Chương 12: Chapter 11 - Source of Trouble

The next day, Haxo came to collect me early, "The Queen would like you to meet and examine the Princess," the Castellan explained. He looked me up and down, "And you should really get more formal clothes fitted soon, Lady Sorceress. I can recommend a few tailors." I looked down at my travelling clothes and conceded his point. I wouldn't be getting any dresses, obviously, but sorceresses were already expected to be eccentric. I could get some fancy riding clothes or something similar.

The Castellan led me through the castle's winding corridors in silence. As we moved closer to the castle's centre and the royal quarters, the number of guards steadily increased, until we paused before a rather nondescript door, when one ignored the presence of four heavily armed guards, of course. Haxo nodded to one of the men, "This is the new Court Sorceress, Tanya von Degurechaff. She is to examine the Princess," he gestured towards me.

"Good day," I greeted the guards politely. The guard, who must have been over two meters tall, looked down at me, his piercing eyes staring at me from behind his helm. He held my gaze for a moment before he nodded in silence and opened the door. The Castellan walked in and beckoned me to follow, so I did. Inside, we found a frowning matron staring at us in consternation along with a small child, no older than four, playing with a doll on the ground.

Despite her young age, the child resembled her mother already, with similar green eyes and ashen hair. Though, unlike her mother's, hers were filled with nothing but curiosity.

"Haxo, did you lose your mind? Why did you bring this strumpet here?" The middle-aged woman spoke, completely ignoring me. I mentally upped the priority of visiting a tailor. The Castellan winced, "This is Lady Tanya von Degurechaff, the Court Sorceress the Queen had sent for. She's here to examine Princess Pavetta." The woman's face went white, then red, "Why are you dressed like some thug, Lady Degurechaff? I almost had a heart attack when I saw you walk in!"

I blinked at her, "I have not had time to get properly settled yet."

"Hmpf. That's no excuse, a lady should maintain a dignified appearance at all times, what sorry example will you set for the princess?" The matron continued, apparently unsatisfied with my answer. I suppressed an eye twitch. Were all Cintrian women like this? Haxo was perfectly reasonable, so at least the men seemed normal. The Castellan cleared his throat, "Gera, let the Sorceress do her job." The matron closed her mouth with a click. I gave Haxo a grateful nod before I turned my attention to the child.

"Greetings, Your Highness," I said to the child with a bow. The child stared at me open-mouthed, but Gera seemed satisfied. Then I got to work. First, I checked her for the Gift, a simple procedure intended to be the first in a set of more tests. Figuring out that someone had a talent for magic was easy for someone with the proper training and even appropriately educated laypeople could do so, if through different means.

There were simple cantrips that even those with the smallest amount of talent could do, though this obviously was not an option for a child as young as Pavetta.

"Huh," I couldn't help but exclaim. The girl didn't have even a speck of talent for magic. This was somewhat surprising, as most of the population had at least some ability to use magic, even if they couldn't hope to do more than light a candle after extensive training. The outliers were those with either enough ability to become a mage or so little that they couldn't hope to cast any spells. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Those utterly without the ability were much rarer, though not unheard of. There were two explanations for such a phenomenon. The first option was that the person in question was just unlucky and didn't have any magical ability through bad luck or genetics, perhaps both. The other, much, much rarer option were Sources. A Source, though on the surface similar to regular mages when trained, was vastly different in practice.

Such people would appear to possess exactly zero magical talent at first, making them indistinguishably from any other similarly unfortunate person, until one day, they'd unconsciously set their house on fire, or levitate a horse. Once awakened and trained, they could often do magic on a scale many normal practitioners would kill for. They could do this, despite having no talent for magic, by serving as, essentially, mediums for the Power. No one knew exactly how this worked, but there were signs.

One was the complete lack of regular magical talent. Another was heredity. After Haxo delivered the Queen's request regarding Pavetta, I had checked the local library for information about Calanthé's mother, Queen Adalia. Her story was a fascinating one. She went from a Temerian Countess to a Duchess, before marrying the Prince of Cintra, eventually becoming a Queen.

She was also called the Seer and was said to possess incredible magical ability, apparently once raising a drawbridge with a mere twitch of her eyebrows. How much truth there was to that I did not know, but it was enough evidence to make the possibility of Pavetta being a Source very real, especially with Queen Adalia birthing a healthy child. Generally, when one used magic for long enough, they'd become at the very least infertile, if not outright sterile. Sources were something of an exception.

They could still become infertile, but it was a lot rarer, took longer and their children tended to be without… side effects. When regular mages, those few unfortunate enough not to lose their ability to bear children, procreated, the results were usually disastrous. In other words, the fact that Queen Adalia had a healthy child was a strong argument for her being a Source. Regular magic was, interestingly enough, completely hereditary as well, if in a somewhat strange manner.

If a regular person who had the talent but never pursued magic had children, they'd be normal. If the same person lived as a mage and then had children, they'd almost always be insane or otherwise mentally handicapped and often deformed. They usually did not live long either. Such people would possess the ability to interact with the Power, often from a much younger age and with greater precision than first-generation mages. Of course, they would rarely possess the mental faculties to make use of that.

It was not impossible for a sorceress to have a healthy child, but such cases were very much the outliers. Rumour had it that Vilgefortz of Roggeveen, the youngest member of the Chapter, was one such outlier, but I did not know how truthful that was. Rumours about the powerful were rarely very accurate.

I couldn't say the matter of the fertility of mages particularly interested me, but it was both extremely controversial and hotly debated in Aretuza, so I had absorbed much of the knowledge just through osmosis, before looking into it further once Tissaia's rather radical stance on the matter became clear. My former Mistress, amongst others, argued for the sterilisation of all adepts to prevent the birth of any unfortunates. She had even written a book about it, the Poisoned Source.

The arguments and evidence therein were without fault as far as I could see. Others argued that there are mages capable of safe reproduction, pretty much always pointing to Sources as examples. Stupid examples, considering the differences between regular mages and Sources, of course. As the matter did not concern me on a personal level, I had been more than happy to side with her.

Luckily, I had been one of those whose reproductive ability was not affected by magic, so I had the opportunity to do just that in a very visible way. I had asked one of the healers in Aretuza, Marti Södergren, to sterilise me as a show of my support for her arguments. The sorceress had been rather supportive of the procedure, though she had some strange ideas about my reasoning.

Tissaia had been rather surprised when I had told her, but she started treating me a lot nicer afterwards, so she had clearly been appreciative. After all, my actions lent her arguments a lot more weight. A small price for securing my position further, especially since I couldn't fathom a situation where I'd want to have a child myself. If I eventually needed an heir or the like, adoption would be a superior option anyway.

I could observe and train any potential candidates, before adopting them once I was satisfied with their performance. In summary, while I could not say with certainty that Adalia had been a Source, it was very likely. While having a Source in your family tree was no guarantee, it was very possible for the trait to be passed down family lines. Combined with Pavetta's lack of magical talent, the possibility of her being a Source was high.

As this information wasn't exactly difficult to obtain for those with the means, I had little doubt the Queen suspected the same but wanted someone more qualified to check. The question was, what should I do about it? I stared at the ashen-haired preschooler in consternation. I wasn't an expert by any means, so consulting with Tissaia was likely once more the correct course of action. Gerhart of Aelle, otherwise known as Hen Gedymdeith, was a Source and one of Tissaia's peers on the Chapter.

That I needed to rely on my former mistress again so soon was unfortunate, but it'd be stupid not to utilize such a valuable source of information to its fullest.