V. Mage-Prince
Dane and Somner arrived in the city of Norring-on-Recca just as the sun began to fall in the sky. The Prince-Lord’s castle was in the eastern part of the city, and as they traveled toward it, the lights began to flicker on one by one. Nothfeld-style lanterns were famous concoctions of colored paper globes and caught sunlight, crafted by mages to always shine but never burn, and the light shone vividly in the twilight.
They had fallen into a comfortable silence by the time they approached the castle gates, a silence which Dane was forced to break when the two guards on duty caught sight of them.
“Name?” one of the guards yawned, scratching a hand through her hair and stretching.
“Scholar-Mage Dane Jefferson, here on appointment with the Prince-Lord Mikhail Beaufort, Mage-Prince of Nothfeld, and Somner Jefferson….” He supposed that it would be ill-advised to begin his attempt for gainful employment with a lie, regardless of Stoneford’s warning. “Mage construct.”
The guard’s eyes widened a touch, but she composed herself quickly and checked off their names on the list that she held. “You’re our last arrival, Master Jefferson,” she said cheerfully. “If you’ll wait here a few minutes, we can get a servant in to show you to your rooms. All right?”
“That sounds fine,” Dane said. He and Somner walked forward as she gestured for them to go past her and into the guard station. After she spoke a few quick words to one of the other guards, a servant was called in.
“Right this way,” the servant boy said. He was a kept demon, as Dane could easily tell from the black binding circle on the boy’s neck indicating a mid-level imp. The body itself was a homunculus and the fact that even a servant imp wore such a magically-complex body was probably what Stoneford had meant when he had said that the prince here had “a predilection for simulacrum.”
Past the guard tower was a large, sweeping expanse of garden, bound in by large trees and thick rosebushes. The stone paths that wound through it were maze-like, and Dane was glad for the accompaniment of the imp, for he surely would have been unable to find his way through it all by himself.
“His Highness has set you up in the Sunrise Suite in the East Wing,” the servant imp said. His tone was more restrained and civil than that of any imp that Dane had ever met. “He hopes that you and your construct will join him in a private breakfast tomorrow morning, after which your interview can be conducted.”
“The Prince-Lord himself is interviewing me?” Dane asked, surprised.
The imp shoved the castle doors open and said with a hint of the snappishness that Dane had originally expected of him, “Yes. Now, if you’ll follow me….”
“Watch your tone,” Dane snapped back. Somner shrank at the reprimand, regardless of the fact that he wasn’t the one being told off, and Dane calmed himself reluctantly.
“I apologize if I spoke hastily,” the imp said, tone tame again, but Dane saw a flare of demon-red behind his eyes. He led them out of the Great Hall and down a smaller side hallway, lit every few paces with floating, dark red paper lanterns. “His Highness likes to conduct the mage interviews himself.”
Dane did not reply to this, wary of upsetting Somner again, and the next few minutes were spent in silence.
“These are your rooms,” the imp stated suddenly, stopping. The door he motioned toward was large and rounded, made of a rather lovely golden maple. The imp bowed low, the fall of his black hair nearly touching the floor. “I hope you’ll find everything to your liking,” he said. “If you have any problems, please ring.”
He waited in the hall until Dane and Somner entered the room, and Dane heard his steps receding into the distance only when Dane shut the door behind them.
The suite was large and grandiose, all reds, golds, and oranges. The furniture was all the same gold-washed maple as the door, which Dane made a note to purchase at some point for himself, if he ever was able to acquire a job.
“What do you think, Somner?” he asked teasingly, turning to the construct. Somner was glancing about the entire room with wide eyes, the look in them something that Dane couldn’t quite name.
“It’s… nice,” he said, hesitantly. Slowly, the look in his eyes faded as he looked at Dane.
Dane’s brow furrowed. “Is something wrong?”
Somner shook his head and walked over to gingerly sit on one of the dark red and maple couches that littered the room.
Dane turned to the trunks, which the bound imps were still grunting and cursing softly under. “Our contract is complete,” he announced. The imps grinned wickedly at him and vanished with a soft pop and the scent of sulfur. The trunks clattered to the floor.
Dane looked over at Somner, sitting rigidly on the couch. He was very tired, but it would be nothing less than foolish of him to bring Somner to a meeting with the Prince-Lord without saying approximately what would occur. Thus, he had to force himself to stay awake for a little while longer.
“You heard the imp about the breakfast tomorrow?” he asked abruptly. Somner nodded, face unreadable and gaze steady. “This Prince-Lord… Mikhail Beaufort, he has recently ascended the throne at the death of his parents—assassins murdered them both one evening. Prince Mikhail caught the assassins, and it’s rumored that after finding that they had been cursed to never speak of their employers, he had them executed in the dining hall in front of full Court. He has been systematically replacing all of his staff ever since to make certain that the incident will never occur again. Stoneford says that he has a particular interest in simulacrum and constructs, so be careful not to be alone with him.”
“Yes, Dane,” Somner said, inclining his head slightly.
Dane nodded shortly. “All right.” He looked around the sitting room and at all of the doors leading off it. It was set up much the same as his rooms at University, and he pursed his lips after noting the number of doors. “We will have to make up one of the couches out here for you. There’s only one bedroom, though I suppose we must forgive it, given that they were not expecting you as well as me. And we have to order a dinner, I believe. I have no desire to brave the Court here yet, even if they serve at the same time as the one in Larken.”
He picked up the handle of one of the trunks and started to pull it toward the door that he assumed led to the bedroom. “See if you can find the bell to ring for dinner, will you?” he called back over his shoulder. He closed the bedroom door behind him.
The dining room that Dane and Somner were shown to the next morning was a lovely room, long and low, with one entire wall filled with glass windows. Sunshine streamed through and flooded over the face of the Mage-Prince of Nothfeld, seated at the small, dark-stained table and staring at the gardens beyond the windows. Prince Mikhail Beaufort was, Dane decided, stunning. He had dramatic dark red hair that fell onto pink-white skin that was pale, translucent, and as fine as porcelain. He was also, regardless of his looks, only seventeen, and that was very obvious the moment he turned to look at them.
Beaufort smiled a little woodenly until Dane remembered his manners and bowed; Somner quickly followed suit. Inclining his head in a reply to this courtesy, Beaufort motioned for them to sit down, saying, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Master Jefferson. Please, sit.” In jarring contrast to his apparent beauty, his tone was restrained. Dane was put instantly on guard by it. Beaufort was a mage, a prince, and carried a reputation for being somewhat cruel at times—Dane could not afford to be put off guard by his youth and how pretty he was.
Porcelain-pale hands wound around each other, clasped gently together in Beaufort’s lap, positioned in such a way that the angle of the sun made the skin glisten. The impression that Beaufort gave off of frail beauty and luminescence was too perfectly wrought to not be contrived. Dane, however, had been raised in the Larken Court and knew games such as these.
“Forgive me for forcing you up so early,” Beaufort said. His voice was now charming, almost sweet, and the look did not suit him. “I fear that I always wake early, to best take up the time before my Court duties overwhelm me.” He smiled briefly, looking like nothing more than a shy little boy. Somner was probably the only person in the world that wore that look genuinely, but regardless, it was attractive on Beaufort. As the prince reached out to the platters of food that were heaped on the table and began to fill his plate, Dane began to fill his and Somner’s as well.
“It’s quite all right,” Dane said. He despised awakening early, but was well aware that many others did not share his distaste. “I am, quite literally, at your disposal.”
Beaufort smiled again then and the expression reminded Dane eerily of a knife blade, glinting when the sun caught on its slick metallic surface. He realized then that he did not like Beaufort in the least and he was not entirely sure why. The thought troubled him.
“And this is your mage construct?” Beaufort said. For the first time, the slightest touch of excitement entered his voice, and his words grew quick. “Tell me, how did you manage such a successful reanimation? Other constructs have always failed in some way—memory loss, degeneration, insanity—tell me, how did you avoid it?” He smiled and deftly speared one of the tender cuts of fruit that he has placed on his plate. “To be completely honest, I wanted to have this meal with you solely to ask you about your construct.”
“The ritual was a complex one,” Dane said slowly, weighing his words. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Somner begin to tentatively poke at his food. “The spells are layered so that unraveling one will not tear the others away, and natural and unnatural magics were mixed to give the construct its sustained energy. The memory of the body’s… former inhabitant was not retrieved, but by sending power through the pathways of the brain, I was able to create a new consciousness. It’s possible that some remnants of the former inhabitant linger due to this, though I haven’t quite had time to study it yet. The entire process of the creation would take far too long to explain in just one meal.” Somner was sitting stiffly now, head down. Dane wondered why, but hardly had time to consider it at the moment.
“I specialized in transmutation, you know,” the Prince-Lord said, tone still eager. “I have always theorized that it would be possible to repair a construct’s degeneration with the application of transmutation and spell circles. Is that what you did to heal the body’s damage?”
“Yes, actually.” Dane was rather shocked that Beaufort had thought of it, given the limits of transmutation.
Beaufort looked intensely satisfied at Dane’s answer. “I thought that it would work. Constructs are made out of once-living flesh, after all, not living. Though it could have been close enough for the transmutation to fai—” He shook his head abruptly, cutting himself off. “I apologize,” he said, voice mild again. “I’m somewhat overeager, as you can tell. I am highly interested in simulacrum. You must forgive me. I know that many mages do not like to share their secrets.”
“Of course,” Dane said, but Beaufort’s gray eyes were watching Somner with such cold interest that Dane really didn’t forgive Beaufort at all.
The meal was finished swiftly, woven through with innocuous conversation that nevertheless made Dane feel measured and sorted, then found lacking. Somner was silent throughout, but Dane had not expected him to speak anyway, and Beaufort did not appear to expect him to either, which was fortunate. If Beaufort had felt slighted, Somner would have had to speak to smooth things over.
After the dishes were taken away, Beaufort leaned back in his chair, lightly lacing his fingers together on the table before him. “So, your full title is Lord Dane Jefferson, Heir Apparent of the Farthing Duchy?” It was obvious that Beaufort knew the answer to that question. “Will there be any conflict of interest if you should work for me, given that your uncle’s position and your own familial duties with the duchy?”
Beaufort watched Dane’s face with care when he finished asking the question, as if trying to look into Dane’s soul.
“Not in the least,” Dane said pleasantly in reply. “Uncle George may be the Prince-Lord of Larken, but we have had little to do with each other since I joined the University. The duchy will be in the hands of my younger sister, until I choose to relinquish the title to her or retire.”
“I see.” Beaufort had the nervous gesture of drawing circles on the tabletop with a nail on his left hand. He did so now, absently. Dane privately thought that he seemed the type that would rather cut off his hand than fidget so, so likely Beaufort did not realize what he was doing. “You are a Scholar-Mage. You research new types and applications of spell and summoning circles, correct?”
Dane nodded. “Yes. My specialization is in summoning circles, though I obviously have some knowledge of transmutation, as well as several other disciplines. My next planned working deals with possessions.”
A bit of academic interest flared in Beaufort’s eyes, but rather than question Dane further on that subject, he said, “I’m certain that you know that my position here is rather fragile, given recent events.”
“Yes?” Dane was somewhat thrown by the change in subject, and though he tried his best not to show it, he feared that he failed at that endeavor.
Beaufort’s mouth quirked at his surprise, the prince’s glacial expression showing a touch of disdain. “Thank you for coming here to see me, Master Jefferson,” he said abruptly. “I do feel that I have gotten to know you a bit over our breakfast, and beyond that, I am well aware of your qualifications. You are highly recommended by several important people, you realize?” He laughed softly, showing a bit of genuine—if dark—amusement. “I’m sure that you do. Well, I have no further questions, and if I or my council do feel the need for further questioning, I shall be certain to ring for you while you’re here.” He paused, the motion of his fingernail on the table stilling. “I wouldn’t mind talking with you more on the subject of constructs later, though I know that you plan to leave… tomorrow, was it?” He actually sounded wistful.
“In the morning, yes.” Dane smiled tightly, standing and sketching a bow. “Thank you for your hospitality, Your Highness.”
“Please, it was no trouble,” the prince said, standing as well. “If you require anyone to help you, or a guide to take you around the city, please feel free to ring a servant.”
At that dismissal, Dane and Somner bowed and left the room. Beaufort would send him a note at some point later on, to either give him the job offer or not. It would save them the discomfort of dealing with the matter directly, with one another still present. Dane believed that Beaufort would offer him the job. He planned to say no.
