The Queen's Quarry

by Frank Morin

  He needed porphyry.

  The idea ignited in his mind like a Solas lantern and for a second Aifric and the entire practice ground faded from his sight. All of his senses were overwhelmed by the raging need for more porphyry.

  The glorious, inhuman power of the rampager could defeat Aifric. He’d beat her down, rip off her arms so she couldn’t hit him again, drink her blood to—

  Connor shook himself violently and nearly fell over as he fought down the horrific images that had flooded his mind. He began to pant, and sweat dripped into his eyes and made them burn. His muscles quivered, as if he’d been fighting at full intensity for hours.

  Student Eighteen lowered her weapons, her expression concerned. “Are you all right, Connor?”

  He held up a hand, glad she didn’t attack in his moment of distraction. He felt as weak and nauseous as a kitten spun in a sack for half an hour. “Give me a second.”

  Kilian drew closer, his expression grave. “It’s the porphyry, isn’t it?”

  Hearing the word triggered a renewed craving and Connor took a staggering step toward Kilian, growling with the need. He realized with a shock that he was gripping his sword, as if to strike.

  “Do you have any? Even a little?” he couldn’t help asking.

  Kilian shook his head. “I don’t. It was all destroyed, and taking even a tiny bit would probably seal your addiction for life. I am still hopeful the craving will subside.”

  Connor crouched and drove his wooden dagger several inches into the hard, rocky soil. “It doesn’t feel like it’s passing. It’s been getting worse every day since Alasdair.”

  “I’ll call Aifric,” Student Eighteen offered.

  “No, thanks.” Connor forced himself to his feet and took a deep, shuddering breath. He hated what porphyry was doing to him, feared that growing craving more than he wanted to admit. He’d fight it down, somehow. He refused to give Uncle Martys the final victory by succumbing to the craving and becoming a blubbering fool.

  “Fight me instead. Obsidian seems to help some.”

  “I’m not sure you’re up for it.”

  “Do it,” he snapped more harshly than he planned. “Don’t hold back.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe you’re right, Connor. Pain tends to bring clarity. I’m thinking you need a lot of both.”

  “Nothing permanent,” Kilian warned.

  “Aifric’s ready, so he’ll eventually recover from all but a mortal wound,” she said, her tone calm and clinical.

  “I feel overwhelmed by your concern,” Connor told them dryly.

  The threat of impending pain did help clear his mind, as did the obsidian when he tapped it again. He still needed a new approach to beat Student Eighteen, though.

  They had both promised not to use metamorphic stones in the duel. It had seemed a reasonable promise, particularly given the location. The entire border region was still dangerously unstable. Earthquakes rattled the area constantly, although they’d diminished in intensity in the days since the catastrophe at Alasdair.

  He hoped that marked a permanent easing of the unsettled elements, but doubted it. Tempting the powerful metamorphic stones was still extremely dangerous. That very morning he’d tried slate and extended feelers of thought down into the earth beneath their camp and felt the distant energy building again.

  Connor glanced up at the broken peak of Mount Macduib. No, it was Mount Osterwald on this side. The jagged, broken peaks that had lorded over the pass were a stark reminder of the danger of tapping tertiaries too deeply.

  So that left secondaries.

  Connor began circling again, and Student Eighteen seemed willing to let him make the first strike. Her obvious confidence made him more eager than ever to flip the duel against her.

  Sedimentary stones weren’t usually considered great battle stones. Sandstone could heal damage he took. He had the sculpted sandstone pendant with its unrivaled healing power, but he’d used it so much in recent weeks the fist-shaped pendant was looking more like a shapeless, rough oval. It wouldn’t last much longer.

  That left limestone. As his affinity with that light-triggering stone had deepened in the past couple of days, he’d learned that the stone was potentially far more powerful than he’d ever understood. Maybe it was because he was now ascended through the first threshold, but it offered the one possible advantage.

  In the past couple of days, he’d learned that light was not exactly what he’d always thought. Limestone actually acted more like a gateway to light. It wasn’t quite like the tertiary-affinity gateways to the elements. Maybe a baby brother gateway.

  When light flowed past, he sensed it moving like invisible waves, but when he drew it to him, it rolled up his skin like particles of bright sand. Kilian had confirmed that light did indeed act as both a wave and a stream of particles, but no one was really sure why. Rolling those particles up into his teeth was the secret to making them glow.

  What if he made Student Eighteen’s teeth glow? That might just distract her enough for him to get in a solid hit.

  “Are you going to fight, or defeat me with boredom?” She demanded.

  “You asked for it.”

  Connor launched himself at her, striking with every bit of skill she had taught him. The two of them plunged into the most intense Allcarver duel Connor had ever experienced. They spun and twisted, slashed and stabbed, flowing around each other like twin-bladed whirlwinds.

  It was amazing. Connor grinned as he fought.

  Until she caught him under the chin with the hilt of her sword. The world spun as Connor tumbled off his feet. Somehow she hit him six more times before he could crash to the ground, his body aching, his head spinning.

  “That’s more like it,” Student Eighteen said.

  Then her features shivered a bit and her Aifric smile returned. She extended a helping hand, and when he accepted it, healing power flowed into him. She made a tsking sound and muttered, “Take it easy, Eighteen.”

  Connor wondered what would happen if the two of them got into a real fight in that head of theirs. Would her other personalities pile on and escalate it into a mental riot, or would they help calm the two captive roommates? He reminded himself to ask her later to explain more about how she could tap different affinities from her alternate personalities.

  Aifric released him and her features shifted back to the Mhortair assassin. She reached for her weapons.

  To tap limestone, he only needed skin contact, and he had a piece hanging from a leather cord around his neck. Limestone was the last major affinity stone that he had connected with. It had always seemed reluctant to answer his call, as if still moping over that fact. Thankfully he’d spent so much time with it recently that he connected quickly for once.

  He didn’t want the stone itself to glow, but concentrated through it to the light streaming past. The sunlight now felt heavier, the waves discernible to his limestone sense. Some of the closest waves flickered across his skin, allowing him to feel the individual particles. Their touch eased the chill, as if they contained heat as well as light.

  Student Eighteen saluted. “Time for the real lesson.”

  Time to light up the match.

  Connor tugged at the streaming sunlight pouring between them and twisted it. He was hoping to wrap her with it, momentarily blind her, and create a distraction for the half second he would need to wipe that bored expression off her face.

  Instead, the light twisted into an eye-bending pattern. She looked momentarily distorted, as if he was looking at her through rippling water.

  He nearly released it to try again, but Student Eighteen frowned. He was accomplishing something. So he intensified his efforts. Maybe he could distract her with that strange distortion effect.

  She’d drilled into him the need for constant movement in their practice sessions, so he slipped to his right.

  She didn’t turn to follow.

  Her expression turned concerned and she lowered her weapons, taking a step toward whe
re he’d been. “Connor, are you all right?”

  That was an unexpected bonus. Connor slipped farther to the right, barely allowing himself to breathe. He raised his sword, ready to deflect if she pulled some kind of new trick, but the Assassin still didn’t turn to follow him.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, frowning at empty space where he’d been.

  She took another step in that direction, her guard down, the perfect opportunity to strike. It might be a trick, so he decided to find out.

  Connor lunged from the side and slashed his sword across her ribs.

  Only when he moved did she react, looking startled.

  Too late. He hadn’t actually thought that would work, so he hit her harder than he’d intended, sending her staggering.

  Student Eighteen regained her balance instantly, but did not counter-attack. Instead she looked from him to the spot he’d been standing before. “How did you do that?”

  “I’m just that good,” he teased.

  “No, I mean, you sort of faded away. For a second it looked like you were literally melting on the spot. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Kilian drew closer and said, “I’d be surprised if you had.”

  Student Eighteen asked him, “Did you see it too, or am I cracked?”

  He gave her an amused smile. “I can’t claim that mind of yours is normal, but you weren’t imagining things.”

  “What are you talking about? I was just playing with limestone, trying to distract you with a little glow.”

  “I didn’t see anything glowing. I swear I saw you fade away, then reappear over there.”

  “Really? Wow. You mean, like I disappeared or something?”

  That was perhaps the most amazing failed attempt to use a power stone ever.

  “Something like that,” Kilian said, a bemused smile on his face. “You have an exceptional knack for stumbling upon abilities that others often have to work at for months.”

  “I thought his talent was breaking things,” Student Eighteen said with a smile that grew more radiant as she shifted back to Aifric.

  Connor shrugged. “Today I’m breaking records, I guess. So what did I do?”

  Kilian gestured him to remove the chain with the piece of limestone, then took it and held it up. “One of the subtle and tricky aspects to limestone now available to you since your ascension. You’ve already discovered you can now manipulate light better. What you just did was bend the light around Aifric. It changed what she saw.”

  “Really?” Connor and Aifric asked together.

  “Really. It’s a technique I haven’t used in ages. I was never that good at it, not like my father, but you seem to have a knack for it. My father called it Mirage, and it has tremendous potential.”

  Aifric frowned in concentration, shaking her head and poking herself in the temple. “Cut it out. It’s my turn.”

  “What’s going on?” Connor asked, worried the mirage had affected her more than she’d explained.

  “Student Eighteen wants to drive. She’s not happy that you’ve rediscovered mirage. It’s one of the powers the Mhortair are sworn to stamp out.”

  Connor felt relieved she hadn’t surrendered control to the deadly Assassin. “Can you remind her that she’s already decided some of those directives are pretty dumb?”

  He watched her closely as she paced away, muttering to herself, hands balled into fists. Part of him really wanted to eavesdrop on that singular argument, but he didn’t want to push Student Eighteen any farther. He thought back to the day when she’d been ordered by Mister Five to assassinate him. She had held steel to every kill location on his body but had refused to end his life. She had made her choice, and he would trust her to remain true to her oath.

  Aifric returned, looking relieved. “She’s all right now. Thanks for reminding us of our oath. Sometimes loyalties get a bit twisted around you, Connor.”

  “Friends have to do that to each other sometimes.” He glanced at Kilian and added, “And sometimes we have to share truth with people who might not necessarily want to hear it.”

  “You’re absolutely right. We need that patronage revolution of yours now more than ever.”

  “Don’t get distracted,” Aifric chided Connor as he took the limestone back and studied the little greenish stone closely.

  “So explain mirage, please. I had planned to blind Student Eighteen, but when I directed the light toward her, it sort of twisted instead.”

  “That’s mirage in a nut shell. Most Solas focus so hard and so long on merely triggering light from limestone they struggle to recognize it can do more, even when they ascend and gain access to its more subtle and startling powers.”

  “That explains it, then. I’m so new to limestone, I’m working with pure creative brilliance here.”

  Aifric rolled her eyes. “It’s a good thing I like you, Connor, or I’d let Student Eighteen teach you some more humility.”

  Kilian said, “Call it what you will. It’s an important discovery. You twisted the light out of its normal pattern and anchored the new pattern to Aifric. That caused the distortion that made her see you melting away instead of seeing you move.”

  “I definitely need to practice this more,” Connor said with a grin.

  The concept had tons of potential. No doubt when he explained it to Hamish, he’d recommend they try waltzing right into the kitchen tents and sneaking fresh sweetbreads without the cooks turning their long-handled wooden spoons against them.

  Kilian said, “We’ll work on it. It’s a good idea for me to practice some more too, if only to be prepared against limestone trickery from my mother.”

  “Is she good at mirages?” Aifric asked nervously.

  That was a scary thought. From what he’d heard about Queen Dreokt, she was already far too dangerous without perhaps tricking them into seeing things that weren’t there, or jumping out of thin air when they weren’t ready.

  “Not really. She all but ignores the primary and secondary affinity stones. She was the ultimate elemental battle Petralist. Not even my father could match her for raw elemental power.”

  “Well that’s encouraging,” Connor said dryly.

  Aifric asked, “Can Connor access any new abilities with obsidian too?”

  That was a good question. He’d love a new advantage against Student Eighteen.

  But Kilian shook his head. “No. Obsidian is the only primary affinity stone that offers a threshold specific to itself. Connor can tap a deeper measure of obsidian than he could have prior to ascension, and that offers significant advantages, as you’ve already witnessed.”

  “So I’ve been learning faster than normal?”

  Aifric nodded. “Even most Blades require weeks to pick up what you have in the past couple of days.”

  Connor grimaced. “I don’t have that much time.”

  “So why is obsidian different?” Aifric asked.

  “It seems to be an exception in a lot of ways,” Connor agreed.

  “That’s because it was the first-ever power stone.”

  “What?” Aifric exclaimed.

  Connor shook his head in disgust. “You can’t just drop shocking truths on us like that without a little more buildup.”

  Just like when Kilian had casually revealed that he was the original prince of Obrion, son of the dreaded Queen Dreokt, and that Evander was his nephew. Those were wasted opportunities. For a guy with so much style, he seemed to have a blind spot when it came to ancient, mind-stretching secrets.

  Kilian smiled. “Sorry. I forget sometimes how much is new to so many of you.”

  “It’s new because you’ve kept it all secret for three hundred years,” Connor reminded him.

  “What did you mean?” Aifric asked.

  “Just what I said. My parents were the first-ever Petralists, and obsidian was the first-ever successful affinity stone.”

  Connor asked, “How is that possible?”

  “I know only a little. When they came to
this continent, they were already powerful Petralists. I was born here and learned only bits and pieces of their history. They almost never spoke about it. I believe they were essentially magical researchers, working with a vast power too great to control. They figured out how to tap some of it by using stones as a form of intermediary buffer.”

  Connor rubbed his temples where a headache was starting behind his eyes. He almost wished Kilian hadn’t started explaining. He was having enough trouble just learning about the different affinities and how to master them.

  Aifric said, “Where did your parents come from?”

  “I have no idea. They would never say, but it doesn’t really matter. Just know that obsidian acts slightly different than most other power stones for reasons that we don’t fully understand.”

  “Do you think your mother would explain it to you?” Connor asked.

  Kilian barked a humorless laugh. “Not on my life. Even before her mind broke and she spent three centuries entombed under Alasdair as an elemental monster, she was tight-lipped about those truths.”

  “We have to find a way to kill her,” Aifric said in a cold, hard voice, her hand dropping to one of her daggers. She’d shifted back to Student Eighteen without Connor noticing.

  “I completely agree with your people on that point,” Kilian said.

  Connor asked, “But how? She stopped you in Alasdair even though she was weakened. Then she flew away as easily as a Builder.”

  “That was perhaps our best opportunity to remove her,” Kilian admitted, his expression troubled. “That’s why we’re training so hard now. You must master your full range of affinities if you are to stand with me against her.”

  Connor tried to look enthusiastic, but the lump of dread in his throat made it hard to breathe.