The Road To Sevendor - A Spellmonger Anthology by Terry Mancour

Author:Terry Mancour
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2013-09-18T23:00:00+00:00

Exactly how much that meant to them I didn’t realize until a few moments later.

We were still all feasting and dancing and discussing my new-found fortunes when the simple magelight Pentandra had cast to help light our table suddenly went out – and a wave of nothingness washed over us.

That’s a little dramatic, actually, since the wave only affected those of us with Talent. But suddenly the constant contact I enjoyed with my new and improved Witchsphere was just . . . gone. As I looked around in a panic, Penny, Tyndal, and Rondal were all equally confused and alarmed.

It took a few seconds for some reason to apply itself to the situation through the fog of reverie and good wine, but you can’t study thaumaturgic magic for a few years without some things sticking. Someone had obviously cast an annulment enchantment.

An annulment is a way to temporarily-disrupt the flow of magical power in an area, or in a person. If you imagine magic as a calm, clear pool in which you can usefully see your reflection, then an annulment enchantment is like tossing a handful of sand into the water. Magic doesn’t exactly go away, just the ability to usefully channel it.

That class of spell was fairly obscure, being useful for a very limited number of applications. But one of them was to interfere in the spellcasting of “deviant magi” by the Censorate. Indeed, the Censorate was reputed to have sophisticated magical devices to accomplish just that sort of thing.

“Oh, shit,” I whispered. Pentandra looked terrified. Tyndal and Rondal were just confused, not really understanding what was going on. For, despite my best efforts, the Censorate had managed to crash my wedding.

They proved the point a moment later, when two of the “servants” revealed themselves . . . one by displaying a four-foot rod topped with a sphere of thaumaturgic glass four inches wide and glowing a pale yellow, and the other by holding a dagger. At my bride’s throat.

“HOLD, IN THE NAME OF THE KING!” bellowed the fellow with the magic rod. A long dagger appeared in his other hand.

“Anyone moves, and the bride is sacrificed!” assured the other, nastily. He was a small man, dressed in a drudge’s gray tunic and wearing the simple tabard of the Eel’s Elbow inn. But he moved with a dancer’s grace, and there was no mistaking the serious look in his eye as he held a nine-inch blade against Alya’s terrified throat.

“We are sworn men of the Royal Censorate of Magic, and in the name of the King, we place these renegade magi under arrest!”

Nobody moved. I felt in vain for some kind of magic – any scrap of power I could – but for naught. Pentandra was similarly hampered, I saw, and she looked distressed. But not nearly as distressed as my bride. Alya’s eyes were open wide in terror.

“What is the meaning of this?” my father asked, in his loudest patriarchal voice. “This is a wedding!”

“This is an arrest,” said the Censor with the rod.

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