On the Shoulders of Titans (Arcane Ascension Book 2)

by Andrew Rowe

  Patrick seemed to struggle to put enough mana into the rune at first. I couldn’t blame him, he’d probably never used more than a couple points to activate an item, and casting a spell probably felt completely different.

  But, all told, it only took him a few minutes to get the thirty mana into the first fire rune.

  Derek finished the rest of it in under a minute. And, of course, he didn’t look tired at all.

  In spite of his usual attitude, though, I don’t think Derek was just trying to show off the fact that he could help as easily as Keras could. When he smiled afterward and shook Patrick’s hand, I saw true comradery there.

  Making something, it seemed, brought out the best in all of us.

  Transference mana was last. I was tempted to try to do some of it myself, but after thirteen runes at 7.2 mana each, my hand was burning pretty bad. Taking the break in the middle had been smart, but it hadn’t been long enough for me to completely recover from that level of strain. I could have drawn from my mental mana, but I didn’t want to.

  So, I let Keras handle it. He seemed to have an easier time with these, going through them faster without breaking a single one.

  And then it was done. Twelve runes glowing on the hilt.

  “Okay, great.” Keras took a breath. “Now, let’s get the other side.”

  I stared at him incredulously. “You’re joking.”

  “Not at all. Need to make sure the sides of the sword match. And besides, I’m going to need more mana to work with.”

  I sighed. “Fine, fine. But first, I need a break. Can you tell us what the rest of the items do?”

  “Fine, fine. Let’s go.”

  We headed back over to the item pile.

  That foreboding looking dagger with the black aura?

  It was gone.

  I stared at the spot where it’d been lying last. Keras was staring right along with me.

  “That’s bad,” I offered.

  “Really bad,” he agreed.

  ***

  We spent the next hour or so searching the house for the missing weapon, but with no success.

  Patrick voiced what I suspected most of us were wondering. “How’d it disappear? Daggers don’t just get up and walk away...do they?”

  “More than likely, it teleported.” Keras knelt near the spot the dagger had been laying on the floor, turning his head toward Derek. “I take it the wards on this building are for keeping things out, not for keeping anything inside?”

  “Right. It didn’t vanish instantly, though. That’s unusual.”

  Keras stood up. “Probably was waiting for us to be distracted, so it could get a head start on us.”

  “You’re saying it was intelligent?” I asked.

  “Almost certainly. It was one of the few magical items in the box I didn’t recognize at all. Maybe it was dangerous enough that Wrynn didn’t want to tell me she had it, or maybe she just got it recently. Either way, your guesses about it are as good as mine.”

  Patrick frowned. “Could it be Luck’s Touch?”

  I hadn’t heard of that one. “What’s that?”

  Keras answered. “Intelligent shape-shifting weapon, usually associated with legends of Aayara Haven, the Lady of Thieves. And yes, it’s plausible Wrynn could have had Luck’s Touch. She and Aayara don’t get along, but Luck’s Touch is notoriously fickle. If he wanted to get on Aayara’s nerves, working with Wrynn for a while would be one way to accomplish that.”

  I nodded. “Okay. Any other possibilities?”

  “There are numerous intelligent weapons out there. It could very easily have been one bound with a monster, like the ones I use,” Derek offered.

  Patrick looked thoughtful. “Maybe it was the Midnight Star?”

  Keras gave Patrick an inquisitive look. “Doubtful, that’s supposed to have three blades, sort of like a trident. Surprised you’ve even heard about that, or Luck’s Touch for that matter. Those are legends from my own homeland.”

  “Ah, I like to study weapons and monsters in general. Stories of those go back to before the exodus to Kaldwyn.”

  “Hrm. Good to know. Derek, any chance you know a Diviner that can track the destination of a teleportation spell?”

  “Of course, but without something tied to the item, tracking it will be virtually impossible. A physical description is insufficient.”

  I thought about that. “Would the aura from the weapon have seeped into the wood where it was lying?”

  “No, not in just a few hours. If it’d been sitting there for weeks, maybe.”

  “Beggin’ your pardon m’lords, but if it teleported, would that’ve left a trail?”

  We all looked at Marissa, surprised that she’d interjected. She was usually quiet when Derek was involved in a conversation.

  Derek frowned. “That...might work. I can ask. Let’s finish cataloguing the rest of this, then I’ll go find a Diviner. I’d rather know what we’re dealing with before anything else wanders off.”

  Keras gestured at the remaining items. “Nothing too exciting here, I’m afraid.”

  He lifted up the mirror first. “Another communication device. Works like the earrings, but with images rather than sound. I would have been more excited about it, but I have one of my own, and it doesn’t seem to work at all. I’ll try to get this to function, but my best guess is that the paired mirror is out of range.”

  Keras set that aside and picked up one of the rings. It was silver with a design of a leaf, or maybe a feather. “Jumping ring. Motion— sorry, you’d call it transference magic. Fairly straightforward, it lets you jump much further.”

  I looked at the ring with renewed interest. “Further? Does it trigger when you jump and add an additional burst of force, or do you trigger it manually somehow?”

  “Not sure, never used this one, just saw Wrynn with it. I think you activate it manually, so I suppose that adds a bit of flexibility, but a little bit of a cost as well.”

  I nodded at that. “Okay, thanks.”

  He picked up the other ring, turned it over, and set it back down. This one was gold with a single blue gemstone. “Not sure about this one. We’ll have to have the Diviner look it over.”

  Next, a necklace with a spiral-shaped translucent crystal. “This is easily the strongest item in the bunch. Surprised she left it in the box. It blocks most mind-affecting spells.” He smirked at Derek. “I can think of a few people who might need something like this.”

  Derek folded his arms. “One time, Keras. It happened one time.”

  Keras shrugged a single shoulder. “Well, if you don’t think you’ll need it.”

  Derek leaned over and snatched the necklace out of Keras’ hand. “Fine. I’m borrowing it. We can talk about a trade later.”

  “Thought so.” Keras laughed, picking up the last of the glowing items — the hairpin. “Ah, yeah, Wrynn loves these. I’m sure everyone’s heard stories about hairpins being used as emergency lockpicks? Well, that rarely works well in practice. Except if you have a magic hairpin.”

  Now that was interesting, maybe even more than the necklace. I leaned a little closer. “Think it’d work on chests or doors in the tower?”

  “Don’t know. I usually just break those. But since Katashi seemed upset about my habit, it may be worth trying this out. You want to borrow it?”

  I nodded hastily. “You bet I do. Also, the jumping ring.”

  He blinked. “Really?”

  “Definitely. Mobility is one of my biggest weaknesses, especially compared to someone like you or Derek. I still wouldn’t be able to keep up with you, but I might slow you down a bit less.”

  Keras handed over the ring and the pin.

  “Thanks.”

  My response was subdued, but inside, I was positively gleeful. Even if I was just getting to borrow them, I loved having new magical items to play with. I didn’t know if the hairpin would actually work when I needed it to, but I could already think of several rooms where the ring might have help
ed.

  “Before I forget to ask, how do I actually use the hairpin?”

  “Oh, just stick it inside the lock. If you touch the tumblers, it should force them to realign.”

  Huh. That implied it had some kind of detection magic built in, otherwise it couldn’t know how the locks worked and how to realign them.

  Fascinating.

  I wanted to test that immediately, but I had a feeling Derek wouldn’t like me tinkering with his locks.

  Instead, I slipped on the ring. “Anyone want to make sure I don’t fall off the roof?”

  Patrick laughed. “Oh, I have to see this. Sera, Mara, you coming?”

  We headed up to the roof, which was definitely the best place to practice untested transportation magic.

  Definitely.

  ***

  I managed to avoid knocking myself off the roof the first time I used the ring.

  Not the second time, though.

  “Oh, goddess! Levitate!” Patrick shouted.

  ...And I floated safely down to the ground.

  My friends gazed over the edge, and I waved up at them sheepishly. “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

  The amount that the ring pushes me is based on the amount of mana that I send into the ring. It’s probably converting gray mana into transference, as Keras mentioned, or possibly air. Maybe a combination of both.

  Which means, if I use a little more from down here...

  I jumped, then activated the ring, and flew back onto the roof.

  My descent was slower than it should have been, even without Patrick’s intervention. Apparently, whoever built the ring was smart enough to realize that jumping high would result in falling from great heights.

  Still, I appreciated Patrick’s quick thinking when I’d fallen. A fall wouldn’t have killed me either way — my sigils and ring of regeneration would have saved me — but it sure could have hurt.

  I landed among my friends with a smile. “I could get used to this.”

  A bit more tinkering gave me a better idea of the ring’s intended uses...and maybe a few other options.

  After that, it was time to try out something I’d been waiting even longer to tinker with.

  “Patrick, come over here.”

  “Sure!”

  “Take off your glove.”

  He frowned, but complied. “Did I do something wrong?”

  Oops, did the social failure thing again. He probably thinks that’s symbolic or something.

  “No, no. I want to try out my new attunement and see if I can make you more powerful.”

  His expression brightened. “Oooh! Am I the first one?”

  I nodded. “Yep, haven’t tried it on anyone else yet.”

  I considered explaining my logic about Marissa and Sera having just received similar infusions of mana from other sources, but after considering it, I realized that would just diminish his happiness at being the first one I picked.

  He stuck his hand closer. “Okay, let’s do this. Hit me with all you’ve got.”

  I grinned, checking my mana watch. 65/84. I’d recovered almost all of my mana while we’d rested, and then used a bit of it again to tinker with the ring. My hand was still hurting, but it was tolerable for the moment.

  I turned my Enchanter attunement on. It’d help me monitor his aura to see what happened.

  With that done, I took Patrick’s hand. I sent a surge of mana through my attunement into his. The aura around my hand flashed, then glowed white while the attunement was active.

  That was unexpected — it didn’t glow like that when I was just enchanting an item. The aura must have been the purification function at work.

  From my side, it didn’t feel any different from the usual tingling sensation of sending my mana into an object. As I spent more time, the tingling would give way to burning, and then throbbing along with my pulse.

  I didn’t know what it would feel like to him, though. “Does that hurt at all?”

  “No, but it’s...maybe a little uncomfortable. It feels like my hand is filling up with water or something and that the water wants to get out.”

  Not a bad analogy for what I was doing to the attunement, really. “I’ll just charge it a little more, then—”

  His aura flickered, and his knees buckled for a moment. He stumbled away from me, his aura shifting from transparent to crimson.

  The rune on his hand changed.

  “W...woah!”

  Marissa caught him before he could fall over.

  I stepped closer. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, just, uh, wow. I think I need to spend some of this.”

  Marissa helped Patrick stand back up, then he turned his hand upward and cast a blast of lightening into the air.

  He took a deep breath and his aura faded back from Carnelian down to Quartz.

  His rune shifted back, too, changing to the simpler Quartz style.

  I patted him on the shoulder. “Better now?”

  Patrick nodded. “Yeah...that was just more intense than I expected. What happened?”

  Oh, right. He couldn’t see what I could see. “You hit Carnelian for just a second.”

  “Really? That is so amazing! Can you do it again?”

  I found myself grinning, infected by his enthusiasm. “Yeah, but I’m not supposed to push someone over their maximum capacity more than once per week. We didn’t really push you to your limit — that’d be temporarily doubling your mana — but I don’t think we should risk breaking any rules until I have a better idea of what I’m doing.”

  “Aww. I finally hit Carnelian and I barely got to do anything with it.” He laughed. “But it was still great! Thank you, Corin.”

  “No problem.” I subconsciously wiped my hand on my shirt. Touching someone else still wasn’t easy for me. The moment of experimentation had overridden my reticence toward touch, but now the aftermath was hitting me hard.

  “It only took me a few moments, so you’re already very close. You should hit Carnelian permanently soon. If you haven’t hit it by next week on your own, I’ll give you a boost once a week until you get there.”

  “That sounds amazing! Thanks!” He stretched his arms. “I think I could still use some more exercise, though. You want to practice a bit?”

  I shook my head. “Think I need to rest for a few.”

  Really, I just needed a few minutes of not dealing with people.

  “Maybe one of the other two will spar with you?”

  Marissa waved him over. I found a corner as far away as possible and sat down to watch.

  Sera sat down next to me in silence.

  She was intruding on my isolation...but I found myself being bothered less than I expected.

  Maybe it was just because I didn’t need to talk to her, but Sera didn’t bother me the same way that other people did, even among my friends. I didn’t know why, but at the moment, I didn’t really need to think about it.

  I did, however, think about other things in those next minutes of silence. Like how much fun it had been to spend some time experimenting with my friends, even if it had ultimately proven to be too intense to continue.

  It also made me realize that I’d taken an uncharacteristic risk by tinkering with the ring on the roof. True, I’d nearly blown myself up when I’d first built my gauntlet, but I’d taken what I’d considered to be reasonable precautions.

  This time? My main precaution was bringing my friends.

  And it’d worked. Even if the ring hadn’t had a built in safety function, Patrick would have saved me. I’d trusted them, and they’d helped me.

  That was...a surprisingly good feeling.

  Especially after everything I’d been through with the tower.

  Jin came back to my mind without an express invitation, and Tristan quickly followed.

  There was a part of me that felt like any trust that I formed was just going to be betrayed.

  I shoved that part of me aside as hard as I could. One moment of joy couldn’t banish ev
erything that had happened, but it was a good start, and I was going to bask in it for a while.

  Adding to my own positivity was Patrick’s obvious awe at the replica of Dawnbringer that we’d been working on. It wasn’t quite finished yet, but it was already obviously Patrick’s favorite thing in the world.

  He was having the time of his life just swinging it at Marissa, even if she was deftly dodging or deflecting every strike before it could connect.

  It was good that we hadn’t actually finished the sword yet, because I would have had to step in and stop him from using it if the weapon was more dangerous. I didn’t trust shield sigils to stop whatever crazy magic Keras ended up imbuing it with.

  Patrick nearly ended up going off the roof, too, before their sparring match was over.

  For a while, Sera and I just watched Patrick and Marissa’s sparring practice. After a bit, though, she passed me a note.

  Thanks for working so hard to find something to trade for me. With all these items, we’ll probably have something Sheridan wants.

  I wasn’t so certain about that. If anything, the intelligent dagger that had...wandered off seemed like the most likely candidate for something that would be considered forbidden knowledge.

  “No problem. I’ll keep working on this. And even if Sheridan doesn’t want to help, I’ll keep looking until I find someone who will.”

  I have some ideas, too. You don’t need to make this the only thing you focus on. I’m sure you still want to figure out what Tristan has been up to.

  In truth, I’d barely been focusing on that at all since I’d learned he was alive.

  It still hurt too much to think about.

  Couldn’t he have told me sooner?

  Five years. I still wanted to know what had happened to him...but the Tristan who had written to me in that book wasn’t what I’d imagined.

  I’d imagined that I’d find his body after many years of searching and beg the goddess to restore him to life. Or, if I was truly lucky, maybe he’d just be a prisoner in need of rescue. I’d known the latter case was unlikely, but I’d hoped for it, since it would be so much simpler.