Man has never met a mountain he did not wish to climb.
Why, then, does he always fear the trip back?
The distance traveled is the same,
Only this time the destination is not the peak,
It is home. It is death.
~~Reflections on the crossroads of midlife, Scriptor Azreal
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“Better a snail than a seasider’s sense of urgency.” A poor adage, but one common enough Callam could recite it by heart. Visiting merchants were quick to slam their cups down on taproom tables, dismissing the local staff as too slow without ever realizing that island nations and port cities lived by the cadence of their boats. Commerce and commotion arrived with the ships, so most Ruddities awoke early to meet the tides, then hung their hats up when the waters returned. Any meals shared or business conducted outside of ocean hours tended to be leisurely affairs, best enjoyed with a healthy serving of patience.
Callam knew this. Yet he still felt stir crazy in the wake of the Oceanstrider attacks. The city lay dormant, all its shipping and trade halted and many of its smaller shops closed. That meant there was nothing to distract him as he counted down the days until the Tower.
Time seemed to crawl. He spent the majority of the following week recovering in the chapelward’s tiny guest room, his body sore from his battle and his mind weary from the exertion of casting his first spell. What little time he wasn’t bedridden, he devoted to the orphans. His initial assumptions had proved correct, and the young ones fought for his attention at every turn—he was their tree, and they were critters and climbers both. With nothing happening around the city to entertain them, he was truly at their mercy.
Only the nights were really his own. The Sisters enforced a strict bedtime on the young unbound, and the older kids had their own furtive affairs to tend to whenever the sun fell. Callam made the most of those quiet hours, using them to practice his one spell and to gawk at his grimoire. Unfortunately, he didn’t come close to replicating that rush of cold he’d felt when he’d finally cast, despite hours of effort. He wasn’t discouraged, however—he assumed it had something to do with the most recent message in his grimoire. As soon as Merra and her Sootskins had left him on the shore, he’d opened his spellbook to find that he’d completed the book’s first challenge.
Foreword: For Callam Quill, bonded companion.
Callam Quill, Mage, Level 1.
Grimoire Type: Unknown.
Starlevel: Four.
Skills: Literacy.
Talents: Streetwise. Puzzles come easily to you.
Spells: Infer Intus, Ater, Infer Intus (Exhausted)
Prologue: Your first spell
Life grants magic and misery in equal measure.
For most, the beginning foreshadows the end. Talent dictates their prosperity—from the first stone thrown, they are measured and nurtured. For others, struggle is paramount. The rock is heavy in their hands, and when heaved does not fly far.
Yet, when the stones are collected and the final lines drawn, it is often the latter that travels further, if the thrower’s resolve is steadfast.
You did not falter and have leveled the power in your heart.
Incantation: Infer Atrea Intus
Timeline: NA. Proceed to the Eastern Lighthouse (The Seeker's Tower) for further advancement.
That night, Callam had stared at the words, “Level One,” until dawn’s light had broken through the fog, a smile stretched across his face. As far as he knew, levels were directly connected to the Tower’s many floors, indicating what a Seeker could climb safely to. Most mages never cleared level three—with Scriptors earning their titles by being able to reach level ten—so for him to have leveled up after a single spell filled him with excitement.
Then again, I started at level zero, he’d thought. Maybe he was just catching up with his peers.
He’d dispelled that painful notion by trying to cast a second time. Each attempt had failed miserably. With his torn pants, bare feet sunk in the cool sand, and wild, salt-slicked hair, he’d imagined he looked like a deranged pirate muttering words into the sky.
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Still, what else was he to have done? He’d succeeded once—tasted that power and seen the good it could do. More of him might have mourned the lost Sootskins, had he not already realized the truth: three boys had lived because of him, where before six would have died.
No. Prophet willing, he had to master his magic. Had to live up to Siela’s memory and his own potential. He’d resolved to allow nothing to stop him, not even the pesky word “exhausted,” whatever that meant.
So, that was exactly what he did. There was progress, if only marginal. With each repetition, the phrases came more easily, until they were a part of him in the same way that breathing was. Soon, he felt confident he could repeat them under duress without thinking—now he just needed them to do something again. The week ticked by until finally it was time for him to take his leave. He shared a rushed breakfast with the Sisters and the chapelward, packed his few things, and made for the portals.
The arched, marble teleporters were as little fun as Callam remembered them being during Binding Day. They flickered black with each body they let through, the giant gateways promising to leave him nauseous and disoriented. Guests were allowed in only one group at a time, so he watched the line crawl forward with a growing sense of dread.
Won’t the queue move any faster? Seeker or not, he hated waiting—hated the tension that came with being so close to his destination. Out of habit, he rubbed the Seedling’s scar on his hand, then tightened the strap of his bookbag and straightened the edges of his linen shirt. He’d spent a week dreaming, yet a small voice inside of him still begged him to run back to the chapelward and its relative safety.
“Excitement and anxiety share a page,” Siela had always told him. Too bad understanding didn’t make it any easier.
Hoping to dispel his unease, Callam joined a small crowd of literates reading a plaque that explained the portal system. It stated that the gates streamlined the effort required to travel between two points, but they did not remove the geographical barriers between them. As a result, crossing over mountains, or through oceans, required more power than traversing flat land, and was generally too expensive and magically demanding to be practical.
That’s why the portal to the Tower is only open today, he realized. From everything he’d heard, the Lighthouse was located on the Solstice Isles hundreds of miles—and several mountain ranges—away.
“Next!” called the heavyset woman moderating the gate. A small patch on her tunic marked her a Ruddite. She clicked what looked like a spellworked stop-watch when he stepped up.
Seconds later, Callam was overcome with vertigo. Darkness suffocated him, the world seemed to disappear beneath him, and his stomach flipped. Then, his feet found the ground. His whole mouth tasted of bile and he felt an overwhelming need to scrape his tongue clean with his teeth—a need that died on the vine as he looked up.
In front of him was the largest structure he’d ever seen. Paintings had not done it justice. They always pinned the Tower to the horizon, using the sun and ocean in the distance as a way to convey its size. In reality, the building was the horizon, stretching upwards to the stars. He counted innumerable stories, each dozens of feet high, all made of limestone. Thousands of carvings etched the rocks. Callam spotted the masts of ships, the wings of dragons, the outlines of several maps, and the bodies of small, rotund creatures that he couldn’t quite place yet looked strikingly familiar. Clouds circled the higher floors, casting shadows which played tricks on his eyes. Some were thin enough to allow in dappled rays of light, while others doused the rocks in sinister darkness.
Instinctively, Callam took a step to steady himself; it was as the stanzas said: ‘All men are meek among giants.’
“Callam!” someone shouted, breaking him from his reverie. Turning, he knew who he’d see: the quirky Scriptor who had walked him to the binding dais and helped him escape the Broken. Today, she’d donned another of her classic outfits—yellow robe, yellow hat, and two red gloves that were out of place in the tropical heat. She was surrounded by over a dozen tomebound chatting away. Future classmates if he had to guess.
“On rotation here?” he asked politely when she’d made her way over to him, then added “Arlie?” once he’d remembered her name. The Sisters had explained to him that Scriptors were often recalled to the tower for administrative reasons or to further their educations.
“Only for the day! Just between us, the Elders thought it best to greet your class with familiar faces. After all that craziness with the ceremony, you know.”
As usual, she spoke very quickly and gave Callam little time to respond. Already, she had spun around, and he watched with a slight grin as she made her way down a sandy path, toward the large crowd of teens settled on the beach. In the few times he’d met her, Arlie had never seemed anything but chipper.
The rest of the literate appeared more measured in their emotions. Some, like Callam, looked excited and nervous while they talked among themselves and their friends. Others seemed quiet and contemplative. He spotted a few faces he recognized, but none that he cared for. Airster had apparently bound, and the sneer he gave as Callam approached showed that his opinion of Callam had not changed one bit. Surprisingly, Zallorin was also here, standing under a starleaf palm and surrounded by a flock of nobleborn. Even among Seekers, the wealthy had their markers—most wore new garments free of stains or faded dyes. Family crests graced the cloths.
No Hans or— Callam thought, only to have his thoughts interrupted when Arlie shouted, “Circle round!” He was about to comply, when a shadow swept across the sands.
“Well… if it isn't the stranger from the stands…” a muffled voice behind him said, stopping every few seconds to chew. “Left the cuffs at home?”
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Read this:)
We made it to the tower!!! <3. I'm SO HAPPY. As always, I go down to once a week posting the week after an arc (or mini arc) ends to give myself time to plot out the new arc, so next posting will be Friday. This also gives me time to stack up the patreon, which needs some love.
Personal thank yous to Daphne and Mozgoved for some awesome developmental insights. Critique is helpful and welcome :). I'm new to this and could never do it without you guys.
I've got the new images of what Callam's spellbook in the post-chapter notes! If any of you are photo shop experts that can help me put text on this file, let me know. Otherwise I'll work on it on my own! (and happy to pay of course).
Lastly, if you haven't left a review, they really do help <3