Majutsu-shi no Chikara Ch. 11

"You would call it 'The Borrowed Task'... but the Mirror calls it'Minor Mimicry'." The unreadable pitch pigment split into a toothy smile, revealing another morsel to Jachmina about the inner workings of the Tower without touching any of the magical bonds compelling secrecy.

"How powerful would one estimate'True Mimicry'?" Jachmina licked her lips delicately, dryly.

"One should not call it mimicry if it be true. Is that not the very nature of illusion?" Esmeray scoffed, only just stifling the shudder that rippled outward from the middle of her pelvis.

The younger wizard's eyes widened with realization, or near that. Remfry was doggedly tucking coins through the narrowest gap of the lid of the strongbox, tilted backward to let the coins fill the cavity of the lid above the hinge-line. Esmeray sighed tiredly and rubbed her brow, sunlight gleaming against the sweat rising there.

"Then we needs must meet at nightfall, once your purse and husband are secure." She took a deep breath and blew heavily through pursed lips, cheeks puffed as she fought to control the sweltering need pummeling her will.

"Where shall I meet you?" Jachmina nodded once, her dismissal clear.

"Two leagues beyond West Bridge Road, on the south side of the river." Esmeray turned on her heel. "I'll have the balance of what we discussed, when the matter is done."

Jachmina nodded at the Wizard Saran's back, wondering at the circumstances of Esmeray's departure from the Tower. Rumor had swept through, the day Esmeray Saran departed, but nothing conclusive (so far as Jachmina was concerned) had presented itself. Now, the very subject of gossip and rumor had darkened her doorstep -- through the employment of her husband as a go-between. Certainly, other Guild Wizards would be watching the exchange. Equally surely, Esmeray and Jachmina had both warded themselves to minimize the likelihood of prying eyes and scrying magic. Who then would be party to whatever plot Esmeray was hatching, and how did Jachmina's ascension to the Tower factor into that scheme?

As Remfry finished stuffing coins into the strongbox and breaking-down his merchant's stall into the narrow cart well ahead of midday, Jachmina frowned and scowled in thought; pacing slowly and deliberately along the front of her husband's space in the open bazaar. When at last Remfry was ready, all things in their place for the early passage back to their shop inside the city proper, Jachmina offered him a wan smile. Her round face was flush with expectation, but also pale from worry. Anything a member of the Tower wanted... a former member of the Tower... did not boast of boons and blessings. Jachmina hoped, as she studied every aspect of the poisonous offer, that she could wield such a weapon with precision. Otherwise, this arrangement would quickly sour and she'd find that poison coursing through her veins before she could even hope to save herself.

With or without the Tower's sanction, Saran? Jachmina dug through the folds of her dress for the weight of the book secreted there, eager to seclude in her study and ruminate on the words there.

"All is ready, Ser." one of their guards announced as Remfry clambered into the narrow cart to shelter beneath its thin canopy.

"Away, at once." Jachmina nodded, the sell-swords giving cursory salute as she more nimbly stepped up to the driving bench beside her husband. "Too profitable a day to spend more chasing lesser coin."

Remfry smiled uneasily back at her, nodding in agreement as he flicked the reins lightly. The cluck of his tongue and shrill chirped whistle set Jachmina's teeth on edge, but it moved the lumbering draft horse at a brisk step.

Rumor mongers were already whispering of the event inside Renks Cairn before Jachmina and Remfry entered the north-west merchant's gate, just north of the River Gate where merchant vessels offloaded their goods at the city's many docks. By the time they reached their district, Jachmina was certain that a special council of the Guild would be called to discuss Saran's proposition. She suspected Esmeray's exile had more than a little to do with the Guild's decision to have the Elemental executed. Whether Saran was the blade in that action or just another casualty, Jachmina didn't yet know -- and was not entirely confident she wanted to know. It was beyond probable that the Tower's many spies had already delivered a near perfect recreation of their discussion to the nine Wizards still in residence there. Jachmina thought back on how long it had been since a seat within the Tower had opened -- her own tenure within the Guild insufficient to have a direct memory of it, she pored over historical references from her time in Renks Cairn. By all accounts, Saran was not the most junior member of the Tower -- but Jachmina could not recall who held that title.

Her husband, bless him, spent much of their ride back to their home trying to keep up bantering about the mundane aspects of their business -- such was his tendency when nervous. On the fourth or fifth iteration of his particular exposition about Council and Royal taxes on the merchants of Renks Cairn (or, more broadly, the monarchy of Hitsuyo of which Renks Cairn was part), Jachmina sighed heavily and put a hand to Remfry's thigh.

"I've no head for it, dear." She tried to give a comforting smile, but Remfry's sharp eyes (a true boon in trade) proved too keen -- and he grew more pale and jittery in the silence that followed.

A sour, rotting-orange flavor gagged in the back of Jachmina's throat -- a somatic alarm that one of the wards on her domicile had been breached. They were well within the perimeter of the city, with patrols and foot-traffic all about, but Jachmina searched for some unseen attacker lurking just at the edge of what she could see. Already overly watchful, Remfry reined the heavy-hooved horse away from the skittering flow of city traffic to lurch to an uneasy stop.

"What's wrong?" His thin tongue wet his lips with haste before one hand doffed his slouch cap.

"Someone has taken interest in the house." Jachmina sighed wearily, mentally arranging the different incantations she would need to bolster what defenses she regularly kept in place upon her person.

"Physically?" The whinging tone grated her ears, her merchant husband's appetite for violence reflected by the sum he paid bodyguards to see that violence never reached his tender self.

"Not yet, and woe should they." Jachmina's plump cheeks shook with her restrained outrage and clenched jaw, flushing her skin with rose and crimson accents. "Get us home -- stopping here does us no good."

With a nearly inaudible cough, he nodded to her and whipped at the reins -- near colliding with the cart just passing them where they had stopped, and instead toppling a cluster of passersby who saw greater sense in flinging themselves away from the cobbled lane and into other foot traffic rather than be bludgeoned-aside by horse and wagon wheels over-top.

"See they're compensated!" Remfry shouted to his rearguard, the mail-clad sell-sword grimacing and saluting before shoving his way unkindly through the tangled knot of shouting tourists, merchants, barkers, and buskers growing by the moment.

"Guild business, your pardon." His was a voice like hurling rocks at trees, and it was clear he begged no pardon -- but took it with force and a scattering handful of silver and copper coins among the prone or near-prone bodies just out of the lane. "Are aught injured?"

Now the crowd shook, rattling its own wheels -- not on cobbled stone street, rather against the other bodies nearby -- with protest of injury and affront, in a near half-dozen different tongues, all with varying insult and severity. With another growling, hapless and unfelt apology, Remfry's hired thug cast another handful of silver coins outward before dumping the remaining contents of his purse at his feet and marching away through the crowd. Vultures, vermin, and scandalized alike: all descended in a ravenous swarm on the coins to slake their greed or genuine hurt -- but the offending cart and its representative were swiftly forgotten by the mob. Watchful eyes from further along the lane, however, took careful note and easily gave secret chase from the alleys and close lanes where wagons and fewer than a handful of the more well-to-do of Renks Cairn dared to pass (if they could even squeeze themselves into the space).

...

Near the mouth of the valley, high in the foothills, a lone ork stopped and listened to the booming voice of boulder-on-tree -- the music of an avalanche of stones. It couldn't be very far ahead, and the goblins he'd been following had only just vanished from sight after turning up a thin trail up the side of the valley behind a tumble of boulders that interrupted the cluster of pine trees here.

The stench of goblin in the area was almost unbearable, softened by the stinging pine and gentler scrub oak and sickly-sweet mountain flowers.

Tuwile could just make out a trace of smoke from what might have been a cooking fire, before the dust cloud wafted upward and blocked the sky behind the valley. He could just hear something like screaming, then small rocks and pebbles were slithering down the valley wall.

Soon, a near dozen goblins were flying down the path, heedless of the wall of muscle that was Tuwile blocking the way off their hidden path.

Snatching one of the goblins by the neck and giving a hearty shake to unseat its panic, Tuwile loomed larger than the sky as he held the goblin nose-to-nose with him.

"Why you run?" he spat the words out, trying to breathe the goblin stench as little as possible.

"Lake troll! Lake troll!" it gibbered, flailing and gnashing -- unafraid of this imminent threat for a threat it had been raised to fear more than fire or steel.

Tuwile cast the goblin aside, where it bounced against a tree, scrambled to its feet and ran with all its spindly might down the valley trail. Taking a deep breath through his nose, Tuwile tried to sift out the smells in the area. Goblin, certainly. Trees, brush, flowers aplenty... goats, now in full panic of their own... blood. Something else...

"Fuck." Tuwile gave a resigned sigh, looking up the side of the valley and imagining where the valley must end for the rock-slide to have started near the back of what must certainly be a box canyon of sorts. "So, there's a lake up there."

The smell of frenzied troll was growing, and Tuwile had enough sense to know he could not face the thing alone.

"May Sidero remember." Tuwile stripped his hide armor and spat on the ground, turning his back on the valley and loping back down to the foothills as he arranged what little travel provisions he dared keep.

The crowded soldiers of pine, beech, and elm watched his shoulders as he descended from the valley mouth, their ranks growing darker with shrinking cries of goblin terror or death. The crash and boom of stray boulders, some that must be as large as the bison that grazed the steppe, grew fewer and closer -- the warning trails of dust like camp-fires among the huddling tops of the valley's forest. Tuwile disappeared into the hills below, and the trees gave their attention to the rampage above in the scuttled goblin camp. The hulk that descended into their midst gave terrible rapport, howling in mindless rage at the edge of its territory where some other troll's scent had dared to pass. It was an old smell, but unmistakable, and Wakhashem's nameless nightmare snuffled deeply at the hide rags before tearing them to ribbons and snapping trees as big around as a man's waist like twigs in its hatred of its own kind. The stinking smell was stronger, here, far from the cool, soothing waters that had been this troll's home for all its spiteful existence. The smell ran in smoke, fog and whispered screaming in the shallow footsteps of some ork meat still hot with life, but it clung in the troll's nose with angry barbs and drove the fell beast mad beyond what little reason it had ever possessed.

Shaking its sloping head, its snout-like face sagging open and slavering; cracked, yellowed teeth still wet with goblin blood that had not quieted the shrieking hatred of that hideous stench of troll musk; the troll sniffed back and forth, weighing the speed of its quarry with its distance from its precious home. The only thing it craved more than its lair was a mate... and this other thing had dared to pass into its domain, threatening the possibility of either nesting or spawning. All that mattered was destroying the intruder, tearing, gnashing, eating and ripping-apart anything with that smell until it was gone.

Lowing its fearsome call, the troll turned its thick snout downhill, knuckles covered in tortoise-like scales thumping into the dirt, it tilted forward and loped ape-like after the fleeing stench. Its fury had waned, spent in its mad sprint from the nest -- up from the bowl of the valley of its frigid lake of small fish and icy mud, and down the rocky slope into the wooded valley. It had slaked some of its rage in hurling boulders down from the high ridges above the valley's narrow floor, wishing the bursting and breaking of trees were the bones of the interloper. The goblin flesh was too stringy, sour and piss-weak to eat, but the squishing bodies had popped and broken beneath the crushing and crashing paws of the troll -- but the smell was further down, near the mouth of the valley. Now that the trail was fresh, the troll felt a rush in its blood and lumbered forward.

Trotting, it followed even as the sunlight stabbed at its eyes before dropping out of sight and night finally descended. The smell grew stronger and weaker, whatever ork meat carrying it seeming to pick its path on firmer, smoother ground -- but the troll cut over corners and turns to shorten the distance without care for the effort of it.

As the plains peeked out around the hills, Tuwile spied the far-off twinkle of a bonfire, the sun's last glow giving way to purple night before the moon's rise. Cursing silently to himself, Tuwile turned his thudding feet slightly north... toward South-wold.

...

"I was beginning to think you had reconsidered." Esmeray Saran did her best to look bored at the notion, leaning against the standing stone marking the fifth league from Renks Cairn along the river.

"Well, you did pick a... discreet location." Jachmina smiled, her cheeks ruddy and forehead sweating from exertions both magical and physical. "I swore I'd passed this rock twice on the way here. I'd forgotten how all these villages look the same."

Night was falling, the sun sinking behind the thin curtain wall of mountains blocking the coast fifteen leagues further along the river road. Most traffic between Tsuro and Renks Cairn was by barge, with poorer pilgrims or farmers using the ill-shaped road to travel to the nearest settlement along the route. Such travelers found refuge most nights in the busy fishing villages that served as berths for trade ships stopping during storms or drought, with only two free-standing coaching inns between the capital and its sister city. With so many people trafficking up and down the river, it was unusual for a single stretch to be so barren as the place Esmeray had chosen -- but such was its plight, for the soil was too sandy here to grow much and the water too shallow to risk stopping for anything less than the most dire fortune on the river. The north side of the river suffered no such fate, and the glimmering lanterns of the two docks of the village there spoke to their relative affluence -- even though the fishing in this particular stretch of the river was poorer than most. Little more than a quarter league wide at the narrowest point to either edge of the horizon, the river snaked and slithered between rocky or sandy hills and spread itself nearly two leagues wide before squeezing into the narrow gate passage between the stony mountains forbidding any other access to the blasting waves of the coast.

West Bridge Road, so named for the great, narrow bridge spanning the river, served as the access point for water traffic into Renks Cairn, and all points east of the West Bridge were dotted with piers or docks where the water was deep enough to draw near the shore and out from the middle of the river. Smatterings of shelters and hostels provided drier accommodations for those less-suited to river travel, and loading points for local traffic heading west to Tsuro. Jachmina had been forced to wait, on the north side of the bridge, as two ships passed between the great machines that drew limbs of the bridge upward to allow their masts through. Gears, cables, chains, and no small amount of magic allowed such passage to occur several times each day as ships moved up or down the river, and those not on the water were forced to abide until the bridge closed again and traffic on foot, hoof, or cart could resume.

It looked to Jachmina as though West Bridge Road were the filter through which the river's many flotsam traders sieved upstream and dripped against the shores like honey -- growing thicker and slower until reaching the pooling body of Renks Cairn; where the water of the river was forced into a great collecting basin set with numerous docks and warehouses managing the agrarian trade of the sprawling plains between the mountains out to Tsuro on the coast.

Now, faced with the Wizard Saran again, Jachmina found herself invigorated, anxious to begin whatever dark business Saran required in exchange for the promised arcane spoils. Jachmina smoothed her sweat-soaked plaits and dusted her corset primly with thick fingers.

"Refresh yourself a moment, then." Esmeray gestured vaguely to the younger sorceress, her bland garb looking more neat than earlier in the day, and the silver-white mane of her hair allowed to hang loose and wild about her shoulders as the river breeze caught and tickled around her.

"What preparation will you require?" Jachmina's enthusiasm clouded briefly as she concentrated on an incantation that would restore her vigor after her journey to this rendezvous.

As the portly woman fashioned a lightless lattice-work of gestures, tugging and prodding the waving lines of magic into a familiar pattern, she spoke two words that chimed with hyacinth and broken glass. The magic flashed visibly into a symbol of arcane, impossible geometry that spun about its axis in six directions before suffusing into Jachmina's flesh and lighting beneath her skin the barest glow.

Esmeray flinched, the effect calling to her mind the source of her current malady, but Jachmina was too focused to see the momentary startle. As if emboldened, the curse increased the tempo with which it battered Saran's defenses.

"What formulae do you have for facsimile?" Saran rolled her shoulders and flexed her fingers nimbly. "I shall require two copies, one to demonstrate the technique I will show you -- the other for you to enchant."

"Copies, aye, I have duplicated many texts for my own studies." The black-haired wizard nodded eagerly, already seeing her goal within reach. "I can fashion them onto parchment or vellum, even..."

"Do not misunderstand -" Saran held her right hand forward, palm out, "- I mean, 'can you duplicate my body'?"

Jachmina's mouth worked soundless a moment before quirking inward on itself as she considered her own magic, the library of her own spells certainly differently-ordered than those of Esmeray.

"Why would...? I suppose I... hmm..." Jachmina's eyes narrowed and she tapped a finger to her tightened lips thoughtfully. "What exactly are you trying to escape?"

The sigh rushing from Esmeray's lungs was tinged with relief, as well as resignation. She had dreaded revealing this truth, and yet dreaded it still -- but was glad to at last be confronted with it.