“Well, I thought about how it would be possible to remove the taint from someone or some thing. The closest analogy I can come up with is thinking of the item as a piece of cloth that has a stain on it. You have to clean the item, dye it, or put a patch over that stain. Patching would be the most crude, but could take as little as laying another enchantment over the first. Wheele—the Aurolani mage who killed my mentor—did that sort of thing to hide a spell beneath another spell. I did that with my duplicate fragment of the DragonCrown. The problem there is that, if one looks closely, the patch can be detected, and then the real stain can be seen, as you managed when sorting the dragonbone armor from the DragonCrown taint on me.“
“Your analogy will suffice, however weak. Overdyeing, then, would be a more integral form of patching. You would weave more magick through the item to draw a searcher away from the stain, making it appear to be part of some other pattern.”
Kerrigan nodded. “I guess so, yes.”
“And cleaning?”
The young mage shifted uneasily on the bed. “That I am not sure of. It would require getting into the fabric of the spell, separating out the tainted aspects, and substituting something else—which may or may not have its own taints. Just taking the time to get in to identify the taints and their parts and what they do in the spell would take a long time. Crafting replacements would take a long while as well, and then actually doing the cleansing, well… That would be very difficult.”
“But could it be done?”
Kerrigan’s shoulders rose and fell abruptly. “The trick is keeping other taints out. In a ritual setting, in an arcanorium where all was calm, where all ingredients were pure, where all outside influences were eliminated, it might be possible to minimize those things.”
“And might it be possible to fashion yet another spell, a thaumaturgical simulacrum, that would actually insert trace influences such that your weaving could have the racial taint of an elf, or the training taint of someone from Caledo?”
The young mage’s eyes opened in surprise and his head went back, banging off the headboard again. “Ouch!” He rubbed at the rising lump on his head and let the pain disguise his surprise. If someone could do that, they could hide the intent of a spell, taking a mage off-guard completely. They could lay blame for something on someone else. They could do almost anything.
“I guess that would be possible.”
“It might be necessary. The question for you is this: are your spells identifiable as being cast by a human, or do your elven spells seem elven?”
“I don’t know.” Kerrigan frowned. “Why is that important?”
Bok grunted as if that were one of the most stupid questions he’d ever heard.
“In your analysis, you’ve forgotten one very important thing. It is this: how are you going to detect all these aspects of spells?”
“With a spell.”
“Very good. Now, with the patch idea, you have a spell hiding aspects of another spell. What if the patch is reactive? What if the patch is a spell designed to send a different message back to the caster depending upon aspects of the spell being used to monitor it?“
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“Take Will, for example. You can see the scars on his throat, yet the spell you cast on him does not reveal him as changed at all. Clearly, from the scars, from the magick that accompanied his oath and the spilling of his blood, he is different.” Ramoch opened his gloved hands. “You used an elven diagnostic spell on him?”
“It’s the best one I know.”
“It’s the only one likely to be cast on him in your company, isn’t it?”
Kerrigan nodded slowly. “Human diagnostic spells work fine for assessing trouble, but the elven is better. UrZrethi would be another possibility, but unlikely.”
“So, a spell masking what was done to him that reported back null results in response to human, elven, or urZrethi spells would effectively hide what was done to him. And any other dimensions of that spell that might reveal the identity and intent of the caster.”
“Yes, exactly.” Kerrigan slowly began to smile. “And any masking spell that was used to hide a fragment of the DragonCrown might similarly be tailored to deflect spells depending on the race of the person using it, the school of magick, or the very spell itself.”
Rym Ramoch clapped his hands. “Splendid; you have it.”
“Do I?” Kerrigan frowned again. “I’m actually pretty confused. I have the key to learning what happened to Will? I have the key to finding the DragonCrown? I have the key to hiding the taint on me?”
“Some of all.” The crimson-robed mage pressed his fingertips together. “Among those dimensions you mentioned, there is some overlap. The taint of the DragonCrown is mostly tied to the source of your magickal energy. It is an item of power and has poisoned the source of your power. When you draw on your personal strength, it bleeds into the spells. When you are summoning other energy, there is much less of the taint. It is good you are here in Caledo because the magickers here rely on a ritual purification before working important spells. You will learn this from them, and flood pure energy into yourself. That should burn out most all of the DragonCrown taint.”
“And the armor?”
“That should be the least of your worries. There are few who would recognize the spell, and the sense of intent you give it is entirely different from the previous user.”
The younger mage stared intently at his new mentor. “If I heard you correctly, I could assume you were around when Kirun was alive.”
“You could, and you could be wrong. Recall my mention of simulacra previously. A simulation might not be exact, but sufficient for my purposes.”
That defense, Kerrigan noticed, was not a denial.
“Your first job here will be to cleanse yourself, Adept Reese. Listen to what they tell you to do and follow their instructions completely. This is one spell you will not need to modify. Not yet, at least.”
He arched an eyebrow. “But someday?”
“If all goes as planned, yes, but this is far afield from where we need to be now.”
“And after that?”
“I would have thought it would be obvious.” Ramoch cocked his head slightly to the right. “Mask spells identify searching spells through particular dimensions. Once they know what the spell is, they know what results to let it report. You need to fashion your own spell that will confound the masks and allow you past them.”
“I can see that. With your help, I’m sure I can do it.”
“You’ll have to do without my help.” Ramoch held a hand up. “No one can know I’m here, Kerrigan. Though Caledo’s people are stalwart, there are those who are agents for the enemy. If Neskartu learns I am here, there will be yet more trouble than any of us want. I will come to you as I can, but my presence must remain a secret.”
“But… If I need you?”
Ramoch stood and bowed in his direction. “You may think you need me, Kerrigan Reese, but you are wrong. All you need is already inside. I am but a catalyst—for now, anyway. Nothing you will face here will require more than your native caution and intelligence. If that were to change, you would have my help.”
Kerrigan snorted. “So if I don’t see you, I can handle anything I face?”
“Yes, that, or I’ve been slain by the enemy.”
“That’s not much comfort.”
“I didn’t mean it to be.” Ramoch laughed. “There is little comfort to be had in these dire times. Accept that as a fact, then work to change it.”
47
Will shivered in the grand chamber the Murosans had given him. The one thing he’d liked about Bokagul was that the rooms had been small enough that he had been able to keep warm. While the coverlet on the big bed was quite thick, he wished the bed was closer to the fireplace, and that the fireplace was bigger and that a fire was already roaring away. The chairs nearest the fireplace did look comfortable, and he eyed the bed’s coverlet and considered just wrapping himself in it and fashioning a bed of sorts from the chairs.