Practical Magic

Princess Syndi learns all about the applications of Practical Magic from Muld.

38.

Practical Magic

 

 

 

“-So the water is either heated or cooled, dependant of which valve is opened.   The heating spell in the collection tank heats this pipe and the cooling spell in the other collection tank cools that pipe.   Whatever one they open up brings that temperature of water into the church.”

Syndi shook her head in amazed fascination at the application of the magic, “That is so wonderful - temperature controlled water!”

Muld laughed, “It does facilitate more pleasant showering.”

“Showering?”   The redheaded Elf girl asked, her eyes sparkling as she sensed that she’d learn yet another practical magic invention.

“Oh yes, they use this same basic set up of heating and cooling spells and a reservoir, but a push cantrip is applied to the pipe going from the reservoir to the end that comes out into a bathing room - the Muddy Boot has a public shower room for their guests and several private ones in their more expensive private quarters.”

“The push spell forces the water out of the other end of the pipe, and there is a specially crafted end that shoots the water out through smaller holes like a gentle waterfall.    The valve in the room brings a small anti-magic disc across the pipe to turn it on and off, by opening and closing the valve.”

“I asked some of the barmaids at the Muddy Boot and they told me that the Duke and Duchess are frequently upgrading the technology in the Inn.    As a result, the Muddy Boot is probably the most advanced Inn - from a practical magic standpoint- north of Aeropolis.   I’d show you how the plumbing runs through the Inn, but they are closed now.”

Syndi blinked in alarm, “The Inn is closed?   What time is it?”

Muld pulled his pocket watch (which was another one of his amazing devices) from his cloak and squinted in the dim light of his glow stick, “I think it’s about 3AM.”

“3AM… how far is that from midnight and dawn?”   Syndi asked, for her people did not measure time so precisely and just used the sun to roughly indicate the time of day.

“AM indicates ‘After Midnight’ so it is three hours after midnight and probably about 4 hours before Dawn.”

“Good heavens!” The girl exclaimed, her hands to her face, “My mother is going to kill me!”

Muld just laughed, “I’m very sorry, Syndi; you seemed so fascinated by the magic that I lost track of the time.”

“Well, I AM fascinated with it!   It is the most interesting use of magic that I have ever heard of.    But my parents are very strict and I’m surprised they haven’t got the whole ducal guards searching for me.”

Muld grinned, “Well, that would take quite an effort!   You’d have to be one of the Duke and Duchess’ daughters or a visiting princess or noble woman to get that sort of response!”

The young Elven practical magician didn’t see her reaction to his statement, as he was putting away his watch.

“Still, she’ll be really mad if she knew I was wandering around the back of the Church of Yesh looking at pipes going into the building this late at night.”

“There are a lot of people still milling about with all the refugees in town.”  Muld shrugged, “They don’t enforce curfews anymore, so there is quite a night life here now.   You could tell her you just got caught up in the atmosphere and lost track of the time.”

Syndi threw her head back and laughed, “Oh, I REALLY couldn’t tell her that!    She’d not accept that at all!    Proper ladies don’t stay out late with young men.”

“Even just looking at pipes?”   He grinned.

“She’d not understand, trust me.    She’d worry that I would freeze to death out here in the cold.”

“Show her the heating cloak; maybe that would change her mind.”  

“But it’s your cloak.”   She looked at the hooded cloak that he had retrieved for her from his bag of holding, several hours ago when the temperature had fallen as it started snowing.   The cloak - white on one side and a winter brown on the other- had a warming cantrip permanently cast on it so that it kept the wearer constantly at a comfortable temperature.

“Keep it.”  Muld said, “I have probably a hundred of them in the bag.   My master was hoping to sell them to one of the Army quartermasters for the Imperial legions’ winter campaigns, but with Torrin’s rise in popularity, that all failed.”

“Thanks.” Syndi smiled sweetly, thankful that she didn’t have to give up the warm cloak, “I’m glad the legions didn’t get any of these cloaks.”

“Yeah, I am too- but they’re not using any magic now, I guess.   That gives the Dullerm’s forces the advantage, though they’re going to need all the magic they can get.   The Emperor will probably send all of his legions that he can safely spare against Westmark and Dullerm.”

“Can magic be used to stop them?”   Syndi asked as they both walked from the church into the snowy streets of Westmark.

“Oh, certainly.   But I’d say that they need to act quickly, while they are far away, so they won’t destroy half of the country in their march here.”

“So how would you do it, with your practical magic?”   She pulled in closer to him to avoid some of the rather rough characters that were still walking up and down the street.   From the top of the city walls, ducal guards monitored each street, and others patrolled up and down the streets, but she felt better staying near the young wizard.

Muld thought for a few moments and took a deep breath, “I think I’d utilize their existing magic.    They have airships that could be used to harass the legions and monitor their progress north.   I’d bomb them with rocks and firebombs from above.    But that probably wouldn’t be enough to keep them from invading.”

“So how would you stop that?”

“Orc Pass is the way that they’ll come north.    But it is steep and there are high mountains on both sides.    When I was a young student, my master took a group of us to Southgate and we spent several days looking at Northmarch’s defenses at Southgate.    But we also spent several hours looking at the pass.”

“It was cut out of rock by hand, centuries ago.    They still have landslides there that block the pass each year.     A small group of practical wizards and engineers could cast a combination of spells on the sides of the pass and completely fill the pass with thousands of tons of rock. “

“That would certainly block the legions!”

“Quite right.   They’d not be able to come around to the east, due to the sheerness of the cliffs and to the west they’d have to travel for days before hooking up with the Southern highway, which they’d take northward for an equal number of days until they reached Westmark.”

“But they’d still arrive here.”   Syndi said with a worried frown.

“Well, you’d have to utilize the time that they were traveling up the Southern Highway.   The legions would be uneasy with the Faesidhe Forest to the west and the Rattooth mountains to the east.   They’d not be able to take their legions through the Rattooth range.”

“Oh, they could get through them maybe if they didn’t have supply wagons and siege engines, but that is not how the Imperial army marches.”

“They’d also be marching uphill the entire way, and if Duke Eleazar could put archers in the forest, they could harass them the entire distance.    They wouldn’t be pursued by the legions, for they won’t go into the forest out of fear of the elves.”

Syndi smiled smugly, “They do have a rather fearsome reputation.”

“The legions know this, too.    They would probably have a week of marching north, and with archers picking them off all the way from the safety of the trees.    Then I’d use airships dropping rocks, hot oil - and whatever else we could use- on them. “  

“They have Iron Golems that were taken from King’s Reach when the Dullerms led the evacuation of the city from Redburr’s forces.    I haven’t seen these Golems, because they are kept tightly locked up by the Duke and Duchess, but I am told that they were used to build much of the defenses of Westmark.   They could be used to attack the legions.”

“That would be impressive to see.”   Syndi was watching for any of her parents’ Elven guard or Ducal patrols that her mother may have sent out to find her.   She didn’t want to scare Muld to death or embarrass herself.    He didn’t know she was a princess, and she really liked being spoken to as a normal person.  

 

“Of course there are other defenses or even some offensive options that practical magic could assist with, but I think I’d better escort you to your quarters, and explain the situation to your parents so you won’t get into any trouble.”

“No!” She responded in alarm, and then to try to downplay her fearfulness, she grinned and laughed nervously, “No, that would make them even more suspicious.   They would then be certain that I’d done something improper.”

“Sorry, I am a rather roguish looking guy, I suppose.”

Syndi stopped in the middle of the street and touched his arm, “I didn’t mean it that way, Muld.    You have been a perfect gentleman all day and evening long.    My parents are just old-fashioned.    They… they think of me as their little princess - and they expect me to act just like one.    I’m supposed to be prim and proper, only associating with the very best people that they have personally approved.”

“And I wouldn’t make the cut.” 

“Don’t say that!   They’d be bewildered by your knowledge of practical magic and probably a bit fearful of it.    They’re set in their ways and customs.   You are modern and… well, exciting!”

He seemed to like her compliment, “Thanks.    You don’t seem to be like them, Syndi.   In fact, with your fascination, you would probably make a very good practical engineer.”

“Really?”  The thought thrilled her.   To have something that her parents had not plotted out for her to do, something she could accomplish on her own.   To be her own person!

“You seem to grasp what I told you very quickly.   I can tell by the gleam in your eyes that magic is exciting to you.    You certainly have the knack for it.    Have you ever studied magic?”

“No… my sister did…my mother is quite skilled in magic.”   She hesitated to tell Muld about this, for she knew what his follow-up questions would be.

“Are they sorceresess or from the wizard school?”

“Wizards, I guess.”

“Your sister was one too?   I didn’t know that any of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting were magic users.”

“Well, she didn’t tell anyone here.”  

“The Queen was a powerful wizard - your sister could have learned a lot from her, I’ll bet.”

“Yeah, I guess she could have.”

“So where is your family from, anyway?”

Syndi now was quite alarmed, as he was asking questions that would reveal to him who she was, if she didn’t redirect him.

“We’re from the north.    Listen, I had better be going.   I don’t mean to be rude, but I really don’t want to spend the rest of the night arguing with my mother.”

“Oh.”  Muld looked a bit hurt by her sudden need to get away from him, “Alright, but at least let me walk you back to the Inn.”

“You’d better not, or my mother might see you.   I’m sorry, but you don’t know her like I do.”

He smiled sadly, “I understand.    Thanks for letting me show you all of that; it was a very pleasant day.   I hope I don’t get you in too much trouble.”

“I’ll manage,” She returned his smile, and then took his hand and squeezed it, “Thank you for the tour.    I’ll be seeing you.”

“Goodbye.”  He squeezed her hand and she sensed that he thought she was just trying to quickly slip away.

“Bye; I’ll try to slip away from them tomorrow, if I can, and maybe then you can show me the plumbing in the Muddy Boot.”

“Alright.” His face brightened, “You have a deal.”

She turned and ran up the street, leaving him in the snow to watch her go with a puzzled, but pleased look on his face.

 

 

He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t see a pair of cloaked forms come up behind him.    One of the two raised a wooden club and quickly brought the club down on the back of the young Elf’s head.   He fell to the street senseless and quickly the two dragged him into an alleyway.

“You hit him too hard!”  One of the two said to the other.

“I didn’t want him to make noise.   We’d attract too much attention.   This way we can take him up to the night watch and have him put into the ducal dungeon and he won’t be able to say anything.”

“He’s bleeding!   If you’ve killed him WE will be put in the ducal dungeon!”

“He’ll live.   They’ll give him a healing potion when they see he’s injured.   Relax, will you?”

“How are we going to get him down the street when he’s unconscious?”

“He’s a rowdy drunk who we had to subdue.   We drag him up to the night watch and tell him that we are guards of Queen Synthaeia and that this drunk was harassing her daughter, so we subdued him.    They’ll send a messenger to the Queen; she’ll verify our story and will tell them that she wants to question him when he wakes up.    That will be our entire job.”

“Well… alright, that sounds logical to me.   Grab his right arm and I’ll grab his left.   I think I saw the night watch up the street a few minutes ago, so maybe we won’t have to drag him far.   I feel rather sorry for the poor kid.   He seems like a harmless boy to me.”

“Yeah, but we’ve got to follow orders.”

“I know.   Come on, let’s get this over with and get inside where it’s warm.”

The two guards began to drag the unconscious practical magic engineer up the street as the snow began to fall harder.

Reviews

[Elina]

"Are they sorcereress or from the wizard school?" I think you were wanting "sorceresses" here?

[Eddie Davis]

You are right as always, thanks for finding it.