Nua settled down, waiting for the king to snoop around, then open the farvision window. She didn’t expect a flash of familiar rage to carry over the connection. Before Anki started to relay his view, she already realized that something was wrong. He usually controlled himself better.
The mage-engineer camp looked very organized just like the king told her before, but at the same time, she made her own observation.
The tents looked rich.
They weren’t just large and well made but also embroidered with red, silver, and golden thread over the entrance, showing a coat of arms that looked like a stylized hawk. She had no idea what it represented, only that they belonged to the same lord – or the same organization. She tried to recall the pattern on the mage-engineer robe, and to her surprise, she remembered it. It depicted birds, but not the birds of prey, and in different colors entirely. Either the mage hired those people, or they hired him. Anyway, it did not bode well. It meant that he did not act on his own account anymore, if he ever did, that is.
She also saw at once what made Anki so angry.
The cockpit of the Sapphire Leopard was open.
The machine lay prone, supported by a bunch of pillars, restraints, and contraptions. There were smudges of dust, or perhaps scratches on the paint, on the whole, tower-sized corpus. In the sunlight, even in this state, the Leopard made a striking appearance, a gleaming golden-blue giant straight out of legends. After a moment, Nua realized something else. She remembered the Leopard was covered in the intricate golden glyphs, but she did not recall the red ones, sparse, crude in comparison, painted over the machine’s body.
The king floated closer, his anger silently flowing through the connection. It felt weird to see the chair made of foam for the second time and embarrassing to notice a scrap of dirty cloth still wrapped around one of the sticks. She needed to say something, just to shake Anki out of his brooding mood.
“They opened it, but they can’t use it, just like you told me.”
“I wish I could stop them right here and right now.”, he hissed. “Do you see this butchery?”
“Uh…”
“I mean the runes. This is advanced sorcery, so I’ll make it short. When you establish a Matrix for your Concept, you can imbue script with it. Essentially, it uses the same rule as the Technique. It is leaning on ether’s memory to create a stable, yet elastic pattern. It’s called a spell, and when channeled properly, it can be used by the people who never established this particular Matrix. It’s a useful aid for budding sorcerer that has yet to create their own Concepts. If you are able to channel and cast from memory, and you understand the script, you’re halfway there.”
“Wait, wait. So the red runes, that’s a spell?”
“More precisely, it’s a spell embedded in the written script. Likely, a copy of the original.”, Anki huffed. “But the emegir is absolutely, entirely butchered. The errors are atrocious. Sure, it worked. It worked like a crowbar applied to the door. There is a crack on the cockpit and scratches on the surface. They’re never going to run the Leopard at this rate, but they might very well destroy it.”
“You said you prefer it.”
“Certainly, I prefer them to destroy it than to drive it. I just can’t look at that… travesty.”
“Anki…”, Nua started. “Maybe don’t get, you know, too attached? We can still go back for the other ones. Anyway they can’t pilot the Leopard. Maybe they could in the future, but then I’ll be strong and we’ll take it back.”
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“I am aware of the rational solution. That still doesn’t make me happy.”
“I’m sorry, Anki,” Nua looked around the spirit’s visual field, to redirect his attention. “Hey, over there. That’s our mage-engineer.”
The elderly mage, in his silver-blue robes (today, the pattern depicted tamarisk flowers) and with the white beard reaching his belt, was taking a stroll along the camp. A walking machine accompanied him, the same that served him as a mount. This time, the mage deigned to descend and converse with his new companion.
It was a tall man enveloped in a dark cloak, his face shaded by the hood. He didn’t look like a part of the camp. No coat of arms, no embroidery whatsoever. He didn’t even give an air of a soldier, more like a dangerous type Nua would expect to meet in the Bottoms. They were leading a heated discussion.
“They say the bad things come in threes.”, Nua said.
“Superstition”, the spirit muttered.
“I know. I think it’s something else. Do you know the scarabs? The dung beetles? I think when a dung beetle climbs on a big pile of dung, and it drops the ball by accident, and the ball starts rolling down the pile of dung, and it ends up as a huge dung ball, this is when people say the bad things come in threes. It’s never threes. It’s a gigantic, stinking dung ball.”
“By the Heavens, Nua. This is both horribly imaginative and very relevant to my own situation. Climbing to the greatest heights, and then an enormous dung ball indeed,” Anki sighed.
“Oh.”
Nua’s breath caught.
An animal hurried after the pair. A large, dog-sized drake with scales so black they were almost blue, long, elastic tail and small, shriveled wings on its back – useless, likely. The creature used all four of its limbs to move and almost dragged its stomach on the ground. It had a long snout like some of the fish species. It also had no eyes, and not because they were poked out. Black, lustrous scales grew in the sockets where the eyes should be.
“What’s that?”
“Bad news”, Anki grew serious and flew closer. “Let me listen.”
“Just do not expect a miracle.”, said the dark man, staring at the mage-engineer with annoyance. He didn’t seem to show any respect for the elderly, rich, and probably noble sorcerer. “You waited too long and allowed the trail to go cold.”
“Do you have any idea what it took to open that thing? Never mind, you wouldn’t know”, the mage-engineer answered, visibly exasperated. “I have reconstructed the aura of the subject, and it was not easy, too. The traces were weak. Judging from my experience, they were barely using ether in there.”
Nua froze.
“That does not interest me and does not make my job any easier”, the man groused. “Consider yourself lucky if they didn’t leave the city already. Or their track went cold everywhere else, and there will be no areas I can point to and ask you to reconstruct it.”
“Start with the docks, then. That’s the fastest way to get out of town. If they did, you need to follow. If you’re right and this was an Unsagga, not just any explorer, we’re up shit creek. This,” the mage-engineer made a sweeping gesture at the goliath, “is exactly what we’re supposed to prevent. Somewhere, someday, they’ll crop up again. The Overlord will want them dead, and us too, if we don’t deliver.”
“Speak for yourself”, the man scoffed. “No Overlord lords over the Guild. I’ll do as promised, but if I can’t find them,” he spread his arms. “You reap what you sow.”
The window in the air vanished. Nua’s mind blanked out. She was barely able to breathe. She got a general sense of the conversation. These people wanted to find her and kill her, and they had the means to do so.
Anki appeared beside in haste.
“Nua, listen to me. Look at me. Nua!”
She breathed out and gazed at the king.
“First of all, do not use ether under any circumstances until we get out of here. Do you understand?”
“…yes.”
"That animal you saw is a sniffer. An ancient hybrid. They track people, looking for their ether signature, which lingers for a few days after you use sorcery. In my days, it was one of the ways to detect stray talents. Or criminals. Or both.”
“Anki. Anki”, she shuddered. “You’re talking your ass off. We’re using ether all the time.”
“We’re leaning on our sympathetic connection, so nothing gets out, or at least not above the background of this place. Back in the ushumgar, you synchronized with it, unwittingly leaving traces. Now, this is very important. Have you used ether in your house in the last week? I don’t remember every instance.”
“I did not,” she swallowed. “I used it in the docks. And I trained near the Bottom’s market. I didn’t want to fail, like the first time, and harm the kids.”
“Then, you can go back home. Easy. Follow me. They did not notice us yet.”
She got up to her feet, then froze again.
“Anki. The lamp. I have a magical lamp.”
“Its ether does not leave traces. It is locked inside.”, said the spirit in a soothing tone. “We go.”
“They’ll know I live in the Bottoms.”
“We’ll think of it later. Now, go!”