The bronze speartip flickered with a shower of sparks that obscured his vision, then with a hissing roar erupted into red-gold flame as Clymere channeled her own power through the conductive apeironic bronze. Her blaze crackled as it approached, the fires billowing out in a rush to obscure his vision, but Kosta knew this trick.
Clang.
It had been a long time since Clymere had been able to strike him down in a single blow.
Rather than his vulnerable gut, her spear impacted a shimmering barrier the color of slate (and much tougher) that burst from his forearm in a flat sheet. Kosta grit his teeth as his right arm shuddered beneath the impact.
Hells, that would bruise tomorrow! It couldn’t pierce his barrier, but it hurt like a bitch. The bronze speartip bounced off the Projection that he’d crafted, but Clymere didn’t let up for a moment.
She used the recoil to swing the spear around, fire bleeding from its tip and crackling in a great arc around her as it followed her motion, and slammed it against his Projection a second time. As expected, his shield stood strong - they both knew it was more durable than that - but Clymere enjoyed poking and prodding him.
Literally, in this case.
Clymere’s muscles, enhanced by her own magic, flexed like a wildcat’s as she reared back and thrust her spear pointedly against the Projection yet again. A single crack ran down it, but was soon repaired by Kosta’s will as he desperately fed power into the barrier.
“Turtle!” Clymere teased with a cocky smile on her lips. She pulled back a few feet and paced before him, though she never left her back exposed.
Kosta refused to let the barrier fall, although the strain of maintaining it had already begun to take its toll on him. The edges of his Projection wavered.
“I see that I won’t break that shell open anytime soon. You know what we do to turtles, right?”
Ugh.
Straining one’s magic was reminiscent of the inescapable burn of someone holding their breath. Muscles seared, the body fought to release its burden, and the sparks of panic screamed. Just apply it to one’s mind instead. Kosta was fairly fit, but the strain of focusing his power in combat like this never failed to take its toll. His breaths quickened.
Kosta strained to tighten the Projection and expand its borders a foot in either direction despite his internal screaming. It was good timing as well: Clymere strolled a safe distance away, leveled her spear at him, and braced herself for the coming pushback. Her speartip glowed as light ran up the apeironic bronze shaft and focused in the head.
He knew what was coming.
His eyes squeezed shut as the speartip erupted in a brilliant conflagration. Kosta grit his teeth as a deluge of flames bathed the slate barrier and tested it, fire licking around the edges, curling close, and singing the hairs of his arms.
It was relentless! All Kosta could do was maintain his barrier. His Projection shone brighter and brighter until even the sun’s rays seemed dull in comparison.
“You’re looking a little chilly! Why don’t I warm you up?” Clymere cackled behind the firestorm, only adding to his mounting frustration. Her apeironic bronze speartip, shaped from the blessed metal, was designed specifically to channel arcane power. It amplified Clymere’s magical energies with ease and spat fire at Kosta in a constant stream.
But she wouldn’t toy with him like this for long. Rather than the wild, raging inferno that had initially threatened to consume him, Clymere slowly concentrated her will upon the magic.
The flood condensed. Stray tongues of loose flame curled back within the gushing torrent. A vast red river focused into a blazing current the circumference of a fist, and Kosta buckled as the overwhelming power devoured his barrier.
He felt his Projection shatter, flung himself to the side to prevent the tightly-bound flames from punching through his torso, and barely had a moment’s break before Clymere came down upon him.
“Shit!” He rolled to avoid her initial jab, which was deliberately slow. Clymere’s bronze speartip punched several inches into the hard packed soil. He focused his will in an attempt to rebuild his Projected barrier, but Kosta’s magic stitched itself together too sluggishly. Only a few slate wisps coalesced before being swept away by Clymere’s spear.
“What’s a turtle to do without his shell?” Clymere mocked. Kosta wheezed as she lightly drove the butt of her spear into his gut.
Clymere was playing with him, no surprise there. She’d never let it end this easily.
His sister poked at Kosta with lazy, mundane jabs for a time, simply testing him. Clymere didn’t feed a drop of magic into her spear or let a trickle empower her muscles. Kosta dodged, dodged again, and soon let it fall into a routine as the back-and-forth became instinctual.
While his pride never would have survived having an audience to this spectacle, Kosta did wish someone was here to see what came next.
Kosta’s fingers twitched, but Clymere was having too much fun to notice. It was a difficult technique to pull off at a distance, but he managed to gather enough willpower to silently Project a shimmering grey block just a foot behind Clymere.
“C’mon, you can do better. You’ve been my sparring buddy for years!” Clymere complained, sticking her tongue out at him… which was shortly followed by a little puff of flame that raged down at Kosta’s face. It dissolved just a foot away. “Focus. I need you to—”
He lunged to his feet and brought his xiphos down upon her. Kosta wasn’t quicksilver like Clymere, but he’d planned this.
She grunted as she caught his wooden blade on the haft of her spear. The clumsy attack wouldn’t stand a chance against her defenses. Despite the insufferable cockiness she liked to play up during their spars, Clymere rarely let her guard down. He’d surprised her one too many times in the past.
That was fine by Kosta. His blow didn’t need to break through her defenses. All he had to do was press his brief advantage. Kosta’s training blade weighed against Clymere’s spear, but she held firm. Her eyes blazed with delight, smoke puffed from her nose, and he could already see her inner flame being stoked.
This turnaround wouldn’t last long. He had to make the most of it!
Power oozed from his palms as he bore down upon her. His muscles burned and his bones ached, but he pressed onward. Kosta wouldn’t disappoint Clymere, and he certainly wouldn’t be able to live with barely lasting a moment against her!
His magic, guided by his will, suffused his wooden xiphos. Kosta’s imagination drove it forward. This blade was one of his own creations. It was Kosta who had envisioned it, shaped it, and crafted the wood into the shape it now held.
It was receptive to his magic.
Broaden. Grow. Lengthen. Heavy. Heavy. Heavy!
A shell of grey magic encased the wooden xiphos and worked its… well, magic.
Kosta’s desires consumed it. Clymere grinned and pressed back harder, strength fueled by her great magic, but it was no use as Kosta Overlaid his imagination against reality. The sword grew strong as a phantasmal grey blade manifested. Its tip shot to scrape against Clymere’s helm.
“That’s more like it!” Clymere bellowed. “Show me what you’ve -”
With the blade Overlaid, the final touch was given. His whole body burned with the strain of so many workings, but it was sufficient. Kosta had not added sharpness or durability to the blade: he’d added mass.
Clymere buckled beneath the unexpected weight. She had the strength to withstand it, but not without warning. His sister grunted as she stumbled backward, tripped over the Projected block behind her, and found herself flat on her back and staring at the blue sky.
“My point!” Kosta drove the blade down at her torso. He couldn’t toy with her like she had with him. Without a shield, Clymere had no defense. But rather than attempting to block his attack, she simply angled her spear to blast another hot gout of flame at his face.
Kosta couldn’t Project a barrier in time while he maintained so many workings, so he was forced away.
She was quick to rush to her feet, but he was fast enough to Project a few wisps of power into a frail, immaterial barrier just over her head. Clymere burst through it, her silver plume blazing like the sun, but he did laugh as she yelped.
“Ow! I hate it when you do that. Jerk.”
Unfortunately, Clymere wasn’t kind enough to offer any breathing room. She easily caught his next blow (clumsy and slow thanks to his heavy blade) on her spear’s haft. She was strong enough to simply block it given preparation, but Clymere was in no mood for that. With a great twist, she flung his blow to the side and punished him with several brutal jabs to the gut.
No flame flickered from the tip, thankfully. She simply rapped him with the spear’s butt to knock the wind out of him, then tensed for just a moment. Clymere gritted her teeth as she paused in her swift assault.
Kosta didn’t like that. No, he didn’t like that at all.
A break in the dance of combat normally meant she had something in reserve to keep the fight under control. Or worse, Clymere wanted to test something against him.
Clymere’s skin flushed red. Kosta saw red flames deep in her throat when she opened her mouth to growl at him. Little sprays of cinder and smoke billowed out into a great screen that obscured his vision, and Kosta felt the sudden burst of power from his sister like a gust of sweltering air.
He readied himself as he eyed the smokescreen. Where was she? Kosta's heart pounded in his chest.
There!
She exploded through the black veil of smoke with blinding speed. Clymere was on him before he could blink, swinging her fiery spearhead at him like a hammer. Kosta fell back, but the flames raged closer and closer. His heart pounded as he let his Overlay slip away from the wooden xiphos, focused all his power into his arm—
“Too slow! Always too slow!” Clymere growled. Her spear drove through the Projection before it could fully coalesce, dispersing the wisps of his magic and collapsing his hopes. Inhuman vigor fueled her swift, mighty movements and power bled from her in a haze. Smoke curled off the ends of her hair and billowed out from her nostrils with every breath. “That’s going to get you killed in a real fight!”
Well, she wasn’t wrong. But that’s why he took Clymere with him. She’d forged him into a brawler through these regular spars, but Kosta had no intent of joining the militia.
That was her job, thank you very much.
His attitude wouldn’t help him here, though.
Clymere roared out another conflagration that exploded from her throat in a howling inferno. Kosta winced as the searing heat brushed his skin, though the actual flames died against his protected clothing. His own power blunted the damage somewhat, but every drop that he expended on defense was one less that he could use to strike back.
Even so, his skin grew red and the beginnings of blisters formed. Clymere carried one of Ademia’s salves that would cure his light wounds in a matter of hours, but Kosta was going to be pissed if she burned his hands again.
With the wellspring of his power running dry and Clymere’s at her apex, Kosta decided that it was time to stop relying on his power alone. She could’ve ended it right there with ease, but Clymere offered him a bit of space so that she could draw the fight out a little more. Her green eyes were sharp beneath the brow of her bronze helm.
She leveled her spear at Kosta as he staggered back. Its apeironic bronze tip burned with the promise of terrible flames and sweltering heat. “One more!”
Kosta flipped her off. Her jaw dropped, then she barked out a bellowing laugh. “That’s the spirit. Let’s go!”
His free hand dipped into the folds of his chiton and brushed over his talisman. There was one treasure that he hadn’t discarded before the fight. Kosta clutched it tight, but didn’t draw upon its strength just yet. He had to time this perfectly!
Clymere planted her feet in the scorched earth. Both hands gripped her spear tightly as she angled its edge at Kosta again. She squeezed her eyes shut for an instant to focus her magic, and soon the spear’s tip shone a brilliant white as terrible heat bled off the metal and set the air rippling around it.
He raised his wooden blade with one hand. With the other he readied his talisman. It hummed at his touch.
Kosta had only a moment to react when Clymere set her spear ablaze. He heard a crackle, the beginnings of a roar as the white flame rushed directly at him, and Clymere’s laughter above it all.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Now!
“Aegis!” Kosta yanked the talisman from his pocket and held the marble sculpture aloft. It was small, but he’d poured hours of his love into this creation. The model of Teris, the Iron Wall of Stenetra, pulsed with grey energy as he fed his will into the miniature man with the giant shield.
It responded. Every line of this little mimicry of the Kleosian had been shaped by Kosta’s hand. He had hewn it from a plain, undefined block. He had seen the potential and extracted it chip by chip. He had invested his power and time to ensure it was… well, it wasn’t perfect, but it was beautiful.
Just barely.
Legends declared that Teris the Iron Wall had held the farthest reaches of the distant Stenetra Range against an army of wretches single handedly. His power was complete, dauntless, and impenetrable. The peerless warrior sealed off an entire pass while thousands of foes beat down upon him. He did not break. He did not falter.
Even more incredibly, he had lived.
This Teris was a pale shadow of the true Kleosian, but it fulfilled its role admirably.
His talisman soaked up the sparks of his magic like a sponge. Grey became white as Kosta’s magic emboldened the protective talisman to life, stirring it from its dormant state.
White-hot flame rushed down upon him in a scorching stream, but he had nothing to worry about. Its heat would never touch him while he had Teris in hand.
A half-sphere barrier manifested ahead of him. It absorbed the inferno undaunted for a time, devouring the stream whenever it touched the solid edges. Kosta fed the barrier what he could, but Clymere did not relent. She focused her own stream of fire to a higher intensity, stoked it with all the flames in her own spirit, and it condensed into that thin bar again…
The barrier was maintained, but Teris began to burn in Kosta’s hand. It trembled, threatened to crack, to be destroyed as it fulfilled its mission—
“I yield.”
Clymere’s flame sputtered out in an instant. Kosta waited for the heat and smoke to ebb, then worriedly checked over his creation with frantic eyes. The marble was still hot to the touch, a sign that its protective power had been exhausted, but he was grateful that no cracks had formed on the talisman’s surface.
Teris’ power was still intact. Kosta thumbed its square jaw as relief surged through him. What would he have done if it had been broken?
He must be more careful.
“You’ve gotten better at that,” Clymere beamed as she clapped him on the shoulder and held out an open palm. “May I?”
Part of him balked like a dragon at the thought of handing over his treasure, but Kosta pressed Teris into his sister’s hand after a moment’s hesitation. She held it up against the sun’s light consideringly.
“He’s in pretty good shape after that,” she noted. “I haven’t seen this one before. Another Teris?”
Needless to say, not all of his creations were so successful. This was only his most recent iteration.
“Yes.”
“Pretty.” Clymere poked it, then offered it back. “Potent, too. It can definitely take a beating!”
Kosta took it back from Clymere and tucked his Teris safely away in his chiton. Although it appeared to be unharmed, he would have to examine the talisman thoroughly in order to ensure it could still channel his magic properly. Tools were useless if not maintained.
“Marble is less yielding than wood.”
Clymere wiped a few beads of sweat from her brow. While she’d won without too much trouble, Kosta felt satisfied that their fight had exacted a toll from her. Her limbs were still strong and sturdy, but he could see a faint tremble in them.
That was no great surprise, however. Years of sparring together taught Kosta that Clymere took her chosen element to heart in more ways than one. When she burned her brightest, she burned half as long. Her magic was potent. It was deadly. It lent itself amazingly well to combat, but exacted a heavy price.
Not so much today, naturally. Sparring like this was just a light workout for Clymere, particularly since she ordinarily faced stronger opponents than Kosta. She was the Dytifrourán militia’s rising star, and Headsman Linus ensured that she had little trouble seeking out her fair share of challenges.
“When can I get one?” Clymere asked eagerly. “You wouldn’t want your poor, delicate sister getting hurt, right? I live a dangerous life!”
Wasn’t that the truth?
“After I’ve finished the keystone for Headsman Linus,” Kosta said. It had been in his plans regardless. He always tried to ensure that Clymere had something to protect her. While he couldn’t go out on the militia expeditions, he could always be Clymere’s shield. “It might not work so well for you, though,” he warned. “Your power’s different than mine and the talisman is keyed to me. I’ll do my best, but it might explode in your hand for all I know.”
“Really?” Clymere perked up.
Ugh.
“Really.” Kosta rolled out his shoulders and tested himself for injuries. No burns this time, thankfully, though his skin felt tender all around from the heat. Clymere kept a tight lid on her power, despite the wild blazes she summoned. She knew all too well how destructive it could be if mismanaged… as did the entire town. “Are we done here?”
“Yeah.” Clymere sighed, watching him with some disappointment. Her fingers were still curled tightly around the spear, which was glowing in anticipation. “Sure you don’t want to go for round two?”
Kosta was quick to retrieve his valuables from the lockbox. While Kosta would be lying if he said he didn’t find some pleasure in the fight or satisfied exhaustion that came after, there was nothing like the comfort of having his tools and supplies back on him.
Clymere far outmatched him, but at least she took care not to squash him like a bug. There was some catharsis in landing a few blows and knocking some sense into her on occasion.
She paced behind him as Kosta emptied the lockbox, still reckless. Clymere would return here for a spar soon enough. Agathon would be happy to duel her, or perhaps Eunike. Both were able to keep up with her.
“You should really stop relying on your tricks so much,” Clymere said, then immediately raised her hands to placate Kosta when he turned around to glare. “I know, I know! You’re not a trained warrior. I’m not saying you should stop. I’m just saying you should work on your fundamentals. They should be a tool, not a crutch. Like this!”
Kosta scoffed as she pounded her bronze spear against the blackened soil.
“I'm an artist. A sculptor! Why shouldn’t I play to my strengths?”
“You’re slow! Don’t give me that face,” Clymere scowled. “It’s the truth. Your barriers are sturdy, but they take too long to manifest. It’s going to get you killed one of these days!”
Kosta fished Teris from his pocket and dangled the talisman in front of her face. “That’s what he’s for.”
“Just think about it, won’t you?” Clymere frowned. “You give me new grey hairs everytime we venture outside the walls, you know. Your talismans grow stronger every day, but what if they aren’t enough? You know what kind of things live out there.”
“That’s why I take you with me,” Kosta said as he finished stowing his belongings away. The jingle of his stones and tools soothed him. “I’m never worried with you at my side.”
Clymere matched his pace as Kosta strolled back to the entrance of the arena. The spar was a nice diversion, but he was itching to return to his workshop. Kosta’s irritation at Old Isidora had faded somewhat, but now he needed to make something.
Should he continue the keystone project for Headsman Linus, or would it be more prudent to make another attempt at Animation?
No, that path was too frustrating. He’d save that for a day where his patience hadn’t already been sorely tested.
His mind was still abuzz as they exited the arena and returned to Dytifrourá proper. Few people ventured out to this corner, but the training grounds were still well within the town’s limits. It could even be converted into a fortress to protect the locals if necessary, although such hadn’t been necessary in years.
The last time such a thing had occurred was shortly after his own Dòrognosis. He remembered little from that night other than plumes of smoke in the distance, the panicked chatter of the townsfolk, his knife steady in his hand as he carved his worries away, Clymere pacing like a wild cat as she itched to go out and defend their land, and the howling of a great windstorm as it battered the earthen walls.
“Art man! Cly!” Philo greeted them with a mournful grunt as they emerged. He opened his palm to reveal a pile of yellow grit and a few solid clumps of sandstone that had survived his brutish touch. The huge man’s eyes drooped. His bottom lip quivered. “Hammer broke.”
Kosta’s eyes squeezed shut. Again?! The sun rose, the sun set, and Philo ruined anything that was handed to him. May the Aretans never see the day that someone was stupid enough to hand him a baby.
“There there, big guy,” Clymere patted his arm. “I’m sure that my favorite brother in the whole wide world won’t mind making you a replacement the next time we come by, right?”
Kosta was tempted to lay into the idiot for breaking yet another one of his creations, but Clymere stared daggers at him. How hard was it to not squeeze it or pound it with magic or hammer it into the ground or whatever it was that Philo kept doing?
“Yes,” Kosta said through gritted teeth. “Next time.”
“Such a sweetheart,” Clymere cooed and batted her eyelashes at him. Philo emphatically agreed while his sister affectionately patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, brother of mine. I’ll make it up to you. I’d say this is good for… two adventures into the wilds. What do you say?”
Well, Clymere certainly knew how to lighten his mood. She never minded helping him out (she probably took it as her sacred duty to keep him from being eaten by some enormous beast) but the schedules set by Headsman Linus were taxing at the best of times. Squeezing out time could prove difficult between patrolling, training, and the town’s campaigns to pacify the westlands.
“Meet me at my workshop in three days,” Kosta said, mind racing. “I need new materials.”
“Well, I’d hoped to have you over for dinner tonight, but I guess that will work.”
Kosta rolled his eyes and turned to head back down the road that had taken them here. Back toward his workshop. “Goodbye, Clymere.”
There was far too much work to be done! He’d tarried here for long enough.
“I’d better see you tonight!”
He waved his sister off and increased his pace. The day was still young. If he hurried, he may be able to make adequate progress and meet Clymere for dinner later. Kosta would never hear the end of it if yet another occasion slipped his mind.
There was still one final detour to make, however.
Kosta exchanged polite nods with most of the passersby, but neither side expected more than that from the other. He wasn’t some misanthrope, but he did mind wasted time and unwanted dialogue. If someone wished to speak to him, they could come to his workshop and arrange a commission.
If someone sparked his interest, he would seek them out. He and most of the citizenry preferred this mutual understanding. They’d settled into a nice equilibrium over the years.
His wanderings steered him to the east, past the great gates of the high walls, but still within the high wooden palisade that marked the point where farmland began. The wooden stakes traveled for miles around, erected not by hand and chisel but by magic.
Such a feat would’ve taken months with the labor of mundane hands.
It was whispered that Headsman Linus had twisted the aether into a legion of phantasmal workers that had raised it in a single night, though Kosta had his doubts. Then again, such a thing would explain the questionable quality of the boundary walls. Plenty of love had been spared for the tall limestone walls which protected the town’s heart, especially for its magical protections.
Kosta soon found himself standing before one of the few reminders of the Hesperians and Xenenes of the past: a simple stone obelisk masterfully carved from an enormous slab of red granite, unweathered by the centuries it had rested here. Many of their monuments had been purged and uprooted, although much of it happened when Kosta was just a baby, and only a handful had proven stubborn enough to resist their new rulers.
Of those that remained, many retained a vestige of the power invested into them by their creators. Some were marked by vast networks of transpoietic arrays etched upon their stone. Those arrays channeled the power of the land and sun into a variety of utility and fortified the mundane material to supernatural heights.
One fueled the wellspring beneath Dytifrourá and supplied the town with fresh, purified water. It had been a function that Headsman Linus was happy to keep.
He laid a hand on the smooth stone and marveled at the delicate veins and spots that blended together into a gorgeous composition of red, white, and black. The obelisk towered above him, tall as seven large men, and possessed excellent craftsmanship.
The obelisk’s lines were clean and composed brilliantly. Its stone was expertly cut by magic, each angle and vertex sharp and perfect. The love invested in the monument by its creators was obvious at a glance.
It was gorgeous in a way disparate from the raw beauty of natural wonders: the emerald-drenched mountains which cradled Dytifrourá in their slopes, the endless tracts of blue sky and the faded white streaks across it, the gently rolling hills atop which the town’s foundation had been laid, and even the vast, spectral impression of dark Oroneiros above it all.
Such beauty was inherent to their existence. They were unshaped. Unmarred. Too vast for any mortal to craft into something new in their entirety. Their shapers were the natural forces of wind, water, and time.
Perhaps the storied touch of the Aretans may bend them into some new arrangement.
But the obelisk held none of that unprocessed appeal. It was a simple stone once, an artifact of the Demiurge’s grand creation, yet a mortal mind had seen something more hidden within it. They had etched away imperfections, pieces that didn’t fit their design, until they revealed the subject of their dreams.
That was something that Kosta could understand.
Yet he hadn’t come all the way out here to admire some unknown artisan’s work.
No, he’d admired the obelisk and the faint sheen of the transpoietic array that laced through the stone plenty of times in the past. The black helioklept veins ensured that the sturdy material would never know the ravages of time. It had been a recurring source of inspiration as he made his own fumbling attempts at creation.
He’d come for something quite different.
Kosta didn’t bother attempting to pour his power through the stone. His meager strength would wash off the granite like the gentle lapping of waves against the shore. Mundane granite would eventually succumb to his magic, but infiltrating stone fortified by such powerful magic was still beyond him.
Even so, Kosta did not think that he could find it in himself to steal away a little piece of this treasure. It had survived countless seasons and the prying eye of Headsman Linus. Who was he to violate such a beautiful thing?
Instead, he knelt, pressed his hand to the stone beneath the obelisk, and focused.
It took a great deal of focus to summon the last dregs of his power. Clymere had exhausted him. Yet it came with time. Kosta allowed his magic to seep into the stone’s pores and fought past the sandstone’s natural resistance. It resisted his demands, sturdy and reinforced by the granite monument’s power, so Kosta cajoled it instead.
Timeless. Beyond the reach of the elements. Unchanging. He would not disturb this material if not for a good cause.
Minutes passed before the stone finally succumbed. Kosta’s grey magic ate deep into the stone, severed the bonds holding it in place, and pried a small block loose. Each of the block’s faces was the length of Kosta’s forearm. Kosta ran a finger over it, sent a pulse of magic through, and smiled as information was fed into his mind.
Yes, this would do.
He stowed it away, thoughts already abuzz with how best to utilize it in the project he intended it for, and patiently filled in the little hole he’d left at the base of the monument with some nearby dirt. It wasn’t perfect, but at least its beauty wouldn’t be marred by his meddling.
With that, he rose, turned back to Dytifrourá, and returned to his workshop.
Oroneiros towered above, still oriented to the east. Kosta stared hungrily at that impossible dream, but put such thoughts away as he stroked the sandstone in his pocket.
So much to do. Such little time to do it.