by John Bierce
Sabae’s eyes widened.
“Drakeshit,” Talia said. “There’s no way.”
“What’s a Helicotan sabre?” Hugh asked.
Everyone stared at Hugh.
“Have you… have you literally never heard of Helicote before?” Sabae finally asked. She was used to Hugh being in the dark about things, considering how much of a backwater Emblin was, but this was ridiculous.
“Should I have?” Hugh asked, then ate another spoonful of stew.
“There’s no way it’s an actual Helicotan sabre,” Talia said, glaring at Godrick. “Only Helicotans can wield them. And there aren’t any more Helicotans.”
“It’s definitely a Helicotan sabre,” Godrick said. “Ah’ve read enough about them. Nothin’ else has an enchantment like that.”
“What’s Helicote?” Hugh asked.
Sabae spoke up quickly, before Godrick and Talia could start arguing again. “Helicote was a city-state in Eastern Ithos, a few days south of Tsarnassus’ southern border. It wasn’t a particularly large or powerful city-state, but it was old and highly respected— it had been ruled by the same lich since shortly after the fall of the Ithonian Empire.”
“And it’s known for its swords, apparently?” Hugh asked.
“Was known, yes. Helicote doesn’t exist anymore,” Sabae said. “Their ruler, the Lord of Bells, was one of the greatest enchanters ever.”
Godrick interrupted. “He forged every single one a’ their sabres personally. The enchantments aren’t inlaid, they’re actually folds in the metal that he beat into ‘em during the forging process somehow. They’re nigh-indestructible, sharp enough ta’ cut through any lesser weapons, and can leave those deadly after-images.”
“Murder-echoes,” Talia said.
Sabae glared at both of them.
“It apparently took years to learn to master one of them,” Sabae said.
“Yeh had ta’ start trainin’ as soon as yeh could walk,” Godrick interrupted again. “Wearin’ a blindfold all the time ta’ master yer situational awareness, ‘cause those after-images—”
“Murder-echoes,” Talia interjected.
“Are just as dangerous ta’ the wielder as their opponent,” Godrick continued. “Explains why Alustin can walk backward without trippin’ and such. Years and years a’ trainin’. Plus, they had some sort a’ enchantment that kept anyone not Helicotan from usin’ them.”
“And there aren’t any Helicotans left,” Talia said, “So it must have been some weird counterfeit or something.”
Sabae sighed.
“So it’s… a powerful enchanted weapon?” Hugh asked. “I mean, it doesn’t exactly seem surprising that Alustin would have a powerful weapon.”
“If Godrick’s right,” Sabae said, glaring at the other two to make sure they didn’t keep interrupting, “then Alustin would have to be Helicotan. Which would be huge.”
“Why, exactly?” Hugh asked, looking genuinely bewildered at this point. “And why doesn’t Helicote exist anymore?”
“Because it picked a fight with the Havath Dominion single-handed!” Talia said excitedly, waving her spoon. “Thousand to one odds! Almost won, too!”
Sabae sighed. “It’s a lot more complicated than that. This all started over twenty years ago. Havath’s last major war of expansion had been halted by a huge alliance of nations, city-states, and various great powers a little over a decade before that. That was the war that Sulassa Tidecaller and Artur both made their names in as mercenaries. Headmaster Tarik fought in it as well, but she was already famous. Helicote had served in that alliance, but by the time Havath was forced to a halt, Helicote went from being weeks away from Havathi territory to being right up against the border of the Dominion. The war bankrupted and crippled both Havath and the alliance that fought them, so both sides were still licking their wounds and recovering. Helicote, however, knew it was only a matter of time until Havath tried again, and this time, there wasn’t much chance of the alliance reforming in time to keep Helicote independent.”
“So the Lord of Bells attacked them!” Talia said, excitedly.
“Not… well, sort of,” Sabae continued. “The Lord of Bells wasn’t the one who decided to attack. It was the Helicotan Forum who decided to. The Lord of Bells allowed the dwellers in his demesne considerably more independence and power than many liches do, and the Lord-Citizens of the Forum decided they would try to disrupt Havath rebuilding. They managed to convince the Lord of Bells to back their effort, and, well… a city of less than a hundred thousand souls invaded an empire of millions.”
Hugh gave her a suspicious look like he thought she was messing with him.
“It wasn’t a normal invasion, though,” Sabae said. “They didn’t have a great power to lead it— the Lord of Bells could no more leave his demesne than any other lich, and they were outnumbered to a ridiculous degree. Havath had over a dozen great powers of its own, and countless archmages on top of that. Helicote had a few advantages, of course— Helicotan mages were notoriously dangerous, well-trained, and numerous for a city its size— their aether was rich enough to support huge numbers of mages. Their Lord Citizens were especially dangerous and were all armed with the sabres crafted by the Lord of Bells. Rather than attack head-on, well…”
“They started a campaign of mass assassination!” Talia blurted out.
Sabae sighed. “Essentially, yes. Not simply of high-ranking governors, dominion officials, and archmages, however— they also targeted massive numbers of scribes, logistics officers, and clerks. They also destroyed infrastructure on a massive scale. They sabotaged dams, poisoned wells, grew forests right across major roads, and demolished granaries. It took nearly two weeks for Havath to fully mobilize against the threat, and by then, their economy had been crippled for years to come, and they’d suffered a massive loss of institutional and bureaucratic expertise. But mobilize they did, and they crushed Helicote. It took almost a year, but they hunted down every saboteur and assassin, and eventually managed to slay the Lord of Bells and destroy Helicote itself. It cost them the lives of three of their own great powers to do so. Helicote sent out countless letters and messengers for aid, but the old alliance failed to send more than token efforts against Havath. Since then, Havath has systematically hunted down every Helicotan they could find, and placed bounties on their heads. I’m sure there are plenty hiding here and there, but if that’s a real Helicotan sabre, that means Alustin is from the family of a Lord Citizen.”
“That’s insane,” Hugh said. “Why… I don’t understand why they’d do something like that. They couldn’t know the future for sure, or know they’d be doomed. Why would they do that?”
Sabae shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. They were proud, but if pride was their inspiration, it was to the point of insanity. It worked, though. They did as much damage to Havath as the last war had done, and there hasn’t been another major war of expansion since. A few minor border squabbles and annexations, but Havath has only been back to full strength for six or seven years now.”
Godrick pointed up at the ceiling with his spoon. “Ah’m tellin’ yeh, it makes perfect sense. He’s about the right age, an’ there’s the whole walkin’ backwards bit, not ta’ mention his obvious grudge against Havath.”
“And his paper affinity would explain why he was sent to Skyhold,” Sabae said. “The Lord Citizens of Helicote valued their abilities as warriors equally as highly as their artistic or scholarly talents. A paper mage would have been considered useless as a battle mage, so he gets sent away when his affinities develop, which I’m guessing was probably a year or two before Helicote invaded Havath. And it explains how he survived Havath’s purge.”
“Why wouldn’t your dad have told you about it?” Talia asked Godrick.
Godrick gave her a serious look. “Me da doesn’t share others’ secrets with anyone, for any reason.”
Hugh ate a last spoonful of his stew and got up. “I should go see what Artur wants.”
Sabae eyed him critically as he trudged up the stairs. The battle-stress was clearly wearing off, and she could already see him starting to slouch again.
Then she turned towards Talia, who was very determinedly not looking towards Hugh’s retreating form, and was staring at her stew.
She glanced over at Godrick, who rolled his eyes and nodded.
The instant she was sure Hugh was out of hearing range, she poked Talia in the side again. “We need to have a little talk about Hugh.”
Talia immediately tensed up. “What about Hugh?”
“Yer holdin’ a torch fer him,” Godrick said. “More of a bonfire, really.”
Talia’s face turned almost as red as her hair. “I, uh…”
Sabae reached out and gave Talia a quick hug.
“Relax, Talia, it’s fine,” she said. “These things happen.”
“Fallin’ in love’s like fartin’,” Godrick said. “Yeh can try ta keep it hidden, but it’ll make itself known eventually.”
Talia actually giggled a little in surprise at that, while Sabae gave him a dirty look.
“Gross analogies aside,” Sabae said, “I’m pretty sure Hugh hasn’t noticed yet.”
“Ah don’t think ah’ve seen Hugh pay attention to just about anythin’ since Avah dumped him,” Godrick said.
Sabae spotted movement out of the corner of her eye, and spotted Hugh’s spellbook floating up in the corner of the room watching them again.
“Little weirdo,” Sabae muttered.
The other two gave her weird looks, and she rolled her eyes. “Hugh’s spellbook, not Hugh. I think it’s still afraid of you, Talia.”
Talia gave the book a glare, and it darted upstairs in a flash of green. “It should be,” she said. “Still going to get it back for dragging me around by my hair.”
“Ah don’t think Hugh would like that much,” Godrick noted.
Talia groaned, and dropped her head down onto the table. “I hate feelings. I tried to pretend I didn’t have any for Hugh for ages, but then I talked to Avah after she dumped Hugh, and she pointed out how obvious it was how I felt, and I’ve just felt like an idiot ever since, and…”
“You talked to Avah after the breakup?” Sabae said. “Is she alright? You didn’t injure her, did you?”
Talia shot Sabae a glare. “What? No, we had a good talk. I’ve got no problem with Avah.”
Sabae blinked. She hadn’t been expecting that.
Godrick chuckled, and the girls both glanced at him.
“Ah just realized that we’re on an epic quest with huge stakes, and we’re more worried about our datin’ lives than the city destroyin’ weapon we’re lookin’ for,” Godrick said.
Talia glared at Godrick, and Sabae arched her eyebrow, but Godrick just grinned right back at them.
Sabae started laughing first, and soon all three were laughing hysterically in the empty common room.
That night, Sabae dreamt of fire and molten stone. Of being trapped on a floating disc over a sea of magma, waves of molten rock cresting above her. Of an armored figure crackling in lightning floating above the magma, pointing a harpoon at her.
She woke from the nightmare with a start, her heart racing.
Talia was fast asleep in the other bed. Sabae staggered out of bed and over to the window, pulling back the curtain.
The moon was full tonight, wider than her outstretched hand. She could see Lothal clearly in its light. A surprising amount of the damage had already been repaired, though the new forest was mostly still there.
There was a wall of basalt columns separating the harbor from the sea, and keeping a certain amount of water in and ships afloat. During the high tide, when the water was a solid forty feet higher, even the largest ships could pass over the wall without much difficulty. At low tides, it became an isolated bowl.
It was low tide now, and even with the larger full-moon tide, the harbor hadn’t emptied entirely, unlike the Ras Andis harbor. Of course, the Ras Andis harbor had sand at the bottom that ships in docking cradles could comfortably rest in, while she imagined the bottom of the Lothalan harbor was just more basalt.
Sabae idly wondered whether Ampioc was lurking at the bottom of the bowl, was out to sea, or whether he had some sort of cave or lair to hide in. She suspected the third, knowing what she did about octopuses.
Out past the harbor wall, there was another pool of water, kept in by yet another thick wall of basalt that would be submerged at higher tides, followed by another, and then another. Past those, there were countless thousands of basalt columns jutting upwards as much as twenty feet into the air from the half-mile of exposed seafloor. They extended well past where the columnar basalt ended, in fact.
If Sabae had to guess, the extra walls and the scattered columns were a combination of storm surge protection and marine fortification constructed by Ampioc. Ampioc never ventured into the deeps any longer, and lurked in the shallows to hide from enemies he’d made in the past.
The Kaen Das family had more contact with the marine great powers than most, but undersea politics were strange and arcane. Civilization as such didn’t quite exist in the same way as it did on land, though it wasn’t entirely absent either. As such, they’d never been able to tell whether Ampioc’s exile was a formal one or not.
For the first time in a long time, Sabae thought about her mother, serving as a storm-mage escort to trade fleets. She didn’t feel as much bitterness towards her as she used to, but it wasn’t gone entirely.
Sabae wondered how often her mother thought of her these days.
It was a long time until Sabae turned away from the window to try and get back to sleep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Rising Cormorant
The amount of repair work that had been done in Lothal overnight was astonishing. The evidence of the battle was still obvious, of course— debris was everywhere, and there was still a forest growing in the middle of the city— but if Talia didn’t know better, she’d say the battle had happened at least a week ago. Many of the trees were already being chopped down and milled by mages into lumber on the spot, and broken columns of basalt still danced down the street.
In one corner of the harbor, Talia spotted one of Ampioc’s massive eyes jutting out of the water, two of his eight arms just barely breaching the surface.
The massive octopus only held her attention for a short time, though, before she resumed glaring at the ship they’d be taking eastward, the Rising Cormorant.
It was one of the biggest ships in the Lothal docks by a considerable margin. The Cormorant was far longer than Kanderon was, and it absolutely dwarfed any ship Talia had ever ridden on before. Despite its huge size, however, the ship was a graceful, elegant, and well-kept vessel. The figurehead was, obviously, a massive cormorant, its beak pointed skyward.
Talia had never sailed on a proper ocean before— one with, well, water instead of sand— but she was fully anticipating being miserably sick on their long trip eastwards. The sea moved much more than sand did, after all.
That wasn’t the reason she was glaring at the Rising Cormorant, however.
No, she was glaring at it because it was a Radhan ship, and somehow, she just knew there’d be a Radhan girl around her age who was prettier than her and who would start flirting with Hugh.
Who, of course, was staring at the Cormorant like an idiot, probably thinking of Avah.
Talia walked behind Hugh and shoved him off the edge of the pier.
He caught himself with a levitation cantrip before he could fall in the water, and magically lifted himself up onto the dock.
“What was that for?” Hugh asked, giving Talia a hurt look. His spellbook, slung over his shoulder, slipped behind him to hide from her.
“You can space off when we’re on the ship and safely out to sea,” Talia said. “Stay alert for now, in case more Havathi decide to make trouble.”
Hugh gave her an irritated look, then turned away.
Sabae and Godrick both gave he
r incredulous looks. Talia just glared at them and turned away.
That had been stupid, she had no idea why she’d done that. So, so stupid.
It was only a few more minutes before the ship was done loading cargo, and Talia spent the whole time fuming at herself for being an idiot before they boarded.
Once they did, she lurked at the back of the group, mostly hidden behind Artur and Godrick.
To her immense displeasure, there wasn’t just one beautiful Radhan girl onboard, there were several. And cute boys as well, for that matter. She was fairly sure Hugh was only attracted to girls, but given how much of an idiot she was, they likely still had more chance with Hugh than she did.
Just about all the Radhan close to their age were pausing in their work to look them over. One of them winked at her, and she just glowered back at him, fantasizing about burning down the ship.
Hugh managed to pay polite attention during introductions. Alustin hadn’t ever sailed on the Rising Cormorant before, so introductions were much more formal than they’d been on the Moonless Owl. The Cormorant’s captain was a stern looking older woman, Grepha, with a steel-grey braid down to her knees. They were also introduced to the first mate, the head mage, and several Radhan teens that would show them to their rooms, but Hugh didn’t catch their names.
He knew the others would be irritated with him— for that matter, he was irritated with himself— but he just couldn’t seem to stay outside his own head for very long unless he was actively doing something. His head was a jumble of confusing thoughts about Avah, his conflicting feelings about killing the Havathi spotter, and his irritation at Talia’s weird stunt on the pier.
Preparation to cast off had started the instant they boarded, but it would be a little while before they actually left the harbor and set sail. Godrick wandered off to the deck to watch the preparations the instant he got his bags stowed, but Hugh decided to wait down below until they actually set sail. Sabae would drag him out if he didn’t come out then, but right now he really didn’t feel like being around others.