Alka Alon Convocation

The Alka Alon Convocation was the first formal in-person summit between Minalan's humani magi and the Alka Alon Council of Five. It was hosted at Carneduin, the seat of Raer Haruthel in the Mindens, and reached by Lady Ithalia through Lesgaethael — the new Alka Alon embassy spire then under construction by Master Guri's Karshak masons on the summit of Matten's Helm in Sevendor.

The Council and its mood

Five Alka Alon lords sat the Council. Each had a different relationship with the human realms:

• Raer Haruthel of Carneduin chaired the council. Brassy-voiced, polite, neutral by inclination.
• Lord Aeratas of Anthatiel, master of the great lake citadel beyond the Land of Scars. Jealous of his realm, contemptuous of humani as ephemeral, but conscious that his city stood closest to the Abomination's growing shadow. His vote on any humani question turned on which threat he hated more.
• Lord Letharan of Anas Yartharel, the great Kuline citadel near the Pearwoods. A xenophobe with a centuries-old vendetta against the humani for the destruction of the Magocracy. Lady Ithalia described him bluntly: "Letharan is a xenophobe with a vendetta. Aeratas is jealous of his realm."
• Lady Micrethiel, mistress of Nandaroriel, a smaller refuge but respected for deep wisdom and sympathetic to humani.
• Lady Ladas, also broadly sympathetic.

Three of five were potentially friendly; Aeratas and Letharan together could block any motion. Letharan in particular had shut his realm's gates to humani for centuries. Lady Ithalia warned Minalan in advance that Aeratas was the harder of the two:

Lord Letharan is of the belief that the Abomination is not of Alkan concern, it is a human problem. Lord Aeratas knows that it is of concern, but so loathes the humani that he would see the shadow fall over your lands in spite.

— Lady Ithalia, briefing Minalan

The other delegations

The Convocation was not only Alka Alon. Lord Darvios attended as the emissary of the Valley People — reclusive, xenophobic, and pointedly distant. Darvios was tall (the Valley Folk are perfect specimens of humanity by reputation), polite, and uninterested in being associated with Minalan. Master Guri represented the Karshak Alon and proved a quiet champion of Minalan's case (the Karshak had spent a season working at Sevendor under Guri's direction and had taken his measure as a magelord). The Tal Alon were not represented at the Council itself but had a presence as servants and gardeners.

The case Minalan made

Minalan recounted to the Council, in narrative order, the events of his Spellmonger's career: the gurvani vanguard at Boval Vale, the duel with the gurvani shaman that won him his first irionite, his consultation with the Aronin of Angriel (a kinsman of Lord Letharan's, a fact that rebounded on Letharan in council), the use of the molopor under Boval Castle, the Aronin's sacrifice, the Battle of Timberwatch, the foundations of the Magelord experiment.

Letharan opened the offensive:

We are aware of the danger the Abomination poses. But a few mountain vales and foothill farms hardly constitutes an empire. The gurvani have merely made a kingdom in mockery of their human foes. Let them battle it out until they tire of slaying each other.

— Lord Letharan, opening

Minalan answered by reminding Letharan that the Aronin of Angriel — one of Letharan's own kindred — had been able to do nothing against the Abomination at Boval, even with the full lore of his line. Letharan's public claim that humani were inferior to Alka Alon collapsed into the tacit admission that the Aronin had needed Minalan's help.

The snowstone bribes

Minalan had brought a working sample of snowstone, the new substance produced by his accidental theurgy at his son's birth. Master Guri had assembled small drawstring bags of snowstone fragments as gifts for each member of the Council. The presentation was theatrical: Minalan demonstrated that snowstone could function as a portable Waypoint regardless of the local etheric density, a power Guri confirmed even the ancestors of the Alka Alon had not possessed.

Even Letharan was moved (and predictably kept his bag):

This . . . alters the situation. Truly these are magnificent artifacts.

— Lord Letharan, accepting his snowstone

Master Guri summed up the politics afterward:

Nice work in council, Min. When they opened up those little bags, I thought their eyes would fall out! They were all impressed . . . but I'm not certain 'tis enough. Lord Letharan isn't going to forget his enmity over a pretty stone . . . although he'll keep the pretty stone.

— Master Guri, after the formal session

The closing motions

The Council adopted six motions. The most important to Minalan personally:

• Master Onranion, an Alka Alon adept previously in Council custody for offences against orthodoxy, was released into Minalan's service and dispatched to Lesgaethael at Sevendor — a signal that the Alka Alon would, however reluctantly, share lore with the humani magi.
• A search company was authorised to investigate the disappearance of Ameras, daughter of the Aronin of Angriel, last heir of her line. Humani aid (specifically Minalan's) was solicited at need.
• Refuge evacuations across the Wilderlands were endorsed and accelerated, with Lesgaethael to function as a coordination point for the displaced Alka Alon.
• The volunteers who had stood with Minalan at Cambrian and elsewhere — Lady Ithalia, Lady Fallawen, Onranion — were given formal permission to continue their support, retroactively legitimising what they had already been doing.

The political balance afterward

Letharan voted against everything but lost the count. Aeratas voted for some motions, against others, and made it clear in his closing remarks that his city had to be defended whether or not the Council acted. Ithalia read the room privately to Minalan:

The bribes were a nice touch. They are as you said: they can be used as portable waypoints, regardless of local magical density. That is a power that not even our ancestors possessed. As much as Lord Aeratas dislikes your people, and Lord Letharan mistrusts them, they are beholden to you for that wonder.

— Lady Ithalia, in private after the council

The Convocation produced no enthusiastic alliance. It produced a working relationship: the Alka Alon would not openly support the humani in war, but they would not stop their volunteers from doing so, would share more lore than Letharan would have liked, and would treat Minalan as a peer rather than as a curiosity. That alone was unprecedented.

The political consequences ran for the rest of the war. The Convocation set in motion the eventual creation of the Beryen Council, the joint Alka Alon-humani body of later books that planned the Olum Seheri raid and the long campaign against Korbal. Aeratas's evolving relationship with Minalan, which would carry through the loss of Anthatiel and the rescue of his daughter, started here at Carneduin.