Chapter Seventy-Nine: Sorry

Tom blinked, clearing his eyes from the sudden flash of light, brandishing his spear in front of him. The scene slowly resolved into clarity.

Tom and Scriber were standing in a bubble. It was perhaps fifteen feet in diameter, enclosed all the way to the top. A metal ball lay on the ground by Scriber’s feet where he had activated it, gently pulsing with light.

Thousands and thousands of orcs formed a screaming cordon around the barrier. They howled at them, frothing, blood-red muscles tensing and flexing as they slammed weapons and limbs and debris against the shield. Dull pulses of light radiated from every impact point, dispersing the force over a much wider area. As Tom looked around himself, bewildered by the sudden change, the flashes on the shield from orcs pounding on it made a continuous cascade of light. Somehow, though, the shield was holding.

Tom turned to Scriber. He had trouble finding him, the slight blur of his concealing enchantment all but invisible against the furious assault on the barrier. After a few moments, he simply resolved into view. He had deactivated his stealth. The orcs at the perimeter immediately went wild, beserk, railing against the encompassing curtain of light with every ounce of ferocity they could manage. Still, the shield held.

“I’m sorry, Tom,” Scriber repeated. “I-” He was cut off by a piercing howl, loud enough to cut straight through the general uproar around them. The noise slackened, and the attacks against the shield became sporadic, half-hearted.

The crowd parted, and a singularly massive orc approached. They were female, absurdly tall, their inhumanly long arms dangling casually. As they reached the shield they paused, then whipped their arm forwards, slamming it into the shield with force. The long, deadly talons tipping each digit made bright points of trailing light as they slowly dragged their hand downwards.

They stopped, and grinned, and their piranha face with its over-wide mouth split into a crazed pit full of too many teeth. They began to speak, and the quiet calm they used to address them was more frightening than any roar or howl. Tom was so startled that he was seconds in pulling his wisp closer for it to translate for him.

-knew you would come, enchanter. Think we be stupid? Think us just beasts? We all have our tricks. The loss of the mine means nothing once we pull you down and Forge you. You were foolish to come here. With that, the orc turned, striding casually away. As it left, it flicked a dismissive hand at the barrier, and the orcs resumed their assault like a rabid dog slipping its leash.

“Tom, we haven’t much time. You must listen to me.” The urgency in Scriber’s voice snapped Tom’s attention from the departing orc chieftain.

As he turned back to him, he saw hundreds of mice flowing from his robes. The mice spread out, approaching the barrier, and began to scribble enchantments into the dirt in circles, working furiously.

“That was a chieftain,” Tom said, a little dazed. “At least we got the siege orcs.”

“Tom! Pull yourself together!” Tom immediately felt like he had been doused in cold water. Scriber was a gentle man. He had never heard him raise his voice even once. His thoughts aligned with the present situation, snapping back into immediacy.

“I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but I suspected,” Scriber said, once he saw he had Tom’s full attention. He pulled what looked like a slip of thick, purple, vellum from a spatial storage. “The shield won’t hold for long. This enchantment will turn you incorporeal, and throw you thousands of feet in the first direction you move in. Make sure you move towards the Deep.” Tom shook his head, not really comprehending what Scriber was saying.

“Made it from a Hunter with the Ideal of the Spectre. Only ever got one go at his mana before he got himself killed. Such a waste…” the enchanter continued, almost to himself.

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve been raiding so successfully, Tom. Did you think they would allow it forever? We already knew they were not the same dumb, mindless beasts of old. We have proof of it!”

“You can’t have known this would happen…” Tom protested weakly.

“Why do you think they set this trap, Tom? Think. We’ve been using enchantments like they’re free for over a month, devastating them with them every time they try to pin us down. They know we have an enchanter. They must have guessed we would try to use enchanting for sabotage.”

“Why did you come, then?”

“You know why. The siege orcs were too big a threat. We could not let them go unanswered.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone!?”

“They would have tried to send as many Idealists with us as possible. It wouldn’t have worked. We had to be quick, be stealthy, if we wanted any chance of getting out. I admit, I didn’t think they would commit to their trap quite so fully.”

It made sense, as much as Tom wanted to deny it. They would likely never have allowed Scriber to come on the mission in the first place, if they suspected counter-infiltration operations. Then Wayrest’s walls would have gaping holes in them, and tens of thousands of orcs pouring through.

“I cannot allow myself to be captured,” Scriber continued. “Nor our two unfortunate team mates. Imagine what the orcs would do with ten of me? A hundred of me? No. I won’t allow it.”

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“You should use it!” Tom said, pushing the purple vellum back at Scriber. “You said it yourself. You’re much more valuable to the cause than I am!”

Scriber just gave Tom a sad smile. Cracks were beginning to form in the barrier, growing, spreading. The orcs’ howling rose to a furious crescendo.

“Maybe. Do you know why I’ve spent my life walking the Deep, Tom? I could have been living in a soulsteel palace.”

“Because you like enchanting?”

“No. Enchanting has always been work to me. I take great pride in my work, and it gives me great satisfaction, that much is true, but no. I do it because I have always loved Ideals.”

Tom already had his mouth half open, but the answer stunned him. He assumed Scriber was one of those people who was simply enthralled by their work. Everyone did.

“I find it fascinating how they shape people. How the most ordinary people can manifest the grandest Ideals. How the highest among us can manifest the basest ones. It is endlessly interesting.

“I don’t think you realise what a rarity you are, Tom. Manifesting Suffering. People don’t like to think about pain. About humiliation. About adversity. It does not come naturally to them. By and large, we are positive creatures, or, at least, averse to negativity. We shy away from pain. That makes understanding it difficult. And it is only truly broken people who have an affinity for it.”

The cracks in the shield had spread around the entire circumference now. Several Idealist orcs were throwing skills against it. Pieces of light shattered inwards, the shards falling before dispersing into drifting motes of light.

“We have a lot of people, out here in the Deep, with ‘taboo’ Ideals.” Scriber scoffed, shaking his head sadly. “They all have one thing in common: circumstance. Sometimes life forges us, takes the iron in our souls and shapes it. And we like to think we have some say over it, but we don’t. Even we Idealists are helpless, squalling children before Goddess’ plan. It has ever been so.

“For someone as young as you to have manifested Suffering? Tom, I have only the smallest sliver of understanding of what your life must have dragged you through. What Goddess’ plan has done to you. But it breaks my heart. It is enough. You have suffered enough. To ask you to sacrifice when you have just come to a light in the tunnel would be beyond cruel.

“I have never been so mercenary. Despite my profession, my obsession, I have never been so calculating. I could never, would never, ask that sacrifice of you. You have your mother, you have Rosa. You have had a life harder than I could imagine. And you have promise. I think you will do great things.”

Tom felt tears threaten him. A section of the shield shattered inward, collapsing completely. Orcs flooded into the gap. They were arrested not a foot later, against another barrier erected by Scriber’s mice. The industrious little creatures were already working on yet another, smaller circle inside the second.

“I have learned, in my time, to appreciate fate. The little chances that turn us down odd paths. You, who were the first person to see an orc. The first person to defy them, to escape them. The first person to hunt them. You are all tangled up in this somehow, I think.”

Scriber sighed, a huge, weary exhalation. “I am an old man. I have spent my life well. I have no regrets. This must be.”

Tom shook his head silently. Scriber was still holding the enchanted vellum out for him, his gaze intense, locked on his own. The howling of the orcs, mere feet away, suddenly sounded muted.

“We have little time. I left some things I was working on back at the cave. Some ideas I had for dealing with the orcs. Take them. Use them. There is something for you there, as well. A little project I had been working on. A surprise for you. I hope you like it.

“Be careful of these orcs. We have underestimated them time and time again. They have proven themselves capable of more than base cunning and animal instincts. Do not make the same mistake again.

“Say goodbye to everyone for me. Take care of that wildfire woman you’ve tangled yourself up in.”

Tom nodded, forcing down his tears. “I will,” he said. “I will. Scriber… You’re sure about this?”

Scriber gave him that sad little smile again, but did not answer. Instead, he said, “Look after your familiars, too.” He watched his mice, and genuine delight lit in his eyes. “They will be your greatest joy in this world. Send your birds away, to the Deep, now. They’ve done enough.”

“Thank you, Scriber. For everything you have done for me. I was lost, and then you, and Val, and Cub…” he trailed off. Sere and the owls fluttered away through the night.

“I know,” he said. “I’m glad for you. It’s nothing.” They shared a moment of silence, both gazing out towards the plume of dust rising from the ruins of the mine.

“At least you got to make a big fucking explosion, right?” Tom said. He knew well how much the man liked blowing things up.

Scriber smiled again, this one genuine and merry, with more than a hint of mischief.

“Oh, Tom,” Scriber said gently. “Watch me.”

Scriber slapped the enchanted paper into Tom’s chest, pushing him backwards. He felt Scriber push a trickle of mana into it, and Tom felt it charging, the enchantments powering up. He felt strange, insubstantial, like there was a great force pulling him, but also like he was encased in ice.

The inner shield shattered under the orc assault, and began assaulting the third. The mice had only just completed it. It immediately began to fracture.

Scriber threw his arms wide. He tilted his face towards the sky. Objects began to pour out of his various spatial storages. They became a torrent. Then a flood. Within moments, Scriber was hip-deep in an ever-expanding pile of assorted enchanted items. A moment more, and it had doubled in size again.

Tom took a single step backwards, and was in a different place. The eastern trade road stretched before him, towards Wayrest, a city under siege, and behind him, endlessly, empty.

All was quiet. Sus and Sol came silently swooping towards him in the distance, Sere trailing along behind.

Through his owls, he heard a mouse scurry through the undergrowth. Nothing special about it, no enchantments, or tiny pen. Just small feet, and a rapidly beating heart.

An explosion sounded in the distance. It was massive. World-shattering. Tom watched as lights, of every shade, of every colour, blossomed and sprang and traced beautiful, meaningless patterns on the black canvas of the night. They rose higher, higher, higher still, until he was sure they must touch the heavens.

Tears rolled down Tom’s cheeks, his eyes stinging, and it was not from the wind and dust whipping at his face.