NEW VICTORIA, URFE
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Briefly, the Chief Thaumaturge pondered what kept him tethered to his home world, when the entire multiverse was his to explore. Yes, he had power here, an entire continent under his thumb. But he could have that anywhere. No other being of the terrestrial planes—at least of which he was aware—could match the power of an elder spirit mage.
True, he found Urfe the most beautiful planet he had ever seen, its magic the richest and most complex. But there were plenty of worlds that came close, and an untold number left to explore.
He loved his daughter above all else, but he could take her with him.
In the end, he knew he was loyal to Urfe simply because it was his home. He was not a shiftless wanderer like the wretched gypsy clans. On the contrary, he longed to improve the land of his birth. The Realm was but one of many kingdoms on Urfe, with plenty of territory left to conquer, much of it firmly in the grasp of ignorant pagans. His dream was to transform Urfe into a beacon of progress and enlightenment that would shine throughout the multiverse.
With himself, of course, as the emperor supreme.
Yet before he expanded the borders of the Realm, starting with the Mayan Kingdom, he had a final thorn to extract from his side. At that very moment, the Prophet and the middle Blackwood brother were leading a ragtag army of Devla scum and gypsies through the Ninth Protectorate, hoping to march to New Victoria and force a confrontation with the Congregation.
What was causing Caleb Blackwood to act so rashly? Was it simple revenge for his deceased spouse and the boy, Luca, who Caleb had known for less than a month?
Lord Alistair reflected on the death of his own wife. Yes, if there had been someone to blame instead of the ravages of disease, then I, too, would have waged a war.
Yet according to his sources, this behavior was entirely out of character for the middle Blackwood brother. Lord Alistair suspected Caleb’s rage would burn itself out long before he left the Ninth Protectorate. Most likely, he would come to his senses after finding solace in the arms of a barmaid in some far-flung village.
No matter. Freetown was destroyed, Zariduke secure in Inverlock Keep, and the Coffer of Devla under the protection of his own powerful wards deep beneath the Sanctum. Even if the rebels were in possession of the sword and the Coffer, they would not have lasted a day, or even an hour, against the combined might of the Congregation and the Protectorate army. And without those artifacts, their cause was less than hopeless: it was a farce of epic proportions. Lord Alistair might as well send a regiment of drunken, halfwit tuskers to deal with them.
And yet, while he doubted the gypsies would even make it through the perils of the Ninth, he continued to let them march for a very important reason: the prophecy a phrenomancer had delivered long ago, right after Lord Alistair had taken power as Chief Thaumaturge.
War had come to Urfe, of that there was no doubt. Lord Alistair himself had ushered it in. Yet the second part of the prophecy . . .
Let the gypsies march, he thought, and draw every single one of their miserable kin to their cause. I’ll gather them together and destroy them all in one battle.
Beneath the window, he absorbed the dreamscape of wizard compounds, the pyramid of the Sanctum, and the red-gold pillars of the Hall of Wizards. In the distance, the vast sprawl of the city merged into the horizon. After drinking in the view a final time, Lord Alistair spun on his heel and strode away from the window. An amber glow orb kindled in the center of the room, revealing support columns mind-painted by an artisamancer with artistic renditions of the astral plane. Star charts covered the walls beneath a domed and tinted glass ceiling.
To his left, a cloaked being drifted away from the wall. Streaks of silver light pulsated across a face that resembled a congealed shadow, and the silhouette of its features were molded in bas-relief from the darkness, offering a faint remembrance of the man it once had been.
The sole remaining Spirit Liege grasped an obsidian helm in one of its gloved hands, an offering for its master. Lord Alistair had ensorcelled a cloak and pair of gloves for his creation, so that it could interact with the world without destroying it.
A glance at the line of Spirit Helms on the wall told him the missing helm belonged to Inverlock Keep, his ancestral stronghold across the Great Ocean. After dismissing the Liege, Lord Alistair placed the Spirit Helm on his head, his vision blurring before it revealed the throne room in his cloud fortress. He was now seeing through the eyes of Fesoj Gelmene, a wizard banished from the Realm for the unlawful practice of menagery. Lord Alistair found Fesoj loyal and highly useful, while Fesoj relished the opportunity to continue his illicit craft in secret.
“Milord,” the menagerist whispered through the Spirit Helm. “The phrenomancer has gazed with the Blackwood boy.”
After Alrick, the best phrenomancer in the Realm, had tried to betray him, Lord Alistair no longer trusted anyone to gaze into his own mind. Since he had long suspected that his fate was tied to the sword and that infernal Blackwood family, he had ordered a gazer to travel to Inverlock Keep and probe the youngest Blackwood brother instead.
Lord Alistair tensed. “Go on.”
“The probability of one of the Blackwood brothers fulfilling the prophecy is almost nil.”
Alistair exhaled a breath of relief. This was the first gazing session since he had seized the sword and the Coffer. Unlike oracles, who claimed to commune with divine forces and which Lord Alistair considered charlatans, phrenomancers traveled the pathways of the mind to search for possible outcomes, branches of probabilities that were in a constant state of flux, skeins of fate that depended on how events unfolded in the conscious world. Skilled phrenomancers were incredibly good at evaluating future possibilities.
The so-called “Prophecy of the Sword” had always been one potential outcome among many. The first phrenomancer who had glimpsed it had claimed the percentage of fulfillment was roughly thirty per cent. A terrifying prospect. Since that day, Lord Alistair had worked ceaselessly to lower the odds and combat the hated prophecy. It seemed his efforts had finally borne fruit.
“Almost nil, you say?”
“Nearly every pathway led to your victory and the death of all three brothers.”
“And those pathways that did not?”
“So unstable they could not be traveled.”
“I see. All else is well? The youngest Blackwood is secure?”
“His prison will be his grave.”
Lord Alistair clasped his hands behind his back and paced the room, relief pouring through him. He would sleep much better knowing the prophecy was all but extinguished. “I expect to have the remaining brother in chains before the week is out. Once that occurs, we’ll have no reason to keep any of them alive.
The menagerist’s voice assumed a note of eagerness. “Milord, would you consider granting me permission to utilize the brothers’ newly deceased corpses for experimentation? The fusion of interworld specimens raises intriguing possibilities that I might not have another chance to explore. I would have to employ the services of a necromancer, of course.”
Lord Alistair swallowed his revulsion at the request. Fesoj was a necessary evil, and it was best to feed his unwholesome nature a morsel of nourishment from time to time. “I don’t see why not.”