Or if not, at least it was probably true that he, Sterren of Ethshar, would be unable to get the gods to take his side in the upcoming war.
“All right,” he said, “We’ll forget that idea, then.” Another thought popped into his head, though, and he asked, “Might they protect us from the invaders? Stop the war somehow, or at least provide us with what we need to withstand a siege? You say they don’t like war; could they prevent this one?”
“Excuse me, my lord, but wouldn’t that violate the traditional ban on magical warfare?”
“What if it did?” Sterren snapped, his frayed temper breaking. “I never agreed to any such ban and I’ll be killed if we lose this war! I’m no Semman, and I think it’s a stupid tradition.”
“Ah,” the theurgist said, nodding. “I see.”
“Does breaking the ban bother you?”
“Well, not really; it’s none of my business.”
“Then, can the gods do something to prevent this war?”
Agor hesitated and chewed his lower lip for a moment before replying, “Well, maybe...”
“Maybe?”
Agor blinked uneasily and shifted on his sheepskin. “Well, actually, my lord, they...” He stopped, visibly unhappy.
“They what?” Sterren urged.
“Well, actually, my lord, some of them would probably be glad to do that sort of thing-”
“But what?”
“Well...” Agor took a deep breath, then admitted, “but I don’t know how to contact them.”
CHAPTER 11
Sterren stared at the bony theurgist, who stared back miserably.
“What do you mean, you can’t contact them?” Sterren demanded. “Aren’t you the royal theurgist here?”
“Yes, my lord, I am.”
“Are you a fraud, then?”
“No,” Agor said, with a touch of wounded pride visible through his dismay, “I’m not a fraud; I’m just not a very good theurgist.”
“You aren’t?”
“No, I’m not. Ah... do you know anything about theurgy?”
“I know as much as most people, I suppose,” Sterren said, glaring.
“But do you know anything about how it actually works?” Agor persisted.
“No, of course not!”
Agor nodded, as if satisfied with Sterren’s answer. “Well, my lord,” he said, “it’s like this. A theurgist is just a person with a natural talent for prayer, who has learned how to pray in such a way that the gods will actually listen.”
“I know that,” Sterren said sharply.
“Well, anybody can pray, of course, but the odds are that the gods won’t hear, or won’t answer. Have you ever wondered, my lord, why the gods don’t listen to everybody, but they do listen to theurgists?”
“No,” Sterren replied flatly. This was not strictly true, but he didn’t care to be sidetracked.
“Well, it’s because of the prayers we use. We learn them as apprentices, just as other magicians learn their spells. The gods are too busy to listen to everything, but there are certain prayers that catch their attention, just the way certain sounds might catch your ear, even in a noisy place, the rattle of dice, for instance.”
Sterren realized that Agor really had taken an interest in him; coming up with that particularly appropriate example could not have been a coincidence. His annoyance faded somewhat. “Go on,” he said.
Agor continued, “Some people are better at some prayers than others. I don’t know why, they just are, just as some people are better at drawing pictures, or singing.”
Sterren nodded. He knew, firsthand, that some people had a talent for warlockry, while others, like himself, emphatically did not, and he could see no reason other magicks, such as theurgy, should be any different.
“There are many, many gods, my lord. I only know the names and prayers for nineteen of them; that was all my master knew, all he could teach me during my apprenticeship. It’s not a bad number, really. Many of the best theurgists only know a dozen or so specific prayers, and I’ve never heard of anyone who knew more than perhaps thirty, unless he was also dabbling in demonology, except we don’t call those prayers, we call them invocations or summonings.”
“So you can ask nineteen different gods for help, but only those nineteen?”
“Yes, but really, not even all those. You see, as I said, some people are better at some prayers than others. Some gods are just harder to talk to, too. And I know nineteen names and prayers, but I can’t get all nineteen of them to listen to me. Or at least, I never have. Maybe I learned a syllable wrong somewhere, or maybe they just don’t like me, but I can’t get all of them to listen.”
Sterren saw where this was leading. “How many do listen to you, then?” he asked.
“Usually, three,” Agor replied nervously.
Sterren stared. “Three? Out of nineteen?”
“I told you I’m not really a very good theurgist,” Agor said defensively.
“How did you ever wind up as the royal magician, then?”
“The royal magician to the court of King Phenvel III of Semma? Of Semma, my lord? You’re from Ethshar; you know better. If I were any good, would I still be here?”
“I suppose not,” Sterren admitted.
“I was born in Semma, but I ran away from home when I was twelve and served my apprenticeship in Lumeth of the Towers. I couldn’t make a living there, though, and I didn’t speak anything but Semmat and Lumethan, so when I got tired of starving in Lumeth I came back here, where there wasn’t any real competition. They don’t care if I can only talk to Unniel, Konned, and Morm, because nobody else here can talk to any of the gods!” A trace of pride had crept into Agor’s voice.
“Um... Who were those, again?”
“Unniel, Konned, and Morm. Unniel the Discerning is the goddess of theurgical information, Konned is a god of light and warmth, and Morm the Preserver is the god of genealogy.”
“I never heard of any of them,” Sterren said. “And how many gods have you heard of by name?”
“Not many,” Sterren admitted. Laymen virtually never bothered with names, since only theurgists could count on getting a specific deity’s attention. Usually prayers were directed to categories of gods, or just any god who might be listening, to increase the chances of reaching someone.
Sterren realized he could not name a single god, other than the three Agor had just mentioned, and he didn’t think he could pronounce two of those. Konned was easy enough, but the diphthong in Unniel and the r sound in Morm were very alien indeed.
“So, could any of those three help us?” he asked. “I don’t see how,” Agor replied. “Morm is completely useless; all he does is keep track of family trees. If you need to know your great-great-grandmother’s childhood epithet, or when your third cousin was born, he can tell you, but that’s it. He’s been very useful to me, since all the nobility of Semma are obsessed with family, but a war is completely out of his area.”
“And Konned?” Sterren did not care to try pronouncing Unniel.
“Well, if you make a regular sacrifice to him, he’ll provide you with supernatural light at night, brighter than any candle, and he’ll keep you warm in the winter, so we don’t have to worry about freezing during a siege but that’s about it. And freezing isn’t very likely in Semma anyway.”
“And...”
“Unniel’s our best hope, I suppose. She knows everything there is to know about all the other gods and sometimes she can be coaxed into carrying messages to them; I found you by having her call her brother Aibem for me. I know a prayer for Aibem, but I can never make it work right, so when I really need him, sometimes I can get him through Unniel. Aibem is a god of information; I’ve never found anything he doesn’t know, but getting him to tell me what I’m after is usually like trying to catch a black cat in a dungeon at midnight. Unniel can also talk to the dead, sometimes, not all the dead, just certain ones, and I have no idea why.”