Caladin’s Climb—Part 16 (Patreon)

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          “I don’t think I understand,” Lenny said. “Why do we need to go after this Philipus Haedril again?”

          “Because he’s the one that has the surviving members of our family. And if he doesn’t, he’ll at least know where they are,” Caladin replied.

          “I get that,” Lenny said, “but killing a king seems like a hard way to get what we want. Can’t we just find them, rescue them in the night, and sneak away?”

          “And never be free again,” Caladin said. “We already tried living quietly on our own. It didn’t work. If I don’t take this guy out, we’ll never be safe. We shouldn’t have to hide out in the woods just to stay alive.”

          “If you say so…” Lenny trailed off. He didn’t sound convinced.

          After the ill-fated attack against Jaeryl, Caladin realized his spell had burned through all the mana he’d brought with him. That meant they were forced to walk back, which wasn’t exactly an exciting prospect.

          “So, how did your spell actually work?” Lenny asked while they walked. “You were complainin’ they had wards to protect them, but then they didn’t end up being a problem.”

          “You sure you want to know?” Caladin asked. “It might go over your head.”

          “I can try to make sense of it,” Lenny said. “It’s not like there’s much else to do out here.”

          “Fair enough,” Caladin said. “Well, you saw the rune work from last night’s spell, right?”

          “That mess of random junk you scribbled on the page?”

          “It was more than just random junk,” Caladin insisted. “I was trying out a new type of magic; just letting the spell write itself. I admit I got a little carried away and wasted all my mana, but it worked. Now I just need to refine the method. I’ve been thinking there might be a way to create a spell that can automatically adjust itself. It could hit a barrier and keep shifting harmonics until it found a frequency that could get through. Or maybe just start as a harmonic I know isn’t being blocked, then shift to another on the other side of the wards. The only problem is once others catch on that attacks like that are possible, they’ll just start using wards that block every harmonic at the same time. Every strategy has a weakness.”

          “Harmonics are like... the different types of magic, right?” Lenny asked.

          “Yes,” Caladin answered with a sigh.

          Lenny beamed. “See? I’m learning.” His mouth split wide in a grin that exposed a few teeth that had turned brown. Caladin noted that his old friend was overdue for another Repair when they got back.

          “Well, that’s the plan I want anyway,” Caladin said. “I’ll sneak another spell past the wards, maybe turn all the stone in that tower into lava or something.”

          “Lava? You can do that?”

          “It’s magic,” Caladin said. “There isn’t much you can’t do. It’s just a matter of knowing how to do it and having enough mana to work with. Though, there are still limits. Too much mana in one burst and it can burn you out. That’s why I want to just bypass the wards. If I tried to attack them directly by myself—the way things are usually done—just attempting the spell would probably kill me before it actually got through the wards.”

          “Usually done?” Lenny asked. “You make it sound like it’s normal for wizards to kill themselves trying to get past enemy wards.”

          “No. Of course it’s not. It just takes a bunch of them working together. I would only have to worry about dying because I don’t have anyone else to help me.”

          “What about Brorn?” Lenny asked. “Couldn’t he help? I thought he was supposed to be the strongest wizard in the world.”

          “That’s debatable,” Caladin said. “He’s definitely the oldest. But I can’t get his help with this. Not without telling him why I want to get through that tower’s wards. Brorn thinks I’m a dutiful apprentice. If he found out I was planning to get directly involved in the Eldesian civil war, he would be furious. He already told me several times how he doesn’t want anything to do with it. I think staying neutral is part of how he’s survived for as long as he has. Everyone knows that if they leave him alone, he’ll leave them alone. Once you get involved in politics, you tie your fate to the side you’re on.”

          “So you’re going to put together some weird magic?” Lenny said. “Then what?”

          “Then I can use the teleportation circle in that tower to teleport directly to Philipus Haedril. I don’t even need to know where that fortress Jaeryl mentioned is. I can use the one we attacked. We already know where it is, and it’ll be in the network he uses.”

          “So there’s already a circle in the tower?” Lenny asked. Caladin nodded. “So doesn’t that mean they can use it call in reinforcements the moment they realize they’re under attack?”

          Caladin frowned. “Yes, technically,” he admitted. “That’s why I want to be quick. They’re soldiers. They aren’t going to want to admit that they need help right away. It will make them look weak. All I have to do is overwhelm them before they even realize they’re outmatched.”

          They walked in silence for a while. Caladin remembered what he’d done to Maggie. That shape-shifting spell would have worn off by now. He wondered if she was still maintaining the ruse somehow without it. He could picture her swaddled in blankets and pretending to be ill. He seriously doubted Brorn would buy a story like that. He would probably insist on healing magic so that he could get back to work immediately. But then there was the sending stone still burning a hole in Caladin’s pocket. It had its own mana supply. He could admit defeat at any time and call Brorn for help. That Brorn still hadn’t called him with the sending stone was the only piece of solid evidence he had that his ruse with Maggie was still undiscovered.

          It would be easier to admit defeat and call Brorn. He’d get in trouble for sure, but the longer Caladin walked through the woods, the longer he thought he was just punishing himself. Surely Brorn’s punishment wouldn’t be as severe. “Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Caladin asked Lenny.

          “I’m sure,” Lenny assured him. “I’ll leave the magic up to you; you leave the tracking up to me. All I can say is we’re going in the right direction. We’ll hit that river eventually.”

          “Fine,” Caladin relented. “Can you at least tell me how much longer it’s going to take before we get there?”

          “How long it takes depends entirely on you,” Lenny said. “I can run non-stop. You’re the one who needs to walk.”

          Caladin shut his mouth then. Complaining wouldn’t make the journey any shorter. It would just make it take longer, since he would have to divert some of his breathing to talking. He focused on his walking and picked up the pace a bit. Lenny easily matched him. While he walked, Caladin thought about his problem with the wards. Lenny was right. It wouldn’t be easy. If he didn’t disable all the guards in the tower quickly, they could call in an endless stream of reinforcements. But if he damaged the tower too much, like with that lava idea he had considered earlier, he would risk destroying the circle and defeat the purpose of attacking the tower in the first place. Not to mention that his little stunt with Jaeryl would put them on guard much more than usual. The ideal solution would be one that temporarily disabled the teleportation circle before he even launched his attack. Then he could take his time picking off the guards without the pressure of being quick.

          Caladin also worried over his mana situation. He still had several prepared scrolls, but with no mana, he could no longer psychically trigger them using lithomancy. It made him wonder what sort of limitations he might have if he didn’t have access to Brorn’s mana well. Technically, the ground itself had a small amount of mana in it, but it wasn’t really enough to cast spells with. Eldrin who were patient enough could slowly absorb mana out of the ground, or so Caladin had read, but he was no eldrin and he had about as much patience as a hungry cat.

          After a few more hours—which Caladin spent writing manual geomancy spells he thought might work without a mana source—Caladin heard running water in the distance. “Is that—”

          “It is,” Lenny answered before he could even get all the words out. “Do you trust me now?”

          “Best undead tracker in the world,” Caladin joked.

          Lenny found the joke hilarious. He laughed from deep in his belly. After a few chuckles, his laughs shifted into coughs. He coughed up something black and vile. “Sorry,” he apologized. “It was funny.”

          “Don’t worry,” Caladin assured him. “I’ll fix you up first thing.”

          “Shame you can’t fix me permanently,” Lenny said.

          “I’m pretty sure that would make me a god,” Caladin said. “Though the bodies Brorn wears seem to stay fresh for longer than normal. He might have a trick I don’t know about. I’ll ask later.”

          “You sure he’s even waiting for his hosts to die before taking them?” Lenny asked. “Because that wouldn’t help me and I wouldn’t be willing to kill someone else to live again even if I could.”

          “It’s not like I can put you in another body anyway,” Caladin admitted. “You are that body.” As soon as he said it out loud, Caladin realized it actually might be possible. If he was a completely heartless bastard, he could just transplant Lenny’s consciousness into a living host. That would give his friend years of life.

          The route they took had drifted North a bit too far. Rather than reach the store, they ended up outside the small town of Jakarta. Caladin hadn’t actually visited the town himself. To him, it was just a small, unremarkable dot on the map that happened to sit on a border.

          “So what’s the plan?” Lenny asked. “Should we just follow the river back to the store?”

          “No,” Caladin said. “No point. We’re already here. There’s no mana at the store, anyway. Without mana, it would be another week back to Brorn’s. I’d rather not have to walk that far. This town is the easiest way to get some mana. I should be able to get my hands on a single mana potion.”

          “You have money on you?” Lenny asked.

          “No,” Caladin admitted. “The whole point of opening the store was to make money, not spend it.”

          “So how do you plan to get mana exactly?”

          Caladin shrugged. “I’ll figure something out,” he said. “Come on.”

          “Uh, are you forgetting something?” Lenny asked. He pointed forward. “We can’t exactly cross a river.”

          “Nonsense,” Caladin said. He pulled out one of the scrolls he’d written manually while they were walking through the woods. “We have magic.”

          “No, we don’t,” Lenny said flatly.

          “Oh, ye of little faith,” Caladin said. He leaned down and pressed his empty geomancy spell against the ground so it could access the mana. “Murus!” he intoned, triggering the scroll. The ground before him lifted, making a bridge out of dirt that slowly crawled its way across the river. The spell worked much more slowly than a normal geomancy spell would have, but it worked. It got about halfway across the river, then collapsed. The bridge of dirt immediately washed away, swallowed by the current. “Uh, that didn’t...”

          “What was that you were saying about magic?” Lenny asked.

          Caladin grunted in frustration. “Fine. Obviously, casting spells without a mana supply is a waste of time. Here. I have a few scrolls I prepared ahead of time.” Caladin dug into his pockets and fished around for something he could use. He had nearly a book’s worth of spell scrolls shoved into the front pocket of his coat. None of the scrolls had more than a modest amount of mana invested in them, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be immensely useful. “Here,” he said. He pulled out a cryomancy scroll and his pen. Normally, Caladin triggered his scrolls by inscribing them in such a way that they cast themselves immediately. The prepared scrolls were just slightly incomplete scrolls that he “finished” with a tiny amount of lithomancy. Without mana, he had to complete the scroll manually, which he did with a small mark in the corner using his pen.

          Frost emanated from around Caladin’s feet and covered the ground in a ring around him. “Quick, quick,” he said. “It won’t last very long!” He started running across the river and Lenny followed. Everywhere he stepped, water froze into solid ice, leaving a trail of ice behind him. The ice became thinner and more brittle as he went. By the time he reached the far side, the ice was crumbling as fast as it was forming. He barely reached the other side without falling in and still ended up with soggy shoes.

          Lenny was not so lucky. Following behind on the trail of broken ice Caladin had left didn’t turn out to be very effective. He sloshed out of the river, wet up to his shoulders and not looking thrilled about it.

          “Sorry,” Caladin apologized. “I’ll prepare a water walking spell next time. Frozen Aura was the best I could do. I thought it’d be stronger. Cryomancy spells are too expensive.”

          “Oh, it worked,” Lenny said, sounding none too pleased. “The water was freezing.”

          “The important thing is that we got across,” Caladin said. “And it doesn’t really matter how dry you are. You can’t come with me into town. The locals would spot you immediately. After that thing with Maggie, we can’t take that risk.” What he didn’t say out loud was that Lenny’s rotting flesh and corpse-stench was impossible to disguise at this point.”

          “Won’t they recognize you too?” Lenny asked.

          “There weren’t that many witnesses who actually saw me,” Caladin said. “Besides, my cloak has a hood.” Caladin flipped the hood of his cloak up over his head. It hid his features well enough.

          “I don’t like it,” Lenny said. “What if something happens?”

          “If you hear me screaming, you have permission to run into town. I’ll yell something about the undead if I need you.”

          “Fine,” Lenny relented. “But you have twenty minutes or I’m going to come looking for you. And I don’t care who sees me.”

          Caladin found the main road leading into town and followed it. He realized that coming into town from the North would make it that much less likely that anyone would connect him to the eccentric necromancer’s apprentice South of town. Nevertheless, he used a scroll to put on the eldrin disguise he’d used before. The infinitesimal chance of being recognized wasn’t worth being caught as a human in an eldrin town. Humans weren’t treated particularly well. There was only a single guard watching the North road and nobody else in sight. The man nodded to Caladin as he walked by. In his past life, the few trips Caladin had made into town often involved getting harassed by such guards. His simple disguise was worthwhile.

          The first few houses he passed appeared to be entirely empty. It wasn’t until Caladin reached the center of town that he saw people. There was a big gathering with people shouting and clamoring for space around some kind of raised wooden platform. It looked like someone important was addressing the citizens. Caladin spotted the bureaucrat with the purple hat who tried to shake him down for fines standing in the back of the wooden platform, looking important. He pulled his hood low to hide his face.

          “When will enough be enough!” someone in the crowd shouted.

          “Twenty-three dead and you do nothing! What kind of mayor are you?” someone else added.

          “People, people, please,” the man in the front of the wooden platform called out. Caladin figured he must be the mayor in question. “Calm yourselves. We are working on a solution and trying to get the word out. For the time being, I suggest you contact any friends or family living elsewhere and tell them to spread the word that the Jakarta teleportation circle is not to be used until further notice. Queen Fayse has agreed to send troops to wipe out this so-called Brorn-Mart, but without the ability to reliably teleport them in; it will be at least another day before they get here from Craistlin.”

          “Not good enough!” someone shouted from the crowd.

          “We should burn that shop down right now!” another voice cried out.

          A chant started up of, “Burn it down! Burn it down!”

          “I strongly advise that nobody does anything reckless,” the mayor called out. “We do not know what this apprentice is capable of. We have to assume he has the full backing of both Necro-King Brorn and the rebel king. He is extremely dangerous.”

          Rebel king? Caladin thought to himself. Why would they think that? Caladin was literally plotting the man’s downfall, not working with the monster! It felt to him like a stroke of luck that his mismanagement of his mana supply had caused him to stumble across this gathering, otherwise he might not have had any sort of warning before a bunch of Eldesian troops showed up to wipe out him and his little store. It was significantly more pushback than he’d expected to receive from a bunch of peasants. All he did was open up a store, and they were calling for his head. They’d called in the army! For a merchant shop! The reaction didn’t make sense. What had Caladin done? Kill two guards in self-defense?

          There was a pop. Someone screamed in a shrill voice. The crowd surged away from the center of town. There was more screaming and a lot of shuffling around. Enough of the townsfolk got out of Caladin’s way that he caught a brief glimpse of what they were fleeing from. What he saw was a bloody corpse in the center of town. The corpse was eldrin, which Caladin could tell from the glowing blood. The rest of the features were completely indistinguishable. Exposed guts. Exposed bones. It was almost as if... the man... had been... turned...

          Oh no! Caladin thought to himself. It looked like the man had been turned inside out. Caladin instantly knew what had happened. Someone had mentioned twenty-three dead? Well, that made twenty-four. The deaths had to be from teleportation mishaps.

          Caladin’s mind snapped back to the improvised security enchantments he’d added to the teleportation circle he’d installed in the Brorn-Mart office. There was no way it was a coincidence that citizens in Jakarta were teleporting into town inside out after he’d established that exact security measure for Brorn’s circle. What had he done wrong? He’d fudged the coordinates. Maybe he’d fudged them too much. His new, stronger enchantment was overpowering their older one. His mistake was killing people.

          The bureaucrat with the purple hat stepped forward in a hurry and whispered something into the ear of the man who had been giving the speech. He then pointed firmly in Caladin’s direction.

          “You, there!” the mayor shouted. “Name yourself!”

          The crowd, which had been panicking a moment ago, now parted around Caladin.

          “It’s him!” the bureaucrat shouted. “I know that face!”

          Caladin could feel his heart hammering in his chest. He’d been caught. And with no mana. If he tried to pull out his pen and manually fill in missing lines on each of his scrolls, not only would they easily be able to stop him, but then they might learn the trick behind his magic, which was arguably worse. His only options now were to run and look like a coward; attempt to feign ignorance and allow himself to be detained; or bluff. That was really no choice at all.

          Caladin started laughing. He put on his best maniacal laughter. The sort of evil laugh he’d imagined Brorn must have before he actually met the necromancer. He dropped his hood and walked forward with what he hoped was the same confidence he’d had when he faced the group of soldiers sent against him.

          “Fools!” Caladin said. “Fools, one and all.”

          “Why are you here?” the mayor demanded.

          “Market research,” Caladin replied. He swept an arm across the crowd. “You are my customers, are you not? I am surprised my trip to town exposed me to such ignorance as this. Tell me. Are all the people of Eldesia this stupid, or is your town the exception?”

          “You only wish we were,” the mayor said. “We’ve figured out your plan. Your store was only a front so you could disable all the travel in and out of our town to prepare for an invasion. Well, it won’t work! The army will be here soon. We’ve sent word.”

          “Oh? Is that my plan?” Caladin asked. “That’s news to me.” He kept walking, making for the dead body in the teleportation circle. It was just a mass of blood and organs, but the blood was glowing, which meant it had mana. He looked down at the body, as though vaguely interested, but made sure he stood in the spreading pool of blood so that his body could passively start absorbing a small amount of mana. “You seem to be experiencing a problem with your teleportation circle,” Caladin remarked.

          “You’re the one behind it!” the mayor said accusingly.

          “Come now,” Caladin replied. “What possible reason would I have for doing that? Dead customers are bad for business.”

          “You expect us to believe that?”

          “I care little what you believe,” Caladin said. “Perhaps, rather than blaming me, you should have hired an expert to figure out what the problem was.”

          “We have an expert,” the mayor said. “He said there is nothing wrong with the circle. Someone is interfering with the signal. The only newcomer around here recently is you! This didn’t start happening until you showed up.”

          “Not to belabor the point or anything,” Caladin said, “but technically I never ‘showed up’ because I only stepped foot in your town for the first time a few minutes ago.” It wouldn’t do to let them imply he was subject to their laws. “I promise you whatever problem you’re having is no doing of mine, but since I’m here, I’d be happy to fix your circle for you. I won’t even charge.”

          “He’s going to make it worse!” someone from the scattered crowd of onlookers shouted.

          “Worse than what?” Caladin demanded. “Worse than turning people inside out? What do you imagine that would look like? Consider for a moment that I actually am innocent of this crime. Who could be more qualified to fix your broken teleportation circle than an archmage?”

          “He’s not really an archmage, is he?” someone asked.

          Caladin spotted the person who had spoken up. He was a well-dressed eldrin with an apron; he guessed he was some kind of jeweler. Caladin faced the jeweler directly. “Do you even know what an archmage is?”

          The man frowned. “Umm...” the man said, looking away.

          “Well, how can you say I’m not—”

          “Someone who has mastered every harmonic!” someone in the crowd blurted out.

          “Exactly,” Caladin agreed. He needed to keep the crowd talking, curious, engaged. If they got riled up again, they could easily tear him apart before he could muster any sort of effective defense. “Go ahead,” he said to the jeweler who had spoken up. “Name any kind of magic you want. I will cast a spell from that harmonic with no hand signs, just to shut you up.” Caladin wasn’t sure how much mana he had absorbed from standing in the eldrin blood, but he hoped it was enough for the bit of lithomancy it would take to activate a few of the cantrip he had prepared in his pocket.

          “Pyromancy,” the man said.

          Caladin held out a hand, triggering a scroll in his pocket to produce a small flame. It held steady, like a candle flame. It was a spell typically used to start campfires.

          “That could be an illusion,” a young kid challenged.

          “You’re welcome to touch it,” Caladin said. He held the flame out for the kid. The kid reached for it, then quickly pulled his hand away when it got too close. A murmur went through the crowd as Caladin dismissed the flame.

          “It was real!” the boy said, eyes wide.

          “I know the spell True Sight,” the mayor announced from behind Caladin. He spoke the incantation for the spell, which Caladin recognized. “Occus at lumin cerbei. Try that again, Mr. ‘Archmage’ and I’ll be able to tell if it’s just a trick. How about some herbomancy this time?”

          Caladin felt the back of his neck prickle at the attention of the mayor. The illusion over his eyes and ears to help him pass for an eldrin was a small one, but very much at risk of being exposed if anyone with an active True Sight spell looked at him. If he kept his back turned, he thought the mayor might not notice. He held his arms up in a dramatic gesture to the crowd. Pretending like he was putting on a show seemed like a reasonable excuse to not turn around. “Why stop at just herbomancy when I can give you a full demonstration?” Caladin asked. With the scraps of mana he’d absorbed from the dead man’s blood, Caladin triggered as many scrolls as he could in rapid succession.

          A globe of water condensed above his head. He threw it up and let it splash down in front of some children. They squealed with joy. “Let’s brighten up this place!” he said, creating a simple point of light above the crowd that would take several minutes to dissipate. While everyone looked up at the light, he pointed to the ground at the feet of the two children and caused vines to burst from the cracks in the cobblestones and grab playfully at their arms and legs. The crowd’s attention shifted back as the children giggled happily, a few of them even applauding. “Hold on to your hats, people!” Caladin warned, before finishing the little show with a burst of aeromancy that caused many to gasp aloud. “What do you think, folks? Is that enough for you non-believers? Tell me, mayor, were those mere tricks?”

          The mayor didn’t exactly admit Caladin was the real deal, but he said, “Fine. You can look at our teleportation circle. I suppose you can’t actually make it worse.”

          Caladin leaned down and pretended to sweep some of the blood off the circle with his hand. He didn’t actually need to see it that clearly, but it was a good excuse to soak in another tiny scrap of the mana still locked in the dead eldrin’s blood. While he worked, he kept his back to the mayor and his True Sight spell. He couldn’t keep that up forever. He needed some way to hide his human features...

          “Would anyone object to me removing this body so I can get a better look?” Caladin asked the crowd. Nobody spoke up. “Good.” Caladin laid his hands on the inverted corpse and triggered the Rend Flesh spell in his pocket. The body exploded into a shower of gore that covered Caladin’s body in bright eldrin blood. “Sorry about that,” he apologized. “I don’t know my own strength sometimes.” Covering himself in eldrin blood was exactly what he had meant to do, of course. It made his illusory eldrin disguise nearly impossible to pick out, as well as the scrolls in his pocket, while giving him direct access to all that mana rich eldrin blood. He easily tossed away the remains of the corpse with a telekinesis spell, then cleaned off the surface of the teleportation circle with a cleaning cantrip. “Ah, I see your problem,” he said. That wasn’t even a lie. The problem was that they had constructed the circle with cheap copper instead of the high-quality silver Caladin’s own circle was made from, which allowed his circle to dominate this one and override it with the security parameters he’d installed. He didn’t exactly want to admit that last part, of course.

          “What is the problem?” the mayor demanded from his raised platform.

          Caladin looked up at him with a disapproving glare. “This thing is overdue for maintenance. Someone must have damaged it. Tell me, who do you have assigned to keep it clean and free of blemishes?”

          The idea was absurd, of course. They installed the circle in a solid block of stone near the center of town. There was absolutely no chance anyone had been cleaning it, but if they’d had to call in an expert, Caladin thought it likely none of them knew that. Thinking the fault was theirs would deflect the blame from Caladin. “C-clean it?” the mayor asked, his face going slack. “You’re supposed to clean it?”

          “Well, how else would you know if one of the rune forms got damaged?” Caladin demanded. Some angry grumbles built in the crowd and for once it didn’t seem to Caladin that they were directed at him. “Here. I can fix it!” Caladin said. He leaned down and activated one of his Repair spells. Golden fire burned over the surface of the teleportation circle and restored it to mint condition. It wasted most of the mana from the eldrin blood than Caladin would have preferred, but it looked flashy and would probably convince the locals that he had actually fixed the problem. If they had a real expert show up later, having repaired the circle would also hide the fact that there’d been nothing wrong with it. As the golden fire faded, the circle shone with the polish it’d had the day it was first installed. “There, all better,” Caladin announced.

          “That’s it?” the eldrin mayor asked.

          “That’s it,” Caladin repeated. “Now, if you don’t mind, I think I ought to clean some of this blood off me.”

          “Make ‘im use it!” a voice shouted from somewhere in the crowd.

          “He’s gotta use it himself,” someone else echoed.

          “They have a point,” the mayor agreed. “If you have truly fixed our circle, you surely would have no issue using it?”

          “Of course not,” Caladin said. He bowed his head to the crowd. “I understand your hesitation to believe me. I am happy to prove it’s working again.”

          Caladin stood in the center of the circle. He quickly inscribed a custom teleportation spell that would take him to Brorn’s manor without issue and prayed he had enough mana for the spell to work.

          Pop.

          Caladin appeared in Brorn’s study. He made a mad dash out of the room and went straight for the mana well. There was a crate of potions sitting on the well from the undead he had tasked with making batches of potions. It was good to see they were still doing their job, but bad when he needed mana in a hurry. “Shoo, shoo!” he shouted at the undead servant manning the mana well. “Get that crate out of here!”

          The servant obeyed, lifting the crate out of the way. Caladin didn’t have much time. In another minute or two, someone from Jakarta would feel brave enough to attempt to prove Caladin’s repair job worked. He had to shut down the security measures at Brorn-Mart’s circle before then. He swung his legs around to bask his entire body in the well’s mana. While he did that, he inscribed a mutamancy spell that would morph his ears to points and make his eyes appear pure white, like that of an eldrin. It wasn’t quite the same as a sensomancy disguise as his eyes didn’t actually glow, but on a sunny day it would be hard to notice the difference unless you were looking for it and he wouldn’t have to worry as much about True Sight ousting him as a human. He watched impatiently as his mana bars filled, cleaning off the eldrin blood with a simple cantrip while he waited. As soon as it recharged his mana, Caladin ran back to Brorn’s study and the teleportation circle therein.

          “What’s the hurry?” Brorn asked from the hall as Caladin ran past. “I thought you were in the middle of an experiment in your room?”

          “The results were... complicated,” Caladin guessed. He had no idea what Brorn was talking about, but he didn’t have time to figure it out either. “I’ll be right back!” He hit the teleportation circle, then immediately inscribed a spell that would take him back to the shop.

          Pop.

          Caladin ran out of the manager’s office. The carpenter was pounding away at a table. Caladin snatched the hammer from his hand. “I need to borrow this!” Caladin shouted, then ran back into the manager’s office. He smashed a section of the silver teleportation circle with his hammer, breaking it until further notice. That would actually fix the problem in Jakarta. Only once the circle was broken did Caladin relax. He could take his time rebuilding the circle properly. Caladin walked back out of his office and handed Carlos his hammer back. “Thanks,” he said. “That was kind of an emergency.”

          “What’s going on?” Carlos asked.

          “Don’t worry about it. Just archmage stuff. I’ve got to go. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Just keep working.” Caladin pulled out a scroll and inscribed a custom vocomancy spell that would take him to the nearest functional teleportation circle and triggered it.

          Pop.

          Caladin was back in Jakarta, surrounded by a group of very pleased looking eldrin. “You see?” Caladin told them. “It’s working just fine.” He carefully controlled his breathing so it wouldn’t be obvious he’d just been running.

          “What took you so long?” someone asked.

          Caladin gestured at the front of his coat. “I had to clean myself off. Didn’t you see all the blood on me before?” It was such a perfect excuse. Caladin spotted Lenny stalking towards the crowd from the edge of town. It didn’t look like anyone had noticed him yet. “Uh, now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m a very busy man. We have great deals on tables and chairs at Brorn-Mart. If anyone’s looking to spruce up their home decor, I invite you to come on by!” To leave, Caladin created a pop of sound with a sonamancy spell, while triggering a sensomancy spell to go invisible at the same time. The effect was that he could trick the townsfolk into thinking he’d teleported away while actually he’d gone invisible. He ran through the crowd to reach Lenny before he could do anything stupid.

          “Hey, what—” Lenny started to say when Caladin grabbed him. He teleported them both safely back to the shop. “Oh. Cally. It’s you,” Lenny said as Caladin released his invisibility spell. “I guess you got your mana back.”

          “Yes,” Caladin agreed. “What were you doing wandering into town? Someone could have seen you. I had the situation under control.”

          “You were taking too long,” Lenny protested. “I said I’d follow you in if you took too long.”

          Caladin sighed. “Sorry. Complicated problem. One I inadvertently caused. I half fixed it. Now I need to fix the shop’s teleportation circle. I cut some corners when I installed it the first time. But if you’re ready, I can fix you up first.”

          “Yes, please,” Lenny said. “The smell is really getting to me.”

          “Not to worry,” Caladin said. He pulled out a Repair scroll and pressed it against Lenny’s forehead. Golden fire burned away the rot. Caladin restored Lenny to perfect undead health. “See?” he said. “Good as new.”

          Lenny blinked. He looked around and settled on Caladin’s face. “Cally?” Lenny asked. “Where have you been? They attacked the camp, kiddo. You need to—” Lenny stopped and looked around. Confusion marred his features. “Where the hell are we?” he asked. “I was just... I was just...”

          Caladin remembered those words. They were the words Lenny had spoken when he first Repaired him. “Lenny...” Caladin said cautiously. He didn’t want to hear the answer, but he couldn’t not know. “What is the last thing you remember?”

          “They attacked the camp,” Lenny said. “I got separated from your father. I ran. The soldiers gave chase. I tried everything I could to lose them in the woods or find a sign that anyone else got away. There was nothin’ doin’. Three days I ran and three days they followed me...”

          Caladin tuned out the rest of Lenny’s words. He’d heard them before. Caladin had Repaired Lenny, but in the process he’d reset all his memories since he’d first awoken as an undead. Caladin almost felt like he’d killed Lenny a second time.

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