The Prince of War

The wizard was relaxing, reading a copy of the Wizard’s Weekly, when the Prince burst into the room.

If said Prince (never forget the Capital!) had been paying close attention, he would have seen the headline on the Wizard’s Weekly change, from “Whatever is the Bishop Getting Into, With the Countess of Markesham?” to “Pissant Prince Bursts Into Wizard’s Chamber, This Should Be Good.”

But he wasn’t the observational type, so you’ll just have to read on.

“Oi! You there! Time to actually do some wizarding for a change, and fix this situation for me!”

The headline subtly blurred to “Prince Getting Too Big For Big Boy Britches” before the wizard folded the paper, and set it on his desk. “And what situation would that be?” he inquired mildly.

“I need more land! I’ve claimed the Kingdom of Darne-Regard for years now, and they stubbornly refuse to surrender! And you lot try to smooth things over, tell us that we can’t fight other kingdoms, mouthing platitudes about getting along! I have an army, I have the weapons, I have the divine right to use them, and I want my rightful inheritance!”

The wizard stood up, discreetly flipping the paper so the new headline “BREAKING: Prince Can Use The Word ‘Platitude’ Correctly in a Sentence!” wouldn’t be seen. He crossed over to the window, fighting the urge to drag the Prince along, and throw him out of it. “Defenestration” was an excellent spell, but it used up its material component, and cleanup was messy. “Prince, what do you see when you look at the world through this window?” he asked instead.

“Eh?” The Prince joined him at the windowsill. The wizard’s hand twitched, but he refrained from the urge. “Well, I see… my Kingdom. My people. Hard at work. What does that have to do-”

“In good time. Now, let’s cross to this other window. What do you see here?”

“Wilderness. Untamed. I only own a small strip of it, the rest belongs to Darne-Regard. I should cut it all down.”

“And lose heat for the winter, from future fellings? Meat for the table, in the form of rabbits and deer? The herbs and mushrooms that heal your ailments, that do not grow in captivity? And slaughtering your own people, not to mention those of Darne-Regard, that you say you wish to govern well and righteously? Whose king was also appointed by Divine Right, if you believe in those things? And, may I remind you, your own father is still alive, and has forbidden warfare that is not mediated through the respective Councillors? And that I am one of those Councillors? That what you are ordering me to do is wrong, on so many levels? That someone must pay a terrible price, and it will not be myself that takes the punishment?”

“Ah, bah! I have no time for this mealy-mouthed mumbo-jumbo. I don’t care that my senile father’s still alive, I want what’s mine, and I’m tired of waiting for it! Just get going, and earn your outrageous pay, before I send you back!” The Prince stomped out of the room, sweeping some alchemical equipment to the floor with his arm as he left.

In his tantrum, he missed the part where they hovered for a few seconds in the air, then quietly returned to their original positions.

He also missed the part where the paper rustled, and the headline “PRINCE DECLARES WAR” spelled itself out over the front page.

The wizard sighed in annoyance, and extended his arm. His traveling hat and staff floated over, settled firmly on head and in palm. “Well, Princeling, let’s see how you like paying the price for your foolishness.”

The walk was long.

The staff was a touch shorter in length when he reached his destination.

It wasn’t a hovel, but it certainly wasn’t the dwelling of anyone who was gently born. Snug, small, and rather defensible, it clung with great tenacity to its hillside retreat.

A man sat on the porch, and watched his august guest approach. When the wizard set foot upon the first step, he removed the pipe from his mouth. “No.”

“I have gold. The money that would move a great army.”

“It’s not enough. You know what it does. I’ll not go through that again.”

“No choice, I’m afraid. None of us do, really. And you are not the only one that I visit, to collect.”

“Don’t care. Shove it, and all who do battle from the comfort of a throne.”

The wizard regarded the man on the porch. “We owe the future,” he insisted. “Civic duty and all that.”

“You can shove that too. I lost any belief in duties, civic or not, around the third campaign. You didn’t help us, you and your magic folk. I know you used to chain up the worst of us, bleed us dry, for your elixirs.”

“Indeed, we were… Indiscreet. Barbaric, really. We learned how to be civilized.”

“Try to drag me to your dungeon then,” the man sneered. “I still have means to make you very discomfited, should you push it.”

“It matters not. The Prince demands war, though his sire still reigns. ‘Tis me, or ‘tis the recruiter. Your choice.”

The man swore an oath that sizzled in the air. A touch of smoke wafted off the railing, where it landed, impressing the wizard. “The barking pup thinks to slaughter, to get his way? Damn you, wizard! Fine, bring your fiendish equipment. And damn the one who sent you.”

“I plan on it.” The wizard shifted, and two bottles appeared in his hand. “As promised, I refined the spells. One, to recall, in exquisite pain. And the other, to forget it all.”

The man snorted, rolling up his arm. “The nightmares come back, over and over. This only works for a time. Till the next prince. Or the one after. Work on a spell to duplicate what we give, so that we never have to face you again. That would be a true blessing, not this give and take. I want to live in peace, I’ve earned it.”

“Hmm, duplication? Interesting. I will ponder a method. But, till that time, let’s get the unpleasantness over with, and quickly. I have many more leagues to travel, for a truly effective spell.”

*******

“Well, so-called wizard? Do you have a spell that guarantees victory? It has been two months, my army is waiting impatiently, and my treasury is empty! What have you been doing with my well-earned money?”

“Do I need to remind you, that your father is still alive? Not your army, not your treasury, not your money. And the army isn’t impatient, it is fearful that you will continue with this madness. They have lives, families, and real jobs, and you would rip them away from everything they love, for the chance of stealing something that isn’t yours. Most of them would die, for your vanity.” He held up a bottle. The liquid was dark, with swirls the colors of dried blood, and a greenish-black that the wizard was pretty certain was meant to resemble gangrene. “This will smell like the perfumes of a thousand acres of ripening crops, but taste like bitter tears. And it will give victory-”

The Prince didn’t wait to hear the rest. He grabbed for the bottle, yanked out the cork, and chugged it down.

The wizard shrugged. “So be it, Prince. Their fate is sealed, as is ours.”

The Prince strode out arrogantly, shouting for his horse, his equipment, his army to follow him. None of those things were his to begin with, just like the neighboring kingdom wasn’t his, either.

The potion bottle hovered above the slate floor, glowing. Of course the Prince cast it away from himself; it had outlived its usefulness. If this was his attitude towards an object perceived as useless, what of the people of Darne-Regard? The wizard would have trembled at the thought, but the bright glow of the minuscule dregs of the potion told of a spell in full force.

Bottle and stopper floated back to the wizard’s hand, and he fitted one into the other. The Prince’s bite marks were very visible in the cork. Thoughtfully, he set it on a shelf.

He needed a night light in his reception room.

*******

The army deserted after the first night.

They left their weapons and armor behind, and ran home, crying about hideous visions in the night. Their friends, themselves, dying slowly, by inches, ripped apart by terrible wounds. Blood everywhere, the stench, the bloat, the bowl of a valley looking like a surgeon’s theater gone horribly, awfully, wrong.

The women, the children, and what was done to them before death released them from it. Villages destroyed, pits of bodies. Broken and ravaged fields, though next year’s harvest would be glorious, with all the blood fertilizer. Livestock driven away, howling in fear, being led away from the only home they knew.

They begged the king for a spell from the wizard to take it away, especially that smell. They couldn’t get it out of their nose, even the butchers, who were a bit used to it. The king, already furious with his overreaching son, granted it, and sent messengers to bring his son back.

Only the prince’s retinue returned, as did the supply wagons. They thoughtfully picked up the abandoned armor and weapons, which were put back in storage. Locks were changed, and the only extra key given to the King’s Steward, who knew who was really in charge of the kingdom. It was in his title, in case he forgot occasionally.

The king finally had to send out his own guard to retrieve the prince. Kings can do things like that, they don’t need capital letters on their title to wield their power.

They found the prince – alone, in his tent.

He was completely, totally, insane.

They wrapped him up gently, and carried him home.

The wizard created a safe space for him on one floor in his tower. He wreathed the rooms in spells – nothing could break, nothing could be knotted, in a way for the prince to use in a bad way, nothing could be used to harm himself or anyone who would tend him. Safe, cushioned, carefully kept, but his madness didn’t cease. The wizard told his king, he would try, but he couldn’t guarantee success. The raving was real, just like the army’s, but unlike those that followed, the leader’s visions didn’t break. They followed the prince, from his nightmares, into his daytime. He saw the visions, all the time, everywhere, eyes open, eyes shut, the death, the smell, the baking heat, the screams, the staring eyes, the death rattles.

Always.

The wizard shook his head, murmured sympathies, and said he would do his best to help the suffering prince.

But in the meantime, he would live here, in physical comfort, though mental anguish.

The wizard put a spell on the door, so that the prince could never leave. His servants, yes, but not himself.

And then the wizard went on a journey.

He traveled straight to a snug retreat, on a steep hill, with a retired soldier guarding the porch.

The man removed his pipe when the wizard set foot on the first step. “You’d better not be back for more, because I have a magicked crossbow that says I’ll not be so kind this time.”

“No, and never again. Your words, to demand I find a way to duplicate the essence I remove from you, resulted in my creation of a new spell. All wizards have it now, as well as an antidote. This is your cut of the money I have received for the discovery.”

“Hmph. And your other milkers? The ones that have gone through the same hell, over and over? What of them? Or the flocks of the other wizards?”

The wizard stared at the substantial purse sitting in his hand.

“Never thought about them, did ya? Keep your filthy money. Better yet, spread it out amongst all the other victims. We all had to re-live the worst days of our lives for your stupid spells, you might as well let us know those horrid nightmares can be put to rest. And tell the other wizards to do the same. Right?”

The wizard blinked. “But… I would have to travel…”

“And we didn’t, when we were forced into battle? Forced to march, to fight, to kill, all over bits of land? See what we saw, have the nightmares for years? And you lot, used to your soft beds and easy living, didn’t pay the price we did? And then you used to take the worst of us, chain us up in your dungeons, and instead of helping us, forced us to re-live the horror, over and over and over, for your stinking elixirs? For the good of everyone, but what about us? You never cared to find a cure for what ails us, did you, till I demanded you do so? Allow us to forget, always live in fear, that you’re coming back for more? And only when I said something to you, again, did you think of a better way? Because it wasn’t convenient, or lucrative, before that?”

The wizard blinked. A lot.

“You’re worse than kings, or princes. Theirs is a once and done ask, give our lives, or a fraction of them, and it’s over. We’re retired to pasture, too old to fight anymore, only good for raising crops, or making nice things. But you? Your kind? Imprisoning us in our own heads, repeatedly, for your own experimentation. You don’t care about anything but a new spell, so your fellow wizards can praise you and shower you with money. Meanwhile, your test subjects suffer, continued to suffer, and you didn’t give a damn. You’re sick, Master Wizard, and I fear you will never recover. Leave, and don’t ever darken my doorstep, ever again.” He stood up, grabbed pipe and crossbow, and stomped inside. The door slammed behind him with a finality that the wizard wished his own spells would have.

The wizard stood there, thinking, for a long time, then, he turned, and made his way home.

*******

The letters were almost ready.

Each bottle was attached to a letter, the blue and white swirls of the spell reminding him of fresh clouds in the sky. A welcome spell, he hoped, for the soldiers he’d used as a harvesting garden.

He’d never thought, what the herbs might think about being harvested.

The Wizards Weekly had followed his progress, with headlines like “Wizard Grows a Conscience,” and “Midwife Cackles at Wizard’s Face, Tells Him Off,” and “When the Greater Good Isn’t All That Great,” and “How to Really Help Our Retired Soldiers.”

The letters were apologies, and directions on how to use the spell to achieve peace with the past. And if they wore off, to send him a letter, and he would come with more. Or send a courier, if that was more comfortable for them.

He would never approach any of them again, for the ingredient that gave them the greatest pain, all over again. Over, and over, and over, as princes or generals or kings got the taste for war.

A large bottle of duplication syrup now rested in the wizard’s cabinet, aside of another bottle, with duplicated war-essence in it.

The equipment that the wizard used, to draw out essence, wasn’t put to waste. He still had a prince to “cure,” and to create a spell that would counteract his own well-wrought spell, he had to experiment. The prince was drained monthly, though they had to strap him down to do it.

The wizard rather thought he deserved it. The king had other sons, and another was made the crown prince, and the warlike prince was largely forgotten.

The wizard spent a lot of time staring at piles of gold coins, and at his own thoughts inside his head. The newspaper reflected those inner thoughts, with “Who Really Belongs in Prison?” and “Is a Prison Just Walls, or a State of Mind?”

A servant coughed from the doorway, and he returned to the present with a little jump. The bottles were scooped up, packed well, and sent out to the countryside. He hoped his spell-casting was good enough to bring relief.

But the prince, who resided below him?

Well, some people, perhaps, just belong in prison.