4.48: I Know a Short Cut

“I don’t see how this is supposed to help,” Kylie said.

We were on Agreabla Insulo, looking back into the portal that led to the school. Max rubbed his hands in excitement, for a moment living up to the supervillain image that his gangly frame, tailored clothes and ridiculous goatee suggested.

“We need to get to Duniyasar,” he said. “You’ve done it by channelling while going through this portal before, right?”

“Yes, because the spell patch thingy to stop it had temporarily glitched out. It’s not going to work a second time.”

“How do you know?”

“What?”

“How do you know that the glitch is temporary? Have you gone through any portals while channelling since?”

“Well… no. But there are tons of prophets in the school. If it was permanent, other people would’ve ended up at Duniyasar, and we’d know about it.”

“Why? Maybe nobody else has channelled a prophecy while walking through an external portal. Maybe it’s only broken on this specific portal. Maybe other people have ended up there and kept it a secret, like we did. Worth a try, right?”

Kyli rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She took a deep breath, let it out, and started to channel magic. I fidgeted like I’d just drank an extra-strong espresso I didn’t need. My teeth itched with magic.

Kylie stared blankly forward into space. Max waved a hand in front of her eyes. “Um. Destiny?”

“It’s not going to say anything,” I reminded him. “We’re not in a high enough magic area. It’s stupid and limited out here.”

“Right. Of course. Even with you taking so much of the power? You look – ”

“Can we just get this over with?”

“Right. Sorry.”

We each took one of Kylie’s hands and tugged her forward. She walked, leading us through the portal. Leading us to…

The school.

“Well,” I said. “That didn’t work.”

Max swore quietly. I nudged Kylie until she blinked herself back into awareness. She looked about the stone tunnel.

“Ah,” she said. “That didn’t work.”

“Yes, thank you, both of you,” Max said tersely. He rubbed his temples. “I really thought that was going to work.”

“Why?” Kylie asked. “Like I said, there are tons of prophets here. If the portals permanently lead to Duniyasar whenever someone – ”

“Yes, alright, I get it. I just…”

“Really, really want to test your theory and think the universe probably owes us a freebie by now?” I asked.

“Pretty much.” He sighed. “Guess we’re waiting for the entirety of Sekura Refujeyo to eventually clear out of the hospital.”

“Well,” I said, “Kylie owns Duniyasar for the moment, we could probably talk our way past – ”

“Talk our way past the twitchy guards who are protecting Duniyasar’s proper heir from assassination, by pointing out that we, a handful of suspicious kids including the bearer of Fionnrath’s Destiny, her familiar, and a known murderer – ”

“It wasn’t murder – ”

“ – need to go to Duniyasar? And do this without explaining why we’re going there?”

“… Okay. Point.”

“Perhaps,” Kylie interjected, “you could explain to us why we're going to Duniyasar? I mean, I appreciate a dramatic demonstration as much as the next person, but if we’re going to be waiting a few days to actually try this plan of yours, we might as well learn what it is.”

“Fair enough,” Max said, stepping back out onto the island. “I’ll show you.”

We walked along the beach while he explained. “So,” he said. “The Haven was originally developed from the existing school in Duniyasar, right? It was a hub of prophetic enlightenment, and early during the Purity Revolution, they started opening their doors to a… wider array of students. Students who weren’t prophets. Students from other nations. And, of course, students with wild spells, who had no mage lineage to protect them from… other people.”

“Witches,” Kylie said.

“Yes. Commonfolk have always been uneasy about magic; you two know, of course, you grew up with all their purity rituals. But things came to a head, for some reason, and there was a Purity Revolution, and mages were forced to organise. It makes sense that the world centre for prophecy would be the first to see the danger and mobilise, broadening their student base until they ran out of space. So, arrangements were made for a new home for magekind. One that wasn’t, on paper at least, run by Duniyasar, but by a more distributed power base, where several groups of mages contributed – ”

“And thus Refujeyo was born,” I cut in. “We know this, it’s basic history.” I’d had to write an essay a few weeks ago on the interrelationships between the three branches of Refujeyo and how they worked together to govern, and I never wanted to think about the topic again.

“Right,” Max said. “So, a new home was built. In a secret location.”

“But we know they just dug straight down,” Kylie said.

“Yes. It would have been a messy affair, organisationally and politically. Ido didn’t exist yet, so there was a lot of disorganised politicking about languages. The runic system we use now wasn’t a universal standard yet, which is probably why there are snatches of the older system we keep finding all over the place, although the architecture of the spell labyrinth is built from what became the universal system. In fact, that probably contributed more to it gaining dominance than any inherent virtue it might have had over other – ”

“It would have been a messy affair,” I cut in, to pull him back on track.

“A messy affair, yes. They had a huge structure to build. The actual school part, government and residential part, of course, which is probably directly under the school; the buffer layer with the empowered waterways underneath it; and of course, the spell labyrinth and the ‘heart’ of Refujeyo underneath. Right?”

“Right...”

“So. Think about that for a second. Think about what happens when things break. The ventilation system broke down that one time, and the school had to be evacuated. What would happen if the lights broke? If the portal system broke?”

“Disaster,” I said. “Yes, we’re in danger when something breaks, we know – ”

“No, no; you’re missing the point. Things that break are, presumably, powered by the spells underneath us, right? By whatever magical machinery is churning around down there.”

“Yes…”

“And some of them, like the ventilation system… if they break, the school is rendered uninhabitable.”

“Okay…”

“So, how was the school used while it was under construction? How would people move through it to build things?”

“Oh!” Kylie said. “The magical architecture would have to be built first!”

“Exactly! The bottom layers would need to be built before the top layers. I’ve been checking through contract and trade records to confirm, and I’m pretty sure that they built the spell architecture before starting on the habitable parts. And I’m pretty sure, just based on how one would sensibly build a giant rune, that they started in the middle. Which means, there needs to be a way to get down there from the surface, that doesn’t go through the school or the entire labyrinth. There has to be a way down from Duniyasar.”

“Not necessarily,” Kylie said. “Duniyasar is surrounded by changeable portals, remember? Couldn’t they have set up temporary portals through those to do the work? And there aren’t any little flags to open those portals now, so…”

“I don’t think they did it that way,” Max said. “Remember, Duniyasar is part of the overall structure.” He picked up a stick. “You guys remember where in Duniyasar our mysterious ancient runic language is?”

Not really. Max studied that stuff. “Um, it’s all woven through the tapestries hiding the hidden staircase,” I said. “And also in those weird wells, I think?”

“Exactly.” Max used the stick to poke five little holes in the sand and connect them into a pentogram. “Five points to create a one of the oldest kinds of runic circle in the world, encompassing most of the interior of the building.” He drove the stick into the sand in the middle of the pentogram. “And a channel spiralling up from the centre of it, all the way to… well, to the top of the world. This is the ‘big picture’ shape of how magical energy is designed to move through Duniyasar – through the top part of Refujeyo. This is presumably as old as Duniyasar itself, so then they built down, they would have extended it, not built something cut off from it.”

“Okay,” I said, “but I don’t see…”

Oh.

Oh. There were six rune-covered wells in Duniyasar. Five to form the points of the pentogram, one right in the middle of the tower. The tower channelled up. The central well channelled down.

“Are you fucking serious?” I asked.

“It all checks out! I mean, I need to actually go and have a look once we can get to Duniyasar again, but – ”

“Max,” I said. “Mate. This is absolutely the dumbest, most suicidal plan you’ve come up with, ever.”

“He did run off into the Labyrinth of Dreams by himself that one time,” Kylie cut in. “And he dissected Alania’s old staff without any safety precautions and it nearly killed him. And he shattered the bones in – ”

“Max,” I said. “Mate. This is absolutely the dumbest, most suicidal plan you’ve come up with for at least a couple of months. Timmy is gonna get stuck in a well? That’s your big plan?”

“We’re running out of time to – ”

“You’re just trying to offload that spell in your arm as quickly as possible, and you’re doing reckless things to do it.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk! Do you have any better ideas? For next steps?”

“Well… no. But, I mean, it’s a well. What do you plan to do?”

“Get some rock climbing equipment and go down there, obviously.”

I stared. “What.”

“You get your equipment through the school; I’ll just – ”

“Have you ever actually climbed anything? Ever?”

“I’ll practice in the gym first, obviously.”

“Oh. Fantastic. That’ll prepare you nicely for a completely vertical drop down a sheer, curved surface. Definitely a beginner’s climb, that.”

“I’ll abseil down, then.”

“Down a vertical drop, with no abseiling experience whatsoever.”

“It can’t be har – ”

“How do you plan to get back up?! It is a well. There are no handholds. It is not a natural surface, it is built specifically to stay a smooth surface for as long as it can, because it is a well. What are you going to do, bring a hammer and pitons? With those weedy arms? And nothing to hold onto while you hammer them in? And, oh yeah, the fact that this whole excursion depends on that well being covered in runes that are a conduit for large amounts of magical energy? You want to go hammering metal spikes into that conduit? Is that the plan?”

“I’ll go down, and you guys can pull me back up,” he shrugged.

“No,” Kylie and I said together.

“If we do find any safe way to go down there,” I said, “the guy with the rock climbing experience is going down. You’re not going down alone.”

“And if you’re right about that well somehow leading to the centre of the spell labyrinth, I’m going, too,” Kylie said. “I’m the only one with a powerful spell that I can channel at will to ward off any weird dream illusion magic. Without me, you’d be unprotected.”

“So we need a safe way down and back up, that doesn’t involve leaving anyone behind to pull anyone up,” I concluded. “If we just get stuck down there again to await either death or rescue then this whole thing is a dangerous waste of time.”

“When did you become the one to plan ahead?” Max asked.

“When I got sick of getting fucked over in some fashion any time I ever entered a vortex of free spells,” I said. “I feel like I need to get in and out with nothing bad happening at least once.”

“Well,” Kylie said. “While our route to Duniyasar is blocked by all those security guards, at least we have time to plan this.”

“Us, properly plan something.” Max shook his head. “What is the world coming to?”