by Rowe, Andrew
“The practice of taking children away from home like that is barbaric. Your parents must have been furious. How old were you?”
Taelien shrugged. “I was ten. Honestly, it wasn’t so bad. My parents were upset, sure, but they had gone through the same thing when they were young. I hated it for the first couple years, but I learned skills I never would have back home.”
Never thought I’d be thankful for all those hours of running, climbing, and sparring.
“About four years in, they transferred me to a Thornguard facility for more advanced training. Most of the students there were older, and it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that the majority of us would end up as Thornguard. I finally had a chance to pit myself against some stronger opponents.”
“One of my fellow trainees was a talented flame sorcerer named Nerys. She had a spell that surrounded her with a whirlwind of fire. During our training matches, I couldn’t even get close enough to swing a sword at her. After losing a couple humiliating bouts, I developed a strategy.”
He raised the Sae’kes and ran a finger along the metal rim of the scabbard. “I already could manipulate metal that was touching other metal, and I had a minor talent for flame sorcery. I spent months practicing trying to sense and move a fire just by touching it with metal. Eventually, I succeeded. Nerys still throttled me in our next match, but at least I managed to startle her.”
The swordsman gave a deep laugh, raising a hand to his lips. “That girl was a beast. Anyway, I loved the fighting, but I hated the philosophy the Thornguard were always drilling into us.”
“That’s interesting,” Lydia perked up a bit. “You didn’t like the Thornguard’s philosophy? What about it?”
“My parents had raised me on stories of heroes working together to accomplish things they couldn’t on their own, or sacrificing themselves to save their allies. The Thornguard drilled it into us to focus on getting the job done. We had training exercises designed to get us to learn to leave wounded allies behind. It made me sick.”
The sorceress smiled. “I can understand why you’d have an objection to that. The Tae’os philosophy emphasizes preserving life.”
“I know. My parents are Tae’os worshippers. I assume that’s why Erik brought me to them specifically – Rethri followers of the Tae’os pantheon are rare.”
“I don’t think you mentioned before that you were raised by Rethri.” Lydia quirked an eyebrow.
“Didn’t I?” he shrugged. “Well, it didn’t really matter to me that they were Rethri, or matter to them that I’m not. In any case, the worst part about the Thornguard training was that it worked. I knew what the exercises were designed to do, but I went along with them anyway. It took one of my friends being seriously injured to get me to stop and reassess the situation. Even then, I had to stay until my six years were up. My commander tried to convince me to stay, but I couldn’t stomach any more of it.”
“Of course, just because I was ‘finished’ with my mandatory service didn’t mean I was completely out yet. I was in the reserves for another four years, going back periodically for more training. They tried to recruit me permanently every time I visited.”
A knock sounded on the door. Lydia’s hand immediately dropped to her sword, but Taelien just glanced toward the room’s entrance. “Good morning,” he said. “We’re both awake, you can come in.”
The knob turned, but the door didn’t open. “It’s locked,” Jonan’s voice said. Lydia took a deep breath, relaxing her grip on her weapon and moving to flip the lock a moment later.
As the door opened, Lydia stood up, nodding to Jonan. He looked exhausted. His hair was disheveled, and he looked to be wearing a much thicker pair of glasses. Normally, Taelien wouldn’t have paid much attention to the spectacles, but these were both broader in frame and thicker in the glass to such an extent that they dominated the appearance of his face.
“Mornin’,” Jonan said. “Care for some food? It’s the non-poisoned kind,” he said with a wink at Lydia.
Taelien put a hand over his stomach and grinned. “Sounds tasty.”
Lydia nodded. “Yes, thank you. We can discuss business while we eat.”
Jonan shrugged mildly at that, turning and leading the way down the stairs to where they had held him captive the previous night. He had apparently moved a few things around while Taelien was sleeping, and now three chairs sat next to a table that was no longer cluttered with panes of glass.
Taelien took a seat immediately, but Lydia remained standing a few feet away while Jonan retrieved plates and food from his cupboard nearby. It was simple fare – dried meat, cheese, and more of the same bread from the previous evening. Even so, Taelien was grateful for anything to eat after several days on the road and much of a day in the Adellan Room.
“Thank you for feeding us,” Taelien offered as he began to fill his plate. Lydia sat awkwardly a few moments later, looking like she had judged that the plates were not currently planning to assassinate her.
“You’re welcome,” Jonan said, fetching a set of wooden mugs and a large clay jug of liquid. “It’s water,” Jonan said meaningfully to Lydia, and she gave him a curt nod in reply.
While Taelien began to eat, Jonan retrieved one last thing – a large swath of parchment – and unrolled it in the center of the table. It didn’t quite reach where he was sitting, but Taelien glanced at the parchment and realized it was a map of the city with several locations circled.
Taelien examined the map, but he wasn’t familiar enough with the city to recognize most of the circled locations.
The city map was divided into six sections. The “Old City” was a roughly triangular section that stretched from the southern city wall to near the city’s current center. There were multiple circled buildings here, including the “Low Palace” and the “Grand Temple of the Spear”.
Near the top of the triangle was the entrance to the Noble’s District, an hourglass shaped section with a large circled structure – the “High Palace” – north of the center of the hourglass shape.
The Merchant’s District encompassed a large portion of the north east side of the map, starting from around the center of the hourglass. Taelien noted several circled structures in that area, but none of them were labeled.
The Craftsman’s District was roughly opposite of the Merchant’s District, but considerably larger, and the buildings appeared to be more densely packed together. Taelien took that to mean that “Craftsmen” were considered lower class than “Merchants” within this particular city. He guessed that the distinction involved craftsmen making products directly, whereas merchants more than likely were involved in selling finished goods.
South of the Craftsman’s district was the Mining District, a smaller area that was similarly densely packed. There were no circled buildings in that area.
Below the Merchant’s District was the Worker’s District, which encompassed largest portion of the city. The city gate where Taelien had entered was located in the Worker’s District, although he noted other gates in the Old City and the Noble’s District. He kept those locations in mind in case he had to flee the city.
From the layout of the city, he guessed that he had been imprisoned in the “Low Palace”, and then headed north with Lydia into the Noble’s District.
“What’s the relationship between these circled locations?” Taelien asked.
“These are places that I suspect the Rethri might be held. I started with a much larger list, and I have been narrowing it down over the last several months,” Jonan explained.
Lydia quirked an eyebrow at Jonan. “You’ve been spying at these places for months without getting caught?”
Jonan shrugged. “I haven’t actually managed to get inside everywhere personally. Mostly, I’ve been gathering information through other sources.”
“If that’s the case, what is your degree of confidence that the places you’ve already disqualified are not holding the Rethri?” Lydia asked, a hard tone of disapprov
al in her voice.
“I, uh, am fairly confident. My informants are very good at their work, and if anything was particularly suspicious, I inspected it as best I could. Admittedly, there have been some locations I have not been able to access extensively, which is why they remain circled here,” Jonan explained.
“So, you need our help,” Taelien concluded.
Jonan put a hand to his chin, leaning on it against the table. “Your help would, well, be helpful. In the fullness of time, I suspect I could get access to all these places by hiring more assistance. I believe we might be running out of time, however, if we haven’t already. Hiring trustworthy people for subterfuge is tricky business. I’ve had to be very careful, preferring contacts that have worked with my priesthood before.”
“I’d like to help you,” Lydia said in a conciliatory tone, “But I have other things I need to be investigating, and I’ve already jeopardized my cover by helping Taelien escape. I’m willing to do some of my own research, but I can’t be caught working with you.”
Lydia ran a finger across the map, tracing a path between the various circled locations. It was obvious she was thinking, so neither of the men interrupted her.
“What was your methodology for selecting these locations?” Lydia asked.
Jonan nodded as if confirming some thought in his own mind, or perhaps acknowledging Lydia in some way. “I started by researching the areas in the city with the highest degree of security. The two palaces, the high temple, the prisons, some of the universities, and some of the manors of the wealthiest nobles. That was a long list, more than thirty locations, so I consulted with multiple contacts about each of them. I didn’t provide a full list of everywhere I was investigating to any one person, nor did I provide them with what I was looking for – I just asked which places would be good or bad to hide a large object of high value.”
Jonan took a breath, and then continued. “If multiple contacts agreed that a location was badly suited toward hiding something – and I agreed with them – I cut it off the list. In most cases, these locations were disqualified because they were too public. I was only able to cut a few items off the list that way, but it was a start. From there, I began to hire established contacts that our priesthood has used in the past to investigate specific locations. I asked them to find any areas that looked like they had restricted access – places warded with obvious sorcery, for example – and report that back to me.”
“Over the course of months, these contacts investigated all of the locations to the best of their ability. I visited many of them myself, crossing off false leads.” He hesitated a bit, his expression darkening slightly.
“Debating how much to tell us?” Lydia asked.
Jonan sighed deliberately, giving her a pointed look. “You’re still a court sorceress here. Even with what I’ve already told you, I’m sure you could dismantle my plans with ease – and you might have to, in order to preserve your own cover. The more I tell you, the more vulnerable I make myself.”
Lydia smiled, pushing her glasses further up her nose. “I could sabotage you, yes, but I don’t plan to – as long as you’re telling me the truth about your goals. Your cooperation helps you in a couple ways. First, it helps convince me of your competence and sincerity. Second, if I do decide I need to get rid of you to cover for myself, it makes it more likely I’ll be able to finish your work without you.”
Jonan sighed, lifting up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “When you put it like that, ah, I suppose I don’t have much of a real choice.”
Taelien glanced at Lydia, keeping his expression neutral. Would she really even consider turning someone in to protect herself? I didn’t think the paladins of Sytira did things like that. Maybe I’m just being naïve, though. She’s not like a story-book paladin in most respects.
“I have a cover identity,” Jonan admitted. “This house belongs to a member of our priesthood, and I’m using the identity of his son, Travis Case. I pretend to be on the lower rung of nobility, selling expensive glassware as my way of expanding the family’s fortunes.” He gestured at a corner where he had stacked some of the slabs of glass that had lain on the table the night before. “I have some little minor actual experience at working glass, and the family name has been sufficient to help me sell a few pieces here and there.”
Lydia looked over at the glass and then back to Jonan, a look of surprise crossing her features. “You’re dominion bonding the glass,” she realized aloud.
Taelien gave Jonan an appraising look, considering that. Dominion bonding was a notoriously difficult process. It involved saturating something with a dominion, permanently changing or augmenting the target’s properties. From what he had heard, something could only be safely bonded to one dominion at a time.
Rethri were well-known for being born with a kind of bond to a specific dominion. They strengthened this bond during a coming of age ritual, and that somehow drastically slowed their aging process. He wasn’t familiar with the details. He had been told that dominion bonds did not work on most humans – something about their bodies prevented the bonds from taking hold.
Ancient artifacts – his sword included among them – sometimes had runes on their surface called dominion marks. Each mark appeared to contain a bond to a dominion, and different marks bestowed different effects. Through the use of these runes, artifacts could be bonded to multiple dominions at the same time, allowing for more complex and powerful effects. His mother had spent years trying to decipher how the marks on the Sae’kes had been made, but she claimed to have had little success.
Taelien guessed that his weapon carried multiple marks tied to the Dominion of Metal – at least one to make it sharper, and one to make it more resilient to damage. He had memorized the appearance of each of the marks, but while he had found pictures of the runes in several texts, none of them had ever been able to explain their exact functions.
Only the gods still hold the secret of forging dominion marks, his mother had told him. The last sorcerers with that knowledge perished long ago.
“How does that work?” Taelien asked. “I’ve never seen a dominion bond created.”
“There are a few different ways to do it,” Jonan explained. “It depends on what you’re trying to accomplish, and what you want to bond. In my case, I’ve found a way to mix dominion essence of sight with ink. It’s very time consuming, but eventually, I can make ink that’s sufficiently saturated to make a weak bond. Once I do that, I write my signature on part of the object in the ink – the pedestal, or the backing of the mirror frame, or that sort of thing.”
Sight. Of course – that’s what Lydia must have realized before. We already saw that Jonan could make himself invisible – he can do a lot of other spy work with that kind of sorcery.
“Very impressive,” Lydia admitted. “I’ve never heard of dominion essence of sight being successfully held in a liquid state.” Her second statement sounded more skeptical, but she shook her head wearily. She was looking more exhausted by the moment. “All right. I’m satisfied with the explanation of your basic methodology for now.”
“Excellent,” Jonan said. “The palaces,” he said, pointing at the low palace, “Have had far too many guards for me to get access to most of their secrets. As a court sorceress, however, you should have largely unrestricted access.”
Lydia nodded. “If there were a bunch of Rethri being held prisoner in the low palace, I’d probably have noticed by now. But I’ll certainly take another look, and I haven’t spent as much time in the high palace.”
“And you’ll let me know if you find anything?” Jonan inquired hopefully.
“I’ll consider it,” Lydia said, tilting her head as if to look downward at him, even though he was slightly taller than she was.
Jonan gave the slightest look of irritation, and then straightened himself. “Mm, very well, then.” He glanced at Taelien. “Would you be willing to help me take a look at one of the more heavily guarded facilities?”
> Taelien considered that. He wanted to help, but his only experience with stealth was in a forest environment, not an urban one. He didn’t know the local culture or customs, which had already proven to be nearly disastrous. “Which one would you want me to help you with?” he asked noncommittally.
Jonan pointed at a particular spot on the map instantly, not far to the right of their current location. “This one. “Talior and Castle Depository”.
Taelien nodded. “You think this ‘Talior’ family is just a ‘Tailor’ with a slight change to make it less obvious?”
“That sounds a little too clumsy,” Lydia interjected. “Changing a couple letters is hardly a cover.”
Jonan shrugged. “From what we’ve gathered, Donovan Tailor wasn’t a very subtle man. He was arrogant and egocentric. Tailor might not even be a change to cover the identity of the family – they just might have changed it when they rose to nobility to avoid sounding like merchant-class citizens. It’s not uncommon – my own family name, ‘Kestrian’, is based on the word ‘Equestrian’. The family changed it when they were successful enough to move into other business.”
Taelien nodded at that. “Why do you need my help?”
“Ah, that’s the fun part,” Jonan said with a grin. “I managed to get inside. It’s not a very big facility, at least compared to the palaces. I found a dominion bonded door.”
Lydia perked up at that. “That’s fairly unusual, but it could just be where they store their valuables.”
Jonan nodded. “It might be, but the room seemed too big for that. From the position of the door and the location of the surrounding rooms, I’d say it was the size of a large bedroom. But that isn’t the only suspicious part – I’ve seen dominion bonded doors before. I have a spell to see through walls. When I see that type of thing, I just look through the adjacent walls. It didn’t work – in fact, I was temporarily blinded.”
