Chapter 8

Touchstone technology began to be developed not long after the Sundering. It was originally aimed to help those who had been damaged during the fighting utilize their magic in ways they could no longer manage – whether physical limitation of limbs, damage to the mana channels in their bodies, or from toxic exposure to the weapons let loose during the worst of the Kin War that triggered the Sundering. This was a joint effort between the Fire Burners and Willow Leaves, and between the magic the two schools favored, devices, at first large and awkward to use, requiring specialized harnesses and weighing too much to be easily portable were devised that gave the magically disabled some ability to regain their ability to use both innate talents as well as formally learned skills.

About 400 years ago, a Fire Burner named Lethon Redbud devised a new and improved material, Grisalhud, which needed only a small fragment, no bigger than a walnut and contact to the user’s skin to do everything the earlier devices did. There were some drawbacks; using the tool could lead to the atrophy on a user’s own natural, innate magic ability over time, and using it too much, too often, for heavy duty magic purposes could basically cause mental instability, cause physical degeneration and/or destroy the user’s ability to handle magic at all. But the ease of use and portability of the new devices began to see them used as a convenience by people who were not disabled.

Because of the potential danger for using them as a magical booster on a regular basis, it was hailed when Joffry Redbloom of the Goosequills devised a revolutionary function for the touchstones: as artifact control devices. Need a boost to your dark vision? Slip on a pair of touchstone controlled goggles. Need more heat than your coat provides? Toggle the touchstone, and suddenly you’ll be wrapped in extra warmth. Need to chill your wine at midsummer? There’s a touchstone for it. No need there for learning arcane methods – just buy a device that’ll do it for you.

Many of us don’t use heavy magic on a regular basis. We’re not members of the Magic Guard for instance (who are not allowed to use touchstones, by the way, for their defensive magics. It just uses too much mana, and it would cause too much danger for the users.) It was far easier for many people to forego the depth of learning and the training it requires to be truly adept at the application of even innate magic, and rely on the touchstones for those occasions where we do. Now even children get touchstone toys, and many of them receive a general purpose touchstone for their twelfth birthday. Sadly, with this approach, some of the old ways of doing magic are being forgotten, and students may find moving into higher level studies get handicapped by their having to relearn things the hard way to advance in their careers. And we all know stories about touchstone tragedies where abuse of the tool has led to destroyed minds and sometimes physical disasters.

Touchstones, a Boon or a Bane? Aiden Whiteclover, writing in Goosequill Reports

It was another day in the small town of Goblin Market. There was a little snow on the ground, and the air was chill, but not cold enough to keep people from their business on the streets. This was clearly true by the Dragon Web office, where a small trickle of customers wandered in and out of the building, and a few wagons carrying merchandise rumbled in and out of the freight area.

Umber Madrona, newly installed member of the Dragon Investigation Corporation carrying a sheaf of papers almost bumped into a small Fey woman as she headed for the doors. He sighed as he let her go past him.

“Nothing to investigate there,” he muttered to himself. “I wonder if they’ll ever be anything to investigate here?”

He stepped outside to get a breath of air before the next scheduled freight shipment came through the web. Being Dragonkin, who liked their warmth, and from Harani, where it never got as cold as it was in this part of the world, he found the air too chill for him, and he pulled his jacket, a properly made Dragonkin garment that protected his wings as needed, but was slitted to let them get out as necessary, a little closer. It was the first thing he bought after arriving, and it almost kept him warm enough. Almost. He fingered the touchstone at the neck of the garment, and with a slight closing of his eyes to activate the stone, invoked the coat’s magical heating element. As he stood there, feeling a gentle heat drive the last of the cold away, he glanced down at his papers. “Next shipment from Whitecross should be due in about ten minutes. How many cheeses to the people in this area eat, I ask you?”

While he pondered that, a carriage drove up to the circular drive in front of the Dragon Web station. The driver, a bauchan man wearing a red coat and blue scarf got down and opened the carriage door, and out came a well-dressed Daoine woman in bright blue, and following her, a short, plump woman with Bauchan ears and Daoine eyes.

Umber’s Investigation curiosity tingled. “I wonder what the story there is?”

As the driver fetched bags out of the storage area of the carriage, another man hurried out of the Dragon Web station carrying a message pouch. Umber recognized that one – a paunchy older Bauchan with huge sideburns and a balding hair wrapped up in a scarlet coat with shining brass buttons on the cuffs and down the front and over his pockets - everywhere you could think of putting buttons. He wore a bright golden pendant around his neck, symbol of his office – Maxim Turbot, mayor of Goblin Market. Umber didn’t think much of him, finding him pompous and self-important, so he was surprised as the man hurried over to the carriage.

“Lady Allyns! Lady Allyns!” Turbot called out, waving.

The two women turned to the man barreling towards them.

“Ah, Mayor Turbot,” Elaine said. “And how are you this morning?”

“Just another day of work,” the mayor replied as he reached them. “Messages to pick up, orders to be carried out, business as usual. But what brings you from Allynswood to our fair town this day?” He swallowed, straightened his coat, and gave her an oily smile.

“Always so much to do,” Elaine said, nodding graciously. She turned to her companion. “Gan Thistleberry, meet Maxim Turbot, mayor of this fine town.”

Gan nodded politely at the mayor, but did not curtsy. “Pleased to meet you, sir.”

He looked the little woman over, not quite sure what to make of her, plainly dressed with Bauchan ears, but Daoine eyes, and raised one eyebrow. “Greetings, Mistress Thistleberry. My, my, I hadn’t heard that name in these parts in a long, long time.”

“It has been a long time,” Gan said, nodding. “I was a girl the last time I was in these parts.”

“A child, eh?” he said.

She nodded. “Before the Great Fire.”

“Oh, those Thistleberrys,” the mayor said, as if the name finally rang a bell. He rubbed his chin. “I remember a time...”

“Gan is an old friend of mine,” Elaine interrupted what could have been a long spiel. “Old school friends. She just came up for a visit, but will be moving in to a place on my estate soon.”

“Ah,” Turbot said. A look passed over his face, as if he were calculating something. “How is your husband, Lady Allyns? It’s been a long time since we’ve seen him at Goblin Market.”

Elaine sighed. “The Redsticks are keeping Gweir busy. They’ve put him in charge of Greshold’s Keep. Perhaps we’ll get to see him for Brightening Day, but who knows?”

Umber turned away from the group and headed back to the freight door. It was almost time for the next delivery. But while he had a moment of privacy, he pulled out a small notebook and added the facts he learned about Lady Allyns and her friend. With a little more time, he’d have dossiers on everybody noteworthy in the community.

“That’s what Professor Bloodstone said to do,” he muttered. “But will I ever get a chance to use any of it?”

Suddenly he heard a chime at the freight door. The shipment had arrived.

When he was a young hatchling, and even when he had been in his final training, his mind had been filled with stories of the great Dragon Investigators of the past. His was an old investigator bloodline, distant cousins to the family of the Master Investigator, even, and the ability to fade out ran true in him. More or less. He wasn’t as good at it as his father was, but it was usually enough to pass unnoticed when he wanted to. Nobody studied harder in the Investigator cadre, even if his test scores weren’t the highest. But everybody assured him he would have a fine career in the DIC, once he made it through his first position. Everybody, he was told, started in small regional offices. It was getting through those assignments that would shape the direction and path of the assignments to come. It was dirt work, his uncle assured him, but they all had done it. The chance to become a great investigator would come later, as the young investigators gained more experience. Save the dreams for later, Uncle told him.

He was beginning to see what his uncle meant. In the two weeks he had been at Goblin Market, he had learned a dreadful truth about the Dragon Investigation Corporation. What most of their time investigating in a small station like this was shipping invoices. Fees paid. Duties collected. Not a single missing person to find, not a fraud to run down, not even a fight between customers. This was not the world he imagined.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

After seeing to the most recent freight shipment, he headed back to the DIC office.

Behind the DIC logo on the door was a small office. The walls were full of filing cabinets, a bookcase that held official manuals, three chairs, only one designed for non-Dragonkin sitters, and two desks. Posters about DIC rules and procedures adorned one wall. A potted plant sat on one of the file cabinets, and small boxes of DIC memorabilia, to give out to school children rested on the others.

Beneath the manuals, on a shelf of their own, a row of books that belonged to his supervisor, escapist fiction, mostly about adventures in old Dragonhame, before the Fire Sickness.

As he opened the door, he found his superior, Thornfield Witstone, sitting at a desk, reading one of those books. Thornfield was just a few years older than Umber; he too was waiting for his chit to move on. But unlike Umber, he was new blood, not from one of the Investigator families, and seemed rather content with his current position.

“I’ve got the invoices from the last freight shipment,” Umber announced, sitting down at his desk.

“Anything look unusual? Thornfield asked, not looking up from his book.

“Not in the least. Wheat and barley, sugar, assorted herbs with their certificates, twenty bolts of cloth, honey, assorted hardwoods, ten bottles of rosewater. Everything checked out. All duties accounted for.” Umber sat down. “Do we ever get to investigate anything? Or are we just taxmen?’

Thornfield looked up.

“How many people came in on the passenger last transport?” Thornfield asked.

“Three.”

“And the one before that?” Thornfield held out his hands for the papers.

“One.”

Umber handed them over. Thornfield took out an elaborate file box, with pockets for different papers, and began to sort the invoices into their proper categories.

“And yesterday?” he asked Umber.

“Seven.”

“And how many dragonkin in the area?”

“Only the ones who work at the station. There are no other Dragonkin businesses here, not a single shop.” Umber fluttered his wings, showing his discomfort.

“And how many Daoine in town?”

“Maybe ten. The Alder Branch school teachers, the Willow Leaf administrator...”

“Thirteen,” Thornfield replied, cutting him off. “And six of them belong to the same family. Not a lot of people who would be interested in smuggled goods like dream dust here. Not a lot of dragons to try to get around paying duties. You have to get to one of the bigger places like Waterford by Glint or maybe Harani before you start seeing that.”

“So what do we investigate?’

“Well, every now and then, somebody will try to ship in something they shouldn’t. Or someone runs away. Maybe two or three times a year. Mostly, though, we investigate whether people paid their service fees and duties.”

“But I thought...” Umber said, letting his voice drop off. “I know I was warned, but I didn’t think we’re just glorified tax collectors.”

“Fee collectors. You’ve read too many novels about the DIC,” Thornfield said. “But what we do keeps the money flowing. It’s important.” He went back to reading.

The young dragon sighed.

----------------------------------------

At Greshold’s Keep, night had fallen, and business was in full swing. That is, what business people felt safe to do. The previous two nights had seen the gate closed due to attacks by Shadowland forces. First, there was a single attack of a Doghead commando. The second night, it was an attack by a squad of six. Now people were sitting on pins and needles, because traditionally, when the Dogheads did this, the third time, the attack would be one of massive forces aimed at the gate. Many stores were closed, and there had been a steady queue of people at the Dragon Web all day, heading to safer locations, just in case, many of them burden down with their families’ treasures.

Gweir Blackthorne could feel the tension rising, but had not been idle as commander of Greshold’s Keep either, so he was not surprised that shortly after it reached true dark, that the alarm gong rang. But that wasn’t the only thing he was expecting.

He and his officers were looking at a map of the area, completing their preparations. He reached for a neglected tea cup at his side, and contemplated what he saw.

There was a knock on his office door. “Right on schedule,” Gweir muttered.

“Almost to the minute,” Gabon replied. The second officer turned to look at the door.

Gweir took a sip of the tea sitting in his cup, now cold, but he swallowed the astringent liquid anway. Dylan, stationed outside as receptionist, opened the door. “Master -” he began, but then an angry red Dragonkin pushed through.

“I must object,” the dragonkin said. He rushed to the map table where Gweir was standing, towering over the Daoine man. “I must object!” Slamming his hand on the map, scattering pieces that represented Gweir’s defenses, his spikes glowed brightly in the lamplight. They might have glowed even in an unlit room. “You can’t just keep closing the gate like this. Just -”

“Just because we had an attack at the start of business? The third attack in a row?”

“It’s the third closures in a row,” Shulan said. “How are we supposed to do any business?”

Gweir sipped his tea, refusing to react to Shulan’s attempt to intimidate him. “You’ve been here long enough to know Doghead tactics, Master Shulan.” He took another sip. “First comes the feint, one not expected to succeed, and then a slightly larger one to probe defense readiness. And then...”

The attack gong sounded out once more. Shulan lost some of his bellicose stance, looked around the room. “Did you stage this?”

The gong sounded five strikes, which meant forces marching on the keep. After a pause, it sounded again – forces setting up for attack. Outside, the noise of people moving in position grew loud.

Gweir put his tea cup down. “Imagine, if you will, an attack of Doghead troups surging through the gate at this moment, striking everyone at random. What would happen to your precious account books if that happened? Or even the loss of your Web station? It’s happened before. Don’t you remember the time Brightwater burned?”

The post commander stood up. He was neither as tall as Shulan nor as massive, but drawn up to his full height, he too could radiate intimidation and command, almost as aggressively as the dragon. He put on his helm. “Excuse me. I have a battle to see to.”

“Time to get to safety, Master Shulan,” Marlhaut, one of Gweir’s officers, said, already helmed and armed. “Allow me to escort you to your security area.”

“I don’t need your help,” the dragon said, almost growling. He slipped into nospace and was gone.

Gweir went up the tower, followed by his officers. It was a dark night. It would be a while before the moon rose. There were rows of torches flickering around the keep, but it was impossible to make out the true massing of troops busily moving to surround the fortress. “We need Lea to get busy with the lighting,” he said. “I hate working this much in the dark. Someone go see if the Magic Guard needs any help.”

“She’s supposed to be at it,” Gabon said, putting on his helmet. “She’s never failed us yet.”

A shower of arrows hit against the fort shields, and skitted off.

“Who’s holding the shields tonight?” Gweir asked.

“Rabin and Jeran,”Gabon said, “At least that’s what the schedule says. Good people with the shields, so I hope so. The Magic Guard, well they do their thing, and don’t always tell us. But they knew what to expect tonight. It’ll be good people.”

“Make sure they have someone in reserve. And to back up Lea, too.” He sent Gabon on. “Send a couple of runners up here. Once we can see what the damned dogheads are doing, I’ll be using them.”

Gabon saluted and headed out.

Marlhaut walked up. “The town...”

“Let me guess. The Bullrushes are clamouring to come inside the Hold. And the City Council. And half the town.”

“You got it. What do we do?”

“I don’t want anybody in the fort that could sabotage our defenses,” Gweir said. “You and I both know the town is safer than the fortress right now. Let’em kick their heels.”

Suddenly a bright reddish light streamed out of the front of the keep.

“I see Lea finally got the magic done,’ Marlhaut said.

“Dogheads must have had countermeasures. Lea’s good or we still wouldn’t have light,” Gweir said.

In the front of the keep, Doghead troops were arrayed in their usual phalanxes, ten soldiers wide, with spears bristling. This time, they had brought siege engines, two trebuchets, a ram.

“Looks like they’re using the same battle plan they used the last time,’ Gweir said. “Time for the mortars.”

“Probably some war ritual they do,” Gabon said, returning. Two young bauchan soldiers, also in helmeted gear followed behind him. “Go run to Shindir. Tell him Gweir says now.”

The young man ran off.

Soon, balls of magic force were falling upon the troops below. One aimed at the trebuchet, but the siege engine glowed with it’s own magic shield, and the energy shattered, hitting the footsoldiers as well.

“Magic Guard is going to have its work cut out for it tonight. Get the fire missiles ready.” Gweir paced along the tower wall.

The ram neared. A different magic mortar hit it, black light that sizzled through its protective canopy, which burst into flame. Showers of arrows hit the soldiers. Balls of flame sent from physical catapults hit the troops below, causing burning and screams wherever they landed. Shot from the troops below bounced against the wall. Most of them bounded off the magic shields. Occasionally one got through gaps in the protection, and and a flash of flame would burst out, quickly extinguished by the forces manning the walls. This happened more than Gweir liked.

“Are they finding new solutions to our defenses, or have our shots been bad?” he asked, as he watched the battle continue.

“Could be both,” Gabon said. “We’ll figure it out later.”

Just as the ram finally made it close to the position to attack the gate, another mortar sailed across the sky and landed on the trebuchet, This time it burst into satisfying flame. A cheer came from the people manning the defenses. Shortly after, another took out the ram.

“I see Lea’s people found their solution after all,” Marlhaut said, with a satisfied nod.”

“And now for the conclusion,” Gweir said.

There was a great cloud of spears, arrows and shot from both sides.

A Doghead commander road up towards the gate. He dismounted, dropped his trousers, and bending over showed his bum to the gate.

“Well, I guess honor is satisfied,” Marlhaut said.

A lucky arrow got the commander while he was bent over. A knot of dogheads surrounded him and dragged him away. Horns were sounded, and the dogheads began a surprisingly orderly retreat

Slowly but surely, all that was left on the field under the eerie light Lea still maintained were the dead and the dying, the ruins of the dogheads’ siege equipment and the smell of death.

Finally Gweir gave out a loud sigh and took off his helmet.

“What a bloody stupid ritual,” Marlhaut said.

“What a bloody stupid place.” Gweir said. “Let’s hope that’s the last one of these for a while.”

Lea’s light went out.

Gweir went back to his office once the fighting was over, and was ready to begin writing down some preliminary dispatches, when he noticed someone had placed an envelop on his desk. It bore the seal of the Royal Guard at Ynys Afel. As he read it, his face, tired as it was from the battle began to lighten up, and a real smile broke across his face.

“Good news?” Gabon asked, coming in and removing his helmet.

Gweir looked up. “Maybe. Maybe we’ll be getting out of this place, finally. I’ve been called to report to Ynys Afel in three days.”

“Well, that’s interesting,” Gabon said, nodding. “Maybe the Hawk has finally found something worthwhile for you to do besides fight with Shulan and Jared Redbeard. Maybe he’ll be sending us to that fight back west.”

“Oh, it’s better than that. It’s not from the Hawk’s office.”

“Oh?” Gabon went over to the tea service, and put a kettle on to make a fresh pot.

“It’s from the Birch.”