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Sample of Survey Carried out by the Udrebam institute of Relations, Unixian Women, Circa 1,195 I.E.
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Crow wasn’t sure how long the quiet stretched as they walked. It felt like an hour and a minute at once.
The walkway had grown fearsome in the time he’d traversed it. Fathom-wide gaps between the flickering glow of torches becoming unidentifiably dangerous. His frantic mind ever more convinced that something lay beneath the patches of shadow.
It became too much for him when they came to their first turn, and he found himself speaking as they made it. If only for a distraction from the foreboding gloom around the corner.
“What brought the two of you to the Sieve?” He asked, trying to keep his voice from shaking.
Ethi gave no answer, yet Unity seemed downright eager to reply.
“I wanted to make my parents proud, distinguish myself even among our most elite of classes and rise to the top of the world to carve my name into its history!”
The boy put so much energy and bluster into his words that Crow almost failed to recognise them, even after seeing them on each of the Sieve’s entry posters for a month.
He felt his temper rise.
“If you don’t want to answer the question then just keep your mouth shut.”
Unity’s hands raised placatingly, though the amused glint didn’t vanish from his eye.
“Alright, sorry. I was forced in by a number of excruciatingly irritating people who have an extremely inconvenient interest in what I do.”
Crow eyed him for a moment, barely noticing as they turned into the next corridor.
“What about you?” The boy prompted. Crow paused, he hadn’t expected him to ask or care.
“I need to win so I can…” Crow tried to think of the best way to avoid the question without lying, yet the words slid from his grip. “Help someone.” He finished.
“What, become a hero? Protect the innocent?”
As mocking as it was, Unity’s answer flooded Crow with relief. A held tongue would be enough to keep the boy with his misconception.
Apparently deciding that he would get no rise in pushing the topic further, Unity turned away from Crow and resumed the silence that had gripped them before.
They hadn’t taken even a half dozen more steps before Ethi drew in beside Crow, speaking in a low murmur.
“I’d be careful what you tell that one.”
“Pardon?”
“I mean it,” She continued, “Guard your tongue around him. He’s the sort to remember all kinds of things and store them away as ammunition to use later.”
A few swift steps carried her near to the other side of the corridor before Crow could even think of an answer, and the girl’s eyes remained dead ahead as though she didn’t even notice him. He stared down into the corridor too, mulling over her words.
The silence blanketed them once more, allying formidably with the ever looming blackness ahead. Unlike the first hallway, torches grew more and more sparse the deeper they went.
Mist came to Selsis in the winter months, and Crow was well familiar with fogs thick enough to form an opaque curtain a few dozen paces ahead. Where the light fell off ahead he saw much the same thing, writ black.
It sent a far more primal chill down his spine, and he noticed that both Ethi and Unity joined him in edging closer to one another as they walked. He drew comfort from that, but the security of numbers was feeble next to his real source of assurance.
Sending his focus inwards, Crow felt for the ever-present hum of magic in his core. It leapt at his touch like a loyal hound. Warm and static, quivering as it awaited use and holding the power to rival a powder keg.
He resisted the urge to let any of it trickle free, simply kept a hand on it. Though every heartbeat seemed to redouble the temptation.
Step by step they neared the wall of darkness, and Crow was surprised when they stepped entirely free of the light without interference.
Surprise and relief didn’t free his hand from magic, however, and as the area around him drowned the light ever more, a new wave of uncertainty crept in to replace the first.
The rhythmic sound of footfalls became the only indicator that Crow’s teammates still walked beside him, so deep were the shadows. His heart was a drum in his ears, breath hot and loud in the suffocating corridor.
I could have a safeguard. Toughen my body, forewarn myself of any attacks. Defend myself with magic.
Crow was tempted to give in to his fears. His magic took two forms that he might use at once. The first ubiquitously common, a simple strengthening of the flesh and hastening of the mind, the second an ability nearly unique to him.
Utilising both would leave his reserves of power completely gone in just thirty minutes, but enhancing his body alone required only two thirds as much from his reserves.
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Might the stage be over in under one hour?
He couldn’t risk it. Reluctantly, Crow continued to walk without drawing anything from the well of power at his fingertips. It was almost sickening.
Like walking towards a musket line unarmed and naked.
“Is this a test?” He asked, voice sounding strange in his own ears as it broke the quiet. “To face our fears, or… Or something.”
He trailed off, suddenly aware that Unity and Ethi may well have found the dark a trivial thing.
“If it is, I imagine it’s going to get worse before long.” Remarked the girl, sparing him the embarrassment.
“It isn’t.” Unity cut in. “The Sieve doesn’t play on phobias and anxiety, it tests magic and guile.”
“Wouldn’t pushing on past one’s fears fall under that banner?” Crow asked.
Though the boy’s face was hidden from him, he could practically see the grin as his voice rang sharp and solid through the hall.
“It could, but there are far more direct ways to test a person than this. And the Alliance rarely cares about courage when measured against power, skill or polymagery.”
Crow found himself oddly relieved by the thought. He had always doubted his own courage, and he knew his skill in magic was middling at best.
Yet power was something he had always excelled at, and as a tetramage there were few mystics with access to more of the seven spheres of magic than he. Perhaps he had a chance.
His thoughts scattered as a pinprick of light glinted far ahead; small and feeble as a candle beside the sun, yet seeming as incandescent as a roaring hearth against the gloom surrounding it.
A gasp let him know when Ethi saw it a moment later, and a hissed warning reached him from Unity at nearly the same time.
“Be careful, this is just the sort of trap the bastards in the Alliance like to set. Don’t be lured in by something as simple as a glimmer of light.”
Crow saw sense in the boy’s words, but restraining himself took effort all the same. He stared as the light widened and swelled with each step, silently urging the hundred paces separating him from it to shrink faster, yet knowing the dangers of sprinting ahead.
Ethi and Unity slowly faded into his vision as they neared the shining speck, and Crow realised the glow came from an opening in the corridor’s back. Tighter, shorter, better lit by far and paved with articulated slabs of stone. It arced diagonally away from where they stood, its end hidden from sight.
“Any idea about where it leads?” Ethi asked. Crow turned to see her question was directed at Unity. He frowned, for all the girl’s distrust of the boy, she seemed to have endless faith in his knowledge.
“None.” The boy answered. “Would you care to pop in and find out for us? You can let us know if there are any traps or ambushes by screaming in agony.”
She didn’t answer, but Crow saw something flash across her face at the response. Surprise, he thought. Strange.
They came to a stop before the next chamber, peering inside suspiciously. Tension seemed to replace the darkness from which they’d escaped, and Crow realised it was a caution that might paralyse them without end.
He stepped forwards; crossing the threshhold from corridor to chamber with two strides, hurrying to outpace his own fear then halting mere feet into the room. For a moment he felt rooted in place, yet when no attack came from mechanism, magic or man he felt his lungs empty with relief.
“That was the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever seen a person do.” Unity said, a laugh distorting every word. “Please tell me you plan on doing it for the rest of the stage.”
Crow paid him no heed, focus taken by the study of their newfound surroundings.
The room was long, and shorter than the last by no more than a dozen feet. It was stone, yet of a kind coloured like sand, and the pillars had been doneaway with. Torches burned hot on sconces, thrice as numerous along the walls as in the first passage and giving the room an undeniable warmth. It was only the rows of steel men that tainted it with fear and unease.
“What the pit are those?” Crow asked. His question hadn’t been directed anywhere in particular, yet Ethi picked it up.
“Suits of armour.”
He glanced at her, keeping an eye on the statuesque figures.
“I’ve seen armour, it doesn’t look like that.”
“Because this armour hasn’t been used in… pit, a century? Probably more. However long ago men killed one another with bows and swords rather than muskets and bayonets. The only suits like this you’ll find nowadays are mystic-wrought. People who can afford them tend to spend that money having others kill in their stead.”
Resting his gaze fully on the plates once more, Crow found a strange fascination studying them. They were insectoid, somehow. Carapaced about planes and articulated around joints. Strange to imagine a man wearing. As he studied them, though, he realised the breastplates did strike a chord in his memory.
“We’re dawdling enough.” Unity said, stepping ahead of both Crow and Ethi. The boy washed the room with his gaze, seeming to study it, as though deeming it a prize rather than a threat.
“If you’re looking for an exit-” Ethi began, only to be silenced by a gesture. Unity chewed a lip, turning to scrutinise the room’s every crevice.
“I don’t like this.” He muttered.
“Nor do I.” Crow agreed, starting towards the direction Ethi indicated. “Which is why I’d like very much to leave sooner rather than later.”
“Wait!” The boy barked, a sudden intensity to his tone. Crow found himself stunned almost to a halt, but it was far too late.
The moment he came within ten paces of the door a great hissing filled the air. Like the breath of a bellows, running through every wall and floor around him, making the stone tremble.
A sudden screeching pierced the air, and Crow spun to the thirty standing suits of armour.
Torchlight cast shadows around visored masks, quivering and contorting like eyelids. It struck fear enough in Crow that he nearly missed the rest of the armour’s movement.
Steel scraped against stone and wooden latches snapped as the figures tore free of their stands.
They shambled more than walked, and the clumsy sight might have calmed him, were it not paired with contortion enough to leave them steady footed and constant as they approached.
Shock slipped Crow’s grip from his magic, wasting precious seconds while he scrambled to grab it anew… Suits approached as he fumbled, nearly a dozen for each of his teammates and all moving faster than a man.
Fast enough to come within yards almost before he could think, fast enough that they could surely muster a killing force.
But not quite fast enough.
Before any were upon him, magic flowed through Crow’s body like a river of liquefied power. He felt it wash through every strand of his muscles. Every cluster of his nerves. Cutaris mixed with Utalis, the magic of energy with the magic of matter. One providing power and the other directing it through his flesh.
Skin became harder than iron, muscles tensed tighter than steel. Thoughts and impulses danced along with a speed that brought decision almost before any time could pass at all.
His eyes refocused on the armour. The creaking metal robbed of its speed, as though they moved through water where just seconds prior there had been air. Crow knew the illusion for what it was, the enemy was no slower than they had been when his heart still beat without magic.
It was he who had quickened.