Dallen approached the large building in the center of town, new boots squelching on the mud between the loose cobblestones of the center square. The place was two stories of decently built stone and wood, with glass windows and a clay tile roof. It had a garden growing out front, budding with a modest assortment of herbs and flowers. A decent place for a town like this. But even in a town like this, Dallen had not been expecting such a place to be a Pattern wizard’s workshop. He always assumed they liked high towers of white marble or black stone.
But this was where Vanteus had made his workshop, so this was where Dallen needed to go. The wizard had been brewing elixirs and remedies for the baron’s men, and Dallen had volunteered to pick them up. It was as decent an excuse as any to finally talk to the wizard again, now that he was out of his cell.
Upon wiping his feet on the steps outside and entering on the first floor, he found another unexpected scene. The entire floor was a wide room dotted with thick wooden pillars, and was filled with sick beds and medical supplies. A few of them were occupied, though most of those present appeared to be stable and resting. It reminded him of the hospital tents they’d had on the fronts when he’d still served Callia. Though this had solid wooden walls instead of cloth, and a great deal less blood.
Maybe he should have guessed the old wizard’s place would look like this. After all, he wasn’t exactly the picture of a usual Pattern wizard, wise and mysterious and powerful. But maybe few of them were anymore, now that their magic was as likely to kill them as it was to be useful.
Dallen heard footsteps coming down the stairs and turned, expecting Vanteus. Instead, a young girl, perhaps in her late teenage years, with an armful of towels and a leather bag came down. She wore robes like the wizard’s, but they were simple grey and brown instead of Vanteus’ bright white.
The girl stopped on the steps and eyed him cautiously, but without fear. There were bags around her deep green eyes, as if the last few nights had yielded little sleep for her. After a moment, she apparently noticed something that made her relax a bit.
“You Vanteus’ appointment?” she asked.
“Aye. You his apprentice?”
“Aye,” she replied simply, and began moving to continue her work, placing the towels down on a table beside one of the occupied beds. The patient in it was sweating like it was a hot summer’s day outside, despite the chill that was floating through the open windows.
“I didn’t think wizards in a town like this took apprentices.”
“There aren’t usually wizards in towns like these in the first place.” She began working with the patient, wetting a towel with cool water to pay on the woman’s forehead. “But he took me on just before we came here. Six years ago. I was just a girl then — didn’t know it was anything unusual.”
She shrugged as if it made little difference. Dallen looked around at the room. It was a place of healing. So it had a weight of death and sickness that hung in the air.
“Ah. Maybe that’s for the best then. This place is a lot different from the academy in Londoria, I’d wager.”
She fixed her eyes on the sick woman, who coughed weakly.
“I’d take that bet…but I still have my work cut out for me here. I still learn. And I get to help people at least, few that there are.”
Dallen nodded.
“Yep…you definitely sound like Vanteus’ apprentice.”
She smiled softly, but it didn’t quite touch the distant sadness and fatigue in her eyes. After a brief pause, she opened up her leather pouch and began pulling instruments and vials from it.
“He’s upstairs, brewing up the baron’s concoctions. Unless you’re planning to lend a hand here, I wouldn’t keep him waiting.”
Dallen considered it for the briefest of moments, then almost laughed at himself. He wasn’t here to help heal the sick. So he turned for the flight of steps to head upstairs.
Contrary to the rest of the building, the upper level looked exactly how he’d pictured a wizard’s workshop. Shelves and benches covered the entire space, and each was packed full with books, papers, glassware, and strange instruments. Chalk drawings and notes covered dark slate boards and even sections of the wooden floor and walls. Jars containing all manner of strange herbs, minerals, and animal parts filled a tall shelf in the corner of the room. There were drawings of the human anatomy, labeled and sketched all over.
And all along the walls and desk space, on sheets large and small, were drawings of Patterns. Dallen had never understood the holy geometry that so many of the remnant Empyre worshiped, but he had always found them oddly entrancing. His eyes were drawn to one, hanging on the wall above a desk, a clear image framed by the mess of papers pinned haphazardly around it.
Understanding aside, there was an undeniable beauty to Patterns. They were constructed of perfectly straight lines, each connecting two distinct points in space; the simplest building block that should have been a limitation on the kinds of images you could create. Yet when the lines combined and overlapped at these perfectly even distances, they made flowing shapes and elegant, perfect curves. The precise rigidity of the spaced points were the reason for the beauty and evenness of the Pattern, just by making connections between them. This Pattern was multifaceted, with many smaller pieces fitting and flowing together so that you could never tell where one ended and the other began. It was like a blooming rose, a twist of leaves caught in an autumn breeze, a whirling pool of deep blue water. Dallen stared into its center, and, for some reason, thought of music. A faint melody, moving lazily, but building towards something grand.
A door opening shook Dallen of his reverie, and he nearly jumped backwards. Vanteus entered, hunched in his white robes, holding a clay vessel in a pair of tongs. Dallen coughed and adjusted his stance, trying to hide the surprise that Vanteus had given him. Damn drawings made his mind wander.
“Ah, good,” Vanteus said. Though he did not sound particularly happy. “I’m almost finished with the baron’s brews.”
Dallen watched as he affixed a curved glass tube to the clay vessel’s top and set the whole thing above a small burner of charcoal that he began to light.
“The baron has you making potions for his men now?”
Vanteus sighed, then blew softly on the growing fire. The coals surged with the orange glow of heat.
“For them, and the bandits they’ve aligned with. Elixirs of good health, meant to strengthen the body and keep it healthy. Very little magic involved, actually. Though there is still a great deal of work.” He shook his head. “All this time and resources spent making these mixtures. Time I could spend helping those downstairs — I’m sure you saw them. Instead, I have Adelaine handling most of the caretaking while I brew potions of strength for men in perfectly good health. That was what the baron called them: potions of strength.”
Dallen watched as a yellow-tinted smoke rose from the clay vessel, traveling through the glass tube and into a large glass flask.
“You could poison the mixtures. Take out the baron’s men and the bandits real quick.”
Vanteus snapped his head towards Dallen, old eyes firm and disapproving.
“I will do no such thing. We can oppose the baron through other means, far more honorable and far less violent.”
Dallen could have given the same little speech about knights and fighting as he’d given to the baron, but he didn’t have it in him. Vanteus spoke again before he responded.
“You spoke with the baron?”
“Had a lovely breakfast with him. Enough for the whole town to eat, though he must have forgotten to invite them.”
“And?”
Dallen gave a shrug.
“I’m not sure what you want me to say. The man’s a bastard. Not that surprising. I’ve met few lords that aren’t, and he’s not much worse than usual.”
Vanteus’ mouth tightened, but he kept his composure.
“What exactly did he say?”
“A great deal about the Pattern being dead and the Empyre being broken. The usual despairs. And something about taking matters into our own hands, and following strength.”
Now Vanteus nodded.
“That strength he seeks to follow is precisely what I’m worried about. Did he mention anything about the Shapeless warrior? And the destruction he would bring?”
“He was very cryptic and reverent about the whole thing.” Dallen kept his voice level, but felt a strange tingling of anticipation that he struggled to push down. Why did that happen every time that mystery warrior was mentioned?
Vanteus watched him with deep, aged eyes, and for the first time, the old wizard did not seem so passive and hesitant.
“He is dangerous, Dallen. The baron might have promised that violence wouldn’t come to the town — he’s made that promise to others, many times before — but it will if we hand it over to the Shapeless warrior.”
The hairs raised on the back of Dallen’s neck, and he crossed his arms to keep from fidgeting with his fingers.
“Oh good. You’re going to speak cryptically and reverently as well.”
“Fine. I will speak plainly. I have had the distinct displeasure of speaking to the warrior Hadrir on several occasions. The man is unhinged and unreasonable. He thinks himself a god because of his powers. He has no qualms about killing, and does so frequently and unpredictably. His men follow him with great respect, greater fear, and perhaps the greatest amount of awe. I have not seen him fight, but I have heard that no weapon can wound him.”
Dallen nodded, staring intently now.
“His blessing from the Shapeless God?”
“It would seem. He follows the Shapeless — follows the Way of the Unruled — in everything that he does. But that philosophy is anarchy, by its very nature. He means to bring that anarchy here, and the baron means to open the gates for him.”
“Hmph. He wouldn’t have to open the gates much; the bandits could just walk through one of the holes in the wall.” He japed, but his stomach still twisted and flittered with anticipation. “Any chance I can meet this harbinger of anarchy anytime soon? Everyone’s talking about him so much.”
“I’m afraid that will be difficult. Hadrir comes and goes as he pleases — as is his god’s nature. He’s prone to leaving unannounced for days or even months at a time. For all the baron’s talk of strength, he is choosing a fickle and undependable man to follow.”
“Perfect. So what exactly is it you plan on us doing in the meantime?”
Vanteus thought for a moment, then turned toward the clay vessel and began to agitate it, swirling it in small, slow circles. The yellow smoke had fogged up much of the glass tube, browning the surface slightly.
“You have influence and power, whether you want to admit it or not; you saw that when the baron came to speak to you. You can sway them — the baron, or at least a few of the guards. Talk them out of this madness that they’ve been caught up in.”
“And you can’t do that? Aren’t you the baron’s council?”
Vanteus hunched slightly lower, his shoulders drooping just a little more.
“The baron appreciates my council less and less. I have tried to dissuade him, but he has quickly grown impatient. He’s threatened to take away my medical supplies if I kept speaking about it. And I will not do that to the people of this town.”
“Ah…so you just want influence. And a sword by your side if the influence doesn’t work, right?”
Vanteus put down the tongs. The yellowish smoke had all but stopped. He slid a lid between the charcoal and the clay vessel, letting the rest of the smoke rise off in the confines of the tube.
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“My hope is that it will not come to that.” It sounded like he was trying to convince the both of them.
“Let me ask you this, Vanteus,” Dallen said, in a quiet and somber voice. “If it does come to that, will you fight back?”
The wizard closed his fist on the benchtop, old fingers shaking slightly.
“I will not use my gifts to harm others. I will not taint the holy magic of the Pattern.”
The wizards of old had killed hundreds of thousands in the great wars that the Empyre waged. The Pattern seemed to have little trouble with its magic being used for violence then. It gave Malakkin an axe that could split kingdoms in half, after all — or was he meant to use that weapon to cut his steaks?
“Your request reminds me a lot of the baron’s, Vanteus. You hope violence won’t come, but if it does, you really just want a good sword on your side to do the fighting for you.” Vanteus leveled another frustrated stare at him, but Dallen raised his hands. “I just wish you’d say it outright.”
Footsteps sounded on the wooden stairs before the wizard could retort. The girl — Adelaine, the wizard had called her — entered the room, looked slightly more disheveled and slightly more tired.
“I gave Prella some ronos bark solution to ease her fever,” she said to Vanteus. “And a bit of wormwood as well, to help her stomach. She’s…better, now. Calmer, at least. Hopefully she’ll actually get some rest.”
Vanteus nodded his head, giving his apprentice a weak smile.
“Good…rest is the best thing for her now. Had we the alchemy labs of Londoria and all its resources, we could perhaps brew her a more potent concoction for this ailment. But alas, we must do what we can. Excellent work, Adelaine.”
Adelaine nodded, her eyes falling to the floor. Dallen could see a weight on the girl’s shoulders, one that pressed all throughout her body and left a distant look behind her eyes. She moved towards the nearby bench, putting back empty vials into a basket, but paused after only a moment.
“Master Vanteus,” she finally said, eyes still on the basket of vials. “Prella has been like this for more than a week now. Her skin’s gone pale and sallow. I’ve kept up with feeding her but she’s lost so much weight.” Adelaine closed her eyes, firmed her mouth into a hard line, then faced Vanteus. “How long do we wait — how much worse do we let her get — before we use the Pattern’s magic?”
Vanteus met his apprentice’s gaze with one that was equal parts empathy and steady determination. Eyes that were hard, but did not like that they had to be.
“We only use the magic of the Pattern for dire circumstances, my apprentice. We have discussed this before. Only if Prella’s life is in immediate danger will we resort to such practices — and only I will administer them.”
Adelaine’s mouth twisted up in frustration.
“Just because the danger isn’t immediate doesn’t mean it’s not dire. Prella has children, Master Vanteus. She has a home to take care of. She can’t work and feed her own children if she’s bed ridden in pain. And if we let her go much longer, she might not be able to return to work at all.”
“And if the Pattern defracts,” Vanteus said, voice still calm against Adelaine’s rising agitation. “If — through no fault of our own, taking all the necessary steps and precautions — the magic of the Pattern tears open her stomach? Or boils her blood? Or breaks her bones into pieces? If it defracts onto us? What will we do then?”
Adelaine did not respond immediately. Her brows furrowed at frustration — perhaps not just at Vanteus, but also at the broken state of their once mighty magic.
“Sometimes risks are worth taking,” she said.
“As long as I am charged with the care of this town, I will not take risks that are unnecessary. I will not have one of my citizen’s deaths on my hands — or yours — if it can be avoided through caution.”
Adelaine closed her eyes, let out a long, weary breath, and nodded.
“Yes, Master Vanteus.” Her voice had lost the bite that it had previously. She went about her work again, slower than before.
Vanteus watched her work, then craned his neck to the side, stretching it out until Dallen heard a soft pop. The wizard rubbed at his old muscles and bones with a slight grimace.
“The baron’s elixirs should be ready in a short while, once they have settled. It will take at least three hours.” Vanteus walked over to a large contraption he had on the far side of the room. It held multiple hourglasses aligned in order of increasing size and varying thicknesses. He rotated the third all the way around until it sat on an angle, the circular track around it clicking as it went, then inverted the fourth and let it stay. Soft white sand began trickling calmly down. Dallen stared at the machine, trying to work it out.
“I apologize for the wait, Dallen, and I’m afraid I cannot accompany you during it. I need to pick up some more components across the town. You don’t need to stay the whole time — Adelaine will be keeping an eye on the elixirs.” The wizard gathered up a leather satchel and slung it slowly over his shoulder, then grabbed a walking staff from beside the door frame.
Perhaps it was a wizard’s mighty staff for channeling Pattern magic. But it just looked like an old piece of well-worn wood to Dallen.
“I’ll wait here,” Dallen said. “Less time spent helping the baron with his nasty business, right? I figure that’s working for the cause.” On top of that, Dallen didn’t have a clue how he was supposed to keep track of hours without carrying around that great big hourglass contraption with him. Wizards must often forget how not all the world’s people measure their lives in such precise measurements as practitioners of the Pattern.
“Keep fighting the good fight then,” Vanteus said, though his voice carried weariness rather than amusement. And with that, the wizard left.
Dallen was alone in the room save for Adelaine, who worked quietly in one corner, grinding up roots and leaves together with a mortar and pestle. The soft tap tap tap of stone on stone was rhythmic, almost calming. Dallen’s eyes watched the white sand trickle steadily down from the fourth hourglass. It pooled in a slowly growing mound at the bottom, dwarfed by the great mass of white hovering above it, like a great dam that felt ready to burst, but could only slip its contents drop by drop through a thin crack in its side.
Dallen’s eyes wandered across the components of the room until they fell back on the great drawing of a Pattern. Framed by the mess of papers hung around it. Twisting in brilliant clarity. A series of lines spinning into one another, overlapping in crosses and hatches and smooth curves, all spiraling towards a center point.
The tap tap tap of Adelaine’s mortar and pestle thumped in the background. A metronome, steady and low.
Dallen looked deeper into the Pattern. It was made of finite lines, but seemed almost infinite in its depth. In the number of combinations and meetings and meanings that one could find within it. Meanings that he did not understand, but that still fascinated him.
Tap tap tap tap.
The melody came again in Dallen’s mind. Something that felt as familiar as his own face, but that he could not place a name on. He tried to grab hold of it, tried to remember where he had heard that melody before, this tune that twisted and leapt about, evading his attempts to pin it down. Every time he reached for it got near to defining it, it would shift to a new line, becoming something new. It was like trying to catch a butterfly just out of reach of his fingers.
Tap tap tap tap.
Yet the pursuit of it still held him transfixed. Perhaps it was easier to just follow the melody. To let it guide him, to let it show him where it led. A flowing tune, rushing this way and that, growing greater, building towards something. Something vast and unknowable. Something that held a great allure and an even greater terror. A place of beauty and open, dangerous vulnerability, where no man was meant to go, yet a place that still called to him nonetheless.
“Do you know that Pattern?”
Dallen jumped a little, snapped from his transfixion. The senses of the sound came rushing back to him, disorienting. Adelaine was standing nearby, holding the stone mortar in her arms. Despite her apparent exhaustion, she cracked a grin at Dallen’s reaction, evidently aware of the strange reverie he had somehow fallen into again. Dallen cleared his throat, and stood up straight, trying to regain his composure.
“Can’t say I do. Never was much of one for studying the Patterns. I barely paid attention in church when the priests droned on about them.”
Adelaine scoffed at that.
“Leave it to a priest to take the wonder out of the world’s Patterns.” She gestured with her head towards the large drawing on the wall. “That’s the Pattern for water. Well…it’s part of the Pattern for water. Fresh water. We sometimes use components of that for purifying the water that we use in important mixtures and solutions. Or on the town’s well water, if it gets polluted.”
Dallen looked up at the large drawing again, wondering what components you could take out or add and not completely ruin the intricate work that was already there.
“You can use that to purify water? Maybe I should slap one of those on my drinking skin.”
“You could, but it probably wouldn’t do you much good. That drawing isn’t the actual Pattern itself. Just as a representation of it as paper and ink can manage.”
Dallen shook his head. This was the part that always threw him whenever someone talked about Pattern magic.
“Isn’t that what you wizards do when you cast a spell though? You trace a Pattern? With your fingers, or in your head?”
“Yes, but…it’s more complicated than that. Are notes written on a page music?”
Dallen thought of a moment.
“I don’t know. Aren’t they? Sort of?”
“Exactly. Sort of.”
Dallen cocked an eyebrow at her.
“Is that supposed to make everything clear?”
Adelaine shook her head.
“Notes on a page are sort of music. They’re almost music. And those who are familiar might look at them and see something like a melody, or be able to hear or hum pieces of it. Some can breathe life into that music, make it sing on an instrument or through their voice. Some can read an entire symphony’s worth of music at the same time, and hear every note. But without the training and the aptitude — without someone there to make the notes into music — it’s just ink on a page.”
Dallen looked back at the Pattern. Just ink on a page. Just lines, linked together by a careful hand.
“Ink on a page can still have power, though,” said Dalllen, still studying the Pattern. “The words of a treaty, or law. A portrait of a long-dead king that people still bow to, as if he still walked.”
“A letter from a far off loved one,” added Adelaine. “A painting of a warm sunset from home. Yes, they still have power…but only when we give it.”
Dallen couldn’t help but smile. The girl spoke like a seasoned old wizard, despite her age. Talking with great weight and philosophy.
“So wizards are musicians, then,” said Dallen. “Weaving lines into great music that brings down mountains.”
“Essentially.” She shrugged as if that was as good a characterization as any.
“Hmph. Well I never had much of an ear for music.”
There was a lull as both turned back to the Pattern of water. Or freshwater, or whatever the girl said it was. Far over Dallen’s head, that’s what it was. He looked, but the melody that had floated unimpeded into his thoughts did not return. No music sprang from the deep of his mind. Just the usual thoughts that kept him company. Imagining every Pattern wizard in the world trying to play on broken instruments, ever since the Final Battle.
“Master Vanteus says you have an arm from one of the Master Makers.”
Dallen turned and met her eyes. They had a hard look to them, like she was steeling herself. But just below that was a hunger, like a man eyeing a fat pouch of coins. Dallen slowly brought his gloved right hand up, holding it between them.
Carefully, he pulled free the fingers of his glove and removed it. The smooth steel grey material shone in the light coming through the glass windows, the delicately carved pieces of his metallic joints glistening and shifting as he slowly turned his hand.
Adelaine watched it, her focus all on the delicate craftsmanship of that hand. To most people left in the world, the works of the Master Makers were legends, whispered relics of the Ages past, before the Final Battle. Seeing one in person was both terrifying and entrancing. Especially when it might well be the only one made in the years since the great battle that had cracked the world.
She reached out her hand, unthinking, to touch the smooth fingers of the Maker’s arm. Dallen pulled back, a stern, flat look on his face as Adelaine shook and pulled back herself, as if she was about to touch hot irons.
“Didn’t Vanteus tell you that the works of the Makers are dangerous things?”
Her mouth formed a hard line and she met his eyes.
“It’s stuck into your shoulder, isn’t it? You seem to be doing fine.”
“Hmph. If I’m your baseline for ‘fine,’ you might want to reassess your criteria.” He slid the hide glove back on. “I’ve only had the thing a year or two. Who’s to say it won’t curse me. Or come alive and strangle me in my sleep.” He grinned, but it felt empty. His stomach twisted slightly talking about it.
“Everyone’s so damn afraid of magic,” Adelaine said, still looking at his gloved hand. “So afraid to take any risks, just because it’s a little more dangerous now. How can we know what happened to the Makers’ works if we always shrink away from them?”
That much did put a deeper grin on Dallen’s face. Though it was still a long way from making him feel all that warm.
“I guess not all the master’s traits rub off on the apprentice.” He suddenly felt the urge to leave, and his smile fell. Wasn’t quite sure why, but he was rarely one to fight his own feelings. He turned toward the door, smile fading.
“I’ll come back for Vanteus’ potions later.” Before he could make his exit, he stopped in the door frame. He had a bit better of an idea why he wanted to leave so suddenly.
“Adelaine.” The girl looked up at him. “If what Vanteus says is true — that a bloodbath is looming over this town, that it’ll be beset by bandits and monsters soon — you should get out now. You’ve still got a long life ahead of you, girl. Find some other town. Or some other master that will take you.”
She seemed to consider the words for a moment, but then furrowed her brow in frustration, shaking her head.
“I couldn’t…no.” She looked up at him, deep green eyes burning like a forest catching fire. “I’m not going to leave here. That’s a coward’s path; there’s people here that need me.”
The people in this town — and most of the people in this world, Dallen reckoned — were far past helping. Even from one as passionate as Adelaine. That would be a lesson she’d have to accept soon. But Dallen couldn’t quite bring himself to tell it to her now. Instead, he just turned back and headed out the door.
“Suit yourself, then. That’s your choice to make.”
As he left through the downstairs floor, with poor Prella shifting in a sickbed on the other side, another grim thought plagued his mind. True, Adelaine could leave if she chose to. But then she’d face the same question he’d faced himself for the last few years.
Where else in this world would you go that might actually be better?