The first tribunal meeting I attended after the war is sometimes called the Unveiling by my students. I know the shock of it is still being felt in the Order, but you must recall, for us, it was decades ago. I remember leaving the regio with my children. I remember the pained looks on the faces…
Read More
Shadow of the Founders: an experiment in Ars Fiction
A short story not suited to the communal anthology we are working on in the Ars noticeboards. *** To Justina of Guernicus, chief Quaesitor of the Normandy Tribunal, Salve! As per your instructions I traveled to the Covenant of the Autumnal Sun to investigate the disappearance of the maga Berenice, filia Petrus Verdi of Bonisagus.…
Read More
Watch “Half-swording – Why grabbing a sharp blade in a s…” on YouTube
I almost never share YouTube videos on the blog, but for Ars fans… Half-swording – Why grabbing a sharp blade in a s…: http://youtu.be/vwuQPfvSSlo
Read More
The Wild Things, The Kith of the Elven Folk
I’m off on paternity leave, but I just struck a wonderful faerie description in a story by Lord Dunsany and wanted to share. So evensong was held, and candles lighted, and the lights through the windows shone red and green in the water, and the sound of the organ went roaring over the marshes. But…
Read MoreMirarion Chapter 20
I didn’t have time to run. I tried, but the thing that had been Apophany swelled enormously in an instant. It reached out a great, clawed hand for me, and grabbed my leg. The hand was covered in dark scales that reminded me of the carapaces of the pseudoscorpions that defend the Library of Durenmar. It…
Read MoreMirarion Chapter 19
Things had advanced further than I’d hoped. The island was a small pocket of Hell already. Illusionists are more sensitive to some thing than other people, and the sickliness in the air radiated out almost to the ship. The seawater was, as Apophany had hinted, clear of the taint. Everything else was more yellow than it…
Read MoreMirarion Chapter 18
We had few allies for the final battles in Stonehenge. The Tytalus and Flambeau were shaping up for war over the spoils in France and Germany, so few of them crossed the sea. House Ex Miscellanea was actively mopping up sympathetic hedge magi, but their Primus had fallen, or been assassinated, and so their strongest…
Read MoreMirarion Chapter 17
While we were fighting the Diedne, House Tytalus had seized its moment. Branugurix fell the day after the Battle at Durenmar. The Tytalus opened the Mercere Portal, and my family were invited through. Our mixture of necromancers and tricksters used the vis that had been won in the battle to make the covenant look as…
Read MoreMirarion Chapter 16
The Battle of Durenmar never officially happened. Be aware of that before you discuss what I say with anyone else. This is what didn’t happen. The Diedne leadership were never apprehended, as you know, so we can only conjecture as to their tactics from what we observed. They found it difficult to amass force in…
Read MoreMirarion Chapter 13
Durenmar remains. It did not fall, or move. The Diedne fundamentally misunderstood the distraction of the Order’s researchers for military ineptitude. House Bonisagus, early in the War, was politically divided, lacked trained soldiers, and had no logistical chain. That meant they could not project force. At that time, Hermetic generals thought of war as a series of…
Read More