Bernt squared his shoulders and knocked on Iriala’s office door, doing his best to appear calm and confident. He didn’t need to be nervous—the archmage had asked for him specifically, and she’d traded her influence to get him here. That should have reassured him, but he still couldn’t quite keep himself from nervously sweating into his clothes. What could she want him for?
No one answered. What was going on? The guild was nearly deserted and almost eerily quiet—his instructions had said to appear before dawn. Except the archmage wasn’t here.
After waiting a few more awkward seconds, Bernt knocked again, a little more firmly this time. Again, nothing.
“Wizard Bernard!” A voice called out the same moment that he heard steps, behind him and to his left. He flinched, startled by the sudden sound, and whirled to see the archmage by the stairs on the landing. She waved to him, already turning back the way she’d come. “Come this way, please.”
Hurrying to catch up, Bernt caught Archmage Iriala halfway up the stairs to the next floor.
“Good morning, Archmage,” he said, trying not to sound out of breath. “Where are we going?”
“Your office,” she replied. “Are you familiar with the historical significance of the Invigilation, Bernt?”
Bernt missed a step, nearly stumbling on the stairs before catching himself. What was all this about? He hesitated for a second, trying to decide what to say, but there was no point in pretending ignorance.
“Yes, Archmage,” he said. “They’re the adherents to the four temples of the Sacral Peaks who were responsible for controlling warlock activity in the former Empire before the Solicitors came along.”
“Yes,” the archmage said, sounding a little surprised. “That's good. I don’t know what you might have heard, but the temples are attempting to coordinate a continent-wide response to the Duergar threat. In resuming this kind of political role, though, they’ve also made some other, mostly symbolic traditions relevant again—”
“The legitimators,” interrupted Bernt as they reached the upper floor of the Mages’ Guild. “I’m familiar with them. I work with a paladin – he’s been telling me about it.”
“Ah, he already caught you up,” Iriala said, giving him a sharp look that suggested she understood quite a bit more than he’d meant to say. “So it wasn’t just his mother’s idea – I should have guessed.”
Bernt blinked, surprised. News traveled fast.
“Torvald asked me if I’d come with him, I just said I’d go if the count appointed me,” Bernt said carefully. “What does that have to do with the guild?”
Iriala harrumphed. “Everything, boy. Those who do not work to shape the future risk being shaped by a future they had no control over. Remember that, if you ever plan to get involved in games of power. The temples are calling this conclave to make decisions about our entire country, and our neighbors, too. They need the king’s cooperation and consent, but nobody’s going to ask us for our opinion here at the guild. That’s not acceptable to us any more than it will be to any of the other guilds or other interests in our country. We don’t know where all the representatives at this conclave will come from, or how many there are. You might be the only Beseri mage there, for all I know.”
Bernt swallowed as Iriala led them down the Wizard’s Society corridor, sweeping by offices and laboratories with a purposeful stride. She wanted him to… what? Wrangle the conclave into doing her bidding? That sounded a lot more ambitious than what he’d had in mind. For that matter, it raised an entirely different question.
“Do you know why they're even doing the conclave in the first place? I mean, why go have a meeting at the Sacral Peaks? Can’t the gods negotiate amongst themselves to come up with an agenda for the Invigilation? I imagine that all the kings and the Kallrixian Council would be more willing to work with something like that, too.”
Iriala looked over her shoulder at him, one eyebrow raised. “It's not that simple, no. You should read up on the topic a bit before the time comes. I know most mages aren’t very religious, but this is going to become very relevant to you, soon.”
"Okay. So why have the conclave?"
The archmage stopped in front of a plain wooden door and fumbled through a ring of keys before thrusting one into the lock.
“The gods don’t like to interfere with our political affairs directly – which isn’t the same thing as saying they don’t get involved. It’s an agreement they made to end the Age of Barbarism and allow civilization to develop without one of their own crushing it every few years to spite whichever god sponsored them.”
The hinges squealed as she opened the door. “Here we are. This is going to be your office.”
It was a small room with a desk, a single chair and a bookshelf. There was no dust – someone had cleaned the place recently – and a small stack of books sat on the desk alongside a dwarven steel pen, ink and a stack of paper. Bernt entered, taking it in. It was a bit stark, but not more than his own house. Reaching up, Bernt hung a perpetual torch spell in the air up beside the door. It gave the mostly empty room a cozier air. Much better.
“Thank you, archmage,” he said, walking up to the desk. Leaning down, he sorted through the books, checking the covers. They were primers on the four temples involved in the Invigilation, a history book about the fall of the Madurian Empire, a book about temple protocols and rituals, and another on Beseri diplomatic protocol.
“You want me to study these?” he asked. Bernt could guess what was going on here, but it was always best to get clear instructions.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“That’s right.” Iriala confirmed. “Ideally, you’d spend a few years learning how to think strategically about our place in the world, both the Mages’ Guild and Besermark. We don’t have that kind of time, though, so I’ll just need to prepare you as best I can. There’s an intelligence report about the Duergar at the bottom of the stack. Pollock tells me you respond well to open-ended inquiry, so see if you can work out what our interests are in this matter, and how you think you might be able to address them at the conclave.”
Bernt looked from the books to the archmage. This was all getting out of hand very quickly. Torvald had asked him to do this to keep him out of all the political games – or at least to protect him from his family. Hells, Bernt had just wanted to do his experiments in the Phoenix Reaches. On the other hand, though, the opportunity here was obvious. He’d be an idiot not to take it. Besides, at the end of the day, nobody could force him to do anything at the conclave.
“Thanks," he said, clearing his throat. "I’ll get right on it. How long do I have? Torvald didn’t say when we’d actually be leaving.”
“The temples all across the Empire and at the Sacral Peaks have to decide on a date for the conclave. My scryers and the those at all the other guilds across the continent are working with them to establish a reliable communication network, but it’ll still take some time. You’ll have at least a few weeks.” Iriala said and swept out the door. “Start with the history book!”
When he couldn’t hear her steps anymore, Bernt opened his bag and pulled out all of his other books – those he’d checked out from the library. He hadn’t expected Iriala to give him an office up here at the Wizard’s Society, but the proximity that gave him to Pollock would be a huge benefit. Honestly, it was better than he could have hoped for.
On the other hand, there was a lot to go through here. He would have to manage his time carefully if he was going to be ready in time.
***
Ed reached up and gingerly felt at the burns on his scalp. It was healing well enough, but it still hurt like hell. Jori was up ahead, standing on a rock and sticking her nose up into the air, sniffing for something or other.
“Damned demons and their stupid fire rivers,” he grumbled, digging through his pouch for something to eat. They’d been trudging through the rocky landscape for who knew how long, hiding from passing demons and sleeping when they got tired. There was no day or night here and the lack of a proper way to track time was beginning to grate on him.
“Hey!” Jori protested. “I warned you that you weren’t going to like it!”
He grunted in reply. The damned imp had dragged him down some kind of heating shaft to a massive tunnel that ran under the city. Instead of carrying sewage or water, though, this one carried hellfire. Ed knew that the river terminated in the city somewhere, but he hadn’t really considered what happened to it. Now, though, he was absolutely certain that he didn’t want to know.
The thing had a narrow walkway along the side, but he’d still had to maintain a mobile heat barrier around himself the entire way. Casting a simple, stationary barrier was easy – even a spherical one to cover him from all directions. Moving while maintaining the spell, though, was an entirely different proposition. It was a lot, even for him, and he’d slipped up – accidentally letting the top of his head poke out beyond its edges. The burns had been instantaneous, and he’d nearly lost control of the spell entirely.
They’d made it out, and Jori had led him away from the city and up out of the valley where it lay.
She’d been nothing but friendly since, but Ed knew she wasn’t telling him everything. She wanted something in exchange for her help. Iriala’s initial note, stashed in the pouch along with the food, had said as much. He would humor Jori, he'd decided – you couldn’t expect altruism from most people, never mind a demon. It would be like expecting a dwarf to fly. Besides, she was his only contact to the mortal world, and according to the note, his only real chance of getting back home. That, and she had given him the food without asking for anything. She'd earned some goodwill.
The imp had disappeared several times since they’d escaped the city, only to reappear a few minutes later – summoned by solicitors who wanted updates, she’d said. Sometimes she came back carrying more food or a message from either Iriala or Radast. Iriala sent him news from outside, but the warlock mostly just wanted to know what it was like here. Damned asshole had better hope he didn’t give him a taste when he got back.
Waving at the imp to signal that he was taking a break, Ed found a rock to sit on and conjured himself some water.
“So, Jori. What’s your game in all this?” Ed asked as she joined him. He’d been waiting for her to spill it, but she’d been content just to lead them off in what looked to him like a random direction.
Jori grinned at him, displaying pointed teeth. “We’re going to save my pack!”
Then she produced a bit of jerky from her Underkeeper's robes, which she'd recovered after their escape, and began gnawing on it. Ed scratched at his stubbly beard and scowled at her.
“Well this is going to be a fine mess,” he grumbled. “Save them how? Where? And what do you mean to do with a pack of imps when you’ve got them?”
“That way,” Jori said, pointing the way they'd been going. “We have to find a fiend named Tallash. I can smell him. His blood stinks. He bound the pack to himself years ago. It’s how I got separated, before I was summoned for the first time. I hid away from them and he didn’t find me. I’m very sneaky!”
Ed let out a slow, tired breath. “And your pack... they're going to be wherever he is?”
Jori snorted. “Some of them, maybe. That’s not the point, though. We need to kill him to break my cousins’ obligation to our enemies. Tallash is bound to Zijeregh, a servant of Nuros. They won’t betray their master on their own – it would be an insult to their master’s master. Very dangerous. Bad things happen to traitors. But, if the chain of obligation is broken, they aren’t traitors. They would be free to follow us. It’s how things are done, here.”
Ed squinted at her in confusion. “How do you know all their names?” Did demons intuitively know the entire chain of command of other demons they met? How would something like that even work?
“I asked!” Jori replied, as if it were obvious.
The archmage shook his head, irritated. He didn’t have the patience to weasel every little thing out of her. “Alright. What’s your plan? Can you take this fiend in a fight?”
The imp shook her head firmly. “No! Fiends eat weaker demons – especially imps. They are predators. They don’t burn, and they're much stronger than us.”
Ed grunted, and dug around in the little pocket in his sleeve for a pinch of tobacco. He packed it into his pipe, thinking.
“So, you want me to kill it for you so this fiend doesn’t eat them all, probably. Does that mean all those mean little baby imps are gonna get attached to me? I don’t know that I need a passel of little demons following me around. Especially not back home, if I’m guessing where this is going.”
“No.” Jori said firmly. “They will be free!”
Ed scoffed. “Down here? Free to follow us around, or get picked up by the next bigger, meaner demon that finds them, you mean.”
Jori grinned, and Ed could see the fire burning behind her eyes. “Free to run from the Great Ones, to hide, or to fight!”