Book 2, Chapter 81

Before I made my way back to Keeper, I took some time to loot the dead. For the most part, I hadn’t been terribly impressed with the creations of the latest generation, though the more I learned, the less I faulted them for their lack of ability. It seemed like Derro had already been on the back end of nowhere even before a moon got destroyed and the world’s mana core was broken. If anything, Monarch’s however-many-generations-back grandfather getting exiled here had probably resulted in a net gain to the area’s magical capabilities.

Some knowledge had been lost, probably deliberately. The mechanics of core ignition were so well-known that it almost had to have been someone’s agenda to suppress it for a few generations after ambient mana disappeared, probably to maintain power over a disadvantaged society. But somewhere along the line, it appeared that the knowledge had changed from hidden to just plain gone.

That meant that the most likely vector anyone could threaten me with at this point was the cache of trinkets left over from a thousand years ago. I planned to confiscate them for the next decade or two, long enough for me to finish rebuilding myself, before I got to work on reintroducing magic to this society. It was selfish, but then, I’d never claimed to be a saint.

Breaking into Hangman’s phantom space was easy enough, but, as I’d suspected, it was barely big enough to hold the strange noose he’d wielded. That was barely a weapon, and the magic woven into it was practically worthless in this age. It prevented anyone from summoning the spirit of whoever it strangled, perfect for an assassin in a magic-rich society looking to avoid getting identified by his victims, but pointless in a world where nobody knew how to reach beyond the veil anyway.

From Monarch’s bloody remains, I took first the torque. A quick glance told me that it was more powerful than my own shield ward, but only by virtue of being more than a dozen times bigger and thus able to hold significantly more mana in reserve. She had two rings left as well, one a signet with a vaguely familiar symbol on it. Perhaps her family line traced back far enough to my time and I’d seen their crest hundreds of years ago. Or perhaps it was just a coincidence. Either way, the ring’s magic was strange enough that I’d need more time to figure it out.

It was too bad about the last ring. Unless I missed my guess, it was some sort of death cheating enchantment, but now its power was spent, and it had broken into pieces. Those were truly valuable, and it would have saved me a great deal of time and effort to take Monarch’s instead of making my own.

The final ring seemed like a ward key, but it didn’t match anything I’d seen in the palace. There was a chance it would unlock Monarch’s cache of weapons, though, so I hung onto it. Hopefully, Keeper would know where they all were, and would agree to tell me. Considering how badly she wanted to unlock the secrets of her memory sphere and how much more help she still needed, I was confident we could make a deal.

  *

“Of course I know where Ferris hid them,” Keeper said. “Who do you think did the bulk of the work studying them to figure out how they worked?”

“I’d assumed the information had been passed down to her,” I said.

“Only in the most general sense. Most of our knowledge on how the artifacts work comes from a combination of my own research and Weaver’s examination of them.”

Monarch must have trusted Keeper a great deal to not hide her cache of trinkets away. Or perhaps Keeper had simply known things she wasn’t supposed to. Either way worked for me. “I think I can guess what you’d like to trade for that information.”

“The memory sphere is mine to keep,” she said immediately. “And you’ll continue to help me unlock the memories within.”

“I’ll teach you the magic needed to pull you back out without your help,” I countered. “I’m not going to make an open-ended promise to teach you for months or more.”

Keeper’s mouth twitched slightly, but she nodded. “I should like you to make yourself available to answer future questions, as well.”

“I’m sure we can arrange something,” I said. “I’ve often found myself teaching students.”

I wondered for a moment if Keeper would bristle at the implication that she was a student. Some people resented being reminded that they didn’t know everything, and those were usually the hardest ones to teach. If she was among that group, it was better to know now.

After a moment to think, she nodded. “That will be acceptable. I will show you where the war cache is hidden.”

“There’s one other thing. Sibilant.”

Keeper started laughing. “I suppose that secret no longer matters. The cabal has been completely dismantled anyway. It would just kill Velvet to find this out after all the work he did trying to figure out who Sibilant is.”

“The journals he kept?” I asked.

She nodded. “For years, he’s been trying to crack the mystery.”

“So who is Sibilant?”

“He doesn’t exist,” Keeper said.

My brow furrowed. “Then who was giving Velvet his orders?”

“When you killed him, did you see the talisman he wore around his neck?” she asked.

“An amulet of mind shielding,” I said. “I didn’t stop to look too closely at it. Other matters had my attention.”

Keeper shook her head. “That was only one of its functions. Sibilant is an enchantment in the amulet.”

“A phantasmal presence?” I asked. Such presences were fake people, personas built up by pure magic that existed only in the mind of whoever had the token the enchantment was anchored to.

She nodded. “Velvet was… too ambitious for his own good. Left to his own devices, he would cause problems trying to twist orders and play politics. But he was still necessary to keep the outer circle organized and productive, so Ferris decided to give him a bone to gnaw on and created Sibilant, a shadowy figure who seemed to know everything and issued orders to Velvet. It kept him busy.”

That was convenient for me, assuming it was true. For now, I decided to accept it at face value. If Keeper was lying to me, I’d find out sooner or later, but I honestly only cared about Sibilant as a potential agent who could revive the Wolf Pack and force me to come back to deal with them again. In another decade, not even that would matter. I planned on flooding this whole island with enough mages trained well enough to render the Wolf Pack’s current level of power moot, especially without the dangerous toys they currently had in their possession.

“Very well,” I said. “Then, I will teach you and an assistant of your choice the magic you need to master your memory sphere. In exchange, I will take possession of all artifacts from the Age of Wonders other than the sphere.”

“Agreed,” Keeper said.

  *

I stood in front of the ember bloom and contemplated how best to go about relocating it. With my staff destroyed, I was left with only storage crystals to draw mana from. The inefficiency was obnoxious, but it was worth it for this project.

This tree was the first step in recreating a world full of mana. No amount was too high to pay to safeguard it.

Hyago arrived about twenty minutes after I tripped his detection ward. “You’re back,” he said as he floated down to land next to me. “Is it time?”

“It is,” I said. “This is going to be tricky, and I need to send you ahead to prepare the way. Gather anything you need to replant the ember bloom. I’ll take care of transportation.”

“About that,” he said. “We never did discuss price.”

“I suppose we didn’t. What would you like?”

“I did some digging, if you’ll pardon the pun. You mentioned druids the last time we talked. Let me tell you, it was not easy finding anyone who’d even heard of them, but you threw it out casually. How much do you know?”

“About druids? I never followed their traditions, but I got along well enough with them. I know the magic more than I do the rituals and pageantry of their orders.”

“That’s what I want for the tree,” Hyago said. “Spell books full of druid magic.”

“Interesting,” I said. “Let me ask you a question. Do you enjoy your work here?”

“Here, specifically? Yes, this tree is magnificent. Who wouldn’t enjoy something like this?”

“No, I meant the work you did for the cabal’s alchemist. You were the mage who directed mana into all of the plant specimens, weren’t you?”

“Ah, that… It started as a hobby, when I was young. I was trying to find a way to grow more food, faster. Too many mouths to feed where I came from. I guess I was good at it, because the spirits blessed me with a mage core.”

I let that statement pass by unchallenged. There’d be plenty of time to correct that misunderstanding of how mana worked in the years to come. “I don’t have a book of spells for dealing with plants on me,” I said, “but I could teach you plenty. I could also introduce you to some like-minded people, including another mage, if you were interested.”

“What, like an apprenticeship?” Hyago asked with a laugh. “I’m ten times older than you. That’d be a pretty weird relationship.”

“If you don’t like the offer…”

“No, I’m not saying that. I guess I shouldn’t turn my nose up at some personal tutoring. Better than instructions I have to figure out for myself, anyway.”

“In that case, go gather everything you need to prepare the ground for the ember bloom. I’ll teleport you and any assistants you want to take with you to where I’ll be transplanting this thing, and when you’re done, I’ll show you a few spells useful for moving a whole tree without damaging it.”

“Give me fifteen minutes,” he said before he hurried off, leaving me to stand there alone watching the play of lights off the ember bloom’s leaves.

“So much left to do,” I murmured. The Wolf Pack was effectively gone, but I’d still be dealing with Keeper and Weaver for the foreseeable future. I needed to reclaim my alchemy equipment from Alkerist and collect my final harvest from their greenhouses. My crucible needed to be relocated, and that was going to require just as much mana as the ember bloom.

I had a whole gaggle of orphans I’d promised the opportunity for a better life to who would need attention. Senica had an ignited core now and would demand my help learning magic, and she wasn’t the only one. I needed a new supply of herbs and reagents for my ointment of aging, though that was perhaps something Hyago and his gang could help me with.

It would be years before things settled down, but perhaps that was a good thing. My body needed time to grow more than anything else. The distractions would keep me busy while I waited, and if I got bored, there was still plenty of this island to explore. The world was bigger than a tiny village, a mountain retreat, and a ruined city, after all.

Somewhere out there were the remnants of the Night Vale and my own workshops. Deep below that was the broken world core, waiting for someone to fix it. I certainly had my work cut out for me, but I also had my whole life ahead of me to set everything straight.

The ember bloom was a good start, but that was all it was: a start.

Hyago returned with three men. “We’ve got a cart with all our supplies. Is there going to be a weight issue to your magic?”

“No,” I said, “not as long as you can carry it.”

He glanced at his helpers, then nodded slowly. “We can pick it all up. I assume we won’t have to walk too far.”

“Not at all. I’ll teleport you directly there. Anything you’re holding will come with you.”

I followed the mage back up to the surface to get the process started.

End of Book 2