by John Bierce
They both laughed a little at that. Hugh looked over to see Talia lecturing Godrick and Artur about something. Each of them was around three times her size, but both somehow managed to look like children being chastised.
When he pointed that out to Sabae, they laughed quite a bit more.
“By the way,” Hugh asked, still chuckling a little. “What was bothering you so much while we were running?”
Sabae looked a little embarrassed. “You were all talking about Rhodes, and then I had the thought that maybe my grandmother was trying to arrange a marriage for me with him to tie Ras Andis closer to Highvale. It’s not impossible.”
Hugh blinked. That was a truly awful thought. “Well, if that ends up being the case, I think we might need to have Talia dispense some of her pointed lessons.”
CHAPTER TEN
The Hidden Valley
Alustin sighed, his breath fogging up in the cold alpine air. He tried to ignore the distant commotion behind him as he quickly sketched the valley below the cliff he sat atop. It was about the right size, but otherwise…
The valley was hidden away deep in the Skyreach Mountains. It was low enough in elevation that it wasn’t frozen over like the mountains surrounding it, and in some ways quite strongly resembled one of the many alpine valleys that made up the kingdom of Highvale.
There was too much wrong with it, though. There were few rivers or streams leading down into the valley, and instead of being rich and verdant like the Highvale valleys, it was barren, with only scrub growing on the slopes. Even though it wasn’t as far north as Highvale, it looked like something you’d find even farther north than that— maybe even past the clan territories Talia grew up in.
Maybe if the lack of water had been a recent development, it wouldn’t have been an issue, but the valley curved to its flat bottom, rather than descending at a sharper angle, indicating it had been formed by glaciers, rather than rivers. Alustin doubted that there had ever been much in the way of water in the valley. And, without water, it was clearly not a good candidate.
It was, of course, better to be safe than sorry— there was just too much riding on this. The water problems were far from the only disqualifier, however.
For one thing, there was the valley’s remoteness. It was clear that a good candidate site needed to have viable shipping routes in and out, and this one most certainly did not. Alustin had actually had to fly in a good chunk of the way.
Through a snowstorm, at that. Snow was hell on his paper wings, and he’d burned through an absurd chunk of his paper supply and mana reservoirs making it through. He’d also almost smashed into several mountainsides on the way thanks to low visibility. You’d think that a farseeing attunement would be considerably more effective during a blizzard, you really would.
Alustin tried to ignore the growing commotion behind him.
There was really no way that you could do any reasonable amount of shipping to or from this valley, so another check against it.
The cold was also a strong marker against the site. They could work with a fairly wide temperature range, but this seemed outside of plausibility.
Finally, there was the aether situation here. A viable candidate site needed to have a historically low aether density— possibly even to the point of being a mana desert— that had begun increasing recently.
This site certainly met the last criteria, at least. The aether density was so low here that he’d almost completely drained his mana reservoirs getting into the valley. It was, however, measurably higher than past reports indicated, and Alustin had measured further, if incremental, increases in the couple of days he’d been here.
Which, honestly, he really didn’t need to have spent here. He’d known it wasn’t a viable site since just a few hours into his visit, largely because of the labyrinth sitting smack-dab in the center of the valley. While the candidate sites needed to have a mana well, it had to be a lateral well, not a junction well. And it certainly couldn’t have a labyrinth in it.
He’d been fairly sure that the valley hadn’t been a viable candidate from the beginning, just from scrying it. Kanderon, of course, still insisted every location be checked out in person, and he’d had the poor luck of being assigned this particular mission.
Though, he had at least figured out the mystery of the valley’s increasing aether density. Some idiot had decided to try and seal the labyrinth— it was, apparently, home to some fairly nasty inhabitants they didn’t want getting out.
Sealing a labyrinth, however, was almost never a good idea. Capping it in a way that allowed the aether density currents to still escape was a much better one— it’s what they practiced at Skyhold, at the gorgon capital, and at least a dozen other sites that Alustin knew of offhand. The downside to that, of course, was that capping a labyrinth required constant maintenance and observation, and these idiots hadn’t wanted to do that— they just wanted to shut down what they saw as a major threat.
Alustin set down the illustration of the valley to give the ink a chance to dry, and began cleaning off his quill and putting away his supplies into his storage tattoo.
It had probably been a dragon that had sealed the labyrinth. Most of the major territories in the southern Skyreach range were dragon territories, with a few exceptions like Jaskolskus, the gorgons, a handful of human cities, Kanderon, and whatever it was that lived in the far south near the sea. He was fairly sure Kanderon knew what it was, but she wasn’t talking. The borders of its territory had remained constant for centuries, at least, and Kanderon didn’t think it would stir itself anytime soon.
Which would make it one of the only major powers not to be stirring right now. The dragons had been especially active lately, with Andas Thune’s territorial expansions, the death of Ataerg, and… well, the distressing number of major powers who either knew what was happening, suspected it, or were at least aware that there was something going on. The last group was, in many ways, the most concerning— the powerful dislike being kept in the dark, and tend to behave dangerously and unpredictably when they realize it.
Of course, even if things weren’t so tempestuous right now, he’d have no easy way to tell whose territory this valley had belonged to when the seal was built. Keeping track of the shifting territories this deep in the Skyreach range was a nightmare even in calmer times.
Alustin sighed again at the commotion, and picked up the drawing. He blew on it one last time, then stored it away in his tattoo.
So someone, most likely a dragon, had sealed the labyrinth in this valley, probably because it didn’t want to deal with annoying labyrinth escapees. This kept the aether flows from escaping the mana well, which in turn drastically lowered the aether density around the valley.
But, just like what happened literally every time someone sealed a labyrinth, it would eventually rupture, leaving the region flooded with highly dense aether. It hadn’t fully ruptured yet, but Alustin couldn’t see the seal lasting more than a decade or so.
Of course, when a sealed labyrinth began to leak aether, it also began to release its inhabitants, which tended to do best in highly dense aether regions.
Or, to sum up Alustin’s past couple of days in a nutshell, the valley was absolutely filled with monsters. Monsters that had flooded out into a region that was suddenly developing aether thick enough to sustain them, but that didn’t have anything to eat save for each other.
And now, Alustin.
Alustin stood up and turned, drawing his saber from his tattoo as he did so. He slashed at the lead beast in the pack, cutting across its snout, though not killing it, unfortunately.
They were, of course, the same odd wolf-creatures that had been his biggest problem the whole time he’d been in this damn valley. They were around twice the weight of a normal wolf, had disturbingly elongated jaws, and had coats that appeared to be made of strands of dirty blue chitin, not fur. The chitin strands clattered together as the creatures moved, making a truly incredible amount of noise.
&nbs
p; They didn’t have eyes, either. Nor even a place where eye sockets would go— their skulls just descended straight from their spines to the tips of their snouts.
Alustin really didn’t want to know what kind of environment they’d wandered into the labyrinth from.
He also doubted that they had been what had led to the sealing of the labyrinth— they were dangerous, but hardly enough to cause problems for anyone powerful enough to seal a labyrinth. Sealing a labyrinth was an almost prohibitively expensive endeavor, and the loss of aether density often crippled the value of a territory.
Besides, the ecosystem of a labyrinth was hardly likely to remain stable for anywhere near long enough for the seal to rupture, so whatever had provoked the sealing had likely died or moved back downwards into the labyrinth long ago.
He danced along the rim of the cliff, dodging the lunges of the wolf-things as his boots crunched on grit and sparse patches of snow. He’d really hoped that he’d get at least another hour before one of the packs of these creatures roaming the valley made their way up here. He could have easily refilled his mana reservoirs enough in that time to reform his wings and escape the valley.
Alustin cut through the neck of one of the wolf-things. There was little his saber couldn’t cut through, and the creatures were being cautious enough fighting at the edge of the cliff that he didn’t need to funnel mana into its primary enchantment.
Hmm. One of the creatures wasn’t attacking him. It was just watching the whole ordeal from atop a nearby boulder. Well, not watching, but keeping track via however these things perceived the world.
Their leader, perhaps? No, more likely a lookout.
Dismissing the matter, he ducked another lunge and considered his options. His mana reservoirs weren’t filled enough to attempt anything but the shortest flight, and he did not want to strand himself on the shoulders of one of the nearby mountains while they refilled. He was dressed for cold weather, but not sitting in the snow atop a mountain for hours and hours.
Flying elsewhere in the valley would only delay things for another showdown. This location had been the most secure he’d found yet in the valley, and he couldn’t reasonably expect to find a better one.
He could demolish the pack easily enough with his magic, but that would likely just draw the attention of more packs. They seemed to be able to sense magic being used.
Fighting them seemed to be his best option, but he wasn’t going to be able to handle the entire pack for much longer on just his personal combat skills.
Alustin sighed, and began funneling mana into his saber’s activation spellforms. It would, at least, use a bit less mana than many of his spells, and if he got lucky, it wouldn’t alert other packs of the wolf-creatures to his presence.
“This has been a thorough waste of my time,” he told the creatures, as the spellforms of his saber began to glow.
They didn’t have any response beyond snarling, but then good conversation was always hard to find.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Motives
Godrick grunted as he squeezed behind the shelf that concealed Hugh’s room. It had always been a tight fit, but Godrick was fairly confident that someone had pushed it closer to the wall over the summer, just to inconvenience him.
He knocked on the door hidden behind the overstuffed shelf. You’d hardly know it was back there, even if you had reason to be in this almost forgotten annex of the library stacks. Even, for that matter, if you could see past Hugh’s wards, which made people’s attention drift away from it.
“Come in!” Hugh called from inside.
Godrick eased the door open and slipped inside, sighing in relief as he did so.
Hugh was crouching under his window with a brush, doing something to the painted wards around his window.
“What are yeh workin’ on?” Godrick asked.
“Remaking my wards,” Hugh said, glancing back at Godrick. “They started decaying. Not badly, but they had started letting the night air in, and I’m not a fan of sleeping in a cold room. It probably should have been a ten minute fix, but once I got looking at them, I realized how much better of a job I could do these days, and it’s been a couple of hours now.”
“So they heat the air as it comes in the window? Tha’ seems a little inefficient,” Godrick said.
Hugh shook his head as he worked.
“No, the ward acts as an insulator, sort of. It lets air through, but it doesn’t let the heat escape.”
Godrick wasn’t sure how exactly you could let the air move without the heat moving with it, but he hadn’t come here to talk wards with Hugh, who was more than a little obsessed with the topic. Not that Godrick found it boring, but Hugh could get a bit overwhelming on the topic.
Godrick shook his head, focusing back on the reason he’d come. “Alustin’s back,” he said.
“It’s about time,” Hugh muttered. “Is he alright? When did he get back?”
Godrick shrugged. It had only been about a month, but given the whole situation with the demon and such, he could understand why Hugh wasn’t too happy about things. “He just showed up this mornin’, lookin’ a bit tired. Meetin’ with Talia right now, but he wants us ta meet him at his office afterwards. Yeh probably have plenty a’ time ta finish yer ward.”
“Meeting with Talia?” Hugh asked.
“Alustin brought her a bunch a’ bones. Creepy skulls with no eyes in ‘em. She immediately dragged him off ta her explosion room ta try them out, and show him a few things she’d been working on. I came to tell you instead, and Sabae apparently had to go look over some public Council voting records or something.”
Hugh rolled his eyes, and Godrick shrugged in agreement. As much as they all enjoyed Talia’s company, they had all grown thoroughly sick of Talia’s testing room. There were only so many explosions you could really deal with watching in a day before you started getting a pretty severe headache.
Unless, of course, you were Talia.
“So,” Alustin asked, “who’s our traitor?”
The paper mage was sprawled out in the armchair behind his desk. He looked tired enough that Godrick was a little shocked he was even awake.
“No idea,” Talia said.
Godrick shook his head.
“Sorry, sir,” Hugh said.
Alustin frowned at Hugh. “Is this just always going to be an ongoing thing, where you listen to everything I say except when I tell you to call me by my name?”
Hugh opened his mouth to respond— Godrick would wager actual money that he was about to apologize to Alustin again and keep calling him sir— when Sabae interjected.
“We don’t have enough data to tell,” Sabae said.
Alustin raised an eyebrow at that.
“You personally told us that the traitor has been leaking information to other countries for some time, and mentioned several confirmed instances of it, yet you’ve provided useful details on almost none of them,” Sabae said.
Alustin failed to contain a smile. “Well spotted. Unfortunately, we’ve shared everything that we are allowed to share with you. While Kanderon is influential enough to allow you in on the investigation to the degree she has, she does not have the ability to share actual Council secrets with you. If you’re caught now, she can at least cover herself by pointing out that you were already involved to a certain degree. If she shared Council secrets with you, well… that could involve an unacceptable degree of damage to her political power, and Kanderon hasn’t remained the last of Skyhold’s founders still in power through might alone.”
Godrick couldn’t help but notice that Alustin was leaving open room for other founders to still be alive, which was somewhat alarming after centuries.
“So this really is just training and nothing more,” Sabae said.
Alustin shook his head. “It is training, but we’re not completely discounting your ability to find something we’ve missed. Even if you don’t solve it, you might find something that contributes to the case against our trai
tor.”
The gangly paper mage leaned forwards in his chair. “Alright, here’s a better place to start— let’s try and figure out who has the least legitimate motive for voting against the alternate test exercise.”
“What about Anders vel Seraf?” Talia asked.
“In his case we’ll consider the strength of his motive to vote for it,” Alustin said. “Let’s start with Headmaster Tarik.”
Everyone looked at Godrick. It was a little exasperating that everyone had just immediately expected him to focus on Tarik, just because they were both stone mages.
It was even more exasperating that it actually had been his reason, but he wasn’t going to mention that part.
“Tarik, no other names. People have tried givin’ her others, she tends ta reject or ignore ‘em, save for her title as Headmaster.”
Hugh muttered something inaudible at that.
“Crazy powerful stone mage. Born and raised here in Skyhold. She’s an incredibly rigid person, and tends ta’ stick to the letter a’ the law above all else,” Godrick said. He glared at the rest of them challengingly. “Which ain’t a trait a’ stone mages in general, na matter what people say.”
No one responded to that one, and Godrick continued. “And… that’s it, really. She claimed in the record a’ the meetin’ ta have voted against it because it was against Academy policy. It might be absurd comin’ from anyone else, but… it’s nowhere near the oddest thing she’s done in the name a’ the rules. She also claimed to believe that we actually hadn’t seen a demon, but were just scared and imagining things, but it seemed to be an afterthought for her.”
“That still seems a little crazy,” Talia said. “And she can go jump through winter ice for not believing us.”
“Wouldn’t it be harder for Bakori to manipulate someone that rigid?” Hugh asked.