The Lost City of Ithos: Mage Errant Book 4

by John Bierce

  Sabae smiled at Talia, relieved that she knew Sabae wasn’t as callous as she had acted.

  Zophor stared at Talia thoughtfully, then smiled.

  “I’m delighted that you enjoy the tea,” he said. “It’s always good to find another who shares my good taste.”

  Both Talia and Zophor drank deeply, while Sabae took a sip to be polite.

  “So,” Zophor said. “You’re hunting Imperial Ithos.”

  Sabae nodded, there being no point in denying it.

  “I must admit,” Zophor said, “that this whole situation is of significant interest to me. I only became aware of it a few years ago, and I never imagined the ancient capital of Ithos might be so close to my demesne. I suspect there is much I still don’t know, however. It is, I think, quite curious the way that the great powers hunting it go about their pursuit. The younger and brasher powers pursue Ithos avariciously, but the wiser great powers— like your grandmother and her little Coven— seem strangely terrified by the city’s return.”

  Sabae took another small sip to give herself time to think. Talia, meanwhile, just looked puzzled.

  “I’ve noticed something similar,” Sabae finally said.

  “Do they perhaps think the Ithonians survived their exile, and seek revenge?” Zophor asked. “Or does Imperial Ithos carry back with it ancient weapons of great power?”

  “I don’t know,” Sabae admitted. “But I suspect if she believed any of the Ithonians had survived, Kanderon at least would be hunting the city out of something other than fear.”

  “I suspect you are correct,” Zophor said. “And likewise, there are quite a few mighty magical weapons in existence already— many in the vault at Skyhold, in fact, so it seems strange that might work up so many elder great powers into such a frenzy.”

  Zophor gently tapped a wooden finger on the table, contemplating.

  “Regardless of what the reason is,” he said, “I tend to take the opinions of the elder great powers more seriously in this case. They might tend towards the conservative and cautious, but they have one and all survived far more than us younger powers, which is worthy of respect. And while your grandmother may be an ephemeral like the two of you, it is your family that is the true great power, not any individual member of it.”

  Zophor finished his cup of tea, then set it deliberately down on the table.

  “There have been curious floods, these past few years,” he said. “Coming from upstream, rather than the sea. The first were small, starting about five years ago, and they only raised the river a finger-width or less. Of late, they’ve been raising it several feet, and have been coming closer and closer together. They’ve been occurring almost daily of late. They appear to be originating from Lake Nelu. Do you know it? It’s a vast shallow lake a few days travel upstream from here. No one lives up there, and few venture that far. It’s supposedly cursed.”

  Sabae’s pulse sped up, but she tried to keep her expression calm. Lake Nelu was the fourth site, and this was far, far too big a coincidence. Sabae was, abruptly, certain that they’d found Imperial Ithos.

  “I have to say, to my embarrassment,” Zophor said, “that I didn’t connect the floods with the hunt for Ithos until both agents of Kanderon and Havath arrived in force in my demesne. While the floods awoke quite a lot of curiosity among the citizens of my city, they caused relatively little damage, and scrying into Lake Nelu has seldom had much luck— which, I had assumed until recently, had to do with its thin aether.”

  “You didn’t send an expedition to look?” Talia asked.

  Zophor raised an eyebrow as he poured himself more tea.

  “My dear barbarian child, the farther north you travel in this forest, the more dangerous it gets. And I am not the only great power on the Ylosa. Lake Nelu is the Mage-Eater’s territory, and none live or venture there save the foolish and the foolhardy. I am far more than her match, for the Mage-Eater is one of the weakest great powers in direct combat, but she never ventures this far downstream, and I am loath to waste lives by sending my servants after her,” Zophor said.

  Sabae knew of a lot of great powers, but she’d never heard of one called the Mage-Eater before.

  Another great branch arm descended from above and dropped a small package on the table.

  “I believe that today is your belated birthday celebration, is it not, Talia?” Zophor said. “It isn’t much, but I simply can’t allow you to leave without some Tsarnassan fermented tea of your own. I do hope you enjoy the rest of your belated birthday celebrations.”

  Sabae, recognizing the dismissal, rose and gave Zophor a little bow. Talia quickly followed suit, thanking the lich for the tea.

  Sabae’s own cup was still two-thirds full, while Talia’s was already empty.

  As they turned to go, Sabae paused and looked back at Zophor.

  “I can’t help but imagine a scenario,” she said, “where, perhaps, after you separated our two groups, another of your avatars might have shown up to speak to the Havathi?”

  Zophor smiled at her. “You know, Sabae, you remind me of myself when I was young in some ways. Tricky beyond your years, and with little interest in toadying up to the powerful. There was even something of a physical similarity— we might have reasonably been mistaken as cousins.”

  “I’ve heard rumors you threw away your old body when you were done with it,” Sabae said, cautiously.

  Zophor frowned pensively. “I did, yes, but I somewhat regret not giving it a more dignified funeral. I don’t regret becoming a lich, and I might have despised my old body, but it served me well enough, and deserved better. And I mean no insult to you by comparing us— it was not hideous, nor malformed, it merely… didn’t fit me. Others found it appealing enough, I suppose.”

  He took another sip of his tea.

  “If we were to contemplate a scenario like the one you postulated,” Zophor continued, “then it would only be sensible if I offered the Havathi the same information. I may be powerful, but the Havathi Dominion is mighty enough to give me pause in the way few other nations would, and to do otherwise would be to court deep offense. Which, hypothetically speaking, I would seek to avoid.”

  Sabae nodded. “Thank you for indulging in my little game of hypotheticals.”

  “I feel tempted to extend it even further,” Zophor said. “Perhaps the Havathi, when approached, might be less polite than you two. And perhaps I might well recognize the borders they plan for their Dominion in the future include my demesne in it. And though I would, in this hypothetical, be averse to opposing them directly, well… hypothetically, it’s quite easy for guides to get cold feet, for rot to be found in boats, and for supplies to be misplaced. Hypothetically, it could cause a delay of, oh, at least a day, while hypothetically you might be able to get started as soon as tomorrow.”

  Sabae smiled and gave the lich another, deeper bow.

  Talia followed suit, once she’d finished Sabae’s tea.

  “Oh, and Sabae?” Zophor said. “Next time you speak to your grandmother, pass my regards, and thank her for steering her storms clear of my demesne. It was quite thoughtful of her.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The Fallen Moon

  “I don’t care what anyone says,” Captain Grepha said, “the Mage-Eater is not a great power. She’s not even a mage! Or intelligent, for that matter!”

  Talia exchanged a slightly baffled look with her friends at the argument between Alustin and Grepha.

  Hugh and Godrick had outdone themselves— they’d found a restaurant at the very top of one of the city-trees. It had individual dining platforms that jutted above the canopy, giving a view of the entire Ylosa River delta around them. To the south, you could see all the way to the open ocean.

  There were at least three of the strange storms visible in the distance. The revelation that Sabae’s grandmother had created them, or at least was guiding them, wasn’t a huge surprise, but it was intimidating, to say the least. The differences between a great power and
even a powerful archmage were terrifying.

  “The Sleeper Beneath the Sands is neither a mage nor intelligent,” Alustin said, “but it’s unquestionably one of the mightiest of the great powers.”

  “Or a named power, if yeh go by that classification scheme,” Artur interjected.

  “I don’t,” Alustin said, “though I also don’t consider the category of named powers entirely useless. Just unnecessary. There are hardly enough of them on the continent to warrant their own category— it’s debatable whether any great powers on the continent even deserve being in it other than the Sleeper in the Sands or the Listener in the Silent Straits.”

  Talia honestly would have been fine with a quiet little event, but Hugh and Godrick had rented out the largest of the platforms and had invited over a dozen of the Radhan from the Cormorant, which was still docked below. It was all paid for on Alustin’s nearly bottomless operations budget, apparently.

  They wouldn’t have been able to snag the tables, but there’d been an unexpected cancellation. Talia suspected it hadn’t been coincidental. Zophor might be acting for his own political reasons, but Talia certainly didn’t mind benefitting from that.

  “What about the Wanderer?” Hugh asked from his seat next to Talia.

  “She’s been dead fer centuries,” Artur said.

  Alustin gave Hugh a strange look, though.

  So did Talia, for that matter— why was Hugh bringing up a children’s tale?

  “The Sleeper is an ageless unkillable sunmaw capable of devouring the populations of entire cities,” Grepha said. “The Mage-Eater has killed, what, maybe a hundred mages?”

  “Ninety-three, over the last decade, from what the guides I hired tell me,” Alustin said. “Plus around another fifty non-mages. The latter number would be higher, but few non-mages venture that far upriver, and no-one has lived there in, well, living memory.”

  “How many mages have you defeated in battle?” Talia asked.

  “And how many have you defeated outside battle?” Sabae asked.

  Alustin ignored them both.

  “Oh, and by the way— the leader of that Hand of Swordsmen you just met was Qirsad Vain, wielder of Ashspine. She’s one of the most dangerous members of the Sacred Swordsmen— you should fear her nearly as much as the Mage-Eater, to my mind.”

  “What is the Mage-Eater, exactly? Ah’m not quite clear on that bit,” Godrick said.

  “It’s a storming tigress,” Grepha said.

  There was a moment of silence at that.

  “Someone explain how a tiger can kill nearly a hundred mages,” Sabae said.

  “Same way a tiger kills anything else,” Alustin said. “Attacks from behind, crushes your neck in a single bite. They can kill bears and gryphons, so humans are just small game in comparison. The Mage-Eater’s not even the only man-eater in this jungle, just the only one that specifically targets mages.”

  “Ah thought tigers usually avoid people,” Godrick said. “And how can the Mage-Eater even tell the difference between mages and non-mages?”

  “Most tigers do avoid people, outside the Ylosa River delta,” Alustin said. “The only time that normal tigers attack people is when they’ve been injured and can’t hunt more dangerous prey. It’s different in this delta, though. I have no idea why they attack humans more often here. Maybe it’s something to do with the brackish water of the delta, or maybe it’s just learned behavior?”

  Talia started to speak up at that, but Alustin interrupted her. “And no, humans are nowhere near the most dangerous game. We’re much more dangerous as hunters than as prey. And to answer your question, Godrick, all cats can see into the aether to some degree, so they can actually see your mana reservoirs and such. Most just don’t care.”

  “How do we even know that?” Hugh asked. “And will I…?”

  Alustin speared another bite of fish from his plate. “The answer is, as with so many things, grossly unethical and disturbing experiments by the Ithonian Empire. And no, Hugh, you won’t.”

  Talia assumed Hugh was asking about his sphinx eyes there.

  “So the Mage-Eater…” Talia said.

  “Was badly injured when she was younger by a mage,” Alustin said. “The few confirmed sightings of her report a massive burn scar running from the left side of her mouth down across one shoulder. Tigers may not be fully sapient, but they’re certainly intelligent enough to hold a grudge. She’s hunted mages ever since. And while your average tiger eats the prey in its entirety— often including the bones— she sometimes just eats the liver and then abandons the corpse near where she killed it, as if to taunt people.”

  “Still, that’s a ridiculous number of kills,” Sabae said. “Especially of mages.”

  “Magic doesn’t do you any good if you don’t have a chance to use it,” Talia pointed out. That was basic combat doctrine for the non-mage members of Clan Castis.

  “It’s not even that many for a man-eating tiger,” Alustin said. “Man-eaters usually kill a person a week to feed, which over the course of years can often add up to far, far more victims than the Mage-Eater’s known kills. I suspect she’s killed many more than we know about, as well. Tigers are among the smartest non-speaking creatures, and they’re capable of learning and adapting their hunting strategies remarkably quickly.”

  “I still refuse to call a tiger, no matter how dangerous it is, a great power,” Grepha said.

  Alustin shrugged. “You don’t need to. Zophor did, and honestly, the only real qualification you need to be a great power is to have other great powers acknowledge you as such.”

  Grepha just glowered at that.

  The rest of the evening went by quickly. The Radhan stayed for a little dancing. Talia monopolized Hugh for most of the evening, otherwise only dancing with Artur and Godrick once each. Sabae, meanwhile, danced mostly with Dell, but to Talia’s surprise, she also took turns with Tollin and Yarra. They seemed to have gotten over the ridiculous drama, at least for the evening.

  The musicians played somewhere down near the kitchens, but the music was somehow magically carried up to them. Talia wasn’t sure if they were using some sort of enchantment or if they had a mage among their number doing it.

  Probably the latter, but she didn’t care enough to find out.

  The Radhan cleared out just after sunset, leaving just the six of them. Seven, if you counted Hugh’s spellbook, which Talia most certainly didn’t.

  The sailors probably would have stayed longer, but Captain Grepha herded them all away, which Talia was grateful for— she liked them well enough, but it was good to have some quiet time with her friends.

  After the Radhan had all descended, her friends gave Talia her belated birthday presents.

  Alustin hadn’t gotten her anything, but then, he never got any of them birthday presents. Talia didn’t mind, though— he’d done more than enough for them over the years.

  Artur gave her a book filled with biographies of different singular battle mages— those who either had unique affinities or affinities that had been warped somehow, like her own. She’d heard of a few of them, like the Wanderer, but others, like the Kettle, were completely new to her.

  Sabae gave her a set of sturdy gloves. They were fashioned out of the hide of some heat-resistant creature or other— the seller wasn’t quite sure, but you could stick your gloved hand into a candle flame indefinitely and not feel the heat. Across the knuckles was sewn a thick band of bone, which would deliver a nasty punch, or serve as ammunition for Talia.

  When it was Godrick’s turn, he handed her a trio of novels that Talia was immediately excited to read— almost all of her reading lately had been from those dry philosophy texts Alustin was forcing on her. They were more interesting than she’d expected, but still, they weren’t exactly thrilling.

  “Ah’ve got ta’ admit, ah actually picked those up today,” Godrick said. “Ah originally was gonna give yeh some more lockpickin’ hairpins, because yeh went through ‘em so fast, but ah felt awful
about yer hair, and partially responsible.”

  Talia hugged him. “I don’t blame you at all, Godrick. You’re a good friend, and you’ve got nothing to feel bad about.”

  “Actually,” Hugh said, “I’ve been meaning to bring up something about that. Alustin, warlock-awakened enchantments contribute more to resonance cascades, don’t they?”

  Alustin nodded at that. “Hence why your spellbook probably triggered the cascade in the first place.”

  Hugh nodded at that. “I noticed something weird about the Rising Cormorant’s enchantments while I was fueling them— I think they’re in the process of being awakened by a warlock. I’m pretty sure one of the Radhan is pacted to the Cormorant. It’s not aware at all yet, so it’s pretty recent.”

  Everyone took a moment to let that sink in.

  “That could definitely have contributed to Talia’s resonance cascade,” Alustin said. “And, uh… give it a few decades, and that is going to turn into a seriously impressive ship.”

  “That also explains why Yarra and Tollin’s families aren’t competing over its captaincy,” Sabae said. “The warlock pacted to the ship must be the one being groomed to be the next captain! Unless Captain Grepha is the warlock?”

  Alustin shook his head. “According to what we know, Captain Grepha helped build the enchantments— at least to the extent of providing her pressure affinity for use, like Godrick did with his scent affinity for Hugh’s stink-eating marble.”

  Talia turned to Godrick. “See, now you definitely can’t blame yourself for me getting hurt.”

  Godrick shrugged, then gave her another hug.

  “Pressure affinities are a thing?” Talia asked.

  Before anyone could answer, Hugh’s spellbook fluttered above the table, and dumped around ten pounds of mixed salt and crushed insects in front of her. Not for the first time, Talia refused to imagine what else the book was keeping in its extradimensional storage space. The salt and insects looked fairly fresh, though— several of the insects were still twitching a bit.