by John Bierce
Alustin shook his head. “We don’t understand exactly how Bakori’s abilities work— they’re quite literally not of this world— but we don’t believe so, based off the attunements we know that can manipulate people similarly, like dream attunements.”
Talia coughed pointedly.
“Well, dream attunements other than Talia’s,” Alustin corrected. “Dream mages aren’t usually nearly so destructive. But no, to answer your question, rigidity is not strength, and it in many ways is an advantage for manipulators when they are dealing with a rigid person. It limits the number of choices they can steer their targets down, but those choices are much easier to guide them down, and much harder to fix the manipulation.”
“Yeh can’t discount Tarik as a suspect, then,” Godrick said.
Alustin shook his head. “If we could discount any of them as suspects, they wouldn’t be on the list.” He sighed. “Alright, suspect number two. Rutliss the Red, school bursar.”
The others all turned to Hugh, who had spent the most time reading about Rutliss.
“Rutliss is a bureaucrat who got his name because he wears nothing but red,” Hugh said. “He was also born and raised in Skyhold. He has a saltwater affinity, and is probably the least dangerous mage on the council. Not really a battlemage at all, so far as I can tell.”
Alustin raised his eyebrows at that. “I’d warn against underestimating anyone on the Council.”
Godrick frowned. That had been bugging him for a while now. “Why are all the Council members so powerful? It doesn’t seem like yeh’d need that ta be effective administrators.”
“Not now, perhaps, but Skyhold wasn’t always as secure as it is today, and customs can be enduring things,” Alustin said. He gestured at Hugh to continue.
“He, so far as I can tell, just about always votes against Kanderon. The dossier you gave us is a little short on speculation why, but it makes a point to note that he also continues to vote against any expansion of the miniscule quota of nonhuman students allowed at the Academy, so I’m guessing he’s got some sort of problem with nonhumans in general. He also seems pretty rigid and rule-bound.”
Godrick felt a little vindicated at that— it was clearly more of a bureaucrat trait than a stone mage trait.
Alustin grimaced. “He’s definitely a human supremacist, I can tell you that much. I’ve had enough unfortunate conversations with him to be sure of that one. Especially during the debriefings from that whole thing with the gorgons. And, on top of that, his concern for the rules is strongest when it’s to his advantage.”
Godrick started to ask about the gorgon incident when Alustin interrupted him— like he always did to anyone who tried to ask about the gorgon incident. “So, what are your thoughts on the plausibility of his vote?”
“As unpleasant as his reasons are, they might be the most believable of the lot,” Hugh said. “He essentially votes against everything Kanderon brings before the council, and even a lot of the things she simply votes for.”
“Maybe Bakori got to him when he was a student here,” Talia said, “and he’s just had Rutliss voting like that to throw off the trail all this time.”
“Disturbing, and not implausible, even if it would also seem a little petty on Bakori’s part,” Alustin said. “He could have done something similar to Tarik. Still, too much meddling is a major risk on Bakori’s part, given the probability that Kanderon or one of the lesser archmages at Skyhold might detect it.”
Godrick would have greatly preferred it if instead of using Hugh— and, by extension, himself and the girls— as bait to make Bakori reveal himself, Alustin and Kanderon hadn’t made them go into the labyrinth blind, but that was water under the bridge at this point.
“Alright, suspect three. Abyla Ceutas of Yldive, Chair of Student Admissions.”
Sabae took a moment to start. Godrick realized that she’d been unusually quiet this whole time.
“Abyla Ceutas is the youngest member of the Council, in her early forties. She has an incredibly powerful magma attunement, and is one of the most dangerous combatants on the Council— not just the Academy sub-Council, the whole thing.”
Godrick wasn’t really surprised by that. Even a new mage with a barely developing magma affinity was exceptionally dangerous, up there with glass, sound, or solar mages. Or Talia. A fully attuned magma mage?
He really, really hoped she wasn’t the traitor.
“She gave no reason why she voted against the alternate test,” Sabae said.
“That’s not suspicious at all,” Talia said sarcastically.
Sabae and Alustin seemed to be staring each other down. Finally, Alustin sighed. “I think we both suspect the same thing. You might as well tell the others.”
Sabae didn’t seem happy about that, but nodded. “She voted against the test because of me.”
Godrick wasn’t alone in giving her a confused look.
“Yldive has something of a rivalry with Ras Andis,” Sabae finally continued.
“A rivalry that has broken out into open war more than once,” Alustin mentioned.
Sabae just nodded at that, looking unhappy. “Before my family rose to prominence in Ras Andis, and before Indris made Theras Tel into a major port, Yldive was the dominant regional power of southwestern Ithos. They haven’t forgiven or forgotten. The Ceutas family used to rule in Yldive, and they directly blame their decline and loss of power on us. Abyla Ceutas is trying to cause problems for you to get at my family. She’s not Kanderon’s ally, but she’s not an outright enemy, either. If it wasn’t for me, she probably would have voted to allow you to take the alternate test, and none of this would have been a problem.”
It suddenly made a lot more sense to Godrick why Sabae had been so quiet. He leaned over and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “No one blames yeh, Sabae. If Ceutas wants ta grossly abuse her power for a personal grudge, that’s clearly on her shoulders.”
Talia looked angry for a moment, then sighed. “I was going to say we should set her on fire or something, but I’m not quite crazy enough to think we can take her on. Or probably any of the council members, other than maybe Rutliss.”
“Besides,” Hugh said, “It’s a bad idea to assume that her grudge isn’t being exacerbated by Bakori to make her vote against you. That’s how he works.”
Hugh paused for a moment. “I intended that to sound more comforting than it actually did.”
Sabae smiled weakly at that.
“As happy as it makes me that the four of you are so supportive of one another, we have one more candidate to discuss,” Alustin said.
Talia leaned forward eagerly. “Anders vel Seraf, school Dean. He’s a silk mage from Tsarnassus and one of the older members of the council. Kanderon’s closest ally on the council, and her only reliable ally on the academic subcouncil, and therefore, the best positioned to betray her. I’m not really sure how a silk mage is supposed to be dangerous, but then, I didn’t think a paper mage could be dangerous, either.”
Alustin smiled at that. “Many of my combat techniques were, in fact, inspired by Anders. He wears voluminous silk robes, with countless dangling tassels and strips of silk— which he is usually vain enough to have floating around him. In battle, he tends to bind and blind foes with silk. What he’s most famous for, however, is his use of glyphs in combat. His robes are filled with countless embroidered, interlocking spellforms— some that are garishly bright, and some in the same colors as the robes, but all of which are almost indecipherable to anyone but him. He can pump mana into any of them with ease and without mistake, giving him access to a truly massive array of cantrips and other glyph spells during battle.”
Alustin looked a little nostalgic. “He helped me develop my personal combat style, and he was the one who recommended me to Kanderon as a Librarian Errant candidate. At the very least, he thought that it was too ironic that there weren’t any paper mages among the ranks of active field agents. You’ll almost certainly all get a chance to meet him soo
n enough— he was quite angry about the way the vote went.”
Talia gave him a skeptical look. “Well, that certainly makes for good reasons for you to trust him, but that also gives him more room to betray you.”
Sabae rolled her eyes. “We’re definitely still investigating him, but I’m willing to bet quite a bit that he’s not responsible. If Bakori gets his hands on Hugh, he gains a link to Kanderon that he might be able to use to attack her. Why would Bakori push against that?”
“I’ll take that bet,” Talia said. “We don’t know how demons think. Who knows why he could be doing it? What are we going to wager on it?”
Alustin raised his hands to stop them. “Talia, Sabae, we are not betting on an active investigation. It promotes entirely the wrong mindset. You need to be open to all possibilities, not setting out to prove a specific idea. That’s a fast way to ruin investigations.”
Godrick was a little disappointed at that. Any stake that Talia and Sabae agreed on would have been entertaining, to say the least.
They spent another hour or so bandying about theories and plans for investigation. Eventually, Alustin called it to a halt, deciding they weren’t going to make any more progress that day. He did have one quite welcome piece of news for them, however— the Moonless Owl was going to be docking at Skyhold in a few days.
Godrick was definitely excited to see Irrick again, but Hugh was… well, not bouncing off the walls. He was too reserved to display that much emotion, but it was clear that any thought of the investigation had fallen completely out of mind for him.
He was just shy of skipping. Godrick glanced back to see Talia rolling her eyes at Hugh’s behavior.
“Are you as excited to see Irrick as I am to see Avah?” Hugh asked.
Godrick chuckled. “Irrick and me aren’t that serious, Hugh. Ah’m excited, sure, but he’s got an arranged marriage ta a girl on another ship next year that he’s quite excited for.”
Hugh seemed to deflate a little at that. “Really? I thought…”
Godrick grinned at Hugh, and gently elbowed his shoulder. “Ah knew about it going into things; it’s fine.”
Hugh looked a little doubtful at that, but nodded. Godrick sighed in relief internally. He’d been a little worried about how Hugh would react to that— Godrick was fairly sure that Hugh had been weirdly linking the success of their respective relationships, as though if Godrick and Irrick broke up he’d somehow never see Avah again.
Though, speaking of how people would take things…
“Could yeh all do me a favor?” Godrick asked. “Me da still doesn’t really know about Irrick and me. Could yeh not mention it around him?”
“Does he have a problem with men loving other men?” Sabae asked. “I’ve heard some people from Lothal do.”
Talia looked like she was about to offer to fight his da, which was entirely unnecessary.
Godrick shook his head. “He’s fine with that, ah’m pretty sure. What he’s not fine with are flings. He wants me ta settle down with someone and stay with them. Bit of a romantic. He’s still never found anyone else after ma died, even though ah’m sure she would have wanted him to. Ah don’t think he’d be mad at me, just… disappointed.”
Sabae rolled her eyes at that, but Hugh and Talia both seemed to think it was romantic. And then started interrogating him about his parents’ relationship.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Owl Returns
Kanderon was, to say the least, not happy with Hugh being so distracted.
“Pay attention, Hugh,” the sphinx growled, knocking him to the ground with a nudge of her paw.
“Sorry,” Hugh said.
The two of them stood atop a wide, flat ledge near the base of Skyhold, where stone mages often came to train.
“Focus your affinity sense on the boulder,” Kanderon said as Hugh picked himself up off the ground.
Hugh did so. He could feel the crystals making up most of the boulder, but they were… jumbled, malformed, and tiny. He relayed that information to Kanderon, who nodded.
“Now lift it.”
Hugh stared at the boulder skeptically. “I don’t think I’m strong enough.”
Kanderon sighed. “With your crystal affinity, Hugh.”
“Just… lift it? Like I would a crystal?” Hugh asked.
“It’s made almost entirely of crystals, isn’t it?” Kanderon asked. “So lift it.”
Something about that felt weird to Hugh. It was like Kanderon was just casually asking Hugh to do stone magic. Still, he gave it a try. The boulder was too large for Hugh to lift it with a levitation cantrip, so he visualized a simple crystal levitation spellform— which really wasn’t that different— then flooded it with mana from his crystal affinity reservoir.
The boulder lifted into the air and started spinning wildly, then rolled out of the spell.
“You’ve just encountered one of the fundamental limitations of crystal mages, Hugh. We operate best with larger, well-formed crystals. Our spells are designed to interact with the patterns that comprise those crystals. When we’re forced to work with a jumble of different crystal patterns, such as in this boulder, spells tend to prove difficult for us to control. You might be able to magically affect stone, but don’t expect to ever directly overpower a stone mage trying to affect the same stone.”
“Can’t we… pattern link it, to improve the crystals inside it?”
Kanderon raised an eyebrow at Hugh. “We can, but pattern linking on that scale inside a solid object takes considerable amounts of time and mana— it’s not overly suited towards battle. Fluid solutions containing the necessary ingredients are the best locations to grow crystals in, and many crystal mages possess sizable labs dedicated purely towards growing crystals to their required specifications.”
“You’ve never actually told me what you specialize in as a crystal mage,” Hugh said.
“Aether crystal manipulation,” Kanderon said. She shook her massive crystalline wings, which chimed almost musically as she did so. “Over the centuries, I’ve bonded with my aether crystal until it feels even more like a part of me than my old wings did before I lost them.”
“You never did tell me how you lost your original wings,” Hugh said.
“No, I didn’t.” Kanderon said.
Kanderon didn’t seem angry— she seemed more sad than anything— but Hugh still thought it best not to inquire further there.
The two of them spent another couple of hours working on ways to deal with suboptimal crystals, and by the end Hugh was able to reliably lift the boulder.
“Good,” Kanderon said, as Hugh slowly lowered the boulder one last time. “Now, why were you so distracted at the beginning of the lesson?”
“The Moonless Owl is arriving at Skyhold soon,” Hugh said sheepishly.
“And?” Kanderon asked.
“I get to see Avah when it gets here!” Hugh said.
Kanderon looked distinctly uncomfortable. “There has been something I’ve been meaning to discuss with you in regards to her since you returned to Skyhold, Hugh.”
That hardly sounded good.
“As your master, it’s my responsibility to instruct you in the use of… well… certain cantrips that romantically involved humans need to know if they wish to prevent…”
Hugh felt his cheeks turn bright red, and realized that Kanderon was blushing too.
“You don’t need to teach me those, Master, Alustin already did. It’s fine, I know them already.”
Alustin had, in fact, chosen to instruct him on contraceptive cantrips in front of his friends on the deck of the Owl, who had all decided Hugh’s embarrassment was quite amusing. To make things worse, Avah, who seemed to have some sort of affinity sense for Hugh being embarrassed, had wandered up to them halfway through the lesson, and she had decided that Hugh’s lap was exactly where she wanted to sit to enjoy his even further embarrassment.
Not that they’d actually needed to use said spells yet.
�
�Well then. That’s… that’s all for the best, then,” Kanderon said awkwardly, still a little red. “I, uh… I should be going. Good lesson, Hugh.”
The massive sphinx took off in a much less dignified manner than usual. As she did so, Hugh could hear her muttering to herself.
“...ridiculous humans with their constant mating and their...”
Hugh awkwardly drummed his hands on his hips, still a little red, then turned and headed back towards the nearest entrance into Skyhold.
Really no reason to share this story with his friends. Or Avah. Definitely not Avah.
Hugh was essentially useless the morning of the Fifthday the Owl was supposed to be arriving.
“Maybe we should head down to the docks now?” Hugh asked, pacing across his room.
Talia rolled her eyes from where she was sitting on Hugh’s bed. “The ship’s not supposed to be here for hours yet, Hugh.”
“Da actually designed our armor based off a’ illusion magic,” Godrick was saying from where he sat on the floor. “Yeh remember how Captain Bandon had all those illusions? Well, in order for it ta work, he had ta anchor all of them to his own image. Da’s armor works the same way, except, ah… what’s the word he used… intaglio! The illusion anchors affect the shape a’ the inside a’ the armor, rather than the outside. Otherwise, it’ll try an’ smash yeh while yer wearin’ it.”
“You’re right. That’s nothing like how my armor works,” Sabae said from Hugh’s desk, where she was idly thumbing through one of the suspect files. “It doesn’t seem that complex, though, so why haven’t more people copied him?”
“What if Avah doesn’t want to date me anymore?” Hugh asked, falling on his back onto his bed and clutching his face.
“Then she doesn’t want to date you anymore,” Talia said, rolling her eyes again. “You’ll be sad for a while, then eventually get over it.”
“What, no threats ta burn down the Owl?” Godrick joked.
Talia threw Hugh’s pillow at Godrick. Hugh’s spellbook poked out from under the bed at that, but soon slid back underneath.