him anyway," Tocks said. "He would just open a portal and pop in. It's not as though his formal exile is actually preventing him from doing whatever he wants."
"I think we can discuss this later, should we get back on topic?" Thomas asked.
Lucindre sat back down and the others did as well. She looked back to Amegnon.
"We have a decision to make here, Arch-magus. Either we can vote to expel you, or we can give you one more chance. Does anyone have any opinions?"
The three Magi who had yet to speak — Idria, Josel, and Nsiria — didn't break their silence.
"The conclave is just a few weeks away," Giles said.
"That is a good point," Voqua said. "I think that is a good opportunity. If the Arch-magus is being honest about what his intentions were, and his lack of knowledge, then the Dungeon Spirits will accept him. If not, they'll censure him, and he won't be our problem anymore."
Amegnon didn't want to look like any more of an idiot than he already had, so he made a note to ask Steven what it meant to have the Dungeon Spirits censure him. From the sound of it, it wouldn't be a sternly worded letter.
Lucindre nodded. "All in favor of allowing the Arch-magus to continue in his role pending the approval at the conclave?"
Seven hands went up. Amegnon was not surprised to see Tocks and Lucindre keep their hands down, even though Lucindre had allowed the motion to go to a vote. He was surprised when Elise didn't raise her hand.
"Do any dissenters want to make their grievances known?" Lucindre asked.
Tocks shook her head and Lucindre just looked at Elise.
She met Amegnon's eyes and spoke with a clear, unflinching voice. "The solemn and sacred duty of any Arch-magus is to balance mana. There is no way Arch-magus Amegnon was unaware of that fact, even if he didn't know the reasoning behind it. He flagrantly violated the requirements of his office for short term gains, using the very rituals intended for balancing to corrupt the world. That is not a man we want leading us. He should be removed from office immediately and imprisoned pending a formal trial."
She did not look away from him as he spoke.
"Noted, thank you, Elise. In light of this argument, would anyone like to change their vote?"
Fortunately, no one did. He decided it was best to wait to speak on the corrupted Dungeon Spirit. Surely that bit of news would put him back in hot water, regardless of how he tried to spin it.
"Very well. Amegnon, you remain Arch-magus, but I would like to be absolutely clear. If you step out of line again, judgment will come quickly."
"I understand. I would like to thank you all for giving me another chance. I swear I will do whatever I must to regain your trust and fulfill my duties as Arch-magus."