Admitting failure was risky but he had no option. If anyone could pierce the unholy miasma defeating him, it would be his father. Then he would show Eresken how it was done.
“You are correct,” his father nodded slowly. “How do you account for this?”
Eresken took a moment to think; that was allowed. He was careful not to show he realized he was being put to the test; that was not permitted, on pain of punishment or worse, dismissal from his father’s counsels and instruction. “In reviving the hidden ones of Kel Ar’Ayen, the false magicians of Hadrumal will most likely have found practitioners of true enchantment,” he began cautiously. “If Planir has suborned these to his own ends, he may be using their skills to deny us.”
“Good,” said his father approvingly. “You are correct again.”
Emboldened, Eresken leaned back in his chair, hands relaxing on the parchment-strewn table. “Perhaps Kramisak—”
“Kramisak is not your concern,” snapped his father. “Kel Ar’Ayen is not your concern. If I feel you straying from your allotted duties, I will chastise you in no uncertain measure, do you understand me?” His anger came and went with all the instant violence of winter lightning but the cold threat lingering in his voice was infinitely chilling.
“Of course, sire.” Eresken slowly laced his hands together, stopping them from shaking. “My task is to work around these obstructions. I will apply myself more diligently.”
“What have you been doing today?” The white-haired man crossed from the window to begin leafing through Eresken’s parchments, frowning at notations in margins and neat additions to the bottom of texts written in several different hands, the oldest lines blurred where the ink had rubbed away. A few bright lines of illumination here and there were the only specks of color to disturb the neutrality of the stark room.
“I have been looking for priests.” Eresken spoke with more confidence.
“Explain your reasoning,” his father demanded curtly.
“Equinox comes for the lands of the west as well as for us and some of their traditions reach back to the days before the Exile. I looked for those cities that hold religious gatherings to mark the quarter-year.” Eresken turned his notes to a relevant page and proffered it. “We know their priests hold the last remnants of true enchantment in the lands of the west; that’s why we were killing them. Now I think they might be more use to us alive than dead. I hope to find one with some vestige of piety turned to their gods that will leave his mind open to mine. It has always been easier to contact a mind with some training than an unwilling one.”
“A sound enough argument,” noted the old man. “What progress have you made thus far?”
“At the moment, it’s like trying to hear a single voice shouting in a storm.” Eresken could not disguise his chagrin. “Luckily, the strongest barriers are set in the east, so I have been following a chain of recollection and anticipation woven from the unguarded thoughts of merchants and the like traveling west. There is a great fair in this city, Selerima, and there must surely be some shrine where the devout will gather, even if it is only to pay duty to their lesser gods or goddesses.”
His father studied a map. “At such a vast distance, you cannot hope to influence a mind that is not actively cooperating with you.”
“I will do my utmost,” said Eresken stoutly. “With the strength that abides in the stones, I believe it will be possible.”
The white-haired man threw the parchment down on the table. “You should be searching for wizards at their false conniving. We know that leaves them vulnerable as newborn babes to us.”
The old man must be tired, Eresken thought discreetly. This was too obvious a snare to step into. “Planir knows that too, none better. The mages are the most closely shielded of all. I am not even attempting to touch them, not until they grow idle from lack of threat and relax their vigilance. Even then, while killing the mages is gratifying, it would be a shortsighted act, merely enraging the Archmage. I am looking for means to attack on a wider front.”
A half-smile quirked the corner of the old man’s mouth. “And what of those whose minds you have already touched? The redheaded bitch, the swordsman? Have you sought them?”
“I have, but on no more than a superficial level,” said Eresken slowly. “Anything more would risk alerting them to our continued interest in their downfall.”
“You’re afraid, that’s plain enough,” his father said softly. He leaned forward, hands on the table, and stared deep into Eresken’s grass green eyes.
Denial was useless and Eresken hastily emptied his mind of any thought he wished to keep to himself as his father’s opaque brown eyes held his own in unbreakable thrall. Eresken forced himself to concentrate on the face before him, to stop unbidden feelings or opinions intruding themselves. His father’s face was lean and taut, crowned with dead white hair, faint lines showing the scour of wind and years and the few scars mute testimony to lessons learned from rare mistakes. Eresken forced his breathing to a slow and even pace and laid his mind open. It was better this way, less painful. He’d learned that lesson long ago and now passed it on with the same merciless sting when opportunity presented itself.
The old man laughed but not unkindly. “They humiliated you, didn’t they? Jumped you, knocked you senseless and hauled you away like a seal trussed from the hunt. You don’t want to risk that happening again. Well, I can understand that. You’re not alone, boy. The slut held her own against me with no more than inborn defiance and a flood of doggerel.”
Eresken gaped. “I had no idea—”
“No, neither did I.” The white-haired man’s laughter rang unexpectedly light against the whitewashed walls of the room furnished only with a single table and chair. “It’s one more of the ironies of our present situation that some ignorant bitch could light upon a pattern of half-remembered song and gibberish that could disrupt our practiced incantations so thoroughly! One is prepared for challenge from an equal, not from some misbegotten sneak-thief.”
“They were none of them worthy foes,” spat Eresken with rising anger. “All they had was brute strength and savagery, too stupid to recognize their fate and submit!”
“Do not give way to your frustrations,” warned his father, speaking softly. “Emotion will restrict you, limit your effectiveness. But on the other hand,” he turned away abruptly, “you need to feel that anger, that outrage, that spur to set you looking beyond the confines of these islands, when so many others are content to see no farther than the horizon. That vision is what marks you as my son and makes you worthy of my time and trouble. You must learn to recognize such contradictions and master them.”
“But why—” Eresken spoke before he could stop himself.
“A child who simply asks ‘why’ shows an aptitude for training. A man who does the same is mistaking trust shown him for license to dissent.”
“I meant no disrespect,” insisted Eresken. Never that, not so long as he could reap the rewards of his sire’s favor. The truth of his words and his thoughts hung in the tense silence.
“You should be able to answer such questions for yourself, as I have done. All these things are tests set for us, to prove us worthy of reclaiming our lost lands and more besides. As we master one challenge, another arises, paradoxes that make no sense testing our resolve. I am the richest man on these islands, my revenues the sum of any five others you could name, yet I am a pauper against the meanest lordling of the Tormalin.” He began pacing, speaking as much to himself as to his son. “With sacrifice and discipline, we finally raise our enchantments to a pitch that allows safe crossing of the ocean currents. We find Tren Ar’Dryen is a land overrun by the feeble of body and of intellect, morally corrupt and wholly contemptible. But these dross have a strength in numbers that we cannot match, we who have been refined in the crucible of these islands, tempered in the harsh cold. How can we be stronger, yet weaker? We find these people have lost nigh on all true magic, so should be open to our attack, yet that lack has meant false magicians meddling with the visible and tangible have flourished, even reaching an arrogance that encourages them to challenge us. How can this be so?”