Enchanter (Book 7) Read Free Page A

location at any time.  There was one half of a Sympathy Stone on the disc.  I had the other half.  I wasn’t doing anything in particular with it, yet, but it gave me the possibility of sharing power and other energies with Penny over long distances.
    There was a sliver of yellow knot coral, a bit of blood coral that wasn’t tuned yet, and other dainties I’d been able to cultivate from my hoard.  It was, apart from the Witchsphere, the most potent magical artifact I’d assembled to date.  Half-assembled.  There was still plenty of potential enchantment left to be done on the piece, but I’d saved it for Penny to customize. 
    I’d had the whole thing banded in gold, enchanted to be near-unbreakable, and suspended from a fine gold chain similarly enchanted.  When worn, the entire amulet was no more than four inches across, though it was heavy.
    “Consider it a wedding gift,” I explained.  “You can easily remove the irionite core from its housing,” I pointed out, “if you don’t need the augmentation.  But in its harness, Onranion and Taren worked to create a smoother magical interface for you.  They constructed a simple paraclete,” I said, mentioning the technical term for a magical intercessor.  “You can now access some of the Alkan spells through standard Imperial-style mnemonics, for example.”
    “I . . . I don’t know what to say, Min,” she said, as she gazed at her pretty new necklace.  All right, it wasn’t as much pretty as gaudy, but it was as shiny as you could ask for. “It’s wonderful!  Only . . .” she said, trailing off.  And looking off into space wistfully.
    Penny doesn’t do that.  Ever.
    “What is it?” I demanded.
    “I . . . I was thinking of quitting,” she admitted, guiltily.  “The Order, as an officer, that is.  My assistant has been running the place for the last year, anyway, and it’s not like they really need me anymore.  Once I set things up to run efficiently, well, they ran efficiently.  Enough,” she conceded.  We’d had plenty of minor issues to deal with, in the last few years, everything from mischievous Wild Magi to power-hungry magelords to various misuses of magic, but nothing had risen to any great level of concern, largely because we stayed on top of things.
    “Why?” I asked, simply.
    “Because . . . because I’m married, now,” she pointed out.  “Married to a big, wonderful, magnificent specimen of manhood . . . whose life has been spent in the forests.  If I try to drag Arborn back to Castabriel with me, he’ll die of boredom.  Even Fairoaks is more like a park than a wildland.  I’ve thought about it for weeks, now, Min, and I really think that’s what’s best for me.”
    “Me, too,” I agreed.  I could tell by the look on her face that she wasn’t expecting that.  “In fact,” I continued, “I was going to encourage you to resign.  I was just afraid of how to approach such a delicate subject.”
    “Resign?  Why?” she asked, suddenly concerned for a host of other reasons.
    “Because you’re right,” I pointed out, pouring more wine for her and adding a glass for myself.  Just to be flashy I conjured it from the same ring I used to hide my sword in an extra-dimensional space.  She made a face at my blatant display but didn’t comment.  “You can’t keep living in Castabriel.  Not with Arborn.  It isn’t fair to him, and honestly it isn’t fair to you.  Or your career.  I mean, if you wanted to establish yourself as the institutional head of the professional association, I wouldn’t stop you.  I just don’t think that would make you happy.”
    “It wouldn’t,” she agreed.  “Maybe once, a few years ago, when I had a lot of misplaced ambition and fantasies about power.  But . . . now that I’ve had power, in a way, I find it has little of the appeal it once had.  Mostly,” she said, gesturing to a cabinet that was overflowing with my correspondence, “it’s just boring