“I’ve marked the places on your maps. Wear the beacon stones around your neck at all times. You have money, make sure to keep it in more than one place. I’ve done some research on reputable inns in the towns you’ll be passing through and the neighborhoods to avoid. Let’s go through the pack one more time–” Annette’s monologue halted when Martin stepped in.
“Listen kids. You’re going on your first adventure. It will be fun and you’ll make some mistakes, just do your best to complete the mission and get back in one piece.”
“Ahem, and pick up copies of any magic training resources they have if you can get away with it,” Adam added. “This is the Eternal Archive and we’ve not been archiving nearly enough.”
“Yes.” Martin pointed at Adam to emphasize the point. “Any new knowledge you bring back or any cultivation resources are yours, or you can sell them back to the sect for contribution points. Now get out there, time’s wasting. Helene and Gabrielle, we booked you on a ship going to Nordisk now that the northern sea is more passable; Cooper, Eric, you’re starting on a stagecoach down south. From there it’s up to you how you want to travel.
“Take notes, keep your eyes open, and good luck,” Martin finished, pleased with his little speech.
The four youths in front of them looked daunted, but he stood and started towards the door in the hopes of getting them moving. Annette had been mothering the children for an hour already. Sweet as it was, he couldn’t take much more. He herded them all out of the meeting room and into the city before the other officers could slow them down. Adam was more subdued about it than Annette, but Martin had still seen him slip a few extra coins into the packs.
When they were out and walking towards their respective transportation he let out a breath. “A bit less bold than I would hope for at this stage of the journey, but we haven’t had them for long. We’ll make adventurers out of them eventually. Especially when they see what Leander and Rebecca get home with.”
“You seem remarkably unbothered with sending the young people we have a responsibility to out on their own with barely any training.” Annette was standing ramrod straight. Martin had noticed her posture got better the more stressed she was.
“Imagine doing this 1000 years ago without such an easy time getting around.” He shuffled closer to give Annette a side-hug. “They need challenges if they are ever going to grow. And we need them to grow.”
The reminder of growing international unrest was a downer. But Annette returned his embrace, showing she appreciated the reasoning, if nothing else.
“Fine,” she sniffed. “Let’s go discuss the art then.”
**********
The Lapis district was the perfect mix between fashionable and undiscovered. The kind of place a certain set of young people hoarded knowledge of in order to impress their peers. Clean streets, but with rents that were still affordable. For now. Trees and gardens along with the occasional graffiti, and even that was tasteful. Annette ambled along the path designated for foot traffic, noting someone had come along and cleared some of the late snow they’d been receiving. Her destination was on the corner lot, a classic three story townhouse, painted a rather scandalous shade of red. The moment she raised her hand to ring the bell, a smartly dressed servant opened the door and ushered her into a studio. Annette’s steps faltered for a moment when inside she found a woman staring intently at a blank canvas while a mostly naked man held a pose on a pedestal in the center of the room.
“Take a seat, I’ll be with you soon.” The woman gestured vaguely at the mismatched couches and armchairs lining the room.
Annette took a seat. She was well-versed in the practice of making a potential opponent off kilter with something outrageous, and had no intentions of falling into the trap more than she already had. It was a sloppy assumption that because her sect was not in the same economic sector as Madame Charon’s guild that the other woman would not seek to take advantage anyway. Ignoring the man as he transitioned poses, Annette instead studied the painter. Slate gray hair pulled back into a tight bun to avoid trailing through the paint. Loose clothes, with the hem of her pants rolled up and the sleeves pushed above the elbow, along with an apron so covered in paint stains Annette could not have said what the original color might have been.
When there was no further comments from the older woman, Annette settled in to wait. At least here there was a show, unlike the merchants thinking themselves clever by leaving her in an empty sitting room.
An hour later Annette was enraptured. Madam Charon had elevated the act of painting itself to an art form, her graceful figure moving around the canvas in a slow dance. The angle Annette was sitting allowed her to see the canvas become more and more lifelike with the tiniest application of color.
Dropping her brushes into a jar of water, Madam Charon turned and beckoned Annette to follow her back out of the room.
“You’re patient, if nothing else. I respect that in a young woman so I’ll tell you what you want to know. Burton here will show you to the sitting room and I’ll be right back once I’ve changed.”
With that abrupt proclamation, the silent servant returned and led Annette over to a well-appointed sitting room, complete with tea service and snacks. Her host swept back into the room and Annette refused to give the initiative up for a third time.
“Madam Charon, thank you for the opportunity to watch you work. It was sublime.”
“Not at all my dear, and do call me Elisette.” The older woman was now draped in an effortless gown of sky blue silk. She poured tea for both Annette and herself before lounging on a couch. “Shall we get to the reason you’re here, besides hanging around my studio?”
“Of course. I was hoping you would tell me a bit about why you decided to start the Conclave for Visual Arts. From what I’ve been able to find out you were quite successful without it.”
Elisette sipped her tea and subjected Annette to a long silence. “I was a bit older than you are now. I was making enough to live on, but only barely. More established artists would undercut my bids for commissioned pieces, and since I didn’t study at one of the known schools, it was impossible to get my art to a wider audience, or a more prestigious one at least.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“I started the Conclave as both a protection, and to break the hold those stuffy old men had on the art scene. But why do you ask? Forgive me, but you are not an artist my dear, I can spot the type from a block away.”
It was Annette’s turn to carefully consider her new opponent. Her first instinct was to dissemble and give a truthful but misleading response. But something about Elisette Charon made Annette want the woman for an ally. She decided instead to follow Laurel’s usual advice and trust her instincts.
“You’re right, I’m not an artist. Have you heard about the new magic organization in the Flats?” Elisette sat up straighter, now entirely riveted by Annette’s tale. “I’ll take that as a yes. I’m a member and one of the leaders of the organization. We are interested in starting a guild for magic users, to ensure we will be treated fairly. You may have heard about the recent trial. Despite having full permission of the relevant authorities for our work, and altruistically providing training and information to members of the military, we ended up forced to give a certain amount of concessions.”
“Hmm, so you’re looking at the most recently established guilds to get ideas? Not a bad path forward, but how are you going to handle the appreciable portion of the industry? My understanding is your school, or whatever it is, doesn’t have that many members yet.”
“We’ve sent some of our other members to make contact with the most well known groups of magic users in the country, along with anyone else they can find.”
“You think that will work. We aren’t as intolerant as Laskar, or as superstitious as Elgin, but magic users for the most part have stayed out of the public eye. It might not be so easy to convince people to take on the risks.”
“We won’t know until we try,” Annette said. “Any advice you’re willing to share would help.”
They were interrupted by Burton bringing in a tray with some additional sweets and another pot of tea, which he swapped out with all the care of a classically trained butler. Elisette waited until he had left before turning back to Annette.
“You’ll need to offer something they need to get them to join.”
“I’m not sure how familiar you are with our other leaders, but we have quite a bit to entice the average magic user. And since the government is going to rely more on them in coming years to protect smaller towns and villages, getting some leverage will be a large draw, I think.”
The women went back to discussing the pitfalls of trying to establish a new institution in a country already filled with those not wanting to cede any power. In the end Annette invited Madam Charon for a private tour of the sect house, and Elisette tipped Annette off to a new gallery opening in a couple of weeks. Annette left thinking she might have found the mentor figure missing in the merchant companies and noble houses she’d worked in before the sect.
********
“Stop dragging your feet, I don’t want to be late.” Martin turned to look at Adam where he was loitering five meters behind him, shoulders hunched with a miserable expression on his face.
“I don’t see why you dragged me here at all. I don’t know anything about art.”
“Art is about feeling, not knowing. Besides, someone has to make sure you see fresh air and other people every once in a while.” He tempered that criticism with a smile and a gentle bump of shoulders as Adam came up alongside him. “I wanted you here with me.”
“It will be fun! Anyway, Annette wants us to make a good impression on her new friend so get the scowl off your face and loosen up.”
“You just want a good deal on decorations.”
“I admit, my sad, empty walls have been getting to me lately. There was an artist in the old sect that could actually imbue effects into his paintings. I bought one off him that made sleep more restful, and another for my cultivation chamber that encouraged concentration. I’m curious to see how styles have evolved since we were put away.”
“We should get one of our students to work on the increasing concentration thing. We could use a few of those.”
“Ha! Good luck. He was one of the sect elders and a four-hundred year-old grandmaster. His Master’s capstone was a defensive mural around the entire city wall that controlled the level of beast that would attack each section during the waves. It’s something to aspire to, though.”
Both men walked up the stairs and entered an airy room. There were a few short pedestals holding sculpture dotted throughout at regular intervals, with the walls ringed in paintings ranging from realistic portraits to abstract blurs of color. Uniformed waitstaff circulated, holding trays of sparkling wine for guests. Martin plucked two flutes off the nearest such tray and passed one to Adam, leading him over to the left to start their survey of the art on display. They stopped in front of an abstract piece, shades of red slashed across a blue-gray background.
“How does this one make you feel?”
“Hungry,” Adam said.
Martin whipped his head around to stare at Adam, aghast.
“I’m sorry, I missed dinner.”
With a small chuckle, Martin signaled a passing waiter. He slipped him a tip and asked to make sure the snacks being brought around started with a detour towards the two of them. They moved on to the next piece. It was a massive undersea scene, taking up a third of the long wall. The foreground was filled with bright fish swimming through the dappled sunlight that filtered through the water. It should have been cheery, but there was a sense of menace to it; a pair of dark eyes lurking in the depths, staring back at them, seeming to follow their movements as they wandered the gallery.
“This one is creepy,” Adam said. He plucked one of the passing shrimp toasts as he looked at the painting.
“It is, I like it though.” Martin’s eyesight was good enough to read the placard from where they were standing. “It sounds like the artists are local too. We should check out their studio sometime, see if we could get a commissioned piece for the sect entryway, if work on this scale is their specialty.”
“Excuse me.” An elegant older woman approached them as they had moved on to yet another abstract piece, a pattern of almost glowing blue lines outlined in black and white. “Are you Annette’s friends?”
Adam grunted around his cheese and pastry parcel while Martin smiled. “We are yes, Madam Charon I take it?”
“The one and only. I’m glad you could come see the exhibition. Some of our newest up-and-comers took the opportunity to showcase their talents. If you’ll allow me, I think you might appreciate our centerpiece on the opposite wall.”
“Lead on,” Martin said as he deftly transferred his empty glass for a full one from a passing waiter. They drew eyes as they crossed the room, which Martin ascribed to being in the presence of the guild founder and legendary painter Annette had made friends with last week. It felt as if the room collectively held their breath as the three of them approached the canvas.
Martin burst into laughter as soon as it came into focus, barely avoiding spraying his companions with wine. It took Adam a few more steps before he paused, slack-jawed, and began blushing furiously. Madam Charon grinned at their reactions.
“It’s great!” Martin proclaimed.
The three of them walked closer to examine the details. Another large-scale work, it was a wide landscape, from the point of view of someone standing in the harbor. The palace hovered in the top right, above and aloof from the rest of the scene. The entirety of the city was picked out in painstaking detail, cascading all the way down to the Flats across the right-hand third. The remainder of the painting was dominated by a coral leviathan staring down a singular figure, floating as a guardian between the wild monster and civilization. Planes and ships dotted the storm-tossed waters of the background while a crescent of lightning seemed to cut the picture in half. Languid brush strokes in bright colors and a cloudless sky over the city transitioned into the choppy melee of battle. It was a masterful piece and Martin had to own it.
“I love it. We should hang this in the sect, Laurel will hate it. Her face when she gets back and sees it will be perfect.” This shocked Adam out of his stupor and he chuckled nervously along.
“The artist will be happy to hear you appreciate it. If you’re serious about buying it I can introduce you another time. The poor girl has a gift but she doesn’t like the crowds at these events.”
“If you think she might be willing to accept payment in terms of magical favors or knick knacks, I’ll take you up on that.”
“She just might. Or perhaps more magical subject material. The dear thing was absolutely enchanted by the stories coming out of the trial.”
They’d monopolized the centerpiece for a time so they moved away. Martin took the opportunity to scan the entire room, something he’d tried to avoid earlier to keep the surprise of each piece intact.
“They all relate to the attack on the city?”
“Yes. This exhibition is one of several the Conclave puts on throughout the year. We give them a topic three months in advance and see what the members can come up with. It keeps the whole society fresh and lets some of our lesser known members have a spotlight.”
“That’s a good idea for us.” Adam had apparently decided to join in the conversion at last. “We could have skill showcases every once in a while.”
“You’re right, that would be a good idea. We had tournaments and other skill exhibitions in the sect when I was younger. It was more for internal recognition than external, but adapting some of that for visitors would be useful.” Martin gave a short bow of thanks towards Madam Charon for what he was sure was intentional prodding.
“I’ll leave you boys to enjoy the rest of the show.” With that, she sailed off to chat with another group.
“I think that woman might be terrifying,” Adam said.
“On that, we agree.”