Metal Mage 7

by Eric Vall

  “Come, we’ll have a short breakfast,” Luir called over his shoulder.

  Cayla glanced sidelong at me as we followed, and I shrugged.

  It seemed like Deya might be able to deflect the leader’s concerns for the time being, but I didn’t wholly trust the complete one-eighty his mood had taken since I’d snuck from the hall behind the Baroness.

  So, I kept the three women close at my side while we left a wide berth behind the leader and Deya.

  He chatted with her and teased her all the way along the footpaths of the valley, and Deya giggled for him while she shook her head or told him how her family were doing in the south.

  The furthest building in the valley was a long, gabled structure with a copper and lichen-flecked roof supported by stone pillars.

  Luir led us under the arching entrance, and as I brushed a few vines aside, silence fell in the hall.

  We were standing at the head of a large chamber with the morning breeze drifting in between the columns, and every white-robed elf stood from the long stone tables to turn and face their leader in unison.

  There must have been well over three hundred students gathered for their meal, and Luir gave a well pleased nod before he began to make his way to the only empty table at the head of the chamber. As we followed, every elf the leader passed bowed their respect, and I noticed Luir exchange more than a few smiles with his lady students.

  The majority of them gave a telling blush.

  The silence in the hall was almost oppressive by the time we made it to the head table, and only when Luir had taken his own seat did any of his students return to their meal.

  Luir settled Deya at his left side, and he beckoned for me to take the seat on his right while the three other women filed in around us.

  Aurora placed herself next to Deya as conversation resumed throughout the hall, and I noted the leader eyed the two women before he turned to me.

  “Mornings are rather crowded here, but it’s important for the students to understand I am merely another student of this world,” he explained, and he looked out across the hall with pride. “I learn as much from them as I have passed on in turn.”

  “What happens when they finish their studies?” I asked as three large platters were brought out by white-robed elves and placed along the table in front of us.

  “They do not,” Luir said simply. “The members of my House live here for the duration of their lives, and their freedom to continue their work is, for the most part, unbounding.”

  I nodded my appreciation. “That’s pretty amazing,” I mused. “You must be close to fully recovering the knowledge of your ancestors then, with centuries of experimentation taking place.”

  Luir smirked and began to fill his plate. “I won’t pretend you are a novice,” he said with amusement. “Dragir must have at least explained some of the craft to you during your time at House Quyn. Let me ask you a question, Mason Flynt.”

  I shoved a sizeable chunk of meat into my mouth just in case and nodded.

  “I am half certain you do not know how to wield runes, but you are aware of the mapping required to do so, yes?”

  I chewed for a moment and shrugged before I answered. “I know there’s degree lines that are tied to elements,” I told him. “That’s as much as I could get out of Dragir.” I sent the leader a wry look. “You’re the first elf to approach the topic without arguing or hurling a dagger at me.”

  Luir chuckled heartily. “That is the way of our lands, I’m afraid,” he replied. “Rune Magic was once an honored art in Nalnora. Over the years, those who would use it as a weapon tarnished the craft, and it was decided that this sort of knowledge could not be entrusted to just anyone. I’m sure you can understand. Your own weaponry seems to create the same predicament.”

  I nodded once more. “That’s true,” I admitted. “There have been a few offers I’ve declined for the same reason. Even Aeris was among them.”

  “I know,” the leader informed me. “I had a visit from our friend Aeris this morning. Pyrs as well.”

  I considered Luir out of the corner of my eye, but he seemed completely unbothered with entering the conversation, and with so many witnesses, I figured it might be safe to feel out the situation.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Luir mumbled through his bite. “You are not a very popular man amongst the Elite.”

  I swallowed. “We didn’t see eye to eye on a few things,” I explained. “Aeris wanted a hundred and fifty rifles, and I wanted to leave Lyrlus the moment I entered it.”

  The leader laughed loudly. “I can understand the sentiment,” he replied. “Although, I was unaware Aeris was so ambitious. That is quite a lot of weaponry.”

  “More than I’d trust a man like Aeris with,” I told him bluntly. “He was pretty upset about it.”

  “Yes, he’d like me to kill you for him,” Luir said casually before he took a long sip from his goblet.

  Then he gestured to a student who was stooped over a slip of parchment with a spoon hanging limp in the other hand.

  “That is Itham over there with the bronze hair,” Luir muttered. “He’s working on an elixir that would give the drinker a similar bile to that of the Raxis. He seems to think this would be useful in some way. So long as he doesn’t spit on the other students, I suppose it can do little harm.”

  I stared as the leader shoveled more food into his mouth.

  “I … didn’t realize Aeris was that upset,” I tried.

  Luir shrugged. “He’s a petty man,” the elf remarked. “In truth, I have no interest in the squabbles of the other Houses. Whether or not you stole his precious jewels hardly concerns me. You would be wise to steer clear of Lyralus, however.”

  The leader nudged me and sent me a broad grin.

  I grinned as well and chuckled my agreement, and Luir gestured to another student with long purple hair as if the topic was entirely closed.

  “Rhuenar at the end of that table is my most prized pupil at present,” he said. “She recently performed an experiment on a sphinx carcass that proved the beast’s internal organs can be harvested and altered in order to replicate our own.”

  “She … turned the sphinx organs into elven organs?” I asked as I slowed my chewing.

  “Yes,” he said proudly. “Remarkable, isn’t it?”

  I was about to ask what purpose this could possibly serve, but a white-robed elf approached the table to converse with his leader, and Luir wiped the food from his lips as he stood to follow him.

  “Pardon me,” he said to us all, “I have a few students who require my input.”

  I watched the leader stroll off to a table at the far end of the hall, and I leaned back in my seat as I finally let the tension in my shoulders relax. I’d been expecting a threat at any moment, or for every student in the vast hall to suddenly turn on us, but Luir seemed uninterested in Aeris’ favor.

  His amusement on the topic was actually pretty close to what my own had been before the Baroness outed Deya, and as long as the beautiful elf kept up appearances, we may have just dodged the bullet completely.

  I glanced toward Deya while the leader was occupied, and I was pleased to see she kept her focus everywhere but on me.

  Which meant I might have finally walked into a position where I could seek genuine input on the elven scrolls.

  Luir’s knowledge was clearly extensive, and his over two thousand years of wisdom had to have something of the ancient language in it. At the very least, with so many dedicated students on hand, I didn’t doubt someone could shed light on what the ancient texts dictated.

  The scrolls were currently burning a hole in my pocket, and as I watched Luir carefully sketching something out for his students, I decided I kind of liked the guy. If he could brush off the bullshit of the Elite and talk runes without being a prick, he was exactly who I needed to get to know in Nalnora.

  Even if there was something unsettling about those handsome grins. Smiling really didn’t se
em to come too naturally to a lot of elves, though.

  “He’s so involved with his students,” Shoshanne admired from my side. “At the Order of Pallax, there’s so much protocol that it’s difficult to get a moment to discuss privately with any of the instructors.”

  I smirked at my plate. “Oh, he’s definitely involved with them.”

  The students Luir was currently speaking with were gathered around him at the opposite corner, and as he explained his work, his hand slid to rest on the lower back of a pretty elf with stark orange hair.

  “You said your family are always welcome to return here?” Cayla asked as she leaned around Shoshanne to speak with Deya.

  “If we wanted to,” the elf replied.

  “Would you not be permitted to return to House Quyn if you did?”

  “I think not,” Deya said, and she lowered her voice a little before continuing. “Dragir has declined the invitation on a few occasions.”

  “That makes sense,” Cayla mused. “Isn’t he expected to take your father’s place as the head of House Quyn one day?”

  Luir’s eyes snapped straight to Deya when the princess asked this, and I realized the elf had been listening to every word.

  Deya must have noticed too, because she returned to her natural tone when she answered.

  “He will,” she said, “and I look forward to it. Dragir takes his responsibility to his own House very seriously. He will make my father proud when the day comes to carry on the legacy of my family.”

  Luir was already back to lecturing his students when Deya finished, but his expression struck me as an odd one.

  He’d mentioned Dragir several times while we toured the grounds, and I thought back over the many comments while I worked through my plate. By the time Luir returned to the table, the women were discussing the enormous rookery of House Orrel, and the leader began explaining the intricacies of using wild animals as transmuters.

  I kept half my focus on the discussion, but I couldn’t shake one of the leader’s less subtle comments he’d made just outside the same rookery the day before.

  Luir told me I should count myself lucky Dragir had bothered with me at all, and that he couldn’t get his attention if he tried.

  With his “eyes” trailing Dragir and watching from the sidelines during the battle in defense of House Quyn, I began to think I might have figured out what the head of House Orrel wanted from me.

  Why he was determined to get at Dragir was beyond me, though.

  The Halcyan rune of his grandfather was certainly impressive, but if a deal had been struck centuries ago to arm Luir’s soldiers with the blades, it seemed unlikely he needed more access to the enchanted weapons. Not to mention, the Halcyan blades were scattered all over Nalnora, and a man like Luir could easily obtain them if he wished.

  There was something more he wanted.

  Luir was detailing the blending of the senses between a transmuter and their chosen channel when I stretched and stood, and the leader promptly abandoned the conversation.

  “I think I’ll take a walk around the grounds,” I told him as I turned to leave, and just as I expected, Luir was up in an instant.

  “We’ll join you,” he said happily. “You’ve yet to see the furthest reaches of House Orrel.”

  I nodded as the women stood, and I decided I’d start pushing the discussions toward my own interests today and see if I couldn’t play into the leader’s own game.

  Whatever Luir wanted with Dragir, the elven scrolls would likely distract him. Given that Deya’s brother had suggested the idea first, it might be just the thing we both needed at this point.

  With Luir at my side and Deya on his arm, we headed between the stone pillars, and the leader gestured off toward the glade that stretched into the valley behind House Orrel.

  “You mentioned the mapping of degrees,” I said after a moment. “Can you decide what a degree will harness, or is this something that’s already determined?”

  Luir smiled. “If only it was as simple,” he mused. “The mapping of rune magic was discovered by the ancients, so these elements were come upon. We can’t define them any which way we please because they are already there. The degree mapping simply allowed us to realize them. But if we can’t identify the elements the map is capable of connecting to, or in some cases name them directly, they are entirely inaccessible.”

  I furrowed my brow. “Name them?”

  “Yes” The leader nodded.

  He released Deya as she drifted to follow Shoshanne down a branching path, but he stayed beside me as we headed into the wilds in the further reaches of the valley.

  “If an element only needed a line to be drawn in the right place, any fool could wield the power of rune magic,” Luir explained. “There is a reason it was, and still is, considered an art form and a science. Unless you can work with clear intention to harness an element, there is no access to its power. If I draw a line on the map, I must know what I draw it for, or else it’s only a line.”

  “That’s probably a good thing with some elements,” I pointed out. “You wouldn’t want a mad man harnessing lethal powers by some happy accident.”

  Luir chuckled. “But a completely sane man wouldn’t mind the help,” he added.

  I smirked. “Are you the sane man?”

  “I am,” the leader sighed. “I have worked for centuries to restore what has been lost for my people. In some instances, I have been lucky, but without a clear path of intention, I fear the endeavor is an impossible one. My students are dedicated and innovative individuals, but you cannot create something from nothing. You cannot access all knowledge simply because you want to, or have worked your entire life to do so.”

  The leader paused to scan the plants around us for the women, and I considered his statement for a moment.

  “What would you do if you could?” I finally asked, and I studied his expression carefully.

  “If I could complete my life’s work?” he asked with a grin, and he looked even younger at the prospect.

  I nodded.

  Luir furrowed his brow thoughtfully, but after a long moment, he smirked and shrugged.

  “I can’t imagine what I would do,” he admitted, “but I know that is not the answer you want. You expect my age to supply a better one, but my years have made me acutely aware of changeability. Age doesn’t bring constancy. What I would do if I could complete my work and fully restore the knowledge of my ancestors would depend on the circumstances.”

  I was surprised to get such an honest answer, and I couldn’t disagree with his logic. It wasn’t wholly reassuring, but it was better than pretending to be a saint.

  “You did say you keep your trove well fed, though,” I pointed out, “that power was the only thing that could sustain.”

  Luir grinned and beckoned for Deya through the leaves as he caught sight of her.

  “I stand by my word,” he assured me. “The study of rune magic is extensive enough to sustain through multiple lifetimes. In this way, a man never falters if he continues his work and shares his knowledge with his subjects. Only by carrying the study onward can I truly remain in my place. It’s not wealth or age that keeps me here.”

  Deya smiled sweetly and gladly took the leader’s arm as she joined us.

  “It’s an honorable endeavor,” she told him.

  “It is,” Luir agreed, “and one I would hope your brother could learn the importance of.”

  Deya’s smile faltered. “He respects your work immensely,” she assured him, “but his place is with his House.”

  “His place is within the walls of his ancestors,” Luir corrected, and his tone was less playful with the woman than it had been all morning. “Dragir’s true place is at my side, and if you cared for the future of your race, you would respect this.”

  “I … I do care for the future of our race,” Deya stammered in her confusion.

  “Then dedicate yourself to the work,” the leader commanded.

  His eyes sud
denly took on a more dangerous cast, and Deya paled a degree as he stared her down.

  “You have wasted years wandering through the jungles, Deya,” Luir continued. “What are three years to an elf? I have dedicated centuries to our nation. Begin your work as you should and stop behaving like a child. Both you and Dragir are sorely misled from the paths you were made to travel down, and it’s an insult to our kind that you should be as selfish.”

  Deya bristled. “Those three years belong to me by law and--”

  “And what do you need them for?” the leader interrupted coldly. “To tend to your ridiculous father and play with dogs?”

  I watched the leader’s hold on Deya’s arm tighten as she flushed, and when she spoke again, her voice wavered slightly.

  “In three years, I will have to serve Nalnora for the rest of my life,” she told him. “What do you care if what I do now is for myself?”

  “What you do now could determine how miserable the rest of your life becomes,” Luir warned.

  “It will be miserable regardless,” Deya countered, and she ripped her arm free as her eyes began to well with tears.

  My first instinct was to reach out for her, and I remembered not to a split second too late.

  Whether the leader noticed the slight shift in my arm, I couldn’t tell, because he quickly closed the gap between himself and Deya to snatch her back, and as he held her elbow in a vice, the beautiful elf refused to meet his penetrating gaze.

  The other women came along the path to find the three of us like this, and when the leader saw them, he flashed what would have been a charming grin if Deya’s arm wasn’t turning purple in his grip.

  Then Luir directed his unsettling eyes toward me for a long and silent moment before he abruptly turned.

  With no shadows falling at Deya’s feet, I knew how easily Luir could control the weightless elf, and he roughly pulled her along with him as she stumbled to keep up.

  “Come,” Luir ordered over his shoulder, “we are nearly there now.”

  Aurora fell into step beside me and sent me a worried glance, but I minutely shook my head at her. A part of me, a very large fucking part of me, wanted to rip Luir’s arm off for the way he was touching Deya, but I knew if I flew off the handle now, it could cause some serious problems for us. So, I just gritted my teeth as I marched after the Head of House Orrel.