by John Bierce
Alustin shook his head. “Nothing so lofty. More, uh… there’s going to be a rather large flood here in a moment from the water displaced by an entire city phasing into existence, and we’re right in the middle of a rather crowded neighborhood. Also, there’s a building in the middle of our ship.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Shadow Architecture
Almost immediately after Alustin spoke, the whole ship lurched to the side, hard. Everyone save Alustin was thrown to the deck.
Hugh picked himself up and spotted great patches of stone seemingly growing in midair where their ship had been. He could feel the crystal structure of their minerals, and he could feel where they simply… not ended, but protruded off into some other space that he couldn’t reach with his affinity sense.
The ship kept accelerating until it was no longer intersecting the shadow buildings anywhere. As Hugh looked around, he could see that holes were starting to open up in the water where columns stretched down.
Massive ripples began racing through the water as more and more of it was forced aside by the city phasing into existence.
“Everyone find something to hold onto!” Alustin yelled. “Captain Narsa, get to the tiller!”
“Don’t order me around on my own boat!” Narsa shouted, but she was already moving towards the tiller.
“I just scryed, and the buildings towards the center of the lake are massive!” Alustin said. “There’s a major surge of water heading our way right now!”
Narsa started shouting orders at the two surviving water mages, and they quickly summoned up currents of water to turn the Despondent Toad about.
A particularly large ripple rushed through the phasing columns and battered against the Toad, almost making Hugh lose his balance again.
“Hurry up, you idiots!” Narsa shouted. “You get us out of this alive, I’ll double your pay and actually bother learning your stupid names!”
The mages had mostly gotten the ship turned around when Hugh spotted the wave in the distance. It loomed up at least fifteen feet into the air, and as the glowing wave rushed towards them, Hugh could spot it breaking over the silhouettes of the buildings, empty except for the steadily growing patches of stone inside them.
“The mast is too tall!” Sabae yelled. “It’s going to catch on the bridges!”
“I’ve got it!” Alustin yelled.
Sheets of paper poured out of his tattoo in great numbers. Most immediately plastered themselves to the mast, but four of them had their glyphs begin to glow brightly, and Hugh recognized the designs of the paper that Alustin had used to shave Talia’s hair with.
The four sheets shot forwards, and began slicing through the cables attaching the mast to the deck, then spiraled in towards the mast itself. They sliced through it close to the base almost without slowing down, then all went flying off into the water.
Hugh expected the mast itself to collapse, but instead it actually lifted up into the air. As it drifted off to the side of the ship, he spotted visible strain on Alustin’s face, and Hugh realized that his teacher was lifting the mast using the sheets of paper attached to it.
“You’ll be paying for that, you daft mop!” Narsa shouted at Alustin.
“That won’t be a problem,” Alustin said. “I can assure you of that.”
Behind them, the light of the starfire beacon vanished as the wave engulfed it in an explosion of steam, leaving them only the light of the lake below.
The mast went crashing into the water off to the starboard side of the ship moments before the wave hit them.
Hugh’s last thought before the ship surged forwards was, inanely, that the floods must be the reason why the lotuses had mostly been shoved to the edges of the lake.
Hugh was thrown off his feet again, but caught himself with a levitation cantrip.
Which was a terrible idea.
The ship rushed out from underneath him, and he would have crashed into the water if Artur hadn’t grabbed him in midair and pulled him back down to the deck.
The Toad was rushing forwards faster than it had ever been intended to go, and it was shaking as though it were about to fall apart. The water mages were trying to keep it steady and lined up with the canal they were rushing into, but it was hardly much wider than the ship, and slightly misaligned from the direction of the surge. Within moments of the Toad entering the canal, it slammed against the shadow building on their port side, and the railing on that side of the ship shattered into splinters.
“You’re paying for that too, you great idiot stork!” Narsa yelled.
“Fine, just steer!” Alustin yelled.
Despite everything, Hugh was genuinely shocked to see Alustin so stressed.
The ship scraped against the side of another building again as it rushed forwards, tearing apart what remained of the port railing.
“Bridge!” Sabae shouted from the front of the vessel. “Artur, Godrick, duck!”
The ship rushed underneath a bridge that was two-thirds shadow, one-third veins of stone. It would definitely have taken off Artur and Godrick’s heads if they hadn’t listened, and it did tear off the canvas covering for the back of the deck entirely. If Alustin hadn’t cut off the mast, who knew how much damage it might have done to the ship?
“Three-way intersection up ahead!” Alustin shouted. “Get ready to turn hard to port!”
Hugh looked ahead, seeing the intersection Alustin was talking about illuminated in the glow of the lake. They were heading straight at an especially large building with one corner protruding straight towards them like a sword. Said corner was already mostly phased in, with only a few patches of shadow breaking up the stone. It actually looked like the starboard-side canal was a shallower turn, but the port side canal was better aligned with the wave.
“Now!” Alustin bellowed, and the whole ship protested and threatened to shake itself apart as Narsa forced the tiller and the water mages pushed the ship to port.
Hugh held his breath, convinced they were going to break apart on the corner of the building.
They barely made the turn. The starboard side of the Toad slammed into the side of the building and was dragged along it for half a ship-length. Great chunks of the decking and the upper starboard hull tore loose, and Hugh felt a brief burst of pain in his cheek as splinters flew across the deck.
Then they were aligned with the new canal, and hurtling forwards again.
Around them, Hugh watched as the patches of stone in the air grew larger and larger, veins of stone racing together to connect them. His crystal affinity sense felt as though it were on fire as countless tons of stone phased into reality in every direction.
The ship gradually started to slow, and Hugh realized that the surge of water had largely passed ahead of them.
Finally, the Toad drew to a halt, looking even more despondent than ever before.
There was a clattering, and Narsa’s husband poked his head out from belowdecks. He gave their surroundings a slow, suspicious stare, then slowly retreated back below. A moment later, he reappeared just for long enough to throw Hugh’s grumpy spellbook out from belowdecks.
Hugh really didn’t want to know what that was about.
He climbed fully to his feet and walked over to the port side, carefully stepping over splinters of the railing. The Toad was floating only a foot or so away from one of Ithos’ buildings.
Hugh reached out with his affinity sense towards the stone of the building. At the same time, he reached out with his hand, placing it half on stone and half on shadow.
The stone just felt like stone. Cooler than he’d expected, but not strange in any particular way. It appeared to be granite, but with an absurdly high feldspar content, causing its unusual pink shade. The orange stones he could see were similar, just with a slightly different mineral composition. If Hugh had to guess, all the stone around them must have come from the same quarry.
The shadow, meanwhile, didn’t feel like… anything, really. It was almost precisely th
e same temperature as the air, maybe a little cooler, and it didn’t really have a texture. It just felt like a force mage was pushing against his hand there.
Hugh could feel the stone spreading beneath his hand, the textureless force of the shadow being replaced with cool stone.
“Imperial Ithos was called the ‘City of Endless Sunset’ in some of the oldest recovered texts,” Alustin said from behind him. “We had lots of guesses why, but this wasn’t what I was expecting. Buildings the colors of sunset, softened and blurred by the mists. Nights lit from below by the glowing water. It must have been gorgeous in its prime. It may have been built on the back of conquest and exploitation, but I think there’s still something a little sad about Kanderon taking something this beautiful from the world.”
Narsa snorted at that. “No matter how pretty it is, this city will smash us to bits if we try to weather another flood in it. I don’t care how much you’re paying me, we need to get off the lake.”
Alustin just kept staring at the building in front of Hugh, and a slow smile spread across his face. “You’re absolutely correct, Captain, and I shan’t keep you here a moment longer than you need to be. You’ll want to exit the lake by a different channel than the Havathi are entering it when you leave, of course.”
Alustin summoned a sealed envelope from his tattoo, then sent it floating through the air over to Narsa. Hugh was pretty sure the paper mage threw an extra loop in there just to try and impress her.
“This is a promissory note for an amount that I believe you should find more than sufficient to cover my promises to you. It’s quite heavily enchanted, so I wouldn’t meddle with it or try to alter it,” Alustin said. “Any respectable banking institution should be able to cover it, though I’d chose a large one, because a smaller one might not have that sum on hand.”
“You’re speaking as though you’re not coming with us,” Narsa said.
“We’re not,” Alustin said. “We’re staying right here.”
His smile grew even wider as he stared at the building.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The City of Sunset Without Light
“Yeh’re insane,” Artur said. “This plan is insane.”
“Ah’m not sure we ever have a plan that isn’t, Da,” Godrick said, hauling his pack out from belowdecks.
“And you’re all wasting time!” Alustin replied. “Ithos is already fading back into the Exile Splinter’s pocket dimension, we need to hurry and get into one of the buildings if we want to go with it!”
“What if the Cold Minds are there?” Hugh demanded.
“Hold still,” Sabae said, as she healed the deep scratch the flying splinter left on Hugh’s cheek. “Do you want this to scar?”
“Oooh, yes!” Talia called. “I’d quite like Hugh to have a few more scars!”
“It won’t matter if the Cold Minds are there,” Alustin said. “They’re not dangerous in the initial stages of an incursion while they’re still attuning to the aether of a new world. We’re in much more danger from the Havathi and the Mage-Eater at the moment.”
“Get packing, people!” Alustin continued. “If you leave anything onboard the ship, you’re not getting it back!”
It took them less than five minutes to gather their things— no one had been particularly eager to spread their belongings about in the dingy belowdecks of the Toad. Hugh almost forgot his stink-eating marble, but Godrick remembered to grab it for him at the last moment.
“Yeh’re sure this is goin’ ta’ work?” Artur said.
“Mostly!” Alustin said.
“How comfortin’,” Artur muttered.
“Ah mean, worst case scenario, we all get dumped in the water,” Godrick said.
Alustin made a face at that.
“Ah saw that look, Alustin,” Artur said. “Yeh’re thinkin’ a’ worse outcomes right now. Let’s hear ‘em.”
“Well…” Alustin said. “It could turn out that this is just a fluke, and the city isn’t actually coming back to the world, and we get trapped in the pocket dimension for the rest of our lives. Or maybe the Cold Minds dominate the pocket dimension entirely, and we’re immediately screwed. Or maybe we get stranded in the non-space between universes, each of us condemned to become a universe consisting solely of our own corpses. Or…”
“Ah’ve changed mah mind,” Artur said. “Ah don’t want ta’ hear any more a’ them.”
Godrick laughed at that. It was, admittedly, a bit of a nervous laugh, but it was also just bizarre for him to be less stressed about a plan than his father was. Artur was just so used to being in control and prepared for any situation these days, and Godrick was simply more experienced with feeling like events were out of his control.
Godrick and Artur took turns helping the others and their luggage up onto the balcony next to the ship, then climbed up themselves, shaping footholds into the stone almost in sync with one another.
Captain Narsa shouted up at them as the Despondent Toad awkwardly lurched into motion. “I’ll make sure to tell everyone you died just like you lived— as complete idiots!”
“I like her,” Talia said. “I really do.”
“Ah worry about yer role models sometimes,” Godrick said.
Talia just smirked at that.
Alustin led their group deep inside the Ithonian building, which was curiously empty. If Godrick had to guess, it had been a minor palace of some sort. There were a few broken ceramic pots, a silver chandelier, and other goods, but there were no tapestries, rugs, or wooden furniture.
Nothing flammable, in fact.
Godrick tried not to think of the implications of that.
“Have you noticed how much denser the aether is right now?” Alustin said.
Now that Alustin mentioned it, Godrick did notice. It was nowhere near as dense as it was in Skyhold, or even Zophor or Theras Tel, but it was still a massive improvement from the aether desert it had been.
“Either Ithos’ labyrinth is phasing back as well, or the pocket dimension’s stored up aether is leaking out along with the buildings,” Alustin said.
Finally, Alustin settled on a small room on the fourth floor of the palace. It had likely been a solar or a study or something of the sort, and only had a single small balcony leading out. There were some miscellaneous bits of metal and glass in the corners of the room, but it was otherwise empty save for dust, of which there was far less than there should have been. It was as if the room had only been abandoned for a few weeks, rather than half a millennium.
“Pile everything up in the center of the room,” Alustin said. “Hugh, craft a ward around us all inside the stone. And hurry, the city’s already starting to phase back to its pocket dimension.”
Godrick glanced at the nearest wall, and he could see new holes in the walls, where the building was starting to retake its shadowy form.
“What sort of ward?” Hugh asked.
“It literally doesn’t matter,” Alustin said. “Based on what I know of how the Exile Splinter works, including us in a ward like that should be more likely to make it consider us a part of Imperial Ithos, and take us with it back into the pocket dimension. It would probably work without the ward, it just increases our odds.”
Hugh nodded, and Godrick immediately felt the minerals of the stone floor begin to shift and realign themselves. It was always a strange process to feel through his affinity senses— stone magic could reshape the stone itself easily enough, but Hugh fundamentally altered the character and structure of stone. Hugh most commonly worked with quartz, but this time he was reworking the feldspar in the stone— it was absurdly abundant in this granite. Godrick noticed that the resultant ward lines were harsher and more angular done in feldspar, and wondered how it would affect Hugh’s ward.
One of Godrick’s feet shifted uncomfortably, and he looked down to spot a patch of shadow underneath his foot. He could still stand on it, but it felt bizarre and unnatural. He quickly moved his foot.
“Faster, Hugh,” Alustin
said as he set several glow crystals on the ground and activated them. “Everyone, get on the ground, make as much contact with the stone as you can.”
Godrick frowned as he lay down. “Ah don’t understand exactly how the Exile Splinter’s decidin’ what is and isn’t a part a’ the city. Wouldn’t it just make the most sense if it targeted a certain geographic radius?”
Alustin shook his head. “It’s part and parcel with the Splinter eating the memory of the city as well. It targets both the city and the memory of the city via an idea or description of what the city is. We’re trying to fit ourselves into that description.”
“Kinda like the description space nodes you have me learning about?” Talia asked.
“Exactly like those,” Alustin said.
“Do you think there are actually any ancient Ithonian superweapons left inside the city?” Sabae asked. “The Tongue Eater ritual, maybe?”
Alustin shook his head, then paused. “The ritual spellforms, maybe, but they’d be useless on their own. The Tongue Eater required some sort of artifact, a repository for the languages it stole. The Tongue Eater repository wasn’t in the city when Ithos was destroyed, and the last record anyone has of it was when the Last Emperor of Ithos tried to open it and release all its contained languages at once to plunge the continent into chaos as vengeance against the first Skyhold Council. Kanderon and the others stopped him, but the repository was lost in the battle.”
“Ah heard the Last Emperor had a dozen affinities,” Godrick said. Tales of the Last Emperor had been some of his favorites as a child. There were countless stories of the warlord trying to rebuild Imperial Ithos or get revenge for its destruction. Though, now he supposed that the Last Emperor had been trying to retrieve Ithos from its exile, not trying to rebuild it.
Funny how he’d never questioned Imperial Ithos’ fate while under the Exile Splinter’s influence. It had never even seemed strange to him that he didn’t know where the Empire’s heart had been.
“Only nine affinities, according to Kanderon,” Alustin said.