Chapter 26:

  Eli stomped into his father's office all righteous fury and indignation. The only concessions his emotions would allow him to make were to modulate his voice. He respected his father and knew it wasn't the man's fault what was happening to his friend, but the side of him that was Eli the seven-year old boy and the side of him that was Elias Rodrigo archmage and time-traveler were in complete alignment in their fury.

  It was the morning after His trip to the orphanage and Aria had once more returned home. There was nothing Eli could do to stop it. For all his knowledge and all his future power he couldn't simply lock the girl up in the keep or go out and encourage the Butcher to disappear, before bringing her back. He considered asking his parents to adopt Aria, but the Butcher was absolutely the type of man to use Eli’s fondness as leverage. It would likely just result in putting Aria in more danger. Danger she was heading towards at that very moment.

  “He is hurting her, father,” Eli said.

  “Yes,” his father said. That simple answer – that single word filled with certainty and sorrow, resolve and exhaustion was so far from Eli’s expectations that it drained away his rage and left him with only a hollowed mirror of his father’s weariness. His parent’s had noticed. Of course they had noticed. They had built their status up delving rifts, claiming territory in the frontier, and on the battlefield. Of course they could tell when a child with less guile than a determined raccoon was trying to hide that she was hurting.

  The only reason it had taken Eli so long to figure it out is because he was both sure it had only recently escalated, and it hadn’t been part of his future knowledge. A good lesson to remember. He couldn’t rely on his first life’s knowledge to give him all the present-day answers. An obvious conclusion in hindsight, but easily overlooked in the moment. It was a lesson he wouldn’t soon forget.

  “What are we doing about it. How do we fix it?” He asked his father as he made his way to the sitting area and flopped into one of the three single seater couches. It wasn't the most comfortable chair he had sat in, but he supposed that the Lord Gabriel Rodrigo was not known as the most man, and so perhaps it was a more fitting resting place than it would otherwise appear.

  After a long moment of silence Gabriel joined his son in the sitting area.

  “There is not much we can do about it right now. We can give her a safe place to stay. We can have people watching their residence…”

  “What are we going to do about the Butcher?” Eli insisted. His father just looked at his son and shook his head.

  “According to the law he has not done anything wrong.” Gabriel said.

  It was something Eli knew. Something he didn't want to confront. In cases like these the actions the Butcher was taking against Aria could not be considered anything more than discipline or even in some cases training. Any law that would prevent the Butcher from engaging in such a grievous action against his daughter would be distinctly disadvantageous for the nobility.

  No matter how many reforms were put in place, no matter how many social initiatives his mother with his father's blessing and backing tried to enforce, there was no way they could go against the entire intercontinental governing system based on power and the ability to wield it just to make things safer for the poor families of the sad disgruntled people who would abuse them.

  On an intellectual level Eli understood the quagmire that trying to enforce something like that would be. The political ramifications alone of a noble scion being able to legally prosecute a head of house or an authority in the house, on the grounds of ‘actions taken against’ them when those were the same actions that included things like sparring, magic combat, and weapons and martial training. Well, if succession politics weren't already a treacherous morass, then introducing something like that certainly wouldn't help.

  Aria wasn't some intellectual theory. She wasn't just a sum legal hypothetical or moral philosophising. She was a real actual person who really actually needed his help, and he was being stymied from doing it because of politics, because of optics. Because he didn't have enough power to look potential enemies and rivals in the eye and laugh in their face.

  It all boiled down to strength. He needed to grow stronger.

  Looking around the room, his mind in a bit of a daze, he finally began to notice details he hadn’t noticed before. Like the fact that his father was not in his training clothes but was instead in his light armor and dressed for an outing. There were maps on the table, and samples of both mundane and mana saturated materials on his desk.

  “Father, where are you going?” Eli asked slowly. Gabriel who had been lost in his own thoughts refocused on his son. Then his father's eyes narrowed and he closed them as he let out a tired sigh. It was as though he was preparing for an inevitability Eli had yet to set in motion, but he was certain would succeed.

  Another trip to the quarry was an excellent way for Eli to settle his mind. He had managed to finagle his way into the group, and he was once more with his father as they headed to the inspection together.

  The quarry grounds were damp with autumn dew, low clouds creating a foggy blanket around the hills. Just inside the quarry grounds the rift shimmered faintly behind the containment wards, the magic in the enchantments humming under the morning fog. Workers shouted orders as excavation continued carefully around the breach in reality. Stone was carefully harvested, the mana rich material around the rift carefully chiselled away and hauled by the teams of experts and mundane labourers alike. Directly in front of the rift itself was the foreman, and a representative from the guilds. The young lady couldn’t have been far past her teen years, if that. This meant that she was at best a guild journeyman, though more likely she was an initiate or trainee.

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  Securing rifts were one of the few instances where the empire required individuals to employ the services of the Enchanter’s Guild. Joint collusion between the imperial family, the Enchanter’s Guild, the Explorer’s Guild, and the Mercenary Guild created a mutually beneficial situation that prevented any group – nobility or otherwise – from registering a rift without it at least being assessed by the Explorer’s Guild and an imperial assessor or a licensed assessor from the Explorer’s Guild (for more expedient, more extensive and significantly more costly service). Then in order to maintain the rift, it would need to be secured with wards from the Enchanter’s Guild: no, it was not legal to simply use house enchanters, or third-party enchanters regardless of their qualifications.

  The wards had to be set up by the guild. No excuses, no exceptions.

  Of course every rift that was assessed and warded went into a giant imperial database that meant every time a rift popped up the empire knew about it, knew about its potential and had created a way to both standardized basic rift security while simultaneously securing goodwill from the Guilds. Their services weren’t free.

  If the individual or group who discovered the rift refused to have it registered, assessed, and warded then they were not legally permitted to harvest and delve the rift. And while technically a group could still delve the rift, selling profiting or trading any materials from inside the rift was an offence that could range anywhere from a imprisonment to a fine so hefty it had more than once resulted in generational debt and the end of entire houses. Of course, that meant the black market for rift materials was well established, lucrative, and thriving.

  Unfortunately for the procurers of their services, imperial oversight did not guarantee quality work from the guilds. So here Eli was, walking beside his father, boots brushing through wet grass. He had jumped at the chance to return here because in the time he had been home, he had uncovered what had been nagging him about his visit the first time around. It was the collapse. The rift-break.

  In his last childhood, the rift had spilled over, and the wards had not held, resulting in a catastrophic break with most of the quarry workers dying or being severely injured, as well as the loss of the quarry, the lives of several town defenders, and many hunters in the subsequent months, as the beasts established a new order in the surrounding hunting grounds and ecosystem. This time, Eli meant to stop the tragedy before it began.

  They reached the entrance where the foreman waited, bowing quickly to Gabriel before beginning his report. Eli let the words slide past him as he studied the rift, his senses stretching thin. He easily bypassed the normal script obscuration enchantments – that was generally a work of finesse not power or quality of mana – then he focused on what his senses were telling him.

  At first, everything seemed normal, standard even. The scripts pulled with a steady, predictable cadence. What few fluctuations he noticed were within acceptable margins, and it all seemed stable. By the book. He focused for a moment longer, prepared to withdraw his senses to try and focus on what else it might have been that allowed for the break. That was when he caught it: a stutter along a seam, energy oscillating where there was no fault-point to create a problem.

  He stepped closer, kneeling down to get a better look with his eyes as well as his mana senses. Internally he ran the calculations. What exactly was he witnessing. There were a few probabilities, but the most likely cause? Improper material handling. Poorly treated, prepared, or compatible materials could result in structural weaknesses developing over time. There was also a possibility that the enchantments themselves had been poorly scripted. This was especially common if more than one enchanter was working on the same sequence of script. Poor script connections could develop for a myriad of reasons that in this case would be exacerbated by the mishandled materials.

  “Father., here,” were the only words he said aloud. He would keep his speculations to himself, because despite his near certainty, he couldn’t be entirely sure. Even if he was, the situation would still need to be checked by someone with authority. The guild did not take kindly to ‘meddlers’ and ‘critics’.

  Gabriel crouched beside his son, gaze steady.

  “What do you see?” He asked

  “This part,” Eli said carefully. “Does it look right to you?”

  Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. “Not my field.” He glanced at his son, and when their eyes met, he new they were both wishing Sela was there. Gabriel straightened, brushed invisible dirt from his pants with precision, then gestured both foreman and guild-rep over. “Take a look.”

  The man approached, polite smile tight. “Yes, my lord?”

  Gabriel pointed. “My son feels something is off.”

  The foreman bent, eyes sweeping over the line. He rose quickly and gestured for the guild-rep to check first.

  The young lady bent in close, and Eli could feel her mana fumble around blindly for a moment or two, unable to get through her own guild’s obscuration. Eli looked at his father and shook his head. Gabriel nodded, and the duo stayed silent while the ‘assessment’ was done. When she had finished fumbling, she stood up, and with all the confidence she could muster, she gave her verdict.

  “These are master-tier patterns, my lord. It’s all in order. No need for concern.”

  Eli stayed silent. He didn’t blame the woman, truly. She was put in an impossible position. Based on her accent, she was likely a commoner who was also lower ranked in the guild. Probably a newer recruit, fresh out of the academy with some desirable affinity, who had yet to establish any political backing. Frontier jobs were often seen as punishment duty for the level of enchanter that was actually qualified for the position. Once the initial warding was done, the higher ranked enchanters left, and the poor girl ended up taking the position they were supposed to hold.

  While Eli could understand how this happened, that didn’t excuse the blatant negligence that he knew had led to the serious loss of life in his first childhood. If he remembered correctly, the guild got away completely free.

  If Eli could prevent the tragedy that would be his main focus. But if he couldn't, he would make sure anyone who contributed to any harm caused would be punished accordingly. That included the young woman who refused to admit she wasn’t even able to look at the enchantments. Nobody would get away with their negligence.

  “My Lord, the hum of a rift can unsettle those untrained to it.” The foreman’s smile didn’t budge as he spoke to Gabriel’s father, his eyes flicking pityingly at Eli. It only happened once, but the message was clear enough.

  Gabriel’s hand touched Eli’s shoulder, his displeasure clear on his face as he concluded the conversation with the foreman, and the representative. Afterwards, he guided his son away speaking low as they walked.

  “You flagged it. That is enough.”

  “Father,” he said, voice equally low as he made to protest. Sure, Eli was a child, the foreman was only officially beholden to his father, and respect and authority was never guaranteed by rank or title. However, only a fool would dismiss a concern outright like that, especially when it came from the heir. Eli made sure to mark the foreman’s face in his mind.

  “Elias,” his father cut him off before he could begin. “I have it noted in the report,”. At his side, Gabriel’s aide nodded. The man was so unobtrusive Eli had nearly forgotten he was there, but he was gratified to see the man calmly scratching away at the paper in his hands.

  Eli smirked. If the man had managed to slip from Eli’s finely tuned senses, then there was almost no way the foreman would have noticed him. For the sake of Lira, Eli genuinely hoped that foreman would come to regret his dismissal.