by John Bierce
“That’s still absurd,” Sabae said. “Has anyone ever had more than that?”
“Not many, but a few,” Artur said. “There was the Two-Legged Army on the Gelid continent. At least a dozen different minds all trapped in a single body, each with their own affinities. Not much is known about them, but they’re thought ta’ have had at least thirty affinities.”
“There was the Stone Arborist,” Alustin said. “Had around twenty affinities, all for different types of stone. She wasn’t a battle mage, though— she used her magic for art, crafted an entire forest of stone trees deep in the Skyhold Mountains. Most of them are still there, but it’s nearly inaccessible. It’s about as north as you can go without hitting the sea.”
“How does developing new affinities even work?” Godrick asked. “Ah’ve never been entirely clear on that. Hugh’s planar affinity is artificial, right?”
“Kanderon’s planar affinity is artificial,” Alustin said. “Hugh just got it from her. And there are three ways to do it, though each is terrifyingly complex and time-consuming, and involves countless failed castings of spellforms from your target affinity in an attempt to bud a new mana reservoir. First you can split an affinity, which is to develop a second affinity that’s a more specific version of the first. That’s what the Stone Arborist did from her original stone affinity. Developing an ice affinity from a water affinity would be another example. Then there’s a conceptual jump, where you develop a closely related affinity to your own, like developing a dirt affinity from a stone affinity, or a copper affinity from an iron affinity. The last… well, that involves attempting to bud a new affinity that’s nowhere near your own. That’s what Kanderon did with her spatial affinity, and it’s one of the most impressive achievements a mage can pull off. It requires a deep understanding both of the subject of the affinity and of the theory-craft of the affinity itself.”
“What’s the easiest artificial affinity to develop?” Hugh asked.
Godrick could feel Hugh’s ward activate as his friend spoke.
“Cheese affinity,” Alustin said.
Godrick couldn’t help but laugh at that, as did everyone else.
“What?” Alustin asked. “I’m not joking, it really is. It’s time consuming, sure, but otherwise it’s a straightforward process. Takes about three years, but it’s almost a guarantee.”
“What do you even use a cheese affinity for?” Sabae asked.
“Aside from making cheese?” Alustin asked. “Well…”
Talia interrupted him. “Uh, Godrick? Your arm is gone.”
Godrick glanced over and noticed, to his alarm, that his left hand and forearm had faded into shadow. He could still feel it, and when he moved his hand, the shadows shifted where his arm should be.
Gingerly, he touched his left hand with his right. He could feel the weird shadow sensation with his right hand, but the left didn’t feel the right hand touching it at all.
“This is really weird,” Godrick said.
The shadow started slowly creeping up his arm.
“Your dad doesn’t have a mouth anymore,” Talia said.
Godrick glanced over to see that the lower half of his father’s head had turned to shadow, save for the tips of his beard. Artur glanced over at him and shrugged.
“Weird,” Godrick said— or tried to. The sound came out mangled and garbled, and he poked around in his mouth with his tongue, only to not be able to feel half of the inside of his own mouth.
Godrick felt around with his fully shadowed left hand, and where there was shadow on this side, he could feel stone on the other, and vice versa.
Then one of Godrick’s eyes went dark. He blinked, and suddenly he was seeing double.
Out of his left eye, he still saw the room in the normal world. But out of his right eye, he could see the room in the pocket dimension. Everything that was shadow in the real world was visible in the pocket dimension, and everything that was visible in the pocket dimension was shadow in the real world. His mind could barely cope with what he was seeing for a moment, and he felt momentarily nauseous. He struggled not to vomit, though, because he really didn’t want to deal with trying to figure out how that worked in his split state.
Everyone else was transferring over in the same bizarre piecemeal manner as well. The worst were Alustin’s arm, Hugh’s spellbook, and his da’s iron ring. Alustin’s tattoo seemed to have expanded and twisted, reaching out in directions that Godrick was fairly sure didn’t exist at all. Hugh’s spellbook seemed simultaneously normal and a great cloud of crystal sheets of paper the size of a house, with sheets drifting in directions simultaneously perpendicular to every axis of motion Godrick had ever seen before.
His da’s ring just loomed the size of a small mountain.
Then, all at once, his vision snapped back together, and everything that was shadow became fully visible. The ring, the book, and the tattoo all looked normal again.
“Did it work? Are we through? Ah don’t feel any different,” Godrick said.
“Listen,” his da said.
Godrick listened and heard… nothing. No lapping of water against the building’s support columns, no frogs calling for mates or distant growls of predators.
It was quieter than anything Godrick had ever heard before outside of a silencing enchantment.
“We made it,” Alustin said. “We’ve just left Anastis.”
Godrick heaved himself to his feet, feeling a bit wobbly. He glanced down at his hands, and noticed that the smallest finger on his right hand was still shadow. Then, as he watched, it popped into full visibility.
So weird.
He started to walk towards the balcony, only to pause. “Hugh, is it safe to cross the ward?”
Hugh nodded, looking disoriented and a little sick. “It’s only a mosquito ward, it’s fine.”
“Are yeh alright?” Godrick asked.
Hugh nodded. “I’m fine, I just should not have watched my spellbook transfer over for as long as I did. I’m pretty sure I saw into its extradimensional space. Also, my link to Kanderon feels weird. Actually, it feeling like anything is weird, I don’t usually feel much of anything from it. Just give me a minute.”
Godrick nodded and stepped out onto the balcony, where he saw…
Nothing.
It was pitch-black outside of the light of the glow-crystals.
“Well, that’s not ominous,” Artur said, stepping beside him and leaning against the stone railing.
“Yeh know,” Godrick said, “ah always thought ah’d never match yer adventures. Ah always planned ta’ have plenty a’ my own, but ah never seriously thought ah’d do anythin’ like what yeh had by mah age. But ah guess this isn’t half bad in comparison.”
Artur gave him a long look. “Ah often wish ah had somethin’ ta teach yeh other than magic and war, Son. Ah suppose there’s sailin’, but yeh get why ah was less than eager ta’ take yeh ta’ sea, right?”
Godrick nodded. There was a lot Artur had never told him about his years conscripted at sea, but what few stories Godrick’s mother had been willing to share had been horrific. Part of Godrick didn’t want to know more.
“Ah honestly woulda’ loved it if ah could have taught yeh ta… ah dunno, brew ale or somethin’. Did ah ever tell yeh ah fantasize about that sometimes? Settlin’ down, openin’ an inn somewhere. Highvale, maybe? Always liked it there.”
Godrick shook his head. He’d never heard this before.
“It’s a pipe dream, and ah know it,” Artur said. “That’s the thing about power, son. Once yeh step on that path, the only way off is ta’ step over the cliff. Archmages don’t get ta’ retire simply, son. They’re always a’ threat ta’ someone, or someone thinks they can use them. Ah never had a choice about becomin’ powerful, because it was either that or never escape the sea. And ah hate the fact that yeh aren’t goin’ ta’ ever get that choice either. As mah son, yeh get ta’ inherit all mah old enemies, and yeh have ta’ prove yerself against mah image in everyon
e else’s eyes. Yeh never just get ta’ live yeh’re own life.”
“Trust me, ah know,” Godrick said. “Ah’ve thought about it often enough. Ah’ve never resented yeh for an instant, though. At least, not that ah wasn’t immediately ashamed a’ myself fer. Yeh did yer best fer me, even after mum got sick. And yeh taught me better’n anyone else coulda’.”
Artur wrapped one arm around Godrick’s shoulders. “She’d be proud a yeh, yeh know. As proud as ah am.”
Godrick just nodded, a little embarrassed.
It felt good to hear, though.
“Ah think ah can see somethin’,” Artur said.
Godrick squinted his eyes, then he saw it too.
Patches of gold. They were faint, almost impossible to make out, but they were there.
“Ah think it’s some a’ the glowin’ algae, got splashed up on the walls,” Godrick said.
“Ah can’t see an end ta’ it. How big is this city?” Artur asked.
“We’re about to find out,” Alustin said, from behind them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Movement in the Dark
To his own surprise, Hugh was actually wishing he were back in the jungle right now.
The others kept telling him that they were envious of his night vision, but Hugh wished he didn’t have it at the moment.
There was no light in the pocket dimension whatsoever, save for their own and the occasional splashes of gold on the buildings that had been left there by the wave. It was rapidly fading and dying out of the water, and in the relative cool of the air in this place, but every time Hugh turned his head, they tricked his eyes into seeing motion. Every time he focused, it always proved to be nothing, but it was disorienting, and left him constantly on edge.
It didn’t help how uncomfortably cool it was in the pocket dimension. Not cold, but cool.
“What would happen if you fell in the canal?” Talia asked, leaning against the bridge railing. “Would you just fall forever, or?…”
“Let’s find out,” Alustin said, then tossed his glow crystal off the bridge.
It fell about fifteen feet, bounced a couple times, then stopped.
“That’s about where the lakebed would be,” Sabae said.
“If I had to guess, anytime you tried to exit the edge of the pocket dimension, it would just feel like the way the shadows did,” Alustin said. “They would just push you away.”
Alustin levitated the glow-crystal back up to his hand.
“I suppose a claustrophobic extra-dimensional cave is better than an endless void,” Talia said.
“Can we keep moving?” Hugh said. He really, really didn’t like being out in the open like this.
Talia gave him a concerned look as they started back up, but Hugh just shook his head, then resumed watching the shadows around them.
They trudged on and on through the empty city. It was disorienting seeing how undamaged most of it was— there had been no battle, no siege. The Exile Splinter had struck the city, and in a moment, it was gone, cast out from Anastis.
Hugh wondered what it must have been like. Had it struck in the day, turning the sky black? Had the population of the city panicked all at once? Or had it struck at night, and the realization of what had happened been a slower, more insidious thing?
Had the Ithonian Empire kept control of the city, or had it descended into chaos at once?
How long had it taken the last inhabitants of the city to die?
“It feels bizarre being able to read the street signs,” Sabae said.
“The Ithonian language has changed very little in the past five hundred years,” Alustin said. “We don’t know what they did to it, but they somehow… stabilized it. Made it more resistant to change. Whatever they did, though, it’s started breaking down over the years. A couple centuries ago, you wouldn’t even find regional accents, and now you have accents as thick as the Lothalan one.”
“We speak just fine, yeh’re the ones who can’t talk proper,” Artur said.
Godrick chuckled at that.
Hugh didn’t laugh at the emerging squabble, he just kept a watch on the dim lights of the dying algae.
They must have traveled a couple of miles when Sabae gasped. Not miles as the drake flew, of course— the bridges and canal walkways of Ithos were in no neat grid, but instead they went every which way. They’d probably only made it less than half that distance towards the center of the city.
“Anyone else really getting creeped out by this place?” Talia said, a moment after Sabae gasped.
Hugh gave one more look around them, then turned to see what they were looking at.
The wall of the nearby building— a concert hall, perhaps— was covered in carved graffiti. Half of it was illegible, but what Hugh could read was filled with mad rantings about darkness, the cold, and vows of revenge against whoever had banished the city.
Over all of it, written in letters gouged a full hand’s length into the stone wall by some mage, was a single word.
Hungry.
Hugh shuddered and looked away.
They stumbled across the first ash pile not long after that. It sat dead center in a great courtyard. There were a few pits where the courtyard had collapsed downward into what should have been water, but none of them were close to the ash pile. It was huge, and filled with scraps of metal and deformed glass. There must have been countless fires ignited there, and Hugh understood exactly why they hadn’t found anything even vaguely flammable in the city so far.
Hugh glanced over to Talia and saw that she was staring at the ash pile as though stricken.
“Is it just me, or is it getting colder in here?” Sabae asked.
“It’s definitely getting colder,” Alustin said. “It was probably only as warm here as it was because of the influx of warm air from phasing into Anastis. I imagine that it drops well below freezing pretty quickly in here. Hence the need to burn everything.”
“Talia? Are you alright?” Hugh asked.
Godrick crouched down to pick up something out of the ash. He appeared puzzled for a moment, then gasped and dropped the object, staggering back.
“It’s bone,” Talia said. “The ash is filled with bits and shards of bone. I can feel them all with my affinity sense, Hugh. There are so many of them. And if I reach out to feel farther, I can feel more in the distance. And they weren’t all burned at the same time, either. Some shards were burned decades later than the oldest ones.”
Hugh’s eyes widened as he understood what Talia was saying.
“They’re all human,” Talia said.
She leaned over and vomited. Hugh stepped towards her, then stopped.
“Alustin,” he said.
“This was a mistake,” Artur said. “Ah shouldn’t a’ let yeh convince us ta’ come here. Ah coulda’ built us, ah dunno, an underwater bunker beneath the lake.”
“Artur,” Hugh said, his voice rising a little.
“It’s too late to change our minds now,” Alustin said. “And no matter how horrific this is, we’re still alone here. Tactically speaking it’s still our best place to wait for Kanderon’s return.”
“You’re wrong,” Hugh said.
Alustin turned to him, opening his mouth to reassure or argue with him, but Hugh interrupted him.
“We’re not alone here. I just saw something moving out there in the dark.”
Everyone reacted immediately. Sabae stuck her shield onto her arm and spun up wind armor, Alustin drew his sabre, and Godrick and Artur started to shape armor around themselves. Even Talia drew her dragonbone dagger and ignited it, despite the fact that she was still dry heaving.
Hugh already had his quartz crystal floating over his shoulder, so he didn’t bother with anything else.
“How many? Did you get a good look at them?” Alustin demanded.
Hugh shook his head and pointed. “Just one, and it was a long ways down that canal.”
“Ah can’t even tell there’s a canal that way,” Artur mutt
ered.
“Everyone be on your toes,” Alustin said. “We need to be prepared to be attacked or ambushed at any moment. If these are actually survivors, after all these centuries, they have the home advantage.”
“What if they aren’t survivors?” Sabae asked. “What if it’s some ancient, mad Ithonian lich or spirit?”
Alustin shook his head. “I’d be able to tell if we were in or near a demesne, and so would Artur. It’s something you pick up when you’ve visited enough of them. As for a spirit… well, I doubt it. Those are even rarer aether constructs than liches, and few are willing to turn themselves into one.”
Sheets of paper rushed out of Alustin’s tattoo, and formed a floating ward circle around the group. Hugh could tell this one was considerably more combat-oriented than the one Alustin had used in the waystation.
“Let’s get moving,” Alustin said. “We still need to find the Exile Splinter. Stay alert. Hugh, we’re counting on you to watch for threats.”
Hugh had no idea how long they walked after that. He honestly didn’t know whether it was minutes or hours. The only way he could tell time was by miles walked, and they had walked too many of those.
So much knowledge had been lost to the Exile Splinter, but they did know that Imperial Ithos had been the greatest city of its time, rivaling any city today. It must have had half again the population of Theras Tel, and sprawled out across leagues.
Even so, they must have gotten close to its center and the probable impact site of the Exile Splinter already, but they kept hitting dead ends. They had to double back several times, and once even had to lower themselves down into the canal. It was hard to keep your balance walking on the shadows, and Hugh was convinced that they’d be ambushed as they climbed out.
And all that time it kept growing colder and colder, and Hugh kept watch over the darkness. As the algae died away in the dry and the cold, the radius that Hugh could see shrank steadily.
More and more, he saw movements at the edge of that radius. Never in more than one spot at a time, and often there would be long gaps between, but sometimes it would be atop a building, sometimes in one of the canals. And always, the moment he focused, it would be gone. It didn’t simply disappear, or flicker. Instead it moved unnaturally fast, or held so still that Hugh lost track of it.
