A Traitor in Skyhold: Mage Errant Book 3

by John Bierce

  Hugh tried to ignore his spellbook happily burrowing into the sand next to him.

  “They’d already conquered much of the continent at this point, but their expansion accelerated rapidly after that, using their findings as a justification.”

  “Emperor Dulius was many things— cruel, ambitious, and paranoid— but he was no fool. There was little that he distrusted more than flattery, and he immediately recognized the rhetoric the program had spawned to be such. He also recognized its value as propaganda, of course, but he never bought into it himself. He kept the research program under his strict control.”

  “It found some strikingly unusual results. Most significantly, they found that changes in affinity distributions weren’t actually caused by their conquests of regions, but by the use of the tongue eater. The Ithonian Empire kept painstaking records throughout their entire history, and they were able to find that affinity distributions were most strongly affected by language, not by who ruled a region.”

  “Much of the reputation for cruelty that Dulius and his successors gained came from the experiments that followed. They raised thousands of children with no exposure to language, to see whether they would develop affinities. They created artificial languages intended to try and create specific affinity distributions, then forced entire populations to speak them. They taught other artificial languages to children who knew no other languages, taught them magic, and then used the tongue eater on them. There were plenty of horrific experimental spells, vivisections, and other senseless experiments performed as well. Tens of thousands were killed, driven insane, or tortured and traumatized in these experiments over the next century.”

  Alustin picked up another handful of sand, letting it trickle from his fingers again.

  “For all of the horrific nature of the experiments, and the senseless extremes they took them to, they got results. They figured out quite a number of key details about how affinities work. On the distribution side of things, they figured out that three things were most responsible for determining what natural affinities a person would gain. First was language. Second was locale— if you lived in the Endless Erg, you saw much less in the way of saltwater affinities. Third seemed to be simple heredity, though it was much less significant than most people would guess. Cases like Talia’s, where the child of mages has a radically different set of affinities than their parents, are more common than people realize, though we still don’t understand exactly what causes them.”

  “There were a couple of relevant tangential findings from this time I should mention now. First, they found that only creatures with language have affinities that vary between members of the species. Organisms without language can utilize mana, but individual members all have the same affinities. Second, this was also when they figured out the exact percent of the population that can’t use magic. It turns out to be around one in every fifty people that can’t learn magic. The only thing they have in common is an inability to picture things in their mind. If you were to ask them to visualize a forest, they would know what a forest is, but no image would appear in their mind.”

  “But I’ve heard stories of blind mages before,” Talia said. Unlike Hugh interrupting, Alustin seemed entirely unsurprised by Talia’s interjection.

  “Blindness and mind blindness, as the Ithonians called it, are two entirely different things. There are plenty of blind mages— they have a bunch of obvious disadvantages, but they also tend to have much more powerful affinity senses.”

  “If almost everyone can learn magic, why are there so few mages?” Hugh asked. He always felt better about asking questions when someone else started first.

  “Well, among other things, the aether wouldn’t be able to sustain a population where everyone was a mage. It’d be tapped dry all the time, and people would be fighting over mana. For another, training a mage is a lot of work, and most people don’t actually make good mages.”

  That seemed obvious in retrospect to Hugh.

  “Back on topic…” Alustin shifted irritably, and Hugh could see something moving through the sand below him. To Hugh’s embarrassment, he saw a brief flash of green.

  “Back on topic,” Alustin continued, “the Ithonian Empire also began to realize that the actual range of affinities changed from language to language. That is, the range of materials, substances, energy, or organisms a single affinity affects. In one language, for instance, there might be no difference between dirt and sand affinities. In another, you might have affinities for every variety of tree in their region, while another might just have a single catch-all affinity for plants in general.”

  “The first theory that presided was that affinities were entirely based off of human ideas. The Ithonians promptly developed an artificial language that contained a number of absolutely nonsensical concepts, in order to try and create brand new affinities no one had ever seen before. They taught it solely to children who spoke no other languages. The effort failed miserably— like all artificial languages, the affinities developed by its speakers were fewer and weaker in number, and none of the hoped for new affinities manifested.”

  Hugh, not wanting to be further distracted from the lecture, tried to will his spellbook to stop digging around underneath people.

  The spellbook just sent Hugh a feeling of innocent confusion and promptly started burrowing underneath Godrick.

  “The Ithonians eventually gave up the effort as impossible, but that hardly ended the research. They came to the conclusion that affinities had to correspond to existing, real-world substances, energies, or entities.”

  “Like dreams?” Talia asked, seeming a little sarcastic.

  Alustin smiled at that. “Some affinities correspond to slightly less concrete substances, but I’ve never met anyone who claimed seriously that people don’t dream.”

  “The exact borders of an affinity aren’t static, however. They not only vary from language to language, they frequently overlap with other affinities, as is the case with sand, crystal, and stone affinities. Their specific interactions with the substances they’re overlapping with often behave wildly differently.”

  “The Ithonian Empire started to go down some very strange paths after that. They believed that it was possible to extend the range of affinities, linking more and more of them together, until they fashioned some sort of omni-affinity. Most scholars seem to think that it was a fruitless effort, since the less specific an affinity is, the less powerful it tends to be, as in the case of a steel affinity being stronger than an iron affinity. They were also, however, pursuing creating the most specific affinities they possibly could, which would likely have been far more effective paths to power. Thankfully, the Ithonian Empire was overthrown before they could travel too far down those paths.”

  Alustin went silent after that, and Hugh took a moment to process everything he’d just heard. It was all… somewhat terrifying, to be honest. He’d just had the foundations of his understanding of magic shaken severely. Especially…

  Hugh realized that Alustin had begun speaking again, and turned his attention back. The spellbook had surfaced again, and was shifting its attention between Hugh and Alustin, seeming confused and uncertain. Hugh frowned at it briefly.

  “Most of the extensive records of the Ithonian Empire were lost in its fall, since most of them were stored in Imperial Ithos proper, so we’ve had to puzzle most of this out from letters sent by the researchers to their colleagues in various regional garrisons and provincial outposts,” Alustin continued. “The wide use of the tongue eater, and the resulting linguistic monotony of the continent of Ithos, do explain why, at least, affinities tend to be so much more predictable than across other continents.”

  “Hold on a moment,” Sabae interrupted. “If language determines affinity…”

  “Linguistic concepts that correspond to things in the real world determine affinity,” Alustin interrupted. “A fine distinction, but an important one.

  “Regardless,” Sabae said. “Doesn’t that
say some pretty terrifying things about the fact that the Ithonians developed a language affinity and the tongue eater? What could someone with today’s understanding of magic do if they got their hands on them?”

  The paper mage gave them all a serious look. “It’s a question I’ve spent a lot of time considering. I wouldn’t recommend following in my footsteps there.”

  Hugh sighed. Right, because telling someone not to think about something really ever worked.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Shield

  Alustin left on another mission a couple weeks after the Owl visited, telling them that he’d be back before Midwinter. Before he left, however, he let them know that he’d arranged opportunities for them to meet the members of the Council while he was away.

  They would each have a plausible, if flimsy, cover story— one that was supposed to be seen through with little effort. Below that was another cover story— these meetings were chances for the students to personally try and persuade at least one council member to change their vote.

  The fact that this was a genuine goal made the second level of cover stories much more believable. Sabae’s grandmother had always taught her that the best lies are the closest to the truth.

  “What do you mean, nothing?” Talia demanded.

  Godrick shrugged. “Tarik wouldn’t talk about the Council vote at all, she just told me that Council business was none a’ my affair.”

  “But the vote was literally about you! And us, but it’s still entirely your affair!” Talia yelled.

  Sabae watched Hugh flinch a bit at the yelling, but he didn’t turn away from his desk, where he was working on his new set of warded slingstones. He was growing these ones out of crystal from scratch, converting piles of sand into thin-shelled quartz spheres engraved with his ward designs— which, apparently, was not a shape quartz liked to take.

  Sabae wasn’t sure how a crystal could have preferences, but she had enough to worry about for now, between her classes, the investigation, and her grandmother’s impending visit.

  “What would she talk about?” Sabae asked as she took notes on what Godrick had to say. Godrick’s training session with Headmaster Tarik had been the first of the planned meetings with the council members.

  “She was willin’ ta train me, and nothin’ else,” Godrick said. “Ah learned a good bit about stone magic, but nothin’ for the investigation.”

  “What did you learn about stone magic?” Hugh asked.

  “And her combat capabilities?” Talia added.

  Godrick shrugged. “She’s got larger mana reservoirs than any four other human mages ah’ve ever met. Makes it pretty easy ta accomplish great feats then. On top a’ that, she takes every possible route ta increase her mana efficiency and decrease loss. Half her study was filled with tomes and manuals meant for mages whose mana reservoirs are way too small.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Talia said. “And don’t most of those tricks for weak mages actually lower the power of your spells?”

  “A lot of them,” Hugh interjected, not looking up from his desk, “but not all of them. Some just require the use of much more complex spellforms, or are techniques to focus the mind’s eye so distractions don’t interfere, and so on and so forth. We learned a little about them in my spellform lecture.”

  Godrick just shrugged at that. “That’s basically what Tarik told me too. Apparently her favorite combat strategy is just levitatin’ house sized boulders and dropping them on her foes, so… not too much practical utility for me, though I did pick up a few tricks.”

  Sabae couldn’t help but be a little impressed at that. It wasn’t on the same scale as what her grandmother, Kanderon, or Indris could do, but it wasn’t anything to laugh at. It seemed unlikely that any but the mightiest magical defenses could do anything at all against having a giant boulder dropped on them.

  She shook her head and focused. “Well, even if she wouldn’t talk about anything else, there might have still been something relevant. What was her attitude towards you like?”

  Godrick shrugged. “She might have scowled a little bit when I tried ta get her ta talk about the vote, but she was otherwise all business.”

  “Maybe you’ll get more chances in the future?” Talia said.

  Godrick shook his head. “Tarik’s one of the busiest mages in Skyhold, ah’m surprised Alustin and me da even managed ta arrange this one. Ah just hate the fact that it was a waste.”

  Sabae sighed. “It still might not be. What did you see on her desk?”

  Sabae spent a solid two hours dragging every possible detail out of Godrick about the short meeting with Tarik. By the end, even he seemed frustrated and impatient, and Sabae could count the number of times she’d seen Godrick irritated on the fingers of one hand.

  Eventually, though, Sabae had to admit to herself that they probably weren’t going to get anything out of the lesson with Tarik. She certainly couldn’t blame Godrick, because she doubted she could have gotten any more out of the headmaster.

  Tarik really did confirm a lot of stereotypes about stone mage personalities.

  Sabae’s upcoming appointment in the enchanting labs did cheer everyone up quite a bit, however.

  The four of them, unfortunately, were left to wait impatiently for nearly an hour before they were allowed into the enchanting labs.

  Finally, a frazzled-looking journeyman enchanter came out to fetch them. Her hair had been cut short, but it still managed to be a complete mess, complete with several burnt patches. Most enchanters Sabae had met eventually just started shaving their heads.

  It was something of a tossup whether alchemy or enchanting was more dangerous. Regardless, Sabae had no interest in learning either.

  Sabae liked to tell herself that she wasn’t a particularly vain person, but she was still entirely too attached to her hair to sacrifice it to her profession. Her long, gold-bordering-on-white hair barely even needed brushing in the morning, let alone any real attention.

  The enchanter led them past a series of heavily reinforced windows looking in on various labs.

  One held what looked like a miniature forest behind it, with trees growing in the shapes of bowstaves, shields, armor, and even a few swords.

  The next appeared to be a glassblowing shop, save for the fact that the room itself had apparently been enchanted to nullify gravity— the enchanters inside, the tools, and the glass itself all floated in midair. Most of the items they were working on were eyetwisting shapes that didn’t look like they should actually be possible, though Sabae spotted a few more familiar shapes— goblets, lenses, and the like.

  Sabae moved past that one quickly. Glass mages were terrifying, even the non-combat ones. They were part of a select list of affinities you wanted to avoid at all costs. Affinities were far from equal when it came to danger, and glass was right near the top. She’d heard plenty of stories of mages who thought they’d survived battles with glass mages, only to die days or weeks later from inhaling too many tiny shards of glass.

  The next room seemed to be an entirely normal blacksmithing shop, save for the fact that the smith was forging an inordinate number of wires of different metals into the sword he was working on. Well, that and the fact that Sabae was pretty sure she saw something staring at her from inside the forge fire.

  The enchanter must have led them past a solid dozen labs, not to mention several hallways containing more. Sabae practically had to drag Talia away from a room filled with bones, where enchanters were carefully inlaying a bone staff with spellforms carved from the bones of other animals.

  Finally, the enchanter led them down a slightly dingier hallway, where the labs tended to be filled with accumulated junk, miniature forges, lathes, and all sorts of other tools. She explained that these were the restoration labs, where old enchantments were repaired, altered, or decommissioned safely. Only half of them were full.

  The lab the four of them were led into was near the end of that hall, but Sabae was impatient enough that sh
e paid little attention to the activity in the other restoration labs.

  As they reached the last lab in the hall, she leaned up against the glass, smiling. There, sitting clamped in vices on the counter, lay her buckler.

  Hugh had found the little round metal shield for her while they were trapped down in the labyrinth last year, but it had been too badly damaged to work at the time. Alustin had left it in the care of Skyhold’s enchanters, and it had taken them months to repair it.

  Which was a bit unfair, to Sabae’s mind, considering how much less time it had taken for Indris’ enchanters to build Godrick’s hammer, but then, having a two hundred foot dragon ordering you around was likely a pretty good motivator.

  “This shield was a bit of a nightmare to work on,” the journeyman enchanter said, as she let them into the lab. “Don’t touch anything, by the way, unless you enjoy melting. Anyhow, there was an entire missing front plate to the shield that we had to reconstruct from scratch. As it was, the first decent hit against it would have broken the spellforms and made the whole thing explode, most likely.”

  The buckler was considerably thicker than the last time Sabae had seen it, and the front of the little round shield curved gently, instead of just being flat.

  The enchanter pulled out a series of sketches of the spellforms inside the shield, pointing to various parts as she talked. “Since the front plate was completely missing, we ended up having to devise entirely new spellforms for the front plate— thankfully, most of the core functionality of the shield was on the back plate. The missing spellform links were easy enough to figure out, and we added spellforms to reinforce the shield and to reduce the impact from blows to the front. Pretty standard stuff on a shield.”

  The enchanter started freeing the shield from the vices.