4.7 Rumors

As Jori felt herself dragged out of the hells by magic, she mentally prepared herself to deliver her update for the great mages. They’d raised Lidis to class two, four of her scouts had returned with recruits who they’d either saved from predation or captured, and the base was coming along nicely. Souls were always thin on the ground in this area, but they’d made do so far. Now, though, the entire region was depleted. With so many mouths to feed, they were going to have to expand their territory or they would have to wait for new souls to wander in.

They could probably do it on their own, but Jori hoped that Ed would offer his help. They needed to grow more powerful, but they also had to keep a low profile to avoid notice by Varamemnon’s servants.

It was with some surprise that Jori found herself materializing on a stone floor in a small windowless cell, facing three people who were definitely not Ed and Iriala. Two of them wore black and red Solicitors’ robes, while her summoner wore her usual gray coat over an armored vest of layered red and gray canvas. 

“Josie!” Jori cried, leaping for her with delight only to bounce off of the wards of the summoning circle. She cried out as she landed awkwardly on her tail.

“Ow! What’s with the containment?” she complained.

“Hi Jori.” Josie said, smiling happily. “Sorry about that. It’s standard procedure.” She glared over her shoulder at the other solicitors, who looked a lot less friendly. “It’s important not to give my opponents anything to work with.”

“Oh,” Jori sighed. “So you didn’t win, yet?”

Josie shook her head and turned to the others. “Let the record show that I’ve summoned my client, as confirmed by yourselves. Now get the hells out of here so I can work!”

“So it is witnessed,” the older of the two solicitors – a woman with a shaved head said, nodding with a neutral expression. Then she gestured to the other one and headed for the door. The young man, maybe her apprentice or assistant, sneered and scoffed at Josie before following the older woman out.

When the door slammed shut, Josie visibly relaxed.

“Finally! I got the records from the Mages’ Guild a week ago and I’ve been trying to get in touch with you ever since. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it was to get permission to summon you for a consultation. I had to petition the magistrate directly, even though private client consultation is supposed to be a right. The others tried to argue that it shouldn’t be allowed because the Underkeepers are officially the injured party, not you. In the end, I managed to get the local head of the Underkeepers to write them a letter arguing on your behalf.”

Jori frowned. “From here? Why would they want to help me?” She’d had to prove herself to Ed repeatedly before he’d stopped threatening to kill her. He hadn’t really been friendly until after they’d been in the hells together.  

“Oh, I don’t think he cares at all.” Josie said with a sardonic grin. “He just hates the Solicitor General and wants to do anything he can to ruin her day. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you because I don’t think we should try to use your activities in the hells in my case here.”

“What?!” Jori threw up her hands, her tail thrashing. “Why not? It’s been going so well, we even got one of Nuros’ class four lieutenants – and a creepy eyeball from K’thanizar!” What was the point of getting her and Ed’s kills documented if Josie wouldn’t even use it?

Josie held out both hands in a pacifying gesture. “Let me explain, alright? It’s just that it’s not really relevant to the case. I’m arguing that the Solicitors didn’t have the right to deport you in the first place. How useful you are to the kingdom isn’t really relevant to the legal basis of that argument. But that doesn’t mean I can’t use this for something else!”

Confused, Jori frowned. “I want to come back, though – that’s what the case is for. It’s the first step! What else would you use it for?”

The warlock smiled reassuringly and walked over to the corner of the room, where she collected a small stack of papers and a stool. She dragged the latter back toward the summoning circle and sat down, leafing through the papers. “Well, according to the reports here, you and Archmage Ed representing the Underkeepers developed a method with the support of the Mages’ Guild for permanently destroying demons who pose a threat to the kingdom’s security. Killing demons isn’t illegal, and doing it on another plane has absolutely nothing to do with Beseri law regardless. It’s not suitable for any kind of lawsuit.” Josie found the paper she was looking for and pulled it out of the stack, turning it around to show Jori. “But it looks like Ed already thought of that.”

“Ah… Josie, I can’t read.”

“Oh!” Josie flipped the paper over again. “Right. Sorry. It’s a writ of authorization in Ed’s name to petition the King for the formation of a cooperative task force between the Solicitors, the Underkeepers and the Halfbridge Mages’ Guild for the purpose of interplanar warfare.”

Jori blinked. “What does that mean? Wait, no! I don’t want to stay in the hells and fight demons forever.”

“You wouldn’t have to,” Josie explained. “The only critical function you or any other demon would have is transport related. This entire thing is just another way to get you back here – at least most of the time. I mean, I’m sure there are other reasons, but as far as you’re concerned, that’s what it’s for. The important bit is that you’d be the lynchpin of the entire organization. Normal demons don’t accept mortal pacts that bind their actions in the hells. I mean, you didn’t, either. Your entire operation so far runs on trust!”

Oh. Right! Jori grinned eagerly and sat down on the ground in the small space she had. “What you’re saying is that I could negotiate for just about anything.”

“Ehh…” Josie leaned her head to the side skeptically, “not really. People are afraid of demons, so you need to make sure none of your demands will sound too… demonic. Otherwise it would look bad, and it might lead to the temples putting pressure on the king. That could backfire pretty badly for all of us. I want you to help me define how demons in this scheme would be compensated.”

“Hmmm,” Jori scratched at her head and looked around. “Do you have any snacks?”

***

The next morning, Bernt rose to find that someone, probably Doreen, had left a small bundle of herbs – parsley, rosemary and yarrow – lying at his door. He’d told her about what he needed the herbs for over tea yesterday, but he’d forgotten to actually collect any after Torvald had arrived. He made a mental note to find and thank the elderly priestess as he pocketed the gift. With any luck, his robes wouldn’t look quite so shabby by the time the Conclave started.

There were still two days to go until then. Bernt considered that as he made his way through the temple complex and down from Ruzinia’s peak. What should he do with the time? With regard to the Conclave, there was the Temple of Noruk’s odd behavior toward Torvald to worry about. They needed to find out what their angle was as soon as possible. On the other hand, he only had until the Conclave ended to learn as much as he could from Song about his sorcery and it wasn’t clear how much time he would have to speak to Bernt after the proceedings started. The odds that he would ever meet another cultivator without traveling to Miria were practically zero, so this wasn’t an opportunity he could afford to ignore. It wasn’t just for him, either – anything usable that he gleaned could affect every Beseri sorcerer who came after him.

But talking to Song wouldn’t be very productive if he didn’t know the right questions to ask. The man wasn’t really willing to teach, after all. Bernt had to work out how to elicit useful advice from the general knowledge that Song considered to be so basic that it wasn’t worth protecting, ideally without trying the man’s patience. To do that, he needed to take time to try to apply what he’d learned yesterday.

And, of course, he still needed to go back down to Norhold and meet Minister Jesra as soon as he could. He’d been here barely more than a day and already had multiple responsibilities warring for his time.

Bernt tried to take a slow breath as he reached the communal, open-air kitchen that had been set up in the square next to the massive central administrative building and joined the short line. Just like the day before, unaffiliated temple acolytes served up a variety of dishes to the waiting priests and legitimators, ranging from the monochrome porridge that he’d tried the day before to fresh bread, fresh vegetables and fruit that Bernt was absolutely certain wasn’t in season and also shouldn’t have been able to grow this high up in the mountains.

Someone tapped Bernt on the shoulder.

“Good day, young man.”

“Wha…?” Bernt turned to find a familiar-looking middle aged man standing behind him.

“You’re the provincial Underkeeper from Halfbridge, right?” the man asked. His accent was clearly from Madzhur, with a slight sing-song quality to it. Bernt just stared at him for a moment, trying to place him until he finally noticed his robes. They had five stripes on them, three of which were braided as though they represented an entire augmentation.

“Oh, from the Scryer’s office!” Bernt said. “Sorry, I didn’t recognize you. Yes, I am. I remember your robes.”

The man’s eyebrows rose and he looked down at himself, as if looking for a stain. “My… ah, I see.” He nodded, smirking as he nodded down at the stripes on his sleeve. “I’m an old order mage – these represent my disciplines. You didn’t think we tracked our strength the same way structural mages do, did you? We would always look like novices!”

“Right, of course.” Bernt replied as though he knew what the old man was talking about. He knew that modern magecraft had been developed out of multiple more primitive casting traditions that had, in turn, grown out of the more haphazard and heterogenous practice of witchcraft. All of this had happened in modern day Madzhur, even before its capital, Mahat’Ur, had begun to expand its territory into the earliest form of the Madurian Empire.

That anybody might actually still be practicing one of these old casting traditions was news to Bernt. How they might work, or why exactly he called Bernt a “structural” mage, were mysteries he didn’t really need the answers to right now. He had enough on his plate.

Fortunately, the mage didn’t pursue the subject further. Instead, he leaned in conspiratorially, “I heard that Halfbridge suffered quite a significant assault from the Duergar before the unexpected fall of Loamfurth. Were you there? We’ve gotten a lot of rumors, you understand, but it’s difficult to get a real picture of the situation when you’re relying on rumors and hearsay. The stories range from armies of dwarves flooding out of the sewers to demons falling from the sky in their thousands. I even heard a rumor that a young Underkeeper summoned the demons to fight the Duergar…”

Bernt smiled politely and coughed uncomfortably. “Right... no, that’s not what happened.”

This mage was doing exactly what he’d been planning to do – fishing for information for whatever guild or other organization he was associated with back home in Madzhur to push their agenda. Bernt didn’t know what that might be, and he doubted he’d be able to find out. Besides, when it came to securing help for Besermark, he didn’t see any reason to hold back the truth.

“I fought at Halfbridge, yes,” he explained. “The Duergar laid siege to the city and then just sat there for a few weeks, sending teams of adventurers and demons to test our defenses. There were infiltrators, too – cultists and incorporeal demons trying to drive people to panic. Our Chief Solicitor said it was to ripen our souls for their demons’ harvest. They must have had at least a hundred warlocks…” Bernt summed up the battle of Halfbridge, skipping most of the details to focus on what he thought would be most relevant to foreigners. The army was big, they attacked from multiple angles, and they had a lot of demons under the leadership of a greater shade named Nuros, who was in some kind of partnership with their King Grundrik.

As he talked, the priest in front of him in line, as well as a few of the people eating nearby turned to listen, and by the time he finished, he’d gathered a small crowd. The line had stopped moving entirely. This was, after all, the reason for the Conclave. Belatedly, Bernt remembered that in Madzhur, warlocks and demons were still killed on sight. 

If anything, they might view this invasion as an even greater threat than the Beseris did.

“Wait, they made Underkeepers fight?” asked a young Madzhuri noblewoman sitting on a bench, as if that was the most shocking bit of information he’d shared. She clutched a half-eaten bread roll in one hand, forgotten. He stared at her for a moment, incredulous, and she gave a little embarrassed cough as she realized what she’d said, and to whom. “Uh… right. Do you know what happened to Loamfurth?” 

Bernt cleared his throat. “Yeah. One of my colleagues was there – he only survived because he was in the sewers. As far as I heard from him, the entire place was overrun with demons. There was no warning and they didn’t try to play any mind games like they did in Halfbridge. From what I heard, they were trying to set up a similar attack on Teres, but our scouts caught them and the city counterattacked.”

There were a few more questions about what various guilds were doing, what the King’s plans were, and what the current situation was in Teres, but Bernt didn’t have answers to most of them. When it became clear that he didn’t know, they finally let him get some breakfast.

Unfortunately, while everyone down was eager for news about the Duergar, nobody was eager to speculate about the specifics of the Conclave or temples themselves, least of all the Temple of Noruk. Besides a few rumors about guilds Bernt had never heard of and some kind of scandal about a Kallrixian senator, he didn’t learn anything.

Frustrated, he decided to pursue his other project for the time being, instead. The first thing he needed to do was to try some more controlled experiments with absorbing new magical potential. To do that, though, he needed to get back to the Phoenix Reaches to collect his things. He wouldn’t have much time once the Conclave started, so now was as good a time as any.

If he was lucky, he might catch the next storm of burning rain, too, though he wasn’t sure what he would do if he did. He’d failed to bottle it before, and he still wasn’t totally comfortable with the idea of just drinking it down and hoping for the best. He needed to find Song.