“Through a series of somewhat unlikely coincidences,” Professor Norris said, in between grunts of effort as he used half a dozen mana-construct tools to disassemble Ghveris’s armored plating, “I rather expect that I am now the foremost expert on Antrian construction in all of Lucania.”
“Likely all of Isvara,” Liv corrected him, from where she’d perched in one of the beat up old chairs that could be found lying around the workshop. They’d all been torn and restuffed, broken and repaired more times than anyone could count, even managing to add new scratches in the year that she’d been away. “In fact, I doubt anyone in Varuna has been studying this kind of machinery, either.”
With a great heave of mana, Norris managed to lever Ghveris’s breastplate off, letting it fall onto the work-table at his side with a loud clang. Genne and Turstin, both now full Guild Mages, rather than journeymen, hauled it away for a closer examination. But what caught Liv’s eye was the inner workings which had been exposed: gears and wires, lengths of cracked mana stone, tubes through which blood flowed, and a glass jar, just like the one she’d found within Karis’s torso. This time, rather than merely a brain, she could see a beating heart and one lung, attached to what looked like a spinal cord going up into her friend’s helm.
Ghveris raised one hand, pressing Wren back to his side, keeping her from coming around the front where she would be able to see into his interior cavities. “Do not look,” he rumbled.
“I’m going to want Professor Annora to come and have a look at this,” Norris remarked, after a moment of silence. The man’s face, so often animated by excitement at whatever project he was working on, had fallen, his aging skin creased with lines that spoke of sadness and pity.
“The only function of those remaining pieces is to supply blood to my brain,” Ghveris said. “There was some thought that Ractia might add enchantments, eventually, to absorb blood on my blade, and move it to my heart.”
“They never got that far before Godsgrave,” Liv reasoned. “Probably not even before the attack on the Tomb of Celris. She must have assumed you’d been destroyed there.”
“How much do you remember?” Wren asked.
“I remember Antris cutting away the parts of my body that were too… damaged to be useful,” Ghveris admitted. Liv saw that his helm was turned away from Wren, as if he could not stand to see her face. “I see it in flashes, glimpses of pain between the times when I slept.”
“I can’t speak to what’s left of your body,” Professor Norris said. “But it is clear that most of your frontal armor is ruined. The steel has become far too brittle to serve as effective protection. You are, however, in luck, as we happen to have a supply of the same, mana-rich steel that was used in your construction, set aside in our storage.”
“Luck has nothing to do with it,” Liv pointed out. “I knew you had it, and that’s why I brought him to you.”
Norris rolled his eyes. “It is an expression. Simply an expression! In any event, we’ll remove all of the damaged parts so that we can take measurements and wax casts. We might be able to save some of the ruined still by melting it down, but that’s going to have to be an experiment: I can’t be certain whether it will retain the ability to hold enchantments of this complexity after that kind of process, not after being damaged so extensively.”
“Enchantments are not required,” Ghveris said. “Only enough armor to fight.”
“I disagree,” Norris argued. “Look.” A swarm of his mana constructs, shining a brilliant blue, attacked the bolts which secured one of the plates that made up Ghveris’s skirting, eventually removing the piece. The professor took it in his hand, held it so that everyone could see that back of the plate, rather than the front, and traced warped sigils with his finger.
“These are based on Bheuv, along with two pairs: Cel and V?r, Ters and Ved,” the enchanter explained. “If I understand them correctly, they channel sensations of touch to your brain, so that you can feel what happens to these armor plates as if they were your skin. Without these enchantments, you will have no sensation from the parts of your outer shell that we are replacing.”
“Unnecessary,” Ghveris insisted. “The sensations are muted anyway, so that pain does not become an issue. I can fight without them.”
“They are the means by which you experience the world around you,” Norris said. “You truly wish to be cut off from that, more than you already are?”
Wren gave a choked cry, turned, and strode out through the workshop. It was the sort of sound Liv couldn’t ever recall hearing the huntress make before.
“If you have access to people with those words,” she asked, “can you reproduce the enchantments?”
“I believe so,” Norris replied, after considering for a long moment. “Five words is quite a lot.”
“I’ll make it happen, even if it takes a while,” Liv told him. “In the meantime, I’m going to leave Ghveris in your care.”
Her armored friend shifted. “I should be with you,” Ghveris protested. “I should have been with you before, when Ractia tried to kill you.”
“Ghveris.” Liv reached out and rested her hand on his helm, leaning her head in so that she could look him in those burning blue eyes. “You can’t protect me while you aren’t whole, yourself. This is no different than when Keri was injured. Remember? You wouldn’t have expected him to fight then, would you? When you stayed on the ring to guard him?”
“No.” The Antrian’s shoulders fell.
“Now it’s your turn. You stay here until you’re better. I’ll leave a guard at the entrance to the workshop, to keep an eye on things - and we’ll be by to visit. And probably to help,” Liv admitted.
By the time she’d walked across the workshop and paused at the door to look back, Norris and his assistants had already pried off two additional damaged plates, and were getting started on the pauldrons. There was a part of Liv that wanted to remain behind: she was competent at enchanting, after all, and could probably find a way to help. If Cel was going to be required to replace her friend’s enchantments, that was almost certainly going to fall on her eventually. But she simply had too many other things to do.
Kaija, two guards, Wren and Keri were waiting outside, doing their best to ignore passing clusters of students, in groups of two or three, whose steps slowed while they stared. Liv went to Wren first, and placed a hand on her friend’s back.
“He’s going to be alright–” Liv began, but had to stop when Wren snapped at her.
“No he isn’t,” the huntress said, and when she spun about, Liv saw that her eyes were red. “How can you hear what they did to him and think that he’s ever going to be alright again?”
Liv reached out and wrapped her arms around the other woman. Wren remained stiff for only a moment, and then returned the embrace.
“I’m sorry,” the huntress said. “It isn’t your fault. I know you’re doing what you can.”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“If I knew of a way to give him his body back, I would,” Liv murmured. “But we don’t even know how to fix things when someone loses an arm, or an eye. I know you couldn’t see under the armor–”
“He didn’t want me to,” Wren interrupted.
“I can’t blame him for that,” Liv said. “He doesn’t want you to see him that way, Wren. He wants you to think of him as strong, not–”
“It wouldn’t change how I think of him.” Wren pulled back, finally, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I wish he understood that.”
Liv turned to Keri. “Where have they decided to put us?” she asked.
He pushed himself off the wall of the workshop, standing upright. “The second floor of the keep isn’t capable of holding as many people as we’ve brought, apparently. It’s a good thing we packed the pavilion and the tents. Miina and Thora are down on the beach right now, along with Rei and the rest of the guards.”
The year before, during the conclave, Liv had been fascinated by the encampments of the culling teams down on the beach below the bluff. She’d imagined – when she wasn’t run ragged helping with the new students, or receiving the visiting court mages – being among them one day, with her friends, going from campfire to campfire to greet old friends, sharing stories of adventures in rifts across Lucania.
Once again, a stone stairway had been conjured into the side of the bluff, leading down from the campus to a strip of sand far enough north from Coral Bay proper that the site was undisturbed by the coming and going of fishermen and their boats, the merchant ships that docked to load or unload their wares, or even the brilliant light of the waystone. As they made their way down the steps, Liv counted half a dozen cook-fires, which she took to mean that about that many culling teams had been able to come in for her test. It wouldn’t surprise her to see a few more arrive by the time everything actually happened.
To her surprise, Liv recognized some of them. There was Lena, the woman she’d taken over the remedial magical combat course from; the culling mage had chopped her pale hair short since Liv had last seen her as a journeyman, so that you could hardly even see a hint of wave in it, anymore. She was talking with two men who looked just a bit older and more worn than she was, comparing wand preferences, but all three grew silent as Liv and her companions walked by.
At another fire was Maynard, who’d always been running errands for Archmagus Loredan, bent over a spellbook. He had a bottle of ink balanced on one of the flat stones his team had used to build a ring around their fire pit, and a quill in hand as he made notes on some spell or other.
But the only one who stepped out into Liv’s path to speak with her was Venetia – which, based on Liv’s few interactions with the girl, wasn’t any surprise. Nearly as short as Liv was, Venetia had a cloud of dark hair that seemed to resist any attempt to tame it and tie it back, escaping in curls and strands from her bun. When she’d explained their examinations to them, when Liv first arrived at the college, she’d had to stand on a crate to see over the crowd, and to make herself seen – though she hadn’t had any problem making herself heard.
“I could hardly believe it when word came you were going for archmage,” Venetia said, meeting Liv’s eyes without flinching. “Jurian was a culling mage for years before he even became a professor, nevermind made an archmage spell.”
The other culling mages were watching, now – some actually wandering over, others simply standing up from their logs or their camp chairs, but this conversation had become the center of attention. Keri placed himself on Liv’s right, and Wren on her left, as if ready to guard her flanks in the event everything suddenly went wrong. Liv could actually see her pavilion, which they’d brought disassembled and strapped to the top of their carriage. Two of her guards were already watching the entrance, but most of the camp was between them.
“I had a few advantages he didn’t,” Liv admitted. “Being tutored by half a dozen elders who’ve been casting multi-word spells for centuries went a long way; and I had access to the enchantments at the Tomb of Celris. I don’t think I could have made my spell without either of those two things.”
Lena approached from the left, and Wren turned slightly to face the blonde woman as she came near. “What about the fact she’s supposed to have killed Jurian? Were you going to say anything about that, Netty?”
Liv held Venetia’s gaze without flinching – it was easy, really. Almost laughable, compared to facing down Ractia, or the shade of Celris. “I didn’t kill Jurian,” she said, and wondered how many times she’d be repeating the statement before she left Coral Bay. “His heart gave out while he was fighting Genevieve.”
“How do we know that?” one of the men Lena had been speaking with asked. His wand was still in his hand.
“If she was still alive, I suppose you could ask her,” Liv said. “But I did kill her, so I suppose you can’t.”
“She was an archmage,” Maynard said, finally setting aside his spellbook. “You couldn’t possibly have beaten her. Not as a journeyman.”
Liv sighed, and looked around the faces of the culling mages, who’d nearly surrounded them in a ring. Several of her guards were trying to push through the back ranks, but the last thing she wanted was for this to become a fight. If it did, that might end any chance of healing the rift between the two broken pieces of the mages guild.
“I understand Genevieve and Bennet pressed most of you into service last spring,” Liv said. “Had you running waystones to move supplies, didn’t they?”
Venetia nodded. “Supplies, horses, siege engines, soldiers. It was hard work.”
“Exhausting,” Lena added, and Liv saw several of those around her nodding.
“That’s why they were able to move so quickly,” Liv said. “By using you all as pack mules. And that’s also why I had to destroy the waystone at Ashford. Were any of you there?”
The silence stretched long enough that Liv was just about convinced that she was out of luck before a man toward the back of the group raised his hand and called out. “I was.”
Liv looked him over; if she'd ever seen him before, she didn’t remember it. But then again, she’d been rather high up in the air for most of Ashford. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Harry,” he answered. “Harry of Bexbury.”
“They brought you to move the troops there on to Courland, didn’t they?” Liv asked him.
“Aye; me and half a dozen others,” Harry admitted. “None of us expected you’d break the rusting thing. Through a bit of sand in the works.”
“You saw me then,” Liv stated, rather than ask it as a question. “Do you believe I could kill an archmage, Harry of Bexbury?”
All around them, men and women turned to regard the young mage, who shifted uncomfortably. “Maybe,” he said. “I saw what you did to that poor girl’s face.”
“I consider it a fair trade for her trying to kill me after the conclave,” Liv said. “But I suppose that’s beside the point. Genevieve had you all powering waystones for their war against Whitehill. Is that really what you thought you’d be doing, when you all voted her in as guildmistress?”
“The king named her guildmistress,” Lena called back. “It wasn’t our place to refuse a royal decree.
And I suppose Genevieve’s bribe of a new word didn’t have anything to do with it, Liv thought, but refrained from saying out loud. “I was taught the guild had two purposes,” she said. “To collect and teach knowledge of magic, so that it wouldn’t be lost; and to cull rifts, to protect people who can’t fight by themselves. Neither of those things has anything to do with backing one side or the other in a fight between branches of the royal family. Did all the eruptions simply stop, while she had you hauling supplies?”
“No,” Maynard said, after a moment. “There was an eruption at Chestnut Hollow, at the very least. They called for culling mages, but we were told we couldn’t go.”
“And another at Deepford,” one of the women in the crowd called out. “My sister-in-law died there, because she couldn’t get to the keep in time.”
“I didn’t come here because I have to prove to myself I’m an archmage,” Liv said. “I already know what I can do. I could have had the guild members in Whitehill test me. I came here out of respect.”
One of the men two rows back in the crowd snorted.
“Yes, respect,” Liv continued. “Because I still think what the guild was founded to do is necessary. Because I don’t want to see it divided against itself. So I came here, though I didn’t have to, because that’s how Jurian did it, and that’s how Genevieve did it. You’ll see what I can do soon enough. But whether you believe I’m an archmage or not isn’t really the point.”
“No?” Venetia asked, crossing her arms. “Seems like a pretty big deal to me. What’s the point, then?”
“The point is whether you still believe in this guild,” Liv told her, told all of them. She held up her hand, to show the guild ring she’d worn ever since the day Jurian had given it to her, twenty-six years before. “I do. That’s why I’ve still got this on my finger. And I hope you agree with me, because I need your help. Our entire world needs your help.”
“With what?” Maynard asked.
“That’s a conversation for after the test,” Liv said. She lowered her hand and walked forward, stepping around Venetia and into the crowd, with Keri and Wren to either side, and Kaija following behind with her guards.
As she headed for her tent, the culling mages let her pass without complaint. It was a small thing, but it was a beginning.
here. I am more available there than I am here.
Dramatis Personae
Livara T?r Valtteri Kaen Syv? - Guildmage, former scullery maid at Castle Whitehill, the bastard daughter of Maggie Brodbeck and Valtteri Ka Auris. Mountain Queen, and Lady of Winter. Seems to be doing a lot of public speaking, lately. [35 Rings of Mana, not counting mana stored in items.]
Ghveris, the Beast of Iuronnath - Formerly a Great Bat in service to Ractia, now the remains of his body form the heart of an Antrian juggernaut. Very self conscious, here. [Mana Battery: 10 Rings]
Harry, Lena, Maynard & Venetia - Culling mages, many of whom were journeymen while Liv was at Coral Bay.
Inkeris "Keri" ka Ilmari k?n B?lris - A young warrior of the Unconquered House of B?lris, father to Rei. Consigned to the waiting room, as it were. [20 Rings of Mana.]
Norris - Master Mage, Professor of Enchanting at Coral Bay. Has a soft side for Liv because she brings him the most interest projects. [20 Rings of Mana]
Wren Wind Dancer - Daughter of Nighthawk, cousin of Calm Waters. Big feels.
