To Liam, Hassim Daal’s death was a given.
It was the equivalent of the question of “would you kill baby Josef Mengele”, except Hassim had already taken more than a few steps down the path of “sociopathic monster” at this point in time. At the current point in time, the dwarf was only dabbling in curses, little trinkets that were mostly used to protect himself. But once the Sultan became the sole power in Al-Zahra, the man would be promoted and given the resources to blossom into something far more terrible.
That grab for power had been, at least temporarily, thwarted since the Yulvenir patriarch was still alive. Perhaps Hassim’s future no longer involved experimenting with his accursed experimental enchantments on tens of thousands of victims. Still, by this point in time, he had done a few less than tactful experiments and kill-switches.
So why had Umira spared him?
That was what Liam was asking himself as he stood at the entrance of the stables, panting for breath, and staring down at the red-headed dwarf. The man was kneeling, holding the stump where his right hand should have been, his dark complexion looking queasy and drained. Hassim looked up at Liam, and Liam stared back, blinking.
Then he heard the clanking of metal and remembered the knights of the Church of Fate were fast approaching. Spotting neither Umira nor Noor meant they were likely still in the basement; there was no time to waste.
“On second thought, you’re going to help me out. Ports in storms and enemies of enemies or whatever.” He muttered, hastily closing the door behind himself. Pulling the dwarf to his feet, he dragged the complaining man as he looked for anything heavy and sturdy to impede the two knights from getting inside.
There was a dim prospect that they outnumbered the knights and might even stand a fighting chance if they just went at it with enough bludgeoning damage. But there was a high priestess there; she surely knew a few spells of her own, or worse, she might have some other blessing tucked up her sleeve. Besides, followers of Thalgrim had “sticky” fates, so if any of them died, the event would be an exposed vulnerability the Goddess could exploit down the road. No thanks.
The dwarf’s enthusiasm to help him grew exponentially when the door rattled. The shouts from outside carried a very commanding tone, and that only fueled Hassim’s actions. The stocky, thickly bearded dwarf shoved Liam out of the way, hurrying towards the back of the barn and pushing an empty cart against the door.
“I know you don’t understand me, but just so we’re clear, you’re on probation.” He glared holes into Hassim.
The dwarf just looked at him with a bewildered look through the craggy beard as if Liam had just grown a second head. The heavy thumps on the barn door quickly changed that, the man panicking as he hastily scrambled to the back of the building. Since he clearly had an objective in mind, Liam gave chase, finding that one of the empty stalls contained the stairs leading to the underground.
It wasn’t even a dingy old step-ladder, but nice and well-cut stone leading towards a basement that was larger than the building on top of it. This wasn’t a farm with a basement; it was an underground holding facility with some buildings on top of it.
“Cold water,” Liam muttered to himself, following the dwarf who went down the stairs two steps at a time. This was another aspect he must have had wrong, some important detail he’d missed or that didn’t fit or something. Maybe the Sultan had a bigger need for some local version of Guantanamo. Maybe Hassim had gotten further than Liam had thought.
Whatever the case was, it seemed Umira had been busy in the underground.
A few dozen prisoners had been let out of their cells. They were of at least a dozen different species, dressed in dirty off-white cloth, if that. None of them were human enough for Liam to recognize their expressions, but the irritated eyes, gaunt faces, sunken cheeks, and discolored fur/scale/skin didn’t exactly strike him as healthy.
It was like entering into some weird cosplay event no one had told him about.
Then again, he was paler than any of the prisoners, and probably looking worse for wear with the bruises, scratches, and being practically out of breath and definitely sleep-deprived. Everyone shared awkward stares, all of them turned to Hassim, and then at Liam, then at the muffled shouts that were coming from further above.
Liam had the distinct feeling that Hassim’s probation period was running out quickly.
The dwarf spoke quickly, holding the stump where his hand used to be, nervously talking in a long stream of half-babbled words. He began gesturing at the sounds from above, and at that point, Liam got the impression that Hassim was trying to convince them that the knights were here to kill them all.
Maybe he wanted to use them as meat shields.
Liam shoved the dwarf aside and made his way past the group, entirely uncaring whether they opted to take their piece or not. He continued down the corridor of cells, noticing a particular lack of smells. The place was clean and tidy, the metal cell doors polished well enough to make the carvings on them more defined. Each door had a different set of carvings, each carving depicted a circle with an intricate pattern of knots within. They were enchantments, most likely curses of some sort, perhaps meant to weaken the prisoners and keep them docile?
Umira was halfway down the corridor, an open cell revealed the two siblings inside. Noor was the spitting beige-scaled image of his sister, except the older draxani was a foot taller and far thinner. The two were hugging each other, letting out soft hissing sounds that felt like their equivalent of sobbing.
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“I’m really sorry for interrupting what otherwise would be a very touching moment,” he knocked on the door twice, giving an awkward wave at them. “I’m actually hoping you’ll side with me on this one, but…”
Behind him, the sound of shouts was getting louder, a whole lot more than just two knights. Liam barely had the chance to look over his shoulder and see Hassim bolt past their door and deeper into the prison area.
Deeper as if he’d be able to find an escape further in.
Because if Hassim was one thing, it was a coward.
“We can’t stay here for too much longer,” Liam gestured wildly at the two siblings to follow him, turning to follow the dwarf.
Maybe they didn’t want to run away from the followers of Thalgrim; Liam was the zealot’s target after all. But he wasn’t about to deny them at least the opportunity to make that choice.
Hassim was at the end of the corridor, fumbling to open the final cell, using the blood on his stump to draw a series of lines connecting the carved symbols. After a second, the door glowed a dim green and opened, revealing an entirely different room than what should have been there.
A plain empty room, with a four-meter-wide circle carved onto the floor. This circle had much the same design as the carvings on the door, but was far more complex. At either side of the circle were two glass jars, each one filled with roughly half a basketball’s worth of aether.
“Oh crap,” Liam felt a trickle of nervousness as he saw this much aether put into a single room. “Either this is meant for teleportation, or to nuke the city.”
Seeing how much aether was contained in this one room, it also could only be here if it was by the Sultan’s blessing. Liam could only see sense in this if it was a grand teleportation to get all the VIP prisoners out of here. The Sultan was a man that heavily leaned into coercion, and ensuring his prisoners remained safe and sound but within reach was his preferred go-to.
There was, however, a problem.
If this was a teleportation circle, Liam didn’t have a clue where it would take them.
So as he watched the dwarf hastily open the first jar and begin pinching the aether so that he could rub it into the carved-out patterns, Liam set out to do something else. He studied the design of the knots themselves.
The magic of this world was built around knots. Get mana to follow a certain shape around itself and presto, you get fire. Certain squiggles would get you certain results. The three-pointed Celtic knot the Thalgrim followers used was also the form for the most basic illumination spell. That was the symbolism they ran with: a beacon to lead the way.
There were infinite possible patterns, and Liam himself could only do so much on his own. This was made all the more complicated when particularly complex spells would involve mashing together other patterns into themselves.
But there was a single core component every grand spell had: a location to aim at. It was a core component in just about every grand spell available, as the caster would rarely, if ever, create a spell with “right here” as its intended target. At least not at this scale of power.
He tried to figure out what parts of the massive circle were meant to determine a destination.
After what felt like minutes of watching the dwarf work tirelessly in filling out every inch of the carved-out circle, Liam was struck by a moment of realization.
He didn’t have a clue what he was looking at.
It was fascinating, surely, and he very much wanted to learn what every part meant. But no matter how he looked at the thing, he couldn’t be sure what went where. It was as if he’d spent years writing about spleens, and then a surgeon opened up a patient and asked him to find where the damn thing was.
Presented with little time and no alternatives, he did the next best thing: he went to fetch the closest thing to a professional he could get his hands on. Umira was no space-mage expert, but she should at least have better chances of figuring something out.
She was still in the cell, talking to her sibling, both of them using dead serious tones, but with that hissing sound mixed in.
“Yeah, so, Umira?”
Upon calling her name, he made wild gestures for her to follow. The draxani was reluctant to separate from her brother, so she helped him up to his feet and brought him along. The instant she entered the room with the teleportation circle, she burst out in a furious tirade at the dwarf.
“Right, maybe it would be smarter to ask the guy prepping the spell rather than try to decipher it,” Liam scratched his chin awkwardly, glancing at Noor and casually closing the door behind them. Unlike the cell doors, this one had a locking mechanism he engaged. “It’s good to finally get a face to the name. Liam Carter.”
“Noor Dalimor,” he responded promptly, keeping himself outside arm’s reach and his focus aimed squarely at his sister.
Hassim was looking paler by the second, babbling out what felt like weak excuses even though Liam couldn’t understand a word. Umira made broad waving motions and gestured at the circle, then at Liam and her sibling. Then her tone shifted to something cold and threatening, whispering some more words that made Hassim nod vigorously, shrinking on the spot.
Following this, she barked orders to Noor, who joined the three of them to continue spreading aether onto every inch of the carved-out design.
Liam was enjoying the show even if he was dying to know the exact words. He would’ve helped with the aether part but didn’t want to risk messing it up. Not being fully concentrated on the back and forth gave him ample attention to spare for the sounds outside.
The shouts had died down.
A loud banging sound came from the metal door.
Umira’s movements began to hasten, the mage taking a smidge of the aether from the jars for herself and forming a spell with it. The knot design floating over her hand was that of a four-pointed star, glowing a dim blue, its light sending ripples through the carved spell.
Slowly but surely, the aether they’d spread like ointment all over the pattern began to evaporate, summoning a dim ghostly light above itself. At her command, Noor grasped Liam’s arm and yanked him into the circle, getting as close to Umira as he could, something Hassim did as well.
The banging started to get louder.
Liam didn’t get the chance to see whether they’d get to open the door or not.
Umira spoke a word, and the world around them was replaced by sunlight and dunes.
No snap, no bang, no flash of light, nor twisting guts. Just one moment they were all in Hassim’s sterile basement, the next they were at the top of a dune with nothing around them save miles and miles of sand in every direction.
Searing hot wind blasted their faces, the sun, even as it approached the horizon, bit into Liam’s pale skin.
“We… made it?” he muttered, glancing at the others.
It was impossible for Liam to know if this had been the intended destination, but seeing how Umira and Hassim instantly broke out into a scream-fest, it felt like things had not gone as planned.