Call of Wizardry, page 33
“So it’s done,” Alaric said.
“It is.” Dianthe stretched out her long legs. “It won’t be the same, not living at Master Tersus’s house, but I’m sure none of you will miss the snoring.”
“Poor Denys,” Sienne said with a smile.
Perrin cleared his throat. “As to that,” he said, “I have counseled with Evander, and discussed things with Cressida, and…well, you know that priests of Averran are itinerant, with the temples and shrines tended by men and women who stay only a few seasons and move on again. I do not think I can subject my family to that.”
Sienne drew in a startled breath. “But you’re not…giving up the priesthood, are you?”
Perrin smiled. “No, I am not. Evander and I discussed the nature of the service Averran’s priests give, how Averran himself chose to take light into dark places, and I have concluded that my service is best rendered by my continuing as I have been. By wielding his power on his behalf…with all of you.”
Sienne let out the breath she’d been holding and wiped away a tear. “Even if it’s just fighting cockatrices?” she said. “Not that I know what those are.”
“The unholy offspring of a rooster and a bat,” Dianthe said. “Scaly and horrible. Don’t let them bite you.”
“I won’t, thanks.” She rested her head on Alaric’s shoulder. “So…where next?”
Everyone laughed. “Sienne, you just got married,” Dianthe said. “You deserve a honeymoon.”
“I’d just be restless,” Sienne complained.
“Not if I do it right,” Alaric rumbled, making her blush.
“Give it a week,” Perrin suggested. “We can search for new jobs in the meantime. Onofreo has still not recovered entirely from the plague of undead loosed upon it by Ivar Scholten’s death.”
“And I may have some more permanent work lined up,” Dianthe said. “I don’t know if we want to work for the Crown, but Corbyn said there’s trouble out east and they want someone to investigate it. Someone not afraid of werebears.”
“I would love to see Swift and Clever again,” Sienne exclaimed.
“Even if it means being the king’s lackey,” Alaric grumbled.
“There is a man on the ship who has trouble,” Kalanath said. “He has an inheritance in the north that monsters have overrun. I do not say we will help because I do not know there is a ‘we.’ But I think monsters run from us now.”
Sienne smiled. “Just so there is a ‘we’ now,” she said, “I don’t care what we do next.”
She woke early the next morning, disturbed by the pattern of sunlight in the unfamiliar room. Alaric had insisted they have a real honeymoon, Sienne had refused to leave Fioretti, and they’d compromised by taking rooms in an exclusive inn near the palace, with the intention of making day trips to seaside resorts and wilderness locations. She lay in bed watching the sun travel across the walls and listening to Alaric breathe. That sound wasn’t going to get old any time soon.
She’d hung her spellbook in its harness on a peg near the door, directly in her line of sight. The harness was worn across the shoulder and near the edges where the flexible wooden cover of the spellbook rubbed it. She ought to make a new one, but the idea irritated her. What was the point of putting all that effort into something she didn’t need?
She got out of bed and hunted for her clothes. It had been a memorable night. It seemed marriage was important for more than just the vows you made. Alaric rolled over and reached for her, opening one eye when he didn’t find her immediately. “You could sleep in for once, you know,” he mumbled. “The inn will serve us breakfast whenever we want. We’re certainly paying enough to ensure it.”
“There’s something I need to do,” she said, realizing as she spoke the words that they were true. “I’ll be back in an hour. I love you.”
“…love you…” Alaric said, already mostly asleep again. She smiled and let herself out, slinging the harness over her shoulder.
Fioretti in the morning was always fresh and new, even in neighborhoods that weren’t as nice as this one. Here, Sienne smelled only fresh air and hot bread, not rotten food and animal waste, but she was in a good enough mood even the latter wouldn’t have put her off. It was amazing how peaceful a decision could leave you. Even if she’d made the decision unconsciously.
The cobbled streets leading to the University of Fioretti gradually emptied the nearer she came to the university buildings, which had imposing marble façades that usually made Sienne uncomfortable with how unwelcoming they were. She’d never wanted to be a student there, and the tall buildings with their red roofs seemed bent on making her feel outcast. But today she passed between them without a second thought. She was more powerful than they, and what they represented couldn’t hurt her.
The tall doors to the wizardry school stood open, and a few students in light blue gowns strode in and out, most of them in chattering pairs. No one paid any attention to Sienne, though she looked out of place in her ordinary trousers and shirt and scrapper’s spellbook. She passed through the rotunda, from which corridors radiated like the spokes of a wheel, and followed one of the spokes all the way to the end.
The private lecture hall was mostly empty, with only a few students occupying the desks aligned at precise right angles to the walls and each other. Sienne recognized Mistress Elodie Givvani’s hand in their orientation; the woman was more painfully neat than any professor Sienne had ever had. Thick, bubbly glass in the windows showed the outside world as bright smears, nothing that might distract a student from her work. It reminded Sienne of far-off classrooms in Stravanus, though those rooms had always been bitterly cold.
The students looked up when Sienne entered, assessed her quickly, and returned to their studies. Sienne knocked once on Mistress Givvani’s office door and pushed it open without waiting for a reply.
The office was as Sienne remembered it: bookshelves empty of clutter, a desk clear of paperwork, no scraps of paper on the floor and no paintings or drawings on the walls. Mistress Givvani sat behind her desk, spellbook in hand, her lips moving as she read from it. She looked up at Sienne’s entrance, and her scowl at being interrupted turned into a smile. “Sienne!” she exclaimed. “It’s good to see you. I don’t suppose you have another artifact for us?”
“No,” Sienne said, “but I do have a puzzle for you.”
“Really? How intriguing. I have a lecture in half an hour, so if it won’t take long…” She pushed back her chair and stood, her short gray hair the most untidy thing about her.
“Showing you won’t take long,” Sienne said. “Solving it may take a lifetime.” Now that she was here, now that she’d come to this point, her heart hammered in her chest and her palms were covered with a fine sheen of sweat. It wasn’t too late. She could still walk away.
“That’s…cryptic.” Mistress Givvani came around to lean against the front of her desk. “You have my attention.”
Sienne removed her spellbook harness from around her neck. It was such a small thing, and yet it represented something that would change the world. “Hold this,” she told Mistress Givvani, handing her the book. “And let me show you what I can do.”
Sienne’s Spellbook
Summonings:
Summonings affect the physical world and elements. They include all transportation spells.
Castle—trade places with someone else
Convey—teleport an object
Ferry—teleport with one other person
Fog—obscuring mist
Jaunt—personal teleportation
Slick—conjure grease
Summon companion—summon one of six magical creatures
Evocations:
Evocations deal with intangible elements like fire, air, and lightning.
Barrier—wall of fire or air
Burn—ray of fire
Force—bolt of magical energy, hits with perfect accuracy
Fury—six force-bolts, hits whatever is in range
Scorch—fireball
Scream—sonic attack, causes injury
Shout—sonic attack, causes short-term paralysis
Confusions:
Confusions affect what the senses perceive.
Camouflage—disguise an object’s shape, color, or texture
Cast—ventriloquism
Echo—auditory hallucinations
Imitate—change someone’s entire appearance
Mirage—visual hallucinations
Mirror—creates three identical duplicates of the caster
Shift—small alterations in appearance, such as eye or hair color
Vanish—invisibility
Transforms:
Transforms change an object or creature’s state, in small or large ways.
Break—shatters fragile things
Cat’s eye—true darkvision
Change—polymorph a living thing
Drift—feather fall
Fit (object)—shrink or enlarge an object; permanent
Fit (person)—shrink or enlarge a person; temporary
Float—levitation
Gills—water breathing
Mud—transform stone to mud
Purge—transmute liquid
Sculpt—shape stone
Sharpen—improve sight or hearing
Voice—sound like someone else
The Small Magics
These can be done by any wizard without a spellbook, with virtually no limits.
Light
Spark
Mend
Create water
Breeze
Chill/warm liquid
Telekinesis (up to 6-7 pound weights) (also known as invisible fingers)
Ghost sound
Ghostly form
Find true north
Open (used to manipulate a spellbook)
Invulnerability
Afterword
I have been playing role-playing games since college, when my boyfriend (later husband) introduced me to his gaming group. They said they knew I was a keeper the day he didn’t show up and I did. That group has been going for over thirty years in one form or another, and we’ve played so many systems and so many characters I’m sure I’ve forgotten more than I remember.
So, thanks to this history, one story I’ve always wanted to write is one in which the fundamentals of the fantasy gaming party are a reality. I thought it would be fun to write about a group of adventurers who took on quests because they were paid to do it, who fought monsters and found treasure but also were a step above murder hobos. But it was sort of a passive, that-would-be-cool desire, especially since for most of my life, I have not been a fiction writer.
About five years ago, I was bored on a Sunday afternoon and felt the need to create something. Specifically, I thought it would be fun to create a set of characters for an adventuring party. No game, no campaign—just the characters. I happen to have an excellent book called Central Casting that is a resource for generating character backgrounds using dice and a bunch of clever tables. (It’s still out there if you can get your hands on it.) So I pulled that out and got started.
I came up with five characters—a fighter/barbarian, a wizard, a cleric, a rogue, and…actually, the fifth character didn’t come together very well, and I wasn’t sure if he was a bard or a monk or what. But it didn’t matter, because I was just messing around. I decided they all had a common background of joining the military, that the wizard was the main character but the barbarian was the leader, and put everything aside with no intention of doing anything more with them.
Some years later, I was talking to my writing partner (who happens to be a member of the same gaming group) and we were joking about the next big thing in YA fantasy. Unicorns, one of us said. Purple sparkly unicorns, the other said. No, were-unicorns. That struck us as hilarious, right up until I said, “You know, real unicorns wouldn’t be sissy and pretty and delicate. They’d be the size of a Clydesdale and utterly terrifying.”
So we got to discussing that. What the human form would look like. What kind of magic they’d have. In only a few minutes, I knew I had my next book. But it couldn’t be just were-unicorns; there had to be more to it. And that’s when I remembered my party of characters.
Fleshing them out, and creating a world for them to inhabit, came so naturally it felt as if the story had been waiting for me to take notice of it. The world Rafellin exists in has fallen from a golden age of magical technology, and that makes it ideal for adventuring, what with lost troves of magic to find and monsters created by magical wars to fight.
Sienne, as I said, was always the main character, and Alaric was always the force driving the party. That he was the were-unicorn became immediately obvious, and from there, the story arc unfolded.
It’s astonishing to me, even after as many books and series as I’ve written, how one decision leads to another. For example, I impulsively decided the “gods” of Rafellin would be avatars of one God, which led to a brainstorming session in which the avatars emerged. I picked six as a good, manageable number of avatars, but it was my husband who pointed out that six is the number of attributes in D&D-flavored fantasy RPGs (strength, charisma, etc.) and what if each avatar represented one of those attributes? And suppose the worship of avatars wasn’t universal? Suddenly I had not one, but two robust religious systems, and two characters to represent them.
(The Worship of Averran is due almost entirely to another friend and gamer who, when I was talking about the need to develop the personalities of the avatars, suggested that one of them could be a crotchety old man whose worshippers had to cajole and wheedle him to get him to give them spells. Thanks again, Bryan.)
Aside from the underlying principles, I had no desire to write up an actual campaign I’d played in. That is beyond boring, because most campaigns don’t actually work like novels. The plots are unbalanced due to the nature of players, who like to go haring off on side quests, and not every encounter is interesting. I wanted the trappings of an RPG, but it was always going to be a real fantasy novel. I didn’t realize how well I’d done my fundamentals. It was a genuine surprise when early reviews of Company of Strangers all said the same thing: it was just like a role-playing adventure, but better. The sense of wonder and excitement I always got from gaming came through.
So here we are at the end of the adventure, with all five companions setting off on new quests together. To me, the story is finished, and I won’t come back to their lives again. But I know something of what comes next, enough to know that when, years from now, they’re done being scrappers, they remain friends and companions.
PERRIN continues to grow in the worship of Averran until he becomes a divine and takes up a role in the Fiorettan temple to that avatar. He and Cressida have two more children, and when his father dies about five years after the end of this series, he reconciles with the rest of his family, three of whom convert to Averran’s worship.
DIANTHE eventually retires from active adventuring to raise a family with Denys, who ultimately is promoted to Commander of the Guard. While she never takes Corbyn’s position as chief spy, she occasionally acts as King Derekian’s left hand when subtlety and a non-official liaison are called for.
KALANATH divides his time between Fioretti and Chirantan, where he studies with the divines of the temple and teaches his younger sisters the use of the longstaff. As devesh, he learns to control his visions and becomes well-known for his wisdom and insight.
SIENNE and ALARIC settle in Fioretti, where Alaric takes a job with the city guard and Sienne teaches those wizards who choose to undergo the coming of age ritual. Though they never have children of their own, they become foster parents to a series of older orphans Alaric encounters in the course of his work, and eventually adopt two of them.
Sienne’s decision to reveal the coming of age ritual transforms magic as Rafellin knows it, and the results continue to change the country and its wizards. Where it will end, no one knows.
Thank you for following Sienne, Alaric, Perrin, Dianthe, and Kalanath on their journey, and for helping turn my idle desire into a reality.
—Melissa McShane
About the Author
In addition to the Company of Strangers series, Melissa McShane is the author of thirty fantasy novels, including the novels of Tremontane, the first of which is Servant of the Crown; The Extraordinaries series, beginning with Burning Bright; and The Book of Secrets, first book in The Last Oracle series.
She lives in the shelter of the mountains out West with her husband, four children and a niece, and four very needy cats. Her library has officially overflowed its bounds, which is another way of saying she needs more shelves.
She wrote reviews and critical essays for many years before turning to fiction, which is much more fun than anyone ought to be allowed to have.
You can visit her at www.melissamcshanewrites.com for more information on other books.
For news on upcoming releases, bonus material, and other fun stuff, sign up for Melissa’s newsletter at http://eepurl.com/brannP
Melissa McShane, Call of Wizardry
