When Dwayne entered the cavernous Throne Room, whose lanterns and chandeliers barely banished the shadows to the corners, he found that he wasn’t the first to arrive. Queen Sophia had already taken her seat on the throne, Princess Anne was already at her right hand, the three of the members of his examination panel – Baron Otto Thadden, Dean Robert Bruce, and Lady Luisa Pol – were already sitting in the pews while its proctor, Wind Sage Livia Lucchesi, stood behind and to the left of the Throne.
Dwayne stopped at the edge of the throne’s dais and dropped down to one knee. “Your Majesty.”
“Young Kalan.”
Dwayne stole a look at his former examination panel. If they wanted another chance to assess him, it was a bit late now. However, before he could figure out how to ask about why they were here, or even about where he should stand, the Throne Room doors opened behind him and more people were announced: High Judge Ursula Koenig, the Earth Sage James Smith, Exchequer Director Carlo Giordano, Lord Commander Gallus, and on his arm looking withdrawn, the Water Sage Iona Gallus. The Sages joined Lucchesi, the Privy Councilors joined the princess and soon Dwayne found himself kneeling before the Souran Queendom’s premier lay and mage powers.
What a group to disappoint.
At a nod from the Queen, her daughter called out, “Her Majesty Queen Sophia calls this special session to order.”
Everyone, sages, councilors, ordinary mages and princesses bowed. “Our Queen speaks, we hear!”
Still kneeling, Dwayne gulped.
“Rise, young Kalan.” When he did, the Queen gestured to the pews. “It has been brought to my attention that these three mages wish to take up the mantle of our Royal Sorcerer.” Dwayne tensed. So the panel’s selection hadn’t been arbitrary. “Baron Otto Thadden was personally recommended by our daughter and is, I am given to believe, young Kalan’s first choice; Dean Roberta Bruce has the endorsement of our High Judge and a number of notable nobles; and Lady Luisa Pol was sanctioned by Wind Sage Lucchesi and a letter signed by many members of the Magisterium. Thus all three are mages of high standing, appropriate provenance, and sufficient approbation.”
Putting aside Dean Bruce, whom Dwayne still knew nothing about, it was a shock to here that Lady Pol, who famously preferred to dig up ruins instead of hanging around the Magisterium, wanted the position of Royal Sorcerer. Although that did make of her, and Odette’s, recent behavior make sense.
The Queen continued. “However, this choice is not mine alone. It is also the choice of whoever bears the Key.”
“Young Lord Kalan,” the princess looked angry to have to say that, “present the Key to the Queen’s Own Collection of Magical Tomes and Scrolls.”
Dwayne rose to his feet and pulled the metal plate out of his pocket and held it aloft. “Here it is.”
The princess stepped forward, but her mother stopped her. “Approach, young Kalan. We would speak with you.”
Dwayne obeyed, stepping onto the dais and approaching the throne. “Your Majesty.”
“Young Kalan.” Without turning her head, she said in a low voice, “My heir, a moment.”
The princess frowned. “Surely, you don’t want-”
“Anne.” The Queen locked eyes with her daughter. “This conference is not yet for you.”
Princess Anne bowed. “Yes, Your Majesty.” When she pulled back several steps from the throne, the sages and councilors did the same, leaving Dwayne alone with the Queen.
“Listen close.” The Queen’s eyes settled on something in the distance as she whispered. “Put what happened in the ballroom out of your mind.”
Dwayne blinked. “Pardon, Your Majesty?”
“There is lip paint on your lips.”
“What?” When Dwayne rubbed at his lips, his fingers came away pink. “Oh.”
“While you get the rest of that off, consider your answer to the following question: Have you made your decision? Do not shake or nod. Only answer quietly.”
Dwayne’s stomach twisted. This would be so much easier if he could say yes. “No.”
The Queen’s jaw set. “That’s unfortunate. I shall have to have them make their case. When they are done, choose.”
Dwayne hid his clasped hands behind his back. “You’re leaving it to me, Your Majesty?”
“When a new Royal Sorcerer must be chosen, the Library always demands that its librarians make the choice. All the Throne can do is ratify it. Be that as it may, none of them would be here if I found them unacceptable.” The Queen’s gray eyes met Dwayne’s. “Young Kalan, Heir to Sanford, Head Clerk of the Scaled Tower, the only free mage of your kind in the Queendom, I wish to place the future of the Office of the Royal Sorcerer in your hands. Do you accept?”
He could say no and defer to the Queen’s preference among the three, but that would be running away and it was too late to take that up as a habit. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Good.” The Queen’s gaze shifted back into the distance. “Now, stand at my left hand and listen.”
When Dwayne did so, Princess Anne led the councilors and Sages back into position. After a quick questioning glance at her mother, she called out, “Baron Otto Thadden, Dean Roberta Bruce, Lady Luisa Pol, the three of you wise mages shall make your case to the Throne, the Sages, the Privy Council, and the present bearer of the License Key. After that, a choice will be made. The Throne commands it.”
“Our Queen speaks, we hear!”
“First up is Otto Thadden, Earth Qe mage licensee, Baron of Kolz, and Senior Associate in the Royal Secretary’s Office.”
“Thank you, Your Highness.” Looking relaxed in his favored brown and gold robes, the well fed older man with the graying brown hair stood up with a smile. “Your Majesty, Your Highness, my dear Sages, and the esteemed members of the Privy Council, I am the natural choice for Royal Sorcerer. With my appointment, the Office shall reinforce the three values that brought our queendom out of the evil dark of the Yaniti Empire and into the light of glorious reason: family, loyalty, and tradition.
“Unlike Lady Pol and the dean here, I also bear relevant experience. At the Royal Secretary’s Office, I have already mitigated the absence of the previous Royal Sorcerer by developing a more modern system of distributing mage licenses, a system that has already borne fruit in countless enterprises just in Bradford alone. My system, which addresses previous Royal Sorcerers’ illiberality with regards to the issuance of licenses, can and shall be honed and refined at the Royal Secretary’s Office thus guaranteeing that Soura becomes the premier power on the continent.
“Thank you for your time.”
He started to sit down.
“What is so modern about your method?” Dwayne had sifted Thadden’s speech for signs of the baron’s true colors and had found none. If Dwayne rejected Thadden without reason, the other councilors would have trouble accepting it. “What are you actually doing different that my master and his predecessors didn’t?”
Thadden’s eyes darted to the Queen. “I was unaware that this would be an interrogation.”
“If interrogation helps young Kalan make his decision, it is required,” stated the Queen.
Princess Anne’s hands clasped. “The Throne commands it.”
“Our Queen speaks, we hear.” Thadden turned to Dwayne, an open, honest expression carefully placed on his face. “To answer your question, young Kalan, in contrast to the overly particular process Lord Kalan and previous Royal Sorcerers used, my system authorizes current licensees to lend their skills and expertise to license candidates. The Queendom benefits in two ways: the licensees vet the candidates for us and the candidates contribute to the glory of the Queendom.”
Dwayne tensed at Thadden’s condescending tone, which made him want to shout at the man. However, that would just look like a savage Wesen losing control. He’d have to let Thadden’s make Dwayne’s case for him.
Frowning, Dwayne put on an air of confusion. “Isn’t that an apprenticeship?”
“Not quite.” The smile on Thadden’s face was only barely not a smirk. “The appropriate term is proxy. The provisional licenses that my current Office provides attributes the work of their holders to the true licensees.”
“Putting the reputation of the true licensees on the line?”
“Just so.”
“I see.” Dwayne drew his eyebrows together. “And what criteria do ‘true’ license holders use to select their proxies?”
The smile became the smirk. “Their criteria is their own. As I have state, they are authorized to make such decisions.”
“Fascinating.” Dwayne nodded. “So you don’t give them any criteria to follow? Doesn’t that mean they could come up with all sorts of arbitrary requirements for a mage to become their proxy?”
“True licensees have what it takes to work as a mage in this Queendom. We can trust them to find others who are worthy.”
“I see. And what do they have?”
Thadden lifted his chin. “High societal standing and the ability to pass muster under previous Royal Sorcerers.”
“But for their proxies,” Dwayne dropped the pretense, let his tone go cold, “it’s fine if the criteria consists of the ability to do certain favors? Favors like spying on spouses or reading another’s windsong messages,” Thadden’s smile slipped, “or stealing from mage family libraries?”
The baron’s eyes widened. “T-those are not acceptable criteria. No true licensee sets such, such, heinous criteria.”
“But if your system fails to set any limits on what the criteria can be, so what’s stopping them?” If Dwayne had thought to ask this question when he’d first met Thadden, he wouldn’t be in this position. “It certainly isn’t you. You just rely on the decisions of actual Royal Sorcerers.”
Thadden’s face reddened. “Now, you listen here you-”
“Thank you, Baron.” Dwayne had his rationale for rejecting the baron. There was no reason to let the baron embarrass himself further. “I have no more questions.”
The baron subsided with effort and sat down.
“Next up,” said the princess through gritted teeth, “Roberta Bruce, nQe mage, and founding dean of the College of Martial Magic.”
As the tall woman with the dark, thick curly hair and the green eyes, who’d decided to attend the event of the season in a plain black dress, stood up, Dwayne remembered the Ri Vice-Consul’s words to Dwayne before the Autumn Session: “…I have seen what you claim to be. One has even started her own college.”
“Your Majesty.” Dean Bruce bowed. “May Cueller’s Blessing pour upon you. I’ve put forth my application to become your Royal Sorcerer because the Queendom is in danger.”
Dwayne blinked. “From who? The Vanurians?”
“For centuries,” the dean continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “the Queendom of Soura has maintained barriers – Luin’s Wall to restrain Imperial greed, the Southern Line to check Vanurian heresy, our heroic navy to inhibit Wesen ambition – but in successfully pushing back these external threats, we have let internal ones run rampant. Right here in Bradford, in the heart of the queendom, nobles parade Wesen bond servants, merchants solicit Imperial traders, and commoners risk their very souls by mingling with Vanurians. The result is a horde of aliens living inside and outside our fair city, tempting the weak with their bodies, the selfish with their money, and the tractable with their dogmas.
“This doesn’t have to be so.” The dean’s gaze excluded Dwayne with its appeal. “We don’t have to let this decay eat away the heart of who we are. With decisive action, we can burn out the rot, restore the Queendom to its rightful glory, and surpass the heights of the Golden Age. As the Dean of the College of Martial Magic, I have committed resources to ridding us of these pernicious influences and setting us back on the righteous and holy path. As Royal Sorcerer and as this Queendom’s premier thaumaturgical defender, I shall pour my very being into that effort.”
Dwayne forced his mouth closed. He wasn’t the only one left shocked by the dean’s statements, Lady Pol was clearly appalled Lady Pol and both the Lord Commander and the Wind Sage looked furious, but everyone else – Sage and Councilor – bore stony expressions. Only the Queen’s expression, that of distant regal interest, had not changed.
Still, she’d said that all three were acceptable. It was best not to ask why.
Dwayne cleared his throat. “What about mage licenses?”
“Mage licenses,” the dean’s eyes snapped to his, forcing him to hold in a flinch, “should go to those who will not only represent the true spirit of the Queendom but uphold it.”
This was said in a reasonable tone that did not match the angry furnace behind the dean’s eyes. While the baron’s disdain had hurt, it was a mere irritant compared to scorching promised by the dean. There would be no debate, only a battle that Dwayne was not ready to fight.
“Thank you, Dean,” he said.
“Last up,” Princess Anne called out as the dean sat, “Luisa Pol, wind Qe mage and Lady of Traxia.”
“Okay, here it goes.” The short blond woman, surprisingly dressed for the occasion in a gold dress decorated with purple tree leaves, stood up and pulled a piece of paper out of her sleeve. “I think that the next Royal Sorcerer,” she read, “needs to be someone who knows how to interface between the Magisterium and the Throne.”
“Hah!” Thadden shook his head. “And you think that’s you, the woman who spends all her time boring holes in the ground?”
Dwayne stared at the baron, who’d apparently been too terrified to interrupt the dean but had decided that Lady Pol of all people was fair game.
Lady Pol pressed onward. “The next Royal Sorcerer should also be familiar with magic-”
Thadden scoffed. “Of course, you’d think that.”
Lady Pol flashed a smile at Dwayne. “Excuse me a moment. ‘amde.”
A rush of wind and a sparking, roaring fist-sized tempest came into existence right over Thadden’s head. One spark zapped Thadden’s shoulder, making him jump.
Lady Pol leaned in. “Please keep interrupting me, Baron. Give me an excuse.”
Dwayne found himself stepping closer. Magdala had mentioned Lady Pol’s lightning spell before but hadn’t really given him much more than a run down of what it had done to the strange creatures they’d fought in Yumma. The spell clearly drew in winds much tighter than Francesca Lucchesi’s had, an effort that must be causing the sparks somehow. If this was how storms worked-
“Lady Pol,” said Princess Anne, “unsanctioned use of magic is frowned upon in the Throne Room.”
“That’s right,” squeaked Thadden. “Don’t you know that?” A spark flew off the tempest. “Ah!”
Lady Pol grinned. “You’re a licensed mage, just like me. Surely you can defend yourself from a little lightning.”
“Lady Pol,” the Queen’s tone was dry, “we are not amused.”
“Ugh, fine, Your Majesty. Qeil.” The tempest dissipated. “But no more interruptions.” Lady Pol opened up her speech again. “The next Royal Sorcerer, yadda, yadda, should be ready to advance not just the cause of magic here in the queendom but also the state of magic in the whole of Markosia. There.” She put away the paper.
Dwayne blinked. “That was it?”
Lady Pol cocked an eyebrow. “What? You’re not going to ask me about mage licenses?”
“I just expected more…” Dwayne cleared his throat. “Yes, please answer that question.”
Lady Pol gave him a lop-sided grin. “Luckily, the dean and the baron took so long that I had time to come up with an answer. The way I see it, it’s simple: licenses should go to mages who are good at magic.
“Our dear baron here thinks titles and money make the mage, but there are three in this very room who started with neither, and even he can’t say they don’t deserve to be here.
“On the other hand, the dean believes that mages should burn out rot at the heart of society or something, but that’s not our obligation; that’s the obligation of the Lord Commander and the city guards. Now, I’ve gone on record saying that we mages should be allowed to defend our homes, our families, and our queendom, just like all lay Sourans can.”
Dean Bruce said, “The Magisterium-”
“-is committed only to the continuance of Souran magic,” snapped Lady Pol. “That’s why the Sages support colleges like Griffon,” that was the College of Dyers, “which make products that merchants can sell to the lay people. It’s why your college, which makes weapons, is allowed to exist while my old Dueling College, which was committed to training mages to fight, doesn’t.
“And I know what you’re going to say.” Lady Pol turned on Thadden. “That we mages should be committed solely to practical applications like playing courier or mining ore or pushing boats for their betters, but that is complete drivel. Tonight, all of us got a glimpse of what magic is truly capable of.”
“But how do we determine who’s good at magic?” Dwayne’s words spilled out. “If we’re not relying on the Magisterium or on titles or on money, what should be the criteria for who deserves a license?”
“I don’t know.” Lady Pol leaned forward, her hands on the pew in front of her. “Let’s find out together.”
“We have other duties tonight,” said Princess Anne before Dwayne could ask more questions. “I recommend we bring this to a close.”
Dwayne would have argued, but the Queen didn’t contradict her daughter. “Yes, Your Highness.”
Princess Anne bowed. “Your Majesty?”
“As all the candidates have made their appeals,” declared the Queen, “it is now time for you to make your choice, young Kalan. Whom do you choose?”
There was only one choice and making it would draw the ire of the Royal Secretary’s Office, confirm the suspicions the College of Martial Magic, and also come with the burden of working with someone who clearly had trouble with formal expectations, but to be honest, Dwayne had been preparing for that ever since he came here.
“Your Majesty, I choose Lady-”
The Throne Room doors burst open. “Your Highness, there’s been an attack in the Gray Tower!”
Admaeus Speaks 