Revelation (Seeds of Humanity: The Cobalt Heresy)

by Caleb Wachter

  That was a surprising. “An odd thing to hear a father say,” I admitted after a short pause.

  The Arch Magos shrugged. “My grandfather was one of the original seven founders of Veldyrian four hundred years ago,” he explained, “but both his, and my father’s, legacies are marred with at least as many blunders as successes. House Tyrdren is what it is today because of what happened after their deaths, some of which is owed to careful planning, some of which is owed to ability,” his grin widened and the twinkle in his eye flashed briefly, “and the rest is just plain luck.”

  I sipped the wine, and it had an incredible bite to it that I hadn’t expected. I took another sip and felt my entire chest seem to warm in response. I doubted I could afford a bottle of the stuff if I saved all of my own earnings for a month, and I was keenly aware of the message he was sending me by letting me sample it.

  “But Pryzius does not have the same vision that I do,” the Arch Magos continued with another smile after pausing to observe my reaction to the wine. “In fact, in two hundred years I have yet to meet someone with whom I could converse in a common language. That is, until I read your work,” he corrected himself, placing a finger on the Somnomancy paper he had quoted earlier.

  I shook my head. “It’s not modesty,” I said seriously, “all of the findings in those papers were Magos Antolin’s work. I just compiled the thing and filled in the blanks.”

  The Arch Magos’ eyes seemed to take on a life of their own as they burned with an unexpected intensity. He leaned forward and clasped his hands together. “Exactly!” he exclaimed, as though I had just proposed a functional cure for cancer. “The work itself is just drudgery; it needs to be done—and done by someone with the skill to do so correctly—but when I look at the listed experiments conducted and their attached observations, I sometimes wonder if there was any vision whatsoever propelling the project forward. Then I get to the ‘blanks,’ as you call them, and that is where I find brilliance like I have never seen!”

  He was really bowling me over, and it was sort of working. Appealing to my vanity had never been much of a tactic back home, but here, after a year of doing Antolin’s dirty work and getting almost nothing in return, I found that a little appreciation was going straight to my head.

  Arch Magos Rekir continued without pause. “It is precisely because of this brilliance that the Inner Circle authorized your immediate promotion—which places you a full year ahead of my own son, even though you graduated in the same class. That is how highly I think of you, young Jezran,” he finished energetically, sitting back in his seat to take another sip of wine.

  I placed the promotion letter inside my shirt pocket. “I really don’t know what to say,” I said truthfully.

  The Arch Magos shrugged. “I have not always been the polished politician,” he said warmly. “It is acceptable to be speechless every now and then, but I do hope you will give serious consideration to my proposal,” he prompted, gesturing to the paper in my lap.

  I turned my attention back to it and silently read it twice before taking its full meaning. “You want my Champion, Gaeld,” I said, breaking the minute or two of silence, “and you’re offering me a package beginning with a handful of durable spell licenses, including a healing spell and a variation of the Third Eye spell; you also offer quite a few copies of your own early research notes with which to begin my own private library. In addition,” I ran my finger down to another listed item, “you offer some sort of magical token which ‘enhances the user’s ability to defend himself,’ the first pick at the upcoming Gladiatorial Draft, and a complete repayment of all public debts incurred by House Wiegraf.”

  Rekir nodded. “I apologize for the nebulous wording regarding the token, but I assure you that it has served me well for many, many years,” he said, reaching into a pocket at his waist, pulling out a small metal disc with a series of leather straps attached to it. He flipped it through the air, and I managed to trap it in my lap. “I acquired it a long time ago, and I believe the time has come for it to stop collecting lint in my pocket,” he said with a wide grin.

  I looked at the device and saw that it was composed of a pair of circular discs, one set within the other.

  “The first spell,” the Arch Magos began, “is a fairly standard type of offensive effect. The second, more powerful spell contained within that device, is capable of bringing down a full-grown dragon,” he said seriously, “and you should be careful when you choose to use that one. Successfully deploying it has always been tricky, even for me, but the first spell is fairly simple to use once you have practiced with it a bit.” His winning smile returned and he added, “I am certain someone of your talents will not find it as difficult to master as I did.”

  This guy knew how to stick it in and twist it, that much was for sure. I tried to ignore the barbs as I flipped the disc over in my hands. I tried to remember if I had seen the runes carved into its surface before, but I couldn’t remember seeing anything like them. “Does it provide its own energy?” I asked, curious about the first enchanted item I had ever held outside of Antolin’s laboratory.

  The Arch Magos shook his head sadly. “I am afraid not,” he explained, “you must supply the power yourself, and that is the trickiest part. I am confident you will learn it no time,” he assured me.

  I felt anything but assured; however, I didn’t really have much of a choice. Gaeld was an amazing warrior, but he was just one member of my entourage and what Rekir was offering was most definitely a deal with the devil. I might have to sacrifice something of long-term value to plug some short-term holes, but the temptation would have been too much for me to pass up in any event. Besides, if I understood correctly, Antolin’s acquisition of Gaeld had only cost him around fifty thousand gold pieces, and what Rekir was offering easily weighed in at ten times that value—such were the stakes which even the lowliest of Veldyrian’s Great Houses played with.

  “And this first pick in the Gladiatorial Draft,” I prompted, “I understand that the games rarely produce a consistent crop of talent.”

  Rekir nodded. “True enough,” he admitted smoothly, taking another sip of his wine, “but the first pick rarely proves to be less useful than the tenth pick of the yearly open tournament. The drop in talent from the first to the second selection is quite severe, which is why I am offering the first pick when I hold both the first and second,” he grinned, flashing perfectly straight teeth the color of virgin snow. “I would be happy to share my own House’s reports on this year’s entrants, if you like?”

  We both knew he had me, so I decided to address the elephant in the room. “I would accept if it was up to me, but even as a newly elevated Journeyman,” I said with a gracious nod to the Arch Magos, “accepting spell licenses in the name of my house is an authority which rests solely with the House’s master.”

  Rekir chuckled. “You are well-versed in Imperial law,” he said appreciatively. “But this is not an agreement between House Tyrdren and House Wiegraf,” he said pointedly, “this is an agreement between Arch Magos Rekir “Crimson” Tyrdren and Journeyman Jezran “Cobalt” Wiegraf—of which I would prefer Magos Antolin Wiegraf did not become immediately aware. You can claim that I offered to erase all debts incurred by your house and even bestowed a few durable spell licenses upon you, and you jumped at the opportunity to help your beleaguered house,” he said with barely disguised amusement. “But the Spell Key should remain a secret between you and me, along with my old notes,” he said with a wink.

  I got the feeling I was being played like a pawn, but I didn’t have a choice. Either I moved where Rekir wanted me to move, or I would probably find that his beneficence would be replaced by something a lot less palatable – or more importantly, a lot less survivable. I really hated all the politics of Veldyrian, and wanted nothing more than to get out—which was oddly easier to accomplish if I agreed to this proposed deal, since House Wiegraf had precious few useful spell licenses and almost none of them would help me get where I
wanted to go.

  I nodded after a moment’s consideration. “Then we have a deal,” I said finally.

  The broad smile returned to Rekir’s face. “Excellent,” he said, rising to his feet and I followed suit. “You can keep the Spell Key in good faith, but the Gladiatorial draft is in one month. So you have until then to present me with Gaeld’s Contract of Service, at which time you will receive the rest of your compensation package,” he reminded me. “It has been a pleasure doing business with you, Journeyman.”

  “Arch Magos,” I said, inclining my head stiffly.

  With that, the Master of House Tyrdren turned and strode purposefully out of the room.

  The recollection didn’t seem to clear things up very much, but Rekir did mention that he had been in possession of the Spell Key for many years. For a man of his age, that could mean a few decades or over a century, it was hard to tell.

  He had mentioned that he knew it could kill an adult dragon, so if I could discover the date he had slain his last dragon, I would have a minimum timetable from which to work. I still wasn’t sure how any of it fit together, but it seemed too odd of a coincidence to have two powerful magic items used by these two men, which were obviously connected in some fashion to not investigate.

  But out here in the wild, I didn’t have much chance of discovering that connection that didn’t revolve around activating the staff.

  So I strapped the disc to my right hand, as I distinctly remembered that Antolin always wielded the staff in his left, and after fixing it properly I closed my eyes and steeled myself as I gripped the staff.

  Nothing happened.

  I opened my eyes and looked for any sign that the staff had activated and found none. I tried to send a small amount of magical energy into the staff, but it seemed to reject my meager offering. I touched the disc to the staff and repeated the effort, but still I had no effect.

  I sighed heavily. I really had wanted to avoid involving the robe, but it looked like that wasn’t going to happen. I reluctantly removed my own robe and replaced it with Antolin’s after a close examination of the inside and outside of the robe revealed nothing noteworthy.

  The robe was warm; far warmer than it should have been and I found that the cold wind whipping across my body no longer made me shiver. In fact, my breaths came easier and after a few moments I was sure that my heart was much more relaxed.

  I growled at the obvious temptation of continuing to wear the robe even after I had concluded my experiment. I was determined to remove it as soon as I was finished, so I took a deep breath and gripped the staff tightly.

  At first nothing happened, but something seemingly felt different within the staff. I tried to pour a trickle of energy into it, which was really all I had, and I was greeted with a flash of light from the head of the staff. The light seemed to spin until it focused on the ground in front of me, until it focused into the foot tall form of my master, Magos Antolin Wiegraf.

  “If you found this message,” his projection began in a distinctly bitter tone, “then you have been less than forthcoming regarding certain details pertaining to Arch Magos Rekir’s purchase of Gaeld’s contract. The only way to find this message is by combining three artifacts which should have never come together—two of which were in my possession while the third was held by Arch Magos Rekir.”

  It stung that he had indirectly discovered my wayward dealings with the Master of House Tyrdren, but he really hadn’t left me any choice in the matter from my perspective.

  “The Arch Magos is not your friend,” Antolin’s image said, shaking its head in disappointment, “and he does not desire your well-being any more than he desires to hand his entire house over to you. He deals in secrets and ancient knowledge thought to be long-forgotten…but he is not the only one with such secrets.”

  That’s the understatement of the century, I thought to myself wryly.

  The image flickered and dimmed, and I immediately fed more precious energy into it. I had almost nothing in the tank, but thankfully this projection didn’t require a lot of resources to maintain. I just hoped it wasn’t a long recording, as I could already feel my heartbeat accelerating under the stress.

  “It is one such secret which I now entrust to you, as I am obviously gone,” he said, folding his arms. “My enemy watches me like a vulture, waiting for a moment of weakness in which to strike and pick the bones of our House clean—bones which are more substantial than you likely suspect. You must consider me to be dead, even though I will not make such an eventuality a certainty.”

  The image reached into its robes and produced the long, ornate scroll tube which I had inside my own pack. “You have probably already found this in the Coldetz Archives,” he said with self-satisfaction, and once again I was faced with the reality that I was caught up in something that went far beyond my own ability to understand, “and perhaps you have even traveled to the mountain itself. But that is not your true destination and going there will merely alert your enemies to your progress, serving to multiply our troubles. On the final page of these writings you will have no doubt found an encryption which you cannot break,” he said smugly. “That is because it is keyed to both the staff and robe of Sbeegl—the same staff and robe you now possess.”

  That got my attention, and I sat bolt upright from my previously relaxed position. Sbeegl was a figure I had researched extensively, and his legendary status in the lands which Veldyrian had claimed was inspirational to me. He had worked to ensure that the people of the lands were protected from threats both natural and supernatural. His methods were more than a little mysterious, but freedom from tyranny had always been chief among his goals according to legend—and that had resonated with me.

  “I am the one who placed the encryption there, and behind its wards is a map with a clue which will help us to put an end to this war once and for all, before further, needless, bloodshed,” he said hastily. “I cannot go into greater detail than to say that everything you will need is in the possession of the man living at the location indicated by the map. His name is Sherwyn; he is an old friend and although we have not spoken in many years, he will help you however he can once you show him the staff, robes and Spell Key.”

  My energy was depleting rapidly, and I found I was struggling to keep the projection going. I focused and tried to squeeze additional power from my core and succeeded as the image continued.

  “Finally, you must rely upon your companions—especially Aemir,” advised the image of Magos Antolin. “You have bound him more completely to yourself than either of the others, and you will need his loyalty in the days to come. Use Pi’Vari’s knowledge where you can, but be wary of him,” he warned. “Do not let him out of your sight, for I fear he has been compromised. I was attempting to determine the extent of his treachery when you informed me of your discovery at Coldetz. I had hoped that discovery would take you longer than it did, but you have proven ever resourceful in any enterprise which creates distance between us,” he shook his head, as a strange mixture of sorrow and anger came over him.

  Now my eyebrows went straight to the roof. Antolin had known about the mythicite at Coldetz?! The image flickered again, and I poured every last drop of my energy into it, feeling my vision narrow and my limbs go numb. I strained to keep the message playing, but I didn’t have enough energy to do so for much longer.

  For at least fifteen seconds there was nothing but static noise accompanying his image and I thought it would fail before playing itself out, but then suddenly the projection’s voice became clearer and had a hard edge to it. “Make no mistake, my young apprentice,” Antolin’s projection narrowed his eyes, “should I survive my own trials there shall be a reckoning between us.”

  At that, the projection cut out as the last drop of my meager reserves were sucked into the staff, causing my chest pain to return and my breath to come in labored gasps.

  I collapsed back to the ground, clutching my chest tightly as I sucked in short, rapid breaths. I fought to main
tain consciousness but like so many times before, I failed and darkness enveloped me.

  Chapter XV: Bitter Memories and Guarded Secrets

  “Hurry up, Aaron,” came my brother Adam’s voice from ahead, “last one to the pond has to kiss Sally Gable on the lips!”

  I was obviously dreaming, but more than that I was remembering a scene from my childhood. It was almost like watching a train wreck since I couldn’t look away or force myself awake. I had to relive the event as often as my subconscious demanded, and it looked like it was that time again.

  I was ten and my brother was twelve. It was a beautiful summer day, but a little too hot for our liking so we had abandoned our household chores in favor of taking a dip in the local pond.

  It wasn’t much of a pond, barely five feet deep at the center and would have been a young microbiologist’s dream to study. But it was our pond, and Dad had assured us that there was no sewer water in it, which was good enough for us.

  As usual, being nearly a foot taller and two years older, my brother was making better time running through the woods than I was, but I tried my hardest to keep up. I knew a shortcut that went across the train tracks rather than going under them at the underpass a few hundred feet to the left, and I also knew that Adam would never look back to check how far back I had fallen.

  So I ran as fast as I could, leaping over small logs and deftly jumping from slippery rock to slippery rock, oblivious of the danger if I should lose my footing.

  I hurtled up the embankment which led to the iron train tracks, and I scampered up the loose gravel covering the inclined surface. I came up to the top and quickly looked both ways before jumping across the first rail. There were two sets of tracks, so I had to clear four rails total, and I nimbly jumped over the second.

  I ran down the little ditch between the tracks and scrambled up the other side, causing a miniature avalanche of gravel as I did so. I needed to hurry to beat Adam!