“Lord Regis Shan, a pleasure to see you again,” Tyron bowed.

The young master of the Shan family, resplendent in his Magister’s robes, nodded slightly, almost succeeding in hiding his contempt.

“Master Almsfield. Thank you for coming on such short notice. We’ve made an area available for you to work, if you could come this way?”

“Of course.”

The Necromancer straightened, a professional smile on his lips, and burning anger in his heart. One step behind his host, he entered the Red Tower.

Not that the imposing structure itself was red, but rather that was the colour associated with the Magisters thanks to their robes. Somewhere in this building dwelled the heart of the brand network. Tyron felt his pulse quicken at the thought, but he was careful to regulate his emotions. Nothing good would come from getting himself too worked up. At this point, he didn’t even know why they had summoned him.

“There will be a final Status check here,” Regis gestured to a secure room immediately inside the gate.

“You’ve already checked me three times,” Tyron chuckled, concealing his nerves. “Any more status rituals and I’m going to run out of blood.”

“Besides the Baron’s castle, this is the most secure building in the entire province,” Regis replied dully. “Normally, someone like you–a person of your status would not be able to enter at all. The ritual, if you please.”

“I assume this is much the same as the previous check?” Tyron asked.

“As you can see.”

With a sigh, he stepped into the waiting cage, assisted by the heavily armed and armoured guards stationed at this point. The door clanged shut behind him and he waited a second before a small gap slid open, through which he pushed his hand.

There was a sharp pain as his palm was cut, followed by the sensation of paper being pressed to the wound. He spoke the ritual and felt queasy as yet more blood was pulled from his body and onto the page. When that was done, an ointment was smeared on his hand which he knew would heal the wound in a few minutes. In fact, it was already itching like mad.

He stood silent in the cage for a few minutes longer as they inspected his sheet until finally the cage door rattled as it was unlocked and the door hauled open.

“Thank you for your patience,” the guard said, his face hidden behind the faceplate of his helmet.

“Not a problem,” Tyron said. “Everything in order, I take it?”

“We unlocked the cage didn’t we?”

“R-right. Thanks.”

He stepped out to find Regis waiting for him in the corridor.

“This way,” he said and began to walk at a brisk pace down the corridor, forcing Tyron to jog to catch up.

Lined with perfectly aligned bricks on either side, the corridor was both long and narrow, causing a suffocating feeling to rise in him the further he walked. Was the entire building like this? One giant claustrophobic warren of paths and security checkpoints?

Unlikely, this was probably just what it was like for the outsiders who were brought in.

As they travelled, in silence, his skin prickled repeatedly as they passed through invisible enchantments, some powerful enough to cause his hair to stand on end.

This building really was locked down to an almost ludicrous degree. It would be impossible for them to get any work done if the Magisters had to pass through all this security every day, which was probably why the senior members lived in the tower itself.

“Do you live in the tower?” he asked innocently as he continued to trail in Regis’ wake.

“I don’t,” the lordling replied, the words clipped. “I am still an Initiate. When I’ve finished my trial period, I will become a full Magister and be permitted to live in the tower.”

As a dutiful third son should. Tyron knew that Magisters weren’t allowed to inherit noble estates or titles, so the heirs were never sent to train as one. However, it was expected for the noble families to send spare progeny to help fill the ranks. Nominally, they would swear off their allegiance to their families when they joined, but even the poorest turnip farmer in the province knew that was just lip service.

The bickering and infighting of the noble houses played out inside the tower just as it did in every other aspect of life in the province.

“I hope you are successful in your ambition, Lord Shan.”

“Don’t call me Lord Shan. It’s inappropriate. Magister Shan is fine.”

“As you say.”

Of course, Regis wasn’t a lord, and never would be. Perhaps it was rude to remind him of that fact? Though he’d been perfectly happy to play up his noble inheritance at his sister's birthday gathering.

“I have to say, it’s a little intimidating to be here,” Tyron admitted openly. “This is where the most powerful mages control the fate of the province, after all.”

A slight smile crossed Regis’ face.

“That’s true. The tower is where the divine fight against the rifts is organised. All of our people are kept safe thanks to the work that is done within these walls.”

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Spoken as if you were fighting the rift-kin yourself, not just holding the leash of those that do.

To think that these people actually thought that way, it was just what Tyron had expected, yet he still found it disgusting. None of this showed on his face, of course. His glamour remained in place, despite the many attempts to unmake it he had endured while entering the building.

The Old Gods were good allies when they wanted to be.

“In here,” Regis gestured finally, after almost ten minutes of fast-walking through a twisted network of narrow corridors.

Had they gone any longer, Tyron might have no longer been able to track their route.

He looked into the small chamber Regis indicated and found it quite sparse, with only a plain wooden table and two chairs inside. With little else to do, he entered and lowered himself into the closest seat. Regis stepped in after him, closing the door behind him but curiously didn’t sit down. Instead, he stood by the closed door, his arms folded in front of him.

Tyron tapped his fingers on the table, drumming out a complex rhythm using his absurd coordination and control.

“It’s quite a thrill to be invited here, truly,” Tyron said, “and I hope I can be of service, but I have to wonder what it is I’m supposed to achieve inside this room?”

He glanced around. There weren’t even tools inside. No glass, no pliance, or anything one would expect to see in a professional Arcanist workshop.

Regis’ face tightened.

“We just need to wait here for a moment and then all will become clear, I assure you.”

He doesn’t know either.

This was getting more intriguing by the minute. He attempted to engage Regis in further conversation, but the lordling was reclusive and gave him short, non-answers to most of his questions. Eventually, he relented and waited patiently for someone else to show up.

It was difficult to say how long he waited in that small, cramped and windowless chamber before finally the door was pulled open to reveal a new arrival. A stout, middle-aged man with a short beard and weathered face entered, apologising as he did so.

“Very sorry to keep you waiting,” he said, closing the door behind him. “It’s so difficult to move around on these lower floors, I get lost half the time I come down here.”

Tyron rose from his seat to greet the Magister, for that is what he was, judging by his robe. In fact, not an Initiate like Regis either, but a full Magister.

“Lukas Almsfield,” he introduced himself, bowing at the waist.

“I know who you are, of course. We were the ones to invite you,” the man said as he sat down and indicated Tyron should do the same. “I am Magister Gilden. I hope young Regis has been able to keep you company?”

“He has been an excellent guide and conversationalist.”

Magister Gilden quite openly looked like he didn’t believe a word of it, but was pleased to hear him say it nonetheless.

“Now, I don’t want to waste any more of your time, so we will get straight to what caused us to bring you here, shall I?”

“If it pleases you.”

“It does.”

The genial expression faded from Gilden’s face, replaced with a cold and hard-edged facade.

“I probably don’t need to explain this, but the work we perform here in the tower is inextricably linked to the survival of this province. The Slayers, and by extension, the Magisters, are what protect our people from the ravages of the rifts. Without us, there would be chaos and we would fall to the beasts like so much of the realm already has.”

Oh yeah, you’re a real bulwark of civilisation.

Unaware of the sarcasm running through Tyron’s mind, the Magister continued.

“That means we have to be careful, more than careful, with who we work with and in what capacity. You’ve been thoroughly vetted before even reaching this point, and were it not for the… unfortunate gaps in your records, then you may well have been sitting here some time ago.”

Of course there were gaps in ‘Lukas Almsfields’ records. He didn’t exist until Tyron had made him up when he arrived at Woodsedge. Of course, to adopt the persona on a semi-permanent basis, more had been required. Falsified records, bribes and a little illegal contract magick had been required to establish him more firmly within the bureaucracy. However, to make life that much easier, he had put his place of birth as Woodsedge, which no longer existed. Any records kept in the city had been lost in the catastrophe.

“I trust you’ve been able to investigate to your satisfaction then?” Tyron said.

Surprisingly, Gilden shook his head slightly.

“Not really,” he replied shortly. “But Master Halfshard and Master Willhem have vouched for you, along with young Lord Ammos Greyling and our own Magister Initiate Regis here. With all of that together, we are at least willing to give you a chance.”

So saying, he reached into his robe and removed something, placing it on the table, along with a pliance, and a small, handheld glass.

“Why don’t you take a look at that and tell me what you think?” Magister Gilden suggested.

Tyron frowned. Some sort of test? Despite himself, he was intrigued. What sort of device would the Magisters consider difficult enough to use as a test of ability?

The object was cylindrical, formed of several saucer-sized disks stacked on top of each other, with a central rod connecting them all and holding them roughly two centimetres apart. There were five disks in total, each perfectly flat with completely smooth edges.

And layered onto the top and bottom of each disk was dense, dense script, all powered by a high-grade core mounted onto the top of the rod.

With none of the normal conveniences of a workshop, it was difficult for him to get a good angle to properly examine the script, but he supposed that was part of the test. He grabbed the glass, small enough to hold in a single hand, and peered through it as he tried to decipher the sigils and work out their pattern.

In only a few seconds, he was frowning.

Contained in the bunched runes were a plethora of networks, at least ten on each disk, and he had a strong suspicion that not all of the networks were performing a useful function. They were there to act as decoys, to add complexity and confusion to the pathways to even further muddy the waters.

Slowly, his curiosity grew to something more fierce as Tyron’s intellect began to heat up. He loved puzzles, he loved sigils, he loved enchanting and more than anything else, he loved magick. It may have been a parlour trick designed to weed out the incapable, but the device was cunningly designed and beautifully made.

The room faded from his perception as he focused, even the two Magisters vanishing from his awareness as he turned the object in his hands, his eyes darting from place to place as he peered through the glass. At one point, he even put the glass down and began to feel the script with his fingers, relying on his sense of touch to separate the miniscule runes from each other.

He went over it from top to bottom, several times, before he eventually picked up the pliance and traced several runes, muttering to himself as he pieced the networks together, tracking the flow of energy. The variety of sigils used was incredible, and there were many he had never seen before, but with context, he could figure them out.

Finally, he placed it back on the table, his awareness returning. His shoulders ached.

“It’s an energy exchanger,” he said, then pointed to each of the layers in turn, “from water to fire to air to ground, and then back again.”

He shook his head.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. Containing such opposed affinities of magick so close together, the thing should explode if you ever used it, but I bet it doesn’t. Whoever made that is a genius.”

“Would you like us to pass on your regards to the creator?” Gilden said.

“I can speak to Master Willhem myself.”