157. End of an Empire (Patreon)

Tercius knocked on the door of the room his Mentor stayed in just as the wooden floor below his feet groaned under his weight.

Looking down, a frown appeared on his face. The entire hallway that he walked through had groaned in that suspicious way as if getting itself ready to give up all the weight it held. It unsettled him in some primal ways, the knowledge that the floor under his feet was made of aging wood and not blocks of solid stone, melded together and supported by arches from below.

Tercius wished he had suggested another place to stay, but unfortunately this was the only one that he remembered as familiar. He seriously contemplated writing down a list of faults he had seen, heard, and smelled, and hand it over to the innkeeper when he and Mistress Kalina took their leave from the place. A year had gone by and nothing had changed. Perhaps if the owner had a list to go through, things might turn out different this time around…

The door of dark wood opened slowly and his Mentor tilted her head to invite him inside. Her room, like his, was small, with enough space for a bed meant for one person, a small nightstand with a candlestick near the bed, and a shelf that held a small ceramic basin and pitcher with fresh water for drinking and washing your face. A few stories he heard mentioned that the water was also there for the guests of the inn to douse any fire that the candle might have started, which was apparently a more common occurrence than he had thought it was.

“Here they are,” Mistress Kalina said, raising her hands towards him, holding up two small booklets. “Freshly translated and put down to paper,”

“Thank you for this, Mistress.”

“No need for thanks, Tercius, I told you,”

Tercius shrugged. “Saying a few words seems like the least I can do,”

A waving hand dismissed his thanks. “Gratitude is misplaced on a Mentor, Tercius. When you became my Mathethes, it became my obligation to counsel and help you survive your ordeals. You know what your obligations are. That aside, booklets like that are constantly being created by our Scribes. Magi go to all corners of the world all the time, and I would venture that booklets like that have saved more lives than even our shields have. A known threat is anticipated ahead of time and easily avoided or dealt with, after all.”

Tercius nodded, weighing the books in his hands. Information on the path ahead was a lifesaver, he could agree with that. Just from the first booklet, he had learned of a beast which he would have to avoid at all costs. If he met it and proved unable to avoid it, then he had to make sure not to take a single breath in its presence. "Still, it couldn't have been easy to create."

“It’s not as hard as people seem to think. Provided that the contents are all translated beforehand and that there’s enough ink and paper, which there always is— Founders know that the Vaults are filled with inks and paper to satisfy the needs of our entire Society for hundreds of years and more is always created by the junior Scribes— it takes senior Scribes an hour or so for that single booklet.”

Tercius’ eyebrows went up. “This was done in an hour?”

His Mentor shrugged. “Maybe less, maybe a more, depends on the skill of the Scribe who did it. Expert Scribes have skills with which they can create such texts as fast as they can read and master Scribes can create books with the speed of thought. The main skill that the Scribes use is actually based on a spell that some Magi use to write. You must have seen it used by the senior students or the Academy staff.”

A bit numb with surprise, Tercius nodded. He did see the spell many times and from close up. Mistress Helfira preferred to use the spell, at least she did before her rejuvenation. From what he had seen and smelled of the spell’s effects, it worked by burning the paper. The spell was, Mistress Helfira told him, sometimes used as a test of control during the exams which awaited at the end of the six years of Academy. Anyone capable of burning their thoughts onto the page without burning the paper down was considered as sufficiently trained in control to be able to continue further education with one of the many Guilds of the Pyramid. The best of the best were able to write out their thoughts on both sides of the paper, without any unnecessary damage done to the paper itself.

“Well this one is similar to that, only the Scribes use a special ink instead of focused heat. The ink itself is actually quite fascinating, you see. It’s made by alchemical—” his Mentor suddenly caught her words and chuckled. “You go read the books, Tercius. You will need them much more than some details of the ink they were written with…”

Tercius looked at the books in his hands. “You never know, Mistress, but yes, I suppose I should get to them. Only… I have something else to ask, before I go. I’ve been thinking… Should I do something to change my appearance now?”

“Oh?”

“What if that woman, that Speaker, reported ahead to the Monastery on how I look… and then I appear there, barely a few days after they received the information…” Tercius said. This was a development that he couldn't have planned on, but now that it happened he had to work out a way around it.

"Yes… yes, I see your point… If you were to travel normally, it would take you two weeks at the very least from here to there, and that's provided that you went on horseback most of the way…" Mistress Kalina frowned, looking down in contemplation. "But all we could do without resorting to lingering forms of magicks is—" she started pacing and murmuring something in Magik, words which he didn't hear properly. She snapped her fingers suddenly, her green eyes narrowing with concentration. "—And even then the only ones that can be taken into consideration are those that are fast working and… Hmm… That leaves a few which can accelerate hair growth, some which lead to almost immediate hair loss, and maybe something to change eye color… No, no… I don't… It won't work… no… we need something else, no dis… Oh!"

Mistress Kalina's eyes blazed with an idea that rooted her in place. Slowly her eyes focused back on him.

"We are going in the wrong direction around this. Tercius… no spellwork or potion that we can use without worry will be able to change you enough to matter… At best, we can alter your hair, eye color, and skin color."

“Oh…”

“But…” Mistress Kalina said. “There is something else we can do…”

“What is it?”

“If we can’t change you enough that you’re not recognizable, then all that remains is to prove without fail that you can arrive at the Monastery within a couple of days…”

Tercius frowned. “How would I be able to do that? Won’t they suspect…”

“That you’re one of us?” his Mentor said. “Not if we present a credible alternative, one that’s far more likely than you being connected to the more powerful Magi of the Pyramid…”

“And what did you have in mind, Mistress?”

“We will find you a fast beast of burden that can take you there in just a few days.” his Mentor said, her eyes glowing.

Tercius’ mouth fell open with incomprehension. “A… horse? Mistress, I never had a chance to learn how to ride one… But even if I knew how, a horse can’t make the last leg of the journey, Mistress.”

“Not a horse, oh Mathethes of mine. You need something that can go over uneven terrain where a horse would break a leg or get stuck. You need something that can jump between rocks and move among them easily. Something that can climb up sharp inclines and walk narrow paths…”

Tercius found himself nodding slowly, still wondering where she was going with this. “Yes, but what? I would need something used to being ridden and big enough for me to mount it—”

Mistress Kalina smiled. “Tell me, Tercius. That pet of yours… Amber, was it?”

Again, Tercius’ mouth fell a little open and he could only blink. “Yes…” he said, the word stretched out with uncertainty as he tried to see the angle of his Mentor. There was no way that Amber could… not unless—

Mistress Kalina looked at him expectantly. “You and her… have a link of some kind… A skill?”

Well, he didn’t expect that to come up. Tercius stood alert as he cleared his throat and looked at his Mentor. His Mentor was not stupid. She suspected, but he would be the one to confirm or deny— no, he realized, there would be no denying today. There were few things he would suffer twice and lying plainly was not one of them. If Mistress Kalina was someone else, someone inconsequential, then he might consider denying it, but she wasn’t. She was his Mentor and he wouldn’t lie. To lie here and now would break the relationship from his side and he would not allow himself that.

He could say that he didn’t want to talk about it but that would be the same as confirming, so he might as well confirm it.

“How can you tell, Mistress? Is it obvious in some way?”

"Obvious… no. There were signs, though. One late afternoon, I thought I saw your eyes turn golden. One moment they were there and then they were gone. Your pet's eyes sometimes seem green, like yours. But that could be a play of light, at least I dismissed it as such. Then I saw the way she behaved when I was at your home. How she obeyed you, orders which I don't think your regular animal would. What was it that you had Amber do for your siblings that day? Roll over, was it? Play dead? All those other… tricks? She did it all without a single error, doing everything as if she understood completely what you were saying. Then there was the way she plays with the other cats of your household and outsmarts them… it was so peculiar until it came to my mind that you might be linked to her in some way. I saw nothing linking you two, but… there are skills like that. The absence of something is sometimes the only proof, Tercius. Am I right that she has increased intelligence because of a skill?"

Tercius cleared his throat again. He didn’t know about the eyes… he would have to be careful now that he did. As for the tricks… well it would seem that no good deed goes unpunished. He had just wanted his siblings to see something interesting and entertain them a little… Amber enjoyed it, he knew. Quite opposite to Tercius, Amber liked showing off and getting praise.

“She was smart even before we… linked. I taught her those tricks with Teaching and she was fast to adopt them even then. But, yes, I do have a skill, Mistress. Only I don’t see how—”

“I will explain what I have in mind and remind me that we will have to discuss the dangers of your link to her at another time, but for now it might work in your favor. Now listen, Tercius, and then decide…” Mistress Kalina said and proceeded to explain. Tercius listened to her idea, nodding and shaking his head slightly at certain parts, brimming with questions at each of her sentences and with some he was plainly opposed to, at least he was until she elaborated further.

“So?” she asked.

With some hesitation, Tercius nodded. “It could work, I suppose… but… I will lose all possibility of being underestimated.”

“Tercius, if you did it your way, people would have still looked at you oddly. A child moving through Wilderness… No, there is no way that anyone would have underestimated you. It’s better if you go the other way, trust me.” Mistress Kalina said as her hand went to the base of her neck and she pulled on the string. “You can leave the preparations to me,”

Two dark medallions were at the end of the string, one round and the other triangle-shaped. Tercius looked at the round one, a triangular indentation visible on the front of it. His hand reached for the empty space on his chest where that piece of heavily enchanted metal had been for over a year. He couldn’t take it with him, although the large storage space inside of it would have been supremely useful. It was locked now and for three years no one but him would be able to unlock it. Anyone who tried to pry it open, no matter how powerful that person was, would just reduce everything inside to dust. The locking enchantment was made to be especially trigger-happy, apparently.

His Mentor waved him away. “Off you go now, Tercius. You need to read that, and I need to consult some discreet locals and some books I have… I will see you in the early morning.”

*** ***** ***

Tercius finished reading through the compendiums that Magi compiled on Izmittor Mountains and went to bed immediately after, but his turbulent thoughts kept him up for a while. Even though he stayed up late, he rose bright and early with the sun and ready to see if Mistress Kalina’s idea would work as she thought it would. He freshened up himself with a sprinkle of water and they had breakfast at the inn.

As soon as they left the inn, Mistress Kalina started covering them with obscuration spellwork, finally creating a telekinetic sphere around them. They rose above the rooftops with no one the wiser of their presence, only instead of going east, they went west, and instead of the north, they went south.

They flew over the delta of Hippotion, over many tiny villages and numberless farms that found themselves between the dozens of river's fingers, and followed the slow incline of the grass and bush and rock-covered lands. The rains were common this far north and the vegetation was hardy and green here, but trees were rare. The more ground they passed on their journey, the more rocks started to appear, becoming almost as common as the soil that grew the bush. The rare trees grew even rarer. Herds of goat-like creatures roamed the lands below Tercius' feet on their way west, likely to find waters of Hippotion.

His Mentor changed the shape of their spherical vehicle, the telekinetic spell slowly reshaping itself to a perfect tear. Their speed picked up from there, easily tripling and then some.

At some point Mistress Kalina turned north and Tercius looked at her dubiously. He still wasn’t sure why she had to go southeast and then north, instead of just going in a straight line. His Mentor noticed the look.

“The Isle of Ksana is one of the Enclaves of the Pyramid in this part of the world. The Keeper of the Isle is Mistress Ksana and she has been one for over four hundred years now. Unlike the other Keepers, though, she is like you and I. A necessity, as you might see when you take into consideration the location of the Isle,”

Tercius’ mouth made a silent o, understanding dawning on him. “I see…”

He remembered vividly that from the distance the spires of the Isle had looked like pearly white toothpicks sticking out of the green lands below. Tercius could also guess what his Mentor meant by mentioning the location. The Isle was just off the northeastern boundary of Izmittor Mountain Range, and it was likely some kind of a forward base for Magi to observe the activities of the Spirits. It was also said that the best Healers of the Empire were trained there, on the large island just off the coast of Sogea. That, by itself, made him remember that the roots of the Empire had close ties to the Pyramid.

“Do they… the Empire, I mean, do they know that the Isle is connected to the Pyramid?”

His Mentor chuckled. "Oh, yes. The true background of the Isle can be seen with a single glance if you have the eyes to see it. It's not something we hide, no."

“And yet they send their people to be trained as Healers there all the while they act against the Pyramid’s interests…” Tercius said. If the Empire truly knew, and it was very likely that they did, then he had a new top of the list for brazen shamelessness.

His Mentor laughed. “Because it’s in their interest to do it. They need good Healers and the art of Healing is not something so easily taught. Time, resources, and knowledge are necessary for skills to be gained and raised. They send their children to learn at the Isle, knowingly overlooking its allegiances, because of their need. That same reason is why they oppose the Pyramid. A person who joins us is a person who could have joined them. It's a bit more complicated than that, of course, but that's the distillation of it."

“And you, Mistress? Why does the Pyramid allow them to learn valuable knowledge if they are so set against you?”

Mistress Kalina gave him a small smile. “Our reason is the same, Tercius— because it’s in our interest to teach them. We ourselves have learned so much from the multitudes who are taught the basics of Healing there and some of these people, in time, even join our Society and become not just skilled Healers, who depend solely on their skill, but Masters and Mistresses of Healing wielding skills, spells, enchantments, and potions. We’d be fools to let people like that go. This Empire, Tercius, and all that came before it, are only here for a little while and then they will be gone, scattered like dust on the wind, likely torn apart from the inside like all others who came before them, by men and women who crave power to impose their will over others and play with the lives of people around them like children do with toys. It’s… terrible really, what happens to people at that time, but one would go mad trying to prevent it.”

There was also something about Mistress Kalina’s tone when she mentioned that the empires tended to get torn from the inside, though… it had sent a little shiver down his spine. That aside, Tercius found himself a little surprised. What his Mentor told him sounded… honest. A ring of truth to it, even.

The Empire's fall… Well, Tercius had been honestly surprised it had survived this long. It was a bloated beast and it only grew more bloated while it still had space to expand, but what would happen when there were no more others to consume? Like for all beasts of mindless consumption, it was not hard to see its end. Mistress Kalina was likely spot on with her prediction. The Empire would end up consuming itself.

Chaos.

If he could see that, then others could too. He suddenly felt lucky that his own home was as far as a person could live away from the Capital.

“Is it close, Mistress, do you think? The fall?” he asked.

His Mentor shrugged. “Could be tomorrow, could be in thirty years, or more. You never know with such things… but they always happen, it is written. As soon as cracks appear, everyone scrambles to grab something for themselves, thinking that if they don’t do it, someone else will… I suppose that that much is true…”

“And… nothing like that happens within the Society?” he asked, licking his lips. Considering what they asked of him a few days ago, the topic could be sensitive so he was feeling a bit hesitant, but precisely because of that he had to learn more. He wouldn't grow less hesitant unless he came to know more.

His Mentor nodded slowly. “Even our Society has people like that, despite our best efforts, but you have to understand something about us. Ours is a Society of seekers of knowledge, built by seekers of knowledge. Individuals who exhibit power-hungry views are not looked upon kindly by the rest of us. And… there will always be a lot more of us than them. Even if the worst were come to pass and we were to fall somehow, Grand-Masters Tergaron and Tfenn and Grand-Mistress Kortana to revive the Society again from scratch,” Mistress Kalina said and suddenly chuckled. “That sounded… Don’t get me wrong, Tercius, I don’t spurn power or anything like that. I certainly don’t hesitate to use it, if I see it needed. Power is a tool and like all tools, it can be wielded by those who learn how and when to use it. It is what allows us to lead the lives we want to lead… I can see that this topic interests you, Tercius and although I likely seem like the one to talk about this, I’m not so sure that I am. The work I do and the Titles I hold in our Society… I would give it all up in a heartbeat, and so would most of my colleagues, if only we had someone who was qualified to replace us… So much of my time would be freed for alchemy, for warding… For decades now, I've been meaning to compose a piece of music to call my own, but… well, now I’ve gotten sidetracked.

“If you still wish, we can speak of this more when you visit my home. You just need to remind me of it. Now tell me, did you find an appropriate skill?”

“I did,” Tercius nodded and then cleared his throat. “One that fits the requirements perfectly— Master Perdinar even recommended I use this one for this exact purpose— but unfortunately it’s not at the barrier any more…”

Mistress Kalina glanced at him. “That… makes things more difficult. Skills that aren’t near any of their barriers are not prone to easily accepting change— Magik terms what you call “barriers” as Torkap Ce Pragg’e. Boundaries of change, if you will. Skills are… malleable when at a boundary of change. A more fitting name considering that, don’t you think so? That said, even a skill that isn’t currently prone to change can be coaxed. If you prove willful enough, that is.”

“I’ve been called willful, by some,” Tercius said and followed with a small chuckle. He had been called other names as well.

Mistress Kalina chuckled. “Well, if that is what you want, then try to do it. But know to expect a dull pain if it starts working. A pressure, really. It will grow slowly. Also, make sure to be ready to stop at once if you feel a sharp pain anywhere on your body. Torn channels heal, but slowly, and there is only so much that anyone can do to help you with something like that.”

“If dull continue, if sharp stop…” Tercius murmured and nodded to himself. “I can do that…”

Hovering in a weightless state inside the center of a speeding tear-shaped spell, the ground below his feet a blur, Tercius closed his eyes and focused on the task ahead of him, ignoring all else around him.

***************

AN: 

A heads up: There will be another chapter on the 18th, and then I will be going on a 10 days of break. Something of a free pre-new-year trip suddenly came up :D 

I will be back before New Year, though.

By the way, today is first birthday of AfS :D