Practical Adept: Book 17 of the Spellmonger Series, page 1
Practical Adept
Book 17 of the Spellmonger
Series
By Terry Mancour
Edited by Emily Burch Harris
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the fellowship of the smoking section of the Queen Mary Transatlantic Crossing, an astonishingly diverse and undeniably fascinating collection of rugged adventurers who shared their stories and touched the hearts of my wife and me:
John Olmeg’s Twin, Adrien the Cunning, Mickey of Ohio, Jackie with the Good Hair, Odette the Scottish Hedgewitch, Kaliste the Obscure, Victor, actor Corey Campbell, Hans, and the others who made us feel like Chaucer sitting down in a particularly chatty inn for eight days. There’s no better way to pass the time on a transatlantic voyage than by drinking, eating, smoking, and exchanging tales with fellow travelers.
It is experiences like this that fill my creativity tanks to overflowing. Thank you!
The Spellmonger Series
Spellmonger
The Spellmonger’s Honeymoon (Novella)
Warmage
Magelord
Knights Magi
The Road To Sevendor (Anth)
High Mage
Journeymage
Enchanter
Court Wizard
Shadowmage
Necromancer
Thaumaturge
The Road To Vanador (Anth)
Arcanist
The Wizards of Sevendor (Anth)
Footwizard
Hedgewitch
The Mad Mage of Sevendor (Novella)
Marshal Arcane
Preceptor
Practical Adept
Cadet Trilogy (YA): Legacy & Secrets Trilogy (YA):
HawkmaidenShadowplay
HawkladyShadowheist
Sky RiderShadowblade
Maps by Delfino Falciani
An electronic version of these map can be found at:
https://spellmonger.fandom.com/wiki/Spellmonger_Wiki
Author’s Forward:
Writing is a solitary endeavor, for the most part, but publishing (“to make public”) is not, and a good writer requires a lot of support to drag his or her ideas out of their subconscious, on to the page, and beaten into submission before processing, distribution and consumption. Here are a few of them.
I’d like to sincerely thank all who assisted in putting this book together: the Garden Society on Discord, especially Lt. Col. Craig Maefs, US Army (Ret.) for his insights on warfare-induced PTSD, and Dave Ramsay for his valuable service and outstanding organizational abilities concerning the Spellmonger Wiki and the RPG. The GS was instrumental in beta-reading this book and I thank all of them for their contributions and insights.
I’d also like to thank Delfino Falciani for his cartographic skills, which have been superb. You wanted maps? You’re gonna get some maps.
As always, Emily Burch Harris for her editing and the magnificent team at Podium Publishing for their constant and unwavering support and guidance. That includes John Lee, who persists in being the most seductive voice in all of fantasy fiction.
I’d also like to thank all the UK fans I met during my recent tour of Scotland and England for their inspiration and encouragement. And, of course, my family and friends for putting up with unreasonable demands and harrying deadlines for the last decade.
I could not have produced this book without the assistance and support of all of them. They have my deepest gratitude.
Contents
Prologue
Part One: Deliberation
Chapter One The Beryen Council
Chapter Two The Dread of the Council
Chapter Three A Bit of Advice
Chapter Four Minalan the Moody
Chapter Five Duin and Luin
Chapter Six Asalon the Fair
Chapter Seven Mirkandar the Magnificent
Chapter Eight The Sorceress of Sartha Wood
Chapter Nine The Steel Door
Chapter Ten The Starlight Lounge And Convention Center
Intermission I
Part Two: Infiltration
Chapter Eleven Captain’s Rest
Chapter Twelve Housekeeping
Chapter Thirteen Hiring A Team
Chapter Fourteen Flashy But Impressive
Chapter Fifteen Open For Business
Chapter Sixteen A Bad Cup of Tea
Chapter Seventeen Porsago, The Bread Of Farise
Chapter Eighteen Ambush!
Chapter Nineteen A Legacy of Whimsy
Chapter Twenty A Not Unanticipated Visitor
Intermission II
Part Three: Observation
Chapter Twenty-One A Cenacle of Spies
Chapter Twenty-Two Love and Murder
Chapter Twenty-Three Sympathy For The Serpent
Chapter Twenty-Four Pratt’s Jaffingay
Chapter Twenty-Five Cingaran’s Secret Betrayal
Chapter Twenty-Six The Spark Shack
Chapter Twenty-Seven The Iron Wheel
Chapter Twenty-Eight The Gray Dome
Chapter Twenty-Nine Echoes of the Past
Chapter Thirty The Armies Of Midnight
Intermission III
Part Four: Insurrection
Chapter Thirty-One Horrible News
Chapter Thirty-Two A Rat In The Ice
Chapter Thirty-Three A Cracked Pot
Chapter Thirty-Four Party Crashers
Chapter Thirty-Five Durgan Jole
Chapter Thirty-Six Morningstar Beach
Chapter Thirty-Seven Bottling the Lightning
Chapter Thirty-Eight Death By Committee
Chapter Thirty-Nine Action Plan
Chapter Forty The Red Feather
Intermission IV
Part Five: Revolution
Chapter Forty-One The Stirrings of Trouble
Chapter Forty-Two Hostage!
Chapter Forty-Three Interrogating The Breeze
Chapter Forty-Four A Bargain On The Beach
Chapter Forty-Five Increasingly Fragile
Chapter Forty-Six The Ducal Executioner of Alshar
Chapter Forty-SevenThe Dusky Maidens of Farise
Chapter Forty-Eight The Contented Cat
Chapter Forty-Nine A Dark and Stormy Night
Chapter Fifty Revolution
Intermission V
Part Six: Execution
Chapter Fifty-One Tea With The Admiral
Chapter Fifty-Two The Restoration of Farise
Chapter Fifty-Three Mission Accomplished
Chapter Fifty-Four The Iris
Chapter Fifty-Five The Reckoning
Epilogue
Prologue
It’s not often that you get to see the fulfillment of years of painstaking work culminate in a way that brings genuine joy to your heart. To live in this world a man has to cultivate his expectations, otherwise both good times and bad times can threaten to wash you away when you most need to be steadfast. Allowing yourself to descend into depression after tragedy or relaxing into indulgent complacency after triumph pose threats to a man and his purpose. Successes and failures compound themselves over time into wisdom, and it is truly rare for something to occur that overcomes those precious boundaries and indulge in unrepentant, untarnished elation..
But the double wedding of my eldest two apprentices qualified in every meaningful way.
It was a wonder that they’d come this far, I thought the morning of the ceremony. But for fortune and magic and their own true resolve, they would have perished in a forgotten little valley on the edge of the world as nameless victims. Their very survival of the destruction of Boval Vale was noteworthy. It had forced them to become men at an early age and demanded things of them they never could have imagined. And that was but the first of many battles.
By every right, they should have been dead a number of times in their young lives. They had saved tens of thousands due to their bravery, daring, and sheer ignorance of how impossible their missions had been. They had been two scared little boys, back in Boval Vale, in an impossible situation with virtually no hope of survival.
Now both were highly respected gentlemen, handsome and strong, lords and knights of the realm, powerful wizards, relentless warriors, made wealthy by their wits and their courageous nature. They counted dukes and princes as their acquaintances, as well as tribal chieftains and the august amongst the Alka Alon and gurvani, alike. Some of the most powerful men in the kingdom were proud to call them friends.
More, they had achieved that without – to my knowledge – descending into court politics, dishonorable deception, blatant bribery, or other common means of corruption that has oft propelled an unworthy man to high position. They had ascended while keeping their honor intact and their characters developed. War and politics does that to a man, and tempts him to his basest nature. But they had resisted, and become honorable men in their own right.
Indeed, they abhorred the petty tyranny of evil for they had been faced with its most potent expressions – and I do not mean mere evil dark lords, the depravity of genocidal war, the psychopathic undead, and the hordes of bloodthirsty foes; no, they had seen the darkest sides of humanity in their many journeys, a far more insidious and punishing experience than mere threats of painful death. Yet they had refused to be corrupted by it.
I could try to take credit for the men they had become, without sounding pompous and egotistical,
Tyndal, a cast-off bastard of a rural woman whose rajira had arisen unexpectedly while he was shoveling shit in a stable, and Rondal, a frail-looking village boy of uncommon intelligence and uncertain parentage whose Talent had been spotted and exploited by an opportunistic spellmonger. You can read that explanation however you like.
“It’s time to get ready, Master,” Ruderal prodded me. My current eldest apprentice was far more attentive than Ron and Tyn had ever been. He was a jewel among apprentices, grateful, eager, ambitious in his own way, and dedicated to learning what it was to be a wizard.
But he was also dedicated to seeing me thrive. His special Talent was to be able to peer into the self-awareness of any living thing – a tangled mixture of blessing and curse. That gave him incredible insight into human nature, which was not always a happy thing. But keeping me on schedule wasn’t part of his Talent, it was part of his character. Ruderal was one of the most genuinely good men I knew, in addition to being an excellent apprentice.
And Tyndal and Rondal had discovered him on one of their many adventures, and brought him to me because of a promise they’d made and kept.
“I’m almost ready,” I insisted. “It won’t take me but two moments to dress.”
“I just don’t want you to be late, Master,” he said with just the right “I know it’s a big day for Tyndal and Rondal.” He wasn’t wrong. I went to get dressed. I didn’t want to disappoint my boys. This day, of all days, they deserved my best.
They were an unlikely duo, forced together by horrific circumstance and Ifnia’s capricious humor. I’d had little enough time to spare in their direct education, but had done my best to ensure that they had the teaching and instruction they needed to survive the brutal, unpredictable world they’d found themselves in. I, alone, wasn’t responsible for how they had turned out. Sire Cei had certainly played a role, as had Alya and their comrades from Boval Castle.
But it was their own ambition, intelligence, and uncompromising pursuit of what they thought was right and good that had made them into the men they were.
No, I could not take credit for Tyndal and Rondal, despite their proud association with me and what I had accomplished. I had used them, in my way, as much as I had enriched and ennobled them. They had become exquisitely versatile tools, I knew, and had been greatly responsible for the success that I had enjoyed. To see them attempt to find some happiness as a reward for their efforts bore heavily on me.
Not because I begrudged it in the slightest, but because I had put them unfairly to the grindstone of events and risked not just their lives but their good natures for what I foresaw as a greater good. Tyndal and Rondal – individually and as a pair – had far exceeded my expectations and navigated the chaotic world they were thrust into and had answered with honor and passion.
Of course, such exceptional men had attracted equally exceptional women, I reflected as I dressed in the finery specially ordered for the occasion. .
Rondal had met his young bride in the midst of a mission of stealth to rescue a young boy and his mother from the clutches of the worst sort of gangsters. I gained a valuable apprentice as a result. Gatina anna Furituris was a shadowmage and professional thief, raised amongst a family of shadowtheives whose legacies and secrets stretched back centuries. She was also obsessively devoted to my former apprentice in ways that had shaped the frontiers of the kingdom. The Kitten of Night was a white-haired, violet-eyed mistress of shadow who had made it her life’s mission to wed stalwart Rondal. I have no idea why. Ishi moves in mysterious and often inexplicable ways.
Tyndal, for his part, had escaped a hundred dalliances and infatuations with lesser maidens to surrender his heart to Lady Tandine, of the distant northern fief of Anferny within the desolation of the jevolar. She was utterly ignorant of magic, but well-versed in feats of arms usually reserved for the male nobility. A proud, strong shieldmaiden of the Wilderlords – of a minor and half-forgotten house -- my first apprentice had been captivated with her beauty and character and charmed by her inherent nobility on short acquaintance.
I had thought that perhaps his infatuation would wane, once he was back in the civilized world and could resume his bachelor’s ways, but in truth he had no thought for other maidens that did not remind him of his lady love. He barely knew the lass, while Rondal had been in Gatina’s company for a few years, now. Ordinarily, I might fear for the happiness of the marriage, but if any young idiot could blunder his way into matrimonial contentment, it was Tyndal.
They deserved this opportunity for happiness, by my accounting. They had earned it with their blood and their strength and their cleverness. They had paid for it in effort, skill, and boundless ambition. If anyone could tame two uniquely strong women as Tandine and Gatina and allure them into domestic bliss, it was these two idiots. Trygg, like her daughter Ishi, moves in mysterious and unpredictable ways.
They chose the new city of Vanador for the celebration, for a variety of just and valid reasons. Both wanted to take their wives in the Wilderlands, where they were born and for which they had fought for half their lives. Both wished to have their nuptials blessed in the city Trygg, Herself, claimed as her own. Both wanted their friends and comrades to witness their weddings in the City of Wizards, a town near and dear to their hearts.
And both of them knew that I would probably volunteer to pick up the tab for the weddings, even though they were both incredibly wealthy. My former apprentices are nothing if not opportunistic.
I didn’t blame them, of course; and they’d earned it in their service not just to the duchy, but to their professional peers. They were both accomplished warmagi, and had spent half of their lives fighting against the darkness that had emanated from the Minden range of mountains they were born in. As their former master, I felt obligated, I confess.
They had no other living kin. Only a remnant of their folk had survived to this day. Their homeland was occupied by the worst sort of evil. They had followed me on an unlikely path out of that certain doom and into a life of adventure, danger, acclaim and notoriety. They had risen from amongst the most humble of circumstances into the circles of the mighty and earned every accolade that they carried. They had assisted in the restoration of their patron, Duke Anguin, and held his eternal gratitude for their labors on his behalf.
They were members of the Royal Court, the Alshari Court, and the Castali Court, as well as a host of arcane orders that had proven instrumental in the establishment of the kingdom, as well as its security. They had fought goblins, dragons, and the evil undead who had waged genocidal war on all humanity. They had been challenged with a task so dire and hopeless that only by means of their wit and bravery had they been able to prevail.
So, yes, I was going to pay for the wedding. It was my honor to do so. I’d earned that right, to my accounting.
You see, something I had begun to learn as I had come to what I expected was the prime of my life, was something my father and other noble men in my life had taught me. That the greatest gifts I could bestow were not measured in gold, snowstone, or irionite. It was my blessing of the efforts and achievements of those who had come under my sway.
That might sound proud and arrogant, but it’s not – it’s humbling. When you are held in high esteem by those around you, you have a duty to them to repay that respect and admiration with your approval. To do otherwise is arrogant. I’ve served under officers who were sparing with praise and quick to criticize – the late, unlamented Count Odo comes to mind – and it’s usually difficult to bear, however talented the leader in question is. But to fail to recognize, even begrudgingly, those who have aided you valiantly because of who you are, and not your title, position, or mere authority is a kind of delusional pride I cannot stomach. My presence and words were important to these boys – these men. I had a moral obligation to bestow upon them whatever blessings and favor I could.
The date was set for late summer, or early autumn, depending upon how you count such things. The rustic beauty of the Wilderlands was just considering changing from rich and vibrant greens to a multitude of hues. The late-season wildflowers had just begun to bloom in earnest, providing an unending carpet of white, yellow, blue and red around the hedgerows and meadows of the land. It did not escape me that it was the same time of year we had all escaped Boval Castle, a decade ago. That somehow made the wedding even more triumphant, to my eyes.
