Inside the island’s protected harbor, rocking in the hard wind, the anchored Weatherlight sat with gangplank extended to the nearest dock. A few final supplies were carried onboard—the ship’s schedule not to be interrupted by mere acts of nature. The crew loaded on provisions for the voyage, slow-time waters to be delivered to those few academy alumni allowed a return to the real world, and Legacy artifacts to be hidden away in other cities until needed again one day.
Gatha stomped his way up the gangway, working his fury out on the iron grillwork. He ignored the purser who was responsible for all stores loaded and passengers brought aboard. The man was currently debating the additional equipment being brought up the ramp by two of Gatha’s assistants. Bypassing formalities, Gatha instead presented himself to the captain, who stood in a small sheltered overhang while supervising the last of the cargo being secured aboard his vessel.
“Help you, master?” she asked, using the title clearly out of habit than any awe for the academy insignia on Gatha’s cloak.
She certainly did not move out into the rain so that Gatha could stand protected from the elements. Twenty years commanding a vessel might inure anyone to the regular formalities, Gatha supposed. Still, the tutor loathed her for his dry position, the buttons on her foul-weather coat done only halfway up while Gatha squirmed from the cold water leaking in at the neck of his cloak.
“I’ve been added to your passenger list,” the tutor lied, presenting the forged papers stamped with Barrin’s own seal—“borrowed” during one of the master mage’s few classes he still taught.
Gatha could have more easily laid his hands on the seal of a chancellor but had decided against it for various reasons. Though Gatha despised Barrin for the other’s weak stomach and lack of vision, there was no doubting the master mage’s formidable powers. Since Gatha considered the other man a peer—even if he was a rival—only Barrin’s seal would be used. Shut down Gatha’s primary labs would he?
“So I see,” Captain Braven said after a cursory glance at the seal. “And that?” she asked, nodding toward the commotion at the head of the ramp.
“My equipment and some supplies. All papers are in order.” Gatha tucked the documents back into the relative dryness of his dark cloak. “You are to transport me and my equipment. I will leave the ship at your first port of call.” His tone left little room for arguing, and the captain seemed ill inclined to do so anyway.
“Erek, check the seals on that equipment and get it secured below,” Captain Braven bellowed, ignoring Gatha’s flinch at the volume of her order. “It’s too wet to be arguing their timing.”
Nodding an insincere thanks, Gatha backed away from the captain and returned to his assistants. The purser scrawled a brief description of each piece to his master inventory, estimating weight when necessary.
“Ether Mixer, what’s that?” he asked, stopping a female student at the head of the gangway.
Gatha spoke up before the student could answer. “Lab equipment,” he said. “For mixing ether, of course. Light, very durable. Store it wherever.” It was his own private joke. How did one mix ether? By stirring around empty air. It was a reference to speaking without knowing of that which you spoke.
Naturally, the purser did not understand the reference. He nodded, grunted, and jotted a few notes. “Forward hold,” he said.
Gatha fell in beside her for a few steps. “Remember, I count on you.” The female student glanced over, rain plastered hair laying between her eyes and down over her face. Gatha nodded his support.
“You are my eyes and ears back here on Tolaria, in case I ever need to come home.”
Not very likely, unless Barrin ever stepped down. Still, Gatha might eventually need access to slow-time waters if he were to run out of the supply he’d stolen and information on the latest academy breakthroughs when they happened. She nodded reluctantly.
“Master Gatha,” the captain called out before he could bolster his student’s confidence more. The rogue tutor stopped by the captain’s alcove, bracing himself for discovery and the quick, violent action that would necessitate, but Isa Braven posed no true concerns of that nature. “You may take the first passenger cabin” she said simply. “You are our only guest.”
The tutor nodded. “Where is you first port of call?” he asked.
“Argive.”
Gatha smiled. “Argive,” he said, repeating the name. “Well, well.” After seventy-five years, Gatha would apparently be returning home.
* * *
The academy slept. Only a night watch roamed the real-time areas of the island. A few assistants monitored critical projects which required twenty-four hour surveillance, but for the most part, silence gripped Tolaria.
Karn never slept. His body did not require it. Though in times of decreased activity he could suspend his higher brain functions and enter a kind of hibernation—just to pass time until he was with purpose again. In years gone by he had done just that, but not tonight or any night in the past year since his alteration. He vowed he would never sleep again, though of course in time even that vow would be lost.
No bed ate up space in the golem’s room. It simply was not required. There was a table and several reinforced chairs, but the most functional pieces were the shelves where Karn placed the memorabilia he had collected over the decades—the centuries—books and pictures, keepsakes and souvenirs. The aggregation of a lifetime. Nothing in this room was without meaning, without a memory attached, but there soon would be. All of it would become meaningless to Karn as his memory faded, except one thing.
A picture of Jhoira, sketched for him by a student of artifice also gifted in art.
It was all he had left of her, his best friend. Karn couldn’t bear the thought of Jhoira returning to the island and him not remembering her. Karn stared at the picture and quietly spoke to himself. “Jhoira is my friend—my best friend. We met in the original academy, before the accident drove us from Tolaria. She named me. Karn, from an old Thran name. She said it meant strength.” His voice sounded heavy in the confines of his small room of memories.
A wave of intense anguish rolled over the golem. All this for a person he had not seen in better than a century. There were events from as little as four days prior which he could no longer recall with exacting detail, fading for their lack of emotional significance as they would in a human mind. How did they stand it? Karn could not remember ever feeling frightened, and these days his lack of a memory no longer meant that it was true, but he felt frightened now.
Standing there, his memories arranged around him like trophies of the past, Karn started again. “Jhoira is my friend. My best friend…”
Gatha leaned heavily on a staff of dark ebony, its headpiece a pair of ironwood crescent blades stained a deep crimson. Picking his way over the slide of rubble that obstructed the mountain trail, one of the larger rocks rolled underfoot and the mage earned a new cut against his lower shin. His quality calfskin boots—bought in the lowlands and assured of rugged wear—were nearly at an end to any useful life, scarred and scuffed against the sharp rock they’d clambered over these last several days. The thick wool coat, however, held up admirably, and it was a good thing. The sharp wind that whistled down from the snow-drifted peaks cut through anything lighter. As it was, the wind found its way past cuffs and collar to keep him always on the verge of freezing. The sweat from the climb stood out cold on his face. Gatha considered magicking himself warm again, but that was a draining use of power, and it never lasted long enough.
His guides, a Keldon trader and his son on their return from the lower port city of Agderisk, plodded on steadily and without complaint of the rugged terrain or cold climate. The shaggy colos hides they wore kept them warm. They did not bother to check on the young mage’s progress. They showed the same disregard for the slaves who were leading a caravan of large colos—something between a war elephant and a shaggy mountain sheep, to Gatha’s eye—loaded down with their wares and the mage’s equipment. The slaves would follow because
to disobey apparently meant a lingering death. Gatha would keep up or he would be left behind, likely to die.
The Keldons were apparently not big on alternatives.
They were, however, the largest men Gatha had ever seen. Drahl, nearly fourteen and still two years away from entering military service, stood nearly six feet with a build to match his fathers, heavily muscled, the two of them, with forearms and lower legs longer than upper arms and thighs. They had grayish skin, networked with scars, and thick, dark hair with the triple widow’s peak that Gatha’s tattoos simulated. They also tattooed themselves, filling in the skin around their eyes with a dark ink that lent a fearsome appearance. The elder trader sported a pike in the place of his lower right arm, the limb lost in battle at the age of eighteen he’d said.
Gatha understood so little about these people, even though his father had once served as the Argivian liaison to a Keldon warhost. He knew the basics of course, that the Keldons based their society almost completely on the waging of warfare. They existed as mercenaries, their mountainous lands effectively one large armed camp. Other nations paid for their services and paid well, since Keldon negotiation techniques were fairly straightforward and violent when opposed. Try to bargain down the price and the warhost was just as likely to claim the balance by force on their way home. Worse, they would simply claim the full price from your nation and then head home anyway. They carried back to Keld their blood price as well as pillage and slaves taken from the land invaded. Glancing back, Gatha counted at least three different nations among the human slaves. Benalish were easily placed by their cast markings and the Surrans by their ritual scarring of the face. He returned his gaze to the trail. Slaves were of little use to his efforts here except as potential subjects for experimentation if all went well.
Farther on, Gatha saw his first example of Keldon architecture, high enough into the mountains these hard people began to feel at home. The buildings sat on a small cliffside plateau half-buried into the mountain slope. Constructed of stone, several of the structures were three stories high, tiered as they rose to a steeply pitched roof of tan-colored wooden planks. They looked incredibly solid, as if called up from the ground on which they sat. The windows were dark.
“Stopping here?” Gatha asked in simple Argivian.
He had heard the trader speaking Keldon with a few others in the lowlands. A rough language that would be hard to learn. The Keldon people knew the basics of many languages, though, from their constant campaigning.
“Nah. At war,” the trader said. He pointed toward the red banner spiked into an upper wall of one of the buildings then looked back. He made a gesture of butting his one fist into the sharp end of his pike. “Battle. Fighting.” He bared his teeth enthusiastically.
Gatha nodded his understanding, wiping sweat from his forehead and pulling his greatcoat closed tighter at the neck. Soon, he hoped, they would rest.
The rogue tutor had discovered it more difficult than he’d thought, trying to set up a lab outside of Tolaria. His work was not looked upon favorably by most nations. Argive, in fact, had been merely the first of several nations to refuse him. His experimentation did not allow for a secret laboratory. The room required and indelicacies of the operations themselves were certain to attract attention sooner rather than later, twelve years of wandering, twelve real Dominarian years of work, lost, before his arrival in Agderisk and a talk with the local traders.
Everyone the world over knew something of Keld and its aggressive ways. Learning more of them now, in the shadow of their mountains, Gatha had been intrigued to hear of the rituals surrounding the creation of the Keldon warlords. The largest and most violent of the young, still several years out from entering military service, were sent on a pilgrimage through the deep mountains’ frozen wastes. Those who survived were then enchanted to further their growth into larger, superior warriors. They became capable of extraordinary battlefield prowess that also worked to excite the troops being led into a frenzied state. To Gatha, this sounded very much like a eugenics program, if a bit crude in its methodology.
His trader guide, when Gatha first found him, had not been inclined to talk with the mage. Noticing Gatha’s tattoos had changed his mind. Apparently they won him the courtesy of an interview, if that’s what one might call Gatha’s simple speech and the trader’s even simpler grunts. In the end, Gatha simply paid the man as a guide to the Keldon Necropolis, their capital where the doyens of the Warlord Council met.
The Keldons were a people very interested in anything that could improve the way they waged war and had already worked with the early stages of enhanced genetics. It had sounded too good to be true, Gatha remembered, then stubbed his foot against a sharp rock and nearly fell—too good to be true, until he had started this treacherous climb.
* * *
The Keldon Necropolis crowned a mountain peak, the fortress capital rising up out of the hard land. Frost and snow lightly dusted some surfaces but drifted deep in the several large crevices where sun never struck ground. Homes rose up from the dark gray stone—single dwellings lower on the slopes, and higher up, loose clusters were tied together by trails worn into the hard earth over centuries. Nearer the summit the buildings suddenly sprang up in thick numbers with little room for trails, most paths winding through caves carved into the mountainside. Above this mountainside city towered the great tombs themselves.
Here the Keldon warlords were finally laid to rest. This majestic vault defied gravity and earth as it challenged the sky. It was almost two hundred feet high with steeply sloped sides, and one entire mammoth wall was open to the thin mountain air. When he had seen it from a distance, it had reminded Gatha of the great Surran burial pyramids. Only these were steeper pitched and the top carried away to make room for the living witch kings’ council chambers—the Necropolis, where Gatha now waited to address the Keldon ruling body.
The cold, thin air sat heavy in Gatha’s lungs, as if reluctant to give up any oxygen. The mage had to work at breathing after his long climb. Waiting for his audience, Gatha’s muscles burned in silent protest. He felt a poor excuse for an ambassador, especially one representing himself. He gave his wool greatcoat to the trader who had guided him up the mountain in exchange for a pair of tough coloshide boots and thick furs. He felt in need of a hot bath and smelled of the large animal that had given up this particular set of hides. At least he would appear more presentable, or so he thought. A footsoldier escorted him through a set of large bronze-plated doors and into the main council hall.
The same magical architecture that held up the great tombs below must certainly have been used for the hall. Like a giant cylinder it rose five stories straight up, with galleries set about each level for observers. Flags and banners from other nations had been crudely spiked into the walls. There were hundreds, thousands perhaps. Likely these were brought back from every war ever fought by Keld. The meeting area itself was actually an inverted amphitheater, a tiered pedestal carved out of the gray bedrock. The uppermost platform stood empty, possibly awaiting a speaker. On every ring after that sat the chairs of the council, each one different and again with some designs clearly belonging to nations represented on the walls. On those chairs sat the doyens—the warlord elders of Keld, half a hundred at least. The trader and his son, who had seemed so humongous to Gatha, could not begin to touch the smallest of these men, a great number of them easily topping seven feet. They wore thick leather clothing, ceremoniously studded and colored. No one wore furs or hides that might provide warmth. Many tunics bared chests and arms to the frigid air, scars standing out whitish on gray skin. The cold was a long-vanquished enemy of these people. Some carried weapons at their sides, those lower down the platforms. Those higher up carried short staves or rods of carved bone. A mist from warm breath haloed the great room, and from out of that mist fiercely tattooed eyes stared at the mage who suddenly felt very small and alone.
It was a state Gatha was not too familiar with and, secure in his own power,
he quickly rallied from. He knew what he needed, and he would have it, somehow.
“Warlords of Keld,” he began slowly, speaking Argivian. He had already been informed that Argivian was a language most knew, and that they would not speak with him unless he presented a subject suitable for their notice—or offered a direct challenge. He had decided to offer a little of both. “Into your lands I bring a gift, knowledge, which can help you and your nation grow mighty. Magics, which will make your sons stronger on the battlefield, your warlords more fierce and your victories more complete.”
A few stirred at that, possibly taking Gatha’s words as a slur against their own prowess. The mage waited for a challenge, but none rose immediately. He stepped farther into the council hall. Briefly he considered making his way up the platforms to the empty spot where all could easily see him, and then he decided against it. He possessed no way of knowing yet what the local rituals might demand. There was an obvious pecking order implied in the seating, and Gatha did not want to challenge anyone’s pride, not yet. So he instead circled the tier slowly, explaining the basics of his studies and experimentation. No details, he doubted anyone here would understand. He couched the more unpleasant facts in vague references or dismissed them completely, concentrating instead on how his own work mirrored that which the Keldons already employed in the creation of a warlord.
“I only need a lab, support, and time,” he finished. Always time, the devourer of his accomplishments that had stalked him for twelve years now.
A warlord on the lower tier near Gatha rubbed at his coarse beard. He growled a reply in broken Argivian, “Why puny one think we need his strength? Who is he?” There followed something more, this in the Keldon tongue that could only be derision from the laughter barked out by a few others.
Debate the mage would tolerate, but not even Barrin had ever insulted the tutor’s genius. Gatha speared the large man with an angry gaze, eye contact being a challenging gesture in any culture.
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