Thrall Read online

  I’m pretty sure her methods of maintaining discipline could have been lifted from softcore bondage porn, considering the way Cerise teased her about it. But no one had ever come to me with a complaint, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves. I made a mental note that I should probably look into that a little more if I ever had a spare moment, but it wasn’t exactly a high priority.

  The idea of teaching them all to fight seemed to intrigue Avilla. Not that they were going to turn into heroic warriors overnight or anything, but with the amount of magic we had available they didn’t have to. A willingness to fight, some basic training and a collection of magic weapons would be more than enough to handle a lot of threats. We could easily prepare them to deal with goblins or muggers on their own, and if they ever encountered something more serious they’d at least have a better chance at escaping while Sefwin’s agents handled it.

  Avilla wasn’t the only one collecting her own followers, of course. Cerise was teaching witchcraft to Tina’s childhood friend Beri, and she’d picked up a couple of other novices as well. She’d also more or less taken over Corinna’s band of warrior dryads, and she’d been continuing our experiments with powering up the nature spirits by pouring mana into their land.

  “You’re going to love all the benefits you get out of the deal,” she told me. “It’s working just like we thought. I feed magic from my amulet into their land, and it makes them stronger. Then they do their thing, and it makes me stronger too.”

  “Their thing?” I asked.

  She grinned at me. “You’ll see. Pelagia is going to hold a revel for you, to get things going with her grove. It’s heady stuff, the way they practically worship you when they’re showing their appreciation.”

  “I’m not a god,” I pointed out.

  “Not yet. This is going to make both of us demigods, though, and I bet we don’t stop there. What are the odds we can get our hands on some of Idun’s apples before this war ends?”

  “Speaking of which, I noticed a substantial change in your life force,” Elin put in. “I don’t think you’re as mortal as you were when you left. Do you have any idea what could have caused that?”

  “Huh. Interesting. Well, it turns out that Gaea grows magic bananas that work a lot like the golden apples in Asgard.”

  “What’s a banana?” Tina asked curiously.

  “Wait, you stole some?” Cerise exclaimed. “I want one!”

  “It’s a kind of fruit that doesn’t grow in Europe,” I told Tina. “And no, I didn’t steal any. I didn’t even know what they were, until Mara gave me one.”

  Everyone looked a bit startled at that.

  “She must really like you,” Tina observed.

  I shrugged. “She’s kind of a mess. I think she’s interested, but her family problems are as bad as it gets. Her mother’s holding her immortality hostage, the brothers she grew up with are a bunch of incestuous rapists, and she’s so desperate for her father’s approval that she’ll happily help him murder everyone in Europe.”

  Cerise and Avilla exchanged a speculative look.

  “We were wondering if it was something like that,” Avilla said. “But, her own brother?”

  “More than one of them,” I corrected. “Gaea set things up so that would happen on purpose. I’m not sure if she’s just a cruel bitch, or if there’s some devious purpose to it all. Either way, Mara’s a long way from being over it.”

  “We have to help her,” Tina declared.

  “I’d like to,” Avilla agreed. “But I’m not sure it’s wise. There’s not much to be done for people who aren’t right in the head, and she’s very powerful. If she ever has a breakdown, or just has a bad day and lashes out, people could die.”

  Elin sighed. “I agree with you, Avilla. She’s a risk, and an added complication to what is already a quite complicated situation. But can we really turn her away, if she comes to us for help? If she has truly endured such a horror, and come out of it unbroken, I can’t help but feel sympathy for her.”

  “Sounds like we’re moving on to the heavy subjects,” Cerise said. “Good timing, because I’m completely stuffed. How about we take this discussion to the ritual chamber?”

  “It has the best wards,” Avilla agreed.

  It was also isolated and soundproof, so we’d be able to keep anyone from overhearing us. If there was anywhere we could make plans without being spied on, it was there.

  “So, what all do we need to talk about?” I asked once the doors were safely sealed.

  “Can you tell us more about how the mission went?” Avilla said. “I didn’t dare ask before, but it should be safe to talk here.”

  “Well, I planted the device. If it worked right the andregi won’t have any more sleeping warriors to wake, so they’ll stop getting reinforcements any day now. There were a couple of complications, though.”

  I went on to describe Brand’s disastrous raid on the Halls of Slumber, and my own encounter with Mara. Elin still seemed a little miffed about that, but Cerise and Tina were all smiles.

  “Do you think we can make an ally of her?” Avilla sked.

  “Yes, assuming we want to take the risk. She’s pretty attached to her father’s side of the family, so I don’t think she’s going to turn on them. But on a personal level she’s desperate for companionship, and I think we connected. Besides, she’s already asked for my help with something that’s pretty important to her. It seems she’s about to have a little sister, and she’s trying to find some way to keep the poor girl from growing up the way she did.”

  That required more explanation, of course. By the time I’d finished the tale Elin had reluctantly come around to lobbying in Mara’s favor.

  “This will, however, be quite dangerous,” she observed. “If Gaea is pregnant she will likely avoid battle, and stealing a child from her would not be easy. I don’t know how we could hide the girl for any length of time.”

  “Hiding isn’t going to work,” I said. “The only way we survive getting involved in this, is if Gaea dies before Ragnarok is over.”

  They all stared at me in shocked silence for a long moment.

  “Can you kill a goddess, Daniel?” Tina asked timidly.

  “Not by myself,” I admitted. “But I’m sure the Aesir will be doing everything they can to take her down. What we need to do is watch, make preparations, and be ready to strike when the opportunity presents itself. Cerise, Elin, who worships Gaea these days?”

  “Mostly just her children,” Cerise said. “Goblins, trolls, hags and ape men.”

  “So far as I am aware there are no human cults who honor her,” Elin agreed. “Nor do the elves or dwarves pay her homage. She has rejected all but the most primitive worshipers for ages now.”

  “That’s good. The andregi live in Skogheim. What about the rest of those races?”

  Cerise stretched out across the collection of pillows and blankets that covered the floor of the ritual chamber, and put her head in Avilla’s lap. “Most of them live here on Midgard, but I think I’ve heard something about goblins in Jotunheim before. Elin?”

  The delicate faerie settled herself on a pile of pillows beside me, and frowned in thought. “Yes, I believe you are correct. Hags live in the wilder swamps and woods of Europe, while goblins and trolls inhabit the mountains. Goblin tribes are also found in the mountains of Jotunheim, and possibly the jungles of Skogheim. They’re hardy creatures, and very difficult to eradicate.”

  “Is there anything you don’t know?” Tina asked her.

  “Many things,” Elin admitted.

  “If you say so. Here, let me take this down for you while you smart people talk.” Tina started working on Elin’s hair, removing the ornaments that were woven into her hairdo and brushing it out.

  “Thank you, dear. Daniel, are you relying on the Julian hypothesis of divine power here? Because I must caution you that no firm link has ever been demonstrated between a god’s power and the numbers of his worshipers.”

  “No
, it’s not that simple,” I said. “Gods don’t get their power from worshipers. But I know a little bit about why it’s so hard to kill a god, beyond just the fact that they’re powerful. A church is one of the things that they use to anchor themselves to this plane of existence, and a goddess who doesn’t have one anymore is a lot easier for the other gods to kill.”

  Cerise chuckled. “That’s one way to get the job done. Tina, these are serious secrets of the gods here, so don’t ever talk about them outside this room. Alright?”

  “My lips are sealed,” the catgirl replied.

  “Good. We’d need to make sure her sons die too, and scour Skogheim clean of ape men somehow. I don’t know how we’d pull that off.”

  “Neither do I,” I said. “But once again, the Aesir are already working on it. I’m not sure what Brand was really doing there, but I don’t think it was as simple as a botched raid. He had some kind of magic device implanted under his skin, and the more I think about it the more convinced I am that he let himself get captured.”

  Elin nodded thoughtfully. “Odin is known as a crafty god. It would be quite in character for him to rely on some form of subterfuge to eliminate the threat of the andregi, or to somehow neutralize Gaea.”

  “I don’t think even Odin can just ‘neutralize’ an elder goddess,” Avilla commented. “But that raid has given us a more immediate complication to deal with. Daniel, Prince Caspar seems to be dead. He led most of Kozalin’s best knights through the Dark Portal on that raid, and only a handful of them returned.”

  “Oh. So, who’s in charge of the city now?” I asked.

  “That’s the problem. Pelagia tells me there’s no one in the city with enough support to take over, and with the king besieged again he’s in no position to enforce a decree. There are four dukes in town, all of about the same standing, and they spent most of the afternoon arguing with each other about what to do next. The Conclave isn’t likely to take orders from any of them, and neither will what’s left of the church.”

  “Great. What about the city government?”

  “The mayor died in the devourer attack, along with most of the city council. With all the chaos of the earthquake and invasion they haven’t managed to replace them, so for now each guild and district is running itself.”

  “I hear there are some rabble-rousers working the refugee shelters too,” Cerise said. “Blaming the nobles for the food shortage, and getting the young men all worked up. I’m not sure who they’re working for, but I bet there’s some kind of uprising coming.”

  “The prince was also the one responsible for treating with the faerie,” Elin pointed out. “The Summer Queen won’t deign to meet with a man who isn’t royalty, so without him to carry on the negotiations there’s scant hope of aid from that quarter.”

  I sighed. “So what you’re telling me is, Kozalin is about to fall apart?”

  They all nodded.

  “Perhaps a miracle will occur, and all the city’s factions will come together under a single banner,” Elin said. “But the chances of that are slim. The nobles will not follow a wizard, the wizards will not follow a noble, the commoners are restive and the church serves only the gods. Without a royal to unite the city’s factions, I fear Kozalin will soon descend into chaos.”

  Chapter 2

  The next day I paid Tavrin a visit to start working out plans for Nethwillin’s new home. The dark elves had been amazingly helpful since they’d moved to my island, especially after I’d appointed their clan head as my new castellan. But while they were capable traders I’d recently discovered that they were basically a ninja clan as well, so I figured it would be smart to give them as many reasons as possible to be loyal. They’d spent a thousand years grappling with a serious infertility problem caused by Midgard’s low ambient mana levels, so I figured building them a refuge where that problem didn’t apply should be good for morale.

  Tavrin showed me a light spell he wanted to use that produced a spectrum similar to Svartalfheim’s sun, a blue-white glow barely half as bright as normal sunlight. There was a lot of ultraviolet in it, which might explain something about their complexion.

  “Your human retainers are going to get sunburned pretty easily under this light,” I pointed out. “They’re all northerners.”

  “Yes, some of our older texts mention that problem. Humans will acclimate if their exposure is gradual, correct?”

  “Depends on what part of the world you got their ancestors from. Most people will build up a tan if you increase their exposure gradually, but sometimes northern tribes lose that ability. You’ll need to keep an eye out for people who just sunburn repeatedly, and never adjust. But if it does come up I think I can fix it.”

  We had to work out how high to push the mana level in their habitat, and then there were a lot of smaller details about the layout and facilities. I was basically just going to build some big rooms and let the elves handle all the detail work, but we still had to agree on an overall design. We were working through the details when a servant poked her head into Tavrin’s office to let us know I had a visitor.

  “He says he’s the harbormaster,” she told me. “There doesn’t seem to be an emergency, so we’ve put him in one of the waiting rooms.”

  “Harbormaster Lund is out of bed this early? Interesting. Can you let him know I’ll be down in a few minutes? I think we’re almost done here.”

  “Of course, milord.”

  I spent a few minutes hashing things out with Tavrin before I took my leave. I was surprised at how awkward it made the situation, though. I didn’t want to keep Lund waiting forever like some self-important asshole, but I also didn’t want Tavrin to think I was more concerned with some human outsider than I was with taking care of his clan. Ugh, politics. I guess this is why important people normally have someone managing their appointments.

  The harbormaster seemed years older than when last we’d met. There was more gray in his hair, and he’d lost weight as well. He jumped to his feet when I entered the waiting room, and bowed.

  “Good day to you, lord wizard. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice. I’m sure you must be a very busy man these days.”

  “For every problem I solve, three more pop up,” I agreed. “How have you been?”

  “Holding on, milord. If not for those iron buildings you made I likely wouldn’t be here, though. When Hel’s ships attacked the harbor they docked right by my house, and we barely got out ahead of them. We bribed our way into a shelter, and then did it again after the earthquake.”

  “Bribed?” I asked.

  “The mayor never had a chance to appoint overseers for the shelters,” he explained. “The refugees in each one have taken them over, and chosen their own leaders. With grain rations as short as they are they take a hard line on letting anyone into their space, even in an emergency.”

  “I suppose that’s to be expected. Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “It’s only a symptom, milord. I’ve been speaking with the other influential men in the district. The masters of the Mariner’s Guild and the Fishermen’s Association, the grain factors and warehouse magnates, even what’s left of the shipwrights. We can all see the writing on the wall, milord. The truth is the whole city is falling apart, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone who can put it back together.”

  “I’m hoping we’ll have a bit of a breather now,” I confided. “The ape men were pretty well wiped out in that last mortar attack, and if another army shows up we’ll just do it again. This leadership mess is another matter, though. There doesn’t seem to be anyone who can step up and take charge.”

  “Some of the men thought that might be your cue, milord,” he said cautiously.

  “Tempting,” I admitted. “But I don’t think it would work. The Conclave wouldn’t stand for it, and if I got into an argument with them there wouldn’t be much of a city left afterwards.”

  “As you say, milord. Most likely that means the city will splinter, thoug
h. We don’t dare try to reconvene the city council, because that would just force things to come to a head. So the leaders over in the Military District will all look to the nobles for direction, the ones in the Wizard’s Quarter will turn to the Conclave, and so on.”

  That made sense. Of course, the Trade District didn’t really have a local power center to turn to, and the Harbor District…

  Oh. Well, now I understood why Lund was here.

  “It doesn’t sound like the Harbor District has anything you could call a unified government,” I observed.

  Lund frowned unhappily at that. “Not as such, no. I’ve gotten the guilds all pulling together, but that doesn’t account for the whole district. The refugees keep to themselves, and the fishermen have all banded together to take over a warehouse down in West End. There’s the Harbor Watch as well, but they haven’t been much use since the earthquake.”

  “Why is that?” I asked. “I imagine you must know their commander.”

  “Unfortunately he died in the earthquake. The men elected one of their sergeants to take over, but they haven’t been paid since the mayor died. They’re demanding that someone make good on their payroll before they go back to work.”

  I snorted. “Figures. Well, money isn’t going to be a problem, but it sounds like the district has a lot of other issues. How bad is the shelter situation?”

  “Bad, milord. About a fourth of the district fell down in the earthquake. That left the survivors packed in like sardines, where they aren’t just out in the cold. We’ve been forced to scavenge the rubble for firewood, and the garrison claimed a lot of timber for the barricades they’ve been throwing up to protect the breaches in the city wall. At this rate folk will start running out in a few weeks, and we’ll all freeze not long after. I might also mention that the city granary is over in the Military District, and things will get tight in a hurry if the nobles stop doling out rations.”