Rahmû’s hands shook as the man rose from the basin, its water as still as a stagnant pond, with no sign of Tēms̆arrī. He reined his anger for a moment, taking a careful step away from the silent basin, but he had bottled his frustration up for too long. The dams burst and, with an angry snarl, he spun around and slammed his hand into the side of the giant silver bowl. “Kruvas̆! Why isn’t he answering?”
Hammered by his blow, the basin tilted on its side, precariously balanced for a fraction of a second until the weight of the water toppled off its pedestal. It clanged like a bell as it hit the floor, loud enough to make him wince, and rolled toward the open balcony.
He had to spring to catch it before it rolled through the wide slats of the stone railing, snatching it just before it toppled into the garden below. Afraid someone would hear the noise and come looking, he dragged it back toward the basin with hurried steps and, with a grunt, hoisted it back onto its pedestal, despite it straining the limits of his strength. There was a new dent on its side, the handiwork of his anger, and his cheeks burned as he rotated the basin to hide it in the back. A mind mage is above such petty feelings, he reminded himself, even though he knew the words were false.
With the evidence of his outburst obscured, Rahmû stalked out to the balcony. He paused to observe the city, his hands clasped behind his back, but it did nothing to improve his mood. Birnah was an ugly city, with more fortresses than markets and nearly as many soldiers as actual citizens. After a year stuck behind its walls, he was thoroughly sick of the sight of it. And yet I may be stuck here. How did it go so wrong?
His thoughts drifted back to a year ago. He’d been surprised when he first received the message from Lord Sarganīl. While the Order of Duluḫḫu was his birthright, as the last living descendant of its founder, all that remained of the order was a loose network of mind mages scattered across the empire and the surrounding nations. Most of them were forced to hide their magic, as there were few places outside the Fey realms where a mind mage was welcome, and even those lands, in the aftermath of the Fey wars, were no longer friendly - at least not to those who looked human.
Sarganīl, however, did not seem to realize that the order had largely passed into myth; instead, he offered him a job, a well-paying job with a promise of quiet patronage in the city of Birnah if successful. All he had to do was twist the mind of the Sapīyan king into abdicating from the throne in favor of his eldest son.
Rahmû had dithered for months about accepting the offer. The task was one worthy of the Order of Duluḫḫu, but not as it currently existed. He’d reached out feelers to the remaining mages he knew and the results had been disappointing. Most had turned him down flat, some even laughing in his face, while others hadn’t even deigned to respond. In the end, just three mages had expressed interest and only one of them, Tēms̆arrī, was close enough to arrive in a reasonable time.
But Rahmû's greed had won out. If they pulled the job off, there was a real chance they could rebuild under the protective auspices of the man who would be king in all but name of an entire province.
Summoning Tēms̆arrī and the others to meet him, he’d accepted Sarganīl’s offer. But he’d no sooner arrived in Birnah than a second offer passed across his desk. An offer from the king of Stryn.
Rahmû had assumed it was a ruse. It was obvious from the moment he’d met him that Sarganīl didn’t trust him; the man wore his protective amulet day and night, as did all the key members of his household, so the mage had decided that the letter was a test of his loyalty from his new lord - and a clumsy one at that. Knowing it would look suspicious to ignore the letter, he’d made sure to turn it over to Sarganīl during the feast that night. He had been unprepared, therefore, for the unhinged rage the letter provoked in Sarganil.
Tables were tossed, chairs smashed, and tapestries torn off the walls as man ranted and raved about the ‘vile folk’ of Stryn. Rahmû had misread the situation entirely, but it ended up working in his favor. Sarganīl didn’t fully trust him after the incident, but he relaxed his guard a bit. Unfortunately for him, once Rahmû realized the king of Stryn's offer was legitimate, the mage immediately knew he'd accept it.
True, Sarganīl was now forewarned of the plot, but that hardly mattered when you were a mage with the power to wipe memories from minds or simply dominate them. He’d played the part of a loyal servant for a few months and assigned Tēms̆arrī, when he arrived, to carry out the first parts of Sarganīl’s plot, but he was simply biding his time.
The moment came at the feast of the day of mirth and frost. By then, Rahmûe had been a part of the castle for four months, and they’d stopped fearing him. Oh, they weren’t stupid - they still wore their amulets everyday, but they had gotten sloppy. Magic wasn’t the only way they could be compromised.
They’d drank heartily that night, unaware of the soporific herbs Rahum had slipped into their kegs, and when they’d succumbed to drink and herb, he’d taken their amulets. They didn’t even realize they’d been compromised when he awoke, their minds already ensnared by Rahum’s web.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Despite his success, Rahmû had made no sudden changes in the aftermath of the feast. He couldn’t afford to. While he may have ensnared Sarganil and his men, there were still several more castles and an entire city’s worth of people not under his direct control. If they’d realized what he had done, his fate would have been sealed.
So he expanded his web slowly. He’d found reasons to delay leaving for King Kabāni’s courts while he waited for the king of Stryn to muster his armies. He’d met with the captains one by one, each eventually following beneath his charms, save for that irritating prick Marīltu. He’d even managed to fabricate a reason to arrest the priests, flimsy though it may have been. In all things, he kept his hand light - one mage couldn’t possibly micromanage an entire city, so he settled for giving them a few inviolable commands and otherwise leaving them to go about their business in peace. Everyone important in the city was his now, and all the parts were in place. Everything but Tēms̆arrī.
His fists clenched as his thoughts returned to the missing mage. It had been more than a week since he’d last heard from his friend and, by now, Rahmu feared the worst. Mind magic offered a path to power beyond the capabilities of most mages; a truly skilled mage could dominate the minds of thousands, and have entire armies at his beck and call, but that magic came with drawbacks of its own.
There were very few strictly offensive spells a mind mage could cast, and most mind magic classes came with a debuff that made it almost pointless to invest stats in physical traits like strength and endurance. In short, they were squishy even for a mage. So while they were perfectly safe as long as they had their meat shields around them, if they met someone who could resist their honeyed words, they were at a disadvantage.
And the Atrometos have disappeared as well, he thought, remembering the report that had come across his desk that morning. There hadn’t been a confirmed attack in at least a week, aside from the oddity that happened in a village not far from Deḇur. But the bodies there had been buried and, when exhumed, had shown clear signs of ritual sacrifice. Rahmû wasn’t certain what had happened to the village, but he doubted it had anything to do with the Atrometos.
He’s dead. He growled again at the irritation, but this time resisted the urge to punch something. The stone railing in front of him would be far less forgiving than the silver basin. Two more weeks, he reminded himself. Two more weeks, and I’ll be the ruler of this gods-forsaken city.
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The picture Marīltu painted for Jasper was a grim one. Sapīya had once owned a wide swath of land on the far side of the River, back when the lands had been united with the more populous northern province of Appīya. But when succession wars had caused the two provinces to separate, Sapiya had been severely weakened. For generations, Stryn had encroached on their lands, slowly forcing them backward until all that remained on the far side of the River was the city of Birnah, which guarded the easiest path across the River for hundreds of miles in both directions.
There they had dug in, fortifying it until it was nearly as impregnable as even the greatest of the imperial cities, and committing their entire forces to hold it, and Stryn’s forces had broken against its walls.
That hadn’t stopped Stryn’s dream of claiming the crossing though. The two provinces settled into an uneasy peace, broken by fits of short war when the lords of Stryn would once again test the fortifications of Birnah, and thus Sapiya had continued to invest in it. It was a stalemate, but now a mind mage stood ready to throw open the gates for Stryn’s armies and, if that happened, it might not be Birnah alone that fell.
“With Birnah secured, there would be nothing to stop Stryn from sweeping over the River,” Mariltu warned. “And with Hargish still rebuilding, it would be trivial for them to seize the core of the province and cut the remaining cities off from each other. Perhaps Gis-Izum and Yaspeh could hold out, but the south and center would crumble. The only hope would be if the emperor himself got involved.”
“Yes, yes, I get that,” Jasper replied impatiently, eager to get the man off his doom forecasting, and back to the goal of saving the city. “But if we can oust Rahmû first, we should be able to stave off the forces of Stryn, so focus - how do we do that?”
“I can’t get us back in the way we fled,” Mariltu replied with a shake of his head. “The wards are designed to let people out, not in. Although,” he glanced over at Ihra. “You made it into the city through one of those tunnels, didn’t you? You never did explain how.”
“We broke the ward.”
“We?” Erin cut in with a laugh. “There was no we in that equation. You broke the ward, Ihra. Think you could do it again?”
She shifted in her seat, obviously uncomfortable with the attention given her, and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. Maybe? It was pretty hard, and I don’t know if every ward will be the same.”
“What about the passage you used? Wouldn’t that still be open,” Jasper asked.
“If someone hasn’t repaired the ward, sure, but it opened into the dungeon of one of the castles. The castle’s commander seemed to be on our side, but from what Mariltu said, she refused to help him, so that probably means she’s been compromised. There’s a good chance we'd have to fight our way out.”
“Well,” Jasper grimaced. “Castles are designed to protect from external attacks, not from within. With S̆ams̆ādur’s troops, we might have a shot at it. Especially if there’s any troops that haven't been brainwashed.”
“And what about the mind mage,” Marīltu retorted. “How are we supposed to take care of him? Even if we get into the city, we’ll still be trapping ourselves inside with thousands of potential foes. If we can’t get to him, it’s a fool's errand.”
"We just need to isolate him," Jasper replied. "And I might just have a plan."