The Duties of a Court Wizard

I had this system for getting exactly what I wanted out of people.

The first thing to understand is that people want to be fooled. To be a good practitioner of magic you must be a manipulator, well for a court wizard anyway. Fortunately, I was born in a family of seven brothers and sisters. As a middle child I knew exactly how to push all their buttons. How to play elder brothers off against younger sisters, how to manipulate younger siblings to my cause in the fight over the final hunk of bread or the last spoonful of stew. When you live in the in the Bonded district of the emperor's city you learn how to fight or starve. I simply fought with my mind.

Second, learn how to puke. Learn how to puke without choking on the bile left over from the last round of puking. The sun water, elixir of magic will make you retch. It will make you puke until there is nothing left, then retch dry into the salted air born on the breeze of the bay. The sea will rock you to sleep before the trance descends and you slip into oblivion, walking the paths to Elintarn, the realm of power. This is where you can learn all their deepest desires, fondest hopes and greatest fears. In politics information is power and no one has more information than me.

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He was skating on thin ice - that's all I can say. That trumped up excuse for a diplomat decided to block my magical inquiries. I walked through mist-laden corridors, the veins in an inspired mind. The sun water pulsed through my mortal frame as I wandered this metaphorical maze. The pathways of his mind opened to me and I sought out the center, the place where the psyche dwells. That bell-shaped twist of mist representing the soul’s deepest meaning, the seat of consciousness.

Suddenly, walls caved in on me, falling endlessly, crushing me into insignificance. One of my deepest fears, confined places, Claustrophobia. My Archonis' heel. I summoned the Belemeth, my ally in the labyrinth of Elintarn, my dream-guide. Deep black eyes emerging from a fractal schism in the mist wall. An emaciated form coalesced from those pulsing eyes as the Belemeth sucked the form and function from the walls. Negating them with its unceasing hunger, its ravenous devouring.

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I knew I had won, the day Sheila brought Hilary to my office. Sheila is my mind-ride. My secretary as well of course, but her main function is for me to catch a ride in her mind. Watching court proceedings through her eyes allows me a measure of anonymity, a place to observe and assess. She is invaluable and I pay her accordingly, both in coin and respect. People are tools, but if you mistreat a tool it becomes unfit for purpose.

Hilary, what can I say? This primped proper noble was everything I expected, and less. The ambassador's wife heaved her overfed bosom into my chambers liked she owned the place. Purple dress swaying disconcertingly as her crinoline fought to get away from her overfed posterior. I took great pleasure in knocking her down a peg or two. After her threats of war were duly rattled off, I calmly explained to her that her husband lay unconscious to the world trapped in the pathways of his own mind through his own stupidity. I outlined what I had found out about his proclivities for a certain banned substance and his need to satisfy his carnal nature with Erisdian whores. Would she like me to reveal that her husband rutted with prostitutes from another species? No. I left that encounter with a favorable trade deal and a new agent in the baron’s court. Knowledge is power!

The end.