way to Sevendor for the fair. Expressly, it turned out, to get my attention, since I seemed to be the mage who was doing the moving and shaking in the profession at the moment.
I continued to work the room after the seminar, enjoying a few good discussions and avoiding a few bad ones. I did my best to keep Dunselen on the opposite side of the room from me, but sometimes the gods just don’t listen.
“Ah, Baron Minalan, what did you think of the seminar?” Dunselen asked, another mage in tow.
“Just the sort of thing I envisioned when I began the Magic Fair,” I said, truthfully. “Getting some good discussions going outside of the hidebound halls of the academic world is just the sort of thing our profession needs.”
I could tell that took him aback. He was, after all, head of the academic order I had started. The hidebound halls of academia were precisely what Dunselen wanted to advance.
“Yet one cannot deny the importance of solid academic study,” he countered, diplomatically. “These brief seminars provide a useful overview, but the true glory goes to those who toil in the dusty leaves of our libraries.”
“And just what wonders have you unearthed from there, Master Dunselen?” Terleman asked, joining us with a goblet in his hand. My old wartime friend looked far more like a prosperous merchant than one of the best warmagi in the world at the moment – I’d heard he’d spent the last several months getting the estates he’d been given as a reward for service into proper order.
He also had low opinion of academic magi.
“You’d be surprised,” Dunselen said, startled by the intrusion.
“I imagine I would,” Terleman chuckled. “So tell me.”
“I, uh, that is . . . well, Mistress Robian of Alar Academy has determined that Ablard’s Constant varies with the time of day—”
“That was established before the Conquest!” sneered Terleman.
“Not to ten digits of variability,” the mage behind Dunselen sniffed. He looked like an academic mage, if you can believe it. Squint-eyed, stooped shouldered, inkstained hands from reading. “That gives the thaumaturge unprecedented control over calculating the necessary energy consumption over a given period of time!”
“It’s a shadow of a fart in terms of usefulness,” Terleman shot back. “Come off it, Dun – there hasn’t been a significant discovery or advancement out of the academies in generations! A waste of time and resources, if you ask me. Who the hell cares about Ablard’s Constant? Who casts spells that need that kind of control? If it’s going to be a long-term spell, you just charge the hell out of it and calculate the daily average. If it isn’t, who cares what the constant is to ten digits? With a witchstone, such trivia becomes immaterial.”
“Yet few academics have access to such potent resources,” the other mage said, aggressively. “They are wasted on the military.”
Terleman sipped his wine in silence for a moment. “Goodman, I do not believe we have been introduced.”
Dunselen caught the cue, after a moment. “Yes, this is Master Belemo, a fellow at Alar Academy. An advanced student of thaumaturgy and enchantment theory. Master Belemo, this is Magelord Terleman, Lord Commander of the Royal Magical Corps.”
The monkish little academic was not impressed by Terl’s title. In fact, he seemed emboldened at the opportunity to confront an example of what he saw as wasted resources. He launched into a diatribe about the folly of granting such power to a magical warrior class when it was clearly the study of magic that demanded the use of irionite. He castigated the warmagi as thuggish brutes who were using forces they did not understand, and equated them dangerously to the less-flattering characteristics of the hated Censorate.
I could tell by the way Dunselen watched his
I continued to work the room after the seminar, enjoying a few good discussions and avoiding a few bad ones. I did my best to keep Dunselen on the opposite side of the room from me, but sometimes the gods just don’t listen.
“Ah, Baron Minalan, what did you think of the seminar?” Dunselen asked, another mage in tow.
“Just the sort of thing I envisioned when I began the Magic Fair,” I said, truthfully. “Getting some good discussions going outside of the hidebound halls of the academic world is just the sort of thing our profession needs.”
I could tell that took him aback. He was, after all, head of the academic order I had started. The hidebound halls of academia were precisely what Dunselen wanted to advance.
“Yet one cannot deny the importance of solid academic study,” he countered, diplomatically. “These brief seminars provide a useful overview, but the true glory goes to those who toil in the dusty leaves of our libraries.”
“And just what wonders have you unearthed from there, Master Dunselen?” Terleman asked, joining us with a goblet in his hand. My old wartime friend looked far more like a prosperous merchant than one of the best warmagi in the world at the moment – I’d heard he’d spent the last several months getting the estates he’d been given as a reward for service into proper order.
He also had low opinion of academic magi.
“You’d be surprised,” Dunselen said, startled by the intrusion.
“I imagine I would,” Terleman chuckled. “So tell me.”
“I, uh, that is . . . well, Mistress Robian of Alar Academy has determined that Ablard’s Constant varies with the time of day—”
“That was established before the Conquest!” sneered Terleman.
“Not to ten digits of variability,” the mage behind Dunselen sniffed. He looked like an academic mage, if you can believe it. Squint-eyed, stooped shouldered, inkstained hands from reading. “That gives the thaumaturge unprecedented control over calculating the necessary energy consumption over a given period of time!”
“It’s a shadow of a fart in terms of usefulness,” Terleman shot back. “Come off it, Dun – there hasn’t been a significant discovery or advancement out of the academies in generations! A waste of time and resources, if you ask me. Who the hell cares about Ablard’s Constant? Who casts spells that need that kind of control? If it’s going to be a long-term spell, you just charge the hell out of it and calculate the daily average. If it isn’t, who cares what the constant is to ten digits? With a witchstone, such trivia becomes immaterial.”
“Yet few academics have access to such potent resources,” the other mage said, aggressively. “They are wasted on the military.”
Terleman sipped his wine in silence for a moment. “Goodman, I do not believe we have been introduced.”
Dunselen caught the cue, after a moment. “Yes, this is Master Belemo, a fellow at Alar Academy. An advanced student of thaumaturgy and enchantment theory. Master Belemo, this is Magelord Terleman, Lord Commander of the Royal Magical Corps.”
The monkish little academic was not impressed by Terl’s title. In fact, he seemed emboldened at the opportunity to confront an example of what he saw as wasted resources. He launched into a diatribe about the folly of granting such power to a magical warrior class when it was clearly the study of magic that demanded the use of irionite. He castigated the warmagi as thuggish brutes who were using forces they did not understand, and equated them dangerously to the less-flattering characteristics of the hated Censorate.
I could tell by the way Dunselen watched his