Page 5 of Engines of Reason

“You’re here to see whether I’m Sendroth Sorcerer or just Sendreth Outlaw.”

“I’m here to see that’s all you are. Nothing worse.” And there was something in her face, when she said it. He, the sorcerer whose monsters crouched beside his throne, shivered.

“And?”

“And my—the Regent will probably send someone to have a different sort of conversation with you, given the way you’re knocking over walls this close to the borders.” The prospect didn’t seem to delight her. “I’ve seen what I needed to see.” And she bowed—a hand to her sword, sweeping it back and up out of the way. A precise level of respect. Not his friend, but not spitting on his cloak-hem. A very classy style of razor. And he knew her, he reckoned. Surely there weren’t so many people in this part of the world who might pitch up with a magic gem and a relaxed attitude to sorcery.

Irkon stepped forwards to lead her away, and Sendra should have had someone else do it. That was his thought, in retrospect. Because Irkon was an idiot, and had frisky hands and a chip on his shoulder about women in authority. So obviously that wasn’t going to go well, but Sendra had Edmen’s surrender to think of, and the magic glass bead, and—

It wasn’t some effete yelp of outrage he heard—an ambassador laid hands on, propriety offended. It was a crackle and snap of power, the air suddenly gone to ozone. Irkon was, almost without transition, ten feet away from the woman and on his back, kicking and flailing like he’d been possessed by dancing demons. Everyone was staring.

Sendra stood and, still in the shock of it, thrust out a clawed gauntlet. The nearest monster lumbered into motion. He knew it was a mistake the moment he did it. An overreaction, and if he killed Lannesite’s agent then that was going to put everyone in a corner there was no easy way out of. He was already reaching out to modify his instructions—Give the woman a scare, show we’re not to be messed with—when she threw out a hand and the monster died on its feet. Sendra almost swallowed his own heart. The living connection he’d had with it, through the gauntlet, was utterly gone. She’d killed his monster with a gesture.

It is her. Who else could it be?

Everyone still seemed frozen, as though her magic was holding them as still as the seized-up old metal of the monster. Sendra forced himself to move. “Irkon, you twat, get up. Get some salve on your hand and in future remember where it does and doesn’t go.” And he was standing before the woman. Her gaze was wary, defiant, a woman who’d shown off more than she’d been intending to. Waiting to see if he’d set the rest of his force on her, and how that might go. He didn’t know how that would go.

“So you’re Lynesse Third Sister,” he said. “Or is it Second Sister now? Forgive me, the details of Lannesite genealogy aren’t of great interest to me.”

“Does the sorcerer intend to take a hostage?” she asked him. “Will we have a wizard’s duel, here and now?” I have bested your monster went unsaid. Effortlessly bested.

“At least you acknowledge me a sorcerer,” he said softly.

“I knew that, from the reports. But you are not a magician. And you are not something worse.” And that really did seem to be her focus. Not him ravening through the pissant little buffer states Lannesite had as its border marches, but that he was just a sorcerer. All the monsters in the world and they still find a way to make me small.

“Would you join me in my tent?” he asked her. “I have some wine. Or what passes for wine in Minian. The next town I have bend the knee will have a decent brewery or something, I promise.” Holding her gaze, and her meeting him boldly. A weird moment of connection, two people with magic at their fingertips, outside the world of the mundane. A lonely place to stand, most of the time.

She could walk out. He didn’t reckon his people would stop her. They’d learned a healthy respect for magic. And Lannesite had its own magician, of course. The Elder, whose title marked him out as something other and greater than human. Beyond mere Sorcerer. And he had taught some of his secrets, it was said, to one of the royal line. So she could walk out, but that would be weakness. Instead, she nodded briskly. His hospitality was not beneath her.

Inside the tent, Kaille was playing servant. She made a whole performance of it, slamming down goblets, pulling the cork with her teeth, swigging some herself and swilling it appreciatively before spitting on the floor. Kaille loved horrifying genteel guests, but Lynesse just looked amused. A woman secure enough that it was all just a play for her entertainment.

A couple of his people dragged his throne inside, because it wasn’t as though they travelled with an abundance of furniture. Lynesse Second Sister—yes, hadn’t something happened to the Regent’s eldest sibling?—settled on a camp stool easily enough.

“I really am here on my own recognizance, Sendroth Sorcerer,” she told him.

“You’re here to show me that Lannesite doesn’t fear me.”

She shrugged. “You’ll have heard rumours of what Lannesite can deploy against the sort of threat you can bring. They’re true. My advice, take your sorcery elsewhere. I’m just an apprentice, after all.” And you’ve seen what I can do.

“So Lannesite’s famed Nyrgoth will come destroy me, like your ancestor did that … what was his name?”

“Astresse Once Regent defeated Ulmoth and his monsters,” she agreed. “With the aid of that same Nyrgoth.” Speaking the name as if there was a little sourness to the taste of it.

“Doesn’t sound as though I’ve much chance, then. Me and my poor monsters.”

She gave him a look. A complex one. “I always wondered what sort of man Ulmoth really was. To reawaken the sleeping workers of the ancients and make them his vanguard. More than the stories say, surely.”

He’d have liked to pursue that line of conversation, but that was when she came in. A lean woman, younger than Lynesse, or looking so. Very pale, past white and almost into a translucent grey where you’d expect to see the bones and organs of her. Large eyes too wide, and the irises without colour.

Outside, he felt the connection to the dead monster spring back into being, the creature growl to life again. He tossed the little crystal eye over to the newcomer. She fielded it with one hand, plucking it from the air with an eerie precision.

A heartbeat later, it glowed in her hands, candle to campfire, and then blazing like the sun. Lynesse stared at her.

“Lynesse Second Sister, of the royal house of Lannesite,” Sendra said, “meet Ilmoth Elder.”

Ilmoth’s reflection-coloured eyes bored into the other woman. “Keep her, hold her,” she said in her whisper of a voice, that you always heard clearly. “The Elder is coming. Let him have no more warning.”

Nyr