Surrendering his mana crystal voluntarily actually made me even more suspicious of Bakir, so I took the time to make sure I had him properly secured. There was no real way to keep him long-term, not without a massive expenditure of my own mana to maintain a draining field on him at all times. Even if I were willing to invest that much into Bakir’s capture, I’d still need to keep an eye on him. Draining fields could be resisted, and it wouldn’t take much mana for someone at Bakir’s level of skill to attack the delicate magical structures keeping him prisoner.
No, the second I took my eyes off him, he’d start working on breaking free. Maybe I could hold him if I wanted to check on his progress and refresh everything every half an hour or so for the rest of my life, but since that was obviously infeasible, that meant this meeting was either going to end with me setting him free or me killing him.
Bakir had to know that, and yet he was remarkably calm. Either he had a trick in reserve that he thought I wouldn’t find, or he was confident in the aegis of the Global Order’s reputation to keep him safe. If it was the latter, he was making a mistake. So far, his cabal had done nothing to endear me to them and, while a few extra helping hands would make my life easier, I didn’t have any real need of their services.
I suspected they were operating under an inflated impression of their own importance, given that they’d reached what was likely the pinnacle of magic by today’s standards. That struck me as remarkably foolish, considering I’d found ample evidence of magic on the scale I was used to. History hadn’t been erased, not completely, and that meant they had to know what the archmages of the last era had been capable of.
Perhaps they simply thought that the tales were exaggerated, or that I’d require an entire cabal of my own to pull off the magic described in those stories. If so, they were in for a rude awakening once I found the rest of them.
I completed my investigation of Bakir’s current capabilities and determined that, in addition to the mana crystal he’d willingly surrendered, he had a pair of metal bracers hidden under his sleeves inscribed with runes that would shroud him in a mana barrier. They only worked at his direct command, and needed to be supplied with mana, so they did nothing for him in his current situation.
There was a small metal rod embedded in his leg under his skin, about the length of my pinky and half as thick. That was probably the source of Bakir’s confidence. It was an implanted emergency escape device, just waiting on him to trigger it to flee. My divinations swept over the enchantment, analyzing its structure and confirming that it wouldn’t be able to bypass my anti-teleportation wards. I was tempted to break it just to be certain, but on the off chance I could salvage some sort of working relationship with his cabal, I decided to leave it in place.
I added my own tracking enchantment to it, of course. If he somehow did manage to flee, I might as well follow him back to wherever it took him. There was every possibility that he’d run straight toward where I wanted to go. I might even let him escape on purpose if it proved to be too difficult to get answers out of him.
There were a few other pieces on him, but nothing that was going to help him out right now. Everything either needed mana injected into the inscriptions, of which he currently had none, or were enchantments entirely unrelated to combat. Finally satisfied that Bakir was as safely contained as it was possible to make him, I asked my first question.
“The Global Order of the Arcane is full of mages at stages five and six, correct?”
“For the most part,” he said smoothly. “Some of our initiates and a few legacy members are still at stage four. We’ve got a prodigy student who’s only at stage three, but he’s barely into his thirties, so exceptions were made to nurture such a promising talent.”
“How impressive,” I said dryly. Admittedly, it’d taken me far longer to reach stage three in my last life, but I hadn’t had the tutors or resources of a powerful lineage backing me.
If I hadn’t been watching Bakir so closely, I might have missed that single instant where the corners of his mouth started to curl into a frown before he mastered his expression. “If I might inquire, why the curiosity? Are you interested in joining the Order?”
“No, I’m determining how useful your cabal might be to me.”
Left unsaid was, ‘Or how much of a threat they are.’ I had no doubt Bakir caught the subtext, though.
“There are better ways to get our attention. I already came to talk to you once. You know where we’ve set up locally. Why summon me into this prison and drain my mana? I’ll be expecting that back, by the way.”
“Your cabal is based in Jeshaem, you said. Where at?” I asked, ignoring Bakir’s question.
“We have offices in several large cities, including—”
“I don’t care about your public-facing buildings. Where do the senior members actually live? Where do they do their experiments? Where do they keep their vaults? If I want to see whoever’s in charge, where do I go?”
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“You can’t,” Bakir said. “You see the Elder Council if and when they decide they want to see you, not the other way around.”
Why did every group need an Elder Council? That hadn’t been a thing been in my day. The mages who ruled did it with absolute power. They had subordinates, not colleagues. Maybe it was a matter of relative strength, of needing to share what little mana was still available in order to accomplish their goals.
I certainly had no plans on elevating a handful of mages up to be my equal so that I could share my authority with them, and yet I kept finding everywhere I went that the power structure included a few individuals at the same level. Usually there was one person who was the clear leader, but they weren’t typically so much stronger that they had unquestioned power over the rest.
Grandfather had an Elder Council. They’d triggered a minor civil war just a few years back. The Wolf Pack had used a similar structure, led by Monarch, but with Keeper, Velvet, Freak, and Weaver controlling different aspects of their cabal. The Sanctum of Light had four ruling Houses that were balanced against each other – at least it had until Ammun had woken back up and assumed unilateral control.
In my experience, cabals worked cooperatively, but maintained their own territories that might touch borders, but never overlapped. That power structure had apparently morphed into this cohabitative mess I kept finding everywhere.
“And where would your Elder Council want me to go when they decide to talk to me?” I asked.
Bakir remained silent for a moment. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “I have… not had the honor of speaking to them.”
The funny thing was that I believed him. He sounded genuinely embarrassed, or possibly just frustrated, that he hadn’t managed to climb the ladder high enough to be granted an audience. Pathetic.
“Archmage Keiran,” he said suddenly. “I mean no offense when I say this, but reconsider whatever this ill-conceived notion you’re pursuing is. I do not doubt your great skill, but seeking a confrontation with the Order is an unwise move. Not even you can defeat more than a hundred mages of equal power.”
“Equal power?” I asked with a laugh. “Do you really believe that?”
“You cannot bluff me in this regard,” Bakir said. “I fully believe you’ve reached the apex of what’s possible in this new world, but surely you realize that even with your great knowledge backing your power, a single stage six archmage cannot hope to win against such a great number arrayed against him?”
That gave me pause. “Why would you think…” I trailed off. Was he fishing for information about the resonance point by implying that I was stuck at stage six? I’d overheard them speculating about its existence. They had to have at least an idea that I controlled it, didn’t they?
The Order needed access to my mana resonance point to advance their own cores to stage seven. With all the spying they’d done, especially while I’d been away, I’d assumed they’d managed to pierce enough of my wards to find it, that the whole reason they were bothering me was to gain access to it.
“I suppose I gave you too much credit,” I murmured. “There I go, overestimating the magical knowledge of this new world again. You all really are just children, even the greatest of you.”
“Archmage Keiran?”
Either this was some sort of bluff to try to get me to brag and confirm the existence of the mana resonance point, or I was vastly overestimating their resources and abilities. There was no real point in speculating, though, not when I had someone with the answers I needed at my mercy.
“Archmage Bakir,” I began. “What is your cabal hoping to get from me?”
“What do you mean? We’d hoped to form some sort of alliance, possibly induct you as a member of the Order if you were amicable, but that did not appear to be likely based on our previous meeting.”
“An alliance to what purpose?” I asked.
“To stop the lich lord Ammun, of course.”
“Oh, of course. That’s why fellow members of your cabal are over in Ralvost right now making deals with the leaders of Ammun’s army.”
There it was again, that micro expression that he struggled to control. Bakir hadn’t known about what the other members of his cabal were up to. I wondered if Adilar or Nevlac were aware, or if the Order had a few factions that hid their actions from each other.
“I’m not sure where you got your information from, but I can assure you that nobody wants to see Ammun in power. The world barely survived it last time,” Bakir said. “Whatever you’ve been told, if it’s truly a group of archmages from the Order, they were not there to forge any sort of bargain with Ammun.”
“Interesting. It looks like I know more about what your cabal is up to than you do,” I said. “That’s not a good look for you.”
“You are mistaken,” my prisoner insisted.
“Am I? So there is nobody in your entire cabal who would work against someone else’s interests? No divisions between members of your Elder Council? No split loyalties?”
“No, of course not…”
“You don’t sound confident.”
Bakir’s voice firmed. “The Global Order of the Arcane is a united front. Our goal is to contain the threat Ammun represents to the entire world. My colleagues and I are here on this island for no purpose but to learn about you and to forge an alliance with the purpose of stopping the lich lord.”
The sad thing was that I believed Bakir believed all of that. Whatever closed-door deals his superiors were making with each other, whatever betrayals they had planned, Bakir was low enough down the ranks that even at stage five, he was just following orders and repeating the party line.
That kind of loyalty was commendable, at least, but his naivete wasn’t good for his long-term health. Sooner or later, he’d become someone’s sacrificial pawn. Hell, that was basically the position he was in right now. I’d been planning to kill him if I needed to.
“Can you stop him?” Bakir asked, interrupting my musing.
“Ammun?” I clarified.
“Yes. Can you defeat him if it comes down to it?”
That was a complicated question. I had no idea how much stronger Ammun would be next time we fought. “Maybe,” I said. “I hope so.”
“Then we have the same goals.”
I found myself believing his sincerity. “Even if it means turning away from the Order?”
“They’re not corrupt like you seem to believe.”
“What if they are?”
“If that were the case… I know what’s truly important,” he said.
“I’d be happy to be proven wrong, but so far, the evidence doesn’t point that way. So let’s find out. I want to have a talk with the people in charge. How do I get to them?”