Sylvia Linz

Sylvia Linz is a mage in the Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles") campaign, the mistress of a wizard's tower in the region around Sarpyar. During the rebel siege a raven flew in at a window of the fortress and turned into a woman who looked young but had old eyes.¹

At Sarpyar

She said she had stopped on seeing the smoke, on her way to answer the call of an old friend, and promised to see food brought within a few days; if things grew desperate, she advised destroying the bridge. She judged that the rising star of the rebel leader Karga (Rainer Karga) among the country folk might fade after this attack on a village, and went to speak with the house mage Klobus.²³

She asked Katherine whom she should save if a crisis came. Katherine explained the political weight of keeping Baron Vermont alive: if the man who had come seeking peace were killed, the rebellion would have its victory. Sylvia agreed. She then vanished in the courtyard.⁴⁵

It was later said that she had gone to the crown prince, and that those around him knew how matters stood at the fortress.⁶

The Extraordinary Talents Club

In Tal'gard, Klobus took Katherine to a garden tea of the Extraordinary Talents Club, a closed circle that nonetheless ran openly as a club, with some fourteen guests; there Katherine met Sylvia again. Sylvia told her that the club collected rare magical objects, and that valuable things lying unused could be given in exchange for other useful items. Holding that the sale of magical goods was forbidden in the empire, she called such dealings mutual gifts.⁷⁸

She gave Katherine a playing card showing a female joker. In the great cities, she said, shops marked with the same sign, a butcher, a bookseller or a timber merchant, would broker such exchanges when the card was shown.⁹

By the time Katherine wished to trade, Sylvia's circle had left the city. Walking at night with Ephorus, Katherine found the female joker carved on a carpenter's door; when she showed the card, the old carpenter reopened his shop. He said he was not a member of the club himself, but took a dragon scale and a cloth of shifting illusions from her in exchange for a pair of elf-made boots with a leaf pattern, worn by elven forest rangers and made for silent walking.^1011121314

Later Katherine looked for the female joker on the mage Aethelwulf and did not see it, so she could not tell whether he belonged to the club.¹⁵