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Authors: David A Tatum
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damage, but I will never see out of that eye again.”
Maelgyn swallowed hard – not just because the story disturbed him, but also because he felt a rage building inside of him the more he heard of her story. How dare one of Svieda’s own mining factions harm another citizen of Svieda? It was an outrage... and one which should have been dealt with long ago. “Was any investigation made? Did anyone look for the assassin’s employer? Did anyone look for an antidote to the poison your father was given? Did anyone do anything? ”
“No,” Euleilla repeated softly, bitterly. “The assassin was so badly burned he could not be identified, so there was no investigation. And my father didn’t bother looking for an antidote. Before he married my late mother, he apprenticed under the man who developed it, and knew there was no way one could be made before he died.”
“Who developed the poison, then?” Maelgyn asked, clenching his fists tighter. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to find the killers, if they could figure out who developed the poison.
“Delbruck.”
Delbruck. Maelgyn bit his lip to hide his disappointment. The most well-respected master of his craft in a century, Delbruck had developed several important medicines... and many more of the most dangerous poisons in existence. He combined magic, alchemy, and chemistry to revolutionize medicine in Svieda... but then he’d been arrested and imprisoned as a traitor for selling poisons to the Borden Isle rebels. He was found guilty of treason and summarily executed, but it made little difference to his reputation as an alchemist. He had many apprentices, and many of them had built on what he had theorized following his death. Apparently, Euleilla’s father had been one of them. If it was a Delbruck poison, there would have been no way to trace it to a particular source.
“Damn,” Maelgyn softly cursed. “So what happened?”
“My father spent his last days reconstructing his mining formula. He wrote it down and gave it to me, telling me to use the money he was supposed to be paid to continue my studies as a mage, and to live a good life. Then, as his last act, he wrote a letter to Cawnpore, asking him to raise me and complete my study of magic.
“I don’t know what my father meant to old Cawnpore, but when I showed him my father’s letter, he broke down and wept. He took the money my father had willed to me from his formula and bought us a house in Rocky Run.
“He continued to teach me for about a year following my father’s death, but as time wore on something about him changed. He had taken to drinking himself into a stupor on a daily basis, and I had to study on my own more and more. I eventually learned the final lesson on my own – the secret of why lodestones work against magic, and how magic relates to lodestones. I assume you’re aware of it?”
Maelgyn nodded. “My own magic tutor had to leave when I was sixteen, but he wanted me to keep up the study and so explained the secret to me.”
“Sixteen?” Euleilla mused. “I was twelve when I learned it. Ah, but I realize that was rather unusual... and it was my downfall. Cawnpore got drunk one night, and he tried to use my position as his apprentice to order me to do some things that weren’t quite legal. I knew he was drunk and would never have ordered that were he sober, and so I refused, but he warned me that he would throw me on the streets if I refused.
“I responded quite... vociferously. I told him I didn’t need him anymore – that I’d figured out the secret, and that all he was doing was holding me back. I told him that I only stayed with him because my father had wanted me to, but if he continued to treat me like a slave I would leave.
“He flew into a rage when I said that, and attacked me. He said some horrible things to me; how he hated me, how he blamed me for father ‘letting’ himself die instead of researching a cure, how he found my scarred face too ugly for
Maelgyn swallowed hard – not just because the story disturbed him, but also because he felt a rage building inside of him the more he heard of her story. How dare one of Svieda’s own mining factions harm another citizen of Svieda? It was an outrage... and one which should have been dealt with long ago. “Was any investigation made? Did anyone look for the assassin’s employer? Did anyone look for an antidote to the poison your father was given? Did anyone do anything? ”
“No,” Euleilla repeated softly, bitterly. “The assassin was so badly burned he could not be identified, so there was no investigation. And my father didn’t bother looking for an antidote. Before he married my late mother, he apprenticed under the man who developed it, and knew there was no way one could be made before he died.”
“Who developed the poison, then?” Maelgyn asked, clenching his fists tighter. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to find the killers, if they could figure out who developed the poison.
“Delbruck.”
Delbruck. Maelgyn bit his lip to hide his disappointment. The most well-respected master of his craft in a century, Delbruck had developed several important medicines... and many more of the most dangerous poisons in existence. He combined magic, alchemy, and chemistry to revolutionize medicine in Svieda... but then he’d been arrested and imprisoned as a traitor for selling poisons to the Borden Isle rebels. He was found guilty of treason and summarily executed, but it made little difference to his reputation as an alchemist. He had many apprentices, and many of them had built on what he had theorized following his death. Apparently, Euleilla’s father had been one of them. If it was a Delbruck poison, there would have been no way to trace it to a particular source.
“Damn,” Maelgyn softly cursed. “So what happened?”
“My father spent his last days reconstructing his mining formula. He wrote it down and gave it to me, telling me to use the money he was supposed to be paid to continue my studies as a mage, and to live a good life. Then, as his last act, he wrote a letter to Cawnpore, asking him to raise me and complete my study of magic.
“I don’t know what my father meant to old Cawnpore, but when I showed him my father’s letter, he broke down and wept. He took the money my father had willed to me from his formula and bought us a house in Rocky Run.
“He continued to teach me for about a year following my father’s death, but as time wore on something about him changed. He had taken to drinking himself into a stupor on a daily basis, and I had to study on my own more and more. I eventually learned the final lesson on my own – the secret of why lodestones work against magic, and how magic relates to lodestones. I assume you’re aware of it?”
Maelgyn nodded. “My own magic tutor had to leave when I was sixteen, but he wanted me to keep up the study and so explained the secret to me.”
“Sixteen?” Euleilla mused. “I was twelve when I learned it. Ah, but I realize that was rather unusual... and it was my downfall. Cawnpore got drunk one night, and he tried to use my position as his apprentice to order me to do some things that weren’t quite legal. I knew he was drunk and would never have ordered that were he sober, and so I refused, but he warned me that he would throw me on the streets if I refused.
“I responded quite... vociferously. I told him I didn’t need him anymore – that I’d figured out the secret, and that all he was doing was holding me back. I told him that I only stayed with him because my father had wanted me to, but if he continued to treat me like a slave I would leave.
“He flew into a rage when I said that, and attacked me. He said some horrible things to me; how he hated me, how he blamed me for father ‘letting’ himself die instead of researching a cure, how he found my scarred face too ugly for
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