Shards

by James Duvall

"I am not sure I understand your point," Sapphire said. She took up a position across from him, watching the beaker boil. It was nearly time to add the wisterwort.

  Dawn looked down at Faralon's journal. "I just think it's exactly the sort of thing a mage might do. An ordinary man might put his treasures in a bank, or bury them beneath a shed. It is the way of mages to put all manner of magical traps and wards on the things they want to protect. In fact, did you know that fifty years ago a mage out of Bendrin University invented a sort of lock that worked off of colored light?"

  "I did not know that," Sapphire confessed. She tugged the tray of emberstones out from beneath the beaker. Immediately the bubbles slowed, and a misty white cloud formed at the top of the otherwise clear mixture. It hung there, making an artificial sky in the watery world. Rain began to fall in the form of little spheres of dark blue, pouring down out of the cloudy top and sinking slowly to the bottom of the beaker. Gradually all of the clear water was overtaken by the blue, and the cloudy top dissolved away. Sapphire began grinding the wisterwort into a thin slime in her mortar.

  "They did," Dawn said, continuing the story. "I don't remember the man's name, but his invention became very popular among the magic community and the wealthy elite of Cahen. They liked them because the keys were colorful crystals. You see, when the light poured through them it would change colors, and that's how the lock would open. Unfortunately thieves found they could pass off the crystals inside the locks as brightstone, and so came to steal not the contents of these vaults, but the locks themselves."

  "I would just take both and be done with it," Sapphire said simply. The mages seemed foolish to her, inviting disaster by offering up such tempting targets. The thieves were worse though, going to the trouble to steal the gemstone locks, but not the treasure inside which must have been far more valuable to justify such an expensive lock. She had no time for either of these sorts.

  "Leave it to Bendrin University to go and do a fool thing like that," Sapphire muttered. After all, they had turned her away, and that made them fools to the last. She could make a better lock than this. She had made a better lock, in fact. It secured the tower door, ensuring that Dawn would not be stumbled upon while he slept.

  Sapphire paused her grinding of the wisterwort plants and looked up at Dawn. He looked tired, but he nearly always looked tired. She could see it in his eyes, the way they looked a little sad when he was at rest. Maybe that was why he told so many stories? He lit up like a much younger drake when he was telling a story. Those were the times you could hardly tell that there was something wrong with him, but there was something wrong with him.

  The alchemist wondered about the question she could not bear to speak aloud. How much time did he have left? If she didn't cure him, how much longer could he resist his affliction? Did he sense the end? Was that why he wanted so badly for her to go to the Bright Haven and in doing so, to carry the Dawn Shard to it and with it, him?

  In her bag was Carrol's book. It would have the cure, or so she hoped. She put her doubts aside, burying them beneath well-earned confidence and many years of experience. They would not be parted; not by this. Dawn didn't see her worried look, he watched the rain fall in the little beaker with wide-eyed wonder. By the time he looked up, Sapphire had a smile in her eyes. Her ears were pricked forward and she tittered at him, making a soft happy sound.

  "I think it is ready," she said. The last of the wisterwort oil dissolved into the dark blue elixir. She transferred it into a vial more suitable for pouring into the narrow keyhole.

  Standing on either side of the keyhole, the luminarians prepared to open Faralon's lock. Sapphire tipped the vial against the base of the opening, letting the dark mixture run out. It disappeared into the darkness, and for a moment nothing happened. The two of them waited in quiet anticipation.

  "It could take a few minutes," Sapphire said, breaking the silence. Dawn nodded his understanding.

  Smoke whispered out of the keyhole, thin and white. Sapphire took a step back. Little tendrils of smoke were seeping out from the cracks in the stone. The air became hot. Sapphire drew still further back; Dawn held his ground. The grout around the tile bearing the keyhole began to hiss, sputtering as more and more smoke escaped through it. Gradually it gained in volume and intensity, until the entire section was surrounded in a thin wall of rising white smoke. Sapphire could hear stone cracking as she darted about the room, opening windows to vent the smoke.

  "I can see the bruskwood box!" Dawn called. "It's here! It's really here!"

  Sapphire pumped her wings, blowing the smoke back as she advanced on Dawn's position. At last the reaction ebbed. Smoke rose from the crater in the floor as though a meteor had come through the window.

  The box had no lock on it, much to the delight of the luminarians. Sapphire was able to tug it out of the hole in the floor, but her limbs still ached with soreness from shoving the stove off of it, making getting the box onto the table an optimistic dream.

  "Open it!" Dawn urged.

  Inside was a book bound in blue leather and a shard of blue crystal. Sapphire lifted the crystal out first, holding it up so that Dawn could see. It fit neatly in her feral hand, and was only a few inches long. It had been polished to smoothness on every facet, but the cut was irregular, as though it had simply been broken out of the ground and then polished as it had been found. It was bulbous on one end, and thinned all the way down to a point on the other. While Sapphire held it, she could feel a subtle pull from the crystal as it tried to draw magic from her. It was in her nature to resist this at first, but curiosity drove her to release some of her energy into the crystal. It began to pulse slowly with light. A soft halo of thin blue mist formed around it. Seeing it made Sapphire's eyes light up.

  "Could this really be an Arlorian focus...?" she asked, voicing her suspicions to Dawn. The gem had become weightless in her hand. When she uncurled her claws, it righted itself in the air so that the bulk of it was on top. It tapered to a thin point at the bottom, like a stalactite affixed to nothing but the air. If this was what she thought it was, it was surely a gift from one of the Seven Wardens. The only focusing gem more powerful than these were the songshards, of which Sapphire had only seen one. An Arlorian focus was worth more than anything she could have hoped to find in the ruins of Forrander University. Anything save a cure for Dawn's illness. She would trade the focus for that in a heartbeat.

  Dawn's mouth opened a little as he leaned in to get a better look at it. The gem hovered on a halo sparkling blue fog. "The books say they should float like this, but glidestone also floats. True there's no orbitals to drive it, but maybe the mist?"

  Dawn looked to Sapphire, who shrugged her wings in answer. He looked at it for a moment more, holding his talons up alongside it to get a feel for the dimensions. Sapphire wasn't certain how well that translated through Dawn's scrying circle, but over the years he had proved very capable with the device, so she didn't say anything. There were certain things the scrying platform did not translate well, as evidenced by the blurry span of Dawn's right leg. To the casual eye, it looked to be a subtle blemish in the oranges of his fur, but Sapphire knew better.

  "Does it feel cold?" Dawn asked, finishing his measurements. He picked up a book from the floor. It was on his side, so it seemed to have been invisible until the moment he laid hands on it. He penned a few notes onto one of the blank pages.

  The gem did feel cold to the touch, and it made her skin tingle, now that it was charged a little. It seemed to be possessed of an almost electrical quality, thrumming with energy against her paw. "Colder than spring water, but not as cold as ice," Sapphire estimated. Her mate added this to his notes.

  The accompanying book had a blue leather cover with gold leaf pressed into it. The title was written in ornate, bold text with superfluous curves to give it a whimsical look. In pendrian it read "Codex of the Cold."

  Of course, finding a book written in old holharren was an anomaly which Sapphire was unlikely to repeat outs
ide of Dawn's tower, but it would have lent credence to the theory that the gem was, in fact, of ancient origin. Sapphire flipped through the pages and found that it had been scribed by hand. The pages had the familiar waxy-feeling of alchemist's paper, which had surely warded it against the centuries.

  A common theme quickly emerged among the spells, ice and its many uses in magic. The first chapter contained spells to summon ice, first as a form of barrier, and then as various weapons like the icicle daggers. Subsequent chapters covered extracting the properties of ice in the form of alchemic compositions, and using these to slow a subject down by chilling the muscles and blood.

  "Lovely," Sapphire said, grimacing at a graphic description of the devastation wrought by freezing a victim's blood. In the back of her mind, she wondered how the author had come to know that, and shuddered. The book went on to discuss the medical applications, including chilling a body to stave off death from wounds until a surgeon could be brought to bear.

  Finished with her brief survey, Sapphire stuffed the book into her burgeoning satchel along with Carrol's volume. Later she would transcribe the spells of interest, and then sell the book to Bendrin University. Given its age, it might very well contain a few spells that had been lost to the years, which would drive the price up and allow even a luminarian to gain access to Bendrin's extensive library.

  The focus was likely worth a hundred times what she could get for the book if genuine. If it was, Sapphire had no intention of selling it. Depending on its age, it could be nearly seven times as effective as the ones she was growing back in Havek Shard. Sapphire fastened the buckle on her satchel and looked to Dawn for his findings.

  "What do you think?" she asked, hopeful. "Genuine article?"

  Dawn smiled back at her. "Yes, yes I think so," he said. He rifled through his notes, mumbling quietly as he read through them.

  "The signs all point to it, anyway," he went on. "We will need to conduct a few tests to be sure. For now, keep charging it. I will go and read up on pre-Shattering focuses in the meantime."

  Deep blue mist still hung in a soft halo around the gem. It trailed light like the tail of a comet as Sapphire snatched it from the air and tucked it into the little herb pouch she wore on her right foreleg. Even through the leather she could feel the soft tingle of its power, pulling on her magic like a sponge soaking up water. The focus had not been used in a very long time. All of the magic had leaked out of it, leaving a great void to be filled.

  Not long after, Dawn left to do his research. Sapphire packed up her things, preparing to make a two day trip up into the mountains to gather some of the rarer herbs that Carrol promised could be found at high altitudes in the Lost Islands. Of course, Carrol's book predated the Shattering and so called them by their old name; the Splendor Islands. The alchemist was busy cleaning her equipment when the aged door creaked on its hinges, swinging into the old lab and permitting a lighthound into her presence.

  Sapphire froze, meeting his gaze. For a moment, the lighthound looked back at her in confusion. He looked nearly as surprised to see her as she was to see him. Then he spotted Faralon's journal sitting open on the counter near where Sapphire sat perched.

  "I need that," the gryphon announced, moving toward it.

  Sapphire snatched it up, clutching it tight against her chest. "It's mine!"

  The gryphon frowned with his eyes, tilting his ears back. As gryphons went he was of small size, not full grown either, but Sapphire recognized the significance of the white marks on the tips of his wings. He was a lighthound, and he stood nearly twice Sapphire's height at the shoulder, filling the door with his wingspan. For the moment she had the high ground on the workbench, but there was enough room for the gryphon to charge.

  "It is not yours," the lighthound insisted. "It is Timothy's, and you will return it or I will have to take it from you."

  Sapphire stole a glance toward the window. She could scramble out through it, but not quickly, the gryphon would catch her. The door was still open. She could lose him in the trees if she could just get a little ways ahead of him. He wasn't full grown. An idea took shape, harried by the gryphon edging closer.

  "...can you see in the dark yet?"

  The gryphon lifted his head, taken aback. "What?"

  Wind rushed through the lab, slamming the shutters down over the windows and blowing pages of the ruined books in a vortex around the luminarian. It bought Sapphire the precious seconds she needed to yank a polished onyx stone from her satchel. Imbued with her spell, the charm pulled the light from the room, cloaking them in the black of night despite the evening sun.

  "I can," Sapphire said, grinning in the dark. She could see the young lighthound's eyes flickering with soft blue light. He would get glimpses of her as she darted back and forth, zigzagging across the laboratory benches to confuse his hearing as she closed in on him. On the last table she picked up a piece of glassware and flung it toward the window on the opposite wall. The gryphon turned his head toward the cacophony of breaking glass as Sapphire rushed past overhead, tucking her wings at the last moment to avoid clipping the doorway.

  The maneuver was costly, rocketing her through the doorway as she dropped to the ground faster than her legs could catch her. She landed on her front legs first, instinctively bounding off of them to get her body pointed skyward before her hind legs landed and with another bound, propelled her forward again. Much too slow, her forepaws had not yet left the ground when her momentum crashed into them, forcing her chest into the ground. The force of it carried her onto her side and she rolled into the daylight, turning over twice before her claws caught the ground and gouged slender trenches in the soil as she came to a stop.

  Sapphire had landed on her right shoulder when the roll first began, all of the weight of her body propelled into the base of the powerful wing muscle via her shoulder. Even without trying it, Sapphire could feel the wing was bereft of its strength. Expecting the lighthound to emerge any moment, Sapphire looked to the open doorway. The yawning blackness looked to be a hole torn into the light of day.

  Desperately Sapphire yanked another gem from her satchel and flung a phial of water across the doorway. The gem hummed with power as Sapphire forced magic into it. A thick wall of ice sprang up from the water, filling the doorway. Like lightning it displaced the air so quickly that thunder crashed like a cannon firing. It echoed through the valley as Sapphire panted. She was relieved to see the young gryphon had not been caught in the spell and was unhurt. Briefly she felt the rush of victory, but her exultation faded beneath the dull pains beginning to register all over her body. Any sense of satisfaction she held onto withered away as she looked into the gryphon's baleful eyes, glowering at her through the thick sheet of ice.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I need this. It will melt in a few hours and you can go."

  The lighthound stared his silent, unblinking wrath. Sapphire felt so small before those cruel eyes.

  "I'm sorry," she said again, quietly. One wing drooped awkwardly off her back as she limped into the woods.

  Chapter 9

  The Wretched

  Beneath Mt Idon, Isla Merindi, Pendric Shard

  The greatest peril in a bridger's career is to bridge into a shard not yet marked upon the map. As of the time of this writing there have been no discoveries of a method to view what lies on the other side of a shardwall short of bridging into it. The first to enter, must therefore always make a leap of faith.

  From Shardwalls, A History

  For nearly his entire life Timothy Binks had been lying to authority figures, but never one so great as the king of the dwarven kingdom of Maronar. King Gabligar was ensconced upon an iron throne with plates of gold and finely cut rubies as adornments. At one side sat his hammer. It had a ruby spike atop a stone head banded with gold. More gold had been pounded out smooth along the haft to serve as an inlay. Useless as a weapon, it served as a symbol of power in the kingdom beneath Mt. Idon.

  On the king's right stood a dwarf in r
egal attire, The Historian. He wore a red cloak bound with a sapphire across his broad chest. He carried the biggest book Timothy had ever seen, holding it reverently with both hands. The man called for a boy who brought a pedestal for the book, similarly inlaid with sapphires and gold. The boy was short and sturdy as a cannonball. He placed the pedestal and hurried away faster than his short legs seemed capable of.

  The aged Historian moved slowly to the pedestal with his book. He was accompanied by his son or apprentice, also getting on in his years. The book was laid out with reverence and care, and the pages turned with slow, deliberate caution.

  "Beneath the mountains, we have no knowledge of the passing of the sun," the Historian explained. "So we do not count in days as you do. Our mines are rich with tunnet stones, which our ancestors called the breath of mountains. For a time they take magic in and give off light. When they have filled, they let the magic out and become dim. One forge cycle lasts a thousand lightings."

  The Historian squinted at Timothy with milky blue eyes to see if he understood. Timothy nodded, and when that went unnoticed said that he understood.

  "The agreement with ehm, with Forrander University of Deshym was written in the 512th Forging before the Dimming."

  Timothy assumed this was in reference to the Shattering, but had long ago learned that unnecessary questions were a quick and foolish way to expose one's ignorance of subjects that a role ought be an expert in, so he held his tongue.

  "I will spare you the ehm, the reading, it is long and lengthy. My grandson is scribing a copy of it for you, if you desire one. He has much better handwriting you see, and we wanted to be sure it was easily read."

  Timothy tightened his jaw, not because he felt affronted, but because a bridger would. "As I explained to your men," he began, "I did not intend to trespass or otherwise malign the sovereignty of your lands. I came to inspect the ruin of the school facilities. Surely when the contract was written no one could have anticipated that we would be cut off from the facility in such a profound manner as a shardwall."