034 – Heat

***

I settled into my new workshop. The place had a long way to go, but it was getting there. I had shelves and cabinets for my tools. A large kiln roasted charcoal. A grinding wheel waited to sharpen blades. The new front door had a massive lock. Locks in this era were much larger, because craftsman had no way to machine very small and precise parts. So my iron key was about the size of a spatula.

In my hidden workshop I could meditate in private and, when exhausted by doing nothing for hours, switch over to working on my first set of runes. A box of small pebbles and smooth river rocks held my failed attempts.

A loud pounding came from my front door. No one should have known about this place except for the workers who helped me set it up. I warily opened the door a crack to see who came knocking.

Malisent shoved her way inside, practically bowling me over.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding?” She looked around and then crashed down in my chair at the workbench.

“Please come in. Have a seat. Make yourself at home.”

“With this much junk in here, you must be hard at work. Have you figured out your ghost magic yet, Ancient Ariman?”

“No. These things take time. I’ve made the first steps of a long, arduous journey. Don’t expect flying airships right away.”

She examined my tools and picked up a pebble of quartz. “Well what have you done?”

“Try it out for yourself.”

Malisent sent a stream of mana into the little stone and it glowed a dull violet color. “What is it?”

“It’s a lumestone. Except that one is defective. It produces ultraviolet radiation instead of visible light.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means if you hold it long enough you’ll get a suntan and then cancer.”

She tossed it back into the box and wiped off her hands.

“Ariman. I want to enslave that golem before the dark lord gets here. You have to figure out a way to make that possible with your weird rocks and runes.”

“Too bad. Not going to happen. I have too much to learn about this new type of magic before there will be any practical results. Making a new daemon core is a thousand times harder than making a lumestone, and you can see how that went.”

“We’re running out of time. I’ll look like a fool if I can’t deliver something. We at least need to defeat the golem so that the workers can access the underground labyrinth. Don’t you have anymore bright ideas?”

“Well… In my day, there was a lot more mana in the world. We used it to power all our wondrous machines. But now that supply has dried up. So that means the golem can’t be operating on the ambient mana.”

Malisent said, “It had a fire similar a living monster. So it can generate its own.”

“Right. But unlike a living creature, it has to use mana for everything. It burns mana to move its limbs and walk around. That’s no problem for it most of the time, because it waits in place like a statue. But if we overworked the golem, it might exhaust its supply and shut down. Or at least it might weaken and slow down.”

“So we can send waves of minions at it until it gets tired and then rush in to finish it off? Great,” she said.

“We don’t have enough minions for that. The dark lord would not be happy with you if you killed off his entire cult to knock out one golem.” For a moment I worried she would actually try it. “Assuming we disable the golem, I won’t be able to fix it right away. It needs a new daemon—one powerful enough to enkindle a fire and generate mana. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to put Orma in there?”

“Absolutely not.” She pet her snake familiar. Usually Orma hid under her collar, disguised as a thick necklace.

“How did you get a daemon inside that snake, anyway?”

“It wasn’t easy. The only sure way is by defeating a powerful monster. Then you can catch the daemon as the monster dies,” she said. “Did you finish that other task I assigned you, minion? Have you sent a message to my dressmaker?”

“I talked to her briefly the other day, craftsman to craftsman. We chatted about glass beads and sandpaper. Your name didn’t come up.”

“You bastard. You’re supposed to speak to her on my behalf.”

“You two can work out your own problems. Being an intermediary is too dangerous for me. Either Veyien or Hwilla could have killed me for delivering your little message.”

“What did she say? Why’d she leave? Did she mention how much Veylien is paying her?”

“It’s not about money.”

“Then what is it? I never mistreated her. We never fought. I lavished gifts and praise on her. We were perfect together.”

“She said she was bored of making black dresses. She wants to do color now,” I said.

“What? Impossible. No one could bored of black. It’s the perfect color.”

“It’s not a real color though. Why don’t you order some new clothing to keep her happy. Let her pick out some dyes and pigments for you.”

“I can’t do that. Black is my thing. I’m a black knight and a Void Phantom. It’s my signature style.”

“Then why not try it with some added highlights?”

“Ugh. Tacky. I worry about your future as a craftsman, Ariman, showing such poor taste. No wonder your wonders turn out so badly.” She dangled a string of lumpy glass beads at me.

“Look. This artistical stuff is way outside my wheelhouse. I told Zvidsi to come talk to you. My job is done.”

She crossed her arms and gave me an evil smile. “Then you must want your reward, eh, messenger boy?”

“I had forgotten you were going to give me a reward. Relief from harassment is payment enough.”

“Oh no. I never go back on my word. It will be delivered to the Hall of Discipline shortly.” She jumped out of the seat. “Now, I’m going to prepare for our assault on the golem. I lost my armor on our last mission, so I have to get fitted for a new suit. At least the armorer hasn’t abandoned me.”

***

The revival of the aetheric arts had several major hurdles to be surmounted. I could not simply import my old knowledge to the modern era. It would provide a solid foundation for me, but would not be sufficient in and of itself.

The first problem was the current lack of mana. In the old days we had plentiful ambient mana to use. Power stations increased this to an almost limitless supply of free, easily accessible, clean energy. We built our machines on the assumption that would always be true. So Ancient arrays were not built to be energy efficient. Wasting mana was not a concern. The only time that would an issue was in large factories with machines in such close proximity to each other that they competed for the flowing mana. Now, I had to carefully inscribe runes with energy efficiency as a high priority.

Furthermore, I had to consider the power source for every newly designed array. A simple lumestone no longer functioned, but it would when a mage channeled their own mana into it. By this principal, my new aetherics had to plug into a living person. Magi themselves had limited amounts of mana, and could not supply energy for long. I wouldn’t be building any automated factories within those design limits.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

We ancients had never created anything like a mana-battery. Mana flows through matter pretty freely. So channeling a large amount of mana into one object would only work for a few minutes before it all leaked out into the environment. Theoretically, if you placed the object in a vacuum, like outer space, it could hold the mana indefinitely; but that was not a useful method for me.

The golem demonstrated that daemons could generate and store mana in their inner fires, but not every daemon produced a fire. Some powerful daemons inside living things could do it. Daemon trapped in inanimate cores that were able to do so would be even rarer. That would require a lot of investigation. A bound daemon could be a power source and brain all in one.

Lunar daemons were the second problem. Similar to the mutated monsters that prowled the continent, daemons had become very advanced since I fell asleep. They were more powerful, more complex, and came in a greater variety. I did not have a catalog of them or way to determine which could be useful to my projects. Many of them, like the werewolf of Turnfield, were incredibly dangerous. They could possess animals and cause weird mutations. I would have to set up a way to isolate and deal with them safely before doing any direct experiments.

Third, new types of essences polluted the environment. Essences were the aetheric ‘stuff’ of the spiritual world. Mana was a special type of essence. Inscribing a rune was putting essences together into a useful construct. The earth and the moon had different types of essences in different amounts. Lunar daemons created byproducts of rare essences. Well, they were rare in my time. Now those types of lunar essences were much more common, and with them came the possibility of creating wholly original runes.

All of this was overwhelming. It would be impossible for me to do it all alone without help from the Community of Scholars. Solving these problems would take the combined effort of generations of brilliant scientists. I could make a dent in these new mysteries, and perhaps pass on the work to the curious minds of the modern world.

Despite the titanic task before me, these problems did not discourage me. Quite the opposite, working on aetherics was the thing that kept me going. It was why I put up with these crazy cultists and dangerous swordsmen. If it weren’t for these intriguing mysteries, I would likely go to the Hall of Discipline and throw myself off the balcony just to get some peace.

***

Chief Korkso and his Goadsmen had to overcome a language barrier with the captive trolls. Neither side spoke the other’s language. The humans showed no interest in learning the grunts and growls of the monsters, and they instead forced the trolls to learn simple commands. They instructed with snaps of the whip.

The trolls carried large shields and marched around the lower promenade. The trolls did not like organizing themselves in orderly rows, it was against their trollish nature. But whenever one of them stepped out of line, the Goadsmen would crack a whip over its head as a warning, and the troll would return to the formation. They marched in step. When the trainers gave verbal commands, the whole formation would stop, turn left or right, back up, or raise their shields. The trolls didn’t have weapons yet and were still in chains.

“We’ll make Warcreeps out of ‘em yet,” Korkso bellowed.

The formation circled the whole citadel several times and then retired to the monster pits. There, the hungry trolls ate blocks of seaweed, raw toads, gruel, and a weird assortment of sickly looking vegetables. This strange diet affected the moods and demeanor of the trolls, making them more pliant. The Goadsmen wouldn’t let them have red meat until they were fully trained as loyal soldiers.

I approached Chief Korkso as he watched the slobbering trolls cramming food into their mouths. The old man had years of experience with monsters of all sorts.

“Excuse me, Chief Korkso. I am Disciple Strythe. I wondered if you had plans for the valley’s population of goblins.”

“Goblins? Ain’t much use in them. They can sneak, but they can’t fight. There’s no way to train them for war, because the more you shout and beat them, the more cowardly they become. In a battle, they’re sure to run away.”

“There’s a local tribe on the river. They might hide from us for awhile, but it won’t be long before they start pilfering things from our supply lines. I hoped to put them to use before they became a nuisance.”

“Use doing what?” Korkso asked. He gave me a doubtful look. Young disciples didn’t often inquire about monster training.

“Do you know what this is?” I took an item out of my satchel.

“Yes. It’s a shell of a glue crab. A little one.”

The shell didn’t seem little to me. It was about the size of a kickball. But in comparison to a full grown crab, it was tiny. Tiny pebbles and sand covered the surface.

“I’m interested in using these things for sandpaper. And if there was a way to collect the glue before it hardened, that would be even better. Sending people into the valley to find them is too dangerous, but the local goblins are very adept at getting around out there.

“The citadel’s workmen are short on pretty much every type of supply, and their jobs get stalled between deliveries. Anything that could be sourced locally would help our situation. If the goblins gathered resources, we could trade with them.”

“Yes, but goblins speak weird gibberish. Only those that live close to human lands learn our languages. We won’t be able to barter with them.”

“There’s at least one member of the tribe that speaks our language. Well he sort of speaks it. He understands it anyway. He could possibly translate.”

“And what would we exchange for.”

“They could use simple metal tools and common items like clay pots. But besides those…” I took out a string of colorful glass beads, fresh from my workshop. “…goblins love shiny things.”

***

I returned to the Hall of Discipline. I had been avoiding that place since my last run in with Hwilla. In my experience, trying to calmly and rationally explain things to people having an emotional moment is counter productive. Usually it makes them angry and irrational instead. It’s best to give them time to cool off a little. Ideally, two or three years, but even a few days could help. So far, I had avoided Hwilla. The current state of her anger was unknown.

The place looked safe. No Hwilla in sight. She had either gone off elsewhere in the citadel or locked herself in the girl’s dorm room. I slipped through the door and tiptoed across the main room. Zambulon and Yurk sat on the practice mats.

“Strythe,” Zambulon said.

“Yes, senior disciple?”

“Where have you been recently? You are supposed to be here doing control exercises.” Zambulon forcibly stifled his fire to a bare flicker. He spoke through clenched teeth and tightly held the grip of his sword.

“It’s usually fairly noisy in here, and I’m not very good at concentrating with so many distractions. So, I found a quiet corner of the citadel for meditation.”

“Really? Are you sure nothing else is distracting you from your exercises?”

“Nothing important,” I said. There was a long list of things distracting me, including my bossy senior disciples. It was amazing I hadn’t burnt to a crisp.

“There have been rumors that you were seen out on a romantic stroll with a woman.”

“Wow. So she was right about that,” I muttered. People in the cult did spread gossip.

“What’s that? Speak up!”

“Nothing. Those are just rumors, senior disciple. No truth to them. There has been zero romance and no strolling; it’s been all business and brisk walks on my end.”

“Perhaps due to your amnesia, you’ve forgotten that novices and disciples are not allowed to fraternize with the opposite sex. Paramours and secret rendezvous are expressly forbidden. Only the older Faceless are allowed to start families.”

“No worries there, senior disciple. I hate children.”

“Our other junior disciple has gone missing as well. Hwilla has been disappearing at odd times and neglecting her training.”

“Has she? I hadn’t noticed. She’s probably just settling in to the new place. It’s easy to get lost here.”

“And have you been getting lost in the middle of the night? When you sneak out of the boy’s dorm room?”

I froze. He shouldn’t have known that. Both of them were sound asleep when I left. If Zambulon had seen Hwilla and I doing her ‘special training,’ it would look exceptionally incriminating. Two young people, embracing in the moonlight.

“I never got lost. But I have meditated in the night when it was quiet.”

“This is too serious for me to judge or assign a punishment. Unless you can convince me of your innocence in this matter, I will have to speak to Fightmaster Putrizio about your breaking the rules with Hwilla.”

“I have nothing else to add,” I said with a sigh. Maybe Putrizio would give us some punishment. But if he could force Hwilla to stop pestering me, it would be a net improvement. I resigned myself to face the old man. He might be more reasonable than these young folk.

Hwilla entered the Training Hall as the senior disciples stood over me.

“Hwilla. We’d like to have a talk with you and Strythe about your recent activities.”

“Forget it! I never want to see that rotten worm again. He can get fed to the devil-birds for all I care.” She stomped past us and went in the girl’s dorm. The door slammed shut.

The two other disciples were stunned by her out-of-character response and her lack of respect for their senior status. I perked up.

“See? There you have it. No romance here.”

“I– Uh– What?” Zambulon stammered.

“Hwilla and I have been out of the training hall in an attempt to avoid one another. There’s no secret dates or love affairs. All that is just idle gossip. Nothing to worry about.”

“Well then. I suppose I shouldn’t jump to any conclusions…”

This sudden turn of events confused Zambulon, but he acted pleased that it had worked out this way. His concentration broke, and his inner fire wavered unsteadily as he looked to the girl’s dorm.