Enchanter (Book 7) Read Free

chests and wardrobes and other accessories had been relocated to the new hall.  Now the former bedchamber was filled with chests and shelves that were covered with books, scrolls, and the kind of general junk every spellmonger tends to accumulate over time.  A lot of it had come from upstairs, but some had finally been liberated from storage.  Where my bed had sat there was now a sturdy oaken table where I did a lot of my goofing off now.
    Pentandra was seated at the table in front of the tiny fireplace, sipping wine and relaxing.
    “Penny!” I smiled as I saw her.  “I had no idea you were coming!”
    “Well, without a witchstone it makes it very hard to communicate magically,” she pointed out, rising and embracing me.
    “How was the wedding?” I asked, eagerly.
    “Rustic, simple, and passionate,” she smiled, happily.  “There were a few difficulties getting there, but once I made it clear that Arborn was mine, most of them fell away.”  The way she casually told the tale I could tell there was far more to it than she was letting on . . . including some metaphorical blood she wasn’t quite ready to relate to me, yet.  “The actual ceremony is breathtakingly simple.  But the result is the same.   I’m something I never really thought I’d ever be: someone’s wife.”
    “And how are you feeling about that?” I asked, curious.  Pentandra is one of the foremost thaumaturgic sex magicians in the world, and had based her research on a legendary string of arcane sensual experiments and studies that had included me, among a multitude of other people.  But once Penny had met Arborn and fallen in love with his quiet masculine strength, she had curtailed her studies in favor of pursuing domestic life.
    Mostly.
    “I’m feeling . . . great about it,” she admitted, grinning self-consciously.  “Better about it than I ever thought I would.  I always thought that getting married and pledging to serve but one man would be horrifying, but now that I’m here, I can’t imagine looking at another man with Arborn around.”
    “And you aren’t worried that he’s going to keep you pregnant, silent, and at the hearth?” I chuckled.
    “Are you kidding?” she smiled.  “He tasted my cooking, as part of the rites.  He married me anyway.”
    “Glad to hear it,” I nodded.  “I suppose you’d like your stone back, now?” I teased.
    “More than anything,” she nodded, fervently.  “I can’t believe how reliant I’ve become on it.  If I hadn’t been distracted by . . . other things, it might have driven me mad.”
    “Well, I’ve taken good care of it for you,” I said, retrieving a small stone box from one of the cabinets around the room.  “In fact, I took the liberty of having Onranion overhaul it.”
    “Ondarian?” she asked, curious, at the mention of the old Alka Alon reprobate who had become one of my magical advisors.  It was Onranion who had fashioned my witchsphere, the ball of irionite that followed me around and powered my spellcraft, out of three regular stones, and then had plied them with Alka Alon songspells.  He was one of the few living masters of the art of irionite shaping, and when I had the chance to get Penny’s stone away from her for a few weeks, I thought it was an opportune time to see about improving it.
    So he had.  When I removed the silk-wrapped jewel from the box, it looked nothing like the simple torus of green amber Pentandra had reluctantly turned over to me.  Onranion had melded a spherical pebble of an Alka Alon witchstone through the hole in the torus, one of the ones known as the Seven Stones.  Then he had the Karshak lapidaries carefully construct a setting out of snowstone where the irionite could sit, surrounded by shards of crystals I’d harvested from my mountain.  Where she once had a simple stone, now she had an Enculpion of powerful magic.
    There was now a bit of Waystone apophylite on the disc, allowing me to travel to Penny’s