Book 2, Chapter 67

I needed to use telekinesis to get the trapdoor open, and as soon as I did, I spotted the webbing of a privacy ward stretching across the hole. Whatever was down there, Hyago didn’t want anyone knowing about it. That probably meant it was valuable, which in this new world usually meant it had a lot of mana in it. Perfect.

As soon as I determined that these new wards were nothing but anti-scrying and mana shrouding enchantments, I dropped down through the hole in the floor. There was no ladder, but it was a trivial matter to control my descent into the chunk of sewer tunnel.

It had been sealed off on both ends, and the bottom had been excavated to form a pit fifty feet deep and thirty feet around. Someone had used some serious magic to make that happen. And as the light from my orb spilled across the ground, I let out an involuntary gasp.

“No,” I said. “I don’t believe it.”

Stone scaffolding had been built into the side of the pit for the workers to add the soil and pour the water, to give them a solid platform to stand on when they used their rakes and shovels. It was necessary to keep them out of reach of the tree growing out of the ground in the center.

It was only about ten feet tall now, a thin sapling barely a hands-width wide. Black bark lined with cracks through which sullen red light was barely visible covered its trunk, like the whole thing was a pillar of hot coals. The leaves flickered in my mage light, oranges and reds that shifted back and forth.

An ember bloom.

“Impossible. Where did they get this?”

Ember blooms had gone extinct sometime in my third century of life due to a combination of being magically valuable and disastrous on the regions they grew in. They were well known for starting forest fires, and had a curious ability to draw mana in through ash. That property of not only being immune to heat, but actually soaking it in and converting it to mana, carried through even after being cut down. When I was young, battle mages had wielded ember bloom staves like badges of honor.

I’d hunted for one of these myself after becoming an archmage, and I knew there were none left. Not a single one of the master tier divinations I’d cast had returned a positive result. If I’d been gone as long as I thought, whatever seeds that had been secreted away in some vault somewhere would be over three thousand years old.

I sat there at the edge of the pit for half an hour and tried to decide what to do about this. On the one hand, this was a tree chock-full of mana, exactly what I needed. On the other, to kill a priceless specimen felt wrong, even to me. The only thing I was sure of was that it didn’t belong in a pit dug out in a sewer, growing only because of the copious amounts of mana being poured into it. It should have been on the surface, tall and strong under the light of the sun.

If I took any mana at all from the ember bloom, I risked killing it. I didn’t want to do that, which left me the options of walking away or absconding with an entire tree. That wasn’t feasible right now, not with my mana budget. Even if I ignored my upcoming meeting with Monarch, I needed more than I had to transplant an ember bloom.

I felt mana moving above me and knew my time was up. Someone had come into the grow room and was even now discovering the sleep spell I’d cast on the laborers. The odds were good that they’d find me down here and then it’d be a fight. The smart move was to write this off as a loss and walk away. I didn’t need to save this tree. Extinct or not, it wasn’t my problem.

But the chance to save it, to harvest seeds from it… to revitalize an entire species of magical tree. That was hard to walk away from.

A man floated down from the square of light and walked over to me. “I wondered if they’d send someone to take it back,” he said after a moment. “When the hunchback stopped meeting us at the docks for his shipments, I suspected it was only a matter of time.”

“Hyago?” I asked.

“The very same. I must admit, I was not expecting someone of your… stature… to be the one who showed up.”

“I’m not with the Wolf Pack,” I said. “Stupid name for a cabal.”

“I’m told it is an old name from a wilder time,” Hyago said. “But I would agree that their image would be better served with an update to reflect their modern status.”

“What happens now?” I asked. “Are you going to fight me?”

“Should I? Would I win if I did? I believe I know who you are.”

“How’s that?”

Hyago gestured to me and said, “A boy child, powerful and brutal. He kills in the streets, besting enforcers and mages alike, then disappearing in the shadows. He disrupts the city with his presence, causing turmoil even behind the walls that separate us from Derro’s core. You, I assume.”

“They started it.”

“You were the one who killed their alchemist,” Hyago said. When I didn’t deny it, he added, “That cost me a bit of business, but I learned long ago to diversify as a means of insulating against precisely these kinds of problems. I’ve kept this all going here on the off chance that someone else comes to take the hunchback’s place, but all of my efforts have gone into keeping this magnificent specimen from withering. There’s just not enough mana to keep everything else alive.”

“You made the right choice,” I said. “I thought these were extinct, had been for thousands of years. I actually stumbled across this by accident. So it belongs to the Wolf Pack; you’re merely its caretaker?”

“Essentially.”

“How long could you keep it alive for without support?”

Hyago frowned and stared down at it. “At the rate it eats mana, perhaps a month before my resources are completely exhausted. At that point, I’ll be forced to cut it down to recoup my losses. What a shameful waste that would be.”

It was nice to see a kindred spirit. I had always loved nature, much to the confusion of my many associates over the years. Most mages preferred clean stone, dry and rigid, an environment that was easy to control. Not me. I’d fallen in love with the Night Vale the moment I discovered it, and a thousand years of pouring mana and effort into its care had created a natural wonder, one that I suspected was nothing but a memory now.

I’d just have to create something new to serve as my genius loci. Perhaps this ember bloom would be part of it. It wasn’t a tree that played well with others, but it wasn’t impossible to manage that. I was already thinking about what it’d take to transplant it to the far edge of the valley, away from the rivers and up high where it could get plenty of sunlight without having to fight other trees. It would need some care at first, but I thought I could make it work.

“Assuming the Wolf Pack never comes back to claim it, I’ll buy it from you,” I said. “I just need you to keep it alive until I’m ready to move it.”

“That would be quite bold of me,” Hyago said. “Why in the world would I risk the wrath of a cabal of powerful mages by selling their exotic treasures out from under them?”

“How many are even left at this point?” I asked. “I’ve killed four of them already. I doubt they’re going to be in a position to reclaim it by next week.”

“You certainly sound confident, but you’ll forgive my hesitation. My impression of you doesn’t match the rumors. They paint you as a bloodthirsty monster, but I see only a child taking in the wonder of a beautiful scene.”

“I can show you that side, if you’d like,” I said. I stood up and summoned my staff. “I’ve got to tell you, I like trees better than people. I think you and I could get along just fine, but not if you mistake me for someone you can walk all over.”

“Easy, easy,” Hyago said. “I’ll keep this tree alive as long as I can. I would have done that regardless. If you win your fight and come back for it, we can discuss price. How does that sound?”

That was essentially all I wanted him to do right now anyway. I’d need to prepare a place for the ember bloom, not to mention the mana costs associated with transporting it. As long as the ember bloom was still healthy when I came back for it, I’d be satisfied.

“Keep it safe for me,” I said. “I’ll be coming back for it soon.”

I cast one last, lingering glance down at the tree, its branches and leaves making it look like a fire in the darkness, and turned to leave. On impulse, I paused and asked, “Do you enjoy living here, in this desert city?”

“What else is there?” Hyago asked.

“I’m not sure, but I mean to find out,” I said. “The whole world can’t be like this. In the old world, a man whose magic dealt primarily with plants and animals was known as a druid. I wonder if somewhere, that tradition lives on. Maybe the exact rites and rituals have been forgotten along with their most powerful magics, but perhaps the idea of druidism could live on in spirit. Something to think about.”

“I’ve never heard of them.”

“I think you’d like them. Perhaps I’ll see if I can’t find some writing on them for you to enjoy.”

Now that I thought of it, Shel and the Arborists had their own druidic traditions. They didn’t call it that, but that was essentially what they were doing. That was the whole reason Talik had joined us on our exodus from the village, to see new vistas and explore nature there.

In a way, I was surprised I hadn’t been forced to fight Hyago. My reputation had served me well in this encounter, I supposed. Not everyone was eager to risk their lives in battle. With any luck, the remainder of the Wolf Pack would feel the same way. If not, though, I still had time to prepare.

Stealing mana from Hyago’s grow operation hadn’t worked out like I’d planned, though I’d found something far, far more valuable. I couldn’t even put words into how amazing it was to see an ember bloom growing again, even under such miserable circumstances. It wasn’t all altruism, either. I had a whole school of apprentices to teach once this was over, and ember bloom was an excellent base wood for wands. They’d been priceless, treasured heirlooms passed down noble family lines for uncounted generations back in my old life.

I could easily picture Senica waving one around, perhaps less delicately than she ought to, and producing wild, uncontrolled power. The idea of crafting her first wand from a shed branch of such a precious tree appealed greatly to me, and I resolved to do whatever I needed to bring the ember bloom home.

In the meantime, I still had a mana crystal to fill. I needed to decide exactly how I was going to go about mugging several dozen enforcers, preferably without getting caught. Monarch and her cabal would probably suspect it was me either way, but I’d still make the effort to be discreet. The big question was whether it was better to hunt them in the outer city or the inner.

Outer, I decided. They weren’t equipped as well and had less mana, but they also weren’t as organized, and they were spread out by necessity. Now I just needed to figure out the best ambush spots on their patrol routes.