H - 32: It's Not Her Fault (Patreon)

He never approached the level of “friendly,” or even “personable,” but it was amusing how much better Shadrach the wizard behaved when under the eyes of two unimpressed elder dragons. Back in Kaln’s chambers in the lair that afternoon, he had just enough brainpower to spare from keeping conscious control of the wards and engaging in conversation to surreptitiously enjoy the grouchy mage’s discomfiture. Shadrach hadn’t even commented on Kaln’s slapdash arrangement of enchanted objects forming haphazard pieces of a bedroom and kitchen in the middle of Atraximos’s old museum space. He had seen the man take in the sight, curl his lip, glance at Izayaroa and Emeralaphine, and physically repress his outward reaction.

Even if this didn’t work out it would almost be worth it for the entertainment alone.

“Watching you do that is incredibly unnerving,” Shadrach commented tersely. Which came as a surprise; he wasn’t even watching Kaln at all, being turned away examining the ceiling of the huge front chamber.

“I’m not even—you mean, controlling the wards? I’m just keeping them from reacting to whatever you’re doing. And also to Emeralaphine. Looks like our hypothesis was correct; they really don’t like her being in here.”

“Utterly typical,” Emeralaphine snorted, folding her arms. “At least there will be no more of his nonsense to suffer.”

“I wonder,” Kaln said, frowning as he concentrated on the flows of magic running through the chamber, “could I…remove whatever element of them is causing—”

“I would strongly advise you not to attempt to modify this ward network,” Shadrach said with an audible strain in his voice. “I would be hesitant to modify this ward network, not being a specialist in such enchantments. The intricacy and power of this thing is unreal, which makes the way you mindlessly control it all the more unsettling. If you messed it up, the best case scenario is that it would collapse. Being a defensive structure, it’s more likely it would do something incredibly nasty to everyone and everything in this mountain.”

“I concur, husband,” Emeralaphine added. “We can conduct any future…congress elsewhere. It is fascinating to watch you manipulate it, though. How would you describe the experience of controlling it?”

“I don’t know, it’s just like…thinking,” Kaln admitted. “I don’t have the expertise to understand the mechanics of it the way you do, but I can tell it doesn’t like you being in here. As long as you don’t do any magic I don’t think it’ll react aggressively. It’s just trying to do something…to…encourage you to leave? I’m not sure how else to describe it.”

“Absolute madness,” Shadrach muttered.

“A psychological vector of attack?” Emeralaphine curled her lip disdainfully. “That old coward. I wouldn’t have thought him capable of something so subtle—but perhaps it’s unsurprising he would hesitate to provoke me directly.”

“Will you be able to interface with it, Shadrach?” Izayaroa asked.

“Yes, it shouldn’t be a problem,” the wizard said, turning in a slow circle and directing his gaze to various points around the upper parts of the walls. “It’s designed to be added to—both integrating new magical objects into the collection, and adding new ward functions. I don’t get the impression erecting a permanent portal in here was specifically one of the intentions, but I can see how I can get it to accept such a thing. What’s more important is I believe I can get it to apply its own security features to the doorway, to help ward against intrusion. That would be ideal; I can do basic defensive charms, of course, but this is the best defensive ward network I’ve ever seen and it would be a pity not to put it to proper use. What concerns me,” he added, shooting Kaln an annoyed sidelong look, “is that you’ll need to actively keep control of it to let me add any modification. It’s been a while since I’ve worked in conjunction with anyone else, and that was with a professional. Describing what I’ll need in a way you can not only understand but act upon is going to be…a trial.”

“I’m not a complete idiot, you know,” Kaln said mildly.

“If you were a complete idiot, you would obviously be dead already, given what you’re playing around with here.” Shadrach glanced at the two dragons fleetingly. “You are a layperson and that’s going to be…enough. This is not simple material.”

“I have worked with a wide variety of partners,” Emeralaphine said with some amusement, her tail flicking. “Why don’t you let me handle my husband?”

“I wish you would,” Shadrach grunted.

She narrowed her eyes and Kaln jumped in before this could devolve. “I was wondering earlier—wouldn’t it be better to just remove the entire ward network, both here and at the other end, and have Emeralaphine lay new ones? She is certainly a better magician than Atraximos.”

Shadrach rounded on him, glaring. “Are you daft?”

“I don’t think you realize the enormity of what you’re asking, husband,” Emeralaphine added, fortunately looking amused rather than similarly scandalized. “Atraximos built this over the course of centuries. Yes, I could make something better, and also much faster—I estimate it would only take me a decade or two. I thought our ideal timetable was two weeks at most?”

“This ward network is a treasure,” Shadrach ranted, waving his hands in outrage. “It’s a masterwork! I would compare it to a cathedral! You don’t just tear down something like this because it’s in the way!”

“Also,” Izayaroa added in a much calmer tone, “there is an advantage in security to having a system laid by three different practitioners, with three different approaches to defensive spells. Absolute security is a myth, but what we are proposing to build would be, I think…functionally absolute, in that anyone capable of brute-forcing through it would be more likely to just come through the front door flinging spells, and anyone capable of penetrating it through skill and subtlety… Well, we wouldn’t be able to keep them out anyway.”

Kaln thought about Boisverd, about Izayaroa’s idea of security, and decided this was not the time or place.

“I see,” he said politely. “Thank you for explaining. I appreciate your patience with my ignorance.”

“But of course, husband,” Emeralaphine said smugly. Izayaroa gave her a sidelong look.

“All right, I believe I’ve seen what I need to here,” Shadrach stated, turning in another full circle to peer around. Kaln wondered what he was seeing; even able to intuitively sense the magic as he could, he didn’t detect anything worth looking at in any of the spots Shadrach was looking. “Let’s have a look at the other end. Ah… That is, your Excellency…”

“I am not here in my capacity as head of state,” Izayaroa said with a small smile. “You may address me by name, sir. Would you prefer a topographical map, or exact latitude and longitude? Actually, never mind, it is just as easy to do both.”

Kaln both sensed her calling upon magic, and sensed the ward network focusing on her in preparation to take action; he flexed his will to hold that at bay while Izayaroa conjured an illusion showing a section of forest in the foothills of a mountain, floating in the air before her and accompanied by a string of numerals hovering above.

“Ah, perfect, that’s excellent,” Shadrach said, showing the first open satisfaction Kaln had ever seen on him—and that smile remained just as dangerous as he remembered. “If I must work with others, I do appreciate someone who provides thorough detail. Off we go, then!”

Kaln could not feel Shadrach’s magic the way he could a dragon’s, but he sensed the wards responding to the wizard’s casting, and then the chamber disappeared around them.

They were standing in a patch of forest that looked very like the area where he and Izayaroa had landed in Boisverd, save for the presence of an unremarkable thatch-roofed cottage on one side of the clearing and a semi-overgrown wagon trail leading to it out of the trees.

He could also feel the magic laid over the cottage—feel it turn its attention upon them, not reacting just yet, but…lying in wait.

“Well, there it is,” Emeralaphine stated, waving one claw at the cottage. “Go on, Kaln. I’ve been looking forward to seeing this for myself.”

“I shall endeavor not to disappoint,” he replied, giving her a roguish wink. She blinked, seemingly confused by the gesture.

He turned back to the cottage, focusing. The thing itself was just so much mundane matter, but he could sense the magic laid upon it—magic crafted by a dragon. It suffused every part of the cottage itself, radiating outward to less thoroughly encompass its immediate vicinity, with further tendrils gently questing into the distance to monitor its surroundings. Much smaller than the ward network on Atraximos’s lair, of course, and additionally, far less complex. He wondered how much time and effort Izayaroa had spent setting this up.

Kaln glanced at her, receiving a warm smile and an encouraging nod.

It was as simple as thinking. He exerted his will, felt the magic, and…claimed it. Just like that, he had complete control, complete awareness. All of it responded to his command alone, feeding him the information it was gathering about its surroundings.

Lots of birds, squirrels, moles… A truly inconceivable number of insects. Kaln quickly drew his attention back from that flood of information. Nothing noteworthy was nearby, save two dragons, a wizard, and a godling.

“That is truly one of the more terrifying things I have ever witnessed,” Shadrach muttered, grimacing and rubbing his hands on the front of his robes. “That’s going to haunt my nightmares for a while.”

“Yes, rather intriguing, isn’t it?” Emeralaphine added, giving Kaln a far friendlier look—albeit one that seemed to gauge him more as an interesting specimen than a loved one. Well, she was a work in progress. “I’ve seen similar things, of course, but when it comes to godlings and other rare phenomena, each experience is something unique. Truly, it’s these outliers at the edges of the knowable that make the study of magic so endlessly fascinating!”

“Right, sure,” the wizard grunted. “I’m going to take a look inside. Zelekhir, kindly tell it not to eat me.”

“Well, obviously,” Kaln said cheerfully. “You haven’t done your job yet.”

Shadrach made no response, just stalking up to the cottage door. It was locked; with a little flick of his will, Kaln unlocked it, allowing him to step inside, Emeralaphine close on his heels.

“No one mentioned just how pretty he was,” Izayaroa commented at his side. “I begin to see why Pheneraxa, houseplant though she is, was so interested in befriending that one.”

Shadrach certainly cleaned up nicely. If anything, Kaln was grateful the mage wasn’t distractingly topless and aglow with sweat, but he was now distractingly dashing in his his flawlessly tailored black robes.

“I considered that,” he said aloud. “Watching them interact, I think Pheneraxa just enjoys being able to needle someone who won’t retaliate the way her siblings do. Then again, she does strike me as exactly the kind of person who has no idea how to flirt even if she wanted to.”

Izayaroa gave him a thoughtful look, one corner of her lips twitching in a faint smile.

“Oh,” Kaln said innocently, “was I supposed to be jealous? A thousand apologies, my love. How dare you make eyes at another man, truly I am wroth.”

“Don’t overcompensate, husband,” she said, grinning and bumping him with her shoulder. “Confidence and security are very attractive, too.”

They followed the other two inside, where there wasn’t much to see. With the windows shuttered, there wouldn’t have been anything at all, but Emeralaphine had conjured a floating ball of light above her head, filling the single room with helpful radiance. The cottage had no furniture save two racks of shelves and a large wooden chest, currently standing open and empty. It was spotlessly clean, without even a speck of dust; Kaln could now discern the feature of the ward network which ensured this.

“Good, good,” Shadrach was muttering to himself, again turning in circles and studying things Kaln couldn’t see on the walls. “A textbook configuration.”

“I hope you are not too disappointed,” Izayaroa said very evenly.

“No, no, textbook is perfect,” the mage said absently, seeming not to notice any emotional component to her reaction. “Both for my purposes, and those of this as a drop point. Complex or subtle wards out here in the middle of nowhere would only attract attention. This? Any passing mage would assume it’s another wizard’s storage shed, and probably keep walking. Evervales adventurers don’t have a raid-and-pillage mindset as a rule. Big cultural emphasis on privacy around here. Yeah, this is ideal—I can not only build a portal in here, but work it right into the existing wards in such a way that it doesn’t even look like anything’s there.”

He turned to face them, actually rubbing his hands, and for the first time looked interested in what they were doing—actively so, not just grugingly.

“All right! Zelekhir, my staff, if you please.”

“Now hang on,” Kaln said with a wry smile. “You haven’t done anything yet.”

“And do you want it done this afternoon or over the course of this week?” the wizard snapped. “I gather you know what that staff does. Besides, there’s the… Well, would one of you ladies like to explain it to him? It’d probably seem rude, coming from me.”

“I get the impression that is not something about which you commonly worry,” Izayaroa mused.

“Dragons don’t usually conduct business with mortals,” Emeralaphine explained with a smug little smile, “but when we do, the done thing is to pay in advance. Few mortals are stupid enough to defraud a dragon, and none has ever done it twice. On the contrary, it is the dragons they have to worry about not bothering with payment when the task is done. You should know, husband, that many of our kind do not share Tiavathyris’s sense of honor, nor Izayaroa’s love of fairness. Indeed, I would not scruple to put this conceited little creature to work and them toss him out. Nor will I bear ill will that he seems too clever to be in that position. Fair’s fair.”

“I see,” Kaln said calmly, inclining his head to her. “Thank you for that explanation. But…I’m not a dragon.” He turned a sunny smile upon Shadrach, who curled his perfect lip in response.

“Oh, so you’d rather be addressed in human terms? Fine, so you broke into these ladies’ home, presumably to steal something, murdered their husband, and now are keeping them in sexual servitude through brute force? What the hells is your problem, guy? You belong in a dungeon.”

Kaln stared at him in silence while Izayaroa and Emeralaphine grinned in vast amusement. Just for a second. Then he pulled the staff out of his bag of holding and wordlessly extended it. Shadrach snatched it from his hand with a decidedly ungrateful grimace.

“What does that thing do?” Izayaroa inquired. “That it is intensely magical I can tell at a glance, but beyond that…”

“It’s an intelligence facilitator,” said Emeralaphine, eyes also on the staff, her expression critical. “An apt choice of enticement for a portal mage. It adds nothing to his power, per se, but in essence…does a lot of the math for him. With that in hand, a mage of his specialization can accomplish in an instant what might otherwise take him hours of preparation.”

“Don’t intelligence-augmenting artifacts rather notoriously tend to cause insanity?” Izayaroa asked.

“Indeed, which is why that one is famous. Rhadmeistre made it from a previous masterwork staff, one belonging to a mage specializing in healing. A very innovative integration of an entirely new focus into an established enchantment. It not only vastly accelerates the holder’s ability to perform calculations, but insulates the brain from the normal effects of that. In fact, I should think making habitual use of it would serve to stave off the later-life dementia to which mortals are prone.”

“Hm,” Izayaroa grunted. “You can ward off the worst of that by regularly learning new languages and eating minimal sugar…”

“Who cares?” Emeralaphine exclaimed in exasperation.

“That’s interesting, I only knew the first half of that,” Kaln said before they could begin properly sniping. “Atraximos kept meticulous notes on everything, but it seems every time I cross-reference them with another source it reveals a stretch of material about which he simply didn’t care.”

“Yes, that sounds right,” Emeralaphine agreed, sneering. “I do wish you’d left me his corpse to work with, husband, but altogether I am most appreciative that you got rid of the old brute.”

“You…what, vaporized him?” Shadrach demanded, scowling. “Zelekhir, do you have the faintest idea what the corpse of an elder dragon is worth?”

“Just make with the magic, Shadrach,” Kaln sighed while his wives grinned in malicious amusement.

The ensuing hours were exactly as difficult as he’d expected, being spent mostly interfacing between Shadrach and one or the other ward network—with Emeralaphine interceding to translate. Kaln couldn’t help taking some amusement from the cranky wizard’s ongoing struggle to restrain his temper in front of the two dragons, but even so, managing it was tense. He was grateful Izayaroa had the foresight to banish the drakes from the vicinity; Vanimax didn’t seem interested, but both his sisters had wanted to spectate (and commentate) and Kaln suspected that would have pushed someone over the edge.

He, of course, had no frame of reference for how long it normally took to build a portal network, but to judge by how impressed Emeralaphine was, evidently that staff did indeed shave an enormous amount off the time Shadrach needed to work. The mage himself looked kind of surreptitiously giddy while using it.

But ultimately, a day spent in tedious, finicky work in which the challenge was managing the personalities involved made him almost homesick. This wasn’t at all the kind of work he’d done back in the Royal Archives, but it was reminiscent in all the right ways. At points he could imagine himself back there, soothing the bureaucrats of two competing departments as they tried to organize a joint project with an unclear chain of command.

He’d been good at that, at managing people—a competent enough scribe, but it was Kaln’s people skills that had formed the trajectory of his career. He could almost see, out of the corner of his eye, the Lord Scribe watching him sidelong with a proud smile as he passed through on some other task. Nothing had made him puff up more than that; quite apart from the career prospects of staying on the good side of the Empire’s chief bureaucrat, the Lord Scribe had been more of a father figure to Kaln than any of the kind souls actually responsible for orphan-wrangling in the apprenticeship program. To make him proud had always been…

Of course, that was before the same Lord Scribe had pulled strings to get Kaln falsely imprisoned because his presence was suddenly an embarrassment to Haktria’s offended father.

He pushed all that aside and focused on the here and now, gently distracting Emeralaphine whenever Shadrach said something too snippy for her sensibilities.

Being a layperson more or less along for the ride, he had little means of monitoring their progress, and so it was almost a surprise to him when it was done. Just like that, he had a doorway in his chamber which led to a little cottage deep in the forest countless miles away. By the end of it, Emeralaphine and Shadrach were both so tired of each other that both had departed with little further fanfare. Kaln planned to give her some time to relax in the comfort of her own chambers before making overtures to appease her ego, and he was frankly pleased at the prospect of not having to deal with Shadrach anymore. The man was just unpleasant in every way except to look at; wrangling him had been right in Kaln’s skillset and somewhat reminiscent, it was true, but he had plenty of work shepherding difficult personalities just with the dragons.

Izayaroa had given him a hug before returning to her own suite, and Kaln, finding himself momentarily at loose ends, decided on a whim to treat himself to a walk in the woods.

Well, not really a walk; he was reluctant to get too far, as neither his normally acquired skills nor his godling powers gave him anything in the way of forest navigation. Wary of getting himself lost, he didn’t even leave the clearing in front of the cottage. Even that was quite pleasant, however. There hadn’t been any forests back home, and it was just nice in a way that was hard for him to put into words. The coolness, the sounds of animals and of wind through leaves, the interplay of deep green shadows beneath the boughs and the shifting patterns of sunbeams that penetrated them… All of it felt soothing to the soul. Forests were extremely pleasant.

His cottage was positioned relative to the mountain such that the dawn would reach it quite late, but he had ample time to enjoy the sunset. Not that he could see it directly, thanks to the towering trees all around, but Kaln stood out in front of the cottage, enjoying the air and the lengthening shadows across the clearing as the light shifted from orange to red and the first hint of twilight crept ephemerally into the corners of the world.

“It’s not her fault, you know.”

Kaln stifled a sigh, then slowly turned back around to face the cottage. The spiky shadows of trees lengthened toward it in the reddening light, framing his own long shadow aimed right at the door. It waved cheerfully at him.

“Well, actually, let me rephrase that,” said the Entity. “It was explicitly her fault, but accounting for context, I don’t think it’s reasonable or fair to blame her. So Izayaroa doesn’t know the first thing about information control or how to conduct a discreet operation. She’s a ruler, and one of the best there is at her craft. She also doesn’t know how to dig a sewer system, balance a budget, or train a platoon! What she can do, and do better than practically anyone else alive, is manage the people who can do those things, balance all their and a thousand other competing interests, and produce the best combined result for the public who are the reason all that work needs to be done.

“You have to consider what being a dragon means, too, especially in a country like this. If the Verdi, or most Vale folk, saw a dragon walking among them, they would frantically pretend they’d seen nothing and it was just an average workday, ho hum. That is not how most people would react, especially in Rhivaak, or any of the places Izayaroa grew up. Why wouldn’t she assume she was flawlessly pulling off her surreptitious visits? We all have our blind spots, Kaln, no matter how clever we may be. You, for example, went into that excursion with blind faith that Izayaroa could do no wrong. Which makes the outcome as much your fault as hers, but I wouldn’t cast blame on you, either. Based on what you knew going in, your false assumption looked reasonable—just like hers. Sometimes you can do everything in what seems like the right way, and what you don’t know borks it right out from under you. That’s life!”

“The outcome, huh,” Kaln grunted. “Now you want me to ask you about those details. I bet you could tell me just what everyone knows. I bet you’d love to put me back under your sway, in need of your information.”

“Oh, is that what I’m after?” the Entity chuckled.

“Is it? I’ve gotta tell you, man, our relationship would still be a lot warmer if you weren’t so damn resistant to telling me what you really want.”

“Now, you’ve made some…less reasonable assumptions there, Kaln. I do enjoy explaining things, as you well know, but when have I ever needed to wait for prompting to do it?” The shadow shrugged; it had shrunk now to more normal proportions, out of sync with the lengthening shadows cast by the setting sun filtering through the trees.

“Are you ready to spill the beans? I’m all ears. Why have you done all this? What are you after? What does it gain you?”

“I’ve told you as much as I can afford to,” the Entity said gently. “There’s not much I can do about how much of it you choose to believe.”

“Well, when you change your mind about that, you’ll no where I am. Otherwise… If you’re going to keep hanging around, I’m going to have to look into ways to keep you from hanging around. I have resources now that I suspect would prove more effective than even you expect.”

The shadow actually thrust its arms over its head as if cheering. “Now that is such a good idea I’m almost afraid to encourage you to go for it, since you’ve apparently gotten it into your head that everything I say is trying to deceive you into error. Yes, Kaln, leverage those resources! Your dragons—hells, Emeralaphine alone is capable of throwing up walls that’d keep my spooky ass good and barred from your vicinity. So tell her. Tell her all about me, and you, and what brought you here. Tell them all, Kaln, and then follow their advice.”

“Is it…Rhivkabat?” he mused, frowning at the shadow. “Do you want me to take revenge on the Lord Scribe and Haktria and whoever else because you want to destabilize the Regency?”

“Rhivkabat is exactly like everywhere else in all the ways that matter: full of people like you, who had been done wrong from on high and left without recourse. If you destroy your enemies, more just like them will smoothly step into their place—but the replacements will think carefully before they try any more cute little tricks such as were played on you. I didn’t pick you because I have the slightest interest in your surroundings, Kaln, I picked you out of all the countless prospects because I thought you would be able to go the distance and finish the job. You are so close.”

“I think…I have arrived,” Kaln said slowly. “I am doing this, now. I can’t say I’m happy that Haktria and the Lord Scribe…got away with it, but looking at it from all the way out here… I don’t know, doing anything to them doesn’t seem like as good a use of my time as getting to know my new family. I’m starting to feel like these dragons need me as much as I need them. As a group, they’re a mess. Imagine what someone with some actual social skills could do for them. Maybe turn them from a loose alliance into an actual, proper family. How is that not a much better way to spend my energies than retaliating against vile people I’m better off leaving in my past?”

“Well, you’re not giving that family of yours as much credit as you would need to, to pull off what you’re describing,” the Entity said. Its tone was even, but Kaln could detect the subtle edge of irritation and tension beneath it. “Not if you insist on deceiving them about your own origins.”

“It’s none of their business—”

“Oh, don’t make me laugh,” it scoffed. “If what you want is for them to care about you, to develop a genuine intimacy, then your traumas are very much their business. And that’s just speaking generally, about the group as a whole. Do you think Izayaroa wouldn’t want to know that scheming politicians in her court are consigning promising young scribes to the dungeon for the crime of being socially inconvenient?”

It wasn’t a common experience for Kaln, but he found himself without a ready retort.

“Do the right thing, Kaln,” the Entity said, more gently, but still insistently. “You have to take action yourself. That’s the thing about what’s right: it’s not going to get done unless somebody steps up to do it, and that never comes to pass unless everyone assumes they’re the only one who can. In your case, you literally are.”

The shadow shifted on the ground before him, in a subtle motion that looked almost as if it had heaved a sigh.

“I have faith in you, my boy. We’ll talk again later.”

And then it was gone; his shadow quivered, then snapped back into place, extending before him so that it crept up the door of the cottage, as if marking his way home.