Chapter 35:

  The alarm Eli had set sounded silently, flaring against his skin and waking him at an hour so late it could have been considered early. The magical alarm wasn’t a sound, or even a vibration so much as a shift in his life essence caused by the enchantment. In moments he was awake, alert, and ready to go.

  The keep was asleep. Guards patrolled at the walls, the few attendants on night duty were scarce in the halls, and wards that were inactive during the day now shimmered faintly across thresholds and corridors. They were designed to prevent intruders from sneaking in, not young, ambitious heirs from slipping out, but the difference was slight enough that he would still need to find a way through them.

  He had worn most of his new, enchanted, stealth outfit to bed, but now Eli pulled on the half-mask cowl, boots, and the deep-blue gloves he’d worked on with Aria. He thought about how she’d asked to stay over after their excursion that evening and smiled as his fingers traced over the invisible stitches. The suppression enchantments dulled the trace of his steps. He layered shadow mana over himself, a thin veil that softened his presence until he was no more than a passing breeze in the corner of a watchman’s eye. Invisible, untraceable, just another part of the scenery.

  Much like his first nighttime excursion so many months ago, he approached the ward lattice at the keep’s inner gate. The sigils flared faintly at his presence, but he was well practiced at slipping through now. Despite his very talented mother reinforcing the warding after his first late night excursion, it was no match for Eli’s centuries of knowledge. He had no doubt she would catch up eventually; but now wasn’t then. He was through the wards and into the night in no time.

  Phase one: Exit the keep unnoticed. Complete.

  He grinned to himself as he dashed into the night. For as little as he liked combat and conflict, he couldn’t help but enjoy flexing his powers for a purpose again.

  Beyond the walls, Eli crouched beneath a low outcrop and unfolded a palm-sized version of the enchanted map. A useful little creation he would definitely be sharing with his family soon. Lines of mana glowed faintly across its surface, pulsing with movement. The small sensors he had seeded along the main roads were crude compared to the ones his mother had installed, or even the great empire networks, but within Adler territory they would suffice.

  A scant few convoys and merchants appeared as dots moving along the lines. He’d already cross referenced those shipments with trade and travel ledgers and knew that he was seeing normal movement. The rare blob he hadn’t accounted for was likely a line rider, or passenger travel. Why they were moving about at this hour was not his concern at the moment. They weren’t what he was looking for anyway. No, what he was looking for was an absence. A gap in patterns, a blip in the sensor reports.

  This was how families smuggled their most sensitive shipments: through cloaked routes, shielded signatures. They had the signal patterns for the imperial sensors, and the regional ones. They used those patterns to create enchantments that ‘hid’ their movements from the sensors. That was why Eli’s sensors worked using a different signal. One they didn’t have the codes for. When his sensors stuttered, he’d have their location.

  His eyes narrowed. There! Along the southern path, remarkably close to where he was camping out a hidden convoy, slipped between reports. It was a single vehicle, small enough not to trip multiple sensors at once, but big enough that when he sent his earth sensing into the surroundings it made noticeable vibrations. Single vehicle, slightly longer than the average carriage, but much heavier, and the sensation it gave of was one of subdued mana and metal, a great deal of metal.

  There you are. Eli thought.

  He folded the map, tucked it away, and set off. His goal was to get ahead of the trundling vehicle, and based on his pace as he cut through the woods, he would be ahead of it shortly. He was quick, careful, and incredibly well practiced. So used to slipping through the dense vegetation in stealth that even the leaves didn’t rustle as he passed by. Climbing a tree, he activated some of the dampening enchantments on his clothes and waited.

  There was no sound of wheels on the ground. The ‘ignore me’ enchantments coupled with the dull sheen of a dark metal made the vehicle so inconspicuous that even in the moonlight it almost seemed to slip from the eye. If you didn’t have decent willpower, and if you didn’t know where to search or what you were searching for, it would be easy to overlook the vehicle. However, Eli did know where to look. He had his sensory enhancements running at full blast. With both mana sight and mana sense going as well, there was very little that would move his focus away.

  It was a rune car. Eli had of course seen the beast-less carriages, powered by mana and enchantments, before. He’d even ridden in a quite a few in his last life. However, something about this specific vehicle gave him a feeling of unease. He had to pause and check to see if the feeling was his own, only to identify that he was being influenced by some outside effect. He took a single moment to be amazed at whatever enchantment was causing that effect. Managing to layer multiple sensory and perception altering runes of such power into a single unified enchantment was extraordinary. Promising himself to research it later, he felt more than saw when the rune car reached him.

  Phase two: Locate the shipment. Complete.

  The armored vehicle rolled steadily, drawn by mana-powered axles rather than beasts. Script work glowed faintly along its flanks, layered sigils interwoven into a mesh of dense enchantments, and those were just what were visible. Eli controlled his breath and calmed his mind as he waited for the perfect moment.

  Then he moved.

  He inhaled, then exhaled slowly, shadow mana wrapping tightly around him. He stepped from the branch, boots suppressing all sound, and careful air manipulation ensuring there wasn’t even a breeze to track his movements by as he drifted lightly onto the roof. He’d timed the leap perfectly, landing just so. For a breath he thought the wards might flare, but they didn’t. He had enchantments in his clothes to prevent that, but they weren’t robust. It appeared neither were the vehicle’s detection arrays. That made sense though. The convoy was cloaked, but not oversensitive.

  Too much veiled warding and too many hidden enchantments would invite suspicion by any reasonably knowledgeable or powerful passersby when the vehicle was in the city. Highly sensitive sensory arrays would also probably be annoying. They would catch the movement and life signature of any bug, bird, or beast that brushed up against the thing, or got too close, and would constantly set off a signal.

  Flattening himself against the cool metal of the roof, Eli splayed out his gloved fingers. The script work beneath him was finer than anything he’d studied at home: overlapping geometric layers, counter-runes etched in feedback loops with remote triggers and failsafes built in and so much more – some he didn’t even recognize. The work was so elegant it looked more like woven fabric than layered enchantments. It seemed… otherworldly.

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

  His admiration of the incredible work abruptly ceased as he realized that’s exactly what it was. These enchantments weren’t native to Vereth. The whole reason Eli was even here was because these shipments were supposedly sent by the invaders. The colonizing murderers who had been artificially propping up the corrupt Families for- he didn’t even know how long. Why would such powerful backers send important shipments over with no way to transport or protect them?

  He realized then just how valuable the enchantments he was looking at were. He’d seen plenty of their war runes, and textbooks worth of script work made to kill and destroy, but he didn’t think he’d ever had the chance to look at alien enchantments that weren’t made for war. He wouldn’t waste the opportunity now.

  He was glad that he’d been so diligent with practicing his earth manipulation as he pressed one gloved hand to the surface of the metal surface he was laying on. Pulling out some small bits of copper plating he kept in his bag as a medium for quick enchanting he engaged the mana dampening rune in his clothing before sending out a pulse of spatial mana into the rune car. The vehicle resisted the delicate, if invasive scan but Eli had decades of experience with breaking and bypassing anti-scrying enchantments.

  An image of the vehicle – its layout, its enchantments, and its passengers – filtered into his mind’s eye. The interior was made up of two compartments. A smaller one was meant for the driver. Though unlike a traditional carriage it was a fully enclosed space. Inside it were two people. Both were men, and both were younger than he would have believed. They felt in their late teens or early twenties. That couldn’t be right though, could it? He was tempted to send out a pulse of life mana to confirm, though even with his dampening runes he was hesitant to take the risk that they’d sense him.

  Behind this ‘drivers-box’ was a larger compartment. That is where the cargo was being held. A myriad of chests and containers blazed with mana that had been hidden from his senses when he was outside the vehicle. He could feel why. Whatever was inside them blazed with power so immense that a single layer of containment wasn’t enough to hold the magical leakage. That was what he was here for, and the idea of getting his hands on whatever was in there had him almost as excited as getting a copy of the vehicle’s enchantments.

  Phase three: Locate precious cargo. Complete.

  With the scan fully realized in his mind, he began to shape a precise copper model of the vehicle complete with layered enchantments. Slowly, so no mana leaked and alerted the drivers of this convoy, Eli worked the metal. As he worked, he kept an ear out for any noises he may have missed. His body enhancement magic worked to passively amplify his hearing, and when he focused on it, he could immediately make out the conversation the two young men were having.

  From inside the carriage their voices carried faintly through the metal

  “… can’t be jumping at every squirrel,” a voice said. It was the older one, though not by much. He sounded calm but faintly exasperated.

  “I swear I sensed something,” the younger one protested. “Ever since I started body forging, it’s like all my senses are sharper. I can’t ignore it.”

  “Body forging doesn’t make you omniscient,” the older voice replied. “It just makes you feel like it. We’re not stopping the whole vehicle just so you can confirm you’re jumping at shadows. Again. We have a schedule to keep, and I won’t be reprimanded because you don’t have control over your new power yet.”

  The younger voice hesitated. “Still, this power. I feel like a whole new person. My instructor says this is just a lower method, and the first manual too. How? I swear I can sense things from so much farther out.” The man paused for a moment. “You have a superior forging method, don’t you?” He almost whispered.

  “I am of a superior family.” The older voice said, like that explained it all. And it did. The higher the step the higher the benefits. “Do not compare us. Even as a branch family, my house is 2nd step, yours 3rd. We are not the same. Be grateful you were given a manual at all. They don’t always give 3rd step vassals any refining manuals.

  “The higher methods of forging are reserved for the higher houses. Body cultivation is not for the unworthy.” His tone held the snide arrogance of so many in his position as he both reprimanded and lorded his superiority over the younger.

  “Yes, of course. I am grateful.” He said, voice subdued. “It’s just, the power. Forging was one process but the manuals.” Eli felt in his spatial awareness at the younger one shook his head.

  The entire time he’d been listening, Eli had been maintaining his spatial sense over the rune car, and the immediate surrounding area. The two people operating the vehicle were unable to sense his fine control over the esoteric element. In their defense, not many people were. This spatial awareness gave Eli a clear view as the younger flexed his hands back and forth. Articulating his fingers before executing a very slow, very controlled shadow punch.

  There was a pause, then the younger one spoke again, awe and avarice in equal measure in his voice. “Sir, do you know if it’s possible for me to ever get a better manual?”

  “Ungrateful,” the older one said, but there was amusement in his tone that Eli couldn’t quite understand.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be. I just can’t wait for the next steps. How long will it take before I get them? The new methods and manuals.”

  “You haven’t even consolidated your gains you fool. Finish with your first body refinement, study the first manual” the older answered flatly. “Make it through this phase, then be grateful if you are offered the next steps.”

  Manual? What manual. Wasn’t body forging just, well, forging? What was this about multi-phases, multi-steps. Eli was baffled, but he had enough control to complete his model of the rune car while his mind spun out into wild speculation. His senses snapped back to what he now knew were young mages. He’d missed a bit of the conversation in his contemplations but was quickly drawn back in by the topic of conversation.

  “… heard from the fourth young master Fellguard about what comes after the expansion stage? Can you tell me more about mana compression and-”

  The older one sighed. “My foolish cousin.” He said offhanded and to nobody in particular. “Fine. Fine! You are under the same geas.”

  Eli then felt a pulse of mana rippling outwards. It came from the rune car, or more likely an artifact built into it. It was only because he’d had his spatial mana so finely and widely spread out that he noticed the sensory enchantment that had just been employed. He knew instinctively that shadow mana would not be enough to hide him if that wave hit him.

  With the swiftness of someone who had been in such situations more times than he wanted to remember, he threw out a miniscule spatial anchor, opened a small pocket in space, and tucked his body into the gap in reality he’d carved out.

  The time the enchantment activated to the time Eli tucked himself away could be measured in fragments of a second. What he’d done was closer to instinct than calculated action. His breathing slowed, his heartrate was forcibly lowered by his own life mana. Blood became sluggish in his veins, and the excess trickle of life essence was used to lock his muscles so that he didn’t even twitch. His only connection to the outside world was through that tiny anchor, smaller than a grain of rice. Through it he listened.

  “…give me in return for such a generous lesson.” There was a pause then, and Eli could sense the younger boy shuffling about.

  “What do you want?” The younger boy asked. The elder grinned.

  While the two hashed out an agreement, Eli focused on the strange feeling that came from his core when the older man had mentioned a geas. It had felt like an odd tightening in his mana pool. Actually, it felt identical to the times he’d previously tried to use his time mana, like something there was wrong, strange.

  He’d have to explore the sensation later, maybe it would give him a clue as to what was going on with his time affinity. Now, ironically, wasn’t the time though as the two seemed to have worked something out between themselves. Eli tuned back in more actively and was immediately dumbstruck. The older one was speaking, and Eli couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “Let me tell you about the phase after mana expansion. My father called it consolidation.”

  Eli’s world nearly shattered. Literally. The spatial pocket he was in was not permanent and was held together by will alone. Currently any aggressive fluctuations in his mana control could break the technique, probably maiming or killing him in the process, and certainly alerting the world to his presence. But if what he’d just heard was true, then Eli had questions. Important, fervent questions.

  If there was a phase beyond mana expansion, and the higher step houses – at least those connected to the Families – knew about it, then it was the single best kept secret outside of the invaders. And for Eli, potentially more important.

  He listened very closely.