Chapter 14

I receive the same question from every class, and I always answer it the same way. The question is, why is steel so rare?

Steel is rare because it is hard to manufacture. Creating it is a complex, time-consuming process, so much time, in fact, that steel—even though it’s been made for over two millennia—is still rare enough that little is made of it besides blades and tools.

-Professor Gio, War Professor for the Imperial Sorcerers’ Academy

Bright, angled streaks of sunlight hit Seff’s chest as he lay in bed. He loved the silence, although not as much as conversation or company.

He wondered if he was happy. Content, yes, but not happy. Nothing elicited a sharp sense of excitement, shocked with life-or-death decisions. His life had calmed a little, and with that change, he felt as though his happiness had left with it. Where had that happiness gone? Would he ever get it back?

His mind backtracked through his memories—some dark, some happy.

The happy memories, singularly, contained Lygan, his adopted father, in them. He wondered why that was. What had been so good about his life with Lygan? He supposed Lygan had been caring. Lygan had shown him love, something now missing. Lastly, Lygan had been a grounding, stable influence upon him, a mentor, showing him the world, sorcery, life and knowledge.

His life had turned hard when he ran away from Lygan, harder than even he could have imagined. He knew it would be hard, and he had steeled himself against the cold world. But, no free meals existed out here. No loving embrace. No warm house or bookshelves of the finest stories or spells.

After he had run away, that was when his memories turned darker.

At that moment—just before the door opened, he was thinking about a person he had killed. The person’s youthful, betrayed expression had been haunting him. That death, more than any other, tormented him. It turned his nights into nightmares. Everyone else had gotten everything they deserved, even the crowd weeks earlier. At least, that’s what he told himself, but there was no denying the injustice and cruelty that he had brought onto the youth in his dreams.

In the doorway stood Reyn and Natali. They had been looking at each other smiling as the door opened. Instinctively Seff rolled his eyes but caught himself before they saw him.

They looked at him smiling and closed the door.

“Don’t you guys knock?” Seff said, sitting up.

“Oh, come off your throne,” Reyn said. “So, after I got detained by that constable, what happened?”

“What do you think happened?”

“You came away a rich man, and you’ve already decided that you don’t need us anymore,” Natali said.

“No, I’ve got the bags right there. I wasn’t able to get into Goff’s, but the secondary import office was easy. Reyn and I will have to go back to Goff’s to properly break in.”

Natali started drifting over to the bags as she replied, “I’m not invited to Goff’s?”

“Of course you are, as long as you’re not going to storm off if I say something in jest,” Seff partially lied.

“Ah, I think we’re making progress on him, Reyn. Look how relaxed he is? What is that smell?” Natali scrunched up her nose.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Reyn answered, looking around and sniffing.

“It’s foul,” Natali said, “Have you sold those silver candleholders yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Have you opened any of these bags?” Natali asked while pointing to them and then crouching down.

“No, I haven’t really felt the urge.”

“Oh,” Natali said in a surprised tone as she turned her face from the bags to Seff. “So, you convince Reyn to become a criminal with you, but when you steal alone, you feel no inclination to open the bags to see what you got?” Natali looked around the small room, taking it in. “I find that strange. You don’t care at all what’s in these bags?”

“I care; I just didn’t care enough to go through it and see what was in it.”

Natali said, “Hm.” After the single utterance, she ducked down, grabbed a bag at a time, and lifted them onto the bed.

“Hey, don’t put them there,” said Seff. “Put them on the floor on the other side. I’ll get up or just sit on the bed as you guys open them.”

“If you don’t like it, move them yourself,” said Natali.

“Do whatever; I just wanted to lay here and enjoy the silence, and then you guys come in here.”

Natali pulled up the last bag, making the bed sag, pulling Seff’s lower body into the saggy bed well. Seff rolled his eyes and closed them. Moments passed by. He could hear them opening the bags.

“They’re gold!” gasped Natali. Seff opened his eyes to see Reyn and Natali with wild smiles on their faces.

“Whoa, what?” asked Seff. He leaned up quickly to take a good look at the coins. Copper blanks. “Hey, that’s not very funny.”

“See, he does care,” said Natali.

“I think that Seff really doesn’t care, but it was the way you said it,” said Reyn.

“Exactly,” said Seff has he laid back down onto the bed, but this time he kept his eyes open. Seff felt Natali just liked to poke at him. He didn’t like it. He didn’t understand her.

“So, you need to go back to Goff’s?” asked Natali.

“The door’s thick iron. I need Reyn with me to get through within the time window,” said Seff.

“Tonight?” asked Reyn.

“Tonight’s fine,” said Seff.

“Oh, guys, I think I forgot to tell you something,” said Natali.

“Ok,” said Reyn. Seff sat up a little and looked at her.

“I only have three more weeks before I need the money.”

“How much money?” asked Seff.

“Enough to buy a big house downtown, probably. I don’t think I’ll need much more than that.”

“And you’re getting a third?” Seff asked.

“Yes.”

“So, we hit a few houses with expensive jewelry, maybe explore some ships after they dock, and rob a few shops. Doesn’t seem impossible,” said Seff.

“That’s what I was thinking, but I thought you guys needed to know.”

“Alright, so we need enough for four large houses downtown, just to have some leeway,” said Seff. Seff paused to think about how they could steal that much. Three weeks was hardly any time at all. “Damn,” he said. “We’ll first need a wagon or something just to haul the stuff to pawn it all. That’s a lot of money, Natali. Don’t you think someone might notice people stealing all that stuff?”

“Maybe,” Natali said.

Seff stood, “We’ll have to start being really careful with our targets. Let’s see what we get from Goff’s tonight and after we finish that, let’s meet back here tomorrow—after school. I’m going to wander around and see what I can do about getting to know someone who'll take stolen goods or see if there’s a thieves’ guild in this town. I’ll see you guys here tonight at midnight.”

Seff sat up and started putting on a shirt.

“You’re leaving?” said Reyn.

“I need to sell these candleholders,” Seff said as he grabbed them, “There will be no point in stealing if we can’t fence the goods. Also, I needed the money days ago.”

“I guess Natali and I can get some food and go somewhere.”

“Yes, wander around; I don’t care,” said Seff as he got up quickly, opened the door, and left.

“Hungry?” asked Reyn.

“Yes,” said Natali.

* * *

Seff talked with an agent of the Belladder’s thieves’ guild.

They wanted no part of Seff. Their attitude surprised him, knowing they would take a cut. They told him they had bad experience with sorcerers before and were now more cautious. They told him to check back in a year.

Seff knew he would need to travel to more cities and towns to fence the goods. The danger of getting caught with stolen goods was very real. He, certainly, did not trust Natali. She would be helpless if caught, and Reyn was next to useless. He would have to take the risks himself.

He met back up with Reyn and Natali late that night. It had taken him most of the evening just to make contact with a guild agent.

The conversation on the way to Goff’s was boringly whispered to each other as they crept along the streets trying to avoid anyone and everything. Natali had let her dad know that she would be spending the night at one of her girlfriend’s houses. She was surprised when he didn’t pursue a line of questioning that might expose her lie. He was normally so alert.

They arrived at Goff’s after a circuitous route to avoid the patrolling constable. The trip through the locked gate and barn was short and uneventful. When they arrived at the iron door, the conversation changed.

After lighting their lanterns, Seff said, “So, I’ve written down the spell for you, Reyn. It’s very simple. Just read it; I’ll correct your pronunciation as needed. You’ll need to stack the spells. We should have probably been practicing stacking, but I really didn’t want random buildings going up in smoke.”

Reyn glared at Seff and raised an eyebrow before looking at the spell runes.

Seff continued, “All Reyn needs to do is cast the heat spell, stack it maybe five or ten or so times, and that door should be getting pretty hot. While he’s doing that, I cast the same spells and, bam, this door should melt like hot butter.”

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“Iron melting like hot butter, eh?” said Natali, raising an eyebrow.

Seff gave her a glancing look, “Yes, hot butter.”

“Less talk. Let’s start,” Reyn said.

“We need to be shielded, just in case something messes up,” Seff said.

“Well, go ahead and shield me, Seff, and I'll go sit over there,” Natali pointed to the end of the tunnel.

Seff cast the sorcery shielding spell on Natali. She walked over and sat down at the tunnel exit ramp.

After casting shielding spells on Reyn and himself, Seff let Reyn read the spell runes. He took time correcting Reyn’s pronunciation, timing, and additional runes. Seff knew it would take more time to cast the spell through timing, than emotions, but he did not want to let Reyn know of his immense talent.

Seff explained and corrected Reyn for a half hour. Seff did not think more time was needed, as the spell didn’t contain hundreds of runes, rather only a dozen.

Being thorough, Seff talked about how spells stack and how the sorcerer must keep part of his mind on each individual spell even though they were the same.

Seff explained to Reyn how each spell needed to be individually tracked or they would merge or poof.

To do this, the sorcerer needed to associate each spell with some unique entity. Some would use the different spell segments in their wand or staff, while others preferred using a scene from a memory. They would picture a room or environment and assign a spell to each object. In this way, each spell had its own unique location in the sorcerer’s mind.

“Ready?” Seff asked.

Reyn said, “Don’t know why we could have done this in your apartment, but yes, I’m ready. I hate all the little details—hate memorizing stuff and this is almost like school. And just so that all of you know, I hate school.”

“Okay, well, you want to start with a copper coin, just to see?” asked Seff.

“Sure.”

Seff propped a copper coin on the floor against the iron door.

“Try not to target the wood.”

“Unless we want a fire?” laughed Reyn.

“Yes, unless you want Natali to get pouty that we burned down her target-of-the-night.”

Reyn said the runes once, imagining an apple. The copper coin did nothing, so Reyn said them again. As before, nothing happened, so he marked the spell in his mind as a second apple with a bite taken out. He said them again and imagined a fountain.

“Three times, and it’s not doing anything,” Reyn said.

“Hm,” said Seff as he leaned down slowly to touch the ground next to the coin. It was cold.

“No, it’s doing something. You might have the timing slightly off, because I don’t do the spells with timing very often—I mean I really do it hardly at all. The other way is faster.”

“Why don’t I do it the other way?”

“It’s harder, so don’t worry about it,” Seff lied.

“Ok, so how many more stacks do I need?”

“I have no idea. Let’s see how many it takes to melt the coin, ok? I’ll have a cooling spell on my wand ready to cool off the coin. Also, be ready to kill the stacks. I don’t want to have to compete with your heating spells to actually—oh wait. Whoa, that coin is glowing,” said Seff.

The coin glowed brighter and brighter until it shone almost the color of gold. The wood around it burst into flame then blobbed into a flat bubble of liquid copper, exuding a brilliant sun-yellow color.

“Kill it, kill it, kill the stacks,” spat Seff as the fire spread and the copper started to bubble. After Reyn managed to stop the spells, Seff squelched the fire with a squelch spell. Natali sat smiling from afar.

A few minutes later, after Seff had explained what they would do when the door started melting, Reyn began. Reyn aimed his attention on the center of the door, and Seff hoped that the heat would propagate to the rest of it.

Seff watched as Reyn said the spell over and over again. Nothing happened for the first few spells, but then the air began to feel cold as frost formed on the walls. The iron door grew red as the room grew even colder. Ice began to form on the wood and the walls all around them. Seff decided then to start casting his own stacks. The temperature dropped still more.

For Seff, the image to separate spells was easy. The first spell was always the hammock. The second, the tree by his head. Third, the other tree by his feet. Then to the right: a bit of moss lying on the ground, the gravel path, the lake to his right, the forest beyond the lake, and the sun tipping towards noon. Then to the left: the cabin, woodpile; the horses: Pecan, Berry, Peah; Lygan…

He paused there. Lygan. Why… He drifted off in thought thinking of why Lygan thought he had done the right thing. He couldn’t understand it. When he snapped out of it, he saw the iron door’s middle section completely melted away.

“Whoa whoa whoa, stop stop.” Seff shoved Reyn.

Falling over on his butt, Reyn cleared the stacks.

The air had grown beyond frigid. An icicle hung from Reyn’s nose and chin. Seff looked back at Natali, and she looked normal as though she herself had cast some sort of spell to warm herself.

The wood at either side of the tunnel around them was coated in inches of lumpy frost; the floor was iced over, his leather shoes stuck fast; the outer edges of the iron door were covered in ice; Seff felt the top of his hair and it was crusty with frost.

The tunnel had turned into a frosty cave of white ice combined with the bright orange lanterns and cooling, glowing liquid iron sizzling and spreading across the ice and wood. This made for a burning wood smell in addition to the popping of ice and wood.

“What the hell just happened?” asked Reyn.

“Weren’t you paying attention?” asked Seff. He would need to be more careful next time when applying stacks. They had both been lost in concentration.

“Hell no, I was trying to juggle all these images and stacks in my mind; my eyes were glazed over, and I was just paying attention to making sure the stacks all hit the iron,” said Reyn.

Seff cursed in frustration. He would need more time, more spells, just to free them from the ice.

Softly chuckling, Natali walked over, sliding, until she slipped on the ice and landed with a resounding thud and a laugh.

Seff had been watching her chuckling and saw her slip. He lost concentration on the fireball spell and had to start over. Reyn looked up from his stuck shoes to see Natali laughing and pointing at them.

“You guys didn’t even circulate the air, you fools,” she said between laughs.

“Circulate?” asked Seff.

“You should know my dad is a sorcerer,” said Natali as she slipped again, failing to get up. “He tells me random stuff all the time. He told—here, you come to me. Help, please.”

“Can’t. We’re stuck,” Seff laughed, sitting down and tugging at his shoes.

“My dad tells me stories of stupid sorcerers all the time,” she started. “There was this one guy who blew up an island—really. He blew it up while he was on it.

“And then another time, an idiot didn’t circulate the air as he was doing something in a small room. They never did figure out what he was doing, but basically, he froze himself to death. You see, to do sorcery takes something out of the air and out of objects and it makes them colder.”

After a little while and some well-placed spells, Seff freed their feet.

Seff and Reyn waddled to her, careful not to slip on the ice.

“So, to prevent,” Natali waved her arms, “this mess, you have to circulate the air, which is why we have now brought a ridiculous amount of ice down here. It’s really cold! Let’s get through that wonderful hole Reyn made.”

“He didn’t make it alone; I helped him a lot—remember that,” Seff said. Seff knew he had hardly helped at all. He had perhaps made it to ten stacks. He wondered how many Reyn had gotten to.

“I don’t care who made it, let’s get going. Help me up.”

By that time, Reyn and Seff were positioned next to her. Each one grabbed a hand and heaved her up. After a few minutes of sliding and waddling carefully down the tunnel, they had climbed through the hole and into Goff’s basement storeroom.

All three now split up, with lanterns of their own, to explore. The contents of the basement were scattered around and didn’t give up many clues to what things were. Nondescript barrels, chests, boxes, crates, and packages were seemingly piled everywhere.

“Hey Seff,” whispered Reyn. “What should we be prying open?”

“Everything,” said Seff. “Pry into everything you can. If something is locked, melt the lock. Just be quiet about it.”

“Shouldn’t we look for a logbook?” asked Natali.

“Why don’t you look for the logbook—if there is one—and I will continue being destructive,” said Seff as he ripped open a paper-wrapped package. Natali watched him as he pulled out two linen shirts.

Natali searched for the logbook as Reyn and Seff continued to spew random contents onto the ground.

Reyn soon found a box addressed to the Imperial Sorcerers’ Academy in care of a Miss Velia Ne. As soon as Reyn had seen the label, he set his lantern down nearby and quickly pried the box open with a crowbar he had found. The contents were black, so he retrieved his lantern and lifted it to peer inside. Books.

Lifting them up one by one, he examined the titles: The Sea, Men and Gods; The Gods and Their Creatures; Obscura: Rare and Unique Beasts; The Legendary Sea Continent; My Great Voyage: A Journey into the Unknown.

The last one hooked Reyn into rearranging a few of the barrels and sitting down by the lantern to see what it was about. Reyn turned to the first page and began reading:

I don’t remember when I first tasted ocean waves, but I do remember the day that I fell in love with sailing. My father was a great fisherman of sea beasts. He could throw a harpoon faster than he could smile.

The day I fell in love with sailing, the waves were toppling over the bow, soaring above us as we dove our ship through the troughs and crests. The sea was lit by only the moon, and we fought to stay alive. My mother busied herself below deck, trying to stay out of the way, although thinking back at it now, I bet she was working the bilge pumps.

I creeped up a small staircase where I could stare at the men bustling around the top deck, hearing my father shout orders.

The sea appeared and disappeared as we flew down and up the waves. I stuck my tongue out to taste the tang of the salt—something I still do.

After a while, staked out on the staircase, I heard my father scream “Unfurl the sails to a quarter. Tonight, we dine on unicorn, for there she rises.”

Of course, now, few have ever seen a giant sea unicorn for sailors today are soft. The risks of sailing in polar waters are known. Each year, nightmarish weather and beasts claim a quarter of all who venture there.

Some beasts can wreck the best-built ships by battering into the boards or cracking the hull. The smartest will only surface once, eye your ship, and disappear. If it’s ornery, your ship may be savagely attacked from beneath and sunk within the hour. Against the smart ones, there is little a sailor can do. Tales of men leaping into the water, harpoons in hand, to protect their ships have been told, along with the bloody outcomes.

Great gushes of white spray scattered all across the air and floor. They fed my entertainment as the men—some armed with harpoons—clambered up the swaying rope ladders. The ship rocked all over and even shuddered against the greatest of the waves. The wind’s roar excited me as I held for my life atop the seven-foot ladder. My eyes began to…

Reyn lost track of time as he read.

“What in the hell are you doing?” asked Seff. He had noticed a lantern not moving and had walked over.

Reyn looked up at Seff nearby, “Uh, appraising these books. They should be worth something,” said Reyn, holding up My Great Voyage: A Journey into the Unknown.

Seff growled, thinking of the waste of time, “Put them by the entrance and keep looking.”

Reyn headed off and put the books by the door. Seff and Natali came over to him.

“I found the logbook,” said Natali with a beaming smile.

“Reyn,” said Seff. “Just light up some more lanterns. We need to be able to navigate quickly. We can divvy up these pages and look for the most valuable stuff properly. You go find some lanterns. Natali and I will start reading the logbook for valuable inventory.”

Seff and Natali went through the logbook. Natali read faster than he did—he tried skimming quicker than her, but then she’d find things he had missed. Eventually he relaxed and let Natali mark everything as Reyn went around lighting up the different areas. There was no beating her, except in sorcery and that gave him a little comfort.

Soon, the entire storeroom was filled with lit lanterns. Directions, questions and answers flew across the basement as the three of them tried to locate different valuable packages.

“Natali, could you see what’s up there in that corner?” asked Seff, pointing to a dark corner forty feet away.

“Sure,” Natali said. She didn’t mind taking direction. Less tension. Less likely to have to reveal she knew sorcery to the boys.

Natali headed that way with a lantern in hand. Ten feet above her, a wide shelf lined the wall.

She arrived at the corner with her lantern in hand, along with a piece of paper with the more valuable storage numbers scribbled on it. She looked through the lower crates quickly, and then brought a ladder and climbed onto the upper shelf. Shining the light at each crate, she finally found one with a number they were interested in. Setting her lantern down on the edge, she picked up the small box and put it down near the lantern.

Looking down, she knew it would be awkward to descend the ladder with the box, so went without it, got a crowbar, and climbed back up.

She wedged the crowbar into the box and pulled, but the lid didn’t budge. She grunted with disgust. She repositioned herself and yanked much harder. This time the lid popped off, pushing the box into the lantern, knocking it off the edge and onto the floor below.

Natali gasped.

Straw, sawdust, and wood splinters from many years of packing and storing covered the floor. The lantern broke open, spilling the oil contained at the bottom, which ignited. In the moment when the lantern turned the floor into fire, Natali realized why Goff’s was closed at night: reduction of fire risk. She looked around the basement, and she saw wide thin windows which would let the sunlight stream through.

The sound of shattering glass and the woosh from the fire signaled Reyn and Seff what had happened, but it took them a moment to react.

Natali stood on the ladder, stunned at the fire’s gusto. She gaped as it spread below her, the air itself seeming to explode in fire. She cursed and moved to climb down, but realized that the ladder itself was aflame along with the floor all around it.

Reyn and Seff had been on a high shelf behind a heavy crate, looking at crate numbers. They climbed down and ran to her.

The flames leapt up ferociously around Natali, motionless on the shelf. The ladder was in the midst of the roaring fire.

“Do something,” Reyn shouted to Seff.

“Uhhh,” said Seff. He silently began to cast a squelch spell.

He concentrated on saying the runes with the proper emotions, careful to hit them perfectly. He knew Natali was in trouble. He looked back to see what Reyn was doing, and he was gone.

Seff cast his spell onto the fire. The spell smothered a small patch of fire, but immediately it was caught again by the surrounding flame.

“It’s too big,” shouted Seff.

“Get me down,” screamed Natali, panic in her voice.

“I’m coming,” shouted Reyn.

Reyn came running with another ladder, but stopped fifteen feet short with fire blocking his way.

“I can’t get to you,” said Reyn.

Seff could see Natali coughing from the smoke. Seff ran to Reyn while shielding himself, grabbed the ladder, and started running through the fire.

“It’s about time, Seff,” said Natali called out.

“Sorry, I thought I could put it out,” Seff shouted above the roar.

“Hey, is anyone down there!” shouted an unknown voice.

Seff’s and Natali’s gaze locked awkwardly on both ends of the ladder.