Before the mage made three steps towards the door, the Duchess’s commanding voice rang out, “If you leave this room, I’ll have your head on a pike.”

The bloodmage stopped in his tracks and turned to look at the Duchess. His face turned slowly to look back at her.

She gave him a vicious smile, “You aren’t in Tervan. My citizens would cheer your death.”

“Great and honorable Duchess,” he began through clenched teeth, though he didn’t move from where he stood. “I don’t think you are aware of whom stands before you. He is responsible for more deaths than I can count. Men, women, children. His fires almost consumed our nation. Even now, the priests whisper of the Harbinger of Smoke and Fire without daring to say his name aloud.”

“Oh?” the Duchess turned to inspect me.

I couldn’t help but sigh at the melodrama. More than a hundred years ago, during the last war with Tervan, our armies had been slaughtered in their jungles. Tens of thousands dead at the hands of their warriors and mages. Even more to the jungle itself. The Tervans left lifelike carvings of their creatures all over their jungle. Giant snakes, predatory cats and more. I had personally witnessed the deaths of ten good mages who had mistaken a real beast for a carving only to be pulled into the underbrush screaming.

It was after the generals had declared the war a loss and ordered our retreat that I summoned fire elementals to vent my rage. I was younger and more prone to anger then. Yet the leadership of that army used my actions to turn a defeat into the appearance of victory, claiming we had set them to the torch. I hadn’t realized my action resulted in the deaths of any Tervans, let alone the number this man claimed. The barrel in the back of my mind containing the grief of lost comrades in that war swelled and threatened to overflow with that realization, but I squashed those thoughts before the emotions reached my face. It was not the time for grief or self-pity.

“Duchess, the fire he speaks of did not come close to consuming his nation. Not more than a tenth,” I paused and considered the number, while I stroked my beard. “At the very most a quarter caught flame. Not nearly enough to threaten an entire nation. And that was a long, long time ago. I doubt he personally knows anyone who died, if any did. Tis likely nothing more than a children’s tale.”

“You—you fiend! Even now you show no remorse!” Spittle flew from his lips as he shouted.

“Enough! Return to your seat,” the Duchess command struck the man, and it was clear she used some type of skill. His motions were methodical as he returned and lifted the seat and then sat in it. Though, he never took his eyes off me the entire time.

“Wizard Fargus, please sit as well. We have one more guest that should hear this man’s tale.”

I nodded and took a seat in the chair next to hers but facing the mage. The chair was well-cushioned, with a soft cloth upholstering it. It felt like a thicker type of silk, I couldn’t help but run my hand on the armrest a moment while we waited.

It was only a short moment later, when three knocks announced the entrance of Duke Birktoni. The duke was a fat, greasy man with a balding head, though the hair on the side of his face was more than thick enough to make up for it. He also displayed the upturned, piggish nose, the feature of some noble lines.

I wasn’t certain why I hadn’t noticed him at the ball until I saw that his breath was heavy, and drops of sweat pooled atop his head. He must have been dancing, one of the areas that I studiously avoided going near or even looking at. Yet, the man appeared jovial, with his face flushed and his eyes alit with happiness.

“Good evening, Duke, I hope the ball has been to your liking?” Duchess Eiston inquired, with a little more formality than she had previously displayed.

“Indeed, indeed. Ah! Wizard Fargus. A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he added with a small bow, as if he had just seen me. I returned his greeting with a nod. It would be improper to attempt a bow from my seat.

“And who else,” his smile faded from his lips. A grimace appear for a moment, before he replaced it with another smile, “A Tervan! A bloodmage by the look. A pleasure as well.”

“Most excellent and powerful Duke. I am pleased to see you,” the man answered, though he only took his eyes from me for a second. When he spoke the word ‘pleased’, the sound seemed to stretch. I wasn’t certain if it was a product of his dialect, or a difficulty caused by his sharpened teeth.

“Duke, please have a seat,” the duchess began, and then gestured to the bloodmage, “You may begin.”

The next hour or so was filled with the man’s tale. How the Pestilence had arrived on Tervan’s shores. How the priests of the bloodgod, Taol had begun to sacrifice everyone that wasn’t needed to summon their bloodgod to fight against them. How the jungle changed. That monkeys grew feathers and beaks, snakes grew larger and more grotesque. Panthers grew scales, and the priests themselves began to change. Their heads began to change to raven or snake.

That these priests lost their humanity and would take men, women, children, warriors to the altar. Even bloodmages weren’t exempt. How those sacrifices grew more and more with each day, until he and a handful of countrymen sought their escape in a harrowing journey north. He regaled us with the fight through a jungle full of hydra and mutated monsters, sneaking through the crevasses in the shattered lands, and turning themselves over to the soldiers of Sena. Then, to beg asylum here.

At the end of the story, the Duchess asked, “And your king, he does nothing?”

The mage sighed, “Most excellent leader, Tervan does not have a king. We are led by our priesthood, and the head of the priesthood is the Prophet of Taol. The god’s voice. None dare question him, even before our god was summoned.”

Duke Birkton’s good nature seemed to have a limit, though. His happy expression was gone, and replaced with a face reddened in anger, “Bah! Duchess, I just mustered my soldiers to put down a tribe of these folks who invaded and killed an entire township in one of my southern Baronies. They had left the town burning and all the occupants with their throats slit. Four thousand good folk dead. Your lands and your justice, of course, but I’d advise you against leniency.”

The duchess took a moment to sip her tea before answering him. “That is not at all why I asked you to listen to his tale. No, I wanted you to hear a first-hand account of the hydra. The very threat our good wizard warned us about while we stood in the king’s court.”

The duke glanced my way before dabbing his head with a silken cloth. “I see, I see. Well, wizard, what do you advise? The meat of my soldiery is supporting the king’s war in Freetoni, and what’s left is but the broth of young and old.”

The duchess raised her hand, “But a moment before you answer. Guards, return this man to his cell.” Two of the guards that stood around the edge of the room came forward and led the bloodmage away.

I watched and waited, and even as they led him by the arms, his eyes never left mine. Instead, he gave me a cold, accusing stare. When he had reached the doorway, he shouted at me, “Death-dealer! If you have any shame for the killing of my kin, I beg of you: save my people! We deserve not the fate that awaits us!”

“Well, that was an unusual request. A bit like a stocked henhouse realizing their purpose,” Duke Birkton said with a chuckle and a wry smile.

“Indeed,” I added, though my thoughts were on his request. So entangled in the plans for saving the people of Sena, I hadn’t considered that the citizenry of other countries nearby might be in dire circumstances as well.

The duchess spoke then, directing her words to the duke, “Wizard Fargus was able to raise a township in my duchy onto a plateau. My people tell me it stands at least the height of twenty men. The whole town now rests high above the ground, protected from Mirtktallean armies, lifted in just a day’s time.”

“Oh? I would need to see such a thing to believe it. I have geomancers in my employ, but even they could not accomplish such work without a year of effort. I’ve seen them raise houses in a day or two, but what you speak of sounds like the working of a…” the man trailed off, not wanting to say the last word of that sentence.

I didn’t blame him, either. To even compare a mortal to a god was to ask for their wrath. “I have done so, and plan to do so much more. Many of your nobles approached me this evening asking if I could do the same for their towns and villages as well, Duchess.”

She snorted, “Their concerns lay with refugees and bloated towns more than defense of the realm, no doubt. Still, is this something you could demonstrate? Could you raise the city of Eiston as you did Gold Castle?”

I nodded my head to affirm I could. One of the benefits of feeding a dungeon core to my tower crystal was an increase in the range I could draw power from. The range would easily reach here. The conversation between the three of us that evening went several different directions. The Duchess was more than receptive to the thanks offered for the couches. Duke Birkton claimed that several townships in his Duchy had quartz mines, and he could negotiate shipments of them as payment should he agree to having his lands raised on plateaus.

When I inquired about the possibilities for Lilly, both the Duke and Duchess offered a number of relatives for possible courtship, but, sight unseen, I was wary of agreeing to anything. Eventually, it was decided that any possible suitors would come to my tower where I could inspect them firsthand and then introduce them as a possible match to Lilly if they met my standards. Which was good for me, because I was determined to be exacting in my expectations. The duchess also ordered several servants to depart the next day, servants who would serve as handmaidens that could teach her proper etiquette. I protested, but the woman had set her mind to it and I could tell she wouldn’t be swayed.

The next morning, after an excellent breakfast with hundreds of hungover nobles, I found myself in the skies above the city of Eiston. Beside me, carried by a similar set of elementals, floated Baron Alred Froom.

“Come to watch and learn?” I joked when he arrived.

He cracked a small smile, “I came to ensure that you didn’t forget anything important. Like the cracked foundations of the castle.”

I took a sharp intake of breath. The foundations should hold, shouldn’t they? I wasn’t certain. I had been so eager to complete this spell and be on my way back to my tower, I had overlooked that. If they didn’t hold, then the entire castle could collapse and kill most of the nobility of western Sena. The king certainly wouldn’t overlook that accident, either.

Yet, Alred chuckled when he saw my worried look, “I took care of them last evening while you spoke with the Duchess.”

“Of course, you did! That’s what properly trained assistants do,” I answered, though I only feigned my good humor.

“Yes, well, that aside, there is much to discuss,” Alred answered as the smile fell away from his face.