Realms of Magic - Brian Thomsen King [72]
Only the challenger's basso voice rose above the polite cacophony that filled the royal salon. Fully aware, he pressed his assault with apparent obliviousness. "Undoubtedly it was another reaction-perhaps some containment in the powder…"
The Calimshite's thrust was not lost on the Ankha-purian, but the older man guarded against the sting with the shield of dignity. "My powders were pure. I will gladly give you some if what you brought from Calimshan will not react." Wiping his damp fingers on a cloth, he coolly swatted back at this annoying fly.
"Good wit" and "Fine touch" hummed his supporters in the crowd.
"Scale never precipitates! Even apprentices know that," fumed the alchemist in his bubbling deep voice. He waggled a fat, pale finger across the table at the other, his stung pride, emboldened by drink, making him undiplomatically firm. He sputtered for words and finally blurted, "Why-ask your royal magister, if you doubt me!"
A chill swept the assembled collegium to a silence broken only by the tremolo titter of impudent apprentices from the back benches of the knot. The rest fingered their goblets and took great interest in their wine (forgotten till that point for the heat of the debate) while struggling to make their just-gay faces as bland as coal. In most cases, it only made them the more uncomfortably conspicuous, until they resembled no more than a line of hungry monkeys caught with the food.
Only the graybeard seemed unperturbed, arrogantly confident of his station. With a knowing smirk, he turned the baffled Calimshite's gaze toward the adjacent table- an island from their company. A lone woman, overladen in finery ill-suited to her age or itself, stared numbly at the air-or perhaps at the half-empty bottle before her.
"Our royal magister," the enchanter sneered in an intentionally loud whisper. "An adventuress-nothing but a hedge wizard. Never properly schooled at all." The last he added with overemphasis. "And fond of her drink."
At her table, Brown Maeve-Magister to His Royal Highness King Janol I (aka, Pinch), the Lich-Slayer, the Morninglord Blessed-knew what was said even before it was finished… even now, in her cups. The collegium's contempt was hardly a secret. She had heard the words and seen the smirks all before: hedge wizard, upstart, rogue's whore-adventuress! Not a true wizard in any case-no scholarly talent, no proper training, wouldn't even know an alembic from a crucible. Worse still, there was no denying most of it. A prestidigitous courtier she was not.
It didn't make their words right, though. They were a pack of poxy charlatans to lay their airs upon her. She'd done more than the lot of them, including helping Pinch lay down the lich Manferic, and it weren't their place to look down to her.
The smugness of their lot spoilt her wine, and so she figured they'd earned a little present of her own making. She could research too, as they'd soon remember. It was just a simple spell, nothing like their fine studies after the philosopher's stone or any of that, but Maeve kept it handy for bestowing on arrogant asses.
With a wicked good cheer, the royal magister pushed aside her glass, rose majestically, and managed to trundle like an old cart toward the salon doors. As she lumbered past the wizard-thick table, that hypocritical lot fell into a hushed silence, as if they had been discussing the weather, Maeve nodded, smiled, with excessive politeness greeted them all by name, and serenely extended her hand to the worst offenders to her dignity. As each took up her hand, a faint warmth flowed from her fingers, and Maeve's smile grew and grew until she was beaming with genuine satisfaction.
"Good morrow, and may the dawn bring you new discoveries," at last she said, disengaging herself from their group. Oh, they'd have discoveries, all right. She could scarce keep from hooting it out loud. There was no forgetting when you broke out