Book 3, Chapter 45

We stepped off the teleportation platform at Sanctuary and were met by a small crowd of people. Our father was there, along with Ryla and a dozen of her traveling merchants. I spotted Juby lurking in the background, but I was sure it wasn’t me he was waiting there for.

Senica froze beside me for a second before saying, “Oh. Uh… That’s a lot of people.”

“Finally!” Ryla said. “We’ve been waiting on you all morning.”

“You… have? Why?”

“So we can go to Ghalin, of course!”

I was a bit taken aback by that. I’d planned on speaking to Grandfather before I did anything else once we’d returned home, but apparently by telling Father our schedule, we’d ensured that other people could slot us into their plans. Unfortunately, nobody had told us they were making decisions about our time, else I could have told them not to bother.

“We’re not going to Ghalin,” I said. “We just got back and I have other things to take care of first.”

“Things that are more important than people’s lives?” Ryla pressed.

If only she knew. But it would do nothing but cause problems to announce to a crowd of people that I didn’t care if a bunch of strangers from a town I had no loyalty to died. Instead, I told her, “The other things I need to take care of involve speaking to the brakvaw leader directly.”

“I could go,” Senica said.

I shot her a glance. “Seems like a bad idea to me.”

“I’ve got lots of mana built up,” she argued. “And I can fight. I’ve killed plenty of monsters.”

“Not like these,” I told her. “Remember the last time we saw them?”

She got quiet for a second, but firmed her resolve quickly. “I won’t be alone though. There’s a bunch of people going, right?”

“I would prefer if you didn’t go,” Father said, pushing through to the front of the crowd. “You’ve been gone for months. We’d like to see you for at least a single day before you’re off on another adventure.”

Senica wanted to argue, but all she did was look at all the people there to witness the argument and sigh. “Okay, Dad,” she said, defeated.

The people parted to let Father and Senica through, but then closed ranks again. Ryla placed herself square in front of me and said, “We could use your help, Gravin. Everybody knows this is going to be dangerous, and it’d be nice to have you along in case things go seriously wrong. If you’re just going to talk to the big bird leader, surely you can come to Ghalin on the way.”

“It’s not really on the way,” I said. “And besides, even if I did go with you, I wouldn’t be staying, so what difference would it make?”

“We were hoping you’d at least give the area a once over and let us know what we were dealing with before you ran off again,” Ryla told him. “Didn’t think it’d be a big deal for you.”

That… actually wasn’t a bad idea. Knowing what the rebel faction of the brakvaw was up to prior to my meeting with Grandfather couldn’t hurt. It would score me some social points at home, too, for whatever those were worth. I supposed if it meant that none of my family’s friends died, it was a start.

“Alright, you win,” I said. “I’ll go with you and take a quick look around to see what’s there.”

For their sakes, I hoped this little force of amateur mages weren’t getting themselves in over their heads. Even the brakvaw who weren’t mages had a lot of advantages going for them just in terms of sheer size and destructive capabilities. They could easy destroy the huts that were so common in the local villages just by slamming into them, and I had no doubt the brakvaw would fly away from that impact uninjured.

“Fantastic,” Ryla said, a smile painted on her face. She turned to the crowd and said, “Alright, people. Time to move out. Grab your supply bags and get on the platform.”

The whole process was a lot more orderly than I’d expected it to be, but then again, Ryla was in charge of Sanctuary’s trading. Nobody used the platform more than her and her troop. It probably wasn’t a coincidence that the most combat-capable of our village were the ones who regularly ventured out into the wastelands, seeking new places to trade with.

I’d planned to activate the platform again, but Ryla beat me to it. Before I could say anything, she pushed mana into the control panel, selected the platform halfway between Alkerist and Ghalin as the destination, and activated the magic. I had just enough time to sigh before the spell whisked us away.

  *

Some of the mages who’d come on this journey were ones I’d trained myself. Ayaka, for example, had been part of my very first batch of students, and had taken to learning magic quite happily. Her core was still at stage one, but that was more a fault of the limited mana she had to work with coupled with other priorities than it was a lack of ability on her part.

Others were second generation, taught the basics by my former students. I evaluated all of them as we walked, taking careful note of who had a good grasp of shrouding their cores and who was broadcasting our location to every nearby monster. When those monsters invariably showed up, I analyzed who kept their calm and cast their spells smoothly and efficiently.

I was a bit surprised to find that I liked what I saw. There were some obvious gaps in the skill level of the mages, but nobody was doing anything blatantly wrong. Some people were just more practiced at the techniques needed in this situation than others. Given a bit more time and resources, I didn’t see anyone in this group that struck me as particularly unteachable.

It was too unlikely to be a coincidence, which probably meant that Ryla had gathered the best of the best to join her on this little expedition. Other than a few obvious candidates who wouldn’t have agreed to come, people like Tetrin and Hyago, I doubted they’d left too many competent mages behind. It was a good thing I wasn’t relying on them to defend the valley from incursions.

All of this was just me making the best of things. If Ryla hadn’t been in such a hurry, I would have teleported us straight to Ghalin. By throwing the switch before I could stop her, she’d set us up for hours and hours of walking through monster-infested territory, and I wasn’t willing to burn mana on a second teleport when we were already so close. Master-tier spells were about the only ones left that I wasn’t able to cast while modifying them to be lossless.

I wasn’t just idly evaluating the mages while we walked. I also used a plethora of divination spells, everything from simple scrying to brakvaw-specific detection magic to get a feel for both the geography of the local mountains and to see if I could determine where the massive birds had set up their homes. It wouldn’t be on top of their waypoint, but I suspected it also wouldn’t be that far away. Something about how the mana cycled from one waypoint to the next seemed to help them fly long distances, so they never strayed too far away from them.

What I’d found was not encouraging. Most of my efforts were focused on the mountains north of us and west of Ghalin, and I’d spotted no less than thirty brakvaw. They were a mix of adults and fledglings, which I interpreted as whole families having left Eyrie Peak. Worse, they’d set up new nests up in the mountains, maybe not so nice as the homes they’d left behind, but ones that looked permanent to me.

Grandfather had not managed to unify the brakvaw after all. Nor had he convinced them not to build their new homes so close to humans. I wondered how many other flocks just like this one were scattered throughout the mountain range that ringed the island, and how many of them were going to come into conflict with their human neighbors. Though, for villages that lacked mages to protect them, I was sure that conflict would be decidedly one-sided.

We walked into Ghalin late in the evening. By that time, I’d located most, if not all, of the local brakvaw, some forty-one of them. It was possible I’d missed a few who were away or particularly well-hidden, but I felt I had an accurate head count. Killing or driving off that many of the giant birds was not going to be an easy task. It’d be easier to just move Ghalin out of their hunting territory.

“Alright, we’re here,” I said. “The village isn’t on fire and nothing is actively attacking right now. Do you think you can handle things on your own for a few hours?”

“Let me talk to Talvir before you go running off,” Ryla said.

“Make it quick, please.”

After the woman ran off, Ayaka walked over to me and quietly said, “You didn’t have to be so rude to her. I’m sure your parents raised you better than that.”

“I’m sure they tried,” I told the former Collector. “I have very little patience for this. Just being here is a favor to you, and I honestly don’t care to spend more time on it than I have to.”

Ayaka gave me a strange look. “Don’t you ever get tired of being alone?”

“What?” I asked, baffled. “No?”

“Really? It never gets old alienating people and having to rely on yourself for everything?”

I barked out a laugh. “Ayaka, you are vastly underestimating the scope of my problems if you think anyone here could help with them. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family, but I’m not the kind of person you seem to think I am.”

“Then why are you here?” she asked simply.

“Because my parents would be upset if you died, and I don’t want them to be upset,” I told her. “Look, you have been an excellent student over the years, and I’m happy to keep teaching you magic, but we’re not friends. We are, at best, master and apprentice. You never noticed that the only people I brought to our sanctuary are subordinates who work for me?”

“And a batch of orphans,” she reminded me.

“Yes, but that was only because they were targeted by someone looking for me,” I told her. “Giving them a safe space to grow didn’t really cost me anything.”

“I think you’re softer than you want everyone to believe.”

“Because a bunch of defenseless children got murdered and I went two steps out of my way to save the rest of them?”

It was probably a good thing nobody living knew how much of a monster I’d been the last time I’d looked this young. Saving a few children was a small atonement for all the lives I’d taken, one that didn’t begin to balance the scales.

I held a hand up to forestall whatever Ayaka was about to say. “I am not a good person,” I told her. “I care about me and mine. I agreed to this to make my family happy, nothing else. I’m sorry if you built up some image of me as a savior who swooped in to solve all your problems, but I promise you, I am a much more selfish person than that.”

“Then why did you teach us all magic?” she asked. “What does Gravin gain from investing years into instructing us?”

“I’m thinking long-term. Right now, magic as I know it is gone. Teaching you is the first step to bringing it back. You’ve already started spreading those lessons to others. That will ripple outward, and new generations of mages will be born. Maybe, someday, some of them might even become my contemporaries.”

“That just brings me back around to you being lonely,” Ayaka pointed out. “It’s a rather roundabout way of making friends, don’t you think?”

I paused to think about that for a moment. Was I really just missing having people around who understood what it was like to wield magic at my level? I doubted it, especially considering I’d practically been a hermit for the last three centuries of my previous life.

“I think you’ve misunderstood my purpose,” I said. “I am looking to the future to rebuild a magical civilization for my own benefit, not to have people over for tea.”

“Well then, how very sad for you,” Ayaka said. Then she walked away.