"I told you so. "
Miach raised his eyebrows briefly. "So you did." He looked at his brother. "What of you? Have you lost your magic as well? "
Adhémar thought back to the spells he'd cast as the creature had attacked him. He'd left the scene of battle too quickly to determine if they'd taken effect or not, but he wasn't about to admit as much. Who knew how closely and with what relish Miach might want to examine that? "I'm having an off day," Adhémar said stiffly. "Nothing more. "
"Here," Miach said, taking an taper and putting it on his table. "Light that."
Adhémar drew himself up. "Too simple."
"Then it shouldn't be too hard for you."
Adhémar glared at his brother briefly, then spat out a spell.
He waited.
There was nothing.
"Try it a different way," Miach suggested. "Call the fire instead."
Adhémar hadn't done the like since his sixth year, when his mother had taken him aside and begun to teach him the rudiments of magic. It had come easily to him, but that was to be expected. He had been the chosen heir to the throne, after all.
He now closed his eyes and blocked out the faint sounds of castle life, his brother's breathing, his own heartbeat. There, in the deepest, stillest part of his being, he called the fire. It came, a single flicker that he let grow until it filled his entire mind. He opened his eyes and willed it to come forth around the wick.
Nothing, not even a puff of smoke.
"An aberration," Adhémar said, but even he had to admit that this did not bode well.
"Let me understand this," Miach said slowly. "Your sword has no magic, you apparently have no magic, and you have no idea why either has happened."
"That would sum it up quite nicely," Adhémar said curtly. "Now, fix it all and come to me in the hall when you've managed it. I'm going to find a mug of ale." He turned, walked through the doorway, slammed the door behind him, and stomped down the steps.
Actually he suspected it might take several mugs of ale to erase the memories of the day he'd just had. Best to be about it before things became worse.
Miach looked at the closed door for a moment or two before he bowed his head and blew out his breath. This was an unexpected turn of events, but not an unanticipated one. He had been archmage of the realm for fourteen years now, having taken on those duties when Adhémar had taken the throne, upon the deaths of their parents. In that fourteen years, he had constantly maintained the less visible defenses against the north, passing a great deal of his time and spending a great deal of his strength to keep Lothar, the black mage of Wychweald, at bay. Those defenses had been constantly tested, constantly under siege of one kind or another.
Until the previous year.
It was as if the world outside the realm of Neroche had suddenly fallen asleep. His spells of protection and defense had gone untouched, untested, untroubled. He'd known it could not last and was not meant to last.
Perhaps the assault had begun, and in a way he hadn't foreseen.
But what to do now? He was quite certain Adhémar's sword hadn't given up its magic on its own, and that Adhémar hadn't lost his just as a matter of course. If a spell had been cast upon the king, the king had magic enough to sense it. Or at least he should have.
Miach considered that for a moment or two. Adhémar was the king and as such possessed the mantle that went with such kingship. Yet perhaps he'd spent so many years not using his magic for more desperate purposes than to hasten the souring of his favorite wine that he'd lost the ability of it, a bit like a man who lost his strength because he sat upon his backside with his feet up and never lifted anything heavier than a fork.
But to have had the sword lose its power as well?
Miach rose and began to pace. There had been no spell laid upon the blade that he could discern, but perhaps there was more at work than he could see. Perhaps Adhémar had been stripped of his magic in the same way. But why? And by whom? He was very familiar with the smell of Lothar's magic and this had no stench of that kind.
Miach paced until the chamber ceased to provide him with room enough to truly aid him in his thinking. He descended the stairs and began to wander about the castle. He tramped about restlessly until he found himself standing in the great hall. It was a place made to impress, with enormous hearths on three sides and a raised dais at the back. Countless kings of Neroche had sat at that table on that dais, comfortable in the magic they possessed.
In the beginning of the realm, the magic had been the king's and his alone. The first pair of kings of Neroche had guarded the realm by virtue of their own power. In time, the kings had either had enough power in and of themselves, or they had found other means to augment that power. The Sword of Neroche had been endowed with a bit of magic itself, but it had always been dependent on the king.
That had changed eventually. It had been the grandson of King Harold the Brave who had looked upon his posterity, considered the queen who had left him for one of Lothar's sons, and decided that the only way to assure the safety of the kingdom was to imbue his sword with all of his power. He did, chose his least objectionable son as king, and made his magically gifted nephew archmage as a balance. It had been the Sword of Neroche, from that time on, that had carried most of the king's magic, folded into the steel of its blade.
Miach looked down at the floor and rubbed the back of his neck. Of course, he had magic of his own, more than he had ever admitted to his brothers, more than even he had suspected when he'd become the archmage. But he knew, in a deep, uncompromising way that reached down into his bones, that it would take all the magic he could muster, as well as all the king could draw from the Sword of Neroche, to keep Lothar at bay should he mount an all-out attack.
Unless there was another way.
