The magical signature crept up on all of them, starting so low that it was felt as nothing more than a vague sense of unease. But as the fire grew, so did the magic and once the flakes began to fall out of the sky, the vast fiery cloud above them was obvious for all to see, despite hiding amongst the choking black smoke, raining streaks of magic down onto the hapless city below.
The flakes drifted and fluttered downwards, winking and blinking as they fell. Cato raised a hand, feeling the heat radiating off them on his palm, distinct from the smaller closer fires of the burning slums around them. Beyond the fire, downwind from them, a new conflagration licked the sky as buildings torched under the storm of fiery rain. The sole consolation was that the flakes were mostly drifting northward, directly away from Minmay city.
The Guards stopped moving, retreating silently from the fire. Not even the sergeant was shouting any encouragement. What could anyone say to that? The cloud above was vast and unstoppable. The extinguishing the fires of the burning oil factory seemed like puny accomplishment, washed away under the calamity that would befall them if the flakes began rain on them too.
"No. "
Cato looked down, an empty shovel still gripped in his hand. Landar mumbled again, "no. "
"What can we do?" he asked. What indeed? There was no way to fight that thing. Whatever it was that was raining fire magic onto Minmay city.
"What can we do?" Landar growled, whipping around to stare at Cato. He stared into her eyes, wild and desperate as they were. "Something! Anything!" she shouted, beginning to draw looks from the guards around them, "are we just going to let Minmay burn down now?!"
The frozen streaks of ground in front of them were already melting, but the fire was dying already. Most of the slum buildings in the fire zone had been consumed by now and those at the border sputtered and smoldered where fuel remained. The ash-blackened street and acrid wood smoke layered on everything like a thick coat even as they shivered in the chilly air rising off the deep frozen ground.
Landar turned back towards the fire, "it doesn't change what we have to do. Cut firebreaks. Stall with water or the cannon. We fight the fire where we can. "
"In case you haven't noticed," Cato pointed up at the giant magical cloud in the sky, "that thing is raining fire on Minmay city. How are we going to put out the fire when fire is literally raining out of the sky!"
Landar bit her lip and shook her head, "I don't know. But I do know that it is magic. And magic can be fought with magic. Take the spell cannon, you should have seen enough to know how to use it by now. "
She stepped away from the cannon and began to build a spell above her. She poured her power into it without restraint, without care for reserves or any of the usual niceties of magical combat. Just what an Iris was trained to do.
Cato looked down at the cannon and found the two crystal shovelers looking at him expectantly. He smiled wryly. "We do what we can huh? Sergeant!" the man jumped and looked at Cato questioningly, as if startled out of a trance. "We've won here, we should move to another area," Cato said, looking around pointedly.
The sergeant nodded and assigned a runner to report to Minmay before organizing the guards into squads again.
"Can you bring that with you?" Cato asked Landar. She was closing her eyes now, the ball of magic shining brightly in her hands.
She opened her eyes and fired the spell. The dense ball rocketed into the sky and burst into a shower of disruptive magic. The cloud barely rippled. Landar snarled, "we need more magic. You go on ahead, I'll try to rally the knights. "
Without waiting for Cato's reply, she dashed back down the street towards the city center.
Aware that the guards were all looking at him, Cato shrugged and started packing up the spell cannon's rods, "let's move on. "
----------------------------------------
"I wonder if he'll let me buy him a drink," Parsee muttered as they jogged along slowly. Not fast enough to tire them out, but not as slow as a walk.
Her squadmate clipped her helmet with a gloved hand. "Hey, what was that for?" she complained.
"Parsee getting ideas again," John sighed as the woman in front of them glanced back curiously.
"I can hear her, you know?" Rache chortled, "at least we women know she won't ever be a rival. "
"What do you mean?" John asked.
"You were talking about Cato just now, right Parsee?" Rache said, still jogging forwards.
Parsee nodded and grinned, "a mage at the university! I heard them talking about him. " The rumour mongers of the squad needed no identifying. "Just thinking about how much money he must be earning makes me shiver," she somehow managed to wriggle and jog at the same time, "and he'll be gentle and clever and..."
John couldn't resist hitting her helmet again. "Stop that," he scowled, "you're creeping me out again. "
"You see, John, she's always going after someone far above her," Rache shrugged, "and then she'll be disappointed again. Cato is not just any mage, Parsee. Rumour has it that he's a professor of the university, with personal connections to the chancellor himself. Can you really win against the nobles and rich merchant daughters?"
Parsee frowned then perked up, "you never know until you try!"
John could only sigh at her perpetual enthusiasm. He would find her crying on his shoulder tonight, no doubt.
Rache in front of them could only sigh.
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The ex-war room was gloomy. A map of Minmay was half draped over the cafeteria table, covered with drawings and arrows. All of that lay abandoned by the circle of men and women leaning, lying and slouching wearily in their chairs.
It's over. That was the general atmosphere, one of relief and of helplessness.
"Casualties?" Chancellor Minmay asked.
"Knights, no reports," Hino raised one hand, still draped over the backrest of her seat.
"Guards, seven wounded in collapsing buildings, twenty killed by fire rain," Trev, the leader of the Minmay Guards reported. His salute, mimicking that of Earth's, looked less than crisp however.
"People, estimated four hundred dead," a Recordkeeper clerk said.
"Material loss?" Minmay asked again.
"Northwestern wing of the slums is completely burnt, there is nothing left of it. Further north, an area of roughly twenty fields is damaged or destroyed," Arthur said.
The same Recordkeeper clerk shuffled her notepad nervously. "By Cato's statistical methods, possessions destroyed are worth upwards of a thousand Rimes. That's a low estimate. The oil factory accounts for a third of it. We're lucky the fire only hit poorer slum areas. "
Gloomy silence descended once more.
"Anyone have any idea what happened?" Minmay asked, "have the knights heard of anything?"
"No one knows anything about that firestorm," Hino said, "it was too big to seriously stop, even with all the knights. If it had headed south instead of north, I would expect Minmay city to be a burning ruin now. "
"Could it be a new monster?" Arthur asked.
"Who can say for sure?" Hino shrugged, "all witnesses agree that the cloud grew weaker and disappeared after leaving the city. Never seen a monster do that. "
"How did the fire start?"
No one looked up to find out who asked that question. No one answered it either. All the clues were buried somewhere in the charred rubble and probably destroyed with that chunk of the city.
"Can Minmay survive this?"
"Yes. But not if it happens again," the chancellor replied.
"I think this is an opportunity," Cato said. "Wait, let me explain," he said as Hino started to get angry, "for the last few months since the peasants started coming into Minmay, the lack of a central organization has been hurting us. "
He looked around the room, filled with the movers and shakers of Minmay city. "A small committee like us might have been sufficient when Minmay was smaller and there was less industry. Merchants come in the morning, leave in the evening. Collect taxes, pay the knights. Minmay didn't change much. But this fire shows us that simply improving the technology isn't enough. We have to improve the organization of Minmay itself. "
Cato had their attention now.
"I propose creating a civil defence force. The Minmay Guards had a great performance today, holding back the fire under the direct leadership of our chancellor. Today, you saw how powerful groups of people can be if we work together. We need to train and hire people to take care of the city itself, to fight fires, to reduce crime and to maintain the city's functions. The Minmay Guards already have training and can serve this purpose until more can be trained," Cato said.
"We also need help in administration. The few toll collectors and the Minmay Guards are still small enough to report directly to Minmay. With all these new people, our chancellor and his butler can't do everything by themselves, even if we get ten secretaries each. He has to have time to eat after all. "
Kalny at the edge of the room smiled a little.
"It goes to more than just handling fires," Cato said, "most of the work will be in organizing the city itself. Permission to build should be required, there will be restrictions on the types of building by area. Even the traffic, which way the carts run, who responds if the surface is damaged, maintenance of the markers and a registry of all streets and locations. A registry of all people and businesses too! Writing and maintaining a formal law code and administering disputes. It sounds like useless work but you will not regret having these conveniences once you realize how much they will improve law, order and safety. "
"Minmay as it is needs a government, not a chancellor and thirty people in a room," Cato leaned forwards, "especially if we're ever going to become independent. "
"How am I going to pay for that?" Minmay asked.
"Levy a new tax," Cato said, "the last few months have seen us all gain experience in managing larger operations. Many of the merchants have workshops and factories spread over the Minmay region. Many of us have gotten rich doing so. Paper is everywhere now and I believe we can now support a tax with significant administrative costs. A tax on business profits and on all income paid to workers. "
The room exploded with protests.
Cato held up a hand, "Kalny, how much do you make?"
The fat man smiled and shook his head, "I can't very well say that, can I?"
"Well, if you paid one in twenty of your earnings, after paying your workers and buying new tools, will you survive?" Cato asked, "and if you had to pay the same for the amount you pay your workers. "
"I'd have to raise my prices," Kalny smiled, "but if everyone is doing it, then that won't hurt so much. I'll live. "
"How can you support this!" one of the rare independent Ironworker masters practically screamed at him, "a twentieth here and a twentieth there! You won't even earn a telin!"
"I have a condition," Kalny said, looking at the Ironworker. He walked over to the man and asked, "if I asked you to make me a thousand steel tins for my food, would you agree? I'd pay you a fair price of course. "
He just looked confused, so did the rest of the merchants in the room. Cato could see that Minmay had already understood. "I'd want to know if you can even pay at all," the Ironworker said, "Maybe if you let me see how your business is doing? A tour perhaps. I'd have to know how you're going to use the tins anyway. Also I need to know if you are even going to pay at all. I think you might be a bad customer. "
"Now, why are you worried I won't pay?" Kalny raised his eyebrows.
"I only know you from your reputation. That... isn't enough," the man gulped, "I mean, if you took out a contract for the knights against me, I don't earn enough to defend myself. "
"Imagine then, that our agreement can be ratified by Minmay and enforced by his Guards, or an agreement with the Order of Knights," Kalny said, "we go to Minmay and the civil service, record down how much tins you will give me and how much money I will give you and if either of us don't meet our end of the agreement, Minmay will make us pay the other person. Now, do you think I can win against Minmay?"
The light was beginning to dawn on them.
"This is what Cato means when he talks about a code of law," Kalny nodded at him, "not just catching thieves or breaking up gangs. Imagine we didn't have to spend weeks getting to know every person of business in the city, just so we can trust them. We just have to be able to trust that Minmay can enforce these agreements. Now wouldn't that be worth a twentieth of our earnings?"
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
He turned around to Cato and Minmay, "so this is my condition. Settling disputes needs to be a primary function of this government. Make Minmay city a place where we can trust each other to trade honestly and we will gladly pay additional taxes for the privilege. Just so we don't have to spend all of our time making sure everyone we have an agreement with can still keep it. "
Minmay nodded, "it can be done. "
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"That was quite the move you pulled, Cato," Minmay said, tossing back the last of the spirits in his cup, "I have no idea how you managed to get the guilds to agree but that's fantastic. "
"Really?" Cato raised an eyebrow, "I expected you to object, not them. Instead it's the other way around. "
"Me?" Minmay leaned back in his comfortable sofa chair. Arthur refilled his glass with more alcohol and a few ice cubes. "Nonsense!" Minmay snorted, "you just handed control of the guilds back to me! Why would I object? And of course the merchants and guilds would object to paying a new tax. Using Kalny to put them under my thumb with that law code of yours was brilliant. How much did you pay him?"
Cato merely smiled weakly, "I paid him nothing at all. Kalny's reasons were right though. Hiring mercenaries and Knights to enforce agreements costs the merchants a fair amount of money. If they could dispense with all of that, a twentieth tax is nothing. "
"Do the numbers work out?" Minmay frowned, "if the Minmay Guards have to settle commercial disputes, I could end up paying them more than the tax takes in. There is a reason why they spend so much money on guards after all. "
"Well, if you're the only one, or just the biggest, force in this region," Cato explained, "who would even dare to try fighting you? I mean, you are already the biggest, aside from the Order of Knights. But if you rival the Order, most of the merchants will respect any deals enforced by your law, knowing that you can easily crush them. And if most of them won't even try, and you eliminate those who refuse to obey the law code, then the Guards will be called on far less than you think. "
They nodded in silence, appreciating the fine drink together. It had been an all too exciting day after all.
The door opened as Landar entered the room, having put away the spell cannon after conducting maintenance checks.
"Oh hey, is that the new Tisin brand spirit?" Landar pointed at the bottle in Arthur's hands, "give me some! I need one too. "
Cato nodded at Arthur, who went to fetch a cup. "How's the cannon?" he asked Landar.
"Still working. The timing circuit just broke a line," Landar explained, "I suspected as much when the cannon started firing continuously. "
Minmay sat up straight and got straight to the point, "any chance you could build more of them?"
"I've already sold the plans to the Academy branch here," Landar shrugged, "as well as the variable enchanting assistance device that they'll need to make more. "
Cato sighed, "you've changed its name for the tenth time now. It's just a glorified sewing board, and a first version at that. "
"It's only the fourth name," Landar pouted, "there's just no elegant name for it. "
"Like naming your child," Minmay laughed.
"Exactly!"
They shared his laughter but Cato knew that both magical devices were more or less Landar's brain children and she treated them preciously.
"Still, was it a good idea to just sell it like that?" Minmay asked, "Duport and Ektal will get those plans too, you know?"
Landar sniffed, "and much good it'll do them. " She winked at Cato, "we already have ideas for an improved version and without the little tricks I've learnt from actually making it, anyone trying will find that complex spell devices aren't that simple to build. "
"But we'll still face them eventually, yes?" Minmay pressed.
Landar shrugged, "magic crystals are still under wraps. We still hold a major advantage with that. "
"More than major," Cato closed his eyes, "I think the fire today at least gave us something useful. I was waiting for you to come before I showed this. "
He took out the small ring on a stick and put it on the table. It was the magical sensor Landar had made, although it had gone through a few revisions since then. They looked at him curiously. He picked up the stick and had Landar power it on, then flicked the sensitivity all the way down.
The magical light in the ring glowed solidly.
"I don't see anything interesting," Landar said, "I mean, we know that too high a sensitivity picks up noise from the environment. "
"We worked on that. Besides isn't the signal a bit too stable to be noise?" Cato asked. "I had a hunch, seeing that rain of fire today," Cato explained, eyes still closed, "it reminded me of the Miasma in the Death Marsh. Both were magic, both grew out of nowhere. I think the firestorm was just the burning version of the Miasma. "
As Cato moved the stick around, the ring pulsed as it passed near Minmay and Landar, glowing more faintly for Cato. He thrust it towards the floor. The ring grew just a little bit brighter, almost too little to see.
"Lifeforce is made of magic, and the sensitivity of this sensor can detect our innate magic, simply by being nearby," Cato said, "but look, the floor is magical?"
They stared down at the glowing stick and the stone floor. Minmay's house was getting rich lately, but enchanting his floor like Landar had done with the house was still too expensive. The downsides of a large mansion.
"And there's more," Cato got up and directed Arthur to drape a heavy carpet in front of the fire, not close enough to be burnt but blocking the firelight. He thrust the stick at the fire, and it glowed too. He nodded and Arthur put the carpet away.
"I don't think we're seeing noise," Cato said, "I think the sensor works much better than we thought it did and it is us humans who are bad at sensing magic. "
They looked at him, slowly understanding what he was building up towards.
"Again, this is where I must realize that my preconceptions of magic from Earth have held me back," Cato smiled wryly, "in our stories, magic is always something that originates from people. Whether it is voodoo dolls or throwing fireballs, it is always the wizard, the god or the spirit who is responsible. "
"But Inath isn't a story," Cato continued, "it doesn't run on rules that are anthropocentric. That's a word that means human centered. Magic isn't just limited to humans, as we know plants and animals have lifeforce, but it isn't limited to life either. Magic is truly, truly, a part of this world, not a special exception to the rules. It is all around us, maybe not in the same amount everywhere. And magic follows its own rules, and lifeforce and our ability to manipulate magic is just one small part of what magic is doing all around us everyday. "
He put the sensor into the ice bucket and it brightened too.
"What I suspect," Cato concluded, "is that the firestorm and that miasma are the same kind of thing. As we saw just now, certain conditions, like heat and cold, or the ground, have a higher magical signature over the background. And we know that magical signatures are emitted by magical phenomena, like fireballs and shields.
But what if the signature is part of how magical phenomena work? Maybe having a strong enough signature can spontaneously create magical effects. Create a big enough fire, or a large enough cold wet place, and enough magical signature happens to generate magical effects like a firestorm or miasma cloud. A magical version of weather. And perhaps the background is not plain noise but an actual signal of the magic around us, of the magic in all the things that make up the world. "
"So how does that help us in this war?" Minmay asked, "are you planning to create a firestorm in Duport's cities?"
Cato shook his head, "even if we could, such a weapon should be reserved for the monsters. Besides, needing a fire the size of a city to create a firestorm kind of defeats the point, you're already burning his twin cities down around him. No. This is a hypothesis, a guess of how magic works in the natural world, when lifeforce and active magical effects aren't in the way. And those magical crystal mines are natural too. "
Landar and Cato looked at each other, a grin appearing on her face. "So we make a better sensor, maybe one of those graphing things you mentioned, then we bring it to a mine and see what we can find there," Landar said.
"Indeed," Cato nodded, "and if we can find why the mines had magical crystals in them, and I have a hunch they're the equivalent of the firestorm and miasma from the 'ground' magic, maybe we can recreate the same conditions and make a magic crystal farm. We might know how to recreate the conditions for firestorm and miasma but I doubt anyone wants to try. And even if we don't find out how, we may also find out how to detect such deposits at longer range. It would certainly beat having to manually check every square meter of mountain. "
"So it's time for the second expedition?" Landar's eyes were sparkling now.
"Yes. Yes it is. " Cato nodded.
"Do I have enough money for that?" Minmay asked Arthur, who thought for a while and made an unsure gesture.
Landar grinned, "well, I do happen to have suddenly gained a large amount of money. Enough to recruit knights for the expedition too. Knights being the clients of other knights hasn't happened before but screw that, money talks louder than tradition. We should bring the lab along, I wonder how much stuff we can invent if you're not distracted by the university. "
Cato blinked and sighed apologetically, "actually, I was thinking perhaps you should go without me. I can't use magic and will end up being a drag if we get into a fight. Besides, I am needed here. "
She was taken aback for a moment then nodded, looking a little sad. Cato resisted the urge to go over and reassure her.
Landar raised her untouched cup of alcohol and drank a little then opened her eyes in shock, "wait, this smell. It's mistletein!"
Minmay looked at his cup again, "ah, I did think it smelled a little strange. Where did you buy it from, Cato?"
Cato sipped the strong spirit, frowning, "I didn't buy it. One of the guards from the squad we worked with today gave me a bottle. She said that she admired us for helping with the fire. Said she made it a little special. "
Minmay blinked and looked at Arthur, then they giggled like a pair of schoolgirls. Landar was scowling down at her cup.
"Um, did I miss something?" Cato asked, "what's mistletein?"
"Mistletein is a rare wild flower," Minmay explained, still smiling, "it grows two beautiful blue bell shaped flowers always in pairs and is often used as a gift to signify romantic love. Poor girl, she couldn't have known that the custom would be lost on you. "
Cato looked at the unlabeled bottle in Arthur's hands again. He sighed and put down the cup. "I don't even know her name, how am I supposed to handle this?"
Landar suddenly slammed her empty cup down. Cato looked at her. What now?
"I don't care what it takes, but you're coming with me on that expedition," Landar growled, "even if it means you resign from that university. "
"What?" Cato looked at her slightly red cheeks, "are you drunk already? I can't just leave like that!"
"I don't care!" she said, grabbing his hand, "we're leaving within the week!"
Cato looked back at Minmay for help. Surely the chancellor could convince her?
"Well, why not?" Minmay shrugged, "I am the chancellor and I'll show you I can run the university too. "
Cato could feel his jaw drop. Take Cato away from the university?!
"Let us discuss this, all right, Landar?" he followed her hurriedly as she stormed out of the room.
----------------------------------------
K&T, strain isolation is a success. I require a sum of twenty kilograms of esquire gel and forty class A glass bottles. Sterile.
Kupo
----------------------------------------
Dear Minmay,
In accordance to the new rules, find attached the plans for the sewer network. The pilot trials have gone well with all initial problems addressed. Your house is included in this phase two. I have included space in the digging region to allow the easy addition of pressurized water supply pipes in the future.
Muller and Concrete company also requests a loan from the Minmay bank of up to the sum of six hundred Rimes in order to complete the work faster.
Muller & Co