The Shadow Of Fallen Gods

by V. R. Cardoso

  “Ah, just who I was looking for.” Phaedra dropped the pincers she had been playing with onto the pile of tools, metal scraps, and shavings on top of the small desk.

  “Me?” the novitiate asked.

  “No, your master,” Phaedra replied. “Take me to him.”

  “You can’t just waltz in here and expect to be received by the Head Artificer. High-Wizard Talladin is a busy man.” The boy unfolded his arms. “What did you say your name was?”

  “I am Wizardess Phaedra. And you are?” She offered her hand.

  “Turmond,” the boy replied, shaking her hand.

  Turmond… Phaedra thought. Who’s so embarrassed by his low rank he doesn’t even preface his name with it. She almost shook her head in disapproval. Sure, he did look a bit old for a novitiate, but everyone learned at their own pace. The amount of pressure the Academy placed on its students was nothing short of indecent. No wonder so many mages were maladjusted misanthropes.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” Turmond said. “Now please leave. The Department of Artifacts is a restricted area.”

  “Oh, I’m well aware.” Phaedra smiled. “I’m here on behalf of Arch-Mage Persea.”

  The name had the intended effect, and Turmond stiffened. “Oh, I see. Well,” he muttered, “why didn’t you say so sooner?” He looked around as if he had suddenly forgotten where he was. “The High-Wizard’s study is that way.” He indicated a set of double doors behind him.

  “Thank you,” Phaedra said, stepping towards the door. “By the way, would you mind giving me a tour of the place?”

  “Uh, sure. You’ve seen our repair shop.” Turmond indicated the room they were in. There were dozens of desks facing the wall, surrounding the entire area, but most were vacant. Only a handful of mages hunched over what Phaedra now knew were broken magical artifacts. At the center of the room, a long table fit for a royal banquet occupied most of the remaining area, containing dozens and dozens of spare parts of every shape and size, all neatly organized into open-top, clearly labeled crates.

  Phaedra nodded and stepped out through the double-door. Turmond lead the way, naming the different rooms as they walked past them.

  “That’s the furnace. The storage room is through that door. The alchemy lab and main workshop is that way.” He climbed a narrow flight of stairs. “All head staff have studies up here. There’s also a small reading room where we keep blueprints and instruction manuals—the department’s version of a library, I suppose.”

  Phaedra nodded along the way, absorbing the layout of the place. “How many people in the department?”

  “Including apprentices? About forty or so.”

  They walked along a narrow corridor, portraits of Arch-Mages, High-Wizards, and Grand-Sorcerers hanging on the walls between doors.

  Turmond stopped at a small door and knocked. “Master, there’s someone here to see you.”

  “It’s not a good time,” a muffled voice said from the other side. “Later, perhaps.”

  “She says she’s here on behalf of Arch-Mage Persea.”

  Like he’d said a magic password, the door clicked and slid open.

  “I trust you know your way back out?” Turmond asked.

  “Sure thing.”

  “In that case, I have some cataloguing to do.” The apprentice bowed his head slightly and took off.

  Phaedra stepped into the Grand-Sorcerer’s study. It was a small place. Or at least it was made to look small by the piles of stuff filling it. Books and parchment rolls, some open, some closed, lay everywhere. Random tools were scattered all over the place. And the artifacts, myriads of them, either lining shelves or filling the large mahogany desk, came in all shapes and sizes—mundane objects like scissors and hammers, strange mechanical contraptions with pulleys and levers, even weird human or animal-like figures, all riddled with gleaming Glowstone crystals.

  “One of Persea’s Chosen, I assume,” Talladin said in a deep, wise voice as he stood up from his desk. He was a twig of a man who seemed to float inside his black robes. His hairline receded as far as the back of his head, and what little gray hair he did have left partially covered his ears. “To what do I owe the pleasure? I hope there isn’t an Archon hiding in my workshops.”

  “So do I,” Phaedra replied with a smile before offering her hand. “Wizardess Phaedra. Honored to meet you, master.”

  “Yes, yes.” The High-Wizard shook her hand and indicated the chair across from him over the desk. “Please, sit down.”

  As she sat, Phaedra reached into her tunic and produced the small hypervisor she had collected earlier from the dead assassin. “I am conducting an investigation on behalf of Arch-Mage Persea and require your expertise.”

  “Of course. Anything for the cause.”

  Phaedra leaned forward and placed the hypervisor right between Talladin’s hands. “Have you ever seen this artifact or anything like it?”

  “I have not,” the Grand-Sorcerer replied after a brief inspection. “It’s nothing we’d produce in here, that’s for sure.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Well, it’s rather poorly engineered, isn’t it?” He picked the hypervisor up and looked at it from different angles. “I mean, it’s very portable, sure, but its spell life must be terrible.” He aimed a finger at the artifact’s array of Glowstone crystals. “Hypervisors tend to be quite thirsty. With shards this small, I imagine it requires constant recharging.”

  “Interesting…” Phaedra muttered. “I’m told that very experienced artificers are capable of extracting previous communications from used hypervisors. Is that true?”

  “Fragments sometimes remain etched on the crystal’s latticework, yes, but never entire conversations. Would you like me to give it a try?”

  “I would.”

  Clearing his throat, Talladin opened a drawer and retrieved a pair of round spectacles, Glowstone shards encrusted on their silvery rims. When he put them on, the shards began to glow. He then sifted through the mess on his desk and selected a tool that resembled a long, thick needle and began to prod the tiny hypervisor’s crystals with it, sparks flying off the needle as he did. “Hmmm,” he muttered, grimacing. He kept looking, his head tilting one way, then the other. He switched tools, choosing a thinner version of the previous needle. “I don’t think there’s anything here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “This was probably not used much since its creation.” Talladin placed the tool back on his desk. “Pretty sure, yes.”

  Damn it! Phaedra thought.

  “Although…” Talladin muttered but never finished the sentence.

  “Although?”

  “It’s… strange.” The Grand-Sorcerer removed the spectacles and looked at Phaedra. “As I said, the latticework is mostly pristine, indicating very little use, but there are signs of damage.”

  “What kind of damage?”

  “Some of the fractals have been shattered. It’s nothing that would impact functionality in the short-term, but at this rate, the hypervisor wouldn’t last more than a few months.”

  “Shattered fractals… that can only happen while recharging the crystals, right?”

  “That’s correct,” Talladin replied, returning the artifact to Phaedra. “It’s not much, but there really isn’t—”

  “Thank you!” Phaedra cut in, jumping to her feet and holding out her hand to Talladin, her eyes gleaming.

  “Huh… your welcome,” Talladin muttered, shaking Phaedra’s hand with a confused look. Phaedra almost ran out of the old man’s study, slamming the door behind her.

  Mistress, Phaedra thought, calling out mentally. Mistress, are you there?

  I am now. Persea’s reply came loud and clear, her magic as impeccable as always.

  I think I found something about our assassin’s accomplice, Phaedra said, flying across the Department of Artifacts’ corridors. I’m headed for the magic school right now.

  The magic school?

  Yes, Phaedra replied. I’m pretty
sure the accomplice is a mageling.

  * * *

  About fifteen boys and girls, all ranging from the ages of five to twelve years old, stood scattered throughout the classroom, a shiny metallic sphere floating in the air in front of their little noses. They all wore the mandatory light blue tunic of their station and focused fiercely on their spell, wrinkles and beads of sweat forming over their foreheads.

  Phaedra remembered being in a similar class when she was still at the magic school of Ashan, before the Paladins had come and burned it to the ground.

  Shaking the memory away, Phaedra turned to the Headmaster standing next to her. “How many students do you have?”

  “Sixty-one in total,” the Headmaster replied in a tired, rusty voice that didn’t fit with his looks. But it wasn’t just his voice that gave him away. The man looked far too young for his position, which meant he was covered in rejuvenating spells. Most older mages usually were. “Our numbers have been growing steadily for the past few years.”

  “That’s good. Too bad these kids never get to see the light of day, though.”

  “A small price to pay for the freedom to pursue their Talent without fear of being hunted down like dogs.”

  “Probably,” Phaedra agreed. “How advanced are these students on the subject of Artificing?”

  “The novitiates?” the Headmaster asked. “Not at all. They won’t even broach the subject until this year’s final trimester.” Then, as if he’d remembered something, “I’m sorry, why are you here?”

  “Does my presence worry you?”

  “It does, actually.” The Headmaster turned to be face to face with Phaedra and crossed his hands behind his back. “I know every student that has ever gone through our fledgling, underground school. You were handpicked by Persea and taken to her private class when you were nine years old, less than three years after you arrived here. Nevertheless, I remember you just as well as any other of my students. Phaedra, from the school of Ashan. You had the worst temper and the best memory in your class.”

  Phaedra smiled.

  “You seem to have grown up to be a fine young woman, despite Persea’s… methods.” The Headmaster placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “That pleases me. However, I know what you do. So please, tell me, what is an Archon hunter doing in my school?”

  Phaedra reached inside her tunic, withdrawing the small hypervisor. “Have you ever seen this artifact?”

  “I don’t think so,” the Headmaster replied, taking the hypervisor in his hands.

  “An… enemy of the Rebellion and the Academy infiltrated this facility,” Phaedra explained. “A non-magical individual which had this artifact in his possession.”

  “So this… infiltrator required the help of a mage to recharge this hypervisor.”

  “Correct. However, the glowstone crystals on that artifact display a very specific kind of damage—shattered fractals.”

  “I see. You’d have to be very inexperienced to make that kind of mistake.” The Headmaster returned the hypervisor to Phaedra. “So you think it had to be one of my students.”

  “You just explained to me that none of your Novitiates are skilled enough to recharge a hypervisor. That means it must be one of your Initiates. I’m assuming there are about fifteen of them, so I have now narrowed my list of suspects to a rather manageable number. I’m hoping you’ll be able to help me narrow it down further.”

  “Very impressive, but you’re wrong.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because not one of my Initiates would make such a silly mistake. My Novitiates might not know how to enchant a Glowstone crystal yet, but to progress to the rank of Initiate, they need to be able to do so flawlessly.”

  “So you’re saying the Novitiates aren’t experienced enough to be my suspects, but the Initiates are too experienced?”

  “Precisely. It would have to be someone somewhere in the middle of that learning curve. Of which there are none in this school at the moment. Whoever is helping this infiltrator of yours, it could not have been a student of this school.”

  * * *

  Phaedra and Persea met at the Academy’s archives, a quiet place where they could think. It contained every record, file, or document the Academy had ever written down. Well, the ones that had survived the Purge or had been produced after it, at least. That meant all the information the Academy’s remarkable bureaucratic machine had produced on its members was right here. The name of Phaedra’s suspect was written on one of the yellowed parchment rolls collecting dust on the archive’s shelves.

  Too bad Phaedra had no idea where to start looking.

  Phaedra sat at one of the reading desks, tall bookcases rising behind her, while the Arch-Mage walked in a wide circle around the remaining empty desks.

  If there was anything Phaedra hated, it was an unsolved puzzle. It chewed at her patience like a shrill shriek hovering just on the edge of her hearing. At this moment, however, it was Persea’s pacing that was really getting on her nerves.

  “Shouldn’t you be with the Prince?” Phaedra asked. “I thought you were supposed to have personally taken responsibility for his security.”

  “He’s with his personal tutor,” Persea replied. “Grand-Sorcerer Sabium. A competent mage. He should be safe enough.” She halted. “What if one of the Novitiates is more advanced in Artificing than the Headmaster realizes?”

  “I’ve considered it. It’s certainly a possibility, but… it’s not the most elegant theory. Kind of desperate, really.”

  “Maybe,” Persea conceded, then resumed walking.

  “When were you going to tell me about Apodyon?”

  The Arch-Mage stopped dead in her tracks, the question echoing among the archives’ darkened archways. “You’ve heard,” she said, then cleared her throat. “There was no point in—”

  “Goddess damn it!” Phaedra pounded both fists on the desk, and the boom they made reverberated so powerfully around them it seemed the shelves would collapse. “I’m not going to pretend like we are all the best of friends, but you and that little class of ours is the closest thing I have to a family. You could at least tell me if one of them gets killed!”

  Persea exhaled. “You’re right, I should’ve told you. I simply did not want any distractions to interfere with—”

  “My work, yes, I know,” Phaedra interrupted once more. She threw her arms in the air. “Our all-important work!”

  “It is all-important work, and you know it.” The Arch-Mage took a step toward her disciple. “We keep a great evil in check, Phaedra, but that’s not what I was going to say. I didn’t want any distractions to interfere with your safety. When you’re out there, chasing those creatures, the slightest mistake can cost you your life. Then you came back, but there was this business with the Assassin. I was going to tell you when this was over.”

  “I’ve been doing this for a while, now, mistress. I think I can handle some bad news.”

  “Perhaps. But none of you chose this path. I made that choice for the twelve of you when you were still children, and while I do not apologize for it, I also will not gamble with your lives.”

  Silence fell between the two of them. Phaedra leaned back in her chair and Persea turned around to look down a shadowy row of bookcases.

  Phaedra took a deep breath. “There’s only nine of us left,” she said at last. The anger had left her voice.

  Persea nodded, eyes on the floor.

  “Do you ever think about training a new generation of… us?” Phaedra asked.

  Persea nodded. “Sometimes. Alas, I have not had the time. Maybe next year. Our pool of candidates has certainly grown.”

  Phaedra straightened up in her chair. “It has, hasn’t it?”

  “Hmm?” Persea turned back around to face her protégé.

  “Mistress, how do we get our magelings? I mean, in my day we all came straight here after the Purge. But what about the students that have come here since?”

  “They’re mostly the chil
dren of families aligned with the Rebellion,” Persea explained. “We started conducting tests on all infants about three years after the Purge. Those with the Talent are sent here.”

  “What about people from my generation? The ones who survived the Purge but weren’t sent here for one reason or another. I’m sure there’s a significant number of those scattered across the empire. Do we ever find any?”

  “It’s extremely rare, but it does happen. Not all are invited here, and of those who are only a handful have accepted.”

  “Right,” Phaedra muttered. “But those who do accept, they’re in an interesting situation, education-wise. They had some knowledge from before the Purge but then were interrupted in their studies. What happens when they come here? Are they assimilated into the regular classes?”

  Phaedra’s implication became immediately clear to Persea. “No. They have personal tutors, much like our Prince.” She stretched an arm and one of the shelves spat out a narrow book. “These are their files,” Persea added as the book landed on the desk in front of Phaedra.

  The young Wizardess flipped through the pages quickly. “It says here there’s a total of seven of them. Are they tested on the different subjects?”

  “Their education isn’t as structured as that of the regular students, but yes, they do undergo some testing.” Persea walked to stand next to her disciple, then placed a finger at the bottom of one of the pages. “You can see their scores here.”

  Each file contained all sorts of information about the young mages—age, height, the school they had attended before the Purge. Phaedra focused on the subjects they had been tested on and their respective grades. All had passed Basic Artificing except for one.

  “Turmond,” Phaedra read out loud.

  5

  Exile

  Steps echoed through the hall, sharp as knives. As they came to a stop, Aric heard an exchange, the echo jumbling words together until he couldn’t understand a thing. From the tight cell where he’d spent the night, Aric couldn’t see them, but he knew at least a couple of paladins stood guard somewhere down the cell block.