Chapter 134
Eli POV
Cold nipped at my skin where my white shirt and brown pants didn't cover. Looking around the stone bedroom with its wardrobe opposite the bed I was resting on and a wooden door to the left, I could only admire the overall lack of change illuminated under the golden light of a mana lamp above. The city was now a proper thing, but this room had remained virtually the same since the day I had crafted it. Stagnation, some might call it, especially considering it was the abode of the city-states' scion caretaker. As I brought the wooden block with a metal mesh circle on the bottom side up to my face, it seemed a remodel of this place was further away than it had ever been.
"Eli, calling in. Finished"
A moment of silence filled the air.
"Durka, responding. No news, save my girl coming in. She said she'll be able to come over a few days from now, depending on her smuggler's speed. Finished."
"Good, I have a message for you to deliver when you go on your next supply run. When the new ship is ready to fly, tell our people to assemble a team and enough supplies for a month-long trip. We can't pull out another miracle mage from thin air to fix the Rodring Kingdom's problems. Given that, I want another spot big enough for Salamede's people, the Waveborn, and the Base.
Get Jeff to ask around for good regions to look at. He's acting as someone from the Coalition, so he has more of an excuse for such questions than any of us. Finished."
"An important mission. Finished." The orc mused through the metal.
"But not an urgent one. Tell them, no rushing. You know what? Tell them to get some practice in traveling by the stars before going off. We can get a good map, then have their navigator practice a trip in the clouds along the coast. After that, they can look for a nice spot for us. Finished."
"Understood. We've actually been getting close to needing a supply run anyway. If you don't have a problem with it, I'll leave these skies for a while. Finished."
"That's fine. Finished."
I released the button on the side of the radio. Feeling the day's toil still in my body, I forced myself off the bed before crawling under it. Route memory made me barely pay attention to the next steps. Lifting the false floor, getting on the ladder, then placing the radio in the alcove had been performed so many times they barely graced the workings of my frontal lobe.
After getting back above ground, I went to the door, pushed the wooden panel near the door's frame to switch off the mana lamp, then turned around in pitch-black darkness. Memory again guided my body as it led me to the bed. The instant my outstretched palm felt cloth, I lifted it and settled in between the blanket and the mattress.
Oblivion came as soon as my head hit the pillow. It ended almost as quickly as I felt myself stir. It was still pitch black, but the sense of refreshment told me morning had come. The established morning routine was again executed. Unseen blankets were pushed away before I made my way to the spot in the void I remembered the door being. My prying index finger found cold stone on its first try, whereas the second attempt found the texture of wood, something I savored even as the world revealed itself to my eyes.
It was the same grey box as before, though this time I went to the wardrobe. After a few seconds, I decided on the favored clothing scheme of a white shirt and brown pants, though it still resembled the grey shirt and equally mud colored pants currently on my person. The face coverings I had made came in brown and nothing else. The day's attire in hand, I grabbed the door's handle and pulled it open.
The closed door to the workshop greeted me from across the grey stone hallway. I took a left and came up to yet another door. Pushing open this one revealed the kitchen serving as a meeting room. A dining table, complete with four chairs and a green hemp rug, sat on the left while a simple wood stove and cabinets rested a few yards directly ahead.
Seeing as how there hadn't been an alarm waking me up, either the maids were late, or my body had cut sleep short. Seeing as how strict the staff had become since the city's founding, the latter was almost certainly the case. I took up a chair at the table, feeling the chill of the wood on my fingers where it had been outright ice in months past. After donning the face covering, I leaned back in the chair and felt minutes amble by.
*Ping*
It was a subtle chime that gradually fell silent for a long second. This repeated three more times as I made my way to the front door. With the city being more finished than not, certain comforts in my home were finally seen to, the first being the previously too-loud doorbell.
Pulling the door open revealed the blonde and brunette maids, bearing a copper pot sending off strands of steam into the surrounding chill, behind which was a man hoisting a wooden tub above his head. I moved off to the side and allowed the trio passage. They took less than a minute to get the tub in place near the back wall and pour the iron pots contents into it without a single misplaced drop, a testament to their skill.
The trio bowed, then vacated the room to allow me privacy. I quickly stripped and eased myself into the tub. It didn't have quite enough water, reaching only to chest high. Settling into a comfortable plank position, the doorbell rang out again.
"Come in!" I called.
Through the door came the two maids again, another steaming pot between them. Without a word, they unceremoniously dumped its contents into the tub, bringing the waterline up to my neck and a fresh blast of heat. After their second exit, I lay my head along the tub's side. For nearly ten glorious minutes, tension bled out of me along with the heat.
When the water approached lukewarm, the time to get up came, and I answered by grasping both sides of the tub. Pulling myself upward also proved to be the perfect position to knock the grey towel on the left side into the now expired bath. A moment of irritation came and went. It was the same spot the maids always put it, so I couldn't blame them. As for myself….These had been a long few weeks, so I surely deserved some slack.
Magic pulled the water off me more thoroughly than any towel anyway. As I stood dripping beside the tub, I, for not the first time, was tempted to add some fire spells into the mix. The careless impulse was considered, then ignored. It took a few minutes before I was walking out of the house in a white shirt and brown pants with the attending brown cloth face covering.
Coming onto the wide porch area holding my drawbridge, I saw the two maids waiting on the left, standing as still as statues as the blonde offered a leather jacket with a collar of grey fur. More importantly, the few wafts of steam promised a slaying of the early spring cold. It wasn't deadly outside, but being this far north, we were still offered the occasional sampling of winter.
I fixed the coat around myself as I walked past the drawbridge pillars. Walking across the bridge prompted a trio of red leathered guards to stand at attention on the other side. How under my authority they were was still an open question. It would be a big problem if Kev, the leader of the local guard for both here and Crasden, started making some fuss. It was fortunate, then, that he was one of the city's biggest supporters.
Once the men were in place, I started paying more attention to the wider landscape. The small guard post with a slanted roof was on the left. After a second, I was able to distinguish walls high enough to need neck movement standing a few dozen feet in front of me.
For as far as I could see, square apartment blocks in groups of three or even as many as six stood nine floors tall. Each group sat behind walls that went up to their fifth floors, while those above enjoyed an unobstructed view. Those below the sixth floor would have cold stone to greet them outside their window every morning. A trade some had made willingly, seeing as how they wouldn't have to brave the elevators or kill their calves every time they wanted to go home. Some complained of the effort, but they wouldn't use the scary box that went up and down, so I could only congratulate them on their soon-to-be-toned legs.
I took a left past the guard post along a wooden road that ran parallel to the river on which my home rested. The additional boards provided some color contrast that endless grey couldn't, though the stone railing along the water had a certain charm. Not for the first time, I considered what to put along the apartment walls to better distinguish them against each other and the floor.
As we walked past one of the jutting grey walls, a group of workmen moving furniture to one of an untold destinations split up to allow my group passage. This sent them close to the huge double doors serving as that apartment block's entrance. A guard atop the wall pulled a lever beside him, sending the doors several floors below him swinging open. The men waved away the offer, making the gate watcher roll his head back.
A smile was thankfully hidden by the face cover. This was my city, in both sweat and law. That also meant I was high dictator. It would not do for such an important figure to openly mock his people. Come late spring, when the excuse of cold wouldn't provide me a reason for the face covering, I would have to struggle through social propriety. For now, a moment of comedy was enjoyed before all parties went about their business.
We went further down the riverside towards the city's main bridge. The stone arch covered enough of the river to allow six carriages traveling wheel-to-wheel, dwarfing its wooden predecessor. I had even gotten some artistry in, with the four posts at its corners displaying birds catching falling torches. These were made so that they could hold real torches when the ambient blue specks became too sparse, but for now, they held stone imitations topped with a mana lamp.
The morning rush onto the bridge was just past its peak, with a few carriages moving between the slightly cramped foot traffic. As I was preparing to make my turn onto the bridge, one cart off to the right suddenly jerked forward.
"Whoa!" The driver, a middle-aged man in a white shirt and leather vest, cried as his horse suddenly dashed forward, nearly knocking down two passing men in the process.
It would have only been annoying, except the quick math I did said the large, and unsecured, crates in his open carriage wouldn't stay upright at the turn. I stopped dead before taking a step back.
Two of the confused guards promptly stepped back from the danger they couldn't see, leaving behind a younger guard on the left who continued forward. He was looking at the top of the bridge to intently appraise two women leaning against the railing, no doubt scouring for any hidden weaponry or ill intent on my person. Since he was so diligent in my protection, I returned the favor by grabbing the back of his red collar and yanking him out of the danger zone.
In the second that it took to do that, the other guards picked up on what was happening. They cluttered around me like a wall of flesh. When the carriage's turn finished, I felt both smug and irritated that my estimation proved true. A tower of crates leaned, then fell, spilling carrots and potatoes onto the road with a thunderous crack.
The driver quickly got his horse under control before getting down to retrieve his lost goods while passersby moved around him like water. If it had been heavier traffic, the fellow might have gotten some profanities sent his way. Instead, most were content to give him a snarl before going on about their day. Which was something I wouldn't be able to do. I turned to the guard on my right, a burly man with a face of black hair and green eyes above a bulbous nose.
"Ask the driver why his crates weren't properly secured. 'Three high is too high to go without rope' is the rule." I commanded.
His black eyebrows furrowed for a second before he nodded and went to deliver the message.
"Thanks, man." The younger guard said to his fellow in the back, a smile breaking out below his sharp nose and brown eyes.
"Thank the mage, he's the one who yanked you back." The greying veteran scoffed with a smile.
Those brown eyes shot to me, a mixture of fear and confusion plain to see. As the city's bones have been completed, its hundred thousand or more residents started flooding in. In addition to more training sessions, that also meant they had to learn my preferences. More than once, I had rendered a small group speechless by explaining how the magical bidets in the communal toilets worked, not so much from the miracle of mana but that such divine ability had been spent so. My musing was cut short by the burly guard coming back.
"He says no such instructions were given." The guard said as he stood in front of me.
For what had to be the first time in my thousands of years of life, I felt a pang of nostalgia for work emails. Finding where the failure in this training occurred would take all day, both in finding the exact cause and correcting it. Something I couldn't afford. I decided to cut off finding the cause and skip to fixing it, consigning the first failure to just another order shot into the void.
"We're going to the harbor," I announced before cutting across the traffic and heading down a rightward road.
Between each of the apartment blocks were small walls, reaching no higher than three floors. These currently had no gates for the holes in their centers, a weakness that various wood crafts on the outer rocky plains were slowly hardening wood to correct. Maneuvering around various passersby in these gates became harder the closer to the docks we got, as the untold number of carriages moved cargo to and from the ships. After a half hour or so, I saw the harbor gates peek around the side of one of the apartment complexes' walls ahead when the sun told of a morning in its final moments. The large palisade allowed only two carriages through at a time, a failing I hadn't been on the receiving end of before now.
A solid minute of walking through the empty killing field between the outer apartments and the first wall still wasn't enough time. It was another minute of stopping and going before we could get through. I was tempted to build out the entrance or set up a pulley system. If it ever fought out off the thousands of other upgrades this place could do with, I'm sure I could work something out.
Coming through revealed an open plain of sloping stone and stairs going down gently enough to not allow any cover for attackers. Wooden fingers reached into the artificial river beyond, each bearing a ship of one description or another. Across the other side of the rend I made in the dirt lay the start of the wilds, replete with trees and grass standing in defiance of all I had made. The square, grey box of a harbor office rested off to the right, filled to bursting with sailors and captains working through its front doors.
The reason for so many of them coming was probably the long cranes at each of the piers. Fueled by blue specks of mana, poles of wood lifted pallets of goods back and forth. It was extremely inefficient compared to standardized containers, yet the swinging cranes easily beat the human labor most would have had to employ at Crasden.
Looking down where the wooden dock met stone land, I found the desired spot near the middle. The slope was slight enough to allow carriages only a light challenge getting up to the gate, leaving me more concentrated on not falling rather than moving forward. When I got to the needed choke point where every carriage going to or from the ships would have to pass, I moved to the right and selected a sharp corner where the foot traffic to the harbor split from their horse-drawn fellows.
No one knew what I was doing when I sucked in the blue spots floating about. Their eyes couldn't see mana, so from their view, I was taking a dramatic breath for no apparent reason. The small pillar of stone that suddenly shot out of the ground, however, was very much visible, sending a number of passersby shirking back. I made the front flat and started the process of etching words into it.
There were three rules those moving or inspecting goods must follow, and if they didn't want to be constantly reminded of them, then they should have followed said rules, or their betters should have at least made them aware of such. I first wrote down the one that brought me here, then two words: 'No bribes', then the last one, which was two paragraphs explaining cart maintenance and the intervals of such.
Now aware of who I was, the crowd parted like water as I moved up the stairs. Breakfast called, and if not for the newest piers on the right at the end of the pier, I would have answered. The turn to the right was forced with every step as my ears properly registered ocean waves for the first time.
I eventually made my way to the five smaller piers stocked at the end facing the ocean proper. These were for the fleet of fishing boats too small to take an entire pier for themselves. Their economic output was also too minute to clog the larger harbor, to say nothing of the safety concerns. This section sported a small warehouse on the left leaning against the wall to hold their tools and boats. The men working here were mostly concerned with pulling large nets to their boats in preparation for afternoon fishing.
Among Crasden's denizens, these were the most tanned, owing to the lack of cover out on the ocean where they plied their trade. Their leader, Daniel, was no less so, despite him jotting down some figures on a board and paper by the warehouse entrance, a task that contrasted with his burly forties frame. His blue and white striped bandanna hid any skin on his head. A scruffy black and grey fuzz hung around his mouth, but not anywhere near his open white shirt, leather vest, and blue pants bearing a hole on the right knee.
Our approach made his black eyebrows scrunch, accompanied by an annoyed look that died the moment his brown eyes peeked above his work.
"Great mage!" He exclaimed, slightly bowing as he did so. "The boat worked well enough. They need a little less speed on the lower thrust, though. We've had a few accidents trying to get it into dock."
The man then turned around and ran into the warehouse. I saw an older guard on the left leave his jaw open for a second before making himself stand straight. His reason was plain enough to see. In truth, I preferred Daniel's manner more than any other. No one ever comes to me saying how everything is working, so they might as well get to the important bit.
Daniel returned bearing a thumb-sized piece of clear crystal. After lifting it into the air for an inspection, he handed it over to me.
"I have to say, it was quite weird, seeing this thing appear under that bowl where nothing was before." He said, brown eyes still on the crystal resting in my open palm.
Once I got a feel for the weight, I placed it into my pocket.
"Oh?" I asked with a smile hidden under the brown face covering. "You weren't around when I sent your kin out with that one board?"
He shook his head.
"No, Lord mage. I was on the second run of the boat you gave us. Never sailed in something so solid, or that cut through water without so much as an oar or sail. And this crystal makes that happen?"
"Yes and no," I offered with a bounce of my head back and forth. "The crystal is made up mana, which is in the air. This is just those particles, condensed into a form that can be seen. They have an intermediary stage, strands, but my enchantments make it so you don't see that. And that's why it's important that the bowl be locked down properly."
Daniel gave me another light bow before handing over the page he had been scribbling on.
"The figures, sir."
I took it and scoured over the numbers.
"We've made good hauls with the boat. And barely a sweat broken doing it since we didn't have to row out. That alone has made the boys quite happy. They don't seem as keen on this fish farming idea, though."
"It's consistent. Something I thought a fisherman would appreciate." I said, handing the page back over. "I'll be bearing the expense for the fish feed and setting up the needed cage constructs. Trust me, when they see how easy farming self-contained fish populations is compared to being out on the ocean, they'll never recall these days with fondness."
Daniel chuckled as he folded the paper and slid it into his pants pocket.
"They trust you every time they walk into one of those big castles. I don't see why they wouldn't for this."
I blinked for a second before nodding. Right, that was what most called the apartment complexes.
"So," Daniel continued. "Will that crystal be enough?"
A stab of disgust hit me.
"I don't know," I responded, hiding the shame as best I could.
"We'll find the right way, just like everything else. I'm sure." Daniel put in with a bow.
I could only give him a slight nod before turning back.
Walking beside the giant grey wall with a freshly dampened mood, I could only put my hand in my pockets and stew. Electricity and load-bearing calculations were precise and consistent. For a long time, making this city involved a respectable amount of such things. Now, however, we were getting into the shameful parts.
Not having to endure that death run let me conduct a few experiments to get a better idea of what the overall mana demand was. Using mana gathering boards to condense crystals provided some numbers, as much as could be gleaned from measuring their weights, at least. The only thing I found was how consistently inconsistent the amounts were, even when used on the same spots at the same times of day.
Whatever was in this planet's core that spat out magic's fuel, it was closer to a roll of the dice than the steady principles of electricity. Some boards had their zone absorb more than thrice the amount of their neighbor, then tomorrow their fortunes would reverse, and every variance between. This pattern also didn't give any immediate insights into larger areas, with no waves or relations to be gleaned from the varying ounces of crystal.
That did nothing to lighten my disdain for the task at hand. How could any proper builder not know what could or could not be added? Pride objected to such sloppy planning and I was inclined to agree.
"The fishermen were given magical tools?"
I turned left to see the young guard's brown eyes looking downward in embarrassment. It was clear he didn't mean to have the question reach air.
"Yes." I offered as I started strolling forward. "The enchantments absorb mana to fuel their manipulation of water. Some of that is siphoned off to mana battery under a locked bowl. We have to be careful not to disrupt the mana flows to Crasden with our other sections. The ocean, however, has no demands for the blue specks. Once I get a good handle on how much can be brought in from the fishermen's boats, I can see which of the dozen other projects will get the crystals."
He nodded absentmindedly. The others were listening no less intently than the kid, though they kept it better hidden. A bite of his lower lip said more questions were waiting.
Walking alongside the grey wall towards the harbor gate, I thought it over. On any other day or time, I would dismiss such questions out of hand. Right now, the last thing I wanted to be thinking about was my shoddy work.
"Any other questions?" I asked, trying to sound inviting.
His lips sucked in for a second before he turned to me, unable to deny his inner thoughts.
"How does it work? The magic….Battery. And you said something about blue specks."
Magic wasn't scientific, but it did come with solid answers for these questions. Taking a deep breath, I mentally prepared the needed items before dispensing the lesson. Time seemed to pass us by even as we moved into traffic. What mana was, how it was absorbed, and the shapes used in enchantments were quickly covered.
I was vaguely aware of us only being halfway to the market when that section finished, so I went further into the human side of magic, how we used those same shapes for spells, and the importance of magical resources in growth. It was only when we reached the bridge that I finished explaining the importance of eating magical beasts and plants to a mage's growth, which seemed like a good spot to close the lesson.
"That…." The young guard wordlessly moved his mouth as we took our first steps up the right side of the bridge.
He wasn't the only one struck by revelation. Wide eyes, bit lips, and distant looks covered the two other men's faces.
"It's just shapes?" The burly one asked on my right. "The flames, the boulders coming from nothing, and storms….It's all just squares, circles, and triangles?"
"Connected by lines." I offered as we reached the peak of the bridge's arch.
"So how do you know whose shapes are stronger?" The veteran in the back asked with a youthful wonder his visage didn't support.
"Size, mostly. It's not really about the spell itself. It's about how many the mage can make without crippling themselves. And how much mana you have to work with."
As we came down the slope, the Main market, seemingly named so for its proximity to my home, revealed itself. There were eight square buildings in a grid pattern forming a large square on an open stone field. Every building stood at four floors, each plainly marked by the windows dotting the exterior. Far from standing alone, these were close enough that I was able to wrap each building in an open floor, though the top one had a large hole in the middle for light, which the floor below also sported, though its wound was smaller. These additions were, of course, reinforced with a wooden skeleton hardened to steel.
Beyond the main market were three main entry points aside from the bridge, with one directly ahead and others to the right and left. These were marked with three story high walls put in between the taller apartment complex walls, which otherwise boxed in the market. In the future, these would also bear large portcullises and some ballistae. For now, they were more nuisance than protection.
Not that any of the visitors ever complained. The noted absence of sewage or trash alone marked it superior to their previous slum. I had also placed slopes throughout the roads and floors, preventing the puddles that typically marred any street one would want to take back in Crasden.
Contrary to my expectations, it wasn't sanitation or solid walls that people seemed most enthused about. More than these, I got the sense it was the feeling of open space that the citizens of this new city really enjoyed. As we moved to the right, I spotted one of my more whimsical additions between the opposite and right entryways.
It was a wide open play area with three slides in the back, four sets of swings, a wooden castle in the middle, and a seesaw at each of the four corners. Mothers watch on the sidelines from benches, talking among themselves while their broods enjoyed running from one contraption to the next. As we passed by, a few spotted us and waved hello, which we all returned.
As we moved past the playground, I looked left to see my short-lived magical creations displayed on boxes. Fresh vegetables, ranging from carrots to potatoes to lettuce, were displayed by various vendors in the stalls lining the side of the market building. Having produce so fresh immediately after winter was something of a minor miracle to the residents of the north, and apparently a matter of some suspicion.
One older woman bearing a basket whose brown matched both her dress and hair was holding up a sprightly carrot. Her greyish eyes told of distrust as she inspected the vegetable, despite the firmness her squeezes no doubt confirmed. It was the tentative bite into the orange flesh that finally made her nod in satisfaction, a look contrasted by the merchant glowering at her.
Walking around towards the exit opposite the bridge, I noted several vacancies still present in the four-floor mall I had made. A sigh of relief came up my throat. No doubt some additions or even an underground expansion was in my future. Still, I should enjoy a project being finished, if only for a time.
As we approached the open gate, the older guard coughed somewhere behind me.
"How do you tell who can handle more spells?"
I bounced my head back and forth for a second.
"You can't. You can get a general idea of how powerful a mage is, which is mostly how many electric rat steaks they've eaten, from watching them fight or use magic in their daily lives. Aside from that, you don't really know who's stronger until rocks and flame start flying. It's all a great guessing game."
"Hmm."
We continued along in silence. After maneuvering around a large cart carrying barrels, our group came onto another open area. This one was more of a place between places, with only board roads leading out of and into three entrances in a similar style to the previous section, though smaller with its lack of buildings in the middle. I still managed to fit playgrounds and small benches in the corners, despite the squeeze between giants.
"So am I breathing in mana right now?" The young lad on the left asked, furrowing brown eyebrows.
"Yes," I responded as I took a left. In this particular moment, an absence of the blue specks conspired to make me a liar, but it was a generally true answer to the question. "You can't use them until you see them, however."
His puckering of lips made it clear he had some desire to reach the unknowable realm of mage-hood. Who didn't in this world? Sadly, it was a cruel thing, mostly determined by the time one turned ten. Thankfully, he didn't push the issue and I wasn't forced to cull any such notions.
Moving through the left entryway brought us into the clothing district, replete with tailors working long sheets of fabric and dyes being moved around and between another set of eight square buildings forming one big square. Perhaps it was a bit lazy to make every district mostly the same. But what was I to do? The design maximized space and allowed the greatest flow out into the surrounding apartments in case of an attack. If any felt slighted by the copy jobs, none made such a feeling known in earshot of me.
After a few more treks through other districts, including markets that were named more after local legends and memories of previous destinations in the slum, I got to the duo of towers near the main gate leading to Crasden. These were sturdy and tall by human standards, taller than most houses thrice over, at least. They also sported a ballista on top, and I knew from personal experience that they were well stocked with provisions and a forest of arrows waiting to taste flesh. These were the headquarters of the guard for 'Laperict city'. If I had suggested another name in times past, I had forgotten it and was content to bestow the citizens' naming rights.
What drew me here was the long tables under a wood roof off by the right apartment wall. Technically, meals could be eaten and cooked inside. Good luck doing so when dozens of messenger boys needed to get through at any one time. Instead, this picnic area with its attending stoves and full baker's oven further to the right served and made meals for the men overseeing the city, including the one who made it.
I took my regular spot on the rightmost table. This routine had been so established that everyone knew to not bother me, save for the brunette bearing a tray of steak and light beer from the kitchen. A hearty, downright indulgent breakfast. But….The cold and all that work I did weeks ago. Self-assurances of how deserving I was were plied alongside the seared cow.
After the meal, I thanked the server and went about the rest of the day's work near the gate to Crasden. The top of the three-floor-high outer walls was sprinkled with more ballistae and even catapults. For my purposes, it was the elevator system to the top beside the gate that drew me. The construction was simple, a wooden platform with four pairs of backside wheels following deep grooves and strong ropes above for lift. Like the elevators, this was fit with a brake system that would engage if a drop of liquid mercury in a long wooden pill near the wheels touched the top, say from a sudden descent far beyond what the pulley system would allow.
Such things still fell on death ears for some, thus the added staircase further to the left going up the three floors. For me and mine, the convenient route was taken. When we got to the top of the wall, I went left towards the section facing the empty plain of jagged rock.
Quivers with spare arrows, horns, and rocks for tossing on attackers dotted the upper wall now semi-encased in a stone half oval. It was mostly wood hardened to steel strength but a paper thin exterior of stone helped prevent fires. There were too many open spots for archers and clear sight lines to say it was a long bunker resting on top of these walls. That didn't mean the men were any less impressed when the new addition held firm from a thrown boulder launched by one of the apartment block's catapults.
Another solid two minutes of walking went on before my station finally revealed itself. A simple desk and chair, with only a map, a candle saucer, and various bits of mana crystal strewn about the map. Looking them over, I began putting the pieces of mana crystal against rulers, with the ones around the black wooden coins dotting the map getting the most attention. These spots represented several boards made to suck every last blue fleck out of a spot.
The distribution of mana was random, but when it reached the air, whatever amount was made had predictable patterns of movement. That meant a zone sucked dry of mana could be established at such a distance that it wouldn't disturb Crasden's portion even at the land's lowest bounty. There hadn't been a discussion of provisioning the local mana outside our domains, and avoiding that friction was top priority. An opportunity for more mana demanded by a good dozen projects.
Feeling like I was closing in on a good arrangement, I adjusted the black wooden coins on the map to have the next shift of workers see the map and go out into the field to make said changes. Once the shuffling was finished, I turned back to the elevator before going about my usual inspections on the ground level. The sewers weren't blocked up, greenhouses were churning out food at a heady rate, and the town hall near the center of the city was getting its last few bits of input from the local leaders jotted down. While the design used in the other districts was more space efficient, this building was going to be a more communal space as it would serve as the central discussion area for regulations or issues too mundane for my hands.
As the sky turned orange, I came back to my personal domain on the river. Nodding to the men in the guard post, I waited by the down drawbridge as men inspected the house for waiting intruders, a new practice Kev had insisted on and one I wasn't entirely against. Once the three guards came out with a nod, as they always did, I went across. For what felt like the first time all day, I heard my footsteps echo in near dead silence, save the river's ever-present gushing.
Lunch and dinner had already been eaten, leaving the last bit of the day's work in my bedroom. Technically. Once I closed the main door behind me, I slapped the light panel on the right, illuminating the cave in flames glow from a mana lamp in the ceiling. Taking off my face covering, I went through the door on the left, then the one on the right. Laying the cloth mask on the wardrobe to the left of the door, I took a deep breath and moved below the bed in front of me.
Finding the false floor was so routine it barely entered my thought process. The prospect of the next few hours didn't weigh any less heavily for it. Lifting the stone floor to reveal the hole, I moved under the bed butt-first. My right foot immediately found the wooden ladder, allowing me to begin my descent. I passed the alcove where the radio rested as I made my way two hundred and fifty feet into unfeeling earth.
When my foot finally hit stone, I turned around to see the door to the tunnel leading into the underground meeting room for our discussions with the orc church. I then moved to the left towards a deep gouge in the stone. It's top sported shafts of wood to help make up for the loss in structural integrity. This future room was directly under a river, after all. The mana lamp above provided enough light to let me work, the wooden panel on the left connected by a leather cord going up meant I'd hear the doorbell, and I was out of excuses.
Molding rock was rather easy with magical crafts. Moving it up the ladder so I could grind it up before sending it down my toilet wasn't. Sadly, caution demanded the 'art pieces' be assembled upstairs then made whole down in the rat's nest. Taking up one of the boards on the right, I took a deep breath and got to work.
It wasn't the good old days of the death march making the city. That didn't mean this late teen-early twenties body wasn't feeling the strain on the third trip. Walking past the ladder for my fourth excavation run, I raised the board for another round against the stone.
*Ping*
Trepidation shot up my spine, growing in contrast to the dying chime. No one would dare press that doorbell this late, even if they thought I was still awake. Not unless the city was under attack or some other disaster was at hand.
Dropping the board without another thought, I sprinted back to the ladder and scrambled up it with a shot of adrenaline. An absent thought to check my clothes made me look down to the brown pants and white shirt. Dirt free. Worn, but my activity wouldn't be guessed. I summoned an earth-pulling spell around me as I worked my way up, sending whatever few bits of dirt may have escaped my inspection down below.
When I saw the underside of my bed, I crawled forward like a desperate seal, smacking my foot on the bed frame as a reward for such lacking grace. Ignoring the pain, I fixed the false floor back in place before moving to the bedroom door. It took me nearly forgetting to don the face covering for me to slow down. Once I was decent, the door was pulled open.
I sprinted to the left and out the dining room door. The room was fully illuminated by the ceiling mana lamp, leaving me a clear path to the main door on the right. It took a second to get close enough to grasp the handle. Another to mentally prepare enough to pull it.
A starry sky left almost everything outside in shadows, which the three red leathered guards in front of the door remedied with two torches on the sides. In the center was Kev, his face a kind of pale cold didn't cause. His brown mustache and beard couldn't hide his bit lip, nor did his thin nose and cheeks hide the nervous air about him. His brown eyes were downcast as he cleared his throat. It took another second before he looked up to meet my gaze.
"Sir, an incident occurred at the Sailor's Pouch. It's a tavern, favored by dock workers. A family-run affair, typical thing."
I tried not to let irritation show. Judging by how he suddenly took a deep breath, I failed.
"A mage by the name Orios had too much drink. Him and his compatriots. They….They raped the tavern keeper's daughter, sir. Right in the serving area."
Attention now fully engaged, I took a proper step outside, pulling the door shut behind me.
"With witnesses?" I asked.
"Several, my lord."
"And you want me to ask for a judge to come expedite things?"
His brown eyebrows furrowed.
"A….No. It's the mother, lord. She's come to plead her case."
I looked past him to see what I thought were onlookers. Some were, though one pair, a red guard and a woman, were standing by the guard post under a torch lamp. She wore a plain brown dress over her medium frame and a cloth cap on a bun of black hair. Placing her as the unfortunate mother was easy, considering the tears coming down her green eyes that reached all the way past her puffy cheeks to her stubby chin.
"She wants the mage….Punished."
I gave Kev a raised eyebrow before moving past him to the duo. As I stepped onto the drawbridge, the woman suddenly shot forward, slowing only when she came within a few feet. I could barely make out the woman's face in the darkness. That didn't stop me from noticing her figure dropping to the ground to lie prostrate before me.
"Lord," She said, forcing the word past a pained sob. "Please…. If you would."
"Margret!" Kev exclaimed from behind me. He immediately moved to her side, trying to lift her up by her left arm.
"Please, Lord." The woman cried as she fought Kev's pull. "Please expel him."
I raised my eyebrows at her, though neither party saw the expression.
"Expel?" I asked, trying to not sound too confused.
"A mother's grief, Lord Tilvor." Kev implored with a pleading look to the woman.
The captain of the guard gave the woman another tug as gently as his muscular frame would allow. His reward was a wretched sob as she pulled herself back down to remain prone. This time, her dress protested with a loud rip from the shoulder. Instead of complaining about her garments' ruin, the woman put her head back at my feet.
"She did not want it. It is a gift, I know, great mage. But the girl is not a few months past her first bleeding…. Please…."
Kev finally released the woman, deciding to stand beside the two of us. His bit lower lip said he was nervous about these proceedings. If his harried brown eyes silently pleading with me didn't already convey as much. He was also seemingly oblivious to my confusion. As was the small crowd growing in the background, for that matter.
"As far as I am aware," I said, the dead silence making the words sound louder than I intended. "The punishment for rape is death. Have the facts of this case been well established?"
Furrowed brown eyebrows were Kev's first answer. Even the mother pulled herself off the drawbridge, looking up at me with a confused look.
"The case?" Kev mused idly for a moment. "Yes."
"Good. Now fetch the executioner. While you're getting him, I won't deny a man his day in court. Let's see what Orios has to say in his defense."
I continued to stare at Kev, who stood like a statue. A second of dead silence passed before he nodded to the other guard on the right. That guard also took a second before taking off past the shack towards the main bridge.
It was having to work around the mother still on the floor and a rather slow Kev that saw me follow the guard several feet behind. I only just got out of arm's reach when the mother shot up. She moved with the red leathered men who similarly followed me like ducklings.
When we arrived at the crossroads of the bridge, Kev apparently found some courage as he walked up to my left.
"Sir, such a display is certain to dissuade future incidents." He stated with a voice trying to be careful in spite of the anger simmering beneath. "But to stoke such nonsense in a grieving mother….Is quite a cruel thing."
I stopped and turned to him. The torch now in his hand illuminated a stony face barely hidden by a brown beard and mustache. His accusing gaze didn't change the fact that I was more confused than anything else.
He knew I was plowing an orc, did he not?
….
But that wasn't the same as saying mages were to be treated the same as magic-less humans. Thinking it over, I suppose one could assign my previous generosity to the workers here as the charity one shows for their pets. Or maybe this was a cultural rule I was running headlong against. Whatever my views or deeds, mages simply didn't get punished for crimes against those without magic.
Unlike in the Coalition.
Bile rose in my throat. This Orios better have a phenomenal conspiracy to spin when I get there. Anything less and his neck was going to be spoken of in past tense, if not for rape then for the fact that he forced me to praise that wretched nation.
"I made no exceptions for mages."
Kev furrowed his eyebrows in disbelief. Content to let his skepticism run its natural course, I turned away towards the harbor market. Minutes of walking eventually got me to the gate leading towards the harbor. The market, however, was through the left entry. Before I even went through it, I could see various passerby lounging near the benches beside the empty gate wall. They all looked towards the center where the eight square buildings lay.
The tavern in question was in the outer corner of the right corner building, an insight gleamed from both the guards waiting by its door leading out onto the street and the fact that it was the only one whose windows still had light pushing back against black night. Letting a cloud loose through the cloth face covering, I decided on a course of action.
This was a mage I was dealing with. So killing the local mana was the first priority, sealing them in would be the second. Both seemed to have the same solution if there wasn't anyone caught in the crossfire. As I approached one of the two guards by the door, I noticed two figures off to the left of the building, hidden from the meager starlight beneath the open walkway.
A man clutched a smaller girl, about mid-teens, against his chest. The mother running from behind me told of who the duo was, if the red stains on the backside of the girl's lower dress didn't make it clear enough.
"Is there anyone else in there besides this Orios mage?" I called to the mother.
She stopped for a second before spinning in place. Her face still told of some disbelief. That didn't stop her from shaking her head.
"We got everyone out. Ours is a drinkers' spot, no beds."
Without another word or the typical groveling, she turned back to her family and ran into them. I turned right towards Kev.
"Have whatever bows or spears at hand ready to fly. Mages are dangerous, as I'm sure you very well know. If they make any move I tell them not to, kill them on the spot."
He looked dubious at such a command, yet he went back to the guards following us all the same. I motioned the two men in front of the door to move back, a command they sprinted to obey. Once they were finished, I took a deep breath, not of air but mana. Whatever organ in my throat was sucking in the blue specks ambling about, it was pushed to its limit before I quickly formed a large earth spell. The door had a window to its left, though not far enough away to escape the stone wall I pulled over it.
If anyone inside noticed, their voices couldn't penetrate. Running around the other side, I heard male voices from inside.
"What?!" A man yelled, sounding tipsy yet with enough mental faculties to still be cogent. It didn't help him as I sucked in more of the mana to block the last window around the bend.
Their main exits now cut off, faint thumping emanated from both fresh stone walls. People with brains might try the chimney, a feature I knew this section didn't have. For the last task, I sucked in more mana and formed stone blocks about the size of a man. It took far longer than it would back in the Coalition, but the blue specks eventually disappeared on the fourth block.
Coming around the front, I used the last few specks to form a finger-sized hole through the fresh stone blocking the window by the door.
"All right." I announced from beside the hole, "We have some accusations to discuss, Orios."
"That little sow?" An unsteady voice answered from the hole. "That's what this is about? She got a kingly gift. Took some squealing and fussing, but she's gotten a chance to bear greatness. One few of her station ever get."
"No gratitude, these louts," Another man expounded.
"I don't know, you were a bit rough with her ass."
Laughter greeted the jest.
Well, I suppose I should be grateful they saved me the effort in reaching a verdict. Using the last bits of mana, I closed the hole. Turning around, I saw what I assumed to be the father standing by Kev and four other guards.
The thin man had a tanned head with a bald cap around a ring of light brown hair. His white shirt had a brown stain on its left shoulder, while the cream colored pants were clean. Those grey eyes had a far-off look, an aspect that got worse when he looked to the right, where his wife and daughter were still standing under the walkway.
"Do any of you know what the mage's element was?"
"He….Uh….," The father struggled in a raspy voice. "He dropped some water on himself earlier and made a show of taking it off with a spell."
"Well, he outright confessed, as did his companions. There are no other exits, so we can just wait and listen to pounding on stone when they realize what's happening. Have the guards ready around the perimeter. They may not suffocate peacefully."
Kev furrowed his eyebrows again. However, it was the father who grew a little pale.
"Lord Tilvor. If…. If the mage should be killed on our….I'm not ungrateful…."
But executing them on your property could get your entire family killed in reprisals.
I couldn't let rapists walk and maintain order. I was also a scion, so it was best if they were clearly killed under my direction. It appears we'll have to go through this whole dance instead of idling outside for an hour.
"Kev, put the men around the main door."
This time, he did as he was bidden. Once the guards formed dual lines by the door while three archers waited a stone's throw away, I sucked in more mana. Sadly, I proved too effective in my previous efforts and had to go off near the gate to suck in more blue speck. When the stone manipulation spell was ready, I stood a dozen or so feet to the left of the main door and pulled the fresh stone down to only three feet high to expose the wooden walls and candlelight still flickering inside.
"Orios," I called to the door as I put up a water wall in front of me. "You and your friends are going to come out in a single row with your hands in the air. If any of you fail to do that simple task, the last thing you'll ever see in this world is an arrowhead coming uncomfortably close. Understand?"
Some irate grumbling came through before the men did. The first one out was a man in iron-plated armor that covered his head, chest, and legs, though nothing else protected his upper half save a white shirt. The metal had a paint job sporting bright blues and whites in stripes along its chest, though the rest only got blue edges.
Any semblance of professionalism or skill on his part was undone by the messy attempt to get over the three-foot wall. The attempt of which saw him trip on the exit and land on his back. I thought he might be the mage due to the colors matching water, but I discarded the idea when the next man came through with the same armor, white shirt, and brown pants. Mages were too pretentious to ever wear a uniform, and the last of the five men confirmed that notion.
He was a mid-thirties man somewhere north of pudgy but south of brawny, with a full brown beard and mustache. Any other hair was covered by a plush blue cap inlaid with gold lines. This design showed in the rest of his clothes, with his shoulders sporting puffy blue silk inlaid with yet more gold lines. This color scheme was copied to his pants, though the sapphire at his belt buckle showed at least one difference in his lower half. All this blue on his person contrasted with the red splotching his cheeks from an apparent mix of anger and drink. A feature that made me prepare another lungful of mana.
His men followed my instructions, standing in as straight a line as their unsteady movements could manage as their hands reached to the stars. Orios decided to simply push through his guards, lips puckered sour and green eyes indignant. His mouth opened, then closed when a water wall sprang up between us. The gears in his head turned, apparently just dry enough from the ale to understand who was standing a dozen feet from him surrounded by guards.
"What is the meaning of this?" He demanded in a sultry tone.
Between the cold night and the fact that his skull lacked the promised shaft of wood, heat came up my neck. Something I tried to keep out of my voice.
"The rules of the city are plain. If good sense wasn't enough already. You have committed rape, in full view of witnesses and admitted as much."
I expelled the mana into a spell construct. The dimensions weren't precise, and the distance made it harder to judge, but the stone slab formed around his neck then hands with good enough precision. His green eyes bulged in surprise, as did the crowd of onlookers hanging back several feet from the exciting event.
"The punishment is death," I announced, using another spell to pull the stone block down and force him to his knees.
"What on the City's soil are you-"
His words stalled when I molded the restraint into a stockade fused with the lower stone. Indignant sputtering wafted up from the man, though not loud enough to block the footsteps coming behind me. I turned to see the guard I had bid to fetch the executioner and a large man in a dark grey shirt and black pants that matched the mask he wore. To complete the look, a rather large ax with a flat blade stood tall in his right hand.
"That was rather fast. Not that I'm complaining."
The guard shrugged, his green eyes looking at the water mage before turning back to me.
"The executioner has since taken up residence here. His contract with Crasden doesn't state that he must reside in his city of work."
"Excellent!" I announced with a smile and sweeping arm to Orios. "Now, if you would, as an official enforcer of the law, carry out your profession's namesake on this one, then his companions."
Blue eyes in the black hood still showed in the torchlight, perfectly displaying their confusion as they beheld the trapped mage.
"Is….That a ma-"
"HA!"
I turned towards the damned resting in the stockade, who was now regarding the men around him and me with amusement tinged with anger.
"This charade around an errant sow is quite amusing. But my men are crafter mages and jokes sour with *hic* time. What I do not find amusing is this suggestion that my gift would be refused by such lowly dogs. The mere suggestion is one that I find quite insulting. Perhaps we could call your time spent coming down here an even *hic* purchase."
Orios stating his blue armored guards had magical ability made mine sheepishly pull back. Perhaps it was that carefree tone or the captives lowering their arms despite no orders to do so being given. Whatever source or combination thereof, my teeth were clenching as I felt northern cold blast around from whatever bits of my face and neck it had been previously sparing. That didn't mean I could let such feelings loose. Official proceedings and all that.
"Executioner," I announced without letting Orios out of my sight. "For what are you paid?"
A cough behind me was the first answer.
"Death." He stated simply.
"And at the direction of the current holder of power. I am the sovereign lord of this city, by right of law, royal favor, and the mountain I'll drop on anyone's head who says otherwise. Per the agreement of our laws, I command you to chop his head off." I finished with a long breath, trying not to let rising anger come too cleanly through.
"He is a mage, lord," the unseen man said, sheepish tone unblemished by any attempt at concealment.
My fists clenched.
"Aye," Orios said, now sounding more angry than amused. "It lowers both our stations to keep this theater going, Lord….Tilvor. Tell me what you actually want."
I took a deep breath, then looked him in the eyes.
"I want you dead."
Green irises met mine. After a second, they went wide as sweat formed at his brow. Any lingering amusement in those jade pools melted away at what they saw in mine. Contrary to the theater he thought he had been pulled into, the props were genuine, the actors spoke without masked intent, and the specter of death was far closer than previously estimated.
Orios jerked against his stone shackles like a stuck pig, sending the blue cap to the floor to reveal a messy forest of brown hair. All the while, his lips desperately sucked at mana no longer available, in between animal squeals. This display made the onlookers, including his own companions, jolt back in fear of whatever legendary magic he was summoning. Fingers, manicured to an almost shiny perfection, scraped against grey rock, ignoring both northern cold and the chips forming on nails. Stone, however, yielded him no reward for such efforts.
Realizing the extent of his situation, rage returned twice over. Red splotched his face as another rounding of writhing took him. Perhaps for the first time in his life, he was feeling true fear. And not dealing with it very well, in my opinion. I took a breath to relay as much to the executioner, along with another rebuke when something finally came out of his mouth besides feral growls.
"For a fucking sow?! All of my…. Gone for the sake of some slut who should be grateful to even taste my cock, no matter which lips?" He spat from between clenched teeth.
If I didn't need to keep my eyes on Orios, I would be tempted to look at the family's reaction. Then the water mage bared his teeth like an animal, green eyes full of defiance.
"Perhaps I'll show your family the proper meaning of gratitude. Huh? Make your wife and daughters a good time for me and my men?"
The long night pricked, his unrepentant rape made decency rage, and now this fuc-
….
Anger bled out as northern cold slipped beneath my skin.
Five enemies.
Pull stone up through neck.
Four enemies. One running away. Pause extermination of runner.
Stone shard through neck.
Three enemies. One running into range. Sword raised. Too close.
Stone brick upward through left elbow. Stone knife summoned. Cut from lower rub through stomach. Disemboweled. Stone shard through neck.
Two enemies.
Enemy readied bow. Arrow approximately quarter pound. Ten inches long. Notched. Calculating arrival time…. Caught. Fling into left jugular.
One enemy. Running beyond gate. Calculating. Stone shard launched.
Stone shard into skull.
No enemies. No enemies.
The sharp metal tang of blood filled my nostrils, courtesy of the red splotches staining my shirt and hands.
"Oh shit!" Kev squealed somewhere behind me.
I was facing near the tavern door, bodies of the damned lying at my feet. Turning in place revealed shocked onlookers, the closest of which were red leathered guards whose attire my clothes now mostly matched. A few were still looking at the bodies staining the stone crimson with their life's spent essence.
"Did he catch an arrow?" A voice from the crowd called.
Looking beyond the guards, I saw rows of onlookers bearing the clothing of work and everyday strolling. Evidently, this incident had prompted quite a few out of bed to see the spectacle. Save the mothers trying to get their broods away from the scene, a sea of wide eyes and open mouths greeted me. For my part, it was the two pairs belonging to Kev and the executioner that I felt needed my immediate attention.
None of the guards or onlookers dared get in my way as I stalked up to the duo. The two men immediately went rigid, taking in deep breaths like rabbits watching a wolf approach. Ignoring the sticky heat on my chest would be harder if its source didn't emphasize what I was about to say.
"I gave orders. Orders that by every law should have been obeyed. Said laws give me the right to have all of you executed for insubordination."
I turned to let the other guards know these words applied to them before looking back to Kev and the executioner. Both of them were now looking at their feet, not daring to so much as breathe.
"Probably. But I'm tired, and my back just isn't as agreeable as it used to be. So, you lot are going to help me drag these bodies to the wall outside the harbor, then to the road leading to Crasden as punishment. Agreed?"
"Yes." Both men squeaked out, nodding their heads in agreement at the word.
I stepped to the side and stretched my right arm invitingly towards the bodies. This time, the guards didn't hesitate, running forward with such abandon that the executioner left his ax to slam onto the ground.
"We'll need at least three carts." One of the guards near the tavern called. Looking at the spilled entrails littering one of the corpses, I nodded in agreement.
None dared approach me, leaving me to idle on the road to the gate with crossed arms and a water spell working the blood out of my clothes. As several of the red guards ran off to retrieve the needed equipment, I scanned around until I looked to the right of the tavern door, where the poor family whose misery started this affair stood.
They were a bit hard to see at this distance, even with the light of their shop shining over their backsides. I wanted to say the daughter looked conflicted. She was looking between the dead bodies, sporting a light frown without the previous sobbing. It was hard to get a steady reading of her emotions as she was jostled about by her mother, Margret. Tears streamed down the older woman's cheeks, though the beaming smile on her slightly pudgy face gave them a different impression than their predecessors. While the mother waved her hand back and forth to me like a cheer, the father used both his arms to steady himself against the tavern wall as he sent the day's meals onto the stone floor. I returned Margret's gesture with a nod before going back to cleaning.
When the men came back with three carts, things, finally, started moving. A few of the men pushed the stunned crowd back while the rest hoisted bodies between them and into one of the wooden boxes on wheels. Orios got one to himself, out of respect for his station. His companions only merited going two to each ride. For my part, I took a torch that one of the men pulling a cart was going to give to his fellows.
Our procession ready, we walked under the open gateway we had come through. No traffic barred the way this time or on the left turn towards the entry leading to the harbor. The walk to the main outer gate just before entering the harbor proper was also lacking in the delays and nuisances that had marred our morning outing.
The men, both on the wall and accompanying me, didn't have any idea what we were doing, judging by their faces and curious looks they gave me. One of them was currently leaning on the top of the wall above the gate, putting his torch outward as he tried to parse our cargo. As we came up to the now down portcullis, I took a deep breath of chill night.
"I am lord Tilvor. Let us pass." I yelled to the top of the wall.
The watchmen who had been leaning on the walls side suddenly jerked upward. After a second of checking I was indeed who I said I was, he pulled a lever beside him. A slow grind of gears followed the slab of wood's slow rise into the air. Safety protocols stated no one was to go under while the portcullis was in motion. A rule I followed until the gears finally stopped their song.
Wheels grinded on stone behind me as I took an immediate left. Three more steps and I stopped before sucking in mana. Stone was summoned from thin air to form a small standing signpost a foot away from the wall. Using a small manipulation spell, I carved the words: 'Laws apply to all; MAGES GET NO EXCEPTIONS' into it.
All that was left was the main decoration. I turned around and beckoned the man with Orios's open casket to me. The severed head was fit onto a spike beside the signpost while the rest of his person was left to rest on a tree bearing upward branches to cradle what would eventually become bones. Fitting the cap on the cold head, I nodded in satisfaction at my work before turning back to the harbor gate.
For a while, our group meandered through the city towards Crasden. Some grumbling occasionally escaped my lips courtesy of sore feet and cold skin. If the men agreed with such sentiment, they didn't let so much as a huff escape to make it known. Coming to the section with the duo towers watching the gate to Crasden, we got more than a few askance looks from passing guards. None stopped us, either out of deference to my presence or from the vigorous hand waves away by Kev. When we came up to the portcullis, I looked up to the man responsible for watching both sides.
"Open it up," I commanded.
This time, the pulling of the lever was immediate. Once we got through, I gave Orios's four guards the same treatment he got, though they were forced to share a single sign of warning. Once we were back behind the main gate, I stood in front of the men who accompanied me on this journey, including the executioner still wearing his black mask.
"You've all fought during the battle with the pirates. If not for that, I might be tempted to ask if you'd ever stand up to anyone meaning harm who bears magic. So, I'm willing to forget this night and its….Incidents of insubordination."
All their heads shook, though it was only Kev, standing on the front left of his men, who spoke.
"I don't think anyone, save you, is going to forget this night, my lord."
I nodded with a smile the face covering blocked.
"Good, that will spare me the mental resources to do so."
I gave the men a nod before heading back home. The rest of the trip was spent on autopilot, sending me to the bedroom without any real thought besides how eager I was to get to bed. Once I found myself in the square stone room, I almost went directly to bed. Instead, I shimmied under the promise of a nights rest and retrieved the radio from beneath the false floor. Sitting on the bed, I brought the box to my head and pressed the button on the side.
"Eli, reporting in."
"Durka responding. I have some big news the base was left with from the….The airship watching Jeff. Finished."
I furrowed my eyebrows at the wardrobe, shaking my head as I did so. Drenches and droughts and nothing in between. Steadying myself with a deep breath, I forced myself to press the button.
"Let's hear it. Finished." I sighed into the metal mesh.
"There's a queen in the south. Real special lady. Anyway, she has ships made of black….Metal, maybe. Hides in the clouds. They seem to occasionally do something to the radio's. Makes them send this weird sound out of the mesh that keeps any words from getting through. Whooshing, I think is what they described it as."
A chill ran up my spine, something my blood didn't fight as it went cold. Drench? This was a biblical flood.
"Occasionally?" I whispered into the radio.
"It happened twice. Possibly. The radios didn't work at seemingly random times. Finished."
My eyebrows furrowed as my mind came fully awake with a surge of adrenaline not even killing those wretches could match.
"That's not supposed to turn off and on. Finished."
"You know what it is? They thought it might be an air enchantment or something. Finished."
"No. I mean, yes, I know what it is, but air enchantments don't affect radio waves."
Ordering my thoughts, I took a second before releasing the lesson.
"Back in my universe, it's a common practice in war zones to cover the area in a disturbance in the local dark energy. This involves a lot of electricity and a concentration of sadi energy derived from putting certain gasses under intense magnetic fields, mostly hydrogen gas. The reward is that anyone who can't feed their own device more power can't use radios. Finished."
"But you still can? Finished." Durka interrupted.
"Yes. You keep a very specific band of the radio frequency spectrum free from the field's influence. More advanced models will shift this every few nanoseconds to keep the enemy from somehow discovering which channels can be used. If you have the home team advantage, that almost always means the enemy will have to use light beams or quantum entangled transmissions, but these have their own issues. Finished."
"I don't believe that applies to anyone here. Finished."
"To my knowledge, it doesn't." I mused mostly to myself. I leaned back against the wall, trying to figure out what was going on.
If you were worried about another ultimate mage coming in and implementing radios in a struggle against your position, you were giving yourself away by blocking the area. Not to mention the power demands. Well, the power could be supplied by a device similar in nature to my own power sources, a gift this woman in the south clearly didn't share, along with the radio. Rodring was long dead, of course. So either these were relics or he left behind the means to replicate these devices in a manner similar to my own method back at the base.
"Hm," I offered the empty room.
The people working my inventions mostly didn't know how their science-based tools worked, no matter how many times I explained it. Rodring would have an exponentially harder time explaining dark matter and its applications.
….
Assuming he knew of such things.
There were a lot of people who didn't understand anything about the technology they spent their lives around. Most, if they ever constructed anything, went off auto-blueprints which fed them step-by-step instructions through their eye-sensors without ever being sidetracked by the whys and hows. Given Rodring almost certainly came into this universe with his AI chips and neural connector, he probably made a commercial radio or the magical means to manufacture such. Those had the capability to block consumer grade radios and were common enough to have blueprints available to low-level manufacturers who, more often than not, didn't actually understand why what they were building worked or how.
It was shoddy work. Did the corporations ever care as long as their facilities still ran?
No. And neither did those making them.
A warm buzz of satisfaction filled my heart. A lingering disdain for the man I never met had lingered since I first saw that abomination of a tower back in Crasden. Getting to know another person and growing in your understanding of their all too human condition was nice, but knowing you had their measure from the very first? Even better.
With a small grin, I pressed the button on the wooden block's side.
"I don't think they know their radios are blotting out others when they use them. Rodring probably made radios from back in my universe and included the protective bits because he didn't know enough to separate them. Finished."
"I can't say I understand anything about how my voice gets to you through this box, so I can sympathize. What does this mean for us? Finished."
I bit my lower lip in concentration as I perused the stone wall.
"Make sure to tell every airship crew about this so they don't panic if one of the ships swings by. Most importantly, don't go anywhere near this woman's place. They probably don't have anything handed down from Rodring that could detect us considering Jeff was allowed to walk, but they may have something else nasty we inadvertently draw attention from. Or they do have the means, and we got lucky that they didn't have it on. Finished."
"And if Jeff should have to go again, excuses be damned? Finished."
I bit my lower lip as I stared at the grey stone wall.
The mage brothers were our weakest link, in terms of loyalty. Asking either to have a poison pill ready in case of capture would result in a yes. Would they ever actually bite down on the promised death? No.
Andrew was acting purely in self-interest, and Jeff was a young buck in the midst of a heady affair, depression over past love lost notwithstanding. Right now, their loyalty was being maintained by the inevitable public execution that awaited them should we be exposed. Asking for an early suicide would only strain relations for no real benefit.
"This woman's black, possibly metal ships. Did they glide at the same height as ours? Finished."
"No. They were quite a bit below, from what the message the pilot left at the base said. It was the only reason they were spotted, apparently. Finished."
"If Jeff goes down, we all do. Next time he has to go, send three or four ships. In the event of being found out, silencing any mouths that might have spread our secret is the only option. Finished."
"Understood. Another bit of news is that Salamede is currently in Crasden. A long slog of trade discussion. She'll be by late tomorrow, in fact. She also said to be prepared. Finished."
I took a deep breath, unable to keep a smile off my face. Thank you, God, for those kelton refugees introducing us in official terms. A man of my supposed age would have no end of need for a healing mage, and the leader of a rapidly expanding population would require consistent visits to get crafts from a plant mage.
"I will be. Finished."
"Finished."
I gave the day one final stretch before commencing its end. Placing the radio back, washing up, tossing away bloodied clothes, and getting in bed with no lights all happened in the same routine they always did. As did the true void when my head hit the pillow.