(II)

Antonidas retrieved a particular case from his safe and unlocked it with the key from his spatial pouch, revealing what looked like an amulet made of many faceted pieces of crystalline quartz glued together. The Council had supplied him with a memory stone cluster to record the mystical imprints of the individuals connected to his investigation. The purpose was to have a way to determine if they were under magical duress or otherwise unnatural subjection. Not a particularly easy task since that relied on direct comparison to the Racial Common Denominator of Metaphysical Order periodically updated back in Dalaran, and the method was unable to detect some of the more subtle, long-term influences. Antonidas wasn’t high enough in the ranks to know all the specifics yet. What he did know was that the record stone had to be transported there by mundane means. Sufficiently strong arcane exposure, especially teleportation, disrupted the recording matrix. Spirit was finicky, especially the loose traces of it constantly shed by people during those moments when their attention was aimed outwards, which was most of the time. Where attention goes, energy flows.

However, this would work to his advantage. Disruption to the recordings did not bring damage to the stones themselves, so he could always take new ones. He would need days to store new imprints if they were lost, but he had time. He hadn’t turned in his findings, and so he probably didn’t need to worry he’d be recalled before the deadline Krasus set. And he should be able to make do with the imprints of the individuals least likely to have any control over whatever proceedings these were, who were also the most easily accessible.

Such magic as the one he decided upon usually required reagents of particularly personal bent, such as skin, hair or blood, if possible. And its purpose was usually to exploit an existing a connection, rather than establish a new one based on vague, personal understanding of what they should have in common. Or, in this case, who. It certainly wasn’t designed to filter out sympathetic connections in the hopes of finding the one thing (person) they unknowingly had in common in the caster’s opinion, regardless of how fact-based. Especially when the ‘reagents’ were so fragile and the nature and criteria of those connections could be considered mental abstractions at best.

“I, who am avatar of the Order Immanent, am the one whose claim on What Is challenges the claim of the Rulers of Ages.”

Antonidas D’Ambrosio had earned the Kirin Tor Sash of Supreme Acumen. For his paper called ‘The Ramifications of refined Reverse Time Travel Phenomena into Quantifiable Magical Practice.’ When he was twelve.

“The Five Dragons, the Five Masters, the Five Aspects whose Right is the World, whose Might is the World, whose Instrument is the World and whose Charge is the World. I hereby declare: the Right and Might and Instrument and Charge were not Won but Invested by Decree of Order. Let Decree of Order be superseded by Decree of Order. Let my Domain be the Domain of the Ruler of Ages, whose Right is the Present, whose Might is the Past, whose Charge is Fate, whose Instrument is the Entirety of The Passage of Time!”

The magical circle shone. Power flowed like the Sands of Time along lines of mana and chalk overlaid with the tiny spirit stones arranged along sacred geometry. Some dispersed along with the stored energy in a puff of mist, most absorbed them and changed course, overlapping, weaving together, converging on the pedestal upon which sat a crystal ball.

“Let the Truth be revealed to my eyes. Let they be seen, those turning against Mankind’s Order, those by whose deceit and artifice did man turn against man, did man turn on himself, devouring the refuse of his lost Dreams, and not allowing Life its free and natural progression across Time, in order that they might supplant Order. Let they be known, that the souls they sought to claim may not fall victim to the Fel Outside.”

The words commanded the space beyond space. The light shone dim. The crystal ball filled with mist.

“Let they be seen, that they may not persist in their doing for a cycle longer!”

The mist cleared to reveal a middle aged couple and three men in the middle of breakfast.

“Howard, are you sure you won’t wait for-“

“Begging your pardon, Missus, but the Young Master has much bigger things going on than me. ‘Sides, it were your husband that hired me on, so it should be fine, right? I left a note with my thanks and best wishes too.”

“I don’t like it,” the man grumbled. “Have them worthies been making trouble for you? Because w-“

“Wish it were that simple myself,” Howard – was that even his true name? – interrupted his employer again, he was rather rude wasn’t he? “But with all due respect, which I assure you is greater than for literally any other man in the world, I’ve set my mind. Time on your farm has been more than I hoped for, but there’s other things in store for me than tending crops.”

“Shame,” one of the other men said. “You learned the trade fast, even though you were terrible at the start.”

“Thanks,” The man said dryly. “Also, fuck you.”

“Fuck you too.”

“My word,” the third exclaimed. “Such foul mouths in front of the missus!”

“I’ll let it slide for now,” said the missus in question. “But I’ll not stand for it once the babies arrive.”

“Aye aye, ma’am.”

Antonidas had to be very careful connecting the spell matrix to his own mental image of the man rather than the man himself, now that his makeshift anchors were depleted. Given the overreliance on mental abstractions that he’d needed to account for on the fly, he’d had to dispense with most auxiliary scrying parameters. He could tell neither distance nor direction, never mind zoom out to get a bird’s eye view of the place, and he wouldn’t be able to tell if the man would notice the magic latch on to him unless he reacted visibly. Too high a risk just to get a reaction.

But Antonidas was very good at his craft.

The view in the crystal ball wavered but stayed on target even as the man rose from the table and made his way out of the house. It wavered more and more through the man’s brief travel preparations, he’d been ready since the prior day or longer. This was a problem, the spell had barely found its way, if his target changed locations Antonidas might not be able to find him again, not with his spell ingredients used up. He’d seen his face and could scry for it again, but the odds that it wasn’t the same one he’d wear tomorrow couldn’t be dismissed. He’d caught the man just as he changed covers and he couldn’t even decide if this was good luck or bad.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Antonidas barely had time to put on his battle robes, woven by his own hand with the pinnacle of arcane protection exceeding the best full plate, before the man was leaving the property outright. The image in the crystal ball wavered and stuttered the more distance he put between himself and the original spot of the scrying spell. Antonidas reluctantly cut the visual feed in order to divert power to the anchor, but he could make even that work to his advantage. Forming the weave for the Teleportation spell, he used his freed up focus to cast the best spells of protection, finally priming a Paralysis spell before triggering the leap. Arcane symbols surrounded him and the tell-tale whirl of space-time magic moved him across time and space right behind- “AGH!”

The fir branch slapped him in the face so hard he slipped and fell on the ground – “Ooof!” – or would have if not for the tree trunk right beneath his feet, as slippery as it was full of sharp vestigial branches, including a big one that didn’t skewer him through the eye only because his armor spell lasted just long enough under the force of his fall, even on top of the subtle forcefield cast by the weave patterns of his robe. “Ack …” The paralysis spell misfired into a pine tree as he lurched aside. The tree glowed a bit greener than usual and then nothing as he swayed on all fours, cradling his cheek with one eye shut beneath his fingers from phantom pain. “What?”

“The ecological succession that creates a deciduous forest starts with the greed of pines.”

“Depelli!” His reflexive mana blast hurled the boughs away, but most of them just whipped back. He managed to shield his face with his sleeve this time, then Antonidas swung – THUNK – his staff caught in the trunks and his robes on sharp branches as he struggled out of… a pine thicket even a toddler couldn’t get through, how? He’d targeted the spot right behind his quarry, what was the man doing in there, when, he was bigger than Antonidas, he couldn’t have fit, how-? He did feel my spell!

“Fast-growing conifers colonize a suitable area and take it over, suppressing ground cover growth with their light-blocking needles.”

The mage whipped his head around, trying to find the voice, both his eyes still worked even if one hurt, but telling direction of the voice was difficult, was this magic – no, echoes just got strange in thick woods, but he could still tell the path, follow him!

“As the pine growth becomes denser, this advantage backfires. The lower branches of the old trees die and infant pines starve in the darkness beneath the crowded sky.”

“Vento, viam meam succide!” His staff caught on a trunk again, but the swipe was still big enough to cut a large swath of the forest ahead to ribbons. “Depelli!” The trunks, lumps and branches were blown away in a cone ahead of him, and so Antonidas D’Ambrosio finally managed to break out of the underbrush. “Stop in the name of the Kirin Tor!”

No answer save the wind, he was on a serpentine mountain path but there was no one else – no, down there around the bend, a blur of tan and brown passed beyond the trees. “Hengroen, to me!” A portal of light appeared at his shoulder, from which his steed charged through all the way from the Alterac City stables. With a brief levitation spell, Antonidas jumped in the saddle. “Hya!”

His horse quickly charged down the path and turned the bend to find – there was no one, quick on his feet was he? “Go go go!” Another bend in the path and finally Antonidas could – still nothing!? “Whoa, whoa, boy!” His steed dug furrows into the ground with its hooves as it skid to the halt. “Where did he go?”

Antonidas was half-way through another, short-range scrying spell when the man emerged from the trees on the right, crossed the thin trail and hopped down the slope on the other side to disappear into the brushwood.

The mage stared in shock at the sheer gall of – of – “HYA!” He charged down the path, around another bend just in time to see the man do the same thing just as he got there, he wasn’t even running, didn’t seem in a hurry at all, why that insolent – Silence Shell, Illusion on his steed’s eyesight, Invisibility, Ride the Wind. “Aer semita mea!” With a lashing of his reins, Hengroen galloped on the air down the mountain right over where he’d seen the man jump down. Antonidas couldn’t see through the tree cover below, but he made it down to the other path with time to spare and waited unseen and unheard in the middle of the path where the main was sure to emerge. Force Armor, Shield, Paralysis primed – again – now all he needed do was wait. He waited.

He waited.

… Where was he? Because unless he was setting camp in not even one square foot of space or going back up -

Antonidas’ heart sank as he remembered a detail he’d overlooked in his rush. The next bend in my path wasn’t just a bend, it was a split in the road!

Swiftly, he Rode the Wind back up the mountain, but the spell expired just as he reached the split and so he was forced to land his steed and gallop like any other horseman. He could cast it again, but this was too wily an opponent to waste mana, Invisibility and Silence Shell should still give him the element of surprise as long as the dust cloud behind him wasn’t too large, why couldn’t it have rained?

He skidded around a final bend in the path, the sand got in his eyes – why was it so hot? – but there he was! Stopped right in the path of an Alterac Footman Patrol, what luck! Drop Invisibility, drop Silence Shell. “Sto-“

“I SURRENDER!”

Antonidas and his proud steed experienced what is known as false start.

“I surrender! I admit it, I did it! I don’t know what you think I did but whatever it is, I’ll confess! Just don’t let the wizard get me! He’s crazy! Crazy I tell you!”

The false start ended in an open-mouthed, stumbling halt.

The man – Howard was not his true name, it couldn’t be! – held his hands out to be shackled. By normal shackles instead of the mana-dampening ones Antonidas had in his spatial bag. The shackles belonging to a group of bemused and distrustful members of the Alterac Road Patrol. Bemused and distrustful towards him.

“See, he’s been staring at me like that since he turned the bend!”

Antonidas D’Ambrosio gaped at the sight, aghast.

… He planned this! Somehow he planned this, all of it, he must have felt the spell watching him and then come up with… but in less than five minutes?!

The man’s expression changed then, to something much more distant but somehow still present. Turned to look north. Glancing despite himself in the same direction, Antonidas saw only the mountains on the horizon, on the far side of Alterac Valley which lay far, far down below. That was where he’d been led, he belatedly realized. Those mountains were the last great natural defense behind which Alterac City lay, but what was the man looking at? Did he have allies coming, was this just a ploy to buy time or-?

Above the mountains and beyond, the last specks of morning mist were suddenly dyed in a flicker of gold. A flicker that became a shimmer that lasted for a long, strung-out minute that arrested everyone’s attention. Bizarrely, though Antonidas didn’t feel anything from so far away, he still had the strange instinct that the Order of Things had just shifted like a sleeping giant after something had tickled its cheek.

He looked back to the man. The man wasn’t looking back. He was sitting on a nearby stump, playing with his shackles. His now open shackles. The man promptly snapped them closed around his wrists again when he saw Antonidas looking and smirked at him.

The wizard glared.

The man went back to politely waiting for everyone else to remember they had a prisoner now.

Antonidas sat back in his saddle. His mana coiled tightly with the tension of battle, aimless and unsatisfied. Finally, the patrol remembered themselves. Responsibilities began divvying up between continuing their job and escorting their new prisoner back to their outpost, and from there onwards to Alterac City proper. They were completely oblivious that said prisoner could have slipped away in their distraction. Could still slip away. Only from the patrol of course – wait!

Atonidas drove his steed to catch up and had to use far too much cajolery and even needed to pull out the king’s sealed authorisation to get the footmen to swap the man’s bonds for his arcane dampeners. He almost wished ‘Howard’ tried to get away to spare him the frustration. He didn’t even try though. He allowed himself to be re-cuffed and led off. Under the Alterac Crown’s jurisdiction instead of the Kirin Tor’s.

… He’d obviously planned this in advance, but how? Had he known about his investigation beforehand, somehow? From three days’ travel away? How? There were few possible answers, all of them sinister, unconscionable! He had to be a mage himself, a wizard, no, a foul warlock, an insidious rogue of some sort, a demon even! Certainly something, he had to be. He had to be!

The alternative was that Antonidas had just been outmanoeuvered by a country hick. He would never be able to live down such shame.

…

What the devil was he going to tell the Council?