The sorcerous wizards, henceforth referred to as mages, rose faster and higher in their power. Where the average wizard plateaued with spells of the third tier, the average mage rose to the fourth. For either class though, it takes true talent to rise to the fifth tier of spellcasting. But, even amongst the best mages, their sorcery rarely rose beyond the second tier.
-Tallen Elmheart, On Mages
—
The next week was spent in drudgery. While Meech was only needed to work in the dung hold for two more days, Kole was not so lucky, and he toiled away the remainder of the voyage working with the regular laborers, who were far worse conversationalists than Meech had been. Either the work addled the brain, or only the brain-addled were willing to sign up for this duty full-time. After the product had been loaded into the hold, it required constant stirring and watering, lest it lose its magical potency. Magical potency which Kole believed was directly related to the smell, for each time they wet it, the smell seemed to grow worse
Kole spent as much free time as he could, marveling at the sky and the sea. He’d left Illandrios once as a child when both his parents had still been around, but the distant memories of childhood couldn’t compete with the reality of the sight before him.
Each night, Kole would return to Jorin’s quarters, where they’d eat, and discuss magic, and then the master mage would look the other way as Kole helped himself to the pantry. Jorin had no specific knowledge to assist Kole in his situation, but having a master mage as a sounding board helped Kole focus his plans for the immediate future at the Dahn.
Kole continued to keep Amara company each night as she ate her pilfered meals. She explained to him more about how the magic of her Font worked, though she was far less interested in the topic than in runes. The Font of Understanding was one of the secondary Fonts and controlled, well, understanding. All the primals of the Font, no matter their race or species, had an innate understanding of one another. This understanding ranged from emotions to skills, but not knowledge. The line between knowledge and skills was vague, but Amara described it for Kole with an example.
She held up the stick she’d bluffed Kole with previously. Ants crawled over it gnawing at the wood, causing Kole to jump back in surprise.
“I’m a runesmith. If I were around a master runesmith from my home, I wouldn’t be able to draw runes from his memory if I were working on my own task. But, if I was working with him on a project, I would know which runes he wanted me to craft, and I could draw the shape, understanding not its function or purpose, but only that was his desire. Similarly, these ants don’t understand runes, but they understand my desire for them to carve shapes into this piece of wood, so they do it. I can learn the runes through practice, and eventually retain the knowledge if I ask questions and intentionally learn, but if I don’t, I forget.”
“That...” Kole began, “Doesn’t make any sense. How is that not just knowledge?”
“It’s hard to explain when you lack Understanding”
“That is such a cop-out.’
Amara shrugged.
“While the connection between a fellow primal is a lot stronger, I can use my Font to better understand others. If you spoke a different language than me, I could understand your meaning by drawing on the Font, and eventually learn the language myself.”
“How is that not knowledge?” Kole asked again.
“How is altering an individual's perception of reality an ’illusion’?” Amara shot back.
“That's literally the definition of an illusion!” Kole yelled, exasperated.
“Oh... It is?” Amara asked, quieter. “I thought it had to do with light.”
Kole calmed as well and explained, “An illusion is causing someone’s senses to falsely interpret reality. Before the Font of Illusions was created, illusion magic was primarily an application of Light and Sound.”
Both young primals were connected to the so called ’secondary’ Fonts. The ones that came into existence at some point after the Flood, millennium after the gods had created the original ones. Being rather recent developments, the nuances of their magic were not as clearly known as the original Fonts from the creation of the realm. And, being primals, these two were uniquely positioned to have in-depth knowledge of these relatively unknown Fonts.
“The Font of Illusions was made from the connection of Mind, Light, and Sound, and magic using the Font contains elements of all three.”
“Hmm,” Amara intoned, thinking. “Understanding was formed from Mind, Bonds, and Identity.”
“Identity? That seems odd.”
“The Font of Identity is closely tied to understanding. The identity of an object is the culminated intent of people’s understanding of that object.”
“If you say so,” Kole said with a shrug.
“Both of our Fonts are formed of three others. Do you think all the new fonts are?”
“No. The Wind Font is just Air and Force, and that's only two. People thought it was connected to the Font of Pressure, but that too was a secondary Font formed of Force and Barrier and they are simply close in the Arcane Realm due to their shared proximity to Force.”
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Despite the awful work, Kole found he enjoyed his passage. With both Amara and Jorin, he had interesting conversations each night, despite the horror of the day’s labors. After the first day off, Meech even came by from time to time to keep Kole company.
With the aid of Jorin, Amara remained undetected for the remainder of the journey. The night before their arrival at the port city of Roost, Meech came down to the hold at Jorin’s request to help “repack some cargo.”
“Flood!” Meech cursed when he saw Amara. “And he had the audacity to assign me dung duty when he was helping aid and abet a stowaway!”
Despite his cursing, Meech was more than happy to help pack Amara back into a crate and mark it so that she’d be unloaded first.
Kole felt a little uncertain about leaving Amara in the hands of the crew, helpless in a box, but Meech assured him that he would handle the unloading himself. Kole wasn’t exactly sure what Meech’s role was on the ship, but he seemed to do whatever he felt like—so long as it was related to the act of sailing and he wasn’t on punishment detail. Not everyone in a ship clan actively partook in the sailing of the ships, but those that did often had specific roles. In this way, Meech was an anomaly.
The next morning found Kole at the prow of the ship, eagerly waiting for landfall. A few minutes after the call of “Land ho!” from the crow’s nest, Kole caught sight of the tips of the mountains that held the waters of the Ocean at bay. A few hours later, he could see the city of Roost or at least, the port of Hawk’s Nest. Formerly a secret base to the infamous pirate ship the Sparrowhawk, the city was hidden behind a mountain, out of sight from the sea. The port itself was a bay formed from where the two mountains met and was surrounded by the jagged peaks of shorter mountains.
At first glance, the bay seemed impassable, but illusionary lights guided ships through the rocky spikes to their berths once they’ve made contact with the port master via magic, flags, or prearranged papers. Kole tried to sense the lights with his connection to the Font, but they were either too far away, or his senses too weak. He wasn’t disappointed though, as sensing magical effects was a talent of older wizards than he, even with his advantages.
Meech, whose ineffable responsibilities saw him free to watch the approach with Kole, explained that the city shifted the obstacles around on a regular basis, preventing unauthorized entry or exit of the port. The former pirate’s cove had a surprisingly strong stance against smuggling. Something Meech thought quite amusing.
Lights guided the Willowboom to a dock beneath a series of large crane constructions, specifically sized for the massive ship clan ships. The remainder of the fleet stayed out beyond the protected bay, sending people to shore on smaller vessels. The flagship dwarfed all other ships in the harbor and crew swarmed the deck, casting lines out to bring the massive ship alongside the dock cut into the mountain's edge.
Before the ship had even stopped, the hatches to the hold burst open and the crew began raising the cargo via magically powered lifts. Kole watched as the crates were methodically lined up on deck and subsequently removed from the port's cranes.
Meech gave Kole a nudge when a particular crate was unloaded, and they moved to disembark from the ship. A port official stood at the end of the ramp, discussing the manifest with the ship's quartermaster. No one else had dared disembark but both men simply nodded at Meech as he passed, paying the still-visible Kole no mind.
They went to the fenced-in area the cargo was being unloaded into, and once more Meech was ushered through a very serious-looking checkpoint without question.
"What in Fauell do you do?!" Kole asked, not able to make any sense of the man.
"Whatever needs doing," Meech answered with a sly grin as they walked through aisles of stacked crates.
"That's not really an answer."
"That's true," Meech said with a laugh, "But so is my answer. I'll tell you this on account of your heritage and my brother seems to trust you. In the clan, the High Captain commands the fleet and acts as the overall leader. The Grand Master controls the Stormcallers and together they lead us in peace and war. Each ship has a captain of its own, which act as a sort of local governor, leading and ruling each vessel."
"Now sometimes, the Captain or my brother needs something done, but none of their crew has the skill set to do it. When that happens, they ask me, and I take care of it."
"So you're, what, a smuggler? Spy? Assassin?" Kole asked.
Meech maintained eye contact and lifted his eyebrows in a way that could be interpreted as a confirmation.
"Your lady friend should be right here," he said, stopping and emphasizing his words by slapping his palm on a crate labeled “LIVE PUSS BEATLES"
"That's one way to keep people away I suppose," Kole said, commenting on the words.
Together they pried open the side of the crate and a frazzled Amara fell out along with a rat which landed on top of her.
"Rat!" Meech shouted, reaching for a club at his waist.
"No!" Amara screamed in panic as she covered the rat with her arms.
"I think it's sort of her familiar," Kole said.
Meech looked between the two teenagers and then holstered his club.
"Kids these days," he muttered under his breath. Louder he said, "Don't blame me when you get some horrible disease from the thing."
Once Amara had gathered her few belongings, Meech walked them out the gate, where the guards literally looked the other way at their passing.
"Well, this is where I say my goodbye," Meech said. "My brother sends his regards and said he’ll ask after word of the pocket realm you spoke of. Once you get settled, send him your address."
"Thank you! I will!"
The sailor left the pair and they looked around to get their bearings.
"We need to take the lifts down to Edgewater," Kole said, with confidence he didn't feel.
He had been here once before, but he'd been young and not paid attention to minor details like directions.
"I know where to go," Amara said, with a confidence that was certainly not feigned.
Kole took note of the stark change in her demeanor and decided to trust her, she had trusted him with her own life after all—thought, he supposed that could have been a sign of poor judgment and not trustworthiness.
"Lead the way then."