by John Bierce
“How will we know if it’s the right place?” Sabae asked.
“First,” Alustin said, “it’s going to be big enough for a large city to fit. Second, it will be an aether desert that is starting to have rapid and unpredictable increases in its aether density. Third, there should be signs of a lateral mana well— unlike many other great cities throughout history, Imperial Ithos was built on a lateral mana well with a rather stunted labyrinth, not a junction well with a full labyrinth. There shouldn’t be a labyrinth there when we find it— the entrance to Ithos’ labyrinth was dragged out of our world along with the city itself. There are a few other clues as well, largely based on the distance to historical population centers and the like. Imperial Ithos was somewhat remote and inaccessible for a capital, so far as we can tell— it was only built a couple centuries before the fall of the Empire, and it was built that way deliberately so as to be more defensible.”
Alustin paused. “Also, if you see an ancient city pop into existence, you’re probably in the right place.”
“It’s definitely either going to be at the last location we check or at none of them, and then turn out to be a location we never even thought of,” Talia said. “Or it’s in Emblin.”
Sabae sighed. “Is that another of your theories derived from all the trashy adventure novels you read? And why would it be in Emblin?”
Alustin butted in before the two of them could start squabbling again. “It’s definitely not Emblin, it’s been a mana desert since well before Ithonian times. We’d best hope that it’s one of the locations we’re searching, or at least one of the locations being searched by other Librarian Errant teams. We’re not the only ones looking.”
“Yeh mentioned Imperial Havath was lookin’ as well?” Godrick asked.
Alustin nodded. “And at least a half-dozen other great powers we know of. There’s a good chance we’re going to be attacked on this trip.”
“How good of a chance?” Talia asked.
Alustin and Artur glanced at one another meaningfully.
“I’d be shocked if we don’t get attacked, honestly,” Alustin finally said.
Artur grimaced again.
Sabae glanced up, spotting movement above. Hugh’s crystal spellbook was lurking among the uneven basalt columns making up the ceiling. Even though it didn’t have eyes, a face, or any visible way of expressing itself, she was fairly confident it was giving Talia a nervous look. The fact that she’d threatened to destroy it quite messily had probably contributed to that.
Sabae sighed, and turned her attention back to the conversation.
Godrick frowned at the selection in the weapon broker’s shop.
“What da yeh think a’ this one?” he asked the others, showing them a particularly hefty morningstar.
“It’s not a hammer,” Hugh said, glancing at it.
“Godrick’s fighting style should still work well enough with it, though,” Talia said absently, eying a particularly nasty-looking halberd.
Then she paused and looked apologetically back at Hugh. “But the hammer is kind of iconic for him and his father, though.”
Godrick sighed, and set the morningstar back on the rack. He wasn’t even sure if Talia realized how ridiculous she’d been acting over Hugh since Avah dumped him, or even if she was aware of her painfully obvious crush on him. Hugh definitely hadn’t noticed it, that was for sure.
He glanced over at Sabae, who was flirting with the shop clerk. Badly flirting. Now that she’d finally convinced herself it was fine to date, she’d been diving in headfirst at every opportunity. It hadn’t gone beyond awkward flirting just yet, but…
It was just a matter of time before someone was crying on Godrick’s shoulder over all of this.
Or the other way around. Godrick was under no illusions that he was less of an idiot than his friends at times.
Judging from the frequent looks the clerk was giving Godrick, either he would prefer Godrick to be the one flirting with him, or he’d recognized him as Artur’s son. Godrick’s da was nothing if not well known in Lothal, even considering how seldom he visited the city.
Godrick had to be honest, he got a little tired of just being recognized as the son of Artur Wallbreaker, and not being recognized simply for being himself. He glanced at the morningstar again. Maybe he should get it, just to differentiate himself from his da? He did know how to use one, albeit not as well as he did a hammer.
“What are all these pamphlets?” Hugh asked, idly browsing the pile of them on a nearby table.
“They’re for Ampioc’s various cults,” Godrick said.
“Cults plural?” Hugh said.
“Weren’t yeh paying any attention ta Kanderon when she was telling yeh all this? Or ta me the half-dozen times ah’ve told yeh this?” Godrick asked.
Hugh gave him a sheepish look.
Godrick rolled his eyes at that.
“Ampioc has relatively little interest in the day ta day runnin a’ his cults,” Godrick said. “He’s controlled Lothal fer about thirty years now, and in that time his cults have fractured again and again. There’s actually specific theological reasoning fer it, and the biggest debate is to whether there should be eight or nine different Ampioc cults.”
“How many are there now?” Hugh asked.
“Nineteen, maybe twenty?” Godrick said.
His parents had moved to Skyhold from Lothal when Godrick was still a small child, and he didn’t remember it very well. They’d only returned to visit his mother’s parents a couple of times, and they’d both passed on years ago. Godrick certainly didn’t feel any strong connection to the city, and his father had mostly bad memories of it. He still kept up on the news from Lothal, though.
“How about this one?” Talia asked, trying and failing to lift a sledgehammer sitting in a tucked-away corner.
Godrick reached over and pulled out the hammer. The enormous pentagonal steel head of the hammer was shaped like a basalt column, so it had clearly been made here in Lothal. Lothalans were obsessed with making sure things fit the city’s pentagonal aesthetic. It was unusually heavy, even for its large size, but still well balanced. Godrick reached out with his affinity senses to find that a long steel rod extended down the inside of the ash-wood handle.
“Ah think a plant or tree mage grew this handle up around the tang a’ the hammerhead,” Godrick said, turning it over in his hands. “No enchantments, but ah reckon this can take a serious beatin’.”
“I bet it can dish one out, too,” Talia said.
Godrick spent a few more minutes looking over weapons, but he eventually came back to that same hammer. The head that mimicked one of Lothal’s countless columns was a bit silly to Godrick’s mind— it’s not like Lothal needed any more of them— but it was a sturdy, well-built hammer.
He’d prefer something enchanted, but there’s no way he could afford an enchanted weapon right now. His da’s services as a battlemage were in high demand, but Artur wouldn’t casually purchase Godrick one regardless— decent weapons-grade enchantments were absurdly expensive, and Godrick had lost his last couple of hammers. Well, magically detonated his last one, but still.
A long round of bargaining with the clerk later— which, of course, was as loud, ridiculous, and argumentative as any bargaining session in Lothal— Godrick left the shop with his new hammer slung over his shoulder.
“Why are Lothalan coins blank on one side?” Sabae asked, looking at a Lothalan blank. The coin’s non-blank side had a pattern clearly meant to depict the city’s columns.
Godrick shrugged. “Ah heard it’s cause Lothal used ta’ trade rulers so often that the city mint got sick a’ cuttin’ new molds. Ah’m not sure that’s true, though.”
“While we’re shopping, I want to try and get some more shards of whale bone— I heard that some of Lothal’s water mages harvest it from whalefalls on the seabed, or trade for it from sea dwellers. Anyone want to find a bakery after that?” Talia asked. “Besides Hugh, obviously.”
Godrick, Talia, and Sabae all stopped as one to stare at Hugh. They’d literally never seen him pass up a chance to go to a bakery.
That pause saved Godrick’s life.
He heard a loud clack, then the world went white.
CHAPTER FOUR
Grovebringer
Hugh had forgotten to stop using the glare-shielding cantrip. He’d just absently kept it fixed in his mind’s eye for hours now. It said a lot about how his mana reservoirs had grown that he hadn’t even noticed the drain. So, when the dagger-thin lightning bolt impacted the wall just past Godrick, he wasn’t blinded by the glare like the others.
As the thunder rolled over them, Hugh reached out with his affinity senses to the basalt columns of the terrace-street as he crafted a second spellform in his mind’s eye.
Hugh’s crystal mana reservoir level dropped sharply as he severed the links in the crystal pattern of a row of columns in the street, separating them from the rest of the street. He dropped the second spellform immediately, then crafted a levitation cantrip designed specifically for the columns. His crystal mana reservoir began plummeting again as the entire row of columns shot up, forming a barrier between them and the attackers. Hugh quickly formed a third spellform— the pattern linking spellform that was the basis of most crystal magic. He rapidly began fusing the bases of the raised columns to the tops of the still intact columns around them.
The whole process probably took less than a five-count, and as he dropped all the spellforms save for the glare-shield cantrip, he heard a sharp clacking noise, and the flash of another lightning bolt hit the other side of the ten-foot tall wall he’d just raised in the street. It shuddered a little, but held.
Around them, people screamed and shouted in the street, dodging for shelter inside shops.
“What the storms was that?” Sabae said, rubbing her eyes.
“We’re under attack by a lightning mage,” Hugh said, running over to Godrick, who was lying on the ground groaning. “Godrick needs healing.”
“Ah’m fine,” Godrick said, sitting up with a groan. “Sore, but ah hardly got singed.”
“You were two feet away from a lightning strike carrying a giant steel hammer, how are you not a crisp right now?” Sabae asked. She started checking over Godrick to make sure he was unharmed, ignoring his protests.
There was another sharp clacking sound, then Hugh’s improvised wall shuddered from another lightning bolt.
“Sabae, were you watching that lightning bolt with your affinity senses?” Talia asked. “If you can pinpoint its source, I can return fire.”
“My lightning affinity sense is more like hearing,” Sabae said, “and wherever it’s coming from, it’s way out of my range.”
“What’s that noise before each strike?” Hugh asked.
“Galvanic beacon, probably,” Sabae said, peering into Godrick’s eyes. “Acts as a target for lightning spells. Lets you fire them more accurately and hit from a farther distance.”
“So we wait for the next clack against the wall, then Hugh and I jump out from behind the wall and attack,” Talia said.
“Me?” Hugh asked.
Talia gave him a level look. “Are you forgetting about your starbolts?”
Hugh paused. “I… uh, yeah, actually.”
Talia strode over to one edge of the wall. “Get ready, Hugh.”
Hugh did the same on the other side. “Oh, by the way, I’m using the glare-shield cantrip Kanderon taught me to keep the lightning from blinding me. You should do the same.”
Talia nodded.
The seconds seemed to stretch on and on as they waited for the next clack. It was probably only a few heartbeats, but it felt like an eternity. When it finally struck, Hugh hurled himself out from behind the wall and looked in the direction he thought the lightning strikes were coming from.
Immediately after the lightning bolt struck the wall, which was already looking battered and cracked, he threw himself back behind it, without firing a single starbolt. Talia, on the other side, did the same, and they exchanged a startled look.
“What is it?” Sabae asked.
Another clack hit the wall, followed by yet another lightning strike.
“The lightning’s coming from halfway across the city,” Hugh said.
“They’ve positioned themselves up on top of the edge of the trough near the upper harbor,” Talia said.
Godrick groaned and glared at his new hammer. “This really isn’t the timeliest purchase ah ever made, is it?”
Artur was watching the ships in the harbor when the attack began.
Well, more glaring at them from where he was sitting on the roof of the inn.
The tide was approaching its highest point at the moment, so ships were moving freely in and out of the harbor. At low tide, the water level would be a solid forty-some feet lower, and the harbor would become a closed bowl, the ships inside hemmed in by walls of basalt pillars.
Artur sighed, and slowly clambered to his feet.
“Ah don’t,” he said, not looking around, “know why yeh thought ice would be a decent choice ta use against me.”
Around him, the stone began to crack and crumble, flowing upwards in streams towards him.
“Consider it a gamble,” a voice from behind him said. “People have tried lightning, poison gas, and every other method they could think of to take you down, and it all fails.”
“In fairness,” Artur said, as his stone armor started to form around him, “that was while ah was already armored. Ah’m as vulnerable as anyone else when caught unarmored and unaware.”
“I didn’t take you unaware, though, did I?” the voice asked.
Artur turned around, his armor halfway covering him already.
Facing him was a whip-thin man not much older than his son, wielding a blade of ice engraved in spellforms, and covered in armor fashioned of yet more ice. Beneath the armor, he wore a pristine white uniform with glittering bronze accents.
“Yeh didn’t want ta,” Artur said. “Yeh wanted ta prove yerself against me, and ah imagine yeh specifically ignored orders ta ambush me. Probably even misled the others in yer Hand ta get a chance at me alone.”
“You guessed right,” the man said, then launched a spray of razor-sharp ice crystals at Artur, whose armor was still incomplete.
Artur raised an eyebrow and the shards of ice halted in midair, before simply falling to the ground.
The Havathi Sacred Swordsman stepped back. “How did you…”
Artur grinned as the stone of his armor began sealing around his face. “Ice is jus’ another type a’ stone, son.”
The Swordsman took another step back. “Ice isn’t a rock, that’s absurd. It’s frozen water.”
Artur shrugged as a half-dozen basalt columns tore themselves loose and rose to hover around him.
“An’ rock is jus’ frozen magma. But ah don’t really think this is the time ta’ be concerning yerself with academic debates. Yeh have better things ta worry about.”
The six hovering columns, each weighing most of a ton, shot forwards like spears.
In the distance, lightning began to crackle across the city.
“How, exactly,” Talia asked, “are we supposed to take down a lightning mage who can hit us from across the whole city?”
She kicked Hugh’s impromptu wall with a satisfying thunk, pretending it was the lightning mage’s face.
“I’m assuming that’s well out of your range?” Sabae asked.
“I’d be really lucky to hit even a quarter of that distance,” Talia said. “Hugh?”
There was another click, then the wall shuddered from a lightning strike.
“You want me to build a lightning ward?” Hugh asked.
Talia rolled her eyes. “No, I want you to fire a starbolt. We just talked about this a few seconds ago.”
“Oh, right,” Hugh said. “I mean, hypothetically it could
travel that far, but I can’t really aim it effectively, and I don’t have enough mana to keep up the containment shell for the starfire the whole way, so it would just detonate above the city somewhere.”
Another click, and another lightning bolt. Slivers of rock cracked off the fused pillars and clattered onto the basalt cobbles.
“Actually, maybe yes on the lightning ward?” Godrick said. “Ah’ll start reinforcin’ and reshapin’ the wall a bit, and yeh put the ward out past the wall.”
“It’ll take longer because of the gaps between the columns,” Hugh said. “I’ll need to grow them together along the path of the ward. If I—”
“No,” Sabae said.
The others all turned to look at her.
“If the lightning mage is using a galvanic beacon to hit us, how are they getting it all the way here?” Sabae asked.
Talia blinked, then realized what the taller girl was getting at.
“They’ve got a spotter!” Talia said.
“What?” Hugh asked.
Another click, and another lightning bolt. More shards of stone broke off the wall, and Godrick cursed and began reshaping the stone columns to reinforce them.
“Galvanic beacons are single use enchantments, so the click each time is a galvanic beacon hitting the wall,” Sabae said. “It’s extraordinarily unlikely that our lightning mage has the ability to fire a galvanic beacon from this distance— it’s almost certainly copper or silver, and there’s no way anyone short of archmage level could be controlling or firing metal at this distance, and a copper or silver archmage would have annihilated us by now.”
“So there’s got to be a second mage launching and activating the galvanic beacons,” Talia interjected. “And they’ve got to be much closer. If we can find them and take them down, the lightning mage is useless.”
“How are we supposed ta find ‘em, exactly?” Godrick asked, not taking his eyes off the wall.