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--DRAMATIS PERSONAE—
Carina Goldstone, Logician of the 2nd Renown, Kingdom of Infinzel, home at last
Cortland Finiron, Hammer Master of the 12th Renown, Kingdom of Infinzel, disbelieving
Henry Blacksalve, Healer of the 8th Renown, Kingdom of Infinzel, disconsolate
Vitt Secondson-Salvado, Hunter of the 9th Renown, Kingdom of Infinzel, displeased
King Cizco Salvado, Quill of Infinzel, Kingdom of Infinzel, disturbed
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20 New Summer, 61 AW
The pyramidal city of Infinzel, North Continent
280 days until the next Granting
Word of her arrival traveled fast. Drawing upon one of the maps of Infinzel she had committed to memory, Carina knew Orryn was leading her on a roundabout path to the Battle Library. He took her down hallways that connected to the training grounds and looped by the gate to the Underneath, so as to maximize the number of Garrison officers they might encounter. Sure enough, the uniformed members of Infinzel’s security force soon lined the stone hallways to catch a glimpse of her.
Carina kept her chin high, her scarves open just enough to hint at her Ink. She avoided any challenging eye contact, particularly with the fried-looking elementalist who stared at her intensely.
“I feel like you’re putting me on parade, Orryn es-Salvado.”
He smirked. “A lot of people trained hard to earn that Ink you’re wearing.”
“Were you one of them?”
“A finalist,” he said.
“Alas, the gods intervened, and here I am.”
“Yeah,” Orryn agreed. “Alas.”
Finally, they arrived in an expansive room set off from the training grounds. A circular stone table with five chairs sat in the center. The walls were lined with books dedicated to war, magic, and the gods.
"Wait here," Orryn said.
Carina nodded, distracted. There were rare books on the shelves, a collection that didn’t rival the Magelab’s in quantity but nearly measured up in quality. There were histories of the Granting, studies of the gods, and encyclopedias on Ink symbols and the theories behind them. All of this knowledge would be at her fingertips now, without any archmages dryly breathing down her neck.
But what really got Carina's attention was the map at the center of the table. Freshly drawn, it depicted Armistice as the island had manifested during the most recent Granting. There was a detailed overhead view, but also sketches of the island's strange features. The trees looked like piles of spun sugar. Carina traced her fingers across the bizarre topography, wondering where exactly Ben Tuarez had met his demise.
"Gods be dammed, you're barely more than a girl."
Carina turned to the gruff voice. Cortland Finiron, stout, painfully muscled, and even shorter than she remembered, stood in the doorway with a look of disbelief. Sweat soaked his shirt, like he'd just pulled it on after cutting short a training session.
"I'm older than I look," Carina said.
"You would have to be," he replied.
She strode forward with her hand extended. “Carina Goldstone. At your service, sir.”
Cortland shook her hand, surprisingly gentle. “Cortland Finiron.”
“Of course, I know who you are,” she said. “Your service to Infinzel is legendary.”
He grunted at that, a bit of color rising to his cheeks. His response was straight to the point. “Why did the gods pick you?”
Carina glanced to the door. “If you don’t mind, I’d prefer to only tell it once.”
Cortland nodded, but then Carina felt a tickle across her skin. Her [Alert] Ink warned her that he’d used a technique on her. [Assess] most likely.
“Second renown,” Cortland said quietly, his eyes slightly glazed. “But some of your skills…”
“I know I’m ill-suited as a replacement to Ben Tuarez,” Carina said. “With a year to train, though, I believe I can do my part.”
Cortland nodded as if he’d only half heard her. He went to the bookshelves, taking down An Encyclopedia of Runes, 7th Edition, and A History of Champions and Their Renown. Both volumes were produced by the Magelab and Carina knew there were newer editions in the works. She suspected these slightly dated volumes would serve Cortland’s curiosity well enough.
“Ben understood this stuff better than me,” Cortland muttered. “He’d have a training plan ready for you. He’d know what techniques would suit you. Bring you up to fifth renown by the year’s end.” He rubbed his knuckles across the bristles atop his head. “Guess that falls to me now.”
“I have some ideas,” Carina offered. “If you’d accept my assistance.”
Cortland grunted. She sensed the man was more comfortable swinging a hammer than he was paging through tomes. Carina didn’t want to step on his toes–he was the highest ranking champion of Infinzel, after all. But she had her own ideas about training and techniques, which she’d been refining over the last five years. That would come in time. No need dump all her chips into the opening pot. In the meantime, she’d let poor, befuddled Cortland search through his texts.
The smell of cheap liquor preceded Henry Blacksalve into the room. The middle-aged man looked like he hadn’t been eating or sleeping. His brown hair was knotty and unkempt, his pale skin waxy and sunken. He slumped forward as he walked, as if a weight pressed him down at the shoulders. Henry blinked, staring at Carina, then let loose a high-pitched guffaw.
“The gods sent us a child, Cortland!” He dumped himself into a chair. “As if things weren’t bad enough, we get to watch a fresh-faced girl get herself murdered.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“That’s enough, Henry,” Cortland said with more sadness than anger. He glanced up at Carina. “We won’t let you be murdered.”
“Thank you,” Carina replied.
“He can’t promise you that,” Henry said, wagging his finger at Cortland. “I’m the healer and I can’t promise you that, either. All the more reason to let me go, you butt plug. Let me take the wash and you can bring on someone capable.”
Cortland took a deep breath, as if readying himself to rumble into a conversation he’d already had too many times. Before he could start, Carina inserted herself between the two men, her hip against the edge of the table.
“You’re Henry Blacksalve,” Carina said to the drunken healer.
“I don’t mean to talk about you like you aren’t here, new girl, but you’ve gotten yourself into a fine mess with your divine mandate…” He trailed off, squinting blearily at her. “Do I know you?”
“I carried water for your clinic one summer. I was just a child then,” Carina said. “You’re a hero to the people of Soldier’s Rest. You know that, right?”
Something sparked in Henry’s eyes, but he quickly looked down at the table. “I haven’t been to the Rest in years. I live up top now.”
“I’m sure they remember you fondly, nonetheless” Carina said. “I certainly do.”
Before anything else could be said, Vitt Secondson-Salvado entered with a swishing of silk and a jangling of gold chains. Unlike the rat fondler that had showed her into the Garrison, Vitt was a Salvado who carried off the role. He dressed in finery and jewels, strikingly tall and leanly muscled, with a swooping mane of red-streaked black hair. He reminded Carina of a nightstalker, the dark-furred jungle cats that prowled the forests between the Magelab and Besaden. One moment the beasts could be stretched luxuriously in a patch of moonlight, and the next leaping for your throat with bared fangs. When his eyes fixed on Carina, she had to stop herself from taking a step back.
“Well, no wonder everyone out there is so shocked and appalled,” Vitt said, his voice low and sonorous, like someone used to being listened to. “Let’s have a look, then.”
Carina kept her back straight and her chin up as Vitt approached. He stopped right in front of her and reached out to touch one of her scarves, rubbing the material between his fingers. He made a face, then pushed the scarves aside. Vitt raised a delicate eyebrow at her, as if waiting to see if she would protest, as he began to unbutton the front of her shirt.
“I’ll make of your knuckles a fucking xylophone, Vitt, if you don’t leave the girl alone.” It was Cortland who protested on her behalf.
Vitt tilted his head to peer at Corland, his smooth voice neutral. “Should I not know what skills our new fellow possesses? I see you’ve already gotten into the books, translating what you’ve no doubt learned by your own examination. But I don’t have your skill for assessment. So, I’m forced to conduct my fact-finding the old-fashioned way.”
“She’s a logician,” Cortland said. “And—“
“A logician?” Vitt closed his eyes for a moment. “Were there no school teachers for the gods to send us? Will she be teaching us how to balance my father’s accounts?”
“I could, actually,” Carina replied. “But you’re thinking of a mathematician. That’s something different.”
“Oh, indeed? I shall see for myself.” His hands returned to Carina’s shirt. “You don’t mind, do you? Your professorship?”
“I’ve been undressed by worse,” Carina said flatly. “And if the rumors in the Rest are true, at the end, I’ll be graced by a generous gratuity. Although, I believe such tips are meant to buy silence, which suggests they are perhaps not generous enough.”
Henry guffawed. “She knows you, Vitt! You spoiled whoremonger.”
A slight tremor in his hands was the only sign that Carina had stung Vitt.
“Second renown,” Vitt said. “We’ve got at least fifty in the Garrison who the Ink would reveal as stronger.”
“I suspect even more than that,” Carina said.
“I was being kind.”
“There’s something to the skills,” Cortland said, thumbing through his tome. “[Future Sight] and [Enthralled Defender] are techniques of higher renown. Rare, even on a tenth. Can’t find them on a second.”
Vitt continued with her shirt until it was open to the navel, although he at least did her the courtesy of not throwing it wide like curtains. He leaned down close and Carina could feel the warmth of his breath against her sternum.
“And what do you make of this, hammerhead?” Vitt asked. “You think me a cad for conducting such a physical examination, but it’s revealed something interesting about our young charge.”
Vitt had noticed the crimson highlights that ran through Carina’s ink. The network of symbols and glyphs on her chest was completely shot through with them, plainly obvious to someone like Vitt that had Ink of his own. His would be of purest black; hers was different. He extended his small finger and scratched at Carina’s Ink, as if expecting it to flake away.
“Some kind of elaborate fakery,” Vitt declared.
In a demonstration of propriety, Cortland and Henry had averted their eyes as Vitt undressed her, but they looked now. Carina didn’t shy away from their stares. She’d been expecting this sooner or later.
“[Assess] wouldn’t have shown me some costume paint,” Cortland said, although there was doubt in his voice. “And she had the king’s own message written on a mirror.”
“Why does it look like that?” Henry asked her directly.
“Because I chose my Ink and drew the symbols myself,” Carina said. “Before the symbologist, before the selection even. I was in possession of my own sort of Ink. When the gods selected me, they made it permanent.”
Cortland’s thick brow looked painfully furrowed. “That’s not how it works. You get the Ink, then meet the symbologist. The gods have rules about every damn thing…”
Carina lifted her shoulders in a shrug, realized what she’d done, and pulled her shirt closed. “My experiments indicate they’re more open to suggestion than we’ve been led to believe.”
“Credit where it’s due,” Vitt said, taking a step back from her, “you’ve made this a rather interesting afternoon.”
“I don’t get it,” Cortland continued, sounding a bit rattled. “Did you trick the gods somehow? Is that how you came to be among us?”
“No, it’s not like that at all.”
“Then how does it work?” Cortland pressed. “How did you do it?”
“It’s chanic.”
The new voice came from the doorway. Carina needed to peek around Vitt to catch her first glimpse of King Cizco Salvado. The savior of the pyramidal city was dressed in work clothes–clay-stained trousers and a rumpled shirt, smudges of earth across one of his cheeks. The king had likely been tending to the mineral garden. Unlike his son Vitt, Cizco did not make a show of his nobility. Like so many others, Carina found herself instantly charmed by this, even though she knew well the king’s reputation. His unassuming nature and unlimited power had attracted no shortage of short-lived marriages and playthings.
“May the walls ever stand,” Carina said, touching the top of her head and bowing in a traditional salute. “Long live Infinzel’s king.”
“How very formal from a girl partly undressed,” Cizco replied. He leveled a hard look at the Secondson and Vitt practically fled away from Carina, taking a seat on the far side of the table. Meanwhile, Carina fastened her shirt’s buttons, but took her time with the task. She did not want to give the impression that she was embarrassed or chastened. She was neither.
“The Gen’bi nomads discovered chanic in their desert some ten years back. They claim it’s blood from the ge’chan, the gods magic, who were injured at the end of the Final War,” King Cizco continued. The others didn’t stand as he entered. He patted Henry on the shoulder as he passed, then took the seat next to Cortland. “If you paint yourself with the stuff in the symbols we’ve learned from the gods, it’s possible to replicate the effects of Ink.”
Silence hung in the room for a moment. “How come I haven’t heard of this?” Cortland asked. “Why isn’t everyone using it?”
“Well, the Gen’bi have been understandably protective of their desert’s resources,” Cizco replied. “But Crucifalia and the fourteen families of Merchant’s Bay have already committed considerable resources to acquiring the stuff. It won’t be kept quiet for much longer. I suspect we’ll see them killing each other at a Granting over it soon enough.”
Carina agreed with the king’s assessment, although she didn’t speak up. Her fellow champions were still adjusting to the idea of chanic’s existence.
“Shouldn’t we acquire some for ourselves?” Vitt asked.
“It’s immensely expensive and dangerous,” Cizco said. “I’m told the Magelab has been running trials on it. Always looking for ways to stop wasting away from the arcane bargain. Last I heard, there were some hundred apprentices dead from exposure, and others from accidents when they tried to draw upon its power.” King Cizco at last turned his gaze on Carina. “Which begs the question–where did you get it? And, perhaps more importantly, why have the gods sent you to us?”
Carina took a deep breath. This was it. She’d waited years and traveled thousands of miles for the opportunity to unspool this tale before King Cizco. She wasn’t a fool. Carina knew that what she said next might end with her corpse getting fed to the mineral garden. She’d calculated the risk, though.
The probability was small.
“The answer to your first question is a complicated one and will be better understood once I’ve told my entire story,” Carina began. “In short, I participated in the chanic trials at the Magelab. We weren’t all killed or consumed.”
King Cizco raised his chin. “You don’t wear the mark of Magelab.”
“No. They made an exception to their rule against outsiders because I provided them the chanic. A shipment’s worth which, technically, I stole from Crucifalia.”
They all fell silent. Staring at her now. Carina knew that look. Each of them grappling with the idea that she was more than she’d let on. An opportune moment for her to barrel ahead.
“As for why the gods chose me as your champion, my king, I believe that the ge’ema have always favored Infinzel. They wish to see the pyramidal city survive.”
“Survive what?” King Cizco asked.
“Your death,” Carina replied. “I believe the gods have sent me as your replacement.”
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