“And far too many enemies who’d pay good money for his enslaved daughter,” I said, trying not to shudder. “If it becomes public that she was enslaved…”
I scowled. It was worse than that. The Alluvian Revolution had shattered the established order, slaughtering most of the aristocrats and sending the remainder running for their lives. A handful had been smart enough to send their children and disposable wealth out of the country, and Carolina’s father might have been one of them, but even if he’d saved some money, he wouldn’t have the resources to hire more than a handful of adventurers to rescue his daughter. If word got out, it would be impossible to marry her to a foreign nobleman who might use his influence to assist her family.
Probably. One could overlook anything if the dowry was high enough, but Lord Lacy probably didn’t have enough money to convince someone to overlook that.
Poor girl.
We rode for hours, found an inn to spend the night, and then travelled onward. Starlight was a good conversationalist, I discovered, although she was reluctant to talk about herself. I’d have admired that in her if it didn’t make it harder to understand why she’d chosen the adventurer’s life. She was young and pretty, and clearly of good family; she could’ve been almost anything, and yet she’d chosen to be an adventurer. I supposed I couldn’t really hold it against her. I’d never been keen on talking about myself, either. Far too many people assumed I’d been expelled for being a dark wizard, not being scapegoated for another student’s behavior.
“This town is the nearest one to Lord Dragon’s territory,” Starlight said as we looked for another inn. “Do you need anything?”
“I should have everything I need here,” I said, tapping my bag. “If we need specialist tools, we can come back and purchase them.”
That wasn’t a pleasant thought. Lord Dragon had had plenty of time to fortify his territory against intruders. The simple fact that the aristocrat who owned the land hadn’t managed to evict him was clear proof his territory was well defended, or—I supposed—that Lord Dragon had an agreement with his overlord. It was rare for a magician to pledge himself to a feudal superior, but Lord Dragon had already discarded so many customs, I couldn’t imagine him being reluctant to discard one more. He was a slaver, after all. I could easily imagine him trading a handful of spell-controlled slaves for territory and freedom.
We spent the night in the inn, then set off on foot the following morning. The landscape was rough and patchy, dominated by tiny farms run by peasants eking a living from the soil, but it grew wilder as we made our way toward his territory. There were fewer and fewer peasants living close to the magician—a bad sign. The road was surprisingly decent, for a place so far off the beaten track, but the trees grew so thick, it was hard to see a path through them.
I spotted the beggar’s mark on a stone at the edge of the territory, and frowned. The mark was a clear warning—to those with the eyes to see—not to cross the line. I guessed something bad had happened to the first beggar to visit the magician, and the others had taken heed.
“We need to get off the road,” I said. Any magician worthy of the name would have dozens of spells woven into the road to sound the alarm when unwanted guests entered his territory. “Stay with me.”
Starlight snorted. “What do you think I was planning to do?”
I smiled—I’d had a few partners who’d gotten themselves into trouble by wandering off—and led the way into the thicket. It was difficult to pick a path through the trees. They were so close together, I had no idea how they survived.
I stopped as I sensed a flicker of magic ahead, and reached out with my senses, parsing out the first set of traps. Lord Dragon wasn’t taking anything for granted. There were dozens—no, hundreds of spells littering the landscape, from simple repulsion spells and nightmare hexes to change and paralysis curses, the latter designed to inflict as much pain and agony as possible.
I had no idea how he powered them all. Constantly replenishing the spells would be an utter nightmare, even for an entire team of magicians, and it should’ve been impossible. The area wasn’t known for being tainted with wild magic, and only a fool would risk trying to use wild magic to power regular spells. There were easier and less painful ways to commit suicide.
We inched forward, careful not to touch any of the spells. Some were relatively harmless, even to a powerless mundane; others would’ve killed me as easily as they’d have killed her or any wanderer who took a wrong turning and found himself walking blind into a magician’s territory. I could feel a web of magic flickering through the trees, powering the charms—
A nasty thought crossed my mind, and I pressed my ear against the nearest tree, looking back in shock as I heard a psychic scream. Horror washed through me as I realized what Lord Dragon had done. He’d turned every intruder who’d entered his territory into a tree, their life force and magical potential channeled into the defenses. I’d seen some horrors in my time—man’s inhumanity to man was always shocking—but this… Lord Dragon might not be a necromancer, but he was still a monster. I shuddered to think how many people had been sacrificed to power his defenses.
“I think we’re nearing the house,” Starlight said. She’d been so quiet that her voice almost made me jump. “Can you get inside?”
“We’ll see when we get there,” I said.
So far, I hadn’t seen much to impress me. Lord Dragon had a surfeit of power, but he didn’t seem to be using it very imaginatively. I could think of several ways to improve his defenses, to make it impossible for anyone to get inside without sounding an alarm. Our path through the deadly network of traps was a winding one, but so far, we’d avoided triggering any alarms or being turned into frogs. Or trees. The forest came to a dead stop, revealing a mansion hidden within the trees. It was smaller than I’d expected, although that was meaningless when magic was involved. Whitehall was far bigger on the inside, and I’d seen other magical buildings that were very similar. Lord Dragon certainly had enough power to craft a pocket dimension and keep it from collapsing indefinitely.
I peered forward, looking for possible traps or watching eyes.
There were none.
The lawn was overgrown, and the flowerbeds crammed with herbal ingredients. I couldn’t help thinking no one was bothering to take care of the gardens.
That puzzled me as I inched forward, carefully probing the mansion’s defenses. There was a cluster of heavy spells around the back door, and I guessed there were more around the main entrance, but far fewer around the windows. I glanced at her—she looked pale, yet determined—and darted forward, crossing the lawn and inching up to the wall.
The charms around the window were nasty, yet weirdly independent, as if the designer had never seen the need to weave them into a single pattern. I touched the wood gingerly, carefully channeling my magic into the window frame.
“Odd,” I muttered. Lord Dragon knew wood channeled magic. He’d set up a defense network that relied on wood to channel power from his victims into his spells. I couldn’t help wondering if I was being tricked, lured into a trap. It was a very strange oversight. There was a reason most magical households were built of stone. “What in the world is he doing?”
“Hurry,” Starlight hissed. “We don’t have much time.”
I nodded curtly, although I refused to risk speeding up. It would’ve been impossible to try this if he’d woven the spells together, and it was quite possible he had an inner network monitoring the outer spells. It would be astonishingly paranoid, but even paranoids had enemies.