JADE 2.6: BOOKS GALORE
“You pause. You cannot go on. The moment has not yet arrived. You turn to look back. The temptation exists: to return. Undo all you have done. And yet we all know the truth of it, do we not? There is no Return. There is no undoing. The place from whence you came is gone. You may trace the loop as many times as you will – you can never recapture the moment. All returning is a forwards-going. You must let the moment arrive again, if it will. Adherence to the past produces nothing new. Such order is stagnation, and will not resist chaos long. Will you be as the dragon? Will you think yourself too ancient to learn a new lesson? Give up the pretence. Flesh is harder than dragonscale.”
– from ‘The Book of Kultemeren’, 2:188-200
Explosive daggers were expensive – six gold apiece, which made me wonder, long after the fact, just how Lucid Lanni had come to have one of the damn things in his back pocket that time in the Gold Griffin. Perhaps he had contacts, sourcing magic items sold on the black market by darkmages. There was no way Lucid Lanni had ever had six gold in his possession at any one time.
It was certainly true that I couldn’t imagine Lanni, or any of the Mud Laners I’d grown up with for that matter, shopping around here.
Ensorcelled merchandise was the one thing you could find cheaper in Hightown than elsewhere; imbuing otherwise-ordinary items with magical effects seemed to be the most productive (and probably safest) form of employment for the sorcerers churned out by the School of Magery, and this was where they had their homes, their studies, their laboratories. There were hundreds of shops in Hightown selling magic items – at least one on every street and three on each major town-square. We looked in the small ones, greeted by wafts of rosewood incense into small dark rooms humming with the low mumbling of tiny caged imps, the cramped, dingy spaces incongruous with the open neatness of the Hightown streets right outside the door. We looked in the big ones, airy spaces lit by dozens of lamps and globes and lanterns – zombie customer-service assistants ambling around, carrying boxes too heavy for mortal arms without complaint or even signs of distress on their expressionless faces.
We ended up in one of the larger stores, and six gold was the best price we’d seen anywhere. I might’ve been rich by my own standards, but I wasn’t going to waste my money; that would denigrate the memories of those who had died, those I had failed to save. This particular Hightown establishment was the least glamorous-looking one of its size we’d been into, with cobwebbed corners and strings of ancient dust coating the tiled floor – yet it was teeming with patrons ranging from the dishevelled to the demure.
Perhaps it was just that even the highborn couldn’t resist a deal when they saw it.
Fully half the people in here were mages. Me and Em drew a few glances as we neared people, and those who didn’t spot us noticed us anyway, the moment they heard our (clearly not thoroughbred) accents, darting aside like we were diseased. I even caught a few of them muttering under their breath as they turned away, stalking out of the aisles we entered. At least the actual staff in the shops had been more friendly.
Envy? Disdain? Whatever it was, it wasn’t good, wasn’t respectful, that was for sure. They’d all heard by now – it was Twoday, and yesterday the news of our deeds on Sunday night had spread throughout the city. No one could miss Feychilde and his magister-wizard accomplice, whose actions, if the criers and bulletins were to be believed, had saved the most civilians in one fell swoop out of every disaster of the last two years. It was a triumph for the Magisterium, a perfect display of magister and champion working in unison to defeat the bad guys.
It didn’t help that neither of us seemed to feel in any mood to celebrate. We’d only had two conversations via glyphstone on Moonday, sharing how we were doing; she was busying herself with her classes, trying to keep out of the limelight; I was busy testing my new abilities. But it was clear she’d taken it hard like me. The congratulations, the praise – they were empty.
She’d spoken to Ciraya, though. Apparently Peltos wasn’t going to be a problem from now on. For that, at least, I could be grateful.
Em handed me six plat when we met – five for answering the Magisterium’s call, with one bonus platinum for (to apparently quote Henthae) ‘assisting Winterprince’ – and I almost hadn’t wanted to take them. It was as though I were being paid for watching both the twins fall in front of a rampaging wagon, and only pulling one of them back out of the way in time.
It was hard to see it the way they saw it. I almost preferred the whispers, the mutters, the snide looks and stalking-away exhibited by half the highborn who saw us. Better than the smiling faces, the gratitude. It was all hollow.
The money wasn’t hollow, though. That was real. That was the twins’ futures. That was security, a safety net.
No, I wasn’t going to waste it.
While Em visited the ladies’ room I was left to my own devices; I went back to the glass cases in which the spellbound daggers were stored, sheathed within little, delicate-looking sleeves. Despite their ordinary appearances, those glass windows were probably impenetrable under normal conditions, well-warded against interference.
There were different designs of dagger, each small wooden athame carefully and intricately carved just like the one I’d used on the Cannibal Six’s hag. Only the handles and the very beginning of the blade section were visible, the majority of the length and the tip resting inside the sleeves. I supposed they were symbolic things, really, for the highborn who usually purchased them; most would never expect to have to use it, consume it. That would be the reason for the care with which the things had clearly been crafted.
I decided on the one with the sun and moon motif – it seemed to fit the duality of an embattled Feychilde, thematically – and headed off through the dusty aisles to find a member of staff to unlock the case. More than one such dagger – that would be wasteful. But I needed some firepower. It was something I still lacked.
I had to take my time. I was still only just beginning to learn what I could do with Zabalam and Avaelar’s powers, and I felt… full. Like I’d eaten enough extra-planar creatures for now and wouldn’t be going back for seconds.
As I rounded a corner it came to my attention that I could see and hear a conversation taking place at the far end of the next row, between a trio of people unaware of my presence.
Two mages, both older human women, one in green and one in black, were involved in a discussion with what looked like a young paladin of the holy orders, or even a knight from one of the lesser kingdoms where wars were still primarily fought with men on horses bearing pointy sticks. He was a tall and burly human arrayed in almost full battle-harness, breastplate and pauldrons and gauntlets and greaves – the whole works. His skin was brown-red, like smooth redebon-wood, and his raven hair was a mess in a way that suggested he spent most of his time wearing a helmet. The head of a pick-ended warhammer protruded over his shoulder and there was a sheathed sword at his hip; the hammer was slung on the outside of his wolf-pelt cloak, clearly ready for use at a moment’s notice.
From what I could tell – which was a lot, even when keeping my distance, due to the fact my hearing when I concentrated was better than anything this side of canine – he was on the back-foot somehow, but keeping his cool.
“… we have a cleric of Wythyldwyn, a proven and capable healer,” he was saying, or, given his tone, retorting, in a quiet voice that belied his stature.
“If you’re going after a dragon, you’ll need a druid, not some priest,” the green-robed mage said in response, somewhat disapprovingly. She didn’t look like a druid, though. Her rings, her short, tied-back hair, spoke more of an enchanter somehow – or perhaps it was just an association with Henthae my mind had unconsciously made for me.
“Respectfully, m’lady, we have beaten dragons before.”
“But if as you say, this is something new,” the black-robed mage said, a trace more thoughtfulness in her voice, “then you’ll want full-scale back up. The Night’s Guardians might be able to offer that. For a share, of course.”
The black-robed woman was a sorcerer, then. I couldn’t see any tattoos on any of her exposed flesh, but there was a distinct chance the tattooing was a tradition only the members of Ciraya’s college kept to.
“We seek archmagery.” He paused a moment. From my angle I couldn’t get a good read on their faces but I inferred that he saw scepticism in their eyes; his voice lowered conspiratorially to the point even I was having trouble eavesdropping, and he said, “It is an Ord we face.”
“An Ord?” the green-robe snorted, not matching his hushed mannerisms in the slightest.
The fighting-man seemed to try to explain, “They are the scions of the Firstcomer, the –“
“I know the stories,” she interrupted. “The line of Ord was wiped out centuries ago. Calling a dragon an Ord or a Mal is something people do to cover for the fact they soiled their pants when they met it.”
I didn’t like her, but to be fair she was expressing the same scepticism I would’ve probably shown in her place. Ords were myths.
“And have you ever met a dragon, m’lady?”
There was a pause in which I could sense the bristling even from here.
“I have, m’lady,” the man went on in a neutral voice. “I was at Miserdell when the castle gate was melted to slag, and I have faced three more of its brood since then. I daresay you never met a man with more experience, more dragon’s blood on his hands than me. So trust me when I say – this is Ord Ylon, the grandspawn of Ord Yset, and we need an archmage.”
The black-robe spoke confidently, “Not something new, then, but something old. Old indeed. Come by the Tower of the Guardians on Roseoak Way at eight. Ask for Lord Ghemenion and say Rala Ainsbothe sent you.”
He’d sounded respectful the whole time he’d talked, but this was the first time he sounded like he truly meant it, and he only said the one word: “M’lady.”
The trio parted and I swivelled my head to study the nearby wall of magic potions in tiny little phials – only enough in each transparent tube for a few sips – so that it wouldn’t be obvious I’d been listening-in on their chat if one of them turned my way. I heard the surprisingly-quiet footsteps of the heavy-booted knight, or whatever he was, as he withdrew towards the front of the shop, and caught the murmurs of the green-robe as the two women moved around to another aisle: “You don’t really think he’s serious, do you?…”
Not sixty seconds later, Em was back at my side, and I related what I’d seen and heard.
“Have you ever considered a life like that?” I asked her as we continued my search for a member of staff.
“Like vhat? Dragonslaying?”
“Adventuring. You know, questing after treasure, rescuing villages from evil overlords… The kinds of things the bards write stories and songs about.”
“Have you?”
I shrugged. “Maybe when the twins are older. I would like to see the world, someday, I suppose. I’ve spent all my life in the city walls.”
“But it is cold and empty and dangerous out zere.”
I nodded. I could tell from the sarcastic twist to her words that she privately liked the thought of it. “Except for where it’s, you know, nice and warm,” I added blithely, “teeming with friendly people.”
She laughed. I wasn’t certain whether or not I’d been joking.
“Mm, I don’t think mazan and paza vould like ze idea of zat very much.”
“Yet they’re okay with you being a magister?”
“Zat’s different. You and I know better, but zey are under ze impression zat ve are safe, viz every… precaution taken.”
I knew the shadow of Firenight Square was still hanging over her, over the both of us.
Still, I tried to inject some humour into my smile as I looked at her incredulously. “How on earth did they get that impression?”
She smiled back, half-guiltily. “I may have had something to do viz it.”
I sniggered and poked her in the ribs, and she poked me back. This game went back and forth four or five times until we rounded a corner and came upon a flustered-looking shop-assistant – of the living, breathing variety.
“Oh, excuse me – could I have a hand…?” I said.
Upon recognising us the assistant’s expression softened, and he hurried to help us. We arrived back at the glass case, and he used a key on a chain around his neck to unlock the window, then slid it aside.
“Which one were you after again, sir?” He was affecting a rough approximation of a Hightown accent, but I could tell there was something less refined lurking beneath the surface.
“The sun and moon one, there.”
He withdrew it from its place, and passed it to me handle-first, sleeve intact over the blade.
“A fine choice, sir. All our wizardry-spellbound items are sourced from the Wizard’s Hat.” That was a manufacturer, I knew, from looking at the labels on the many other items on the shelves bearing the same name. “It will not fail you.”
“Please, just call me Feychilde,” I said, taking it from him.
He actually blushed.
I drew the explosive dagger from the frail-looking sleeve and held the blade up before my eyes, examining its fine craftsmanship.
““Oh sir – Feychilde – you must keep it in its sheath! Well… until you’re ready to use it!”
I got the impression he wasn’t used to having to append that extra clause.
A little confused, I swiftly slid it back into its sleeve; the mask obscured my expression somewhat, so I cocked my head at him, making it a question.
He cottoned-on immediately. “Explosive daggers are highly volatile. Although delicate in appearance, the sheath is imbued with a resistance to impacts, vibrations… anything that might set it off early.”
“So you wouldn’t… stick it up your sleeve, let’s say?”
“Without its sheath?” He looked shocked.
“Or… put it in your back pocket… and sit down?”
His shock turned to horror.
Lucid Lanni… We should’ve gone with ‘Lucky’ Lanni for his nickname instead after all.
“I’ll take it,” I said, removing my platinum-filled pouch from my pocket and jingling it suggestively.
“Oh, yes,” he recovered himself, “very good, very good, yes…”
“And there’s maybe… four potions I want to buy. Your healing elixirs, can we have a talk about those?”
Keeping people breathing couldn’t be a waste of money.
He was looking pleased with himself by the time he led us back to the desk where the change was kept, and looked even more pleased when I tipped him.
When we left the store, I gestured with the necklace in my hands and Em suddenly looked shy, shaking her head and blushing. I almost laughed, gesturing a second time – the pressure was too much for her to continue to resist. She moved her hair aside to allow me access to the nape of her neck, and I carefully fastened the clasp on her new chain, the heart-shaped crystal pendant filled with life-giving, sparkling-green fluid lying against her chest.
In addition to hers I had my own, in a circle-shaped pendant, already with its chain fastened, the crystal lying slightly-warm against my skin under my layers; and then one each for the twins.
With the twins, the danger was obvious. My presence put them at risk if someone tracked me to my home like Duskdown had done – and my absence put them at risk because their best defence in all the world would be a shield I’d drawn to protect them against danger. They needed a second chance, a get-out-of-the-grave-free card.
But with Em, well… I told myself that it wasn’t that I’d already elevated her to the third most important person in my life. I told myself that she hadn’t supplanted my friends in the span of a few days. I told myself it was because she was in the most danger, she was at risk, like the twins were at risk –
But I was probably lying to myself.
She linked my arm and we strolled up the yellow-canopied street. It was an unseasonably-warm day, and she was wearing her summery white robe once more. She never seemed to get too hot or too cold. A side-benefit of arch-wizardry, I supposed.
It was so nice having someone at my side. Someone who I could share the strange and harrowing experiences of the last few days with, someone well-placed to actual understand what I was going through; someone I could help in the same way she was helping me. I got the feeling she felt the same.
“It occurs to me,” she said after a minute or two of peaceful, quiet walking, “zat perhaps ve are going about zis ze wrong way.”
I must’ve frowned, suddenly worried about what she might mean. I stopped and she halted, turning to me.
“I – I think we’re going about this the right way,” I stammered. “I mean, I know we’re a magister and a champion, but can’t we get to know each other? If you -”
She was laughing. “No, silly.” She poked me again, and I didn’t poke her back, waiting for her explanation. “I mean, vhy don’t ve just make our own?”
“M – make… our own…”
For some reason, my head went straight to –
I swiftly searched with my mind, sifting through her possible meanings –
“Oh, you – you mean daggers!” I could feel myself blushing, and was thankful the mask hid the worst of it. “Because we’re a sorcerer, and a wizard, we can… Are we allowed to do that, though? Not that I mind, exactly, but you being, well, you know…”
She pulled on my arm; we resumed our slow stroll as she replied: “It vould only be against ze law if ve vere going to enter business. Under ze Champions’ Charter you have ze right to use your powers to create items – not for resale, but for you to use in ze course of your professional duties. Zere are similar restrictions on magisters, along viz ze stipulations about Magisterium use, ze status of copyrights… But you are a recognised champion; I can’t see zat zere vill be any problems.”
I processed what she’d said. “You really know your stuff, don’t you?”
She gave a mini-shrug, still linking my arm. “It voz ze one thing Henthae told me, vhen she agreed to give me a place in ze magistry and a vage, vhen she gave me a future: to keep up viz my vork as a magister. Ze vizardry studies take care of zemselves, you know, vhen you are blessed viz archmagery. I spend most of class viz my magister handbook open on my desk.”
“You really think you’d have no future, without her?”
“I voz lost, vhen ve arrived in ze camps. I got in three fights in ze first week. Zat’s how she heard of me.”
Three fights?
She’d never mentioned this before.
“I pity the idiots who dared your wrath,” I said. “What was it – robbers?”
She nodded. “Murderers, I found out later. Ze first time. Ze second and third, I took out some darkmages who vere troubling ze populace. It voz not long before ze magisters came knocking on our tent flap.”
I sighed. “You were so close to becoming a champion.”
She just smiled and shook her head gently. I couldn’t help but have misgivings about Henthae. What if she’d just slipped the thought in there: the desire to reject being a champion, the desire to submit to the Magisterium’s authority…? Em didn’t have a passenger on board to help deal with such intrusions.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said, you know. The best reason to become a magister is to work alongside you. But we could do the same if you become a champion, plus we could set our own hours, make as much or as little money as we wanted. No more nine-till-three shifts…”
She just stuck her tongue out at me, then changed the topic back.
“So? Do you vont to find out how to make explosive daggers? I have to admit zat I’m quite curious myself.”
“Erm – how would we find that out, exactly?”
She grinned. “You haven’t been to ze library yet, have you? I’ve seen your book collection, Feychilde. You are just going to love zis.”
* * *
She wasn’t wrong, or even exaggerating.
I couldn’t remember ever actually being besotted with a building before. But here it was – a lone structure containing what had to be the single greatest repository of magical knowledge and obscure lore ever to be gathered together under one roof.
I actually quivered. I actually mumbled in awe. And I was far too busy quivering and mumbling to care that I was showing myself up as a terrible newbie.
Having landed in the plaza in front of it, we walked up the library’s mottled, red-pink stone steps between pillars of the same material, entering through wide-flung double-doors of thick mahogany. Massive windows showed the groups of students on the green grass, the groves of trees and the ponds. The shrine to Locus was standing nearby, an altar that was literally a haphazard-looking pile of books – volumes that no wind or rain would ever damage, that no thief could ever thieve – but which could be taken freely by those leaving their own replacement in its slot.
Nowhere near as many books as they’d gathered in here, though.
Blue-dyed rugs beneath our feet, we followed the route into a wide space, and I stopped by the desks at the front, just staring. The place was twenty or more storeys in height and filled with shelves that went right up to the very ceiling. The windows stretched the full length of the walls but only went up about fifty or sixty feet, so that the majority of the library was shadowy, the arched rafters high above shrouded in darkness. Glowing globes lined the aisles but most were set to give off only a dim radiance, probably due to the fact that it was a sunny day. Every inch of shelf-space was crammed with books and scrolls of a variety of shapes and sizes: narrow, aged volumes; textbooks too big and heavy for a person to carry; sealed rolls of parchment…
But the most magnificent thing about the books, about the library, was the way in which prospective readers found the texts they were looking for.
It could only be the conjoined work of sorcerer, wizard and enchanter.
The books were flying.
The library was busy enough – the area at the front containing hundreds of desks was at least half-full with Maginox students, some chattering (quietly) to one another, others looking like they were so engrossed in what they were reading that they’d need to be pulled away from their seats even if the building were aflame. But whenever someone was done with their book or scroll you could tell immediately, because it floated off from the table, usually supplanted with another volume that came drifting down to replace it.
The wizardry for the flight could be bound to the books by sorcery, I was sure, but only enchantment could explain the fact no one seemed to be saying aloud what they wanted to find; the library itself appeared to be doing the work, plumbing the thoughts of the readers, to ensure the book they wanted ended up in front of them. Some of the globes, more brightly-lit, floated up in the shadows with the books, illuminating their passage through the darkness as they left their shelves or replaced themselves in gaps where they could fit.
It was with a certain amount of renewed quivering and mumbling that I watched as a large, hidebound tome was illuminated, getting bigger and bigger, closer and closer, then dropping down out of the air towards me.
I held out my arms and it gently settled itself into them, as cumbersome as a paving slab.
Em smiled at me, in a way that told me I was reacting exactly how she’d expected. She indicated a nearby desk, of which only the far side was occupied – two guys and two girls were sitting there with their heads bowed over a volume that would rival the one I carried in size, whispering amongst themselves. Outside we’d elicited stares and more than a few whispers, but not one of this quartet even raised their eyes at us as we parked our carts and looked at what the library had chosen for us.
The thick hide wrapping was black, fuzzy-grey in patches, stamped with innumerable seals: there were glyphs of motion and emotion patterned into the grooves.
I traced them with my fingertip.
“Zey all look similar,” Em said, “except zose zat are low enough to reach – some of zose are different.”
“I’m not surprised,” I replied. “I think it’s the covers that let them move to people.”
She raised an eyebrow, then flipped open the front.
The page was crisp, bone-dry, unaged.
“Marvellous,” I murmured to myself, scanning the writing.
“Erm – vot is zis?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s, vell, not human lettering, is it?”
I had to drag my eyes off the page, blink, and look back at it before I realised my head was doing its auto-translate thing again.
“Sorry, yeah. This is Netheric.”
I flicked forward and back – it looked like the whole thing was written in the extra-planar language comprised of minute symbols. Probably as a deterrent to anyone who didn’t already have the sorcerer’s initiation spells that would allow them to read the text.
She bent her head over it, curiosity overcoming her: “But zis alphabet, you can read it, just like zat? And you said it looked like I had been vorking on my skills for more zan months! Ze language spoken by ze souls of ze lost…”
There was a little macabre wistfulness in her voice. Was it just a form of professional envy, or had she lost someone?
“I could teach you a sentence?” I asked.
She nodded eagerly.
She didn’t get lessons in sorcery, so she was a blank slate when it came to this kind of stuff, and I had no formal training in it either. In a certain sense it seemed to be an advantage, because I could teach her Netheric the way I saw it without having any preconceptions getting in the way. “Well, this word’s pronounced tinshalemm, which is a bit like ‘behold’, except it has to be used for something up close… spatially, I mean… These long, curly tails? It looks like they’re vowel sounds, and the curlier they are at this bit here, the further up the scale, ooh, ohh, ahh, eeh, aii…”
Thus it was that within two minutes she could say ‘Tinshalemm ban o mol, zathuun!’ which roughly translated as ‘Behold your doom, undead!’, a relatively-fearsome battle-cry for use on nethernal foes. I didn’t have the heart to try more than twice to correct her pronunciation, which in the end made it sound, to my sorcerer’s-ear, a bit more like ‘Punch your doom-ticket!’. Somewhat less fearsome, true, but very irreverent-sounding; it would certainly belittle her opponents.
Then we got into the real fun – well, for me at least.
The book had a contents page, and it soon became apparent that this wasn’t a single text – it was a collection of big articles, the chapters having headings like: ‘The Wards of Tomorrow Today’; ‘Excerpts from the Tome of Understanding and Commentary Thereon’; ‘On the Perils of Attempts on Apotheosis’ –
Apotheosis.
“This one’s about becoming a god,” I breathed, tapping the entry. “Well… the dangers of trying to become a god, I should say.”
Em whistled – a low sound, but one of the quartet of mages on the other end of the table looked up, annoyance on his twenty, twenty-one year-old face… Annoyance which swiftly turned to surprise upon seeing the two people everyone had been talking about yesterday sitting there. Then with a visible effort he shook his head and bent back over the text he and his fellows were working through.
Admirable commitment, I thought, continuing to run my finger down the page: ‘A Partial Hierarchy of the Twelve Hells’; ‘Semi-Permanent Wards: Do’s and Do Not’s’ – I needed to read that one sometime soon; it would probably give me pointers on keeping a shield active while I slept –
Then I found it.
“Here it is: ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Ensorcellment’. Page one-one-three-four-nine… Wow.”
I turned the pages by the hundreds and thousands; the sheets were thin to the touch but the ink was clear on each side, the paper crisp and white.
I knew some of the geometric images I saw as I flicked through were going to be useful to me – the glimpse I caught of ‘The Wards of Tomorrow Today’ looked leagues beyond the stuff I’d been getting from the crummy text hidden under my mattress.
Eventually I found page 11,349 and started to scan each paragraph, providing summaries.
“Sorcery, the magic devoted to binding… The item, imbued with ensorcellment, takes on the quality of a magical item… I see, so the actual type of item only serves to augment the effect if it is similar to the magic… You could theoretically cast any spell on the dagger, but it works better if it’s, you know, an aggressive spell, because you discharge the spell with a stabbing action.”
“I could… I vould be able to make a glow-dagger?”
I nodded emphatically. “Exactly! With a druid’s help I could even make, like, daggers of healing!” I had to contain my glee. “They would suck, obviously – the magic wouldn’t take to an instrument of death very well at all, I don’t think – but it’s theoretically possible…”
“So… ze explosive dagger. Vhere do ve start?”
“We need, well, a sharp bit of material – that’s easy. We need… yes, the power-source – the casters, that’s us, got that… and I mark it with these symbols… and draw the force-lines as runes in the lines, yeah, I get it; it does look fiddly… then you cast the spell with the dagger as the target… and that’s it? ‘Enkirva nos o sakhamen faneir.’ ‘With this the work is complete’? Wait… seriously?” I scanned the rest of the page, flipped it over, but it just went into greater depth regarding the different preparations an ordinary mage would need. “It’s that simple?” I couldn’t keep my indignation from the hushed hiss that escaped my lips. “These things should be so cheap that you could sell them for a copper apiece!”
“Zat isn’t how it vorks for zem – a fireball takes far longer for ze mage zan ze archmage – zey burn ze salamander skins in ze preparation rituals, zey are not cheap – and zese lines of yours, can a mage ‘draw ze lines’ like you can?”
I cast my mind back to Ciraya sprinkling her dead-man’s dust to summon Fe and glanced back over the continuing instructions.
“You’ve probably got a point… These reagents could run to a pretty penny. Fair enough.”
“So ve can try it?”
“Let them try to stop us,” I said, closing the book. “But first I want to show you something.”
She looked at me in confusion.
“You forgot? Oh, it’s going to be a day of surprises.”
* * *
So the lines were fiddly. So what? It only took a few goes before the glowing blue shape I’d drawn with my mind and fingers sank down into the identical shape in the wood, binding it. It’d been harder to carve the damn glyph into the wood in the first place, with the knife we’d picked up for a few copper in an Oldtown side-street shop; I’d lost most of my carving skills over the last few years.
“Easy,” I said, placing the sharpened twig in Em’s lap. “You’re up.”
We half-sat, half-lay together on a bed of moss, our legs slightly entwined. The wind was warm beneath the eaves of this untravelled bit of Treetown, an area of forest dense with animals rather than people, where we wouldn’t be overlooked. I’d removed my mask; if some dark-druid wanted my identity enough to go around asking rabbits and bushes, they’d find it easier to just grab some expert diviner to pluck it out of the air for them.
Plus, it was simply nice to have the mask off.
I looked at her; she was still wearing the sweet little smile of elation she’d worn this whole time, even while flying here – ever since I took her across the bridge and let her get a glimpse of the wards surrounding her school. Once or twice I’d even caught her touching the spot on her forehead where I’d linked our sight and granted her use of my sorcerous vision.
I had to admit, it was cool that she wasn’t anti-sorcery. So many people thought of it as the foulest magery, the darkest archmagery. She’d never subjected me to a single jibe, and here she was, fascinated with my tricks.
Now her smile just broadened, and she affected a slight shrug of nonchalance as she lifted the makeshift dagger with the hand near to me, and lifted flaming luminescence with the other.
I eyed it with what must’ve been obvious apprehension, because she flicked her eyes across to me and murmured, “Don’t be afraid. Ve vill be safe.”
A few seconds passed of intense humming, overlaid with crackling, as the living fire in her hand swelled, brightened, to the point I was sure it would’ve already been gently roasting the both of us if she weren’t protecting us from its effects –
Then she raised the ‘dagger’ yet higher and thrust her other hand, her fireball, forwards.
Nothing – it was gone, and I felt the very air around us recoiling, reeling in the absence of those forces which had just been present.
“Did it work?”
“I felt like I cast it… Do you think ve should test it?”
“Uh,” I thought about the hag-thing, the pastybabble or whatever it was called, turning into a fountain of ichor. “I think it’d completely explode a tree, you know.”
“Ve have other options, remember?”
She passed me the hopefully-explosive dagger we’d made; it took her only moments to build a dirt-elemental, humanoid and still, its two stumpy feet planted into the ground just a few yards from us. We disentangled ourselves and stood up.
I walked around it, admiring her work. I almost didn’t want to ruin it.
“I have used some of ze clay. It’s tougher zan it looks.”
I returned to the front, and drew back the sharpened twig.
“Here goes nothing,” I said. I could hear the reluctance in my own voice.
Demons come in humanoid-form, I reminded myself.
A single thrust, and a whoosh of wind –
The dirt and clay splattered in an arc away from me, covering the branches and plants, causing a furious scurrying in the undergrowth.
I shook the ashy residue from my hand and turned back to her.
“It vorks,” she said, grinning.
“It would certainly appear so. Though we forgot one thing.”
“Hm?”
“We didn’t look up how to make sheaths.”
“Ahhh.” She looked down, then took my hand, her face suddenly serious, eyes hungry, imploring. “So, vhere vere ve?”
My hands found her waist, hers found my neck, and we sank back down into the moss.
* * *
It was getting dark, and should’ve been getting cold too – but only warm winds touched us down here in our bower of loam and lichen, wizardry stealing away the chill of twilight.
“Zey all vonted to congratulate me – as if I really did anything,” she was saying, lying on her front in the groove of my arm, wrapping my hair around her finger as she stared at me. “It voz you who stopped ze slaughter in its tracks, but zey acted like I’d done it single-handedly.”
“If it weren’t for you destroying them, I wouldn’t have been able to hold the shields up. They were falling, and would’ve all fallen in the end I think, if you hadn’t been there.”
“So in your mind ve share ze credit?”
I heard the bitterness, and grimly responded to it: “Share the blame, you mean…”
She sniffled a little. “I agree,” she said in a small voice.
As I stared up into the branches overhead, black veins across an ever-darkening sky, she abandoned the one twist of my hair and moved on to another, coiling it around her finger.
“I even had people singing my praises in the street yesterday,” I said after a bit, “and it was like, they don’t know, don’t realise what we failed to prevent. They just hear the headlines, see the archmage walking through the market, and want to revel in it like it was some kind of victory.”
“Ve’ll do better next time.”
I nodded, more to myself than to her. “We’ll learn our lessons. We’re new to this, both of us. I didn’t like the way Winterprince was so… accusatory. As if we’re meant to be at his calibre, given our experience – I mean –“
“I get vhere he voz coming from,” Em hedged. Her tone told me she knew it sounded like she was just defending a fellow arch-wizard, but, still, she felt she had a point to make. “Ve shouldn’t have even been zere if ve veren’t villing to follow through viz ze orders.”
“We were only there by chance. By fate. By…”
By the power, the mercy of the gods?
“It voz fortunate.”
I sighed.
When she next spoke, the words came bursting out of her:
“Kas! I can’t believe I forgot to ask you. You said zat you’d been on a trip to Zel’s land? Ze Etherium? You made it sound so ordinary.”
I rolled my head to face her, our eyes only inches apart, and nodded.
“Vhat voz it like?” she asked, moving on to yet another tangle of my hair.
What was it like? I was going to save that till later.
“I got a couple of new skills,” was all I said in reply, holding out my hand, palm up and horizontal where she could see it.
A red rose grew out of my palm, far more magnificent than any other red rose she’d ever seen, stem and petals of emerald glimmering beneath a diamond dust, topped with a fist-sized flower like a ruby.
She gasped as the rose teetered and toppled, then reached out her free hand to rescue it, only to find it as cold and brittle as an icicle between her fingers – it fractured into shards that were in the next moment a cloud of small white feathers, drifting slowly towards the twig-strewn ground.
“That’s all I got off the gremlin,” I muttered. “I can do short-and-sweet, but making myself look like someone else is taking some work, I’ll tell you.”
She tugged lightly on the hair she’d commandeered, as if to punish me for my reticence. “Vhy didn’t you say anything?”
“Honestly, it’s a bit embarrassing.” I looked away with my eyes, keeping my head still so that my scalp didn’t get any more twinges.
The truth was, I was nervous. I’d fallen. Only twenty feet, and there’d been no one around to see me as I practised flying from tree to tree in the graveyard. Zel’s regeneration had handled the knee-injury in a matter of hours, but the sylph’s flight was completely unlike the flight Em could grant me, and I was still getting the hang of the finer controls. It was a flight meant for soaring the skies and covering vast distances, not for gliding across a room.
“Let me up,” I said at last, after she let the silence hang. “I’ll show you… if you promise not to laugh.”
She crossed her heart with a finger, smiling devilishly, prompting a snort from me.
When we’d untangled ourselves and I got to my feet, I slowly moved a few feet from her, focussing, going to stand on a bulge of leaf-covered earth with my back to her.
I hadn’t gotten any healing-type effects, as far as I could tell, and I was afraid that my vain desire to obtain the means to fly under my own power would be my undoing at some later date, when the need to stop someone dying would far outstrip the need to get around quickly. But this was the hand I’d been dealt, and I intended to play it to the best of my ability.
The wings would only partially manifest in Materium. I wouldn’t be able to use them to fight like Avaelar had done; he’d wielded them at my shields, slashing with the hard, blade-like feathers along the edges, almost as though it were a proper combat technique. No, my wings wouldn’t do anything except catch the air. Which wasn’t an altogether terrible trade-off, I had soon come to believe, given that they wouldn’t snag on things, wouldn’t get trapped in doors – wouldn’t rip my clothes off my back when they came forth.
They were slow to manifest, too – six half-transparent, faintly-blue appendages. It was fifteen, almost twenty seconds before I felt they were done. The farthest-protruding pair, coming out of my shoulders, gave me a wingspan of something a little over eight feet; the lower pairs were no smaller, but they were progressively angled more-inwardly. The bottom pair were probably sticking through the ground right now, given that I couldn’t feel their tips.
I moved them around, checking them over.
“What do you think?” I called out.
“Sveet Celestium,” she swore. I heard her approaching, and then she walked around me, studying the ethereal wings.
I flexed the six of them one last time then let them settle, getting a good grip on them with my both my will and my instincts, like Zel had instructed me yesterday.
Em moved her hand as if to run her fingers through the feathers, and met no resistance, her flesh simply slipping through them as if they were mere apparition.
“Can – do zey vork?” she asked. “I’ve never seen a sorcerer with anything like zese.”
“That’s the, erm, tricky bit. Your flight is awesome, nothing will ever replace it, believe me. But… well, yes. They do work. It’s more that I’m not very good yet.”
“You must show me,” she said in a tone that brooked no refusal.
“You crossed your heart, remember?”
She wasn’t laughing now, at least – she had nothing more than professional curiosity on her face as she solemnly nodded.
“Your flight is no longer affecting me?”
She nodded again.
“Okay. Here goes. Don’t be afraid to catch me, though…”
I looked down, focussing again.
It was like I had new muscles, linked into my intentions just like my other limbs. I could feel them, even at rest – but the only thing they could actually sense in themselves were the movements of the air currents. I felt nothing when Em literally bisected my wing with her hand, yet a gentle breeze was enough to tingle my feathers, and a gust could even cause the wings to impulsively furl up.
I beat the air down softly, a single time with all six wings. The wingspan was far too small (never mind far too immaterial) to lift anything heavier than a tenth of my weight, but nonetheless their magical might was enough to propel me ten feet into the air. I beat once more, slowly, and spread the wings, doing my best to hover above her, but all I ended up doing was gradually drifting away, caught in a light draft.
This delighted her, of course; she sprang after me, and she spent the next few minutes following along at my side. Seeming reassured that I couldn’t do something better than she could – which she denied, of course – she soon gave up babysitting me and started casually outstripping my most valiant efforts to keep up. We didn’t go farther than the nearest canal, moving in short bursts of speed.
Still, I felt my confidence grow in the game of it all. There were a couple of times I almost caught her, but she had a whole host of tricks up her sleeve I simply couldn’t hope to match – she would twist an updraft at me, or use her air-senses to get an exact bead on my trajectory as though she were a diviner and simply slide out of my way at the last second.
By the time we stopped I felt like I’d exerted myself more than I had in the whole of yesterday. Deep evening had settled over Mund, and the forest was filling with the hoots of owls, the shrilling of bats, the rustling of badgers.
I stooped, and lay myself back down on the moss.
“Zey are brilliant, Kas,” she said, drifting over and reclining in the air, horizontal even before she settled herself down next to me. “I’ve spoiled you by casting flight on you too many times! In ze end zese fey vings vill serve you better. Zey’re yours.”
I opened my mouth to retort but she held up a finger and continued, “You can’t see yourself up zere – I can. Trust me, you just need to practice. I should make you fly home yourself –“
I opened my mouth further into an ‘o’ of horror, gave her my best puppy dog eyes, and made a little gasping sound just to top it off.
“– I mean – I von’t – it’s late –“
I laughed, and leaned over her to kiss her, my arm encircling her waist.
Even in the midst of her embrace, with my eyes closed and lips on hers, I worked the rupture behind her back, beneath us, around us –
Shields active, I rolled her into the otherworld in the same moment as I willed, more firmly than ever before: Out, and stay.
I left a fairy, a gremlin and a sylph behind in the eaves of Treetown. I hoped they had something to talk about.
Em sensed the change of location instantly, of course.
It looked different – even smelled different – to last time.
The hazy heavens soared above us, vast islands of pale amber vapour reeling and rippling against encroaching oceans of blood-red sky.
Her eyes widened and she almost broke free of me as she sat up.
“It’s not so late-looking here,” I noted.
As if to punctuate my statement a fluttering stream of golden lights descended past us, some alighting briefly on us before continuing on their way, wending their way into the greenish mist hanging between the trees.
“Vhere – vhat – zis is ze Etherium!”
Due to her excitement I wasn’t quite sure whether this was a question or not, so I sat up with her, my hand still on hers, and nodded. “If you want to go home, just let go of my hand, and you’ll be there. In fact, we should probably only stay for a little bit – the tides can move, and we could get washed into another part of the forest…” I’d left my mask behind.
“Can I just –”
She reached her free hand out and summoned a sea-salt wind, coming from out of nowhere into the fairytale woodland realm, visibly spearing right through the mist to heed her call.
We were buoyed up into the air and to our feet, the gentle pressure of the flight-spell there under the soles of my boots like usual, a constant reminder of its presence.
“Oh, yes,” I breathed. “Your magic works!”
She smiled coyly.
“I mean, when I’m here, I can’t be joined with anything. Well, definitely not anything fey, and, you know – Feychilde and all – and I don’t think it works with the others either. So I’m doing no flying here without your help.”
“Convenient,” she said with a laugh. “I had heard zat ze mark of a powerful sorcerer could be bought, to allow travel to ze ozzer vorlds… but zis…”
She moved upwards in the air, but I kept myself grounded and kept our hands fast together.
“I promise,” I said when she looked down at me in surprise, “we can come again. But until I learn how to make the mark, like you said, it’s just too dangerous here.”
Plus, I left my troops behind.
She pouted, then giggled and descended back down into my arms.
I opened the rupture in the exact same spot, and we emerged only feet from my trio of otherworldly creatures.
They silenced themselves as soon as we appeared, and I waved at them grandiosely.
“May I present Zab the gremlin and Avvie the sylph? Gentlemen, say hello to Emrelet.”
The gremlin looked her up and down. “My, you’re a charming one, aren’t you?” Zabalam said, with a decent attempt at a smile – considering his excessive toothiness.
“Magister,” Avaelar intoned, nothing but his consternation in his voice and on his face.
That didn’t stop Em from giving him a second, or perhaps even third glance – I could hardly blame her. He was ridiculously statuesque.
“Back in,” I said to them, stepping into their midst.
The command was straightforward; one by one, Zel then Zab then Avaelar, they stepped within me, suffusing me with their potencies.
The sylph joining with me was, of course, going to be the weirdest-looking by far; he was taller than me, and seemed to shrink slightly in the very instant that his flesh met my own – as usual, I felt nothing tactile, sensed nothing that was a cause for discomfort. But I’d done it this way once before, so at least I knew what to expect. Moments later, from the look of abject bewilderment on her face, it occurred to me that Em had been understandably less prepared to watch a seven-foot guy just disappear into me.
“I did promise you some surprises,” I said defensively, over the clamour filling my head.
“Feychilde…”
“… about his attractive mate…”
“… the prison of thy flesh…”
“… them off, Twelve Hells!”
“… inspiration for another…”
Enough, you two.
I turned them off, bar Zel.
“Thank you,” she grated, heaping a shovelful of frustration on top of the telepathic attempt at gratitude. “I’m getting something weird off your future. You taste funny. You need to get home.”
I taste funny?
“You know what I mean.”
No, I don’t. I really, really don’t.
“Kas.”
Fine. We were leaving soon, Em’s got work.
“Just go.”
Then I realised what she was saying.
Is it the twins?
“I don’t know!”
I must’ve looked alarmed, as Em’s smile faded slightly. “Vhat?”
“It’s Zel. She says I need to get home because I’m going to taste funny in the future.”
“That’s not what I said.”
Near enough.
“Zat… is ze vord of your most valued counsellor?”
“Near enough.” I shook my head. “It… it could be the twins, I guess. I can see you tomorrow?”
“Ve cook togezzer on Vanedays… You –“
I could see the turmoil on her face, and smiled. “I could come?”
She smiled back and nodded, but wouldn’t meet my eyes. It almost looked like she was about to cry. She lowered her face, and when she spoke her voice was soft, more fragile than I thought I’d ever heard it: “I… It sounds stupid but I – I vill never forget today, Kastyr.”
I smiled. “You’ll never forget seeing me swallow a sylph whole? Uh oh.”
She shook her head, unsmiling. “Ze ozzervorld. Ze vards…” She cleared her throat and met my eyes. “I’m an archmage living in Mund, and even I thought it voz magical.”
I stepped closer to her. “I’ll never forget it either, Emrelet.” My voice came out husky. “These last few days, with you, I’ve been – well, I feel like a new person.”
I held out my hands and she took them.
There was a moment, standing there together in the twilit woods, with my chin on top of her head, cradling her against my chest, her arms wrapped tight about my lower torso – there was a moment when I could forget everything, be at peace. The autumn wind breathed through me, and I was a part of it, a part of something greater.
Then the moment was over, and we separated.
* * *
It was almost half-eight when I got back to Helbert’s Bend. I had Em’s flying-spell active so I quickly reached the Springwalk alleys; there was a group of guys at the end farthest from the apartment, so I circled around before dropping into the other end. I quickly stuffed my robe and mask into my satchel before heading onto Mud Lane.
“I’m feeling it worse now, Kas. Get in there.”
I almost fell a couple of times as I ran up the stairs. I could feel the panic spreading my eyes wide, granting too much haste to my motions.
What is it? Can you tell yet?
“I don’t know.”
Zel!
“Sorrow… The hand of the Blade-Lord…”
I was heaving in each breath by the time I reached the door.
It was ajar. It was never ajar unless we were doing something.
I swung the door inwards, and peered in, leaning forwards even as I crossed the threshold.
“Oh – oh, Kas.”
A crude pallet of beams and burlap sack was suspended between the two benches, the table moved aside.
The pallet was upraised. Upraised to keep its inhabitant from lying low upon the floor.
A body upon the pallet.
A body on it, lying in repose, eyes closed, face serene.
The scent of near-fresh blood.
The memories, the re-experience, a wave of bile to flow through the room and over me, through me, choking me.
His grandfather was at his side, rubbing his lifeless hand and whispering.
His sister was standing, was facing me, was wordless. She almost smiled in her red-eyed grief; it was the most horrible almost-smile I had ever seen on a human face.
There was a point when my knees touched the floor, but I didn’t feel it; I only noticed the adjustment of angle, as I stayed there, frozen still, simply looking.
Panic had melted. Melted into something else. Grief was a word for it. There were other words for it.
Words like anger and disgust and misery and guilt.
Zel could read my thoughts.
“We’re supposed to be going after the Shadowcrafters, remember? We don’t hunt just any old killer. You’re a champion.”
Anger.
“His soul’s passed on by now. You can’t call back his ghost, not if it’s not already here.”
I could taste my own tears but couldn’t feel the tickle as they rolled down my face.
It seemed I must’ve said “No” out loud, because Xantaire came forward, put a steady hand on my shoulder, and said, “Yes.”
Her tone was artificially nonchalant. She was too close to it; for her the true horror was yet to come.
Ten hundred thousand waves of bile.
“Yes,” she repeated. “Morsus is dead.”
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