The Archimage's Fourth Daughter Read online

  The Archimage's Fourth Daughter

  Lyndon Hardy

  Volume 4 of Magic by the Numbers

  © 2017 by Lyndon Hardy All rights reserved.

  Except for the use of brief quotations in a book review, reproduction or use of this book or any portion thereof in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author is prohibited, illegal and punishable by law.

  Please purchase only authorized editions and do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrightable materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

  All characters and business entities appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real businesses or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Version 2

  EBook ISBN: 978-0-9991320-0-5

  Other books by Lyndon Hardy

  Master of the Five Magics, 2nd edition

  Secret of the Sixth Magic, 2nd edition

  Riddle of the Seven Realms, 2nd edition

  Visit Lyndon Hardy's website at: http://www.alodar.com/blog

  Cover by Tom Momary http://www.tomomary.com

  Map by Ana Maria Velicu http://facebook.com/ancart7

  1. Fantasy 2. Magic 3. Adventure 4. New Adult

  To my granddaughters, Alison and Zelda

  Contents

  The Laws of Magic

  Map

  Prologue

  Part One Stranger in a Strange Land

  Part Two So Many Women, So Little Time

  Part Three An Expanded Reality

  Part Four Turn of the Ratchetwheel

  Part Five Eightfold Path Neverending

  Part Six Briana's Choice

  Author’s Afterward

  What’s next?

  Glossary

  Part One Stranger in a Strange Land

  1 The Magic Portal

  2 Father and Daughter

  3 Preparation for Adventure

  4 Planetfall

  5 A Typical Street

  6 Exiled forever

  7 A Second Encounter

  8 Magic castles

  9 The Purchasing Agent

  10 Steps Along the Way

  11 Surfing the Net

  12 No Need for a Philosopher’s Stone

  13 Zero

  14 A Purchase Order

  15 The Noose

  16 Partners in Crime

  17 Fetid Air

  18 Initiative

  Part Two So Many Women, So Little Time

  1 The Waverton Family

  2 Comparative Religions 101

  3 Repeating Opportunity

  4 Dinner at Eight

  5 The Circles of Life

  6 Not So Safe

  7 A Disciple of Murphy

  8 The Modern Woman

  9 No Luck Involved

  10 A Working Interface

  11 Discovery

  Part Three An Expanded Reality

  1 The Staff Meeting

  2 Heat

  3 Reorganization

  4 Tigerwasps

  5 The Interview

  6 Experiment Results

  7 Love Potion Number Nine

  8 Tattoos and Alchemy

  9 Make War Not Love

  10 The Tryst

  11 A Final Shot

  12 CERN

  13 The Basis of Truth

  14 Cosmic Pranksters

  15 Bump Hunting

  16 Imp in a Haystack

  17 The Queen of the Eight Universes

  Part Four Turn of the Ratchetwheel

  1 Escape

  2 Convergence

  3 Brainstorm

  4 To Hilo

  5 The Weight of Leadership

  6 The Catalytic Seed

  7 Rising Stakes

  8 The Warehouse

  9 Watch and Wait

  10 Burning the Ship

  11 Watch and Hurry Up

  12 Watch and Hurry Up Again

  13 Mount Etna

  14 Mount Bagana

  15 Mount Kilauea

  Part Five Eightfold Path Neverending

  1 The Magic Eightball

  2 Souvenirs

  3 Words of the Master

  4 No More Waiting

  5 Interplanetary Stowaway

  6 Plan the Work, Then Work the Plan

  7 The Spoils of Victory

  8 Decisions

  9 The Loyal Minion

  10 Return from Exile

  11 Randor the Tribunal

  12 Vanish the Thought

  13 Unwanted Distractions

  14 A Star is Born

  15 Prelude to Enlightenment

  Part Six Briana's Choice

  1 Counter Incantation

  2 Two Brothers, Not Three

  3 A Stranger in Paradise

  4 The Eve of Battle

  5 The Technology of Warfare

  6 Move and Counter Move

  7 A Tale for the Sagas

  8 Only by Her Wits

  9 Three Scoops

  Glossary

  1 Aerogel

  2 Alchemy

  3 Angkor Wat

  4 Arcadia

  5 Archimage

  6 Aeriel

  7 ATLAS

  8 Bette Davis Eyes

  9 Buckaroo Banzai

  10 Hernando Cortez

  11 CERN

  12 Charm

  13 Circles of Life

  14 Clue

  15 The Company

  16 Demon

  17 Devil

  18 Fluorine gas

  19 The Fort

  20 Gluons

  21 Histograms and Bump Hunting

  22 Imago

  23 Imp

  24 Lanchester Square Law

  25 Lateral arabesque

  26 Lawrence Bragg

  27 Level Three Trigger

  28 Lost Horizon

  29 Magic

  30 Magic Eightball

  31 Mark 50 Torpedo

  32 Money

  33 Murdina

  34 The Prisoner of Zenda

  35 Procolon

  36 PYTHIA and GEANT

  37 Robe

  38 Rock Paper Scissors Strategy

  39 Rule of 72

  40 The Scarlet Pimpernel

  41 Sorcery

  42 Southern Kingdoms

  43 Spell

  44 Stock Market 128 Swindle

  45 Subordinate

  46 Sulfur hexafluoride

  47 Commercial Sulfur Transport

  48 Supersymmetry

  49 Test and Set

  50 Thaumaturgy

  51 VIN

  52 Wizardry

  53 Zorba the Greek

  The Laws of Magic

  Thaumaturgy

  The Principle of Sympathy — like produces like

  The Principle of Contagion — once together, always together

  Alchemy

  The Doctrine of Signatures — the attributes without mirror the powers within

  Magic

  The Maxim of Persistence — perfection is eternal

  Sorcery

  The Rule of Three — thrice spoken, once fulfilled

  Wizardry

  The Law of Ubiquity — flame permeates all

  The Law of Dichotomy — dominance or submission

  Prologue

  DINTON HESITATED for a moment and felt the luxurious fur on his arm ripple under his tunic. Without some specific tag to search for, he had no control over whose mind he would latch onto next. They flowed by in a fast moving stream without any rhyme to the order by which they came. Such was the nature of the charm.

  But this one, the one he was in contact with now, might serve well enough. No strider on this world’s stage to be sure, but he woul
d be ideal for the experiment he had wanted to try.

  Primitive and stupid, the natives missed what was essential for true alchemy time and time again. Yes, they dabbled in concocting all manner of ingredients to see what would happen, but no one, not a single one, had ever stumbled on the necessity for having activation formulas as well.

  So, with a simple suggestion, one so subtle that his target would not even suspect that it came from elsewhere, would start him down the correct path. A second hint that he create potions that released great passions and the deed was done.

  Dinton hesitated a second time. Even if he never returned to this mind, it did make sense to get a tag, just in case. But probing further ran the risk that the target would begin to suspect, and everything he had planted could be lost.

  Just for a moment, he told himself, and he began scanning random memories as they emerged. A name would be best of all.

  After fruitless monitoring for a dozen heartbeats, the target mentally began to stir. No identification had appeared. Dinton grabbed at a last garble as it floated by. Reluctantly, he pronounced the final words that ended the charm. All contact with another mind was no more. The sorcery was complete.

  “No more craft,” he said. “Yes, this would be the very last time.”

  Part One

  Stranger in a Strange Land

  The Magic Portal

  “IF I don’t do something soon, my life is as good as over,” Briana thought. She was a sylph of a girl; barely twenty, slender as a reed, and with long flaming red hair like her mother. Pale skin; large, deep green eyes. In the fashion of all proper young ladies, she wore brown leggings, tunic, and cloak.

  Briana shook her head. How could she have been so stupid? So stupid as to sign a contract for marriage after only a single day of attention, some smooth, flattering words, and three glasses of wine. And betrothed to Slammert of all people. The worst possible choice — so disgusting, so coarse.

  Everyone could talk about nothing else when it was finally disclosed what he had done to his first wife. At the time of her mistake, Briana had not known. At the harvest festival, sitting with his bride up on the dais in the feasting hall, Slammert had ripped her bodice away and fondled her bare breasts while his minions watched and roared with laughter. The next morning, they discovered the unfortunate girl had hanged herself, one of her belts tight around her neck and her body stiff like a slaughtered lamb.

  Briana grasped the chairback of the wizard seated in front of her to bring her focus to what was happening now. The massive round table in the center of the council chamber had been removed to make more room for spectators. Alodar, her father and Archimage sat in the very center of the row of chairs, leaning forward, as eager as the rest. On either side like pieces in a board game were arrayed the most senior practitioners throughout all of Murdina: thaumaturges, alchemists, magicians, sorcerers, and wizards. From Procolon, the Southern Kingdoms, and even Arcadia across the Great Ocean. Everyone seated wore their robes of office: scarlet red for the archimage, brown, white, deepest blue, gray, and black for the others. At the far left, she even recognized one of her childhood tutors: Fordine, the Master Thaumaturge.

  The finery denoted in which of the distinct crafts each master was proficient, but even without them, one could tell. The eyes of the sorcerers were deep and piercing, able to enchant others with their charms and see far in space and time. Haughty and unyielding as steel, the faces of the wizards seemed almost to dare demons from another realm to challenge them for dominance.

  Although they wore pristine and unblemished garb reserved for ceremony, the alchemists’ hands were soiled and blotched with stains from the exotic substances they manipulated to produce sweetbalms and potions of love. The magicians had a faraway look, always contemplating the rituals from which came the swords, mirrors, and rings of true magic .

  The lowly thaumaturges were the friendly ones, eager artisans hoping for a few coins in exchange for raising heavy beams to the top of a new tower or causing trees to drop their fruit all on the same day. Only Fordine was different. He had been brilliant with counterspells in his youth, but practiced no more — instead was quite wealthy running an academy to train apprentices and journeymen for others.

  Five distinct skills, each with its own disciplines. Only one, her father, had mastered them all.

  The chamber was as somber as a tomb. Wall frescos had long faded centuries ago. Heavy curtains blocked any incoming daylight. On the other side of the room, tall sconces with multiple arms upraised with flickering candles illuminated a small, hastily constructed platform.

  No one spoke.

  Standing at the chairback on Briana’s left was a young lordling still in his teens. He flexed his grip and looked nervously about. Obviously, this was his first time.

  “It will be all right,” she whispered to him and smiled. “We are only here to emphasize the importance of the masters. All we have to do is stand erect and look serious, no matter what is said.”

  She returned her attention to her own thoughts. It was because she was so sheltered, she concluded. Confined within the compound for her protection, her only experiences were simple flirtations with a few of the pages her own age. And when the baron from the far west, a man and not a boy — tall, muscular, smoldering eyes, a beguiling smile. He had said he was lonely and asked if he could dine with her. Of course, she had said yes.

  Had her three elder sisters done the same? Anything to get out of the dull, polite conversations with men old enough to be a grandfather. Snap up the first one younger with a pulse. Wed him, see some of the world, have children, perhaps even adventure a bit on their own.

  As a muffled chime from a clock in an adjacent room marked the hour, the air in front of the chairs started to shimmer, at first barely perceptible, but then with increasing violence; like smooth water encountering rapids, it distorted more and more until the blank wall behind was no longer visible.

  A door took shape within the swirl, solidified, and, after a few moments more, swung open. Briana gasped, as did more than one master, even some nearing a hundred years of experience. Wrapped from head to toe as if for burial, a figure stepped forward and with effort raised one arm in a sign of greeting.

  He was shaped like a human in every respect: head, neck, torso, arms and legs, hands and feet, but the coverings hid every feature. Not thin sheets of linen, but bulky strips from what looked like brilliant white woolen blankets swirled around the entire body. No eyes or mouth could be seen. In their place were opaque goggles and below them a circle of thin parchment where there would have been a mouth. Bulky gloves covered his hands. So, this was the purpose of the formal council meeting — a parlay with the one who had brought the tome.

  “You may call me Randor, Randor of the Faithful.” A tinny voice in a strange accent vibrated from the paper beneath the glasses. “Do you understand everything in the volume left for you? Are you confident you can work the controls?”

  “Yes, the high council has studied the contents,” Alodar answered. “And if your doorway had not appeared so suddenly and unannounced a year ago, they would have no credibility.”

  Briana watched the visitor intently as did everyone else. The being must be of such grossness that he dared not appear in his natural form, she thought. In the writings that had been left, there were illustrations of what looked like men — beings that could easily pass without notice here on Murdina. But there were no pictures of any other type of creature, no hint of what unwinding the swathing would reveal.

  She should not even have been allowed to see the book after it was deposited in the great library for study by the masters, but the page had told her how to bypass the safeguards for a single kiss. She had spent many late evenings reading and rereading what the tome contained.

  “I have asked you a direct question,” the visitor said. “I expect a direct answer.”

  “We have questions as well.” Alodar’s tone hardened. “Why did you leave this book
with us that speaks of another world in the cosmos? Is that where you are from?”

  “Two questions rather than a single answer,” Randor said. “Your race is an impertinent one.” One of the enveloped hands waved the concern away. “But no matter. It is one of the reasons why you were chosen.

  “Our entire race is not exiled on the orb of which I speak. We, the Faithful, remain pure. Only the vanquished of my kind, the ones who call themselves the Heretics Who Proclaim the Truth, have been imprisoned on the hellish world described in the text. The descriptions in the tome concern only the primitive natives, not ourselves. We judged that such information would make your own journeys more efficient. You would not have to spend time relearning what we had gleaned from so many trips ourselves.”

  “Heretics?” Alodar asked. “Our own journeys?”

  “The heretical crimes committed by those now banished is a matter of no concern to you. And yes, we, the Faithful, have made the journey many times, once every hundred or so of your years for some ten times or more. Now, we grow, let us say … less able to guard against the possibility of the return of contamination.”

  “Over a millennium!” the magicians with the neatly trimmed goatee exclaimed. “You live that long?”

  “No, as individuals, we normally do not. Only the exiles wear rings of eternal youth — and only if they so elect.”

  “A ring of eternal youth!” The magician grabbed at his beard. “Then the suspicion in our guilds is correct. One can be made! Your magicians have done so. What is the ritual? How is it performed?”

  “Some say we should have killed them.” Randor ignored the outburst. “But that would be only a passing satisfaction. Instead, as of our last visit, the Heretics remain imprisoned as we planned. Originally eleven hundred were entombed; now only some seven hundred are still alive.

  “Death is swift and is but a shadow of the agony of an eternity of captivity. Death is too gentle a fate for what they continue to experience. The only way they could escape from their confinement is by the use of one of the crafts. And for that, our sorcerers enchanted them all, forced them to forget everything they knew about any of the arts when they were defeated. By now, the despair of their situation should have caused them to end their existences by their own hands. It is exquisite for us to contemplate. Ones so proud reduced to ending defiance by the exercise of their own crumbling will.”