The Veneer of Injustice

Part 8

Earth Moon 9, 1527 C.Q

Glancing at the books laid out on my desk in front of me, I sighed and rubbed my forehead. I had the magical power to undo the dampening, but doing so would require all of my skill and all of my reserves of my magic and my strength. The wind was naturally suited for enhancing communication, but changing spells that were already cast was no small task. And there were thousands of instances of the communications spells to modify.

The spells had originally been cast as generic communication spells by my father – each emerald that carried a spell linked to the princedom's communication network transmitted speech by translating the words into pulses of energy and sending each pulse to its destination via bounces off of both mined emeralds and traces of beryl in the earth. From my examination of texts written by sorcerers of the earth, the implications of the delay or absence of military reports, and the original enchantments, Dacian's magician had taken advantage of any passages through un-mined beryl by infusing the earth with energy that blocked the transmissions. To maneuver around this obstacle, I would need to turn the spells' medium of transmission from beryl to the air itself: each word would need to be translated into vibrations that emitted through the air towards their destination. The speed of such a method would be an improvement over the original – the spell wouldn't need to seek out beryl for each pulse – but I also had to account for obstacles in the air itself, from arrows to birds to storm clouds, as well as change already existing spells.

Turning to the pages stacked on a corner of my desk, I reviewed my redesign of the spells a final time. Using my master access (which was keyed to my energy signature and which no dampening spell could impede), I would modify the spells to transmit in the following way: each word would be translated into a series of vibrations that could only be returned to the original form by an emerald issued by the crown – part of my modification would encode the transmission so no one could listen in on a message as one could with the original. Next, the spell would seek out any nearby faint movements of the air and use that momentum to propagate the vibrations. This process would repeat until the vibrations reached the emerald at their destination. The result would be that one would hear the transmitted message like voices reaching one's ear on the wind.

The modification maintained my father's original location enchantment, which, I had to grudgingly admit, was masterfully well-done. With his own understanding of magic, he had used the interactions among energy signatures to ensure that the network of communications spells could locate each emerald issued by the crown and its bearer. Each signature contained, by nature, elements of those with which it had interacted, as well as indications, by the relative intensity of those residual elements, how long ago and how far away the interaction had been. Thus, each signature could be tracked and plotted against a map. The crown-issued emeralds, all spelled with my father's enchantment, refreshed their collection and analysis of the bearer's signature every minute. Each transmission could, therefore, be sent to precisely the right location – and even teleportation, which at best took three minutes to take effect, could not interfere with this locating spell. My father had additionally used energy in its abstract form without the medium of an element, despite the difficulty of such a spell, as the operand of the spell, instead of his own element of earth. Thus, his enchantment would support my modification as well as his original spell.

Because the authentication enchantment, which ensured that only the person to whom the emerald was issued could access the network, worked on the same basis as the locator spell, that, too, would support my modification.

I read my draft of the spell to the end and pursed my lips. It was as satisfactory as it could be for the work of three hours. I needed to cast it so that the dissemination of orders could take place punctually.