Errant problems arise...

“Errant!”

Hearing his younger sister Quetzal calling for him was unusual. She was rapidly being turned by this damn environment and his older sister and brothers into the cold hard bitch typical of the Gilderalz Ducal House, and had started taking advantage of his goodwill whenever possible.

Naturally, his goodwill evaporated. Still, he was the only really trustworthy member of the family, because he never lied to his siblings, and always kept his word, never bothering to try and manipulate them. Given that he was a dead-end on the family power-level hierarchy tree, manipulating him wasn’t going to get them much further ahead, so his siblings either didn’t know what to make of him, or wanted to beat him down to make themselves feel better.

It was getting a lot harder to beat him down, however.

“What is it, Quetzal?” he asked coolly. Since that time she had tried to show off in front of her friends because he had no magic, his relationship with her had begun to sink. He slammed his overweighted gauntlets into the punching bag, without looking at her.

“A Sylunar Archpriestess has arrived here! She’s talking with Mother and Father!”

That was interesting enough for him to stop abusing the poor rocks. Even magically reinforced, he regularly reduced a load of stones to sand inside a week. The number of people who dared to be punched by him naturally fell sharply.

Needless to say, a family dominated by Huul-worship didn’t have a whole lot of respect for the Sylunars, considering them soft and short-sighted. That being said, you just didn’t mess with a Ten who was also an Archcaster, and a religion known for their Divinations. Of course, the women of the family all preferred Ruilvei and Sybylla...

Naturally, he was just the opposite. A Sylunar Priestess was a person worthy of great respect, and one of Her Archpriestesses would be one of the most powerful Casters alive.

“Interesting.” He gestured to the servant at the side, who immediately came forwards to help him take off the heavy training gear as he invisibly stepped down from four gravities. It only took a minute, and he toweled himself off before throwing on a fresh shirt, his trousers serviceable enough for now. “Did she say what she came here for?”

“Rumor is that she is coming for Veis.”

That was absolutely the best thing that could happen to the youngest member of the family, and was definitely not going to occur. Veis’ talent at aeromancy had already manifested, and there was no way the family was going to let her go. Simply guaranteeing control of the weather, and thus freedom from drought and flood, was enough to make sure she stayed in the family forever. She would get the best teachers, but the House of Gilderalz would never let her go.

The Sylunar must have known that, hence sending an Archpriestess to negotiate. What they could possibly bargain with that would bend his naturally hostile parents to even consider such an arrangement was a mystery in and of itself.

They certainly hadn’t come for any of his other sisters, including Quetzal, who was already taking steps on the road to being a Summoner... of diabolics, naturally. She already had a black cat familiar who hissed at him whenever it saw him.

The ruffled buttons and cuffs were fashionable enough, and his conditioning meant he looked older than he was. Combined with his natural confidence and fearlessness, he knew he cut an impressive figure, for all that he was twelve. Some of the maids were definitely interested in expanding his education in certain worldly matters, and that he hadn’t taken them up on it rather shocked all of them. His brothers had spread the word that he wasn’t interested in women, naturally...

What a family...

Further questioning of his sister revealed that they had actually had private words in his father’s study, where only his father’s immediate underlings normally had the privilege of talking with him. Impressive, indeed.

Ignoring his sister’s cat when it came out of a side hall and leapt into her arms, promptly hissing at him, he arrived in the hall leading to the study, finding the door open and the guards looking somewhat nervous. None of his other siblings were there, an impossibility in the clawing demand for early information, and he just turned an eyebrow on one of the guards, an old soldier that had served under his grandfather.

“Master Errant, the Duke and Duchess have escorted the priestess up to their chambers for some reason,” the old man said softly. He turned his head to the study. “He seemed quite angry...”

Their chambers? Errant nodded to the greybeard, who nodded back as well. Errant headed for the main stairs, Quetzal following after him, her eyes alight with curiosity and determination to find out what was behind all this.

----

The sweeping double stairs were no impediment. He went up them as if they were level ground as Quetzal cursed under her breath, picked up her skirts, and trailed after him.

Up ahead, he saw his three older siblings waiting, and little Veis, being attended to by her nanny.

Veis was six years old, but short for her age, with pure white hair that betrayed her Elemental affinity. With pale blue eyes and doll-like features, she was still incredibly cute in her white and blue frock, white stockings, and dark shoes, the very picture of a too-innocent loli. As she hadn’t learned how to twist the knife quite yet, she was also the only member of the family he would still spend time with and talk to.

Naturally the others tried to discourage her from that, even his parents, guiding her into activities away from him, but chance encounters still turned into long walks or rides as he escorted her here and there, and there wasn’t much they could do about it. He wasn’t a danger to her, after all; they merely felt he would drag her down.

“Errant!” she piped up happily when seeing him, traipsing up to see him and extending her hands out for a hug. He picked her up easily, spun around once as she giggled, and gave her a good hug. His brothers and sisters could only look on stiffly. They certainly weren’t happy to see him, but he was irrelevant, in the end.

“They say the moon priestess wants to take me away, Errant,” Veis said in a stage whisper, equal parts afraid and excited to be at the heart of something important.

“She must have heard what a genius you are,” he replied, giving her chin a chuck, and she beamed at him. “There’s probably no better teacher of magic in the world than a Sylunar Archpriestess. You are very impressive, little sister!”

“Will I have to show her my magic?” She was incredibly excited. “Can I see hers? What is Silver Magic all about, anyways? Can she call down the stars and moon?”

Errant laughed despite himself. “If you see her doing that, it means very bad things are happening, so pray that you don’t.” He tweaked the bow in her hair as he let her down. “I trust she hasn’t said anything, except to Mother and Father?”

His brothers had sour looks, so it fell to his older sister to reply coolly, “She has said nothing to anyone, outside the bare minimum required by etiquette.” Her nostrils flared. “As if she is better than us.”

“She’s an Archpriestess, sister. She IS better than us.” Her mouth opened at his remark, closed, and she just turned away, trying to hear what was going on behind the oaken door.

============

Hazé gestured, an open Casting that anyone experienced in magic could tell was not an offensive spell. She had told the Duke to bring his Saber along, clearly not worried about his or his wife’s hostility.

They were standing on the balcony of the manor house, overlooking the gardens beyond, and offering a decent overlook of the city and hills beyond its walls. It was a view designed to show the aesthetics of rulership and control, not beauty, and she accepted it and moved on.

A cone of visible light extended out from her hand, reaching out and playing across a layer of magic rising up from the walls of the estate about a hundred feet away.

“What are you doing, priestess?” the Duke asked, barely keeping his anger under control.

“You will know exactly when you see it, Your Grace,” she replied calmly. The Seals and repeating Rune Patterns of the Wards cycled past her. “Your eyes should be better than mine, after all.”

About to say something, he closed his mouth and stepped up next to her, watching as that Light revealed the Wards about his home clearly, making them easy to inspect. It swept back, forth higher in the air, and then back again, higher yet...

Paused.

His eyes narrowed. Like a crack in armor, or a misaligned seam, he could see that an arc there was thicker than it should be.

“Cut it, Your Grace, or Dispel it, Madam.”

Duke Rauoz Gilderalz’s expression darkened considerably. His Saber sang as it cleared its scabbard, and hellfire roared up along the Blade. An arc of hunting flame lashed out like a living thing, aimed precisely at that slender crack, and hit it unerringly.

Like a released web, the Ward split open in a defined circle, now ringed by hellfire, easily large enough to admit a flying person.

“Notice the angle. Even if your Stillflight Field was up, a breeze and a Featherweight would easily bring her down to the veranda.” The cone of Revelation dipped down low, just above the walls, and paused again.

Another arc in the patterns that was too thick, just above the walls about the estate.

The breath hissed out through his nostrils. His wife stayed deathly, coldly silent.

“And a simple question.” Hazé turned around, not looking at either of them, her eyes settling on a single object. “How long has it been since you moved your bed?”

The magnificent four-poster naturally dominated the room with its carvings of carefully not-quite erotic scenes, silken drapes, and embroidered covers.

The Duke strode forward, and with one hand, shoved the bed away and across the room, sliding through the rugs on the wooden floor and not hitting any of the furniture as it spun a bit and revealed the dusty space below.

He kicked away the rug and bedwarming stones set up there, and stared at the empty expanse of floor beneath it, before turning to look at the Moonpriestess in challenge.

The cone of Revelation came down and played across the smooth wood in answer.

He almost lost his breath.

Where the light played, deep gouges in the wood were visible, edged with a dark crimson he was all too familiar with. Seals, runecraft, an asymmetric pentagram, it was all clearly revealed... and when the Revelation was removed, it was clean and smooth.

“An illusion under both bed and a rug, where only a cleaner would see it...” the Duchess whispered softly. Even a routine magical inspection would have revealed nothing, with it hidden from line of sight.

The Duke was pale as he stared at the floor. He lifted his foot, and hellfire, subtle yet strong, erupted out from his boot. It washed across the floor, burning, searing... and as it did, the concealing illusion wavered, and was eaten away as its foundation was damaged by the flames.

“Damnation.” His hands were shaking as he stared at the pentagramal Circle under his bed. His chi could easily sense the very dark magic once attached to it, even if it was years ago. The things that could have been inflicted upon him he did not care to think about; the defilement was already obvious. His teeth clenched, he raised his eyes to the woman who brought him such foul news. “Did this Void Brother tell you ought else I should know of?” he asked thickly, his Saber still in hand.

“Are you certain you wish to hear more?” Hazé asked calmly, unafraid.